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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    caught in the afterglow; tana
    #1
    The day had started ordinarily.  A little grazing here, and a little dozing in the sparse rays of sunlight there.  Which was all good and wonderful...for the first four years of your life maybe and possibly the first few hours of your day thereafter.  But there was only so much eating and napping that a young lady could do before the mind would start to go absolutely bonkers.  Even given the blessing of her dream weaving, it was no substitute for the absolute world.  Or so she had come to believe thus far. 
    At least she had good enough sense to know when the impending crazy threatened to settle in. 

    Like today.  

    After the normalcy of the morning had faded and after the fifth yawn in a row, she’d had enough of the stagnancy.  The nagging itch in her heels told her run, run, run! But her still dream-fogged brain was slow to come round, and all that came about was a half hearted shuffle forward and another lazy, over exaggerated yawn. So it might take her a little while to warm up, big deal.  She’d get there.

    A scuttle and whooshing sound seemingly on top of her causes her head to toss and body to stiffen.  The glimpse of a fluffy white tail vanishing beneath a dying shrub makes her relax and a small, devilish grin blooms with the promise of a rising challenge.  The poor creature, unknowing of the game it has just become a part of, flees from the sound of hooves meeting the ground behind it.  
    Weaving and winding, the painted woman evaded trunks and boulders and startled  equine alike.  The shouts and hollers of delight certainly did not help in their confusion as she raced past them.

    Her venture brought her along the side of someone she’d met before and turning her smile a tad more wicked, bumped her muzzle into their shoulder as she zoomed by. ”You’re it!” she wheezed between bouts of laughter.  Turning a reptilian pupil back towards them for the briefest of seconds, she disappeared into the foliage for a few more paces, only stopping with heaving sides and a listening ear in a clearing just up ahead.


    @[Santana]
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    #2
    He had been grazing, letting what warmth the sun offered sink into his back as he munched on dull grasses. It was a slow, sleepy kind of morning. The kind that promised a day of similar sleepiness to follow. Thoughts of a warm, snug place to curl up in occupied his mind, the idea of long stretches of sleep interspersed with meals. Fantasies borne of dropping temperatures that promised none of those things. 

    He stretched, considering moving on from the public land, when a scrap of brown fur blurred past. That alone was enough to capture his predatory attention, but what followed set him on the trail. A cry of "you're it!", the light push on his shoulder, and the chase was on. Memory of childhood races through hot sand intermingled the reality of the tail quickly sprinting away from his pursuant steps. 

    The flash of copper and white skin through the trees was a teasing target as the pale stallion cantered in steady rhythm after her. The scent of warm sweat and bright, hot blood piqued him, nostrils flared to inhale as much of the familiar odor as he could. 

    It was over in moments, far too soon in his opinion. She had stopped in the first clearing her path had opened on to, breath flowing steadily in and out. The dragon took his turn, hard hoofed legs turning into glittering scaled arms in a blink. He had leapt as soon as the trees opened. Her body was clutched tight to his barrel as he propelled them to the ground, monster's teeth sunk ever so delicately into the flesh of her nape. He had paused just short of breaking skin. 

    A laugh rumbled up through his chest to vibrate against her back as he released his grip on the woman. "No, you're it." He replied, grinning lazily at her from where he lay. "Hello, Catcher. Long time, no see." 

    @[Catcher] a little power play, let me know if you want it edited out <3
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    #3
    Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long to gain company;  her newly crowned “It” had pursued (as she had wholeheartedly hoped) and kept up easily enough.  Not that her initial target wouldn’t have been a lovely companion, she thought, as the squirrelly creature glared at her from a safe distance away.  He chittered something at her with what sounded like an impossibly derogatory tone for an animal with such large, obtrusive teeth before vanishing into the canopy.  “Sorry,”she muttered with a slightly confused, slightly impressed expression.

    As her horned dome cranes back, she’s met with the  appearance of that same familiar someone breaking past the walls of the clearing. Of course she smiled, but it never had the chance to realize it’s potentional, because as quickly as it’s there, it is gone.  It decided to run away from her face when she realized that his legs were not as she had remembered and neither was the structure of his face. Frozen in shock and with rising curiosity, she could do nothing but utter and inelegant “Oh wow” as she fell into and with him.

    Catcher tried to stop herself, she really did, but the surprise was too great. It all happened so quickly but no sooner did his grip relax on than did she withdraw into herself, shifting into the lanky body of s gray rat snake.  How embarassing, she complained inwardly.  For the most part she had believed that she had full control of her serpent shifting, but apparently it was still rather uncontrolled when she was caught off guard.  More work would need to be done in the future. Unfortunately.

    With the pink flush of embarrassment burning off quickly, her head rose to regard him.  She couldn’t help but laugh - at the game and at herself and her joy in seeing a friend.  It was difficult to catch her breath with all the running and adrenaline and laughing, but when the laughter finally began to settle she spoke with warrmth, “Hello Tana! Too long, I think.”

