[mature] i dare you to do something; any

[Caw]

‘Offer yourselves belly up like this again and you’ll draw all sorts of monsters out of hiding.’

Well.

Caw doesn’t want to move, not really.

Her chest is still raw and aching, she loathes to see daylight.

When Virgo makes a move to see what the commotion is, Caw wants to follow her but cannot find the strength to do more than lift her head and stare. She blinks slowly, trying to make sense of whatever is happening—wants to call her back, wants to tell her that their bed of moss gets too cold for her to tolerate whenever she’s gone. But the words never come. Instead, she heaves a sigh and lies back down, going eerily still. Waiting. Until the bed she made them grows as icy as she predicted. Until Virgo’s absence forces her to reluctantly get to her feet; she staggers under the weight of the child they lost, her legs tingling with pins and needles, it feels as if her soul itself is whining in protest—

But Virgo has gone elsewhere.

And wherever Virgo goes, Caw is never far behind.

Her body ripples, dissipating into a fine mist that rises and draws itself forwards in the shape of a galloping horse. It flits through the forest, twisting and twining its way through the trees. It consciously avoids sunlight, skirting around the other residents of Taiga who speak in hurried whispers as if something important has happened. They’re unaware of the creature lurking in their midst. Fortunately, Caw has no interest in their gossip and does not linger to listen as she might have in her earlier years. Instead, she continues to travel along in mist-form until she finds herself alongside an empty clearing and begins the tedious task of pulling herself back into her most familiar form.

Solid again at long last, the black mare looks up, her skull loudly crunching and cracking as it twists into the shape of a wolf’s head. She lifts her snout skyward, draws in a deep breath, and lets loose a long howl. Caw knows the sound will travel, knows that wherever Virgo is she will recognize the mournful call and come to find her.

Without warning, the black mare’s head returns to its original shape with an audible ‘pop!’ and she shakes it, rolling it around to ease the tension in her neck, flexing her muscles in order to make sure that everything is exactly where it should be.

‘…And you’ll draw all sorts of monsters out of hiding.’

She tilts back an ear, turning her head towards the sound of someone or something drawing near.
They've likely come to investigate the foreign howl, but she doesn't care.

“Unless you’re my woman or one of our children, I suggest you come no closer,” the shifter warns, though she makes no further move besides flicking her tail and shifting her weight from right to left. It’s not Tannor, she knows this for certain. She left him back at their den to watch over the others. It’s not Plague, who has opted to keep to himself and travel beyond their homeland these days, far from the cruel gods of Beqanna. She looks back to the empty clearing, quietly hoping they will heed her warning and move along.

[augustus]

He is still new to this world, and he learns all the time about new, terrifying things.

He is just shy of his second year and finds himself wandering for the most part - sometimes as a horse, and other times as a dog. He had been born in a kingdom called Loess, but Brink had quickly grown bored of her as she had her other son. He has met Malcontent once, and the older boy had given Augustus quite the fright, with his sharp teeth and hungry smile. The beautiful kelpie was a fearsome sight, and Augustus harbors little love for his family.

His travels have taken him along the outskirts of several different kingdoms and territories, but he hasn’t yet been brave enough to explore them and maybe choose a home. He avoids Loess - that place had been enveloped by turmoil as the king lost his grip on his sanity - and it isn’t until his paws touch the border of Taiga that he feels a sort of call. Curious and nervous he treads slowly into the forest that stretches endlessly before him, unaware of the trouble brewing within the seemingly peaceful borders.

It isn’t long until he hears a sound, and he freezes as a melancholy howl echoes in the sky. It is almost pure instinct that drives the dingo to lift his own head and answer the call, his own voice joining in on her brief song.

Worried for the wolf, he hurries forward through the trees, slowly only when the only form of a black mare appears in a clearing ahead. An ear is flicked in his direction and she snaps out a threat, but a whine falls from Augustus’s lips as he wonders what pains her so.

Slowly, he lowers himself onto his belly, whimpering softly as he crawls from the trees into the opening. Once closer he rolls into his side, submitting to the mare who had howled such a sad song. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he murmurs quietly, not daring to meet her eyes yet.

