10-25-2021, 08:32 PM
Malik stretches his front legs forward in an equally playful greeting, feeling the damp earth on the black pads of his feet. Even in a wolf shape, he keeps the feathers and his bicolored eyes (one orange, one blue). He pats at the ground a few times with his paws as he finishes the stretch with a yawn and a wag of his black tail.
He sits back on his hind end, then scratches at an itch behind his ear with one hind foot as his cousin asks about his quest. The black wolf straightens and nods.
“To get better at shifting,” he says, and they both know what that means. Some shapes - despite his efforts - require a Power beyond his own. The fairie had wanted him to give her a reason for wanting that Power, he recalls. As if the reason weren’t obvious, as if wanting Power for the sake of having it were not enough.
The part of Malik that wants it to be safe, to be worth keeping, has grown smaller since his sister’s birth. He suspects now that Mazikeen would love him even if he never achieved what he quests for. He will not have to find out, he reminds himself; he has completed the first trial and fetched a wyvern’s claw. He will be a powerful shifter soon, one that need fear nothing at all.
“They didn’t take my shifting.” Stating the rather obvious, but he knows that they had taken his mother’s. Had it been because she told them why she’d come? Perhaps it is better to keep some things close to the chest, Maik decides. At least, with those who he does not trust.
Flopping to his side, Malik watches his cousin scan the treeline. Bolder is a far better guard than the younger wolf, who often loses interest in what he should be doing and wanders off. Or in this case, scratches an itch along his spine by rolling in the leaves, belly-up and eyes half-closed.
“You can come with me when I go next,” he offers, explaining to the chestnut wolf the details of his quest, and the four objects he must return with to prove his dedication. “If you’re up for a hunt, maybe we could even go tonight.” Bolder had said he was returning home, and Malik is not entirely sure what he’d been doing while he was away. The black wolf rolls to his feet, shaking the leaf litter from his thick fur, and meeting Bolder’s gaze with a curious - and anticipatory - look in his eyes.
@bolder
He sits back on his hind end, then scratches at an itch behind his ear with one hind foot as his cousin asks about his quest. The black wolf straightens and nods.
“To get better at shifting,” he says, and they both know what that means. Some shapes - despite his efforts - require a Power beyond his own. The fairie had wanted him to give her a reason for wanting that Power, he recalls. As if the reason weren’t obvious, as if wanting Power for the sake of having it were not enough.
The part of Malik that wants it to be safe, to be worth keeping, has grown smaller since his sister’s birth. He suspects now that Mazikeen would love him even if he never achieved what he quests for. He will not have to find out, he reminds himself; he has completed the first trial and fetched a wyvern’s claw. He will be a powerful shifter soon, one that need fear nothing at all.
“They didn’t take my shifting.” Stating the rather obvious, but he knows that they had taken his mother’s. Had it been because she told them why she’d come? Perhaps it is better to keep some things close to the chest, Maik decides. At least, with those who he does not trust.
Flopping to his side, Malik watches his cousin scan the treeline. Bolder is a far better guard than the younger wolf, who often loses interest in what he should be doing and wanders off. Or in this case, scratches an itch along his spine by rolling in the leaves, belly-up and eyes half-closed.
“You can come with me when I go next,” he offers, explaining to the chestnut wolf the details of his quest, and the four objects he must return with to prove his dedication. “If you’re up for a hunt, maybe we could even go tonight.” Bolder had said he was returning home, and Malik is not entirely sure what he’d been doing while he was away. The black wolf rolls to his feet, shaking the leaf litter from his thick fur, and meeting Bolder’s gaze with a curious - and anticipatory - look in his eyes.
@bolder