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[O] c o u n t i n g - Printable Version

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c o u n t i n g - Virga - 05-08-2016



One, two, three - no.

One, two, - start again.

One... Gee, you're not very good at this, are you?

Today presents you with a very important task: You don't know why but you need to count the rocks here. No, not all the rocks in the entire Steppe - just the big ones near the water. At first, of course, you were mostly enamored with the water itself. It moved right before your eyes, alive except not. So you spent a good chunk of the morning investigating that, skipping your tiny hooves through frigid waves, your little tail sticking straight up like the very appropriate exclamation point it is. By now, morning wanes, but you've already learned a lot of important things.

One: Water tastes awful compared to milk. Even moving water. You'll never drink water again. And for an instant or two, you really miss Mama - even spend a good bit of time with your heart beating fast as you try to remember where she got to. Wasn't she with you a minute ago? Wasn't she just talking - watching you? Weren't you supposed to not run off? Is this an emergency? The kind of thing that requires screaming? Maybe - Oh, yeah - she's over there. You catch her scent at last and remember you wandered away to investigate the shh-shh of the rolling waves. So, you're okay. You won't die of starvation today.

Anyway, thing number two: Another you lives in water. You sort of learned this the other day when you tripped in a puddle, but now you're sure of it. He looks just like you but he doesn't smell like a horse, and all he does is follow you around. You don't really like him, but after a lot of exaggerated splashing, you guess he's okay. You'll let him live, and you won't go running to Mama for help.

This brings us to - okay, okay. The rocks.

You noticed the rocks. They're big, flat, good for jumping on. And they're just kinda - laying about. So you make a game out of jumping from rock to rock, your tiny hooves scrabbling every now and then as you hit a patch of lingering ice. And as you jump, you count, only you can't count very high yet and you keep forgetting the order the numbers go in. Then you have to start over. You kind of like starting over, though, because it means you get to jump on the rocks again. One, two, three... four... You don't mean to, but your tiny wings flap with each leap, as if preparing for the future when you'll need them for more than games of hopscotch. And every time you trip, or forget, or lose count, you trot dutifully back to the first rock and start over again. You're really good at trotting by now.

You're so absorbed in your little game you forget about the world around you in no time. And it's rock, rock, rock... Your hooves make a pleasantly rhythmic noise on the cool stone. If you bothered to think about it, you might want to invite your sister to the game. If you had friends, you might want to invite them, too - but it's okay, I'm sure you'll make some. Maybe someone else around here likes counting rocks?

Virga
silver horses chased down moonbeams in your dark eyes

image credits



Anyone welcome! Come meet Virga! :D
(it's daytime and he's still fluffy baby wings atm)


RE: c o u n t i n g - Rikyn - 05-12-2016

Яikyn
Duir dashes without many noises through the coniferous trees like a wild child, and his heart makes mine feel easy as air and full of static light. As a consequence, I’m doing foolish things, like chasing after him with laughter bubbling out me, as if I’m a colt, dodging and weaving through the pine trees, a thundering roar of noise in comparison to his delicate rustle. The branches tickle at my sensitive left side, still sore and not quite healed from Gaucho’s fire, and I don’t think it ever will without some sort of magical intervention at this point. Any other time I might be dwelling on how puny I’d felt when I woke up in the Heart after he’d (in my head anyway) skipped off with his heels clicking after I fell unconscious, but Duir did not care for my morose nature.

He almost demanded the game we played now, having taunted my mind with his soul’s bouncy bouncing. It was strange, the way he could make my hooves dance beneath me just because he’d seen a pretty flower he wanted to go look at, the way his mind impressed so strongly upon me the need to touch, smell, and see everything with abandon. While, most of the time, I could manage to stand still, staring at him very stiffly with my head aloft, and my eyes glistening… but this time, this time he won.

