There was a bird chirping frantically, somewhere. In his head, or maybe it was in his heart? It was hard to hear over the sounds of madly giggling screams and wretched laughter and claws that skittered through his brain, but someone, somewhere, was worried about him. Desperately worried, and their fear for him was growing slowly but steadily stronger—
Isuma!
The fox’s head jerked up, the red haze fading by increments and then, it seemed, all at once as he wrenched control of himself away from the grasping, cruel talons that had so disordered his thoughts and left him lost to mindless rage. For a moment he simply crouched, panting, and focusing on the fear and love of a tiny gryphon. When he closed his eyes he thought he could almost see a snowy field, lit briefly by a scattering of lights – luxere? Luxere leaving the farm? But Isuma was too, it seemed, determined to come to his aid when he needed her most.
He wanted to tell her to stop, to go back, but their connection was so tenuous he didn’t think he could… and if the luxere were leaving, what protection did she have?
Then again, if she came here, she would have even less, wouldn’t she? There was blood in his mouth. The blood of the friends he had meant to protect, and he shivered, retching in a dry cough while Amalia gathered Rory to her side and got him up and moving. What if he turned again? Turned on Isuma the way he had on… on Rory…
Blue eyes looked up, wide with horror and guilt at the stumbling voice of his friend, and a whine of denial and sorrow rose from his throat as he pressed back against the perch. Rory was hurt, badly so, burned and bitten - bitten - and bleeding from the wounds Jigano had inflicted on him. Amalia, beside him, also bore the signs of his teeth and he wanted to curl up and slink away in shame. Even if he’d wanted to come close to Rory at the blond’s soft coaxing, Amalia’s sharp voice and well-deserved anger left him flinching away.
But… there was Bobi, the kitten not so fooled as the rest of them, protecting him from… from Edy? Who was carrying one of Amalia’s glowing red antlers? And in his heart there was Isuma, her boundless love and courage growing stronger with every minute that passed. He had failed his friends this night, as he had failed others before them-
But he didn’t have to keep failing. Later, if they survived, there would be time to wallow in guilt and misery. He was good at that. But for now, things need to be done, as they always did. He couldn’t bottle it all up completely, not this time, it was too big for that, but he could take a breath (full of blood and fire and burning flesh and rotting meat and death) – and then yelp and scramble to the side as a brick sailed past his shoulder, barely missing him. He turned to snarl at the monsters, an ineffectual response from such a small creature, and he knew it. Too small to climb the perch that looked to be at least five yards tall, maybe more. As a man, he couldn’t do such a feat without a rope to help him. And there, at the top, he thought he could see the faintest glint of a steel ring. They would need to get the rope through the ring if they wanted any hope of guiding the perch up again. Amalia’s plan of throwing blind wouldn’t work.
Nothing would work, as they currently were. They were so close to repairing it and yet… and yet… all he had done was hinder their attempts, hurt his friends, and be utterly useless. Amalia was right that he couldn’t shift into a more useful form. What they needed was something with wings, something big enough to carry a rope up, clever enough to thread it through the ring – but not so big that he would wound his friends worse if he lost his grip on sanity again.
Searching, hoping – but not dreaming, no, he had lost the right to those – the fox rose up on his hind legs, stretching towards the top of the pole. One dainty paw pressed to the wood as he stared upwards, wishing fiercely for even a fraction of his old power. He was so focused on what was above him that he didn’t notice as his fur rippled into feathers, his tail shrinking and then spreading wide, his toes lengthening into talons-
Not until he stumbled forward with a rough squawk of indignation as his paw – his wing? – no longer supported him. Flapping instinctively, he found his balance and hopped backwards, trying to look down at himself in shock. He couldn’t see much – toes too clever to be a hawk or eagle, and size too small. His beak was large, but then, anything so big in the middle of his face would look that way. He didn’t crow – though perhaps the sound was somewhat close – but he did croak excitedly to get Amalia’s attention. He had seen Remi shift into a hawk several times; somehow he had managed to do the same. His body already knew how to balance and move and, he hoped, to fly.
There was only one way to find out. Crouching and flipping his wings he tried to relax, to rely on this new form the way he’d always relied on his fox form since he’d been born. A breath in and then, on the exhale, the downbeat, the frantic rise, another downbeat, and he was off the ground, albeit more clumsily than he would have liked.
”'Alia!” he croaked excitedly. ”Give!” He hadn’t even meant to speak, the words spilling out broken but clear enough. White wings fluttered dangerously close to her as he beat at the air to stay aloft, snatching the end of the rope from her startled hands before he lifted away. It was far from an easy journey, but it only took a few seconds to flap his way to the top of the perch, his erratic flight more effective at throwing off the aim of whatever was chucking things out of the darkness than any intentional dodging would have been. It took him two tries to thread the ring with the rope, but finally he pushed it through and then caught the far end, swooping down to drop it in Edy’s hands and managing a rough but serviceable landing on her antler, feathers ruffling in the joy of his first flight under his own power in spite of the night of blood and fire all around them.
