[private] dear wilderness, be at your best; for savage

[aureline]

She watches the treetops beyond her little meadow sway erratically from side to side, and she imagines with a smile that there are giants wandering beneath them. Strange, enormous beasts like hulking bears except the fur is coarse like straw and the teeth are decidedly less sharp as she closes her eyes and imagines them plucking leaves from the lowest branches. They would be friendly beasts, she decides, so maybe not beasts at all. Just giants pushing tree trunks aside as they walk in the same way the tallest flowers move aside when she moves past.

But she knows it is just the same wind that blows against her back and lifts her dark mane in silken whorls like spun shadowsilk. She can see it race across the meadow, touching the top of each faded flower as they bend and sway and bow beneath a scrubbed blue sky. Aureline smiles again, closing pale brown eyes that are almost amber for the way the shade seems to trap light within. She breathes in the fresh air and the faded scent of flower petals, listens to the whispering of leaves in distant trees. But when she opens her eyes again, she is still alone.

Her dark mouth curves in a frown as she climbs to her feet and looks around, shaking her head once to free her eyes from the wisps of black forelock. She faces west first, tilting that delicate head like she’s listening, and then changes her mind and faces north again - and she is listening, but it is not to any sound that weaves beneath wind and birdsong, it is to the web of voices in her mind that always keep her company. She likes this ability far more than her mother ever had, and with far less guilt at knowing things meant to be secret.

She shifts, and the rich buckskin darkens to black as the fur thickens and lengthens, soft like velvet in this panther form. The wings remain, though all the feathers deepen to black as she lifts them with a satisfied rumble in her delicate chest. In the sunlight, the white marking on her face is still visible in this form - an almost diamond of white with eight lines reaching outwards. She is certain she gets this from her father, and though he wears his sun inside, evident by the heat of him and the way he glows throughout every night, she is no less proud to have her own sun traced over her brows. To be marked like someone she loves so much.

A few loping strides carry her across the small meadow before she bursts from the flowers, held aloft in her panther form by the dark wings flung outwards. In truth she is far less adept at flying than her easy faith would imply, but as it is, she does not crash back down. Her long tail brushes through the tallest petals until it is yellow at the end with soft pollen, and then with another beat she lifts higher, climbing until she finally spots someone standing beneath a large oak.

Delight warms in her as she descends again, landing carefully on the branch above the horse as graceful as any panther. She sits and peers down, her tail a long hook beneath her and her claws dug into the bark to keep her balanced there without falling on her face, which would absolutely give the wrong impression. Then her wings fold in and shrink to a size too small to fly with, but easier to manage for sitting purposes, and she beams down at this stranger with a smile that is bright and delighted and comically full of sharp teeth. “Hi! I’m Aureline.”

aureline

dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress

@[savage]

[lumineer]

heard your voice leading me on
through the darkness to the dawn

He knows that he is still young, Lumineer, even if he feels older than he’s ever felt before. But there is much for him to learn yet. And this is why he wanders further and further away from his home. Because it’s a great big world, he knows, much bigger than the circle of earth where he lives with his family. His mother and father and Aero, too.

So he takes to the skies because it is the most efficient mode of travel. Because the world looks brilliant from above. The water glinting in the sunlight, the forests deep and dark. And they all look so small -- every one of them, milling about, and he likes to imagine them happy. All of them, delighted just to be alive. Like he is. Happy just to know that their hearts are beating.

But he cannot fly forever, as much as he would like to. Because he is young still and the wings quickly tire. He makes it only as far as the meadow before he has to return to the earth (his landing punctuated by a loud thud because he has not quite learned much about grace yet). Still, he grins and feels his heart swell with some new elation. He has never been here before, has not explored the great swaths of knee-high grass, has not lolled in the shade of these great trees.

He knows that places like these are best explored in a much nimbler form. But he also knows that he must rest before he tries to shift, so he ambles through the grass (wearing a beaming grin all the way) and parks himself in the shade of one of those great trees.

Perhaps he falls asleep and perhaps he does not. Either way, he is startled to alertness by a soft commotion in the limbs overhead. He blinks himself back to consciousness and tips back his head, peering up into the tree’s canopy.

She is not hard to spot, the way she’s grinning down at him. And he grins back, just as bright, delighted by the prospect of company. “Hi, Aureline!” he calls back to her, “I’m Lumineer! What are you doing up there?”

L  U  M  I  N  E  E  R

@[aureline]

[aureline]

He seems startled to find her looming there above him, and she cannot decide if it is because he had been sleeping, or if it is because she is the first winged panther he has had the pleasure of coming across. Maybe it’s both, she decides, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as she scrutinizes his marbled face. Most of it is like smooth alabaster, so pale and white she thinks he must glow brighter than even bone. But his cheeks are dark and striped, not unlike that of a tiger, and the notion makes her smile wider. Seems befitting that she, a panther, would stumble across a tiger-boy.

She leaps down with her wings flung wide, and it is like the impact shakes the panther free from her body. Her forelegs thump down against the ground, and then paws become hooves as the shift ripples fast upwards throughout the rest of her now equine form. She shakes herself as though the shift unsettles her, and for a moment she is hardly more than a tangle of dark wings and even darker hair. But then she settles again and the smile on her mismatched lips is genuine as she refocuses her gaze back on the boy.

“I was looking for you, of course.” She says, those warm brown eyes twinkling with mischief and delight as she takes a few steps closer. “I could hear you.” She gestures with her dark nose to his brow, though she isn’t close enough to touch him. “You sounded happy and I thought maybe we could explore together.” There is a flicker of some new emotion that slips like a shadow over her eyes as she watches him, too bold to be apologetic for eavesdropping, but scolded often enough to know she should pretend she hadn’t been. Then, because this hole is not quite deep enough and she does so enjoy digging, she asks, “Who is Aero?” She has the decency though, or the gall, to say the name with a kind of casualness that implied she hadn’t been eavesdropping again.

aureline

dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress

@[lumineer]

[lumineer]

heard your voice leading me on
through the darkness to the dawn

The panther had left him breathless, but he watches in wide-eyed wonder as she shifts so easily from feline to equine form. And he thinks that she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and he doesn’t bother trying to tamp down these thoughts, try to hide them, even after she admits that she can hear his thoughts.

He tries not to stare, his jaw slack, but he can’t help it. He’s never seen anything like her and he doesn’t know enough to be embarrassed by it. He grins something distant, distracted, something that only vaguely resembles the smile that she wears.

He blinks once, twice, thrice in rapid succession and then finally shakes his head as if to shake himself free of whatever spell she has cast over him. A pale blue flower tumbles down his nose from his forelock and lands in the meadow-grass between them as he exhales a shuddering sigh, still wearing a dumbstruck grin.

He is happy, he thinks. Even happier now to have company. His smile and his eyes brighten in tandem at the prospect of adventuring and his posture grows more erect still, like his excitement is pulling him taut and tall. “I would love to go exploring with you,” he announces, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

He can feel his nerves begin to hum with energy. He has rested plenty now and her sudden appearance has reinvigorated him. He feels ready to tackle the whole world. He feels like he could fly from one end of Beqanna and back again.

It doesn’t occur to him to be put-off by her question. He is open and honest and bright-eyed, nothing at all to hide. And he perks up even further still at the mention of his sister. “Aero is my twin sister,” he tells her, grinning and nodding, “and I’m Lumineer. What’s your name?” He asks it as he shuffles a few steps closer, reaching out as if to bump her nose. “I bet it’s something really pretty.”

L  U  M  I  N  E  E  R

@[aureline]