01-03-2017, 02:11 AM
She’s so much happier than she’d ever been at home.
She spends her days wandering about the more remote parts of Nerine, taking time to explore her new home, and test her new abilities. The land is everything Djinni had promised and more - full of animals and plants she’d only ever heard about in her father’s stories, and, perhaps more importantly, her sister is notably absent.
She still loves her family, still visits them on occasion, but she loves the space between them. Now, when she’s had enough of her mother’s enthusiastic affection and her sister’s constant insults she can simply leave, and head back to her new home.
And as for the gift that Djinni had given her …
Shapeshifting had taken some getting used to, being that she hadn’t been born with the ability, but now that she’s had time to practice, slipping back and forth between her stoat form is as easy as breathing. And she loves it. There’s so much that she can do in her smaller form, so many places that she can visit that she’d never been able to visit before. She loves running through the dune grasses and over the cliffs, seeking out little nooks and crannies that she’d never be able to fit into as a horse.
She wonders if Djinni had guessed, when she’d made the deal. That she’d never want to leave once she first stepped foot in this place. She has a suspicion that the mare had known, but in the end it doesn’t matter. She’s here, and she’s staying.
And on this particular morning she’s exploring Nerine’s more northern beaches. So far she’s seen a whale far off the coast (a whale, an actual whale! she can’t wait to tell her father!), and discovered a small colony of long eared bats (Plecotus auritus, she remembers her lessons well) in one of the caves. She’s just entering another cave when she hears the sound of hooves sliding in the sand outside. She turns to look back at the cave mouth. “Hello? Is someone there?”
She spends her days wandering about the more remote parts of Nerine, taking time to explore her new home, and test her new abilities. The land is everything Djinni had promised and more - full of animals and plants she’d only ever heard about in her father’s stories, and, perhaps more importantly, her sister is notably absent.
She still loves her family, still visits them on occasion, but she loves the space between them. Now, when she’s had enough of her mother’s enthusiastic affection and her sister’s constant insults she can simply leave, and head back to her new home.
And as for the gift that Djinni had given her …
Shapeshifting had taken some getting used to, being that she hadn’t been born with the ability, but now that she’s had time to practice, slipping back and forth between her stoat form is as easy as breathing. And she loves it. There’s so much that she can do in her smaller form, so many places that she can visit that she’d never been able to visit before. She loves running through the dune grasses and over the cliffs, seeking out little nooks and crannies that she’d never be able to fit into as a horse.
She wonders if Djinni had guessed, when she’d made the deal. That she’d never want to leave once she first stepped foot in this place. She has a suspicion that the mare had known, but in the end it doesn’t matter. She’s here, and she’s staying.
And on this particular morning she’s exploring Nerine’s more northern beaches. So far she’s seen a whale far off the coast (a whale, an actual whale! she can’t wait to tell her father!), and discovered a small colony of long eared bats (Plecotus auritus, she remembers her lessons well) in one of the caves. She’s just entering another cave when she hears the sound of hooves sliding in the sand outside. She turns to look back at the cave mouth. “Hello? Is someone there?”