"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
She has fallen into the life of the fox, solitary and silent, living within the dark shadows of the forest.
Sometimes she hunts, but mostly she scavenges off the food of others, or whatever happens to be in her eyesight. The summer’s warmth has brought may invertebrates and other delicious delicacies, and the tiny fox lifts her head as the night alights with the soft glow of fireflies.
The dimming sun is fire against the tall meadow grasses, igniting them in oranges and reds of sunset. She, graceful and quick as ever, flits through the still and silent grass, jumping at the low floating insects as they illuminate, her tiny paws grasping at their light, or snaps of her sharp teeth snagging them. The equine within her is not hungry, but sometimes she cannot help the instinct that crawls within her, and Crevan had taught her to listen to it.
Merida stops for a moment at the thought of him, stopping to sit on her haunches as her delicate ribs expand and tighten as she catches her breath, ember-colored eyes glancing up as the last rays of light peek out from the horizon. The fireflies lazily bump against the thickness of her red fur, some landing around her neck and chest, blinking dimly. She wonders if he is there, somewhere within the shadows stalking the night with the lumbering pale form of his wolf, a terrible and frightening sight to some, but a calming relief to her.
But he is gone from her, just as everyone eventually is.
With sudden quickness, she stands on all four of her petite paws, snout thrusting in the air to sniff heavily. The fireflies that had rested on her fur now dart away from her at the movement, her tail becoming full and bushy as a new scent arrives on the otherwise stagnant air of the meadow. It is unfamiliar, but somehow reminds her of something, and she exhales through her nose with a toss of her head, broad ears pricking forward.
She was healing. It was a slow, painful process, but the yellow and black tiger paced through the grasses with a limp. Her careful steps were measured. Some days were better than others, but it seemed to hurt less when she was in tiger form. And Arete found that after she'd had gained enough strength to shapeshift, that her magic sustained her far better than in her natural form. The tiger felt strong, and when she hunted, she was able to gain more protein from the small game she ate than the grasses and berries that she consumed as a horse. It was a balm for the pain she experienced, and she was far more protected when she was able to stalk the grasses.
The scent of blood hit the air. Arete lifted her head and and opened her mouth, her pink tongue clicking behind her fangs, tasting the pheromones. Whiskers flicked and pushed, feeling the seed pods, determining which direction she should go. Thick padded paws dampened the sound of her approach. The sun was setting, and the pyre flies were rising from the mire, doing their nightly dance. Her voice was quiet, rumbling. And though she was limping, she hunted with a grace that came as naturally as it did as if she had been born a tiger, instead a horse.
The red-tinged grasses—colored so because of the color of the sunset—presented the perfect camouflage for whatever Arete was stalking. just the slightest movement though was enough... and a white flag (the tip of a tail) moved a little bit, and then....
"Oh..." The tiger blinked, looking down at the strangely scented fox. She sits undignifiedly in the grasses and tilted her head. "...you're so not what I thought you were. You dont' smell like a fox. Or like dinner. Who are you?"
Arete
Some like beautiful, perfect and pretty. I see the good in the bad and the ugly.
It was only a short time ago that the little fox knew nothing about her ability or the fact that there were many, many others out there who were just like her. She recognizes them now far more so than she did before, and in a way, she kept a lookout for others like her - the shifters were an interesting race that she wished to get to know a little bit more.
The sound of another approaching sets the fox on edge and the canine rises, lowering her head and shoulders as she peers through the tall grasses, hackles rising slightly just in case she needs to make herself appear bigger, a tiny hint of a snarl on her black lips. She has realized that most other shifters are larger than herself (though rarely are they larger than her pride), and most did not have an affinity for a fox - most were wolves, and she’s heard of some that are big cats and scaled things, but she has yet the chance to meet them.
