"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
The sun’s arrival had been a interesting development, but Maurtia decided she liked it because it brought a little more freedom. The world seems to be settling and though she’s vaguely aware of the agitation her parents are radiating it is quickly forgotten as she leaves Pangea. She’s promised to only come here - to the Playground - and keeping this promise is easy for two reasons. 1) she’s aware that one of or both of her parents could easily check in on her at any time and 2) it’s exciting enough just seeing somewhere new that she’s not very fussed about how it’s a place for babies.
The shadow wolf pup she was gifted from her father curls around her legs as she stands just inside the border. She’s gotten this far and it’s still early in the morning, there’s still plenty of day left, but… well Maurtia’s just not quite sure what she’s supposed to do next. Her white eyes glow softly as they peer around and she cannot seem to see a single other foal. She should have bothered her sisters to come with her, at least then she’d have company.
She doesn’t notice the way she stands with near-supernatural stillness, her tail already long enough to brush the tips of the grass by her hooves. No mane adorns her neck and her pearlescent skin shimmers slightly in the sunlight. If not for the breathing, she could be a statue.
She’s doing it on purpose, thinking that maybe if she stands still long enough something interesting will happen and she can join in. Almost as if there’s already an instinct somewhere deep inside her that tells her she might accidentally scare off new friends from just her presence.
The black griffin standing beside him is the same age as Malik - about six months - and had hatched from an egg just as Malik had been born in the cave in Hyaline’s mountains last winter.
Or so his father has told him, and so the pair of them believe without doubt. As the sun appears from behind the thick clouds, the shadows from the horns that sprout from the colt’s forehead fall across the glistening black feathers of his voiceless and still-nameless companion.
Those antlers have recently begun to split into distinct forks, and Malik is quite proud. Their glow - and that of his black markings - are impossible to see in the bright sunlight, so he looks rather unremarkable save his horns. Just a black colt with a small white snip and curious blue-and-orange eyes.
He is not to leave the borders of the playground, his father had told him, and Malik has been dozing for the past half-hour because he’d very quickly run out of things to do when there was no one else around. The griffin had scratched at the ground and croaked something guttural that Malik has learned means: someone is coming.
So he scrambles to his feet, the soft feathers of his crest fluffing excitedly. Who could it be, he wonders?
At first he misses her, so still, but on a second sweep of the open space he spots something that he’s never seen. It’s a foal who glitters like the inside of a mussel’s shell, but in a shade of red he has never seen anywhere but in drying blood. Its an interesting color, and he trots forward on sturdy legs to greet the stranger.
Maurtia starts to get bored of standing still about five seconds in to that plan and she starts to fidget, her long tail twitching behind her. And then she can’t remember if she normally distributes her weight on each leg when she’s standing still or if she normally cocks one of her hooves? So she’s trying to rotate between each leg to see what feels natural when fortunately, she’s interrupted by someone approaching her.
Well he doesn’t seem scared of her at all!
Her white eyes don’t exactly display emotion very well but she lights up, stumbling a little when she instinctively takes a step forwards but forgot that she had been keeping her weight off one leg.
She recovers quickly, after she also steps on her long tail, and offers a bright smile because obviously none of that just happened and she’s very excited to make a friend that isn’t one of her sisters. They’re great, but they’re built-in and require 0 effort.
“Hi! I’m Maurtia.” Asking him if there's any ghosts in the area is the topic on the tip of her tongue but she's distracted because he's not alone. “What’s that?” She gestures to the critter, her maneless head tilting to the side.
Malik almost smiles when she trips, but he can feel the way that the griffon beside him is frowning at the unkind thoughts that pass through his mind, and reconsiders. He hadn’t liked being mocked for falling in the snow, the boy remembers; he doubts this colorful stranger would like it either.
Besides, he falls frequently himself, so he ignores the stumble, and also the way that she steps on her own very long tail. The griffon is suspiciously silent about that one, and Malik almost turns around to see the expression on the creature’s face.