I almost run into him as the trees fall away and suddenly the world is gently rolling hills and the whisper of rivers born in the Birdsong thaw. He’s stopped dead in his tracks and is staring at the big ribbon of blue, and again the desperate need to see, oh gosh see!, coincides with a hesitant fear. He’s waiting here to feel my exasperation as I realize he doesn’t want to go out there because its open, and the water might not be safe. He’s waiting here to see if I’ll be afraid, too.

Instead I snort at him, like an older sibling, almost mocking but still tender enough to ease the concern darkening his forest eyes. His tail immediately begins its mad spinning, before darting upright as he plunges from the tree line, and out across the stretch of spring grasses between us and the river. I follow more slowly, containing the youthful abandon I’d chased him here with, because some pretty girl might see me (and men don’t play with deer), picking up the pace to a quick trot when I feel his mind explode with an urge to be friends with… something. I won’t know until I see it.

It can only mean someone’s at the river; I hope its just another rabbit or bird (he seems delighted to meet any and all creatures). Duir’s desire to meet whoever it is is so strong that I am forced to yell at him just to make it stop for a second, to feel myself overrule his eager, child’s mind.

"Duir!" I grouchily shout, coming upon him some few hoof beats afterward to find him prancing in place, staring from me to a colt alongside the river.

The colt’s really new, all delicate and soft looking, his wings more evident than his tiny horn as I look up at him. Duir feels the hardening of my heart and looks at me strangely, like he always does when I see a hornless, or a winged one. He looks back at the kid. When he looks back at me, this time, there is a measure of pleading to his gaze that I really cannot stand to look into for very long. It makes me feel… squishy.

I resent this feeling.

"Ugh, fine," submission lines my tone, which has softened again despite not wanting to mess with some crazy bird lady’s half breed child (if I only knew who is mother was I would be even more wary…), "let’s go meet the little turd."

With delight radiating off of our mind connection like direct and blinding rays of sunlight he is off to meet the colt, slowing his leaping as he approaches so as not to startle the little fellow. I follow behind, letting the young fawn lead, so any watching momma might get the idea – my bonded wanted to meet their kid. I was just along for the ride, because Duir was a pansy.

He’s already scrambled onto the first of the series of rocks the colt is leaping about on, green eyes luminous as he watches the progression of the boy from one flat surface to the other. He stares as if he is studying hieroglyphics rather than some child’s game, occasionally looking at the colt with his tail doing its friendly spin.

"Hey kid," I awkwardly remark, staring at him with a frown. It’s not until Duir turns around to stare at me like I’m a dick that I bother to add more to it than that. "What game are you playing?"

The cerndyr’s tail spins behind him in approval, and he continues his appraisal of the colt.

Gods save me from the children.

[ OOC: and Duir forces Rikyn to play with the foal muahaha. ]
there's no place to hide down here
Image Credit

@Virga


RE: c o u n t i n g - Virga - 06-19-2016



Voices, hoof beats —

You heel back, sitting on your butt with an oof! as a couple of assholes charge up and stare at you from nearby. You don't think of them as rude, at first. Actually, you're a little scared because both stand taller than you and one is the weirdest horse you've ever seen while the other looks mean. You're not really sure what about him looks mean, but you know he definitely does — not like Mama or Vesper at all. You were sort of waiting for one of them to join in your game, and not a giant grumpy asshole...

Surprise grips you so firmly you just sit there for a while. With all the numbers spooked out of your skull, you need to start over anyway, and suddenly you feel a little tired. Missing Mama again, you glance about in vain search for the familiar beauty of her star-studded body, but she's nowhere to be seen. You're on your own.

Your mouth opens like you might answer Grumpy's question, but you're not ready yet, so it closes again. Instead, you tilt your head in an exaggerated motion toward the — the — well, you don't know what it is. Slowly, a little reluctantly, you stand up and stare. Mama really ought to teach you not to do that, but since she's taking the hands-off style of parenting at the moment, you do it for a long, long silent while. Your eyes travel, up, up, up along the tines of the weird-horse's horns. They remind you of something....

Trees? Definitely trees!

