"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Autumn on the Isle makes her restless, the feeling that time is ticking away, spring and summer lost somewhere in a fog of survival. The island does not suffer weakness - how well she has learnt that lesson! But today she does not feel strong, she feels nervous and the shadows wrap around the lion-girl until her gold coat turns dusky and none but the brightest stars can be seen gleaming on her shoulder, just barely twinkling through the darkness.
She sits at the southern shore staring into the vastness of the sea, a broad and treacherous expanse that she can never cross alone. Even the scent of saltwater makes her choke, makes her lungs cry out and clench, remembering when the water filled them, burned them with its cold and its salt. The cold never left her, it wraps icy fingers around her stomach and heart and the shadows swirl thicker, amassing around her in a cocoon of darkness and unblinking yellow eyes.
"Take me somewhere else, somewhere you like to be," she whispers into the darkness, the unspoken command anywhere but Pangea, "But remember this place, Leilan will look for me here."
The shadows become impenetrable, a droplet of night on the bright afternoon beach with yellow eyes like stars. All at once, the eyes shut and dissipate with a sigh, the yearling lion gone but for her paw prints in the sand. At least, that is what it will look like to any observers watching the empty curve of shore line. For Beryl, the darkness thickens until it is almost tangible. She is familiar with this place - if it can be called such a thing. She remembers this feeling of floating even when there seems to be solid ground beneath her feet. The drifting yellow eyes circle around and away, away, but she resists the urge to move towards any of them, to take control.
Not today, it's enough that she is doing this at all.
There's a lightening and a feeling of dizziness. Memory makes her draw a deep breath and hold it, eyes screwed shut, bracing for the splash and the cold, for the panic that tickles at the back of her throat. None but the panic come. Instead, birdsong and a cool breeze that smells of smoke and leaves, of moss and damp and earth still warmed by the sun. Brown eyes fly open and are greeted by trees. A million trees, and shadows black as night. Yellow eyes peer out at her from every copse and corner. She grins toothily, baring long canines.
"No wonder you like it here."
There are many shadows in the forest, and it's a wonder that she didn't come here, first, on that long ago day, but as they have often done, the Shadows remind her that they had taken her exactly where she wanted to go. She wanted to go to the desert - a place where her mother said they might find her sire, and safety, and the Shadows had deposited her at its very center. That they left her mother behind is nothing to them. Leaving that Pangean canyon with it's black-shelled monsters had been her choice, the frigid shadows in the depths of the sea had been her choice. The Isle had been less a choice than a necessity, she had not even known it was there, had wished only for safety, for love. The Shadows had found all those things for her in Leilan. Overall, their decisions have been more reliable than her own.
She stands and stretches the full length of her tawny body, long, tufted, tail lashing side to side in the air. Something about this place... Yes, once, she was here once before with Leilan, but the memory is dim and tattered. A crowd and apples-- she remembers throwing the withered fruit at the black mare thinking she would melt the scaley stallion and the thought brightens the young lion's mood as she weaves between trees, delighting in the feel of her claws biting into soft, warm, earth.
Halcyon looks over his striped shoulder at Loess behind him, hesitation in his step. It dismays him to leave Mama here without him while she waits for her pearlescent friend, but he knows she will fare fine for a short while as she catches up with those she knows in the foothills, and even his brother had sought kinship in the winged son of Castile, lessening the time they had spent together as of late. The yearling tiger does not fault them ─ they are both warm and kind, the two things he loves most about his Mama and Cormorant, but there are times that he prefers the quiet padding of his growing paws to the sounds of conversation.
So it's into the Forest for Halcyon this day.
His narrow striped frame ─ awkward, as he has begun to shed his fluffy cub-like fur to reveal a sleek hide beneath it ─ curls gracefully 'round verdant moss-covered tree trunks and under low-hanging boughs. It's a practice in stealth to meander in such a way that his feline paws make nary a sound despite the ground upon which they alight ─ pine needles, twigs, stone, the moistness of a riverbank. But he makes it into a game nonetheless, and effectively distracts himself from the outside world for so long, so concentrated is he that he has involuntarily flipped the switch on his invisibility, that it's with an alarmed start that Halcyon pops back into view before the lioness cub.
"Flying finned fish!" he whispers from behind whetted teeth, his orange eyes narrowed with surprise on the girl. Shadows play against her tawny fur in such a way that they could almost appear odd, but Halcyon's gaze does not linger here long. "Sorry," he tells her once he remembers his manners, "I didn't realize anyone else was nearby. My name is Halcyon."
She is lost in the sounds of the autumnal wood, migrating birds are raucous and wild, flitting from tree to tree and occasionally rising in sudden, great flocks to swoop and fly and land as one giant moldable beast, a darkening of the sun and sky as though they are one of her Shadows. The squirrels and chipmunks are busy and loud, they skitter and scold, and after nearly a year in this shape, she finds it hard to turn off that predatory nature that wants to chase and pounce, yet there is a laziness to her hunting, too. The creatures think they are safe in their burrows from a hunter as large as she, yet the shadows within those dens will turn on their inhabitants if she asks it of them.