But the girl introduces herself instead, and Malik excitedly replies: “I’m Malik. Our names kinda match!” This seems a marvelous coincidence, and he is about to remark farther on it when he realizes that he has lost Maurtia’s attention in favor of his companion.
“Oh that’s Birdbrain.” Malik replies, and the black griffon gives an indignant hiss that suggests his name is no such thing.
“He’s a griffon,” the colt continues almost as though there has been no interruption, but he does give the winged creature a hard glare as he finishes: “And until he decides to tell me what his name is, I’m just gonna call him Birdbrain.”
Her name did sort of match that of the dark colt's but this is a little lost because of the introduction that she gets to the companion. "Birdbrain!" She repeats with obvious delight, already forgetting the hiss that the griffin had made when Malik had said that word.
Her shadow has disappeared, where it had been curling around her legs a few moments ago she glances down and sees that it had not come over with her. And when she glances back to where she had been before her stumbling approach she can see no signs of the creature that is rarely away from her side.
Maurtia is frowning when she turns back to face Malik, her white eyes focused on his orange and blue ones (and her gaze flickers between them, not knowing which one she wants to focus on more). "I've got one too, but I don't know where it is. It's not a... not a birdbrain though. It's like a wolf made out of shadows?" Well, okay, that is exactly what it was. "Its name is Deebee, Deathbringer officially but only when it's in trouble." A small, frustrated huff escapes the red-tinted filly and she stomps a dark hoof. "Like right now since I don't know where it went!!"
The shadow has always seemed living to her, she hasn't thought about whether it has whims of its own or maybe if the shadow fades away when she's not with it. Either way, her attention is drifting from this interesting colt and his bird-brained friend - as interesting as they are.
She repeats the name, and the griffin’s pointed ears flatten.
Malik is ignoring Birdbrain’s behavior, being instead entirely focused on the opalescent red filly. He watches her look down at her feet, and then back toward where she’d been standing. Is she looking for something?
Yes, she tells him, and Malik - noticing the way she looks back and forth from blue eye to orange - very slowly changes their colors, first the green altering to blue and the orange fading to pink, before the pair of them settle on a dark shade of peach, with slitted pupils like those of a cat. She tells him of Deathbringer, her shadowwolf, and Malik’s peach-colored eyes go very wide.
He’s never heard of a wolf made of shadows.
Malik doesn’t notice when he loses her attention this time, because he’s also looking for the missing DeeBee. Should they try calling its name, he wonders? Or is that something best left to Maurtia, since she knows it best? He looks back at her, only to see she’s still looking around the Playground.
“Do you want help finding it?” Malik asks. “I could look from up in the sky?” To demonstrate, he shakes out a pair of long black wings that he hadn’t possessed a moment before. Their long feathers are as iridescent as those that adorn his neck and chest.
Maurtia’s eyes widen with delight when the colt’s eyes change colours, settling on one shade - a very nice peach - which is much easier to focus on instead of trying to flip back and forth. She wishes she could do that too - but she also likes her eyes as they are. It’s one of the few things she shares with her sisters - that and their manelessness.
Turns out the eyes aren’t the only trick that Malik has, and she exclaims “Woah!” with delight when he suddenly has a pair of wings. Did he have magic like her mother did? Beyza didn’t change things about her own appearance often but there never seems to be an end to what she is capable of doing. The idea of having someone look from above is very helpful and Maurtia is quick to agree. “That would be great!”
Deebee couldn't be far, right? "I'll look on the ground. It looks like... well, a wolf made out of shadows." Which she had already said before but when she started that sentence she thought there might be something more she'd be able to add. Apparently not!
Her white eyes turn from her new friend and she starts carefully picking her way across the ground - her long tail trailing behind her as she fixes her attention on a log with a shadow that maybe might be a good hiding spot.
