"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
He should probably go home. Probably. But the weather is amazing and the leaves have just begun to turn, and it honestly it would be a total shame to miss out on such a perfect opportunity to shift, maybe hunt a little bit. The Forest had always been a favorite area to do such a thing - it was relatively covered, and hosted enough small, furry little beasts to satisfy his whimsical need for flesh. In the daytime, he stood out like a sore thumb, (a handsome one, if he could say so himself) but in his other body he blended all too well into the background. With the kick of his heels he canters full on into the heart of the wood, whizzing past the less-interesting life forms until he comes to a seemingly secluded area of brush. He slows, lowers his velvet muzzle to the earth and inhales deeply. Perfect.
Within a seamless moment he’s no longer horse, but wolf. A great, shaggy, black beast that retains his blue eyes. He yips, feeling good in his other skin. It’d been too long since he’d kept this form, and the horse part of himself seemed to serve no purpose now that he’d got breeding season out of his system. He flops to the ground, rolls in the intensified smell of the forest floor, and then leaps up to bound into the shadows. He feels pity for all of the horses here in beqanna that will never experience this kind of freedom - the freedom to truly lose ones self to another shape, another purpose. When Lupei was horse he had people who depended on him, responsibilities. But when Lupei was wolf, there was no one person nor any one thing that held him back.
The splattering of light against his pelt feels good, and with his nose tipped to the air he can already sense something tasty not far off. But there’s another smell, fainter, unrecognizable. Lupei lowers his head and stands his ground, the scruff of his neck standing on edge. “Who’s there?” He snarls, tongue flicking out between his front teeth to test the air.
From a lost child she had grown into a yearling, a poor one you could say. She had been a couple of months old when she had first woken up in the forest and ever since the forest had been her home. Until today the mantis green girl doesn’t understand what has happened, how she had ended up in the forest all alone. Her mother had been a good one and her disappearing didn’t make sense at all, but honestly, Umqra wasn’t really able to remember the mare anymore. Somehow she had survived, but the lack of food and nutrition are clearly shown in her malnourished form and dull coat.
Her green coat allows her to mingle with the forest’s green during most of the year, but with the autumn having set in that has become harder. Nonetheless she does try to hide herself when the scent of a predator reaches her. And not long after that he appears, big and all black, but piercing blue eyes. Umqra shivers as her breath stocks, unable to not fear the presence of a predator. At the same time the creature’s scent sparks something familiar in her and curiously she edges closer.
She doesn’t know what has given her away, but he has noticed her. The venom that drips from his voice cause her to tremble in fear and it is only with slow steps that she manages to come closer. Her throat is thick with the lump that has formed, making it unable so reply with words. The yearling lowers her head a little, ears pushed back in insecurity and nostrils standing wide open, moving only a little into the clearing.
The fear that shakes her also makes her unable to further move or reply. All Umqra can do is stare at the creature, the creature that had just spoken to her, the creature that shouldn’t be able to use words to express itself. Inside her the wolf growls, not liking it’s host fear and it is itching to take over. And it does. It is feral instinct that pushes her to shift, the wolf comes out to play again now the filly had been in a weak state of mind. Green turns into black, the bigger form of a yearling horse turns into the one of a teenage wolf and the moral thinking she had was taken over by canine instincts.
Unlike the poor appearance of a horse the young wolf is more fierce. Ears perking up, head tucked low and lips curled up in a sneer, teeth bared. Rumbling comes from deep within her before she growls softly, snapping her teeth a few times. Claws dig into the ground, looking for something to hold on to.
let it out so it can breathe
umqra
WORDS BY SAPPHIRE HTML BY CALL
OOC: Somehow I seem unable to write short and compact posts lately.. They all get soo long with rambling nonsense..
OOC: Power-played a little bit! Let me know if you want me to change it <3
lupei
What the truth is, I can't say anymore
That shade of green. It taunts him, even as the filly stands there and keeps her mouth shut. “Astri...” He thinks, but it couldn’t possibly be her. A sibling then? One his mother had never mentioned? Impossible. The Chamber mare would never abandon any child of hers, and this particular foal has most certainly been abandoned. The silence between them deepens and Lupei finds himself one second away from bounding forward to press her into the earth and demand where she came from, but the girl is quicker to respond (rather, her body is) and she buckles before shifting.
His eyes widen. Another shifter, and wolf at that. Her snaps and taunting cause the brute to raise his head, jaw snapping open to let a single snarl rip through him. Whereas the horse had been timid, the wolf is unafraid. Lupei paces, tail sweeping upwards to curl over his backside in a display of dominance. She may be shifter, but from the looks of her transformation she hadn’t quite gotten the routine down. He eyes her, ears flat and gums bared, daring her to challenge - but he won’t give her that opportunity.