    Changing position, her body coiled around itself.  She wondered what he would think of her.  Aside from her mother and father, nobody else knew of her serpentine form; this would be her first experience with someone else seeing her second skin.   “My game was too easy for you, wasn’t it?”


    @[Santana]
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    #4
    One moment his grip is firm on her torso, claw ended paws delicate on her skin. The next he clutched only thin air. His head tossed in surprise, looking for his suddenly vanished companion. "Catcher? Where'd you go?" He asked, his eyes casting about for some sign of the vanished girl. A vague, confused smile shifted his pale lips. Had Catcher somehow gone invisible? 

    But no, he heard her voice, laughter that chimed from someplace near. Invisible, she was definitely invisible. His reptilian limbs back to their original slender shapes while his eyes shifted ever so subtly draconic. Slit pupils scanned the area, looking for the tell tale blur of warm red that would betray a hidden equine. No such blur appeared. Instead, his eyes caught on a smudge of darkness that twisted against the earth. How strange. 

    Her laughter tapered off, and the crystal stallion blinked himself back to horse sight. There on the forest floor a little serpent coiled, as unobtrusive a little snake as he'd ever seen. And it spoke with the painted mare's voice. His nose dropped to look her in the eye, amusement and wonder on his grinning face as he absorbed her new shape. 

    His own laughter filled the air as he dropped to his knees, the better to see her. "Ahh, now this is a new trick!" He chuckled, gently bumping the tiny snake's snout with his own. She was a little grey thing, the kind of snake found in fields and meadows across the land. It was a perfect disguise, the ideal shape to take when one wanted to slip away without a scene. And cute, to boot. 

    The winged stallion settled against the leaf bedded earth, smiling easily at his little friend. It had been a short lived game they'd played, certainly, yet he felt it had been a good one. The thrill of pursuit, the satisfaction of capture. And the twist ending that left him grinning. No, not a bad game at all. "Perhaps. But now that is what you're capable of, I'm sure we could make it much more interesting." 

    Or impossible, really. Choosing to play hide and seek with a snake was conceding the upperhand. He could nose through the leaf litter for a month and never find her in this shape if she didn't want to be found, a thought he found equally frustrating and funny. 

    @[Catcher]
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    #5
    As it would turn out, he didn’t seem bothered by her sudden, drastic change at all.  Who knows what people are afraid of these days anymore; he might’ve had a snake phobia and had high tailed it out of there and then she would’ve felt absolutely terrible!  But his reaction is quite the contrary.  In fact, the shining stallion seemed spectacularly amused and she couldn’t help but find a quirky charm in that.

    Thinking it must be uncomfortable from his viewpoint to crane and bend in such a way to better see her, she loosens her body from its spring.  Swelling and growing in mass, he would soon find himself staring upon the larger body of a Burmese python.  Raising her head to the level where his rested, she angled her head curiously, lending a curious ear to the conversation.  

    Oh the possibilities were endless and he had no idea just how interesting things come become. Well, it’s possible he might be receptive to the idea of open-mindedness and crazy ideas.  Sprinkle a little of untested trust shared between them and they might have a new kind of game on their hands! Might be worth the shot to ask.

    Once more her body shifted, working and reshaping into the painted cloak of chestnut and white that he had first become familiar with.  ”That isn’t all that I’m capable of,” she says with the twist of a mischievous smile. “I can do something to make it more interesting - and fun - for the both of us.  The catch is that we have to fall asleep and cross over to dreams.  Sounds crazy, right?  But it’s amazing when you see it. I mean, really see it.”  

    Taking a step closer, she regarded him carefully, searching for any signs of skepticism.  Iron grey eyes flashed quizzically, nearly impatient from the potential excitement. “What do you think?”


    @[Santana]
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    #6
    The little rat snake had been cute, a twisty little noodle of a creature. He'd figured that was the one shape she could take, and was very surprised to see the lithe little thing swell and stretch before his eyes. His first concern was that she was suddenly ill, her form uncontrolled and maybe even painful. It was with relief that his eyes and smile widened to see a greater serpent where she had lain before. 

    "Very impressive." He complemented, admiring the iridescent sheen the sunlight drew from her robust coils. And then once more she changed, and this time the form was familiar. Effervescent Catcher, a little greyer, a little more grown, but Catcher all the same. He was so happy to see her again. 

    Her smile intrigued him, her words even more so. Fall asleep? Well, that didn't sound like the most fun thing in the world, but if she figured she could make things interesting he was willing to give it a shot. His lips quirked in a bemused half smile, his head nodding in agreement. 

    "Yeah, alright then. Show me what you've got, my slithery friend." He looked up at the still bright sky. He wasn't one to say no to a nap, but he'd rather do it someplace he was more familiar with. This little grove, while pretty, was unknown to him. "When would you like this little adventure to start?" He asked, figuring she would know better than he about the finer points of... Well, sleeping, he supposed. 

    @[Catcher]
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