[private] pour my heart out on the floor and now it's leaking

[Malik]

Shifters get a choice, his mother had emphasized.

But the rest of them don’t.

So tonight, he is looking for something that cannot change, for a creature with a single shape. A shape that he wants to wear, he reminds himself, looking away from the grisly spectre that stands at the edge of the woods. Malik has no desire to look like he is decomposing.

He’s already twice attempted to capture a shadow creature, but they both proved far more elusive than Maurtia’s wolflike companion in the Playground. There are signs of his struggles - leaves tangled in his black mane, ruffled iridescent feathers, a smear of dirt along his striped rump.

A sound draws his attention, and Malik raises his dark head to peer in the direction it had come from. His eyes - one blue, one orange - search the shadows, and a nose that is more canine than equine inhales the scents of early summer evening. Accustomed to nearly year round snow, the air feels uncomfortably warm, and the young black stallion can feel a trickle of sweat down the side of his face.

He brushes it away when he is unable to find the source of the noise. Perhaps it had been a bird settling in for the night, or a branch shaken loose by the same breeze that slips along his sides and lifts the tangle of his mane. It is no cooler than the humid air and provides little relief from the heat.

But it does bring a familiar smell, one that has Malik releasing his equine shape to become something better equipped for quick movement in the dark.

“@bolder!” he calls, his chittering, bat-like voice echoing back with no indication of where his friend might be hiding. “What’re you doing here?”

[bolder]

The mantra of the Pack is one that Bolder has adopted proudly.

Perhaps it was because his father had never given him a choice that the young shapeshifter takes to one that was granted to him by Mazikeen. She had been his first teacher, taking him from the young colt who could barely control his coat colors to a young pegasus who could wear nearly any shape he wished. (Though his want to be more than that, to mimic more than just nature is still within him, placed there by his Uncle. Bolder wished to mimic Magic as well.)

Bolder remains perched on a mostly bare branch, its leaves torn perhaps from an early summer storm. It places him out in the open, but Bolder doesn't think a Great Horned Owl keeping watch in the early evening hours would prove unusual. His avian head turns one direction and then another, nearly rotating all the way around while his large eyes adjusted to the dark.

A mouse rustles the long meadow grasses below him. And if he remains still enough, Bolder thinks he can sense a vole burrowing deeper into the ground. His sense of hearing and smell and sight sharpens more with each shift; he spots the small bat-like creature quickly, and leans forward while his speckled wings start to open.

But the bat is not a bat, and if Bolder could have, he would have grinned in this shape.

"Malik," comes the deep, hoot-like voice of the owl into the humid evening air. Bolder takes off and lets himself soar until he comes leaping towards the ground. "I'm on my way back to Hyaline," he tells his cousin, before settling himself comfortably on a log and becoming something suited for the ground. A wolf that still smells of Ischia emerges from the shadows and Bolder tilts an ear to the sky, still listening for the chittering. "What are you doing here?" he asks in a low voice that sounds more like a growl. "You didn't lose Myrna again, did you?"



@Malik

[Malik]

The hooting call of the owl startles Malik’s batlike instincts, and the little animal folds its wings tight and drops through the air, a very not-batlike reaction that would have saved him had the owl not been his cousin in disguise.

Malik catches himself before he hits the ground, flaring his leathery wings and flapping them rapidly. This shape is not as good at such a maneuver as his crested eagle, but the advantage of his echolocation in the dark is not worth trading for an easier flight.

He circles overhead as Bolder the owl becomes Bolder the wolf while telling Malik that he is on his way back home. Where has he been, Malik wonders? The bat’s nose is not strong enough to recognize any scents, not from this distance, so he swoops a little closer. Unperturbed by his cousin’s growling voice, Malik lands unceremoniously on the soft fur of Bolder’s back, his dark claws gripping at the fur as he climbs down. The chestnut hair is a much softer landing than the ground, and Malik still lacks his older relative’s ability to shift while landing. He always ends up in a bruised tangle of limbs when he does.

Bolder’s fur smells of flowers and warmth even more intense than the riverlands, and Malik knows he must have been in the West, but exactly where he cannot be sure. He considers asking, but knows that Bolder will tell him eventually. There is little that they do not share, after all, including the knowledge that if Maik had really lost Myrna again, that he wouldn’t be nearly so relaxed as he currently is.

(His mother had charged him with her safety, after all, and he considers that priority above even completing his quest.)

“No,” Malik replies, having shifted into a dark furred wolf like the one that Bolder wears, “I’m on a hunt. For my quest!”

@bolder

[bolder]

Having no younger siblings of his own, Bolder has always taken his role as an older cousin very seriously. When practicing his own shifting, the young pegasus often encouraged Malik and Myrna to do the same. He had been taught that the earlier a shapeshifter starts to change shape, the easier it became and Bolder did his part to make sure that shifting would come easily to both his younger cousins. The small bat that lands on him might ruffle his sienna fur but it does nothing to change the adolescent's usual easy-going demeanor.