He lunges, letting loose another cry before bearing down on her, teeth gnashing together to try and grab her scruff and force her to the ground in submission. She’s no match for his size, but he’s not trying to kill her - only teach her a lesson. “Give in!” He snarls, the words coming out in mangled mess, “Give in or I’ll do much worse than this.” He offers. He didn’t want to maim her, certainly didn’t want to kill her, wolf-shifters weren’t common around here, but he’d be damned if he was going to let some pumped-up little mare threaten him.
In the split second she’s torn between fear (the filly) and anger (the cub) she notices the look he gives her. He’s clearly surprised to see her, or at least, that is how it looks to her, but as she gets forced into shifting she doesn’t get any time to maul over it. There is simply no space for any rational thoughts in the dark – with green strikes – wolf pup’s mind.
When his head rises, hers lowers. And instead of that her ears fall back against her skull – like a horse would do – her perk up. When the big wolf challenges her, the wolf Umqra is eager to accept it. The soft growl is only a rumbling sound from deep within her chest and it’s the only sign that she’s about to strike. She squat’s down, bending her furry legs as her claws dig into the dirt, ready to launch herself forward. But before she does, he does.
The wolf inside is furious, growling and snarling, protesting loudly against the force that tries to submit her. The feral animal doesn’t like the thought of submitting, but nonetheless the primal instincts are set to give in. She’s pressed into the ground and his growling words sounds close to her ears. Umqra growls back lowly in response, but after the first struggling and clawing her body stills.
Occasionally there is a soft growling sound, but mostly you hear her panting breath.
It was purely due to instincts that she has calmed down, submitting herself to the more dominant wolf. Although the wolf instinctively fights for dominance, it also knowns when to submit. In this case it was enough to have the much bigger – and adult – wolf press her into the ground to have her come to her senses. And honestly, Umqra finds comfort in it. It is like the weight of the world falls from her shoulders, instinctively accepting the pack that found her.
let it out so it can breathe
umqra
WORDS BY SAPPHIRE HTML BY CALL
OOC: This sucks.. I spend hours on writing this and it just wouldn't go.. Uhg..
He doesn’t release her until he can physically feel the tension between her shoulders dissolve. His jaw widens, slowly, and his teeth release the bulk of her scruff leaving her with nothing but perhaps a sore spot. Lupei rolls his tongue across the roof of his mouth to rid his palette of her unkempt fur. Children. “You’re strong, I’ll give you that.” He admits, turning away from her to shift back to his equine body. “But you’re untrained, irrational.” He tells her. His eyes pin her, mulling over her malnourished state for a moment before thinking about opportunity. On the one hand, he doesn’t want to offer a stray any hope, but on the other, he could gain a valuable tool. “Where are you from? Who’s your parents?” He questions, wondering if even the girl knew herself.
Lupei finds it a shame that gifted horses go abandoned in this world. Not only was it dangerous, as he’d showed her, but it made for trouble down the line when they couldn’t control themselves. Astri, his dam, had tried her best but being un-gifted herself she’d sought help from outside sources. Lupei had slipped up once, and it had cost a life. Now it’s no longer a matter of what he wants; taking in this girl seems a matter of necessity. “I can help you, train you, if that’s what you think you’d want.” Lupei says, tail twitching with the effort of being responsible. “I’ve been a shifter since birth, but I mastered it at a young age thanks to another horse.”
“You could be great.” Lupei ponders aloud. The true strength of a wolf lied within the pack - the hunt was stronger, more deadly. If this filly was willing to learn, Lupei could bet there would be others too. “But greatness comes with hard work.” He finishes, ending his talk with a hard stare at the younger wolf. If she turned away his offer, then Lupei would think her a fool. But, he wouldn’t think that this particular shifter was fool enough to turn away protection, food, and guidance.
ooc: It gave me tons of muse! Lupei likes her. (deep deep deeeeeeeep down.)
Even though the pressure of his weight is off her back and she’s released from his hold, she keeps herself flat on the ground. By rolling her shoulders a little the wolf pup attempts to get rid of the soreness that causes the tingling feeling in her neck, mewling softly to voice her discomfort. It is only when Umqra hears his voice again that she sits up, ears flat against her head in submission and tail wrapped tightly against her rump. Her head tilts a little to the side, not able to not feel flattered by the words he uses to praise her, only to growl softly – like she’s muttering – when he critiques her right away too.
Curiously she has watched him shift, gracefully moving from one for to the other and before he can continue to speak, she shifts. It is the wolf submitting to its leader and without questioning it she follows his example. Black fur gets traded for green fur and her black mane and tail sprout from het back and tailbone in a tangled mess. Umqra is back to being a filly again, a rather confused and scared one to say.
