06-04-2022, 04:36 PM
I L I A N A
His explanation for why he is searching for the silver deer answers her original question, but also raises new ones. A frown crosses her face as she considers the implication that by searching for things he can’t shift into it must mean there are other things he can—the plural being what she is hung up on. “So you can shift into more than one thing?” There is a small flare of jealousy at the thought of this, but it is quickly extinguished when she cannot think of anything else she would rather shift into besides a panther. It is a part of her just as much as her own flesh, blood, and bone, an innate piece that makes it difficult to fathom being anything else.
But in the wake of the jealousy there is a flicker of insecurity, a remnant of the same inadequacy she had felt as a child when she could not keep herself from making comparisons between herself and her angel mother and twin sister. She wonders if he will think less of her knowing she can only shift into one thing, but she is no longer that same little girl that would let something like this gnaw away at her. Living a life of mostly solitude has allowed her to stop caring what others think of her—real or fabricated by her own worries. “I can shift into a panther,” she tells him, before adding with an amused smile, “but it’s the only party trick I have, I’m afraid.”
His own frown almost makes her feel guilty about her earlier teasing, forgetting that not everyone can read the undertones of her dry way of speaking. There is a side of her that is more light-hearted, but the sarcasm always seems to overpower it, especially in the company of strangers. “As much as I’ve always wanted a bird-lion, I think your undying gratitude should be enough,” she says, and then she sheds her equine form for the panther one that had become just as familiar to her. The faint, rose-gold rosettes remain on her black pelt, her feline eyes a matching color—the two indicators that seemed to set her apart from the others in her family. She flexes her claws against the black sand of the beach, her gaze scanning away from the ocean and towards the center of the territory. “The deer are usually in the grasslands, and sometimes at the base of the mountain range that would lead to Hyaline. I suppose we start walking and see what we find.”
But in the wake of the jealousy there is a flicker of insecurity, a remnant of the same inadequacy she had felt as a child when she could not keep herself from making comparisons between herself and her angel mother and twin sister. She wonders if he will think less of her knowing she can only shift into one thing, but she is no longer that same little girl that would let something like this gnaw away at her. Living a life of mostly solitude has allowed her to stop caring what others think of her—real or fabricated by her own worries. “I can shift into a panther,” she tells him, before adding with an amused smile, “but it’s the only party trick I have, I’m afraid.”
His own frown almost makes her feel guilty about her earlier teasing, forgetting that not everyone can read the undertones of her dry way of speaking. There is a side of her that is more light-hearted, but the sarcasm always seems to overpower it, especially in the company of strangers. “As much as I’ve always wanted a bird-lion, I think your undying gratitude should be enough,” she says, and then she sheds her equine form for the panther one that had become just as familiar to her. The faint, rose-gold rosettes remain on her black pelt, her feline eyes a matching color—the two indicators that seemed to set her apart from the others in her family. She flexes her claws against the black sand of the beach, her gaze scanning away from the ocean and towards the center of the territory. “The deer are usually in the grasslands, and sometimes at the base of the mountain range that would lead to Hyaline. I suppose we start walking and see what we find.”
-- the shadow is mine, and so is the valley
@Malik