She thinks his wings are cool (or maybe just that the appearance of them is), and the feathers around his neck and chest fluff out a bit in pride. He’s still mostly focused on his offer to help though, and he flexes the long feathered limbs as she tells him that she could use his help.
Birdbrain - refusing to acknowledge the nickname - watches without a word as Malik takes to the sky. He makes no effort to guide the boy back to where he’d seen the wolf slink off into the woods, and instead returns to preening his fiery feathers.
The air feels cool and crisp beneath his feathers, and once in the air Malik shifts his eyes as well, and the peach iris now surrounds the sharp iris of a falcon. These eyes are made to search the trees and brush, yet as he swoops low over the meadows of the Playground he finds no sign of a wolf made of shadows.
“Having any luck?” He calls down to Maurtia, hoping that the maneless girl has had more luck finding her wayward companion than he has. And then, “Oh! Is that...?!”
And then he strikes, entirely a falcon, at what had - a moment ago - looked just like the tail of a shadow wolf. But it had only been the shadow of a half-broken limb, swaying in the breezes. His talons close on nothing and he lands, breathless but not seriously injured, on the forest floor near the red filly.
“That wasn’t DeeBee.” He adds unnecessarily, which does nothing to help with the embaressment as he rises and shifts back into a leaf-rattled black colt. In the distance, the griffon shakes its head in exasperation.
Maurtia pauses her own investigation to watch Malik rise up from the ground, which is a much more interesting endeavour than just watching ordinary birds take off. She's a little jealous, even though she can only imagine that her long tail would get all tangled up in trees and branches if she ever tried to fly.
So just like that, her jealousy disappears and she returns her attention to the ground so she can find her lost companion.
She is just checking under a fallen leaf - you never know with shadows - when Malik asks about her luck. She shakes her head, forgetting for the moment that he might not be actually looking at her. Her eyes widen and her heart jumps at his exclamation and she cranes her head up to watch as he dives through the trees. Hope swells and then disappointment causes it to sink a moment later when the shadow her new friend was chasing wasn't the shadow they were looking for.
Maurtia offers him an encouraging smile anyway and continues to root around near the trunks of the trees until she hears some rustling and her head snaps towards it. Malik is still in the corner of her eye so it's not him - and she's not sure where Birdbrain got to but the darkness that shifts is not as solid. She leaps, disregarding the way her tail collects leaves in her rush, and there's a short awkward scramble before Maurtia turns around beams at Malik as a sheepish-looking shadow wolf slinks into the dappled sunlight.
She is too relieved to be annoyed at her companion anymore so her voice is bright when she makes the introduction. "Malik, meet Deebee."
Maurtia doesn’t laugh at his terrible landing, and Malik rises quickly, shaking the leaf litter from his wings-turned-legs. He continuous to stare around, bi-colored eyes narrowed, and is startled by the sound of crashing and breaking twigs. He spins around as a young cheetah, ready to chase.
She’s already got him though, Malik sees. DeeBee, the shadow wolf. The creature is not like anything he has ever seen before.
Malik attempts to take his shape, but manages only a black wolf. His magic is limited in this, the intangible smoke that makes up Maurtia’s companion is something that is beyond his capabilities. Is this what the Fairies had wanted him to learn, he wonders? How frustrating it is to be without Power? That’s certainly the lesson that his father has instilled in him.
Malik shakes his head, banishing the scowling faces of his navy sire. He’s met a shadow wolf, he thinks, that is plenty to be excited about.
“Nice to meet you.” He says with a nod, and then looks back at Maurtia. “Where are you from?” Malik asks curiously, “Are there other shadow wolves there?” Perhaps he can catch one for himself, and bring it back to Hyaline. It could play with all of the cats.
And then, because he thinks it’s rude to ask such questions without having an answer ready himself, adds: “I’m from Hyaline. We don’t have any shadow wolves. Just a lot of panthers.”