[Risk]

risk

He’s nervous, with all the chaos forming like turbulent waves across Beqanna. He places a gentle kiss to Spirit’s brow and then the boy takes off to meet his friends in the forests south of here. Of course, there is still that knot of worry tied up in his heartstrings, but he knows he cannot smother his children and expect them to be independent. A nice walk may be just what he needs to clear his mind and ease the stress from his shoulders. With that thought in mind, he slips through the trees and heads north.

The quiet of the snow and the Taigan forests always appealed to him, but he normally preferred to stay close to Sochi when she was with child. She prefers the opposite when she grows this close to giving birth. His laugh at the thought is so quiet it almost goes unheard over the sound of his hooves crunching in the snow. Risk’s breath comes in little white puffs of air that distract his eyes for a while. This is how he stumbles upon the pair speaking.

He lifts his chin, his different colored eyes examining them briefly in surprise. One is a plain black mare, seemingly unremarkable but her voice is stern and quick to command the other. The other is a dog that offers its belly in submission to the woman. Risk tilts his head, curious about the display. He often mimics prey animals and so the behaviors of wolves and other predators are a mystery to him.

“Oh. I suppose I’m double intruding, then,” he thinks aloud. His voice is warm and quiet, not really intended to be heard but not muted either. “My name is Risk. I was just.. walking to clear my head.”

And then he offers a sheepish smile. As he shifts his weight, the copper marbling across his sides catches the sunlight bleeding through the pines and shimmers brightly. Perhaps he should leave before he overstays his welcome, he thinks. He even takes a step back as he considers where to head to next.

@[Caw] @[augustus]

[Caw]

The creature, the likes of which Caw has never seen before, comes crawling towards her. He is careful, timid, offering up apologies quicker than she can refuse them and flops over on his side in a bid to submit; she recognizes his body language, noting its similarities to some of the larger beasts and is almost quick to dismiss him... yet.

She thinks of her own children, fondly remembering their own innocent curiosity. This thing is young, still. A child face to face with something he doesn’t know could gobble him up. Just like Quiet. It strikes such a chord in her that she nearly starts to tremble. There had been blood, so much blood. She had screamed until her voice no longer worked. Even in darkness, even with the crows doing with her and the other children as they willed, she had never felt such pain before in her life and it’s something she wishes no mother would ever have to feel again.

“Look at me,” Caw demands, stern and unwavering, the voice of a mother whose righteous anger has turned into cold understanding and though she is tired she now wants to teach him a lesson. There is no tremble in her voice, though she pauses long enough to swallow, forcing her throat to stop feeling as though it is trying to constrict itself. “Never expose yourself like this,” she motions to him, snorting indignantly at his exposed belly.

“What if I wanted to crush you? Smash your little skull?” Caw’s yellow-gold eyes narrow, her lips curling back in a sneer, revealing her pretty white fangs—which, though it may seem like a trick of the light, grow rapidly and sharpen before his very own eyes. “How do you think your mother would feel if you never came home?”

She knows exactly how she should feel, at least.

“My name is Caw,” the black mare tells him, her teeth returning to ‘normal.’ Blunt and horse-like, just the way her neighbors prefer them to be. “I’d like to see you stay alive, boy, so I want to know what is your name?”

A voice, fortunately for the little dog, draws her attention away.

There is something about his face that causes her to freeze, something familiar about the twists and turns of the metal marbling of his coat that breaks her heart and makes her day all at once. But no. It can’t possibly be. That had been a girl, she remembers. A girl born in the wake of Quiet’s death. Just as beautiful and marbled like her elder sister. They’d given her away, did what they thought was the right thing. Kept her safe, because safety was far from them and the ruin their families bring.

Caw shakes her head.

“Might as well join, make it a party,” she insists, studying the stallion carefully—his eyes.
Even his eyes….

“Risk,” she tests the name, though it sparks no memories and she doesn’t recall having heard it before. They never even gave the girl a name. It could be a child of hers, perhaps. Though she isn’t sure how old their daughter might be or even if her children would be this old by now. They’d been in mourning for so, so long that time had seemingly slipped right on by and forgot to bring them along. “I am Caw.”