Jigano turns into a raven for the first time! He steals the rope fromAmalia (pp permitted by Charks) and threads it through the ring at the top of the perch, dropping it in Edrei 's hands before landing on her antler.
Isuma!
The fox’s head jerked up, the red haze fading by increments and then, it seemed, all at once as he wrenched control of himself away from the grasping, cruel talons that had so disordered his thoughts and left him lost to mindless rage. For a moment he simply crouched, panting, and focusing on the fear and love of a tiny gryphon. When he closed his eyes he thought he could almost see a snowy field, lit briefly by a scattering of lights – luxere? Luxere leaving the farm? But Isuma was too, it seemed, determined to come to his aid when he needed her most.
He wanted to tell her to stop, to go back, but their connection was so tenuous he didn’t think he could… and if the luxere were leaving, what protection did she have?
Then again, if she came here, she would have even less, wouldn’t she? There was blood in his mouth. The blood of the friends he had meant to protect, and he shivered, retching in a dry cough while Amalia gathered Rory to her side and got him up and moving. What if he turned again? Turned on Isuma the way he had on… on Rory…
Blue eyes looked up, wide with horror and guilt at the stumbling voice of his friend, and a whine of denial and sorrow rose from his throat as he pressed back against the perch. Rory was hurt, badly so, burned and bitten - bitten - and bleeding from the wounds Jigano had inflicted on him. Amalia, beside him, also bore the signs of his teeth and he wanted to curl up and slink away in shame. Even if he’d wanted to come close to Rory at the blond’s soft coaxing, Amalia’s sharp voice and well-deserved anger left him flinching away.
But… there was Bobi, the kitten not so fooled as the rest of them, protecting him from… from Edy? Who was carrying one of Amalia’s glowing red antlers? And in his heart there was Isuma, her boundless love and courage growing stronger with every minute that passed. He had failed his friends this night, as he had failed others before them-
But he didn’t have to keep failing. Later, if they survived, there would be time to wallow in guilt and misery. He was good at that. But for now, things need to be done, as they always did. He couldn’t bottle it all up completely, not this time, it was too big for that, but he could take a breath (full of blood and fire and burning flesh and rotting meat and death) – and then yelp and scramble to the side as a brick sailed past his shoulder, barely missing him. He turned to snarl at the monsters, an ineffectual response from such a small creature, and he knew it. Too small to climb the perch that looked to be at least five yards tall, maybe more. As a man, he couldn’t do such a feat without a rope to help him. And there, at the top, he thought he could see the faintest glint of a steel ring. They would need to get the rope through the ring if they wanted any hope of guiding the perch up again. Amalia’s plan of throwing blind wouldn’t work.
Nothing would work, as they currently were. They were so close to repairing it and yet… and yet… all he had done was hinder their attempts, hurt his friends, and be utterly useless. Amalia was right that he couldn’t shift into a more useful form. What they needed was something with wings, something big enough to carry a rope up, clever enough to thread it through the ring – but not so big that he would wound his friends worse if he lost his grip on sanity again.
Searching, hoping – but not dreaming, no, he had lost the right to those – the fox rose up on his hind legs, stretching towards the top of the pole. One dainty paw pressed to the wood as he stared upwards, wishing fiercely for even a fraction of his old power. He was so focused on what was above him that he didn’t notice as his fur rippled into feathers, his tail shrinking and then spreading wide, his toes lengthening into talons-
Not until he stumbled forward with a rough squawk of indignation as his paw – his wing? – no longer supported him. Flapping instinctively, he found his balance and hopped backwards, trying to look down at himself in shock. He couldn’t see much – toes too clever to be a hawk or eagle, and size too small. His beak was large, but then, anything so big in the middle of his face would look that way. He didn’t crow – though perhaps the sound was somewhat close – but he did croak excitedly to get Amalia’s attention. He had seen Remi shift into a hawk several times; somehow he had managed to do the same. His body already knew how to balance and move and, he hoped, to fly.
There was only one way to find out. Crouching and flipping his wings he tried to relax, to rely on this new form the way he’d always relied on his fox form since he’d been born. A breath in and then, on the exhale, the downbeat, the frantic rise, another downbeat, and he was off the ground, albeit more clumsily than he would have liked.
”'Alia!” he croaked excitedly. ”Give!” He hadn’t even meant to speak, the words spilling out broken but clear enough. White wings fluttered dangerously close to her as he beat at the air to stay aloft, snatching the end of the rope from her startled hands before he lifted away. It was far from an easy journey, but it only took a few seconds to flap his way to the top of the perch, his erratic flight more effective at throwing off the aim of whatever was chucking things out of the darkness than any intentional dodging would have been. It took him two tries to thread the ring with the rope, but finally he pushed it through and then caught the far end, swooping down to drop it in Edy’s hands and managing a rough but serviceable landing on her antler, feathers ruffling in the joy of his first flight under his own power in spite of the night of blood and fire all around them.
Jigano turns into a raven for the first time! He steals the rope from
