"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
Valkyrie was partial to winter, to the calmness that stretched through it and blanketed the world even when there was no snow to accompany it. However, everything had been feeling calm lately. Instead of it stretching just through one season it had stretched through years and years. So when the spring birdsong came to interrupt it, adding a little cacophony into the mix, Valkyrie felt inspired.
The assortment of birds she was able to shift into was long, and she had some favourites, but today she had something particular in mind. She became eager to help the world wake, and perhaps use it as a way to go fishing for someone to talk to. Whether a new face or a relative, all would be welcome.
A little bit of searching and patience found her what she was looking for - a flock of grackles. She smoothly shifted into one, her vibrant red coat disappearing into the brown-and-iridescence of these vocal birds. They did not treat her as one of their own, and she was not adept at their language, but she did not need to be. Not for grackles.
What she did was mimic them, shimmy up to them to annoy them with her false-bird-chatter, and then when it seemed like every single one of them was making noise she shifted into a large crimson raven - startling them right out of the tree they were in. She gave them a good chase, doing her best to shepherd them over the sleepy early-spring meadow, until her imitation calls turned more into laughter.
Valkyrie circled away, allowing the grackles some space to do what they do best (be annoying) and found a spot to alight back on the soft ground and shift back into a mare. A mare who then flattened her ears in annoyance at the noisy birds and then kept her working eye open for anyone else moving out of earshot. "Those damn grackles." She muttered, not quite under her breath and absolutely for her own amusement.
The world had been quiet for too long. Not a noise or a shift. An endless, burdened quiet that had caused many to fall into a deep sleep. She had been one of them for a long time but something had brought her up from the depths, roused her from her sleep softly. Like snow.
It had been a gentle awakening and now,
Citadelle walks lazily through the meadow. An endless sea of yellowed grass. A few skiffs of snow leftover. The sun is high but dull. She breathes in the fresh air, it fills her lungs and they expand with contentment. She was so tired of being tired. Her short legs carry her across the meadow, emerald eyes watching the burst of grackles in the sky. Curious, she moves towards their origin. It was not like Citadelle to shy from something odd or even dangerous, it was the curse of being immortal she supposed.
Always looking for an end, or something that brings you close enough to enjoy life again. The little dun cuts down through a heavy patch of bramble and then back into an open space一
There’s another horse. A mare from scent.
Though Citadelle smells bird, too.
Maybe the grackles, she thinks. She comes a bit closer, listening to the mare grumble to herself about the grackles.
“Annoying little things, aren’t they?” Her voice is soft, it is like the petal of a daisy floating on the breeze towards the other horse. “Or do you find all birds insufferable?”
Her rousing has worked, much to her delight, and a soft-spoken mare with red and green accents drifts closer. She admires the broken horn, finding it interesting - and immediately wants to know how it happened, imagining all sorts of exciting answers.
Instead of asking her own question, Valkyrie laughs at the one asked of her - the sound boisterous and warm. It is not an unkind laugh by any means, she’s delighted by the question and how closely it hits the mark with a major part of who she is. As though this mare could see right through her.
And maybe she could - this maroon mare had certainly seen her fair share of wondrous things in this life, magic and talents that have marvelled and enchanted her since she was young. Finding someone who could sense her avian abilities really would not be so strange.
She answers honestly, the laughter still shining in her good eye as she focuses it on this stranger. “No, I’m rather fond of some of them. Grackles are… in a league of their own.” Off the top of her head she cannot think of any others that are so annoying. Jays could be, certainly, and some of the smaller ones really hated when she became some kind of bird of prey.
But grackles? They could always be trusted to be consistently awful.
“I’m Valkyrie.” She offers, still with a bright grin - because it is polite and because it is wonderful to get the chance to meet someone who she does not already know.
She would admit, her experience with birds was limited. They were not a creature she paid much attention to, except in those early years when she would stomp her hoof and demand her father give her wings to fly.
Some of Citadelle’s earliest memories are filled with jealousy.
It is what shaped her, made her who she was now. Everclear could not make her fly, no matter how hard he tried or pleaded with the unseen gods of their homeland. Citadelle hated him for a long time because she could not sprout wings. And what would she do with them? It would have only bolstered her pride that much more.
The little strawberry mare looks at the other, her emerald eyes wide and childish. There was something awful about waking up. Everything felt suddenly new and terrible.
“Citadelle,” she says, “Cita, if you like.”
There’s a pause for a moment while she scans the horizon for more birds. She cared little for other, smaller things but this Valkyrie was overly fond of them it seemed一her cheerful demeanor was not lost on Citadelle, who had carefully put on her own smile.
“I must say I know little about birds, except they can fly, of course,” she laughs and it is like water over stones. “My father tried to give me wings once but I told him not to worry about such a small thing.”
She smiles wider now, the edges of her teeth showing.
“Small thing?” Valkyrie repeats the phrase, mystified - ignorant to Citadelle’s inner thoughts and past history surrounding flight. Even though it was practically a daily part of her life, this maroon mare still thrilled from it. Shapeshifting into birds not only gave her the opportunity to soar over the land but she was able to see through both of her eyes.
Without really intending to, a piece of magic Valkyrie has not used often shimmers the air around Cita - producing a faint, hazy image of wings, as though they were made up of fog and moonlight.
She doesn’t even know if the other mare can see it if she were to turn her head to look, or if it is an illusion just for herself. (In reality the other mare very much could see it too) These hazy images sometimes appear, a visual reflection of her subconscious, and she’s not even considered that it might be something she could practice to perfect like she has her shifting.
“Wings would suit you, I think.” Valkyrie states, intending for it to be a kindness. She has forgotten that she is not currently sporting wings either - that in this form, she’s just as earthbound as Cita, and that it would not be so obvious that she spends a good amount of her time with her hooves or talons not touching the ground.
