through the darkness to the dawn
He is blissfully unaware of so many things, not the least of which being the leopard and its companion lurking in the trees. Or the rattlesnake on a ridge too far away from him to spot.
He is too consumed by his own private delight that he doesn’t even hear the leopard drop back down to earth. He giggles at the way his shuffling feet make his heart beat even harder. He leaps in place, grinning.
Until a voice distracts him and he goes still, eyes wide, mouth frozen in a beaming grin as he turns to face the girl. A girl with wings just like his and his eyes go even wider, the smile even brighter. She tells him her name and he wants to tell her his, too, but she doesn’t give him the chance.
He’d never thought about it. The wolf pup had always come the easiest, so naturally that he’d never tried anything else. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to summon the magic that he knows turns him into the pup but nothing happens. He exhales a great big breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and shakes his head.
“I don’t think so,” he admits, an edge of disappointment in his voice. But it is chased away rather promptly by another figure that comes careening toward them. He doesn’t even have time to try and leap out of the way by the time she goes skidding to a stop, falling over backwards and shifting seamlessly from a foal to something else entirely. Something he’d never seen before.
He lets out a gasp, murmurs a mystified, “wow!” He glances at Chel with that same beaming grin before he summons his magic again. He laughs through his own transition back to the wolf pup, something more the cub’s size. He looks up at Chel with a toothy grin and then bounds toward the cub.