Time wears slowly and thickly across the wood. The manner of the sun, blotted out but striving fervently to reach the ground, has an effect on the hunter and the body he is in. Knox watches events unfold before him with Zekiah's hooves planting his soul firmly in the earth. There is something inspiring, the hunter thinks, about Zekiah's dedication to life, even in and after so much death.

Is it good to feel the wind on your face, ancestor?

Silence. Does the hunter not deserve an answer? His body fights with himself--Knox stamps an irritated hoof into the earth, its faint thud absorbed by the loamy soil that lines the shore, and Zekiah swiftly overtakes his host, snapping back his neck and nipping at his own chest. He is scolding in his mannerism.

Manhattan starts, her body a figure of rapt attention at her master's side. It is still Knox who she would hurt with a bite, but there are ways she can put Zekiah's mind in place. She fills the body's thoughts with things Knox has shown her before: with terror, and Zsoka's limp form.

But Zekiah is cold, now. He has seen the image too many times, played the scene over in his head too often, to let it shake him. He lashes his tail at Manhattan but gives her no more satisfaction.

It is the raven-shifting mare who he watches. His bold blue eye stares ahead, and Knox reluctantly follows their gaze with his controlling mind. The mare before them is no ordinary creature, and it is apparently not only her ability to shift that makes her unique. The hunter takes note of the way the earth rises to her occasion: the rocks, spinning and shifting, the soil lifting with green around her hocks. What if he were to leave now and return in two years time? Would she be there still, a statue covered in green, creating and being with magic?

Manhattan paces around her master's feet, shoving them rudely as she does. It is Zekiah she rebels against--the thief's disregard that irks her. She cares little for the mare, but when she catches the spinning of the rock out of the corner of her eye her hackles stiffen and raise. Take care, she speaks to her master in his mind.

I will be fine, Hatta, the hunter insists as he watches the rocks spin and form at the mare's will and concentration. He doesn't fear their approach or attack in the slightest. Knox fears nothing, but he finds that with a hollow sort of curiousity that he wants. He wants to know the root of her power, her ability to form.

Maybe, some part of him just wants to use it.
And maybe, too, it is the playful Zsoka in his heart that begs his descendant and brother to stride forth and interrupt the ritual.

But Knox has gained, if nothing else, control. He watches in silence as Manhattan weaves around his legs worriedly. There is nothing to do but wait and see what comes next.

—
[[@[Isopia]]]