12-16-2019, 11:08 PM
She bats at his mane as he trots through the icy twilight, catching her claws in its twisting gold and silver tangles. Around them, everything has taken on a strange luminescence, the moonlight reflecting off the snow makes the night-time glow to these new eyes, and it is only into the blackest of shadows that Beryl cannot see. Nevermind that, she thinks, and a half-smile curls her black-lined lips. She needn't be able to see into the shadows to know what lies within them, only to ask. For now, she lets them be and yellow eyes close sleepily, only the Shades that cling to her fur look out with their odd passive expression. Their edges drip and spill over onto his shoulders and she drops the bits of mane to pat-pat after them with one sheathed paw when they flutter as if in the wind. They are not governed by the gusts, but seem still to shift and phase with the movement of the object that created them.
When Leilan stops, the young lion is deep in another world, transported away on his words. No horses. No Shifters. How will she know? No predators - small teeth bare themselves in an involuntary snarl. Though he waits, Beryl does not move from her place behind his withers, relishing the height, the view - when did she forget that the world was so big? It all comes back to the day she got lost, things became very myopic, grief and fear crowded her into a tunnel of despair. She still grieves, but fear?
She is less afraid, now.
He is waiting, and she does not know why until the scent of something a great deal like rabbits catches her attention, but not sharply. Predatory instincts are muddled and confused, and her interest is purely curiousity, but she slides off him clumsily. This body may leap and twist easily, but it is less adept at climbing down and her landing is rough and leaves her with a small scrap across her nose from the hard crust of ice.
Her ears turn. In the den the quiet rustling of the hares can be heard, even from where she comes to sit in-between his front legs. The youngest of the kits mewl like kittens but the older animals move in near silence, their hair-covered paws padding softly in the dusty halls of their warren. Something feline within her stirs at the sound of their cries, but her horse's heart shivers at its counter-part within her soul, the idea of hunting, of eating meat distasteful, dreadful. And still, she does not want to scare the beasts. Beryl casts a glance upwards at Leilan's chin, the curve of his jaw and the scale-armored throat latch looming overhead. She turns back to the den.
It's too small to go in, and the kits that cry in fur-lined nests will not come out. Can they smell her? Does she smell like a horse, or does she smell like... this? Can they smell the ice dragon that brought her here, and will they come out willingly if any of them are so near the burrow's entrance? I wouldn't. I would never come out from the shadows again. Stay inside Little Ones, we're all monsters out here. The thought twists in her stomach, but so does hunger and even as she pleads with the hares to stay deep and safe in their burrows, she is prodding, reaching out. Though the hares have learned to speak in shadows, she speaks with the shadows. They are hers. The dark mahogany of her eyes glitters in the starlight and the seconds tick by, silent and long, and still she sits between his feathered hooves.
And then, a hare bursts out, its coat mottled white and brown, molting, in between its phases. Yellow eyes lurk at the mouth of the cave.
one
It rasps in her head. The shadows in the warren are not happy to force the rabbits out. Oh, they listen because they must, but she feels the reluctance that never shows in expressionless eyes, that does not color the whisper in her ear. She is young and it surprises her, but perhaps it is not so shocking that the Shades grow fond of the creatures that live and grow within them. After all, they saved her, too. The thoughts flicker past as quickly as the darting hare and she, tail in the air, bounds forward, propelled by instincts she didn't know she had, but too slow all the same. Her paw swipes for the back legs and the flecked creature seems to levitate above it. He should not be faster than her. There was a time when even her dam struggled to keep pace with her, but that was before famine and fatigue had dulled her, never mind the reluctance and lack of skill that weighs her down.
When Leilan stops, the young lion is deep in another world, transported away on his words. No horses. No Shifters. How will she know? No predators - small teeth bare themselves in an involuntary snarl. Though he waits, Beryl does not move from her place behind his withers, relishing the height, the view - when did she forget that the world was so big? It all comes back to the day she got lost, things became very myopic, grief and fear crowded her into a tunnel of despair. She still grieves, but fear?
She is less afraid, now.
He is waiting, and she does not know why until the scent of something a great deal like rabbits catches her attention, but not sharply. Predatory instincts are muddled and confused, and her interest is purely curiousity, but she slides off him clumsily. This body may leap and twist easily, but it is less adept at climbing down and her landing is rough and leaves her with a small scrap across her nose from the hard crust of ice.
Her ears turn. In the den the quiet rustling of the hares can be heard, even from where she comes to sit in-between his front legs. The youngest of the kits mewl like kittens but the older animals move in near silence, their hair-covered paws padding softly in the dusty halls of their warren. Something feline within her stirs at the sound of their cries, but her horse's heart shivers at its counter-part within her soul, the idea of hunting, of eating meat distasteful, dreadful. And still, she does not want to scare the beasts. Beryl casts a glance upwards at Leilan's chin, the curve of his jaw and the scale-armored throat latch looming overhead. She turns back to the den.
It's too small to go in, and the kits that cry in fur-lined nests will not come out. Can they smell her? Does she smell like a horse, or does she smell like... this? Can they smell the ice dragon that brought her here, and will they come out willingly if any of them are so near the burrow's entrance? I wouldn't. I would never come out from the shadows again. Stay inside Little Ones, we're all monsters out here. The thought twists in her stomach, but so does hunger and even as she pleads with the hares to stay deep and safe in their burrows, she is prodding, reaching out. Though the hares have learned to speak in shadows, she speaks with the shadows. They are hers. The dark mahogany of her eyes glitters in the starlight and the seconds tick by, silent and long, and still she sits between his feathered hooves.
And then, a hare bursts out, its coat mottled white and brown, molting, in between its phases. Yellow eyes lurk at the mouth of the cave.
one
It rasps in her head. The shadows in the warren are not happy to force the rabbits out. Oh, they listen because they must, but she feels the reluctance that never shows in expressionless eyes, that does not color the whisper in her ear. She is young and it surprises her, but perhaps it is not so shocking that the Shades grow fond of the creatures that live and grow within them. After all, they saved her, too. The thoughts flicker past as quickly as the darting hare and she, tail in the air, bounds forward, propelled by instincts she didn't know she had, but too slow all the same. Her paw swipes for the back legs and the flecked creature seems to levitate above it. He should not be faster than her. There was a time when even her dam struggled to keep pace with her, but that was before famine and fatigue had dulled her, never mind the reluctance and lack of skill that weighs her down.
Beryl
Litotes x Mehendi