She blinks and gasps for air, trembling over her whole body again, as she quickly steps back a little to create more space between her and the stranger. Umqra doesn’t know who he is, or how he found her, or how she waked up with someone talking to her like this. Her fear is fuelled by the black gap in her memory, the wolf didn’t have any part in the memories of this form and therefor nothing to be scared of. Her green head dips in submission and automatically the girl starts to make some chewing movements, displaying her youth and inexperience.
Although she’s still spoken by the newest addition of black gaps in her mind, she feels oddly comfortable around this stranger. His coat matches hers, although he also shows different splashes of green, where she has the black. But other than that she doesn’t know him or recognizes anything about him. She questions it, but at the same time accepts it how it comes. ”Zwander..” she mumbles her reply, barely audible as her gaze is cast down. ”My mother is Zwander. But.. but I don’t know where she is. One day I was in this forest and mother was gone.” Umqra doesn’t really remember the black mare anymore, but she does remember the feeling that her mother gave off. With Zwander around she felt safe and cared for, happy and well fed, nothing like the months that she had spent alone.
Where his first questions had been logical, understandable, his following words confuse her. Carefully the mantis green child lifts her head, looking up to meet his gaze, displaying her confusion. What was he talking about? Training, shifter, mastered? Umqra backs away from him further, ears turning towards her neck and her tail flicking nervously. ”What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Her voice is still somewhat rusty and shrill, as she had barely used it in these last months, but it voices her confuses and somewhat afraid state of mind clearly. She starts to somewhat tremble again, both due to fear and the sudden coldness that holds her in his hold.
Confusion rises if he speaks like he knows her, and has seen her potential. But what good could a underfed yearling girl do? She couldn’t do a thing, hadn’t mastered a thing. Heck, she even hadn’t been socialized from the moment that she had lost her mother. But nonetheless does the idea of him offering her a place at his side appeal to her. Umqra has been alone too long already and she’s eager to belong somewhere, to be part of something. She wants to feel safe and sheltered again, instead of afraid of every little sound that comes from deep within the forest. His words are strange to her, but she would accept this strange story of him if that meant protection.
He doesn’t notice her confusion at first - he’s so wrapped up in his own speech. That’s typical for him though; Lupei is as narcissistic as they come. Of course he doesn’t see when her gaze begins to narrow and a frown tugs at the edge of her lips. He can’t tell that she hasn’t remembered a thing at all about her shift, about being a wolf. He keeps talking and finally the girl answers, a name that has him digging as deep as he can into his subconscious. He can’t recall a Zwander, but the more he looks over her green coat the less likely it seems that any other horse around here would pass on such a specific coat gene. Inwardly, Lupei feels like he’s been hit in the gut. First Lestrade, now this filly. Zojja was right - he’d been a bit too busy for his own good.
When she asks him what he’s babbling on about, it sort of clicks in a section of his brain. Her face, her timid nature, the way she was tensed to run at any moment, like a faun. Lupei shakes his head slowly, eyes closing before he sighs and looks at her again. “You don’t remember, do you?” He asks, head lowering to meet her frightened stare. “You don’t remember changing into a wolf?” Lupei prods, ears falling forward to hear her reply. Normally, he’d be gone, casting her off as a loony like the greying stallion he’d met so long ago, but he can’t exactly abandon any life that he’s helped create. Astri had made sure to imprint upon him that family - no matter how unknown - always came first.
He’s not sure where to go from here - had her memory been wiped? Was her shifting a curse? He’d always remembered who he was in either form, so had Zojja. Clearly something in this young girl was missing. “Do you remember anything of your past? Do you even know your name?” He asks her, thoughts turning to who could help her if she really had no control over her gift. He’d never really been confronted with a problem of this magnitude before - but he wasn’t so easily willing to give up on her.
Her eyes roam across his form, a little shy and hesitant, but she takes him in nonetheless. After all, this was the first time that she had come across a horse with a coat just as hers. Her interest in him is in conflict with the confusion that is caused by his words. Umqra’s ears are perked forward as he looks at him, but at the same time there is the frown and obvious confusion. Somewhere tucked away in her mind there is fear too. Fear from the nth black gap in her memory, fear from the strange things this green stallion is talking about, fear that she had felt moments before her first shift.
