i'm told that to be human i must stand still
you can try your hardest, but i never will
She dreams of light, of far away lands. She dreams, and when she awakens, she finds herself elsewhere. Finds herself in places she had only imagined. Or rather, thought she had imagined. But there is never light. Not as there is in her dreams.
She had long ago grown accustomed to curling up for sleep in one place and finding herself in another when she wakes. It has become routine now, to hunt in new places. She had once longed for home and stability, but as time passed, her definition of home had simply grown. Now it is all hers, as much as she could call anything truly hers.
Though day and night has lost all meaning, she still sleeps and wakes. She still dreams. Today she finds herself in a place she has been to before. And as her form shrinks, fur ruffling and canine teeth replacing equine, her belly rumbles with hunger. But with the sun gone, life has faltered. Foliage refuses to grow and creatures small and large begin to waste away. Even the great carnivores are losing their food supply, stolen by the shadow beasts that maul and leave behind the bones to rot.
Instead Ferran has been forced to grow clever. To forage beneath the earth where the smaller creatures descended into safety and hibernation. Though they may make small meals, they keep her well when others waste away.
This is how she finds him - the beaked stallion with his bones protruding in clear evidence of starvation. There is madness in his hunger, in his hunt. Ferran slinks amongst the shadows, avoiding him at first. But the more she watches, the greater her sympathy grows.
She can understand such madness.
So she unearths the woodchucks. It is foolish to hunt for someone other than herself (there is not nearly enough to go around), but beneath the feral guise of the predator, her mother’s kindness still beats in her heart. She approaches with caution, flinging the small, limp bodies in his path before slinking back into the shadows to watch from safety lest he think her a better meal.
ferran
@[auric]