Crossing the Sun (Dor)

[Haeli]

Timestamp: 5th of Summer, 511 AV
Location: Above The City & Surrounds
Purpose: Social & Morphing
Tags: Dor & Open with Permission

The glass dome of All Things Wild had windows at the very top that allowed the summer heat to escape when the summer sun got to scathingly hot on the denizens within. Haeli of course took advantage of it as she did all things within the facility, utilizing it to the fullest. Just as the sun was rising, the window line started to slide open and the witch slipped out into the fresh air of the morning. Her hair was still damp from her bath and only a thin robe covered her form. It soon was gone too for she was too high up and concealed among the glass to truly be viewed even accidentally from the street. Nudity was never a problem for the swamp child, where having clothing was more of a struggle than not having garments ever was. Stepping out of the robe she slid off her shoulders, Haeli stepped forward and outstretched her arms.

Whisperwing's form was as familiar to her as breathing. To an outsider, an egret's body might have seemed a strange fragile choice in such a harsh world when predatory birds were so much easier to defend oneself as. But Haeli had learned the egret's shape when she was small, and their bodies had been of similar size and mass which was required for a morpher's art at her level. She'd never felt the need to change it since, finding the egret strong and well able to fly long distances. Opening her arms to the sun, the girl let the light wash over her as djed danced off her body and surrounded her in a strange eerie glow. Feathers sprouted, casting shadows in the fresh sunlight as her whole body contorted and reformed itself, aglow in the power of a morpher's art.

A single downbeat, then another, then a third had the long elegant shorebird launched into the air where she concentrated on winging upwards, climbing high into the sky to cross the sun, welcoming in the new day and scouting the city in general. She'd fly for hours, partially to keep up her physical strength for flying took a great deal of that. But partially she flew to escape the strange ecology of the people below who acted like no other animals she knew.

And as she flew, Haeli sung in a strange singsong voice in the language of all things, greeting the wilds as only one marked by Caiyha could do. Her song was of welcome and joy and a fierce love of life. She greeted doves on the rooftops as she soared over them, and did the same of owls, settling in for the day after a tireless night of hunting and wakefulness. She greeted hummingbirds and songbirds, and even a lonely raptor soaring overhead.

Her joy at flight was a tangible thing as she winged around the city, watching its streets and temples, marveling at its people and customs.

[Dor]

The bowl of the heavens was bleached by the blasting sun. It yawned so far past wingtips that she had flown for hours, seeking an end. Only no black gorge snapped its jaws out of the mountains that housed the crystal city to cage and reclaim. It was dizzying, the light, as much as had been the dark. It had blinded her when she had made her first bid for liberty from the subterranean city, shot fear through her until she later believed it miraculous all her feathers had not turned white. It had taken her nearly a year to creep back out into the day, defying all natural instincts of her bird hollow bones. By night, she would hunt. By day, she would find a cave or a grove, a hollow in the earth would do insolong as she could huddle in the shade, wrapping in wings or porcelain pale arms, shivering from the light. The fact that Lhavit operated primarily by the hours of the wolves suited her just fine. It kept red hair dark as blood, the color many gingers might have been had they never walked in the daylight and let the pigment fade. It kept the ruffle of her feathers sleek as obsidian too until they spilled into softer white underbelly. Today she had tackled her terror. This was not a woman who allowed herself much of anything for very long. She had fought against instinct, bit back need until it had grown hard and heavy and overly familiar. She had to be careful, after all. The world was full of faces and some of them would keep you in the dark. More than half ensorceled by the sun, she had let the wind bear her for hours before a happy, avian greeting caught her like a lure from a slumberous pool of light and flight and pulled her down. She dove, air whistling, too fast and swept beneath the egret in order to make a curious study.

[Haeli]

The shadow was swift beneath her. It had a maneuverability an egret could never master. Long slim arrow-shaped wings gave it away as a falcon rather than a hawk, telling Haeli the creature of the wind was no threat to her nor was she a threat to it. Still, Haeli back winged, slowing her soaring flight to get a good look at the creature passing below her. She called a happy greeting to it, pivoted on one-wingtip as all wading birds could do, and gracefully circled. Most falcons were creatures of the tall grass and rolling hills, but she'd heard of some sorts that liked the mountains and places tall into the sky.

She wondered if it wondered why she was there, a bird that was as out of place in Lhavit as a seagull would be deep in the heart of the desert where no oceans caressed parched shores.

Pivoting on her wing again, she circled back around, wanting to follow the bird. A falcon's form would be an asset to her, one if she could study close enough, might give her something more fleet and less cumbersome than an egret to take. Form studies took hours though and rarely in Haeli's mind did a bird want to agree to remain still for long enough without growing suspicious that someone wanted do something other than look at them: namely eat them.

Her long graceful wingspan was not built for speed however. So she had to make do with what she could, pumping the wind and trying to follow the bird without looking as if she were following it. Raptors knew about predation. They were predators through and through and understood when undue attention was being paid them. So Haeli called her greeting again, in Caiyha's universal tongue, and tried to fly causally, shadowing the falcon in a way that only manged to look like someone following something and not trying to look like they were.