Merida’s crimson eyes stare upward at the large creature that has come before her, the voice a purr within the vibrations of its chest. The snarl on her lips disappear for a moment as she takes in the large black and yellow tiger before her - nearly as large as Crevan had been, if not more. Merida’s tail flicks annoyedly against her haunches, brow furrowing at the tiger’s admittance of her perhaps being dinner. The curl of her lips reveal sharp (and tiny) fangs, her ears fitting perfectly against her head - is her being dinner still an option?
But the tiger sits with a heavy sigh, her large and towering body now slightly less intimidating to the fox.
“Sorry to disappoint,” she retorts with a rush of air leaving her nostrils, her snout lifting upwards to sniff the scent of the large feline before her. Merida is curious, and with a movement quite unlike herself, she straightens and takes a few steps forward on slender and dark paws, ember-colored eyes roving the black and yellow striped mass before her. “I’m Merida,” she offers with a slight tilt of her head, (you can’t kill something that has a name, right?) “who are you?”
The pretty little fox was cute. And tiny. The way her ears flopped around her head as she tilted, looking up at Arete's tiger. Her tiny little fangs. Arete's claws were much longer than any tooth that Merida had within her heart, and she found that she was at once relaxed in the other girls' presence. The magic of the tiger was wearing on her—even she has her limitations—and she shifted back into the black to yellow ombre woman that she was born. A stretch her neck, and a shake, and she laid down in the grass, right where she had been. She still retained her fangs, which peeked out from her lip. She found it made her look dangerous. A woman likes to be dangerous. "I'm Arete."
Her body was all kinds of sore from her hours stuck in that form. Sure, she'd felt better, but there is always a price to pay, and now as she laid down and stretched out, she rolled on her back let all her all her jiggly bits hang out. Sometimes its just nice to be yourself—with no regrets or expectations.
Arete looked back at the fox, wondering if she was going to shift back into an equine as well, but when the girl just sat there continuing to bear her tiny fangs, Arete could not help but ask the obvious question. "Were you also stalking that family of voles? I did not mean to wreck your dinner...If that is indeed what you were doing."
Arete
Some like beautiful, perfect and pretty. I see the good in the bad and the ugly.
Arete is lucky that Merida could not know that she thought she was cute. The orange canine would have most likely attacked her immediately - just to show that she is the very opposite of cute (which, of course, would be cute).
Merida watches curiously as the large tiger transforms before her, the white tip of her bushy tail flicking lightly behind her. The tiger falls away - the bulk of muscle, the claws, everything - and before her stands an ebony mare, with limbs fading into the vibrant yellow she had seen moments before. The fangs - larger than any she’s seen on another predator - remain protruding from the mare’s dark lips, glinting onimously in the dying sunlight. Merida’s ember-colored eyes widen with curiosity - she had never before seen a shifter change, and quietly reminiscences Crevan and the fact that she had never seen his true form. Had he really even been an equine at all?
The fox sits on her haunches, tail wrapping around her slender paws as she contemplates shifting to her equine self as well, but hesitates.
The woman - Arete - folds herself onto the ground once again, and Merida notices the slight twinge of pain within the darkness of her face. Merida glances behind her for a moment as the black and yellow mare mentions the voles, and the fox’s stomach turns with hunger. When she turns back, she shrugs her orange shoulders. “And I didn’t mean to wreck yours,” she replies with a tiny grin, though she is thankful that the tiger did not want to have fox for dinner.
Feeling a bit more a relaxed (and also a bit challenged by the fact that Arete had shifted), Merida decides to do so as well. The brightness of the fox is replaced with the black of her equine coat, the speckles of red on her shoulders and haunches glittering in the sun’s last rays of light. Her mane and tail - as fiery red as the sunset that blazes behind them - falls in haphazard tangles across her neck, wild and unruly as her equally red gaze.
Merida does not join the mare in lying on the ground - perhaps it was the fox in her, but she did not want to make them both vulnerable as night swiftly approaches. A large predator like Arete perhaps wouldn’t worry about it - and why would she? - but Merida knows that she is on the smaller side in her fox form, and she is quite aware that another could swallow her in a few bites.
