RAVEN

It had been weeks since their last encounter. So much had happened - the meeting with the dragon, the Invasion, the building of her hut, the quest from her Father .. Yet Thunderhead's words still echoed in her mind. The righteousness...the sense of purpose. It had this allure to it, a colour that painted her thoughts, which she in turn smeared on the world. But there was one flaw ... one piece missing.

The truth. The justification. The point.

Oh it wasn't that Isopia didn't think it was genuine, but perhaps misguided. There was too much emotion and flare. She still remembered how Thunderhead's wings flared from her side with pride and purpose, how her voice had strained with emotion and triumph. It was not the cold exciting thrill of discovery and brilliance ... this was something more. A witch hunt, with a twist.

But Mesec had bought in ... and so Isopia had as well. She had tossed her name - a fake one (which in fact, the girl very much enjoyed), into the ring with the others. She was one of them, at least as far as any of them thought. And then? Nothing had happened.

Weeks passed and time swamped the memory of the beach. It downplayed the success Thunderhead said they achieved.

But the girl remembered.

She didn't know how to contact Thunderhead, and so she returned to the scene of the crime.

Literally.

Perched on a branch, in the only form Thunderhead had seen her in, Raven waited. Her skull marked face scanned the horizon, the frothing blue waves, the endless sands. It was a long shot that she would return here, but it was the logical place to start.

So, Raven waited.

For @[Ampere]/Thunderhead.

THUNDERHEAD

She was dwelling, again. The thoughts tumbled back and forth across her mind, much like the waves upon the shore that she so adored. They were too numerous to recount, like trying to take stock of all the grains of sand on the shore, and too fleeting to grasp, like the salt water which spun foam on the beach. So Ampere simply stood, and watched, and listened. Little by little, she let the ocean push her back into serenity, or whatever semblance of it she could attain.

Gone from her was the electrical energy that she so often embodied, replaced instead by the meditative state Maren had tried to teach her to obtain at will. Perhaps some day she would, but for today, and many other days, Ampere would seek out the ocean for her help in that regard. Of all the times for someone to speak to her about matters close to her heart, this was surely the best. Though, her lightning still lurked as ever, and she had certainly turned conversations into storms before. Still, every storm runs out of rain.

Exhaling slowly, gently, Ampere blinked against the sea breeze. With Maren's voice still in her ears, Ampere knelt down on first her front legs, bowing to the mighty ocean, before keeling over on her rump as well. Flicking her tail on either side of her to feel the sand, Ampere groaned as she flopped onto her left side, careful to keep her wings tucked in tight as she began to roll and itch and bask in the sand of the sea. It was getting too cold to embrace the water these days, but it didn't make the sunsets or the bedding any less enjoyable.

After laying for a moment on her side, cloaked in particles of crushed rock and shell, Ampere rolled back to her chest and gazed with an unwavering hold out at the horizon line. At her side blue sparks began to gather, though they didn't have the quick anger so typical of her. Instead the energy, drawn from dead seaweed and other splinters of life, flowed with an easy pull all around her. They gathered in two separate spheres, which soon were shaped into mice. They scampered around Ampere, their hazy outline occasionally lost when a stray bit of energy arced out, wild and violent, before they reformed and continued their dance.

This was peace, yet it would never last. The Raven in the tree was testament to that.

RAVEN

She came, and immediately Isopia felt a sense of uncertainty. Part of her doubted that Thunderhead would in fact appear here. It was an incredibly long shot, that both would return to the same place at the same time. All it would take is a few hours to pass before they would have missed each other. Yet something stayed the demi-girl's departure each time the thought of leaving raced across her mind. Just a few more minutes. I'll just look at the waves .. she would tell herself, and those minutes stretched out into hours, and hours. Perhaps she did this so that later on, when her absence in the thrown-together band was noticed, she could defend herself. I went, she would say. I waited. It would be understandable, and all doubt and critique would surely be dropped and she could continue on her nomadic way.

But she was not alone now. Thunderhead had come. The girl hadn't thought this far ahead.

Silently, golden unblinking eyes took in Ampere's lackadaisical movements. Isopia imagined herself down there on the sands, feeling each grain rubbing abrasively but pleasantly on her back. Her beak parted as she let out a vicarious sigh at the imagined sensation, before the intrigue of Thunderhead's magic promptly caused her to close it. So, i'm not the only one.. She thought to herself as she watched the seaweed mice scurry and play. She hadn't seen anyone else with magic that came even close to her own. The uniqueness of it all made her shrink into herself questioningly. Isopia had gotten too used to the idea that she was different. At first it seemed like a curse, that everything she did screamed dissonance with the rest of the world. Over time she wore her uniqueness like a badge of honor, judging those who didn't accept her and finding small comforts in those who did. But now? Perhaps she wasn't so different after all...

