[open] forty-six & two

[Niklas]

my shadow's shedding skin ...

It starts as only the slightest stir, a trick of the eye that makes a passing lizard skitter back the way it has just come. Then bits of shadow begin to leech up through the pale, sandstone soil, stinking faintly of sulfur. They seep across the earth from a wide radius, drawn towards its center. One joins another; there, another union. They begin to pool together, stacking on top of one another in a writhing sphere before reluctantly confining themselves to the boundaries of flesh and bone. He’s a tall, lanky thing, his black, unblemished hide stretched taut across a skeleton of ropy muscle. With muddy brown eyes set in angular, aquiline features, and ears that curl in toward one another just slightly, he is otherwise unremarkable. Somberly, he takes in his new surroundings.

Shifting his weight, he stretches out his neck and coughs several times, spewing mouthfuls of gravedirt, and takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with air for the first time in some days. The sun is already on its descent to the west, heat radiating up from the baked earth. There are some versions of the afterlife that are similar to Pangea, especially in the dead of summer. He’s been here before, when Ana and her shadows ruled over it. But she is long gone and he is not one to harbor regrets.

It does not bother him that he does not remember the last few days, nor where he’s been since Frostreaver tired of his sedate pace and rushed ahead to the Chamber. Rather than risk Set sending him off on another errand, had turned away at the border of the pine kingdom and sunken into the earth … and then there was nothing. He does not dwell long on this puzzle insolvable, instead turns and starts southward, long legs covering ground quickly in spite of his sedate pace.

[Escence]

Escence & Eviction

~Twin Flame~

Several weeks had passed since they arrived with their father in Pangea.  He had shown them around a bit, but being the free spirit I was, I chose to wander from watchful eyes.  Maybe without their judgement I could muster some sort of control over my powers I had yet to find in their combined training efforts.

The radiating heat of the summer day unfazed me, for I was fire.  Wrapped in it from the day of my conception, it has been a part of me both outwardly and inwardly.  From the living flame that dances across my red and white hide, to the fire that burns within my soul.  I know nothing else as much as I know the flame.

I moved casually about the cracked wasteland that is my father's home.  He spoke so highly of it and yet I question just why.  There seemed to be nothing to extraordinary about the dusty earth and lack of color.  The muted tones of red and yellow left me blended into the backdrop, something I was not used to in the greener lands.  There I was an anomaly, threatening and bold.  But I decided I would make the best of my time here, and without a forest to set a blaze it was the perfect place to practice my magic.

Curling around a bend of canyon my red eyes lift to appreciate the vast height of the stone walls.  Here my flames could be contained, and my attempts concealed.  So, I look down the long stretch and to the opening of blue sky at the end.  I stand giving a slight shake to my nerves before closing my eyes.  I breathe deeply, willing my flames to concentrate at my sides, imagining them stretching from me like the wings I have seen other adorn with.  

But my wings are intangible things; swirling vortexes of flame and nothing more.  They require a focus I have not been able to master and even my attempt now is feeble.  The fire swirls and gathers haphazardly.  Creating larger orbs of flame to escape into the atmosphere before they fizzle into nothingness.  I try to call it back, but that just ends in my frustration as more orbs scatter.  Anger begins to boil beneath my flesh as my teeth grind.

As quickly as it started, it ends.  I snort in annoyance, my forehoof striking the ground, sending flame and dust air bound. "Ugh!  I'll never figure this out," I spit out venom laced words before I am walking with heavy steps that echo off the canyon walls...

@Niklas Not sure your plans for this thread but here is a fed-up fire filly xD