"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
for so long had my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice but the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary point
She is different than she was.
She is wild still, as her mother had raised her to be, but death changed her. The first time, when she stared it down while Ghaul tore her limb from limb. The second time, when the war sent a cliff tumbling down on top of her and saltwater had flooded her lungs. And then the third time. When she had ripped it from the throat of Mesec, leaving him on death’s doorstop with her throat on his lips.
And she knows it is irreversible.
She leaves Loess, freed and her warning left in the torn body of the silver stallion.
At first, she takes to the skies, a hawk—her preferred method of travel. She flies for hours, until her wings ache and her lungs sting, and she can nearly forget the deadened look in his eye when the blood drained from him so slowly. And then she lands, shifting into her mother’s tigress. Launching forward, the ground pounding beneath her heavy paws, her head thudding painfully with the realization of it.
She was no better than Ghaul.
She was no kinder than her mother.
She was the Alpha—but she was a killer too.
The thought of it is chilling. Empowering. Sickening. It swirls in her belly until it sours, turns her mouth dry and sets her blood on fire. She cannot decide if she is ready to fight again or if she wants to sleep until this nightmare ends. Instead she shifts back into herself—into this version of herself, at least—and stands on the edge of the forest. Somber. Clear-eyed. Dried blood on the corners of her pale mouth.
She looks into the shadows and sees nothing reflected back at her.
though ritual pyre sending smoke to the sky as the building continues to burn though rapt in the ruin, the pain in the grave, is lies you leave tied to the earth
It was fitting that she found the Bird that was inside of her but taking its shape had not taught her a great deal more about them, except for the great trouble of keeping feathers in order, of their care, and of the way the wind billows over them, how one feather shifted when it should not be can send her wheeling through the sky.
It's been a long time since that happened - by accident, anyway.
They say you learn to recognize a shifter, and that can be true, to an extent. Most only play at being the creature whose skin they are wearing. It's rare that the animal takes them over, it's rare that they learn the way they speak well enough to fool anyone but other horses. The Bird did not teach her to speak like the birds, after all, and much of her avian, feral nature has always been there. Popinjay has learned through study the ways to communicate simple information (that she is not a threat, or that she is.)
From high in the heavens, she coasts the thermals, and she watches.
The hawk is up to something, she doesn't wheel or dive, she is not hunting, at least, not for the usual sort of prey. She does not circle a territory but streaks across the sky like an arrow, single-minded, across many. She isn't watching for crows or other hawks. It is not very correct behavior, for a hawk. Her wings are not designed for this sort of flight, so it's no surprise that she tires.
And, for Poppy, it is no surprise when she shifts, either.
The tiger shape suits the shifter better, the Rook thinks, flying lower. It seems more natural, but of course, Popinjay has made no study of tigers.
The Bird always feels so much more serious than the Mare. When the palomino shifts, gleaming blue and bloody, Poppy lands nearby, small and bay, her own mouth in its usual grin.
None of them are what they used to be, but the Nerininan does not let regret weight her wings. Nor does she let caution slow her steps to the somber girl.
"Y'know, if you're tryna get somewhere fast, there's better birds to be than a hawk. Although, they're not as cool looking." She rolls her shoulders, nonchalant, "Can't win 'em all, I guess."
for so long had my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice but the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary point
The other smells faintly of Nerine—of the saltwater and the cliffs, of the place of her second death—and something in Breach’s belly sours at the thought of it. Her mouth twitches, the lips pulling even further into a frown as she considers the other, but she doesn’t walk away immediately. Instead she shifts her bulk to look at the mare a little more closely, watching with sharpened dual-colored eyes.
“Thanks for the lesson,” she says dryly, not necessarily appreciating the pointers but not in the mood to spar over it. She had tried enough forms in her short life to know that there were other forms more conducive to flight, but that never made them feel better to her. She had loved the hawk from the very first and she was loath to part from it, even when it was more practical to do so.
Not that she felt like opening up like that with this relative stranger.
Instead, she rolls her shoulders and shakes it out. Her tangled, matted hair falling down the sloped lines of her neck. She smiles then, her teeth as pointed as the tiger, and wonders at what brings this mare to her. She had felt like being alone, Mesec’s blood still lingering in the back of her mouth, but she supposes that had she truly wanted that, she would have been wise enough to stick to the peaks of Hyaline’s mountains.
“I intend to win most of them,” her voice still dry, throat tight with all she has seen and done this day, but even then, there is the threading of humor through it—a piece of the girl she might have been still there.
though ritual pyre sending smoke to the sky as the building continues to burn though rapt in the ruin, the pain in the grave, is lies you leave tied to the earth
She may smell like her sea-cliff home, but the frowning girl before her smells mostly of Loess - and of blood. Neither of those things put Popinjay off. The burning of Nerine is far enough in the past now that there is no smoke-smell to give the raiders away, there is nothing but memory and she was still in the Pampas on that day. She has only stories to go on, and few to share them.
No matter. The palomino's frown deepens and at the same time, her grin widens. She nods, unaffected by the dry sarcasm, and finds herself rewarded by that sharp-toothed grin.
"That's a good plan," the Rook nods earnestly, looking away from her newest friend for a moment to snap golden leaves from a close-by sapling. She chews them slowly, the bitter taste of greenwood flooding across her tongue. She likes palominos, she decides, looking back, "I also prefer winning."
And she hasn't lost yet. Well, maybe there was that one time. And there was that angry mare, with the strange stallion, and the prolonged sickness after the birth of her twins, but... Well, winning is a matter of perspective, perhaps. Poppy sheds the deadweight - can't fly carrying all that baggage, after all - but she knows how the others love to carry their sorrow close to them like a second skin, or huddled dark and burning in their chests. The Shifter looks like all the rest, world-weary, snarling, the lines of her face grooved with tragedy, making her young face seem older than it is. The lightning bird tips her head to one side.
for so long had my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice but the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary point
The conversation veers in a direction that is more pleasant for Breach and although she still feels sharp-edged, volatile, and still hunting for a release of the tension that plagues her, she does her very best to shake it from herself. This mare had not stolen her from her land. She had not torn her limb from limb. She had not made the mistakes that Breach had made—had ruined her life with in so many ways.
It was not her fault.
And although Breach was not always logical, she does try to be somewhat fair.
So she swallows back all of the retorts and insults she would fling her way and instead falls silent for a moment, doing her best to gather her thoughts and speak more evenly. She shifts, rolling her athletic shoulders. “Then we have something in common,” she is pleased that her voice sounds friendlier.
Or at least less outright mean.
The mare before her feels the opposite in so many ways that it felt almost disingenuous to claim any kind of common ground, but Breach knows better than to judge someone on the surface. She studies her a little closer at the offer of helping. “I’m not sure that help is what I need,” a lie if she had ever heard one, “but I am always open to hearing ideas that someone may have.” An attempt at a smile, small as it may be.
“My name is Breach.”
though ritual pyre sending smoke to the sky as the building continues to burn though rapt in the ruin, the pain in the grave, is lies you leave tied to the earth