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Movement beyond the three misfit figures caught at the stallions attention. His eyes narrowed as a swathe of black snaked along the ground between trunk and shadow, arrowed unfailingly toward him.
The roan had barely formed an accusing frown when a high pitched shriek bored into his eardrums. The sound seemed to expand even as his black tipped ears folded tight to his poll, pressed as if to weld themselves to the muscles bunched there. His chin raised and followed the spear of sound to its source.
The shadow hovered above, suddenly whole and material before him; a thousand feathers of obsidian black bristled wide in malice. The stallion rose over his haunches, screaming a feral challenge in answer, one foreleg thrown high and forward, the other tucked snug against his sternum and belly as sword and shield. He braced low over his hocks, adrenaline and anticipation wetting his skin, but no blow fell, and suddenly it was the trees that moved and not the living shadow.
The stallion dropped to four legs and hurried backward several steps to avoid being lashed by vine or bough as the forest wove itself into a single entity, a solid wall between him and the rest of the group. As he watched, the weave of tree limbs tightened in on itself, closing even the smallest gaps between branches. It rose higher than the stallions head and extended more than the length of his body in either direction.
He could not see the three misfits now, but he could still hear them, still smell them. Hoof beats receded from the other side. One ear rose slowly to tilt uneasily up at the highest branches of the wall, but if the living shadow still waited overhead he could not sense it.
What power had placed this barrier between him and his duty? What new order had stayed his teeth? The wall was far from impregnable. Even a quick glance showed where the branches fell away and the trees stood slim and separate, but the roan did not pursue. He hesitated, eyes cast one way and then the other for some indication of heavenly will, but no feeling came to him and his own shadow lay invisible among the darkness pooled at the base of the unnatural wall. Abandoned, he turned away.
The stallion walked in silence, waiting with utter obedience for his gods to command him. As he walked the trees appeared in more abundance, the canopy of foliage thickened, and the air grew still and close.
OOC: Linds told me to go ahead and skip her as her internet is out right now. Thanks everyone for meeting with Rainy. :) He’s headed into the deep forest now.
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