"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
Her mother was proud of her for what she has learned in the short years of her life—but that doesn’t mean that she is content to let her settle. Sochi has seen what Risk can do with is gift and has seen the true potential in her children. She knows that it takes grit to reach the full potential though. It takes effort and therefore she is quick to criticize and slow to praise. She tells Breach daily to practice—to try new things. To study the wildlife around her and commit them to memory. To practice her abilities in each form.
And, once she sees Mazikeen go through her paces, she tells he daughter to seek her out.
So, both excited and disgruntled at the order, Breach takes off in the morning to find the other girl. She stretches as she wakes, shaking the dust from her pale coat, and glances upward. It would be easy to take to the sky—to use it as a vantage point to try and hunt for Mazikeen—but she doesn’t feel particularly interested in easy today. So instead she shifts into the hare that she had seen during her wanderings.
It’s strange to see the world from this vantage point, but she likes how nimble she feels—likes the way that the earth feels so close and she feels so stable. Feeling the excitement, she shakes out a foot and then takes off, her pace extending as she eats up more and more earth—leaping across it as she goes.
She travels through the cove, down the coastline, before she angles inward. Breach feels more and more exhilarated the longer that she runs and she feels a sharp pang of disappointment when she finally finds the filly of white and black and orange. She considers just racing past her and coming back later, but her mother’s words ring in her ears and so, with a sigh, she slows down—shifting into her equine form.
Stepping forward, body slick with the sweat earned as the hare, she grins.
“Mazikeen, right?”
I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in
There’s still a little bit of a thrill whenever Mazikeen meets another shifter - even though the vast majority of those she has met in her short life have had at least one form of the ability. It’s enough to make her wonder whether everyone can do it and they just don’t know it yet - a question she thinks she will ask her father the next time she sees the quiet stallion.
She’s young to have a dual life, but she thrills in the time split between her family and being here in the Cove and learning everything she can.
Although Mazikeen is not jealous by nature, she does note with some satisfaction the sweat on the filly after she shifts from the hare shape - glad to see that shifting is not automatically easier for someone else close to her age.
“Yeah, that’s me.” Her initial reaction is distracted, almost a little rude, because there’s something familiar about the iridescent markings and blue sheen. And then suddenly it begins to click. Instead of asking whether this is the daughter Sochi had mentioned, Mazikeen’s orange eyes widen a little as she remembers a brindled boy she met. “Are you Spirit’s sister?” It’ll be a little embarrassing if she got it wrong, but Mazikeen feels confident in her assumptions. It’s too much of a coincidence - even though her mind is still a little boggled that she had met one of Sochi’s children even before she met the Tigress herself.
“The first time I met him, he was a fat little rodent.” Mazikeen’s grin resurfaces then, an edge to it that is more playful than anything. And though she has been preferring the shapes of wolves and foxes and osprey over those of prey lately, she shifts then into the round, guinea pig form that she had learned of that day.
There is something similar in the other girl’s eyes that immediately sparks Breach’s interest. It is enough to recognize like in the other girl and suddenly what had previously felt like a chore feels a little easier—a little more pleasant. Perhaps practicing her shifting with Mazikeen would not be as dreary of a day as she had though before. Perhaps it would even be interesting—and maybe learning would not be so dull.
The surprise she feels at the mention of her older brother registers on her face and she doesn’t bother to hide or conceal it. “I am,” she says quickly, not thinking twice about confirming her relation. It would be difficult to anyway—the resemblance between her and the boy was too apparent for her to truly hide it.
She grins at the remembering of their first meeting.
“He always chooses the funniest animals,” she says before her face goes a little more serious. “Although he has some not-so-funny choices too.” They sparred enough to know that she couldn’t underestimate her kind older brother. Laughing, she watches the girl shift into the small animal and she quickly follows, although she does not mimic the rodent. Instead he shifts into a natural predator of the guinea pig, thinking back to all of the times that she has played this exact game with Spirit.
With a little effort, she emerges as a coyote—lean and ready to pounce. She leans down on her limber front legs and snaps her jaws at the air in front of her before making a series of small yips and cries.
She leaps forward, bouncing around the guinea pig but not making a move to kill.
Her eyes bright, she taunts Mazikeen.
“Come on, show me something else.” She wiggles with excitement. “Then it’ll be my turn!”
I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in
It’s so easy to feel fear in this form, though Mazikeen attempts to hide it with laughter when Breach shifts into a coyote. The yips and cries send shivers down her weak, rodent, spine and rage bubbles in Mazikeen. It’s not directed towards the younger filly, though, and she tries to swallow it down - telling herself that she is capable, she is strong, she will not be breakfast.
The taunt, the excitement, is quick to catch in her - feeding on the fear and anger - and she gives into these happier (and more productive) emotions willingly. Forcing herself to remember why they are playing this game, to remember that she is not really a little fat rat.
The guinea pig shifts, growing and changing from fur to feathers as it is replaced with a bearded vulture - her large black wings spreading from her sides before she takes off in a rush of air and circles around the coyote. She’s been practicing her flight lately, learning all the new ways she can move in all the different shapes she can take.
The noises that this form makes are similar to that of the canine below, squeals and yips and while not exactly menacing, she calls out with them anyway - followed by a burst of delighted laughter. She circles just a couple feet overhead, feeling more at home in this form than the guinea pig, and watches with sharp orange eyes to see what Breach will do next.
