Sochi;

[Reia]

no one really knows what the ocean hides
but you and I, bird, we’re gonna find out

 
Reia has enjoyed her independence; honestly, she is thriving. Food oftentimes fills her stomach as she scavenges the small mammals. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. Her eyes are bright with curiosity as they drink in this new world. Even in its pestilence, it’s more beautiful than the darkness that shrouded her in mother’s womb.

There had been the river where she took her first breath with mother and father watching with an unsettling intensity that gradually softened into awe and adoration.
The Playground was next where she came across a girl approximately her age.
And finally, the forest with a boy colored similarly to the towering evergreens.

This is a beginning, she tells herself with half-lidded eyes as she stands on the coast of Tephra. Of course, she knows not of where she is. When she glances back across her shoulder, she sees a titanic volcano overshadowing much of the land, rimmed by gray clouds. Looking ahead again, there is open water with a speck of land far in the distance. There it is, her memory advises her. The island everyone is whispering about. It’s there, hovering on the horizon seemingly miles away in a child’s eyes. Reia’s nostrils dilate, huffing as though trying to drink in the scents from where many others have flocked. Adamant, she unfurls her wings and takes flight. This is her longest attempt to fly, her balance greatly unsteady as she wobbles side-to-side, though remaining, somehow, airborne.

Exhaustion seeps into her muscles in the final stretch, weighing her down until her legs submerge into the water just off shore. Her wings tiredly fan out across the water’s surface, her entire body now embraced by the cold ocean. Fortunately, she is close enough for the tide to grab her and slowly rock her to shore. It’s a gruelingly slow process until Reia’s small hooves find traction on the sand, the tide having been a calm lull with minimal wind and effort. Soaked to the bone, the girl – her mane and tail extinguished and bald – stands on the rim of the island, her eyes darting across the faces and the wintry scene, her body trembling from the cold and her wings drooped to the ground.

and I'll be next to you when the lights go out

Reia

@[Sochi]

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

Sochi wouldn’t say she is a fantastic mother, but neither is she an utter failure at one.

She loves her daughter, does her best to watch over her, but she doesn’t hover or try to keep her tucked away. Reia deserves to explore and adventure and find her limitations the same as any wild animal. As soon as she was confident that the girl could be trusted to go out on her own, she was content to watch her disappear into the horizon. Content to clean her off and listen to her stories when she returned.

After all, her dragon-baby was not the average child. She hunted already, her belly already hungering for more than just milk—which suited Sochi just fine as she had little patience for anything else.

Still, she looks forward to meeting up with Reia on the wintery isle and hearing her latest stories, pressing a motherly kiss into her forehead and then exploring the new land by her side. She arrives first and she finds the press of the snow to be too much—too cold, too foreign. Shivering, she shifts into her more familiar tigress form, the thick fur comforting and warm. The snow barely reaches her now.

When she sees her daughter’s struggle, the exhausting flight, and the eventual landing, it brings a spark to her feline eye. She pads through the snow to where it bleeds into the sand, the winter clinging to her.

She doesn’t make a move to comfort her daughter.

Instead, she just nods.

“It will get faster with time.”

Although she has no frame of reference—no real way of knowing just how long it would take to master flight—she knows that it is a predator’s skill and all such things just take time.

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land

@[Reia]

[Reia]

no one really knows what the ocean hides
but you and I, bird, we’re gonna find out

 
Through her labored breaths clouding in front of her, Reia sees the island unravel. Frost-crusted palm trees lean forward as snow glitters in the midday sunlight. It’s different from the mainland and the pine trees that tower high above in the forests. Admittedly, Reia prefers the shadows thrust across the ground when she immerses herself in the dense throng of trees. There are more animals to choose from, more scavenging options. Here, she hears only the cawing of tropical birds as they flutter away angrily, deterred by the cold. Curiously, she watches them and wonders if one day she will be able to hunt in the sky.

Her musings are interrupted by the most silent of footsteps. Her ears twist as her heightened senses reach desperately for the source until she has no other option than to look at the tiger looming. Fortunately, she had confirmed by scent it was mother otherwise she would have been standing off with a larger predator than herself – not that she would’ve shied from the challenge, however.

The thin lines of Reia’s lips curve in the most gentle of smiles, her eyes glittering excitedly to see her mother again, especially in this form. Coiling her wings to her side and kindling the blue fire along her crest and tail, the girl takes a few steps away from the lapping waves to meet then touch Sochi’s shoulder. ”I don’t have the patience,” she quips before lazily drifting her eyes shut and pressing her face into the coarse tiger hair. ”Hello, mother.” If only she could shift as well, but alas, she is stuck just as she is with edged draconic features. Her scales scrape along Sochi in an endearing and tender display before retracting with steps that drag slowly across the sand. Their eyes level on each other as Reia maps her whereabouts before finally speaking, her tone as frigid as the snow around them. ”The other kids are whiny,” her lip curls in disgust and her head shakes a single time in recollection. ”They ask questions and say I’m rude.” Reia’s nose turns up at this and her eyes narrow skeptically, disbelieving that she could ever be as such. She’s just honing her skills.

With a smug grin stretching across her lips, she adds, ”I never apologize for what I am or what I do.”

and I'll be next to you when the lights go out

Reia

@[Sochi]

[sochi]

Sochi

darling, you're wild-eyed, empty, and tongue-tied
maybe you need me or maybe you don't

Sochi is not the type to wax poetic about motherhood or feel tears streaming down her cheeks at pride in her daughter. She has been through too much, experienced too much, to let herself become that vulnerable over anything—but she still feels pride when she looks at her daughter. Her beautiful, fierce daughter with her own eyes peering back up at her, that swath of blue on her forehead, that ferocity in every line of her body, her face. Her daughter comes up and presses into the thick tiger fur, and Sochi allows it for a moment, a low grumble of approval in her throat, her wide head bumping her daughter.

When Reia does step away, Sochi shifts back into her equine form, the motion smooth and liquid, the mare shedding one body for another. It is a transition that she has honed over time, come to control with an ease. As her daughter begins to share, Sochi sniffs, eyes sharpening slightly. “The other children are weak,” she says simply, finding the matter distasteful. “They fear what they cannot control.”

Sochi would not tolerate her daughter into a spoiled brat, would not tolerate her not understanding her place in the pack, but with other children? She is free to assert herself in such situations, to rise as the natural leader. Reia was not to answer to them or cow before them.

“And you cannot be controlled, daughter.”

The words are stern, with an underlying meaning, a reminder. Reia was fierce and proud and she was to continue  living that way. “Good. You never need to apologize to prey for being a predator, Reia.” There is steel beneath her voice, but a kindness in the only way that she knows how. “Never.”

playing the slow rooms, howling at half moons
if you are a Queen then, honey, I am a wolf

@[Reia]