[Dor]

The egret wanted to play. That, at least, was the peregrine falcon's summation. It called happily and it struggled to keep up with her defiant speeds. There was no hope for the egret did she opt to go into a full tilt stoop, but there was no visible prey for her to bother with it. It was queer behavior for a bird, for a swamp egret so far flung from its native territories; but this particular falcon happened to ultimately know very little about the ways regular birds were supposed to act. Realization struck her like a hammer blow. What if the egret was lost?! It could be looking for water! Shelter, mud and shallows in which to stalk its prey and fill its belly. It could be hungry. Completely absorbed by the potential perils of the egret, she slowed her flight so that it would no longer be so difficult to keep pace. It was ridiculous, a little voice poked and prodded at her, but in the end this was a falcon with a squishy heart for anything winged and a loneliness that roamed, that no rocking could hold down. Besides, she didn't have anything better to do. There was a pleasant stream trickling through the floor of a valley just past the pine infested peak she was headed toward. A hoarse caw was called back to the egret -- possibly the least musical thing there had ever been -- and wingtips skimmed the upper most canopy of golden green leaves in her descent to the valley below.

[Haeli]

If nothing else, Haeli turned egret thought, it was excellent exercise and flight practice trying to follow something that weighed no more than three pounds soak and wet, and could outfly her on any given day. She flew with her long elegant beak open, encouraging air flow because she needed it as she pumped her wings, adjusted her tilt and followed the falcon.

Was it playing chase? She was no threat to it, but the bird called to her anyhow, its song a jumble of mixed messages that the swamp witch had a terrible time following for it had been a long time since she'd actually tried talking to a bird. Racoon now, she was perfectly proficient with. But pumping her wings, she thought, and called once more in a voice that was more a loud obnoxious honking than anything else, was a long way removed from scrambling limb to limb with Brig.

When the falcon slowed, Haeli was grateful and able to catch her wind, closing her beak as the falcon obviously set off for some place with a firm intent in mind. Mystified, the witch matched wings with the little bird, taking one beat for every three of the falcons, and traveled in silence with her.

Coming down, she studied the lay of the land intently, like something easily preyed on, and landed only when she thought it was safe, certain all was still within the wilderness around them.

The falcon vocalized again, causing Haeli to wince, as she adjusted her airspeed to take her up higher than the heights of the trees. Falcons could dart and skim and play in the trees like honeybees could in fields of wild flowers, but egrets needed more room and decidedly more concentration than the aerodynamic wonder below her. Lumbering, the witch used every ounce of her practice flying to keep from crashing into the pines until they played out and spilled out onto a valley where a stream darted through.

Haeli's wings burned. She was too high up altitude wise to be effective in the form she was in. An eagle or even an alpine songbird would be better suited, though she had no practice at such things. So when she cleared the treeline and soared over grasses, she came down hard, back winged and landed near the water. To the falcon, it would have looked suspicious since the egret staggered backwards, slammed down on its rump, squawked uncomfortably and started to shift shape. It wasn't a beautiful Kelvic shift either, filled with magic and the swirl of colored lights. Instead, it was an awkward magic infused fluctuation in forms that took Haeli a good two or three minutes to complete. Her max used to be six minutes, but she'd gotten better over the time, narrowed her usefulness, and gotten better at the egret.

But she was tired, and her arms burned. When the shift was complete, the nude girl lay back on the grass alongside the stream and groaned. Her arms came up and rubbed the opposite ones mournfully. "By Caiyha, falcon, you fly like you own the sky." She said closing her eyes and not bothering to see if the falcon had hung out or made itself known.

She relaxed exactly thirty seconds before she was sitting up, looking around once more completely and utterly aware of her surroundings. Haeli hadn't lived eighteen years to be eaten in a careless moment in a strange place near the base of Lhavit's Misty Peaks.

[Dor]

The falcon had landed on a gnarled, kneeling branch of a sentinel oak dappling the stream with a lacework of shadow. Her descent had disrupted a good half dozen smaller creatures -- magpie, brown thrush, and a handful of hungry peckers. They fled, altogether concerned that the predator was there for them. One particularly plump bird was eyed darkly, but the falcon settled her wings and hunched down on the branch rather than pursue. By the time her attention was returned to the egret upon whom she fancied having took pity, there was a magical disruption taking place in the sunlit air. It took all of a heartbeat for her beak to open in what must have been the avian equivalent of a slack-jawed stare. Never in all of her admittedly brief years had she witnessed such a thing. The air snapped and sparkled like lightning bugs around the exhausted egret, broiling against all of those pale feathers until it seemed to be sinking illuminate claws into the bird's very flesh and jerking it, tugging it, shaping and molding and, the gods be good, the falcon was transfixed. Shock had her frozen even by the time the egret had been fully transformed into a golden, lean human woman wearing nothing but the sky. She finally was having a taste of her own medicine. Motes of light winked and flared in swift conflagration, spinning miniature hurricanes of multicolored djed to leave a loose, molted feather floating softly through the air while a pair of black falcon eyes continued to peer, but this time it was out of a decidedly human face. "You're a bird!" She announced, disbelief crashing syllables together until they tangled back out, only this time in Common rather the whispering music of Symenos. "You're a bird," she repeated and dropped a bare leg over the branch so that instead of crouching she would be sitting. Bare feet dangled not so very far from the ground, the tree limb itself so heavy that it elbowed to the earth.

