02-22-2023, 04:59 PM
The darkness doesn’t bother Lystra.
Why would it, when all she has had to do is wish and want for it remake itself into something she wills it to be? Sometimes, the shadows might become wolves that ran through the quiet corner of woods that her family called home. Sometimes, she was able to manipulate the dark just so that it concealed her, creating a magic-dark veil that shielded her from the unknown.
(Funny how a girl might fear what she doesn’t recognize, and yet has no fear for something that has often been the backdrop for tales of dread and unease. Fear the dark, held no sway with the little sabino. Fear the stranger, that, that had been the subject of her stories of terror.)
She waits for the daylight to finally fade, feeling relief creep along her spine like the shadows that grew with each passing hour. And then, at last, the sun sinks down low enough that the shadow-wraith can draw out from her hideaway – a small cave that keeps her almost always in her lovely dark. But, as comfortable as Lystra’s refuge was, it wasn’t enough to keep her longer than the hours of sunlight.
Once night fell, the mare descended.
There is little obscurity with starlight, but Lystra didn’t mind. At the sound of a slight rustle, a whisper, the snap of a twig, all she had to do was call upon her murky means of camouflage. (One day, she will encounter a stranger who will take away that fear. They will no longer be some unknown entity, and eventually, her curiosity will give way to conversation.) She moves quietly, and swiftly, cutting through the forest umbra like a silver-sharp knife.
It comes quickly, like lightning strikes, a flash of silvery light that gleams through the autumn wood.
But it is not her blue roan coat gleaming that permeates this night. It is the futile starlight – which usually can only shine so bright – beaming brighter and brighter. Odd, she thinks. Odd and strange, and then as Lystra decides to return to her temporary home, the trail shifts. The meadow that she had passed through only hours earlier was gone; the sparse tree line gave way to reveal a lake that shone, a watery-glow that seemed to ripple out through what remained of the forest.
Lystra – clinging to what was left that felt familiar – remained in the shadows and inhaled sharply. Occurrences like this weren’t unheard of in Beqanna; there had been stories before Taiga vanished of strange magicks and even stranger creatures. The Northern-born mare had heard the stories of faeries, of mystical beings that existed only at the Mountain, where one might be granted some favor for themselves or their kingdom or…
Or anything, she supposed.
There had never been any purpose in Lystra – content with her own abilities and existence – to seek them out. The waves across the lake grow brighter with each passing moment that she remains, shining and shimmering, until the silver-eyed creature peers out from her shadows. Her pale nostrils flare, scenting something on the wind.
The copper scent is blood; she has seen (and heard) enough kills by the wolves in the North to know when the pack has had a successful hunt. But there is no blood-cry, and despite the prickling sense of being watched, Lystra sees no one. She moves closer, though she knows the danger in approaching. There is no longer a straight path to return home, and perhaps her own abilities combined with the twilight-dark have made her overconfident.
The skin of the two-headed mare is unlike anything she has seen, and so she lowers her roaned head. The feathers of the fallen pegasi move with the wind, unnerving Lystra, as all the other signs of life have left both forms. Her head jerks back, sharply, as the whites of her eyes reveal the cracks in her confidence. The lights ahead – the illuminators of the tragedy – dance; they rise and fall, go one direction and then another; and then, come the chirrups from across the sand.
Wanting to be away from the bodies, away from the strange smell of magic mingling with blood, Lystra moves quickly through the waiting portal.
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