11-10-2018, 02:07 PM
the taigan
He passed through the trees in relative silence, appearing as a giant wolf at first glance. He was horse though, all horse. Only equine. His days of shifting were gone, though it had stayed in his thick coat and replaced his original color of sooty black and purple spots.
A trade of sorts to protect an innocent boy from those that hunted him.
His head jerked up and his heart stopped the moment he caught that familiar scent. Dark ears forward, he scanned the direction it had come from, pacing forward, and then loping. Aten! The boy who'd grown into man and taken his place in Ruan's heart as a son. A son he didn't have with his own gone from him, perhaps living his own life. Ruan would never know.
Breath clouded from his parted lips, blue eyes bright and alert as he tracked the scent trail until he could see a glint of gold through the trees. He slowed, muscles rolling beneath his fur-like coat as he carried himself forward. He came to a cautious pause, his head dropping mid-way as a wary wolf might.
It was him! It was Aten.
Ruan was afraid he would look too different from his old self, from the last time Aten had seen him. More than just his color, he was different. He was harder, sharper. Colder. Wilder. What if he was unrecognizable to this young man that meant so much? The wolf in him wanted to howl mournfully, but he no longer had that ability.
He shifted his weight with a few restless paces to the left, huffing out more clouds of heat in the chilly air with exaggerated nods of his head. This was his son. He needed Aten to remember him.
Then he shook out his coat, the snow dusting off his back from it, and stilled with his head held low again. He remembered something, though. He remembered a time when Jinju's fire had been wild, setting their Taiga ablaze. And how Aten had rushed into it to protect her. How Ruan had tried to help keep him safe by layering an armor of ice over the golden man.
He lifted his wolf-colored head, steady eyes on Aten and ears forward. With his heart racing with anxiety, he carefully shaped a thin, glass-like sheen of ice over Aten's back and shoulders. He manifested that memory in as respectful a way as he could, without trying to feel that he was forcing his magic on his son. He knew too well what it was like to have magic forced on him.
It only reached along Aten's spine, spilling over his sides at the top, and over his withers. Then Ruan bottled it back inside, and let it sit light enough on Aten that he could shake it off and shatter it easily.
But he hoped it would connect this harder wolf-man that he was now to the warmer man that he had been before. He hoped Aten would remember him. And be glad of it.