Sensing how relaxed Malik was as he traveled down one of his striped legs, the young wolf was convinced that the younger Hyalinean was safe. Most likely back in the kingdom that they all called home, or perhaps on a hunt with Mazikeen. When his cousin finally comes to stand beside him, Malik is a wolf as well and Bolder lowers the front half of his body, stretching down in a playful stance.

(Bolder wears the shape of a wolf most often, and this is the shape he is most comfortable in beside his equine form. It makes his youthful exuberance show, when he might have otherwise remained aloof and impassive.)

"Quest?" he sharply yips, recalling his earlier conversation with his aunt and the limitations that his uncle had shown him. Bolder planned on going to the Mountain when he was ready, when he was certain that even if the Faeries stripped him of his shifting (or something worse), he would be ready. Having only used his gift for the last year of his life, the young shifter was hesitant to part with a side of himself that he had only recently discovered.

"You've gone to the Mountain?" he barks out, an ear pricking towards Malik and another trained on the treeline, not completely convinced that they were alone.

@Malik

[Malik]

Malik stretches his front legs forward in an equally playful greeting, feeling the damp earth on the black pads of his feet. Even in a wolf shape, he keeps the feathers and his bicolored eyes (one orange, one blue). He pats at the ground a few times with his paws as he finishes the stretch with a yawn and a wag of his black tail.

He sits back on his hind end, then scratches at an itch behind his ear with one hind foot as his cousin asks about his quest. The black wolf straightens and nods.

“To get better at shifting,” he says, and they both know what that means. Some shapes - despite his efforts - require a Power beyond his own. The fairie had wanted him to give her a reason for wanting that Power, he recalls. As if the reason weren’t obvious, as if wanting Power for the sake of having it were not enough.

The part of Malik that wants it to be safe, to be worth keeping, has grown smaller since his sister’s birth. He suspects now that Mazikeen would love him even if he never achieved what he quests for. He will not have to find out, he reminds himself; he has completed the first trial and fetched a wyvern’s claw. He will be a powerful shifter soon, one that need fear nothing at all.

“They didn’t take my shifting.” Stating the rather obvious, but he knows that they had taken his mother’s. Had it been because she told them why she’d come? Perhaps it is better to keep some things close to the chest, Maik decides. At least, with those who he does not trust.

Flopping to his side, Malik watches his cousin scan the treeline. Bolder is a far better guard than the younger wolf, who often loses interest in what he should be doing and wanders off. Or in this case, scratches an itch along his spine by rolling in the leaves, belly-up and eyes half-closed.

“You can come with me when I go next,” he offers, explaining to the chestnut wolf the details of his quest, and the four objects he must return with to prove his dedication. “If you’re up for a hunt, maybe we could even go tonight.” Bolder had said he was returning home, and Malik is not entirely sure what he’d been doing while he was away. The black wolf rolls to his feet, shaking the leaf litter from his thick fur, and meeting Bolder’s gaze with a curious - and anticipatory - look in his eyes.

@bolder

[bolder]

Though some things had changed in Hyaline since Gale's departure, some things hadn't: Bolder still wanted to be more, to become more powerful so that he might prove to his father that there was nothing to fear in it. His Uncle had been teaching the young pegasus how to do that, until those lessons had abruptly stopped. They had gone with Gale, and though there is a part of Bolder that had wanted to go to Tephra to continue them, he had stayed behind to look after Mazikeen and Malik and then the new arrival that came in the spring, Myrna.

He kept a careful watch over his charges, but Bolder hadn't forgotten about those earlier lessons. He hadn't forgotten what it had felt like to become more, and the copper-hued wolf knew that he would need to visit the Mountain soon if he wished to attain that again.

Bolder comes to sit, and gives his cousin an understanding nod.
It seemed that Malik hadn't forgotten those lessons, either.

The Faeries didn't take his shifting - as the young wolf can clearly see - but his sienna brow knots for a moment. Had they taken something else? Did Malik offer something that Bolder could not see? He doesn't have the familial healing that so many of their kin seem to have, and he wonders briefly if the younger shifter had offered it at the expense of gaining more Power. A new ability would do him little good if he got himself killed in the process, but no, he ultimately decides and then learns, about the four objects that Malik must return to the Mountain.

Everything about it seems so strange to Bolder, but he doesn't dare say such a thing aloud. Magic had its own wild way, and the young shifter knew better than to question it.

Still keeping a watch on the distant treeline, Bolder considers Malik's request. He had meant to return to Hyaline, quickly, unsure of what might be waiting for him when he returned. But if Malik was here and clearly unworried, then perhaps they might stay out a little bit longer. A hunt - especially between two such skilled pack members as themselves - shouldn't take too long.

"I'm always up for a hunt," Bolder tells Malik and comes to stand squarely on his four striped limbs. He flashes a grin, as wolfish as the shape they both wear. "What did you have in mind?"

@Malik

[Malik]

He is about to admit to his cousin that he’s still looking for something to hunt when the creature walks by.