... Most of the time.
Beryl knows what Leilan would say if she said that to him. He would tell her - as he has over and over - that the Shadows are not her friends, they are not even servants, which still implies that they are capable of free will. He would say that she does or does not control them fully by her own wishes and design, that they do not always listen because she does not want them to, or she is being too lazy to direct them properly (and both of these things have been true, too, at times), and never because they have made a choice. But he has not heard their hissing voices in his ear, has not felt the resistance when she asks too much, and - she is so sure! - he does not know what it is like for a friendless child to be told that the only companions she has in the entire world besides her adopted father are not - cannot - be real the way she believes.
If she were not so sure that Leilan is wrong, her mood would be at risk of darkening again, but the bright, warm shafts of light that dapple the forest floor awaken a distant sense of adventure that has slept dormant beneath the northern ice that settled there. A red squirrel runs across her path and she gives chase to the bushy-tailed prey, bounding after it flanked by yellow-eyed snakes. It is no more than a bit of terrified fur, not even enough for a reasonable snack, these days, but she chases him half way up the mottled trunk of a sycamore tree, and laughs as he scolds her from the safety of its branches as she, marring the trunk with sharp claws, slides back to earth.
The young lion is so taken up with this game that she does not see the tiger picking his way carefully up from the river. The Shadows whisper their hoarse warnings in her ear just as the striped boy rounds the bend and Beryl snaps to sudden attention, drawing herself up tall and thin, then flattening against the roots of the clawed tree. Tufted ear catch his curse delightedly, but she sweeps them back a second later, nervously. Despite their similar ages, he is so much larger than her, a product of his shape and, perhaps, a more fortunate childhood. The forest darkens in response to the perceived threat - can he see all those unblinking, yellow, eyes? Halcyon speaks again, an olive branch, and she lifts her head slightly to meet his golden gaze, but hesitates made shy and tentative by her isolation. Silence stretches over long seconds.
"H-hi?"
The word almost dies on her tongue but she presses it out, determined. Almost immediately, though, the noisome quiet of the forest takes over. She bats a a leaf stirring in the breeze, tearing her eyes away from Halcyon's. It's too much, too much to look at him and speak.
"I-- My name's Beryl... What's a flying finned fish?"
There is a noticeable darkening of the forest when the lioness girl, pressed thin against the pine-needled floor, turns her wary brown eyes on him. Halcyon does not fault her uncertainty; she must know his predatory instincts in just the same way she knows her own, and she can see the heft of his feline body despite his obvious youth. He severs their eye contact to look into the wooded shadows beyond the tawny lion ─ his orange feline gaze is received by inky shadows and the dark, unripened green undersides of wide leaves, by silent and murky tree trunks that sprout like giant sentinels even as the obsidian tendrils of the floor's shadows hold them tight.
The tiger cub cannot see the glowing yellow eyes of the forest, but he can feel them. His dorsal fur begins to stand in response, though it's easy enough to attribute his bodily reaction to his sudden surprise at encountering the lion cub, so when Halcyon's gaze returns to hers and she whispers a hesitant greeting, the yearling boy settles into an apologetic smile.
He settles onto his hindquarters, letting his striped tail sweep habitually against the earthen floor, and offers a quiet bout of laughter as the girl swats at a windswept leaf. The sound feels odd, though, in the heavy darkness of the forest, and seems to fall flat between the feline pair. "It's nice to meet you, Beryl," he says after clearing his throat, the extra split second giving him a moment to remember what Mama had told him about new friends and refined social behavior. "Oh," he adds at her question, ears swiveling backwards in something close to embarrassment, "That's just something my Mama says when she's surprised. But I think there are some flying fish off the coast of Ischia, if you're..."
Halcyon trails off, pauses for just a moment before tilting his head slightly to the side with curiosity, "I've never seen a lion before."
Livinia sees them from her perch within the trees. She’d discovered climbing by accident, having followed something much quicker than her up a tree in pursuit of a meal. Climbing wasn’t exactly something available to her in her usual form, so she found a great sense of amusement in this newfound ability. Since she was still small, the thick branches had no difficulty supporting her weight. She found she quite liked this perspective and the truly anonymous way she could move through the world.
The grey-tinged cub picked her way through the branches before she heard voices. They sounded young, and the potential of meeting someone new lifted her spirits. But she couldn’t imagine her luck when she looked down and saw who it was. Two felines - different in size and color but more like her than anything she’d encountered since her trip to the mountain.
She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she’d never seen others like her. Like how she was now, at least. But she knew, deep down, she’d always been different. The only one truly like her was her Papa. She was so lost in the possibilities she wasn’t paying attention to her paw placement. Climbing may be a decidedly feline activity, but it did require a good deal of concentration. When she went to correct her balance, she felt only air beneath her paw.
