The hare had expired upon impact, which was good as Jarmok was rapidly feeling less well and a kicking hare would no doubt imbalance him all the more. This night's peculiar happenings would bear some investigation, but not tonight. He was too spent tonight. He would look into it tomorrow and go and talk to the others in the Protectorate.
He began to waver in his flight, but it was not much further to his cave; he began his descent, lowering his tail feathers for stability and cupping his broad wings.
He glanced for one last time at the stars, now familiar to him as friends. His sharpened eye alit upon a particularly red star that he had never noted before. He pulled up abruptly, correcting himself: that was no star. He didn't know what it was, but it was moving, like a large, mis-colored shooting star (he had taken to watching those in the long Venric nights with Mercer). But this was more constant, not as fleeting as a shooting star.
He hesitated for a moment then, torn between keeping his eye on this visitor and landing at his cave, now just below him. A sudden cramp in his back made the decision for him: he had to land.
He dropped the hare to lighten his load, and came down more swiftly than he would have hoped, alighting with jarring force upon the ground and tumbling, shifting back into himself, he came to an unceremonious halt laying on his back and staring up into the night. Some of the stars that he saw were inside of his now aching head, he knew.
He was more exhausted than he could remember ever having been. His fire had burned down to a warm bed of embers and he forced himself to sit up (painfully) and rekindle the flames.
He poured water from his skin over his head and drank of the stream tumbling over his face. The cool of the water alleviated the throb in his head somewhat.
As tired as he was, he needed to eat, which is why he had taken the hare in the first place. Jarmok was the sort that needed a lot of sustenance. He would routinely eat four or five times a day, and would often snack as well. As of this moment, he hadn?t eaten anything since the previous evening near dusk, and it was now past midnight and into tomorrow.
As he mechanically performed the prosaic task of preparing his rabbit, Jarmok thought long and hard on this night. He couldn't recall ever having felt such joy. Flying was a sensation that everyone should experience, and, he came to think, that everyone had that ability within them.
Of course, he reminded himself, perhaps only his own people had it in them. He had never heard of such shape shifting before, and were it either commonplace or rare (in that someone in the area might have evidenced this ability in the past) he thought that Mercer would have spoken on it at some point.
Whatever the case, it was an experience that breathed new life into Jarmok, as much as it left him piqued. Despite that fact, he knew that he would enjoy shape shifting in the future. What it might feel like to run like a stag or to swim like the beaver. He settled down, the scent of cooking rabbit easing him into comfort again. His head throbbed less and his euphoria overtook his various aches.
Life, he thought, was good...now that he had one.