Night was natural for Specter. The daytime made him feel exposed, even in the unchanging darkness of Kalinor—his body seemed acutely aware of the light outside the cavern walls, and just thinking of the Symenestra's former treetop homes made him ill. Daytime turned his surroundings garish colors, pricked at his eyes, highlighted the imperfections in his mimic of a pure-blooded Symenestra's body. Most importantly, he couldn't run during the day: Maintaining his morphed features with that sort of physical exertion was impractical, and Specter was petrified to be seen that way.
So, as was customary, Specter had huddled in his home all day, hissed at anyone attempting to stir him and come sunset he'd darted out the Woven Gate and into the trees like a stray dog, where he ran circles in the wilds for several bells.
Naturally, this behavior wasn't without consequence. Starved and only marginally nocturnal as he was (yet another product of his mixed blood clashing), he had been petching tired when he left the cavern and he was petching tired now, weaving through the trees on a desperately empty stomach. He skidded to a halt and the insidious burn of overexertion hit him all at once, but thankfully he hadn't strayed far into the Unforgiving—considering how delicate he was, he rarely ever did. Ignoring the fire in his muscles, he turned on his heel and kicked off on the way home, slightly lengthening his legs to increase his stride. Catching sight of the cavern from the height of a small ledge, he ran to its edge and stretched his legs further in preparation for the jump. As he pushed off, he noticed a distinctive shadow in the cavern entrance. Curious, that. Vaguely humanoid-looking, that shadow.
Horror of all horrors, someone was there.
Specter tried to redirect in midair, lost his bearings, flailed, and landed in a tangle of disproportionate limbs just before the entrance. It was the sort of fall that would shatter a Symenestra's kneecaps, but this failed to register in his crooked little mind—being seen was his only real concern. He grit his teeth in pain, exhaled sharply and began to paw at his eyes, trying to deduce what it felt like when he arranged his Djed into his favorite shade of amethyst. Tragically, without a mirror he couldn't manage such a subtle operation: When his hands lowered, one eye was indistinguishably dark and the other so light that it nearly glowed. They searched the darkness and found the shadow's owner, slumped against the wall and looking every bit as tired as Specter felt.
He grimaced and got to his feet, too in pain to realize that a pure-blooded Symenestra would be broken whereas he only had massive, quickly darkening bruises lining his shins and arms. He brought a hand to the back of his neck, feigning a nervous tic in order to smooth his wing stubs down, but between the fact that his body was intact and his legs were stretched longer than most any Symenestra's, it did little to remedy how unconvincing he looked. Walking over and kneeling down to the stranger's level, he peered at him with vague curiosity, his head slightly tilted, his light-colored eye blinking rhythmically (that was a real nervous tic).“...Hello.” In most any other situation he would have darted right back into the woods, but the man looked so tired and yet he was outside the city so late—there was clearly something of interest there, and even through the hazy throb of pain, Specter could never deny interest. ”You look like shyke.”
