08b - The Valleys So Deep
The spirit creature surges forward to meet her from whatever place it generally exists. The mounting happens smooth as falling, yet with a visceral shock that thumps through her somewhere and nowhere: Maggie has some dim impression of a change in power around the ring of women and her hands pulled hard and then she is not there any more.
She is descending from the top loft of the inn's stables, and she is - with/in, commanding/covered by, entirely and not - Trugred, and her loins are girded but at the same time just the rough-furred tops of legs that clop - clop - down the ladder on cloven hooves, steady as human feet, and they raise their skull head to shake away all uncertainty. Their body sings with power, using their energy and flesh in new ways to be this more-than-whole, knowing more and thinking less than the human ever did, more focused than the bridled chaos of the horse-thing. The costume's bells were left in the box, a dim memory of fingered fumbling with fabric and mortal things, and yet with every step they go glingling.
Kit Meaker hurries up as they leap down amongst the horses, drawn by the hubbub and squealing exclamations from the beasts. His eyes go completely wide in startled horror and confusion as they turn and stand a moment, horse-high and untethered, and then in three steps they are right at him, in two more, leaping over him. The six-foot jump is as easy as dream flying. They run on, run out, the horses' cries fading behind.
They whip up the road like a whisper bourne down the wind, faster than witches, faster than the hares that try to match their pace and fall behind. Their heart thumps hard but with a steady rapidity, the heat and constant drumming providing a border to themself and this state of near-holy ecstacy that is at once simply profane animal joy. They are, and they are with and in the world, immortal and more healthy and alive than anything surely has a right to be, and Trugred has to leap and jink sideways in whatever field they're in, just for the glee of it.
They had - have - a purpose, however. Maggie/Trugred turn their cloth ears and snort, and then they're off again, uphill with the pushing power of the beast that draws the plough, up beside the Wyzenwood and along the crest of the hill. They leap a wall, scattering cattle, and charge through to a point where a gate can be jumped and the slope followed, mud skidding, to a moment's standstill. Something that pretends to be a man and smells - even at this distance - of the Wood has just burst through the hedge at the bottom of the disputed strip of soggy field, clutching a pale bundle that wails, and one tall and one very tall human sprint after.
[[Trugred/Maggie, if you could take yourself over to 8e, please.]]