“Are you hurt?” Merida asks without hesitation, noting the limp she had seen before in the tiger and now the mare that rests before her.
12-12-2017, 02:39 PM (This post was last modified: 12-12-2017, 02:39 PM by Arete.)
Arete turns to Merida, a look on her eyes that flashed in only the way a predator can. Are you hurt? Should she admit to it? Do predators admit such a thing? She has never before admitted weakness, and indeed it made her feel sick to do so. So, instead of saying anything, she looks past her new friend and back up at the sky, noticing the lack of light there. Normally she would have eaten her dinner and taken shelter by now--because yes, she was indeed hurt--but by night, her senses were on edge, and it was as if a whole new world was coming to life for her. A tiger has heightened senses by night, and it was no different for the woman who shared her soul with one.
Even without the light of the sun, Arete's eyes shown brightly, her sense of smell honed into the small--and copious amounts--of vermin that lived here n the meadow. She curled her lip hungrily, but as she looked up at Merida, she nearly rolled her eyes as she struggled to get up. Having decided to muscle through the pain, she comes back to a stand, and looks around at their surroundings.
"Hunting takes a lot out of you. I was resting," she emphasizes. Only resting. With nary a thought, she changes her pattern to her tiger stripes--meant to cover up her scars, and she props herself in a leaning position against a nearby tree. The sound of birds finding their nests and the night song of the bugs of summer hummed in her ears. It was indeed a beautiful night. She just wished she felt better.
"What has you out here so late? I thought foxes found their burrows well before sundown. Unless you live your life more as a horse, than you do a fox?"
Arete makes no secret that she looks over Merida's body, noting with some pleasure her black and red coloring. She always had a soft spot for those who were just slightly strange. She was beginning to wonder if Merida was going to be one of those creatures.
Arete
Some like beautiful, perfect and pretty. I see the good in the bad and the ugly.
The look that the ebony and yellow striped woman gives Merida is enough to cause her to shift backwards slightly on her haunches, her brows rising curiously. The look was that so much of tiger, yet a perfectly normal (save the coloring) equine stands before her. It is almost surprising, and Merida wonders to herself if there are some expressions that she makes that scream fox when it comes across her face. The ebony of her lips press together in thought, her fiery red tail twitching idly at her hocks. Fireflies still bump lazily against her skin, pressing into her shoulders and haunches with tiny, delicate bulbs of light - illuminating them both despite the quickly fading sun.
“Resting?” Merida repeats, unsure if it is the truth or not. She had never met a tiger before (was the hunt more grueling for them? Larger predator means larger prey, so a longer hunt?) and it made sense, but something about how the woman leans up against the tree, now adorned with her beautiful tiger stripes, left a quizzical expression on Merida’s face, her head slightly tilted and very much so looking fox-like. Merida has spoken the way Arete has spoken before, when she was pretending to be something she in fact, was not. But Merida remembers hoping that no one would notice or pry, and so she brushes it off and continues the conversation with Arete, their voices now shifting to her.
Arete’s voice sounds accusing (to Merida) and the woman’s lips curl unpleasantly - the idea that she is more horse than fox perturbed her, and that anyone else would think it about her is even worse. She had taken pride in herself to listen to her fox and the instincts that came with it, but she had not been born with the animal she shares part of her soul with, and she is still learning. Her mentor, the wolf, had brought her this far, but she still was experiencing new things everyday with her fox. But the mare could never explain that to someone, especially a stranger, (how embarrassing!) who is an experienced shifter - and a tiger, at that!
She wonders, for a moment, if her being out late is from her time spent with the wolf, and learning his way of life instead of her own. She snorts sharply, ears tipping backwards slightly.