Invigorated by the realization, you give a little hop, hooves clattering sharply on the stone. And forgetting how sort-of-mean the other guy seems, you dance up to the tree-horse and snuffle as close as you can to its trees. Why doesn't it smell like a tree? And what's it doing with this normal unicorn and you? Is it like the other big ones, living in Mama's valley?

The tree-horse doesn't read your mind in order to answer these questions fast enough, so you shoot an inquisitive glance over to the grumpy one. Now that you're not scared, though, you think maybe he's not so bad. His voice isn't like Mama's, but he's a boy, so maybe it's not supposed to be all soft and gentle. You don't have many boys to compare him to, so in an extraordinary gesture of kindness, you offer him the benefit of the doubt. The warriors at Mama's meeting, after all, sounded sort of mean, too. So you wait for him to explain his miraculous friend. Maybe, if he does it well, you'll show him your game after all.


Virga
silver horses chased down moonbeams in your dark eyes

image credits


@Rikyn
Sorry this took so long! Will change post if Duir's not actually taller than him bc I'm bad at determining relative size.


RE: c o u n t i n g - Rikyn - 06-27-2016

Яikyn
The winged child drops down onto his ass at the sight of us (could they count as wings? I only now notice), something which makes my grumpy expression twitch ever so slightly, a smile trying to peck its way out despite my best efforts to seem uninterested. Despite the humor of the situation, I spoke first, and so I let the silence stretch while the colt stares back at me and Duir. Really, I should say I watch the two watch each other; Duir returns the child’s attention with his forest eyes twinkling, small hooves nearly moving beneath his youthful body in his anticipation for anything to happen next.

Having met Remy and Rexanna so soon after hatching has instilled in his head that all things are games, and that everyone we meet will be nice. That the boy is, well, a boy, makes the temptation all the greater, and so, when at last the colt moves into motion, Duir immediately follows suit. Leaping in his weird deer-travel fashion, he takes three massive bounds in comparison to the scampering of child’s hooves. Twirling, his tail picks up it’s seemingly impossibly fast pace as the colt whuffs and puffs about his fledgling antlers, and Duir’s ears twitch delightedly; occasionally, he tries to smell all over the boy, too, his damp, velvet nose likely bumping and nudging on accident.

It seems almost like they’ll do all the conversing (in weird, gesticulated silence) when the boy’s eyes move to me. There is something hard in them, something that makes my frown deepen and my head rise ever so slightly, wondering just what in the hell I could have done.

What? is the first thought, immediate, accusatory. The second is that, maybe, he wants to know what or who we are. Being a colt was so long ago, and I had never paid much attention to how being small felt, other than, well, small and weak, and useless. But, when I force myself now to remember meeting Kyst or Kirchoff, I find those questions that long ago had been answered, questions which had, once, bubbled from my lips as incessantly as rain from heavy clouds.

"His name is Duir," I begin, feeling seven kinds of weird while talking to some mute and most likely unrelated to me kid (by Moon’s Tits where is his mother?), "he is, uhm, err… well, I don’t really know what he is."

My brows fold down in self condemnation at not knowing what my own companion is (other than Duir, of course). One flick of my lion’s tail, however, and its almost like I never felt that way at all. I’m really good at bottling up and hiding things until its appropriate to feel that way, and I sure as hell am not going to feel stupid in front of some vagabond boy for any longer than I have to.

"One day he’ll have antlers instead of those nubs, though," I explain, while the young buck lifts his head proudly, as if envisioning the weight of such a proud crown adorning his head; we’ve passed a few of his kind, and he greatly admires their racks. Even now, the feeling of hope and interest surges through the bond, a feeling which is stamped down at the use of the word “nubs,” earning a reproachful glare from my young friend.