Shoving these thoughts to the back of her mind, she focused on the scurrying mice. From the waters edge, two large cat-like creatures began to appear. Isopia hadn't seen anything other than the large cats that prowled the Edge, but only ever from a distance. As a result, her felines looked more like dragons, for those were the creatures she was most familiar with. However the lacked wings, and the head was rough enough as to be recognized. The water-cats sprung at the mice, translucent claws outstretched as their magical bodies raced across the wet sands to catch their pray.

THUNDERHEAD

Ampere watched her mice, content with the world for the moment. As was the running joke with her and Mesec though, those moments were far too fleeting, and much too short - bursts of sunlight amid a storm-strewn sky. Here came the rain again.

Blue eyes flicked up, drawn by movement that was not there before. The beach was so open and widely laid out that sneaking up was difficult, something poor for the sneaker, but excellent for the one being sneaked. At least, that's what Ampere had thought.

Before her raised eyes were two things that had not been there before. Startled, but still remaining poised as she was, perhaps due more to disbelief than anything else, Ampere watched them as they attacked her mice. Alarmed, the Mother of Companions cried out vindictively as she rose in a spray of sand and feathers. One electric mouse sparked and fizzled beneath the watery paws of its predator, while the other twisted into a shapeless ball of energetic anger which was flung towards the other sea cat.

Before them Ampere stood on her four legs, braced for a fight, but looking for it elsewhere. She knew enough of magic that she recognized the cats for what they were after the first few heart pounding moments that she saw them. They were not the threat, just their maker. Facing the sea, Ampere craned her head around her left shoulder, the black of her skin accenting the blue markings that side of her face bore. So close to the coast, the constant wind billowed, casting her short and tangled mane into a cold halo behind her. In a word, she looked wild. "FACE ME!" she cried out fearlessly to the beach. Her eyes skipped all around, still unable to see the foe (invisible perhaps?). Her nares flared, trying to catch a scent above the salt, while her ears twitched at the slightest sound that wasn't a gull or a wave.

RAVEN

While one of her creatures succeeded in drowning out the electric rat, the second was to appear not so lucky. The rat morphed into a giant frothing ball of electricity, which made the girl feel like frowning - but of course, beaks couldn't frown. Now, Isopia had just wanted a way of alerting Thunderhead to her presence without actually having to do much. She wasn't all that invested in her creations, nor had she given any forethought to what she would do if Thunderhead took her hello negatively. Now that it was upon her, the desire to win was simply too strong to ignore.

Almost like a shield rising up through the sand, the granules parted as her magic forced some of the firmer stuff from below to surface. A mixture of clay and stone wrapped itself around the water cat, and, as Thunderhead's electric ball came into contact with it, the make-shift shield dispersed the voltage easily and harmlessly around its surface*.

Isopia watched as Thunderhead lept from what appeared to be a rather cozy spot in the surf, snorting and looking about. Her wild appearance set the girl on edge; was this all really necessary? If Thunderhead had just thought it through - if her attacker had the power to make such creations and creatures and also wanted to cause harm to the blue, wouldn't she have done so already? Wouldn't she have skipped the appetizer of rodent and gone right for the main course? Oh well, at least she wasn't yelli-

FACE ME!

She could feel her ears flattened against her skull, even though they of course weren't. In this form, she didn't have ears that could flatten. All the same, she knew the feeling. This was ridiculous. The girl was starting to think that Thunderhead didn't actually have a plan, that there was no cause. This display of instant aggression at the hands of a weak display of magic only demonstrated that Thunderhead was willing to attack anything, to make anything an enemy.

Part of Iso wanted to just fly away. Clearly the blue didn't know that it was she who was in the tree (although, with a name like Raven, Iso would have thought her would-be-fearless-leader would have been a little more observant), but something made her stay. Perhaps it was because she now knew how fallible Thunderhead was, how precarious her philosophy suddenly seemed. Her mind was suddenly rapt with attention and intrigue; perhaps it wasn't just precarious, perhaps it was broken.

The girl wanted to know.

On soundless black wings, the raven took to the sky. She angled her body higher, hoping that perhaps the sun might mask the skull markings that appeared on her face. In lazy circles she drifted over where Thunderhead's angry gaze was cast. Her wings beat more slowly allowing her body to gently cascade towards the ground, until finally her small avian feet touched down upon the pristine sands. Folding her wings against her sides, the raven with the bright golden eyes stared up at Thunderhead from a few paces away. Her head moved in the jerky way that birds tend to, but the intelligence in her eyes was unmistakable, as was the death-mask she wore.

