Here, the sun couldn’t beat down on her back as fierce as it had. There was some respite to be found beneath the trees from the summer heat. Even though she appreciated the bright fingers of sunlight that would pry the sleep from her eyes first thing in the morning and dry the dew on her skin.
But the sun always made her shadow-friend more hazy and insubstantial. Now beneath the closely knit canopy of branch and leaf, he gained a new vigor and became thicker and more solid. Except he was too busy prancing around on cloven feet no bigger than her own, still in the fawn’s shape she had given him.
Dim, what are you doing?
Prancing!
Do deer really prance?
I don’t know, you made me. How many times do I have to keep reminding you of that?
That’s usually how their conversations went - Glim questioning what her companion was doing and the yellow-eyed shadow retorting that it was usually something the animal whose shape she had given him would naturally do. His responses were often met with frowning silence or loud giggles and he could never predict which it would be. Like right now - he could feel more so than see the giddiness drain from her as a frown pulled at her lip.
Before he knew it, he was transformed again. This time he changed from a little baby deer into a not so particularly nice or pretty creature. Oh very funny! He hopped about on the ground and flapped his wings. I thought so, came Glim’s smug response as she stared down at the shadow-buzzard.
You couldn’t have made me into something fierce? he bemoaned. Glim ignored the frustration and tiny hint of sadness that his tone implied. Keep it up and I’ll turn you into a beetle! She snapped her milk-teeth in his avian face before turning her attention back to the forest. Glim wasn’t really annoyed with him, but this was how their banter and companionship thrived.
Dim knew she loved him. Even if she had turned him into something that craved the rotten leftovers of some other predator’s kill. But a buzzard, really? he asked of her without receiving a reply before noticing that she had gone rather spellbound and smiling. Glim?
She wasn’t listening to him anymore. In fact, Glim was staring at the sun pony that quite literally came out of nowhere. Even the shadow-buzzard finally noticed her when he turned his head and tilted it upward to focus one yellow curious eye on the newcomer to their neck of the woods. The pony oozed a bright smiling cheer like syrup which only reminded Glim of that one time she’d licked the murky amber stuff off the trunk of a maple tree just to satisfy her curiosity. Now was kind of like that except she didn’t like the pony-mare; she just stared at her as a slow half-smile came to her baby mouth.
“Uh hello there!”
God, why did she sound so cheery herself? It’s not like Glim was ever unhappy or balked at being happy - she had moments of both to be sure but this was an unusual cheeriness not common to her that even earned her a strange look from the shadow-buzzard that the sun pony should be able to see quite clearly now. Except Dim made himself more prominent by taking a wing-flapping hop up onto Glim’s small back.
Now a grown buzzard should probably be too heavy to sit comfortably on a months’ old foal’s back but there he sat anyway, looking smug now himself. Glim seemed to not mind his weight since he was a shadow-made thing and when necessary, could assume enough mass to defend her though no moment in her terribly short life had ever come to that yet. She tipped her head to the side in momentary thought before saying, “No thanks, we’re not lost.” and it flew out of her mouth in a rather quick happy burst followed by an actual smile that was certain to hang about her lips.
“You live nearby?”
Home and permanence always fascinated her. Maybe because she lacked those very things? She had a mother and twin brothers, and a father that knew nothing of how to raise a child like her but they always moved and impermanence was as familiar to her as the buzzard on her back. Who gave her a little peck on the wither with his beak to remind her that they were not quite alone. “Oh... I’m Glim and he’s Dim.” she said with a jerk of her head to indicate the shadow-bird who puffed himself up and ruffled his feathers in an attempt to look important.
@[Margaux]