[ OOC: You're okay! He will be growing to 4.2 ft so he probably is around the same size/slightly taller, but I don't mind that much either way. :P Mostly excited to get to play with your new little one! ]
there's no place to hide down here
Image Credit

@Virga


RE: c o u n t i n g - Virga - 06-27-2016



Not very forthcoming, this guy. Mentally, you label him defective when he fails to immediately answer your silent questions. Mama always figures out well enough whatever you want to know! Your sort of pathetic fear of — I mean — your inexplicable disinterest in other adults has left you without any real sense of how they should be, and so frustration trickles into your head. It feels like pressure, like a dull heat, blurring the most intricate workings of thought. A minute frown creases the skin around your muzzle as you look over Duir, your head bobbing. His friend doesn't know what he is? What kind of shitty, half-assed friend...? I mean, you don't have any friends, but if you did, they'd be better than that! You're sure.

Anyway, at least you know the nice one's name now. Even in your head it sounds more like door, so you just give him a nod, your little tail flicking this way and that. If Vesper were here, she'd probably be saying it out loud, again and again and again, until she got it right. You, though, have yet to grace this world with the sound of your voice. Even when you sort of want to, potential words jumble and twist around in your chest, and it's too hard to get them out just yet. They're like flightless birds, not ready. No amount of staring or judgment from the not-so-nice one will make them ready, either.

That's okay, I guess. The not-so-nice one turns out to be sort of nice, actually, the more he talks. And he keeps talking, so you keep listening. Your little head tilts up to get a closer look at the budding antlers on top of Duir's head. Then suddenly a thought occurs, and you remember the weird little knot in the middle of your own forehead. Mama called it a horn, but it seems pretty much the same as antlers, just Duir's are two. Cheerfully, and completely oblivious to any potential for harm, you rear back and then shove your gangly little body at whatever-he-is, forehead first. You mean to lightly headbutt him on the nose area, so he can tell you have a horn, too, but you're not the most graceful athlete yet and so you come at him a little hard. Hopefully he manages it all right.




Virga
silver horses chased down moonbeams in your dark eyes

image credits


@Rikyn <3


RE: c o u n t i n g - Rikyn - 06-30-2016

Яikyn
He’s a quiet little disgrace to nature.

Still, he only stands and stares, and it makes me wonder if maybe Duir and I would be better suited to other company. My buck, however, glances back at me with aggravation, denying me escape from the awkward conversation with a simple look and the twinge of heart accompanying it. Thus begins my first (and hopefully only) one sided conversation with two mute baby creatures.

I’m almost relieved to see the surprisingly judgmental expression on the child’s face becomes a softer one as I try to stumble my way through mind reading without proper powers. The relief stems mostly from the fact that, now, I won’t have to yell at him for being such an ungrateful and rude punk, and that I won’t be subsequently kicked into oblivion by whoever his mother is for making him cry. It’s also nice, I guess, to have something so small (and sort of endearing) look at you in a kindly manner, though I’d still much rather be somewhere else.

Duir tucks his head down a bit for the colt to look at his antlers. In a truly boyish bound that draws the first genuine smile to my lips so far, the mostly black hybrid rears back, his diminutive blade striking out towards my fawn in what is an almost impressive lunge for a boy so small. Not having expected an assault for his efforts at friendship, the passive chocolate buck starts and bleats a small terrified noise. His downward cocked muzzle tucks in to brace his crown for impact, small hooves splaying beneath him for support as tiny heads collide. Duir’s green and gold eyes widen in general surprise of the sudden attack of the colt and his own body’s reaction to it; his skull, built for such impacts, absorbs most of what he’d assumed would be a great amount of pain.

A trill of delight so vibrant I can’t help but laugh out loud rushes through the lightning marked fawn; bracing himself again, it is the buck that pulls back this time, eager to fill the surprisingly satisfying hum of impact through his skull plate again.

"I think you may have started something, kid," I jest with a chuckle, watching (and feeling) the interaction between the two with a slight smile on my face.

[ OOC: It’s so cute I think I’m dyin’ ]

there's no place to hide down here
Image Credit

@Virga


RE: c o u n t i n g - Virga - 07-10-2016



Bang! Impact echoes and re-echoes through your head. Wow! That was an awful idea, Virga. You stagger away with stars winking in front of your eyes, dazed and a little drunk with the force of it. Turns out horse heads are not made to withstand concussive force the way Duir heads are. This might be a good thing to remember, but you forget it immediately.