[*RIGHT. THAT'S HOW ELECTRICITY WORKS ISN'T IT? #physicsfail]

THUNDERHEAD

What more had she expected really, when she created her water into a predator of Ampere's spark mice, when she had sent it to pounce? Whether a direct threat to Ampere or not, the message it delivered seemed clear enough, and extremely unfriendly. That it was not a tactical attack didn't make it any less of an assault. Even a friendly trick, which Ampere was not against playing herself a time or two, would have been more innocent in nature.

So Ampere was on edge, snorting as she stood and watched, waiting for any continued aggravation or appearance. None came, not at first, not until movement in the trees drew Ampere's eyes. They flicked up, vibrant and blue, especially with the sea as her backdrop, but she quickly dismissed the mere bird, continuing her search elsewhere. Or she did, until said bird landed in front of her. Peculiar was the first thought that came to Ampere as her attention was literally forced upon the black avian. Crows and ravens were not as shy as some other species, but they were usually in groups, and typically only farced so bravery if food was on the line. There wasn't even a rotting crab around for this bird, so why.

Ampere's gaze tightened, narrowing as she brushed it across the odd markings the bird's small features boasted. They seemed oddly familiar, but they were very distorted on such a shrunken body. Still, they wiggled at the back of Ampere's mind, and in her intrigue she forgot her paranoia, loosening her stride as she took a step towards the bird, head low and extended out. "Raven?" she asked of it after an extra moment of inspection. "Is that you?"

Then, "Was that you?" her tone came out sterner, nose jerking back towards the surf, but never letting go of the corvid before her. No continued attacks were coming, an no other activity appeared on the beach, but then, what was the point of that little show?

RAVEN

"Yes." One reply, for Thunderhead's three questions. The voice of a girl tumbled out of the beak of the bird, as her large golden eyes looked up at the mare from the sands. From this vantage point, Thunderhead looked huge. Her blue/black body blotted out the sun and even partially blocked the wind. Even though her raven form was larger than a standard raven, she was still bird-sized, and easily diminished next to a fully grown horse. Suddenly Isopia decided that she didn't like this uneven playing field, even if she had 'won' the little battle between cat and mouse. And honestly, she still didn't see what all the fuss was about. But then again, she usually failed to understand things like that.

Hopping back a few feet, she let her transformation magic slowly sweep over her. Clawed feet grew almost monstrously, to reveal hooves that could have crushed the bird she had been before. A body splattered with the colours of sand and blood grew from blackened feathers, elongating and growing to impossible heights. Isopia was only two seasons old, and yet her body resembled a two year olds. Her bones were still growing, yet her height towered above most. Her long limbs betrayed just how massive she really was, although at this close distance it wouldn't be hard for Thunderhead to judge. Isopia folded her mismatched wings against her flanks, and regarded Thunderhead from a significantly higher vantage point than she had a few moments ago. Her quad horned skull twisted slightly, as an emotionless expression ironed out any wrinkles that may have appeared on her death-masked face.

"I came here looking for you." She offered, trying to pull attention from what was a fairly fascinating transformation. Even if Thunderhead had never seen her 'regular' form before, and so would have no idea that the girl had been growing ridiculously quickly, she was still quite the sight to behold.

THUNDERHEAD

The transformation did not alarm Ampere, not nearly as much as it should have. A lifetime of sorcery tended to make one rather unimpressed with moth magical feats, though that wasn't to say Ampere didn't have a healthy respect for them, or couldn't be surprised by them even still. Just, the bird talked like Raven, was a Raven, and now was Raven the mare. It all made sense, and however magnificent it was, didn't compare to the interest Ampere had in the purpose of this meeting.

She was disappointed however as Raven continued to be vague, giving no explanation other than the most basic one. Trying not to be annoyed, which after having her moment of peace interrupted by the girl for no apparent reason was difficult, Ampere cocked a rear hoof in preperation of palavar. It was a show of good faith, even if she felt anything but at the moment.

"Is there something you need of me?" she asked with genuine interest, her marked head tilting faintly to the side in inquiry. Blue eyes blinked behind black lashes, forced up as the young girl was already taller than Thunderhead. It wasn't anything unusual for the short mare; other than their age difference. "Is this about the Whatch?" Thunderhead asked shortly after, excitment growing in her tone as she thought the corvid member had a missions, or news, or something.

"I don't have any news mysef, but there's bound to be something, someone soon that needs help." That needs whatching.