02-13-2022, 07:07 AM
Bolder accepts his lie without ever looking up, and Malik feels some of the tension ease. His cousin will ask again later, he knows, because the pair of them are as close as brothers. And later Malik will answer truthfully, because even his darkest moods do not last forever.
When Bolder finally does meet his gaze, it’s with an unexpected suggestion. Go down and find out? He’s still considering it when the chestnut darts toward the water, and with a quick laugh, the black stallion follows after him.
Malik leaves his worries above the water, transforming into a black striped marlin as he sinks beneath the waves. The water is cool and smooth against his scales, and it is easy to lose himself in the joy of the swim and the shift. The shift he has chosen is predatory like many of his shifts of late, and Malik enjoys the strength within the streamlined shape.
Swift and agile, they race through the sunken kingdom of Loess. The weak morning light is enough to make the red hills shine even beneath a hundred feet of water. He’d come here once before, he tells Bolder, before it had sunk. There’s nothing here to indicate what might have happened. There’s no giant rift, only the kingdom of Loess far beneath the sea. He’s wondered if perhaps the south had been wiped out in an earthquake, but it seems that this is a shifting of a different sort.
“Do you think the horses who lived here all got out?” He asks. How quickly had the waters risen up? Malik knows little of the place despite his earlier visit - there had been a purple mare and a faceless monster. Had they escaped the waters or are they still down here amidst the canyons?
When Bolder finally does meet his gaze, it’s with an unexpected suggestion. Go down and find out? He’s still considering it when the chestnut darts toward the water, and with a quick laugh, the black stallion follows after him.
Malik leaves his worries above the water, transforming into a black striped marlin as he sinks beneath the waves. The water is cool and smooth against his scales, and it is easy to lose himself in the joy of the swim and the shift. The shift he has chosen is predatory like many of his shifts of late, and Malik enjoys the strength within the streamlined shape.
Swift and agile, they race through the sunken kingdom of Loess. The weak morning light is enough to make the red hills shine even beneath a hundred feet of water. He’d come here once before, he tells Bolder, before it had sunk. There’s nothing here to indicate what might have happened. There’s no giant rift, only the kingdom of Loess far beneath the sea. He’s wondered if perhaps the south had been wiped out in an earthquake, but it seems that this is a shifting of a different sort.
“Do you think the horses who lived here all got out?” He asks. How quickly had the waters risen up? Malik knows little of the place despite his earlier visit - there had been a purple mare and a faceless monster. Had they escaped the waters or are they still down here amidst the canyons?