Malik has never seen anything quite like it before and he knows - even without trying - that it is not a shape he could imitate. Clawed, colorful, and clearly a predator, Malik knows in an instant that the shape it wears is one that he wishes to become.

There is no fear in the eyes of the deinonychus, and it pauses to peer at that pair of wolves with open curiosity. Malik smiles, his teeth curling up into a grin as he asks Bolder: “What about that thing?” The young dinosaur stands up a little taller, peering at the two wolves with a slowly narrowing pair of black eyes. Perhaps she has underestimated the danger they pose. Should she shift back to her equine form, she wonders, or will she be faster like this?

She takes a step back, and without conscious thought Malik takes one forward, keeping one black ear flicked toward Bolder as he waits for confirmation.

“We could get some of those feathers, easy.” He adds, taking another slow step forward as Mescaline takes another backward on the far side of the open meadow. Malik is sure of his speed and knows that Bolder is often even quicker. They could take this feathered hunter down, and it would be enough of a challenge to be fun.

He risks a glance back at his cousin, his eyes sparkling in anticipation. “Yeah?”

@bolder

[bolder]

Just as Malik has never seen such a creature, neither has Bolder.

Though there is a hunter's calculation in his gray eyes (noticing its size, studying its claws, the pointed teeth, the lean legs that might make it a capable runner), there is curiosity as well. It is strange and odd; the dinosaur rises to stand and the moon-marked wolf glances towards his cousin. His mind hasn't entirely decided what it is, until it steps back. Malik steps forward and so does Bolder, emboldened by instinct.

"What do you think it is?" he growls low to his pack-mate. Not quite a dragon, like his grandfather, but something similar. Bolder might have considered it a fellow predator, but the moment that the creature stepped back, it backed away from that highly-regarded estimation. It became prey, instead.

Bolder begins to lower himself, creeping towards the thing in a slow motion that mirrored his hunting companion. He wouldn't lunge; not yet, not until they had worked out a plan. It took another step back, and he could feel the adrenaline begin to pump through his veins. The thrill of the chase already beginning to spring in each careful step he took.

"Myrna might like one," the shifter said in a low rumble, agreeing that the feathers would be an easy prize for them. That they could enough for Malik's quest and then some. "Perhaps we might even bring one back for your mother." He finally stops, quickly glancing towards his cousin, trying to glean their next move.

Would they chase it, run it down until fear and fatigue made it sluggish?
Would they split up, and move behind the beast where it claws and talons might have a harder time reaching them?

Perhaps Malik had an entirely different idea.

Whatever the plan was, when Bolder stares ahead at the beast again, his teeth are bared and he is ready.

@Malik i am SO sorry that this took so long

[Malik]

“I heard the Ichian parrots are pretty bold,” he muses, carefully placing one black paw on the earth and inching closer. “Maybe one got a little amorous with one of the wyverns on the coast.” He chuckles, amused by his own theory even if not entirely sure what the creature is. This world is full of strange things, and they can get a closer look once they’ve run it down.

His cousin’s verbal repetition that they are pursuing the creature for its feathers does nothing to slow the rapid pulse of Malik’s heart as he stares down the beast across the meadow. His glowing eyes flick to the creature’s neck, narrow enough for a wolf to wrap its jaws around. Could he bring it down?

Yes, he thinks, he’s large enough to counterbalance the weight of that thick tail, and if he can topple it then Bolder will be able to go for the belly and...

Just the feathers, he reminds himself.

Across the meadow, Mescaline hears only the low growling of wolves. Her thrumming nerves make the decision for her - she will flee. Just about to lay out a more detailed plan, Malik instead barks a quick: “Let’s go!” and races after the feathered creature.

@bolder

[bolder]

Bolder has to bark down a laugh at the thought of bold Ischian parrots and what they might conceive with their paramours, though his lips quirk upward. He has honestly heard very little of Ischia, and apart from a brief journey through Tephra, the West remains mostly unexplored and therefore unknown to the young shifter. Time to change that, perhaps. Something, at the very least, to consider after their hunt. 

Diverting his attention back to the present, the henna-hued wolf keeps moving slowly forward, glancing every few paces to see where Malik had positioned himself. Bolder had begun to drift towards the edges of the meadow. If their strange prey kept its focus the darker wolf, then it meant that he might have the element of surprise and could herd the thing towards his cousin (this was Malik's quarry and Bolder would never be so presumptive to claim the first strike). If it noticed him beginning to carefully stalk from his place amongst the longer grasses and shadows, then it gave Malik the opportunity of surprise. 

He could feel it again, the want to sink his sharp teeth into flesh - 

When his cousin cries out to go, and the strange bird-like thing runs, Bolder leaps and decides to shift into something faster. His gold stripes flash again, as do his silver eyes, as his shape transforms into something lean and more feline, though he retains his familiar coloring. He attempts to move towards the beast (though trying to mindful of those impressive claws), clacking his gold-lined jaws from behind it, to let it know that Death was on its heels and knowing that it was only a matter of moments before Malik struck.

@Malik