Nowhere had ever felt like home. From the frigid northern landscape she grew up in, to this moment in the lush woods of a new planet. All she could think about was how little she felt anywhere she went, no real attachment or desire to change things – her want to consume was different from the need for power. Echidna had no real want of power. Obsessed with destruction and the emotions associated with it, she enjoyed other people’s suffering for nothing. Leveling entire cities, then walking away. Killing royal bloodlines just to see the kingdom break down when they were left with nothing. That was more her style.

Being a crocodile was more a weight than a power. She’d been through a variation of her base abilities but in truth, Echidna didn’t take on too many new things. Mostly her appearance changed more than anything – from sex to species to looks in general. Echidna remembers some of it briefly and with very little focus, others she remembers too vividly to feel comfortable.

It doesn’t matter right now. He’s telling her they come and go and she knows. It always changes when she least expects it or before she even realizes it. Echidna rolls around on her back in the cool dirt and listens to him talk about what if they had the culmination of all their powers – how different would things be. She gives an almost feline like grin up at him and when he reaches down to run his fingers through her fur, Echidna flicks her tail happily. Getting a good rub felt nice no matter who did it. Quinn talks about his other forms and she chuckles at the idea of him being either of those things.

Leopard seal I could see, she says to him. Echidna reaches her paws out to bat playfully at his hands before bringing it up to her mouth. She nibbles his fingers gently. But when I think about you being an elephant, Echidna chuckles again, nope. Not working in my head. She growls in a light-hearted way, licking his hand. It was her feline’s way of playing, being friendly in the most basic sense of the word.

She can sense his near sadness; how close he is to feeling something. The subtlest shift in the way he looks but she isn’t going to let him drown in it. He’d just take her with him and she wasn’t feeling too depressed today. You just don’t look like the elephant type, Echidna says rolling around in a weird semi-circle before flipping onto her belly to watch a butterfly. Only for a moment though and then she gets up, swatting the butterfly, half jumping, twisting into the air before finally catch it in her paws.

I think I only ever had these two form, well, actually, horse, jaguar, crocodile, human. I guess I’m a multi-species type of …. Echidna crunches the butterfly between her teeth as she tries to think of the right term, thing? It was the best word she knew to describe who she was, nothing else felt right.