"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
How long had she been here? Living a twilight life on the fringes of the trees and the dark. The wolf keeping her under lock and key in her own mind. There had been something terrible, something tragic and the trees were aflame. There had been a filly, a girl to protect. Love and loss and all while she was stuck. The wolf made sure of that. The wolf had kept her safe during the fall of the Taiga. He had led her on soft paws through ash and smoke. Always one step ahead of the creatures sent from a vengeful god to make them pay for their hubris.
There were so many others that she had seen come and go from behind canid eyes. So much blood, and now so much dust. Her hooves tread soft and silent on the loam and needles that never quite leave the Taiga floor. Her horns tangle in the branches of new growth and catch on low hanging branches as she twines among trees. It's quiet here. Quiet and lonely. When she closes her eyes she still sees the pelts of the winter wolf she left behind and the glass boy she should have saved. Ears prick to the sound of bird call and the whispers of the predator inside her, but neither drowns out the sound of snapping glass and tearing paper. Her heart aches like the Taiga aches.
No matter how she tries she can't leave the trees, so she wanders and she waits. Soon someone will find the gunmetal mare with stars in her eyes and a wolf in her heart.
So she waits, trapped in the woods, waiting for someone to save her.
the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept
His mother might not follow this time.
This time, the boy changed form. It’s a brown wolf puppy, still showing the one dark blue sock on his right forepaw, with the stars and swirls in it reminding one of a galaxy perhaps. But he doesn’t really care at this point how he looks. All he wants is to run far away, running, running... chasing.
His nose picks up a scent, prey, and even though he is young, in this predatory form he has a predator’s instincts. Having replaced several milk teeth for sharper ones already, he should be capable of fending for himself.
It’s not true, though. His green mother might be angry of him for running away all the time; so far she’s welcomed him back to her as long as he sort-of-behaved. This time however, he’s turned into a puppy instead of his normal form, and one can argue a wolf, even as a child, needs no horse for a mother.
He pounces, but is not fast enough to catch the rabbit. Whining softly, he looks about his surroundings.
The wolf inside her remember's the tang of copper and rush of adrenaline that accompanies the kill, and he does his best to remind her. He whispers lovingly in her ear of the power she wields. Of how strong they are together, of all the things he's done for her, of all the things he will do to her. It's a constant drone that plagues her when she's alone. The sweet sinful voice that pushes her to seek company just for a moments peace, and what drives her again and again to the solitude of the woods.
Tonight she is alone.
She is alone, and then she's not. Tyrna's reverie is disturbed by a flash of brown pelt and and the piteous whine of a pup. Glancing down, she spots it. A ruffled thing of gangly limbs and too large paws one of which looks like it was dipped in the night sky. She starts and takes a step back, tossing her head and preparing to fight. It takes her a glance to see that compared to the monster inside, this wolf pup is no threat. It's kinda cute and, well, fluffy. She blinks down at the pup before dipping her head down to sniff at him. The boy smells like a predator but has the lingering scents of Beqanna magic about him. A shifter. She had known many shifters in her years and this one seemed no different. She gently huffs into the boys fur before drawing up to her full height, watching him. Her hide blends with the shadows while her horns and eyes glint in the moonlight.
"Hello Little One. Aren't you a little far from home?"
the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept
As a colt, he was always harmless. Innocent, though with a love for running around and always messing up with his too-long legs, and whenever he tumbled, or had bumped into a tree, there would be yet another mark on him that his mother would look at, a face that said ‘I told you so’. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him - but she sure had no use for him either, and it was clear that she found his whole existence a bit annoying, as if it kept her from moving on.
It did, of course. She’d never wanted a child, the point of him existing however is that nobody says no to a magic-wielding god or darkness; one had only the choice of making the experience pleasant or unpleasant (and that he’d been attractive as hell, helped his case). So now she had Cyneric. But they often fought about what he should and shouldn’t do, and this time his running, had made him change form, and she’d just not found him again.
And Cyneric found that running as a wolf pup was something that befitted him way better than as a young horse, he was lower to the ground, and more sturdy that way.
Of course, he was also more fluffy and perhaps endearing, which helped his case right about now.
Having fallen to his hind, tail laying about just behind him, he looked up with wide eyes as another horse drew near, having found him perhaps because of the sounds he’d made. But he’d already forgotten about the rabbit, this mare was so different from his mother, going about him gently, asking if he was lost.
”Home?” he repeated slowly, looking at her with questions written all over his face. Was it far away? How far had he come? Mother might be somewhere in the meadow, or the field, or perhaps she wasn’t looking for him any more, thinking he would fend for himself or come find her when he was done being a pain in her neck.
But the truth was that neither he nor his mother had a definite home, and after a long, long frown of thinking, he shakes his head. ”I’ve no home, so I’m never far away.” He decides.
Still sitting wide-legged on the earth, he wags his tail at the mare. ”Do you have a home?” he asks, and then, blinks his bright blue eyes as he remembers introductions and politeness (not that his mother usually was polite, but he knew it from other horses approaching him or her, sometimes, though the encounters were always short). ”I’m Cyneric. Who are you?”
The mare rolls the name across her tongue and across her mind, trying to place the little pup. He smells of grass and earth, pine and wet pup. She decides she hasn't met him or his kin. She is older now and has lived through many changes to the land and the lives of it's inhabitants. One small wolf is merely a blip on the timeline of her life, but he is sweet and she likes his innocent company.
"You are awfully brave for a youngling, traversing the big bad woods by yourself." She smiles softly at him, he's just a boy and for now she's not a monster.
"My name is Tyrna. The Taiga used to be my home before..." Before everything changed and she was cast adrift, just another ghost to haunt the woods and scare the children. "Well, the before doesn't matter anymore, but I still like it here. What are you doing all the way out here? There are monsters in the woods and your mother must be worried."
She smiles fondly at the ball of brown fur and big, blue eyes. Reminded of those she left behind and determined to protect him from the dark.
the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept
He has decided he likes her, and wags his tail at the woman of dark and white. She compliments him and he gleams, because his mother is much sparser with kind words and compliments, and he’s so happy to recieve one. No matter how little it may mean to her, to him it means the world. Though he’s a tiny bit less sure about the big bad woods-part, but, she’s here, and so he’s not alone, and he tilts his head at her slightly. ”You’re here. It’s not that bad, is it?” If the woods are bad why is she here then?
”Monsters?” he frowns a deep puppy-frown. Mother called him a monster sometimes, when he did something she didn’t like, but other than that he wasn’t sure what the word truly meant. ”I’m a monster. I think?” He looks up at the mare, Tyrna she said, looking for confirmation.
”Mother is...” he looks around but he didn’t see her. ”I may have run too fast for her.” he whispers to the sabino mare with a childish giggle to his voice. ”I can stick with you if you want? Protect you from the monsters?” He stands up, and gives her a practise-growl (though the sound is probably too childish to be any kind of fearsome).
