Thread: The Light and the Dark in the Soul (Anaeria and razerwing)

The forest was still and silent when Anaeron finally vanished into the trees again, settling her onto a large boulder just out of sight of the city and it's horrors. Imalia shuddered, gaining her composure after a minute or two, and then stood up and regained her hooved form once more, the red having faded from her eyes until they were her regular, black-starry orbs. Unable to face the outside world, as it had changed much too much for her to process fully, she stepped off the boulder lithely as Anaeron went back to his cavern with a huff of annoyance. He rarely left his cave nowadays, even with the excitement of suddenly being in sunlight after a thousand odd years, preferring to leave the insane responses to the younger races. His tail was all she saw after she regained her mind, holding onto it tightly this time so she didn't panic and become little more than a horse once more. After a moment more to steel her nerves, she headed for a small clearing that she knew of that was nearby, picking her way carefully and finding the gentle chimes of her own hooves to be almost loud in the stillness, the shock of the Forest and it's inhabitants. A flurry of movement to her left had her shying away suddenly, only to relax when it proved to be a Lenaz, a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit, with perhaps a bit of bat mixed in. It was cute in that it was fluffy and gentle, and when it scooted up her hind hoof and onto her rump as she carried on moving she didn't mind. A small bird followed soon after, a mutated one with four limbs, the upper two of which were able to grasp and hold things. Once she reached the clearing, she knew the Humans were going to enter the Forest. There was no way that they wouldn't. And she needed information. She HAD to have knowledge of the world she was to deal with outside of her trees before she made such a foolish move again. Within moments her power was soaring through the forest floor in a wave, a minor shockwave of sorts that anyone within the line of the trees could feel. The animals on her back took off, and the unicorn exhaled, slipping away until she was human once more and entirely nude in the daylight sunshine. Hair the colour of deep night fell past her hips in thick waves and her feet were silent as she began to dance. In truth, it wasn't so much a dance as a weaving of her power, forming invisible 'threads' around and about the trees and the in the air around the Forest. Anyone could enter, but she would know when and where they did so, and her subjects would be ready to bring them down...or bring them to her, as she rather preferred. After all, the humans were a warlike race, and she had no use for them unless they were powerless in front of her and open to giving her knowledge. The dance was fast, more of a blur of speed as she set the parameters of the 'web' and settled her power into ley lines within the earth that the Forest used to grow so she would not be drained of her own magics. Then....then the Queen opened her mouth and Called. The sound was haunting, a single howl that echoed throughout the trees and the thick vegetation, causing less violent beasts to quiver and take cover in their nests and dens. Several Rathgnarls that had been drawn into this world when the Forest faded from the Dark Space looked up and grinned over a mutant deers' corpse, their muzzle-like snouts dripping gore. They weren't being called however, and they went back to their feast without care as the true Beasts of the Forest answered the Call. Wolves hadn't mutated much in the Forest in the thousand years that it had been in the dark. They needed to evolve only a bit growing much bigger until the smallest was four feet tall, the largest ranging around five and a half at the shoulder. Their eyes were red, able to see through any darkness and their fur was all over black, blending them perfectly with the shadowy world they had lived in, and they were much, much faster than the average beast of the earth forests. Within moments they were ringed around the clearing, red eyes glowing in the light they were so unfamiliar with, thus they remained in the shadows as she stood surrounded by them. A sentence later had all seventy wolves, the entire pack except for two females and half a dozen pups which remained in another cavern farther off in the Forest, heading for the edges of their territory, the whole forest. They'd watch. And wait. A single human entering would be watched and perhaps herded if he or she strayed from the way towards the clearing in which Imalia, their Pack Alpha, remained in, now seated in the thick grass beside a small brooke of clear, cold water which she had purified herself not three days before. Any other humans attempting to enter would be killed, not matter who it was.