Once you regain your composure, you turn toward your new friend (friend?) and peer up at his forehead a little gingerly. How did he get so strong? Is it because he's bigger than you? Because of his big friend? Unlike you, he's absolutely pleased with the outcome of this little decision, and his voice is a song unlike any you've heard so far. It's nice, you think, through the remaining tangle of your thoughts. You like him. I hope you don't have a concussion.

Enough of your wits remain, at least, that you reel back when the buck prepares to strike again. That's enough! Enough for one day, at least. Half rearing, you spin and bolt toward the big guy, your tail twitching like a hyperactive pendulum. Wide-eyed, you try to skitter behind Duir's friend. Instinct still tells you adults are safe. Logic tells you their bulk makes for a natural barrier against over-eager friends intent on headbutting you into early forgetfulness. You feel a little bad about hiding from Duir though, and a little sad about being away from him, so you try to creep out and peer at him for just a second. Maybe you can play a.... gentler game next? Your ears twitch to the adult again, somewhat imploring.


Virga
silver horses chased down moonbeams in your dark eyes

image credits


@Rikyn Augh tried to write this so many times and it did not. want. to be written. I figure this can wrap up soon-ish and then once Vir starts talking they could meet again? :o I would love if Rikyn wanted to be a sort of mentor figure to him, unless that's not really Rikyn's style. I love him. x)


RE: c o u n t i n g - Rikyn - 07-13-2016

Яikyn
The locking of heads seems to leave the little, winged colt dazed; a smile that I don’t mean to make sneaks onto my face, and my buck’s soul only exacerbates the situation, dancing and flickering in the midst of my thoughts with childish abandon. The cranial assault led by Duir is cut short as the hybrid bolts, making me laugh out loud despite my better thoughts to not, and the young cerndyr pivot about to look at both me and the boy with surprise, and disappointment.

"It’s not fun for him," I explain, and the buck looks around my side at the colt with an imploring apology writ across his face; its sincere enough, even if he is a bit confused still. The boy had started it, after all.

I glance back at the little feathered runt, chuckles still occasionally escaping when I think of his tiny terror. His dark eyes meet with mine and the laughter stills. Again I feel the odd lure of innocence; it negates everything I’ve been taught about how I should hate him for being a curse upon this world. At the end of the day, he hadn’t ask to be born (he couldn’t even talk, if we’re going to be overtly literal). If it was anyone’s fault, it was whoever made him, and they probably hadn’t known better, either.

Was this how mother had felt (if she felt anything) as she’d looked into Aithniel’s eyes; mine, as I’d plead for her life?

A frustrating conundrum of the soul; the desire to be more, and to be better, when all the roads bend and weave together, occasionally darting into separate directions.

How do you know which to walk?

"You live in the Aurora Basin, with the big lake and all the caves?" I ask. Maybe his mom is an idiot, and he doesn’t know where he lives yet. Doubts about her maternal capabilities slip more and more into my awareness the longer I hang out with her son, untended. Alone.

I don’t want to be the one who’s responsible for leaving the male version of Arwen to the cruel antics of some malevolent child. Again, I look out across the horizon for anyone who might claim him, make sure he made it home safe and sound, carrying all these sudden, unwanted concerns away with them. I’d take an elk, a badger, Thranduil… anyone.

There is no one nearby but me, and my deer.

Fuck me.

[ OOC: omg yes he needs more responsibility in his life! it may also help him get over his whole hybrids suck thing when grandmother Moon smacks him ugly for being a jerk. :'D he will also of course have to apologize to or make up with ki'irha in the process and i'm already laughing ]

there's no place to hide down here
Image Credit

@Virga


RE: c o u n t i n g - Virga - 07-17-2016



Were you more attentive, you'd be immensely grateful for Rikyn's presence and his ability (however reluctant) to mediate between yourself and the buck. For all your youthful enthusiasm, your impetuous verve, you really don't understand social interaction at all. So Duir is confused, but you're more confused, forgetting all about your initiation of play and remembering only what the fuck man why'd you headbutt me — a situation which would, inevitably, reverse had you been the one dealing damage. You peer out hesitantly at Duir, certain you'll forgive him (forget what he did) in a moment, but also more secure in your budding knowledge that nothing in the world is particularly trustworthy.