“I’m still getting used to it,” she admits icily, though she had wanted to lie. She didn’t though, for whatever reason. “It’s hard to separate the horse instincts from the fox, and listening to them.”
‘I also don’t have a place to burrow - a home.’ She doesn’t say.
12-16-2017, 12:06 PM (This post was last modified: 12-18-2017, 12:56 AM by Arete.)
Arete smiles, those fangs of hers glistening in the pale blue of the moonlight. Their little patch of ground emanates with a faint green glow from the dances of thousands of fireflies who take their curious nature as to why two predators are out, camping out in the middle of the meadow, when all the others have gone out to bed. They are alone out here, and when Arete yawns, it is with an unnatural amount of teeth resting inside the jaws of a horse. Her bright pink feline tongue is elongated, and then curls, and she stretches out, as if spreading her hooves and laying down and rolling on her back once again. The effort it took to get up had zapped what little energy she had left, and as the black and yellow ombre lady finds that it is much to exhausting to put up a front any longer.
She lays back down, stretches out as if she is spreading the pads of her paws, and rolls onto her back, replying back to the fox somewhere mid-yawn.
"I was born this way. My father was a tiger shifter, and two of my siblings as well. They taught me all I know. She does not say that she has a twin, nor any idea where the rest of her family is. If she knew her entire family had survived the massacre in Taiga - she might not be as relaxed as she currently was. Something about her Romek just made Arete...prickly.
"So. Merida. If you weren't born a fox, what are you, then? You don't seem the type to linger in a place like this long." She finds that, staring at her, she's salivating. Whether for food, or for something else.
It's probably he food. Merida's shapely flank looked alot like chicken.
Arete
Some like beautiful, perfect and pretty. I see the good in the bad and the ugly.
The mare watches the other curiously, the embers of her eyes glowing brightly as the whiteness of Arete’s fangs reflect in her irises; Merida would love to hold such power within her, to be an equal part great predator and horse. But she is just a child when it comes to the way of the shifters, and for lack of better judgment, she is realizing that her fox is nothing compared to vast variety of other predators - tigers, wolves (some as large as the tigers!), bears. She is merely a scavenger, barely a canine on the list of predators.
With this thought the black mare shifts her weight, the red on her haunches and shoulders sparkling in the dimming light, a sharp snort leaving the blackness of her nostrils.The yellow and gold striped mare rolls onto her back (of course she feels safe in Merida’s presence to expose her underbelly - she is only a fox, afterall), and Merida cannot help the curl of displeasure that finds her ebony lips a snarl of a fox glistens on her features.
Arete’s question causes Merida to change her expression. Her brow furrows and her nose wrinkles in confusion - what is she? “Well, I’m just Merida,” she attempts to explain with an uncertain toss of her head, fiery tendrils of forelock falling into her eyes. “And you’re right - I don’t. I normally try to keep myself from big, hungry felines.”
A sparkle in her eyes lets the other mare know she is attempting to joke, but also to alleviate the intense stare that Arete is suddenly giving her.
Arete laughs. The joke is not lost on her in the slighest, and she lays back down again, this time, comfortable and strong. Merida is not food, and she is not someone to rival against. What she was, was a friend.
And Arete desperately needed a friend.
"Come then, and sit. You have nothing to fear from me. You are sassy enough to cause me indigestion and acid reflux. We shall take a short respite, and then go on the hunt, if you wish. Healing takes time in both forms, I'm afraid... and one is not as strong as the other with plenty of food, and plenty of sleep."
Arete yawned again, mesmorized by her company, and by the meadow around her. She did not remember being this entranced by a late summer night as this. And her twin sister was a deep indigo lady with glowing spots on her neck. At the thought, Arete looks up at Merida, scooting over in the place where they'd managed to trample down the grasses to lay down. the way The green glow covers her curves...
How pretty she was.
How very much was wrong with Arete.
Arete
Some like beautiful, perfect and pretty. I see the good in the bad and the ugly.
