02-13-2020, 07:25 AM
HALCYON
Halcyon, though not especially powerful, is quite sure that he can handle himself. The few horses he has met tend to flinch away from a tiger, even if the reaction is only instinctual, even if they recover quickly. Momma hadn’t let him wander until his first birthday, either, as a tiger cub is far less intimidating than one that at least looks as if he might be fully grown. His youth is more obvious in his equine form. Today though, he’d not wanted others to flinch away, and so he wears this hooved and slightly uncomfortable skin. If there is danger, he tells himself, he can always go back.
Titanya doesn’t feel like danger though, not as she looks up at the sky during his tale of birds, not as she mentions preferring rabbits instead. It’s not her hunting that surprises him, but rather the realization that there are things in the world other than fish that he might actually eat. Momma had fed him coconuts until her milk had come in, and after that the transition to fish had been quick. But eating birds?
“But they’re so feathery,” he tells her, “and they squawk so much and their beaks are sharp. They won’t be still enough to eat!” The fish always grow still after time on the shore; Halcyon can’t imagine trying to eat one as it flops around. He just hooks them out of the water with a sharp-pawed hand and flings them to the rocks; the lack of water has always done the rest. He’d promised not to eat Titanya, but part of that is because she’s not already dead – how can he eat her if she’s moving around?
“I can kill things?” The yearling asks, and while another child might be appalled, Halcyon is instead quite thrilled with this realization. He’s no murderer; the lesson he has missed from his mother is far different from the one that Titanya thinks. So excited is the blue colt that he misses the hardening in the gaze of his companion, and instead readily answers her question with a wordless shift. The too-small hooves and the too-stiff body gives way to one that is far more comfortable, and where the boy had once stood, now a tiger sits, it’s tail flicking through the grass behind him. As a matter of habit, the only thing he keeps equine is his ability to communicate, and he says proudly: “A tiger!”
Titanya doesn’t feel like danger though, not as she looks up at the sky during his tale of birds, not as she mentions preferring rabbits instead. It’s not her hunting that surprises him, but rather the realization that there are things in the world other than fish that he might actually eat. Momma had fed him coconuts until her milk had come in, and after that the transition to fish had been quick. But eating birds?
“But they’re so feathery,” he tells her, “and they squawk so much and their beaks are sharp. They won’t be still enough to eat!” The fish always grow still after time on the shore; Halcyon can’t imagine trying to eat one as it flops around. He just hooks them out of the water with a sharp-pawed hand and flings them to the rocks; the lack of water has always done the rest. He’d promised not to eat Titanya, but part of that is because she’s not already dead – how can he eat her if she’s moving around?
“I can kill things?” The yearling asks, and while another child might be appalled, Halcyon is instead quite thrilled with this realization. He’s no murderer; the lesson he has missed from his mother is far different from the one that Titanya thinks. So excited is the blue colt that he misses the hardening in the gaze of his companion, and instead readily answers her question with a wordless shift. The too-small hooves and the too-stiff body gives way to one that is far more comfortable, and where the boy had once stood, now a tiger sits, it’s tail flicking through the grass behind him. As a matter of habit, the only thing he keeps equine is his ability to communicate, and he says proudly: “A tiger!”
shut off your mind and let your heart breathe
@[Titanya]