A small shriek escaped her as she fell, pawing at the air before landing more gracefully than she had anticipated near the pair. She hadn’t expected to land on her feet, but sure enough the ground was solid beneath her paws. Not that she was concerned about falling. Things didn’t seem to hurt her the way they did others. But she let out a satisfied huff before looking up at the older children - her scarlet eyes wide having realized what she'd done. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She dropped her gaze to the earth, hoping she hadn’t blown her shot before sucking in a deep breath. “I’m Livinia.” she offers, hoping she hadn’t frightened them away.
such is life, such is death.
well. you DID say she could crash the thread..........
@[Beryl]
03-01-2020, 01:17 PM (This post was last modified: 03-01-2020, 01:17 PM by Beryl.)
His embarrassment emboldens her, and she slips out from behind the root she has been keeping between them, letting her eyes settle on him more directly, tracing the array of stripes that adorn his body. It is a fantastical display and one that, were there not a shining galaxy dripping down her shoulder and forearm, she might feel some jealousy over. As in her horse form, this lion shape is a simple sandy gold with nothing so fancy as variegating ochre and black and white.
"Ischia?" And she wracks her brain for some remembrance of Leilan's lessons. The place had never featured largely in his stories, but she remembers that it, too, is an island, much like her Isle, and surrounded by sea. The thought drops her heart into her belly like ice, but before she can say anything more, Halcyon is changing the subject and her face brightens measurably.
"Oh! Me neither!" Because, of course, she is not truly a lion, and because even if she were, there is not much opportunity for her to see herself as one. Mirrors are not in plentiful supply, but perhaps another way? The lions girl leaps to her feet suddenly, "I'm not really a lion," she whispers secretively, as though perhaps he did not know. Leilan has told her she would come to recognize other shifters, but her ability to do so is hampered by the isolation of the frozen north. She is not certain of Halcyon, "But watch this!"
The darkness that fades her golden coat falls away, the swirling glow of her shoulder illuminating the small copse where they sit. Sparkling light dances on the ground like sunbeams reflecting on shattered ice, but this is not what she means do show him. There is nothing at first and then the darkened forest shadows part from one another, a pitch black lion stepping proudly out into their midst. He is almost too dark to make out details and the bright yellow eyes glowing in his wide face are blank and dispassionate. Her shadow creatures are, like her Shadows, mostly emotionless things, but they can behave realistically enough. The dark lion shakes his royal mane and stalks a careful circle around them, only pausing to roar noiselessly in their faces, cruel black canines in a black maw, dripping with black saliva. In the face of it, she is grinning and lifts a paw still fat with her youth to press gently to the Shadow's black nose.
Boop.
"That's a lion. But the shadows say they aren't black, they're yellow like me, usually." The surety of her face crumbles when a shriek splits the air between the trees and in a rush of sound and a stirring of dust, there falls atop the black lion a young cub. A lion cub. The shock of it makes her drop control of the dark beast and the eyes blink out, the shadows dissipating beneath the scuffling young cat, returning to their usual place, and Beryl leaps back in a panic, hair standing on end and claws out. She ducks behind Halcyon until she realizes there is no threat in the smaller creature, but still her ears flatten to her neck until it speaks, and then she peeks out from behind the other yearling with wide eyes.
"The shadows never said lions drop out of trees like acorns, though!"
When finally Beryl reveals her full frame from behind the gnarled brown tree root, Halcyon's glowing feline eyes immediately navigate to the galaxy that lay tattooed against her muscled shoulder. His gaze lingers on the galactic swirls, appreciating the whirlpool mix of purple and blue and red for the few moments that she questions Ischia. "It's the island where I was born," he tells her finally, eyes moving back to hers, though he's truthfully unsure if he had actually been born there or simply found.
The tiger cub leaves this thought behind as Beryl lowers her voice conspiratorially. I'm not really a lion, she says, and Halcyon can't help the easy, warm laughter that falls from between his whetted teeth. He means to tell her that he is not really a tiger, but falters before he speaks ─ in actuality, the boy feels more tiger than horse. He has spent the majority of his short life with paws and sharp teeth and growing predatory urges.
Titanya had taught him that he was capable of killing; he has yet to experiment with this, but there is a primal urge that lingers beneath his usually passive demeanor that he sometimes finds himself daydreaming about.
The shadows fall away and are replaced by the resplendence of Beryl's galaxy, making the forest seem more and more inviting until ─ out of the darkness trudges the obsidian lion. Its eyes are dark and unfeeling, its paws silent. Halcyon watches in awe as the Shadow-Cat settles in the space in front of he and Beryl. As his orange eyes rove the creation before them, his companion explains what the Shadows have told her of real lions and, though this intrigues the yearling, the sudden screech that egresses from the branches above them swiftly secures his attention instead.
Beryl is behind him suddenly, and though his invisibility flickers for a moment, Halcyon solidifies again once his initial shock has ebbed away. He laughs, wide-mouthed, with his lips pulled away from the sharp teeth behind them, and pulls his claws slowly back into his striped paws. "I don't think they're supposed to fall like acorns but," he offers a tentative smile to the younger lioness before taking a small step to the side to allow Beryl space next to him, "it's nice of you to drop in, Livinia. I'm Halcyon."