She cannot help but to flinch a little and cast her gaze down as he sighs. She knows that look, she knows that disappointment. On instinct she moves a few steps backwards, like she’s admitting her wrong doing without having really done anything wrong. To Umqra it is like he’s speaking in riddles, about riddles, again, but she shakes her head nonetheless. She doesn’t remember, that’s a fact, but it couldn’t be the thing he’s talking about, right? But then he says it again. Carefully the mantis green girl lifts her gaze again, meeting his eyes again as she shallows the lump that has formed in her throat. ”No..” Her voice is barely a whisper as she admits it. Umqra takes her lower lip in between her teeth, nibbling the soft flesh a little uneasy as she keeps looking at him.
A wolf. Really? That couldn’t be true, right? Such thing couldn’t really exist, could it? But so shouldn’t there be horses with green coats, just like theirs, and who knows which tricks mother nature had set loose on the world. This time Umqra can nod and so she does. ”Umqra. My name is Umqra” she answers, this time a little more confident. At least this was a question the green filly knew how to answer, and she hoped it was what he wanted to hear. Disappointing him any further would be terrible, especially since he had offered her a home. A place to belong. And after being alone and lost for so long, everything sounded appealing and everything would be better. ”I.. I remember mother. But then there’s a gap… Momma was gone and I.. I was alone here.. And have been ever since..” That’s all she knows. She doesn’t know how to explain the gaps. She had tried to leave the forest once, in an attempt to search for her mother, but somehow she had woken up in the forest again, just as clueless and shaken as every time before that.
It’s her softness that irritates him the most. That shy, coy attitude bred into her no doubt on her mother’s side. He loathes it - the nature of women to be meek and mild. The bottom lip held precariously between her teeth grates against his nerves. If she were a colt, he’d be telling her buck up, to look him in the eye and never show cowardice against a larger enemy. But he withdraws these angry, irrational thoughts. He’d seen a flash of defiance in her - the side that had been given to her from him. All was not lost on this youngling. Her sporadic memory comes as a bit of a hinderance, but Lupei has never been one to back down from a challenge so he looks her over once more (Astri’s cold eyes peer at him from the netherworld) and clicks his tongue aloud instead of sighing.
“Umqra,” He begins, testing the name to find it satisfyingly bold. Not a name one would usually give to a filly. “I’m your sire, Lupei.” He ends, casting his die in hopes that the filly won’t question his authority. There was more of a chance that she was his anyways, and he knew that. There was the question of what to do with her now, what purpose she could serve in the long run if she couldn’t get a handle on her gift. Lupei has never been a teacher before, much less a father. He figures, though, that if he can stomach the burden with Zojja, another body to tag along can only do more good than harm. He doubts his wolfish counterpart will object too highly to the strange green filly before him - and if she did, then Lupei would find other means to house Umqra. But until that moment came, he’d keep her close by.
“You’ll be living with me now, understand? I’m going to help you fill in those gaps.” He commands, tail swinging behind him with relative ease. If Umqra really was his, and she really could find a way to get a grip on her powers, then there was no telling what other offspring of his may be lurking out in the wilds running rampant with some form of his genetics. The girl couldn’t possibly know it, but she sparked something within the two-toned stallion. An idea, hazy, unformed, but seeded in the back corners of his mind where it would grow and flourish. His eyes connect with hers and he smiles briskly, shortly, but still a smile. Yes, he reasons that little Umqra would make a fine addition indeed.
Who could blame her for being this shy, hesitant and insecure? Although he doesn’t really have the right to do so, the mint green and teal ombre stallion clearly is. But considering the things that had happened to her, it would seem perfectly normal for Umqra to have turned out this day. She’s aware of the fact that things happen to her, things she cannot control nor understand, and on top of that she had been all alone. There had been no-one to comfort and support her, all she had was herself. Until now that was.
For a sort second she can only look at him, even forgetting to caste her eyes down, as she stares just into his gaze. ”F..father?” she asks, still a little dazed and obviously surprised by this sudden revelation. Slowly but surely as smile start to pull on the corners of her dark lips and her whole posture instantly relaxes some. She has found comfort in his words, not at all questioning him – it was highly possible with both their green coats after all. A little hesitant Umqra takes a small step forward, glancing up at the taller male, that had turned out to be her father, to make sure he was allowing her to come closer.
The mantis green girl’s smile grows wider when their gazes meet and she’s able to witness the smile that’s shortly displayed on his lips. Her heart flutters and is suddenly beating a tad bit faster in her chest as she takes it. He smiled at her and even wanted her to come with him. Umqra finds herself eagerly nodding as she steps even closer, in fact dying to snuggle herself against his side. She had gone without a parent for so long already while she had much needed the support. And now finally there was someone willing to welcome her home. ”Just.. Just tell me what to do..” she almost whispers, giving her whole being to the stallion she had just met. But this wasn’t any stallion, after all, he told her he was her father. Her father.
