in a different skin [OPEN]

[ladysarmour]

Characters: Sansa Stark, OPEN
Where: In and around Schwanheim and the castle
When: Rebirth 17, evening → night
What: From the touch of a spindle Sansa sleeps, and dreams wolf dreams.
Warnings: Mild violence, blood. It is a wolf after all.

In Schwanheim there is a wolf. Young still; but large even for a pup, with fur the grey of a rainy sky and glowing yellow eyes. She slinks through the castle and town, avoiding any guards; lesser wolves fear men, but she knows yet to be cautious of steel. The world is dulled of color, but the smells - smells of man and stone, rain and mud, damp wood, fire. Each smell should be familiar but is somehow different from what she knows: nothing smells of ice the way she knows. Down an alley and another she stalks and kills a rat, the bones crunching to splinters between her jaws and warm blood flooding her mouth. Her brothers and sister might have been able to catch better prey, larger or quicker, but she is small and has always been the milder.

A new scent catches her nose, and she turns to follow it.

Comments

[ladysarmour]

She scents a man who smells of cold, and fur, and wing; it draws her from pursuit of another rat to crouch in the shadows beneath a stair, tail sweeping over the damp ground. It is the smell of home: ice and snow, chill waters, the wood and the wild.

[sorcerous]

A wolf. Something of the terrible wild, here, in the city. Now that is unusual enough to draw his notice.

He steps closer, crouches by the shadows. There is no fear in him; no threat.

"Do I smell magic on you?" he calls, lowly.

[ladysarmour]

Nervously, she approaches, drawn from her shadowed crevice by the smell of home. Paws at the ground; men talk in a language she does not know, but her ears turn to the sound of his voice.

[sorcerous]

Then he will communicate in tone and gesture. He is only half-fluent in wolf-tongue, but he knows enough to run with them when he takes their form.

"I will harm you none." His voice is calm, and low, and soothing. "I will not harm your pack, nor any children you may protect. See: my teeth are dull, and I have no claws."

He holds the wolf's gaze.

[ladysarmour]

Her nervousness abates to wariness; he seems familiar in some way she does not know (because we spoke once before, earlier this day). Hesitantly, she edges towards him, ears forward and tail slightly raised. She wants to know: why does he smell of home (the north, Winterfell, the north), and why does he smell of kin?

[sorcerous]

There, yes, there; he sees the spark of magic in her eyes. There is more to this than a simple wolf. In fact, he believes there may be someone else in there, twisted and stretched around a wolf-mind, a wolf-heart, a wolf's lust for blood.

He glances away, a long moment. The danger of this is keen and near. Every time he drifts from this form, he has a more and more difficult time returning.

But, then --

What is there that is so wonderful about being Loki? I would be anything else, he had told Sif, earlier, and the words of the wild creature Anya were that he was a shapeshifter. That he could choose what his own truth was. And he loathes this skin, still: traitor-skin, kin-killer, the one who had a single chance to prove himself equal to Thor and instead had brought himself to ruin.

Would it not be better to have his truth be the remorseless blood-and-death-ridden life of the wild?

Before he changes his mind, he changes his form.

It is a flicker; a swirl of wind, a shift in a direction Loki still cannot explain. He wraps the new skin around his bones, and opens his eyes as a dark-colored wolf. The scents of the night come alive in his nose, and a spillover of magic leaves ice crackling under his paws.

[ladysarmour]

This, here, this is kin: not brother but lesser cousin, and (Shaggydog was just that color). The change is sudden, startling; her lips draw back to bare her teeth. Hackles up, she crouches, and growls.

[sorcerous]

He knows this dance; they are neither of them ordinary wolves, both of them powerful. If he smelled more magic on her, if he smelled more courage, greater age, then he may have submitted out of curiosity, to ease the way between them. But, as it stood, Loki wanted no challenge to his authority.

He returns the growl, barks, braces himself on front paws and looms above her.

[ladysarmour]

Her brothers, gone; her sister, gone; here she has no pack, and no wish to fight. With a whine she submits, rolling onto her back to expose her belly.

[sorcerous]

Good; resolved easily, and Loki's fragile ego is satisfied. The growl fades from his throat, and he moves to nuzzle her, lick reassuringly at her muzzle.

[ladysarmour]

Panting, she rolls back onto her belly and nips at his jaw, learning his scent.

[sorcerous]

The ice is melting where his paws stood, but the scent remains: cold and winter-spice. He whuffs at her, a suggestion to follow him. He plans to lead her out of the town and to the wilds of the night-forest. There are monsters there, but what would bother two wolves of such power?

[ladysarmour]

The rat was not enough: she finds she is hungry still, and better game lurks away from the cluster of stone-caves and wood-caves the men call home. She licks his muzzle and rolls to her feat to follow.

[sorcerous]

Beyond the thickest cluster of buildings, Loki breaks into a long lope. Wolves were born to run, and the both of them are sleek, quick creatures; he loves to run, in this form, and so he leaps across the open ground, finding footholds by instinct more than sight.

[ladysarmour]

She keeps pace easily, her legs long and strong even for a pup. The night air is cool and full of sounds: here their paws padding the ground, there the rustling of a rodent in the grass, and the whispering of the wind through the leaves. Above the stars are hidden by clouds, but every so often a sliver of moonlight peeks through. She does not care where they're headed; she runs for the sheer joy of it and because she has not felt so unbound in so long.

[sorcerous]

He smells a deer fleeing, far ahead, and he doubles his speed, chases it for the joy of it, not to catch. Night breeze through his fur, and he moves as a shadow would.

[ladysarmour]

Her movements have none of his dark elegance; they are light and graceful, like a maiden in spring. But she is fast: as his pace quickens hers does too, the shackles that have bound her for so long falling away link by link. A lightness overtakes her, demanding to be given voice, so she complies, throws her head back and sings to the wild sky.

[sorcerous]

His howl joins hers, free and terrifying and wild. A harmony of the hunt.

He feels in his bones that the creatures all around, their prey, have been struck with terror.

Good; best that they know there are hunters now, in these woods. True hunters.