"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
Chel spent more time prowling in the trees with Atzi than she’d like to admit. She’d grown fonder of the jaguar’s shape as the darkness lingered, marveling at just how much better cats saw in the dark than equines. Birds had been fun to experiment with too, but less practical in a dark forest. Atzi made her way further into the boughs of the trees as Chel let out a huff and made her way to the larger, lower branches. She didn’t see anything amiss so decided that it was safe enough to make her way to the forest floor.
She shifted back to her equine form when her paws found earth again. There were times where it almost felt foreign being in this body after spending longer and longer in other shapes. She shook off the feeling of settling into unfamiliar bones and pulled her wings to her sides. She did, however, retain the jaguar’s feline eyes. It was a necessity nowadays. Chel learned early on that as an equine she couldn’t see for shit in the dark. And she wasn’t willing to be caught off guard given…everything.
She hadn’t run into any of the supposed monsters, but she wasn’t planning on letting something sneak up on her either. Her mamas’ had taught her better than that. Her butterflies finally settled after having been disturbed by the shift, falling back into their leisurely orbit.
Chel honestly didn’t know what she was doing anymore since every waking hour was literally spent wandering around in the dark. She was too young to be having a midlife crisis but at the same time was too goddamn proud to go track down either of her mothers and bother them with her existential angst in the middle of a bigger crisis. She let out a soft huff as she took stock of her surroundings, which were promptly interrupted by a loud crack which immediately set her on edge.
”Atzi, that better have been you,” she breathed between her teeth, as she searched for some indication that her companion in the trees had been responsible for the noise or if they weren’t alone after all.
02-14-2021, 03:47 PM (This post was last modified: 02-25-2021, 01:03 PM by lumineer.)
heard your voice leading me on
through the darkness to the dawn
How desperately he misses the sun.
The darkness had reduced most of his family to bones.
And so came his first taste of true sadness.
He mourned for them, those of them who could not help it.
He did not know how to deal with this new sadness, so he struck out on his own. He wandered through the forest, sunk into the comfort of his canine form. He wanders still, trying to find some sliver of light in the darkness. He chases fireflies, harmlessly flexing his powerful jaws, nipping at them without ever really coming close to crushing them between his teeth. But laughter does not come as freely as it used to.
How strange a wolf he is, shot through with gold, striped like a tiger. But there are much stranger creatures here, he knows that. Creatures he should be afraid of, things made of darkness and madness. Alas, he is too consumed by his sorrow to dwell on fear.
He is aware of the mismatched pair in the darkness only because of the wolf’s hearing, the sounds they make are altogether different than the other things that lurk in the shadows. But he makes no effort to catch up with them, to cast himself into their space and force his company on them. Not until he hears it, too. The unmistakable sound of a limb cracking beneath considerable weight. And he might have thought the equine responsible if the sound had not come from someplace behind him.
Instinctively, he shifts back into his equine form and quickens his pace. Her winged form comes swimming out of the darkness and he exhales sharply. “Did you hear that?” he asks without greeting, his heart racing.
She immediately tears her gaze away from the branches above at the sound of a voice. She whirls – eyes wide – and is slightly comforted that she is not, in fact, confronted with a monster. She lets out a shaky breath as it becomes obvious that he wasn't the source of the sound.
Her eyes flick upwards towards the trees again as Atzi's voice tears through her mind - coming through the bond in a panic: Not me! Not me! She hesitates for a moment before straining to listen in the direction of the sound, but for the moment the forest has gone quiet again.
She grinds her teeth as she is forced to face the reality that they are most certainly not alone out here. It is only then that she processes the shape of the very equine figure – looking about as comfortable as she does in the moment. She releases a shaky breath, “I thought maybe it was my companion in the trees. But it wasn’t. It sounds…bigger.” She glances upwards again, this time able to catch the sight of Atzi making her way to the lower branches of the trees – deftly trying to make her way to the ground. Chel shuffles her wings uncomfortably – a sort of nervous tick – though her equine-size wings wouldn’t do her much good in a forest this dense. Truly, she had no idea what to do next. The fact that she didn’t know what to do burned through her almost as swiftly as the panic curling in her gut.
She looks to him again with wide eyes – knowing that every single conflicted emotion is laid bare within them. She doesn’t have time to consider hiding them away as she usually attempts to. She’s moved into survival mode and such things are beyond her now. “Do you…do you think we should run? I feel like maybe we should run.” She says, though the uncertainty is palpable in her voice. Obviously, she could shift into something with considerably more teeth and try to fight…whatever was lurking in the trees. But given what she’d heard of what was prowling around Beqanna she wasn’t sure if that was advisable. But was running? And in the moments that she stood there trying to do the mental gymnastics as to whether or not flight or fight was the appropriate response to this particular situation, she was functionally paralyzed.
She hesitates before speaking again, but in the time it takes for her to question whether or not its a good idea to ask him the question - it's already escaped her lips. Self control never has been one of her strengths. "Have you...seen them before?" again, the uncertainty colors every syllable but perhaps he knows something that she doesn't. And right now Chel wants any advantage she can sink her claws into.
It had sounded big, though he is uncertain if his fear had made it sound bigger than it had actually been. His heart thumps wildly against the cage of his ribs as he tries in vain to steady his breathing, to dampen the panic that threatens to swell dangerously in the parched column of his throat.
He should not have wandered out into the forest by himself. It had been a fool’s errand. He should have stayed close to home, should have just steeled himself against the desperate sadness that consumed him to know that his family suffered so terribly in the darkness.
But there is a certain strength in numbers, too, he thinks. And he cannot help but feel an immediate sort of camaraderie with this winged mare in the darkness, with her and the feline that slinks its way down out of the trees. He has thrust himself unceremoniously into their orbit and, whether mare and her companion like it or not, they are now in this together.
The emotion in her gaze is not lost on him and he does everything in his power to project an air of calm as he gazes back at her. He is frightened -- desperately frightened -- but his need to reassure her is greater than his need to succumb to his fear. He stops just short of verbally telling her everything’s going to be alright.
He considers her question a moment, still in motion. Ordinarily, he would stop to think, as if to channel all of his energy into his brain. But to stop now would be dangerous, so he kicks his limbs into auto-pilot instead. He draws in a long breath and tries to concentrate. They could run and putting as much space between themselves and whatever had made the noise seemed like a practical option. However, the most practical option would probably be to take flight, but that would mean leaving the mare’s companion on the ground unless the feline could scramble onto one of their backs and somehow hold on once they’d taken to the sky.
“We can run or we can fly if your companion can hang on, it’s your call,” he says. He’d be more than happy to let the feline cling to his mane. Although flying also meant finding a clearing in the dense canopy overhead, which could prove tricky in this crushing darkness.
He has never seen one of the monsters that loiters in the shadows and he doesn’t want now to be his first encounter, not really. But it feels as if the shadows are pressing in around them even closer now.. “No,” he answers, his voice instinctively dropping to a whisper.
Suddenly something nips at his ankle and he lurches forward, yelping.
HEARD YOUR VOICE LEADING ME HOME
THROUGH THE DARKNESS TO THE DAWN