[Haeli]

Haeli's eyes snapped around and her head spun with them, heels of her hands digging in the soft soil of the stream bank and she twisted to get her feet under her in case flight was needed. She blinked before looking up then noted perched on a sturdy tree limb a girl, not indeed a falcon, and puzzled at her a moment.

Haeli knew kelvics, and knew that Brig had told her of other kinds besides those who were masked and apt to steal things like the coon was. But it took her exhausted body a moment to realize what the girl was saying and that she indeed was likely kelvic. Haeli spoke again, abruptly, her words almost musical and reminiscent of birdsong and wolf howl and all things wild. She blinked, switched from Caiyha's tongue to Common, and shook her head.

"No, not a bird. Dha... Human. Just human. You fly so well, I'm envious. And you have such a sleek lithe form I sought to see it better so I might imitate it someday with practice. I mean no harm and offer no threat. Would you like to talk a while? Perhaps there is something we can trade for a while in exchange for letting me view your beautiful bird form." Haeli said, rising and brushing the mud off her bare rear end. Mud never really bothered her unless it was in the nether regions, which was annoying to say the least. Both naked, both about the same age, Haeli felt on par with another fellow creature for perhaps the first time in her odd existence.

[Dor]

"But you were a bird," Dor insisted. Dark eyes were wide, thickly lashed in all of the green shadows the tree spilled around her. It was far more pleasant for her to remain within them rather than venture into what was still to her too blinding of a light by the stream. Even now she saw streams of color whenever she blinked, worming their way across her field of vision. Handfuls of murder hair were raked back from her face, giving her a better view of the egret-now-a-woman standing before her. Little toes curled against the air and a splotchy, scraped bruise marred one cheek before fading into white, white skin. The shadows of bones could be seen beneath, leaving one with the impression of a tattered and forlorn china doll. With predator's eyes. "You want to look at me?" Bemusement was clear. She gestured at herself, fingertips against the curve of her chest. "Why? Aren't you like me? I don't become an egret. You could chose to become a falcon just by looking?" Oh! "Could I?"

[Haeli]

Haeli noticed her blinking and moved quietly then, coming more into the treeline, back into the shade. She knew Brig's eyes were sometimes blinded by the sun too, him being more nocturnal than he cared to admit.

"It's a thing that can be taught. Someone taught me, yes. It's like swimming or riding a horse. Some people can do it, some can't. I don't think I am a good teacher, but I can certainly try to show you. Here is not a safe place to do so though. If you try and change, begin to learn, there are things that can hurt us and feast upon us. I live in the city in a big glass place where trees grow inside and it is warm and filled with plants." She said, taking a breath, suddenly excited.

Haeli continued after a moment. "If you promise you mean no harm, promise on something that matters to you, we could go there and stay a day or two and maybe try to exchange. There are windows high up in the glass that open to the sky so you can leave to hunt or fly away for good anytime. You are a kelvic, are you not? I have a kelvic friend who stays with me. He is a raccoon and is often noisy all night because he loves the night more than he loves the day. You could meet him. He'll bring you shiny trinkets he either makes or steals from people. I've never been able to convince him humans think stealing is wrong. He's trying to learn to change his form too. He can, a little, now that he's practiced. He wants to fly like you and I can. I am slowly learning his shape as well so I can climb and steal as well as he can." She added, having not talked that much to anyone in her life before.

She was just excited. Someone who looked her age, transformed like she could, and had a keen albeit predatory look in her eyes. That didn't bother Haeli. She knew what being a predator was all about.

[Dor]

The picture the not-an-egret-egret painted was alluring. Glass and warmth and trees. The glass was alluring for the offer of shelter and her words sparkling out of her, bubbling like waters of the stream flowing behind. Dor failed to move, still watchful and still, turning all of these words over in her mind. It was dangerous, she decided. This was a stranger and the glass place of which she spoke sounded dimly like a gilded cage. A pleasant one, however, and what would a person with wings want with cages? So maybe it wasn't a cage after all and if it was not a cage and she could meet -- "Kelvic? Yes. You know another? I've never met another. You're not one? Then how do you do that? Is it god magic?" The questions popped up and littered the air, endless as they had ever been. "Brig will bring me shiny things?" That was intriguing. Wary, her eyes narrowed. "Why would he? What if I don't have anything to give him? Are you sure you want me in your place? And all you want to do is look at me?" This was possibly the most suspicious bird in all the world.