Stealing Sunlight

VALKYRIE She stood in the storm Beautiful as the Seraph’s dream, the delicious fragrance of the empyrean, star-cloaked mare wafted forth amid familiar mist-like galaxies, billowing like a bride’s veil around the tangible form amid behemoth leaves and luminous blooms - even Solanis’s strange loveliness paled in comparison to K’yarie. But as they stood together in the rain, reunited of course by fate, Valkyrie found herself tracing instead the crude lines of a stranger’s expression, a stallion’s, and like withered leaves, the cursed mare’s hope fell fast. How can this be? It was, in that moment, as though a vice-grip seized her heart and for a second she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Fear, confusion, disgust, feelings that spurred a flood of adrenaline through her bloodstream and as her pulse pounded past unbalanced ears, the Shieldmaiden nearly missed the words that he offered. Anger writhed beneath the surface of her pale, perfect skin, bubbling visibly as she shifted weight from left to right. “I am no other!…” Contempt lathered the bitter retort, and her eyes, which had looked before so burdened and bruised, flashed with the same snarling vigour that had perhaps, landed her this nightmarish predicament in the first place. Deep beneath the baritone note of her new voice, yet hidden by the brutish angles and thickness of a hideously masculine build, Valkyrie flared outwards violently, characteristically, scolding the ludicrous suggestion that… Her ostentatious display faltered suddenly. Though her heart brandished insolence so easily, the winged woman could find no foundation for the stew of boiling hatred. Do I look so awful? She wondered vainly, recoiling her eyes to view the thickened knees beneath, appearing to withdraw away beneath a sudden tide of contemplation. Sorrow and self-pity too swiftly devoured the advancement of audacity, and her ugly frame reversed and turned, aiming retreat into the cover of undergrowth. and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.

img
Note: For clarity, Valkyrie is currently cursed - physically she appears as a stallion, cannot remember why she hates men, and views others as the opposite gender.