Breach has only truly practiced her gift with her family—mostly, with her mother’s tigress form, but also with her brother and father’s fluid ability. It is something new entirely to do it opposite from Mazikeen and she feels a thrill at it along with an entirely natural rush of adrenaline. She has no idea what the other girl is capable of—both in her gift and her extent for cruelty—and she finds that she likes the danger of it.
Would they actually fight, she wonders.
Would she be able to hide her delight in it.
Her mother’s penchant for violence rolls under her skin like a shiver of joy and she suppresses it by snapping her coyote jaws at the air as the large bird circles above her. She stands up her hind legs and bats her front paw out, swiping at the air. Frustrated by her lack of reach, she reaches inside of her to find another animal. In a burst of creativity, she shifts into a great horned owl, taking to the skies after.
The wingspan in this form is larger than she’s used to, spreading a full five feet, and she feels the rush of air as she takes off after the vulture. She trills loudly, the sound coming naturally, and is about to dive when she feels the exhaustion beginning to fray around the edges. She cries out as she tucks into her wings and begins to circle back to the ground. The dive causes her to somersault down into the dust, rolling first as a bird and then as the filly. When she comes to a stop, she rests, breathing heavily.
She lifts her pale head up, streaked with dust, fatigue and embarrassment fighting her exhilaration.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever done this many shifts in a row.”
I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in
Mazikeen is careful to fly just out of reach of Breach’s coyote form, even on two legs. It’s more out of a desire to tease, to encourage a shift, than any self-preservation though. There’s a grin when coyote becomes owl and Mazikeen beats at the air with her wings to lead the chase. It doesn’t last nearly long enough to be satisfying, however.
Two emotions rise in Mazikeen when she hears Breach cry out and then as she watches the owl dive towards the ground instead of coming after her: concern and delight. She would have been furious if this younger filly was already better at shifting than Maze had been at her age. Or even better than she was now. There was only a year or so between their ages - close enough to be rivals or friends but enough that Maze felt like her extra year of practicing should make a difference.
She is, secretly, quite pleased that it has.
When she lands back on the ground and shifts back into her horse-self, this small feeling of malice isn’t present in her gaze as she draws closer to the collapsed girl. Maze hides the concern too, though she’s less sure why she feels the need to keep that part hidden.
Maybe she’s just watched her mother take one too many punches over that same feeling.
“The first time I did a bunch of shifts in a row I passed out.” But she is quick to add. “Not for long.” Because she doesn’t want to seem weak.
She's a little winded - flight always seemed to take the energy right out of her - but she is caught up trying to pretend that she isn't. Still, to give them both a break she decides to ask a question. “What's your favourite form?” It's a question she hasn't been able to ask anyone else because it had been so obvious. Her mother's snow leopard, Sochi's tiger, and Daye's wolf.
Breach is confident enough in her own abilities that it doesn’t take her long to lose any sense of embarrassment in front of Maze. She grins, her face streaked with her dirt, her neck slick with sweat. “I reach a limit, I feel like,” she explains, not yet lifting off of the ground. “It’s like I can only shift so many times and then if I try again, I can’t hold on it. I just slip and fall back into my regular body.”
She considers, thinking.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom do that.”
She reasons it’s just because her mom is older and the though quickly passes. She is certain that, in time, she won’t fall out of her shifts nearly as often as she does now. Already, her shifts grow longer and easier for her. It’s only a matter of time until she learns her limits, stretches them, until they hardly exist.
Finally lifting herself, she shakes until dust plumes off of her thin body.
“On land? Probably the tiger.” Another grin. It is obvious, she thinks, and almost certainly because she always felt the most connected with her mother when she wore that frame, but she doesn’t think too deeply about it. “But I prefer to be in the air.” Her gaze flicks to where the ocean lies, beyond the horizon. “And I think I’d like swimming more, but I haven’t tried that too much before.”
A shrug as she trains her eyes back on the other girl.
“What about you? What’s your favorite?”
I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in
It feels as though they are speaking another language, one reserved specifically for shifters. The words Breach say make sense to Maze without her having to think about it - she recognizes the feelings. For her, it felt more like being stuck than slipping but she reasons easily enough that the concept must be the same.
“I’ve never tried swimming before.” Her orange gaze flickers to the coast. Really, she had not even thought to explore what new shapes and animals she could try in the water. Fish, certainly, but what else existed in that strange world away from the sun?
One day, Mazikeen will see a shark and be over the moon with joy she'll feel that such a sleek hunter exists.
But her thoughts return to the present when the question she had asked of Breach is returned. “I don’t have one yet.” She answers honestly, a hint of the sadness she feels at this leaking into the corners of the words. “Every form I take reminds me of someone else. A tiger, a wolf, a snow leopard. They’re all just shades of the mares I admire. None of them feel like me yet.” Mazikeen loves that she can shift into anything she wishes - but she is envious of the love and rooted instinct that Daye exudes when she’s in her wolf form.
She wants that, wants to find what second skin is truly hers. What the name for the animal inside her is.
“I did like that bird just now though.” She muses with a grin, and as if beckoned - wings spread from her side, larger (more proportioned to her horse form) but the great smoky grey of the bearded vulture form. Her smile brightens a little further as they fold and settle against her pale body. Maybe she was one step closer to figuring out where her home was after all.