Presently, your growing cynicism is interrupted by the realization the big one is talking.

To you.

Your dumb head swings around as if no one in your life, ever, has spoken to you before. A second later, though, the surprise and consternation melt away as you try to figure out what exactly it is he asked. You're not very good at paying attention, yet. Was it something about the Basin? Your head nods even though you're not super sure what you're responding to, and remembering Mama, you look around, certain she'll appear because you want her to.

She doesn't.

That's not too weird, though, because she's occasionally bad at teleporting to your side — a flaw growing in size with every day you get older. Your tail flicks, half betrayal of the thought wheeling through your head and half nervous agitation, as you step away from the big stallion's side. Your head turns, first one way and then the other, like a compass needle searching for north. You know the way home... You know, because you live there, and it's the single most important bit of knowledge currently stuck between your ears. You attempt to retrace your steps. Around that big rock tipped on its side, or the one shaped like a marmot? You trot a few steps in a random direction, pause, and throw a glance back at the adult — not because you expect him to help, but because you just remembered him again and wonder what he's doing. Is he coming home with you? To meet Mama? To meet Vesper?

A startling realization: You don't actually know what to do with a friend. You've never had one before.


Virga
silver horses chased down moonbeams in your dark eyes

image credits


@Rikyn


RE: c o u n t i n g - Rikyn - 07-30-2016

Яikyn
Liking the sound of where this is going, eager as he always is to see new things and be new places, the buck looks up at the mention of the Basin, and doesn’t look away. It’s a minor distraction nagging at me as I continue to await the black hybrid’s answer, perhaps looking disgruntled as a result.

Maybe I look even more so when I realize he does live there, and when he can’t find his mother, either. Looking back out at the peaks that I know to obscure the valley of unicorns, I feel that same dark feeling creep back inside me. The feeling of not fitting in, of having come home to a land that had warped, ever so slightly, and into which my piece no longer neatly fit. I think of the soldier’s meeting, and Caleb, his wings as wrong as this child is, and of all the strange faces that didn’t quite fit in there. I wonder why Deimos has allowed all of it to occur, and whether I should blame him, or Thranduil; perhaps even Hotaru, though I’d rather not.

It’s far easier to blame men than pretty women.

No one walks over to us from there, either. A sigh, heavy and long, whispers forth, as if its wispy sound might stretch all the way to the mountain itself. I bid this dark, horrible feeling inside me anytime I think about returning go away with the sound, and while the majority of it drains away, there is still a shallow reservoir of sadness at the bottom of my heart. I’ll take him to the hidden pass, I tell myself, no further.

"I was born there, too," I tell him, hoping he doesn’t see the soft sorrow in the gold of my gaze as I look back around at him, that it hides behind my revelation. Needing more distractions, loathing the idea of walking all the way there in silence, I create one, pulling a dust laden game from the discarded memories of my youth.

"Have you ever played tag?"

My buck, as he did at the mention of venturing, perks up at the name of a game he’s never heard; this is mostly because it’d just be taking turns chasing one another with two people, and that’s the sort of whimsical, foolish game a stallion cannot permit himself to play. Now, however, we have the needed third party to make it a game (though my size means I have a rather unfair advantage), and the distraction sounds pleasant.

"I’ll be “it” first, though I admit I have no idea what “it” is… Something scary, I guess. Anyway. If I touch you, you’re “it,” and you have to try to catch me, or Duir," I smile, finding true warmth to the gesture, because you can’t talk about games you’d played as a child without feeling the weight of the world fall away. "should be more fun than just walking."

there's no place to hide down here
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