“No, shut up, I’m not doing it again.”

….

“No, hush, just shut up.”

….

“You can just fuck off I’m not doing it again, okay?!”

…

“You just—AWGHGH—“

Like, I understand that it was pretty weird that I was in the middle of a field seemingly talking to myself, since you can’t really see Chico from his spot behind my ear (you shut up, ass) but it wasn’t even a conversation for anyone else too so I didn’t really care that much.

To make a long story short, Chico had this thing (okay let’s pause for a second. I said before I didn’t remember what I had named Chico; it was a spur of the moment type deal and I promptly forgot it by the end of that day, and even though Chico remembered good ‘n hell well what I named him, it turns out my companion’s a douche-nugget and found it funny to leave me grappling in the dark trying to find out the name I gave him. So I said “fuck it” and started calling him Chico.)

Uhm. Hmm…What…what was I even—

--OH YEAH so Chico has this thing where he really, really liked being tossed in the air. Which sounded cool ‘n all—until you realized this guy is all of two inches long, a tiny little shit of a lizard-baby, and flinging him anywhere was dangerous anyway but in addition to be a douche-nugget he also rolls super hard apparently and he had been making me fling him really really high into the air because I just can’t fucking say no to that face—

--but I was doing it now because every time I flung him (you, I’m looking at you, you little shit) my heart stopped and I broke out into a sweat and I spewed expletives with greater, louder frequency.

“I’m not fucking doing it anymore so shut up,” I said, pacing back and forth, and I was standing firm this time. He (you, I guess) wasn’t gonna strong arm me into doing it again. You had this thing where you don’t even use words and you were nothing but raw emotion and I—I could feel the rush you got every time you flew through the air, the air cool and raging around you and the earth spinning and your heart free and your face smiling even though lizards don’t smile and okay fine I’ll do the shit just shut up.

Even though you weren’t saying shit. But you were excited as hell.

So you scurried down to my nose and I could feel your tiny heartbeat and I didn’t even have to toss my head that hard to make you hop so high in the air—

--and up above there was that wonder again, that happiness that was all over you, that excitement you felt and freedom coursing through your veins as you sailed through the air, some tiny lizard just flailing in the breeze—

--and down below I was screaming “SHIT SHIT SHIT” and I was run-pacing back and forth, squinting my eyes against the sun in order to see your tiny black shadow arching back down to the ground, so that I could maybe-sorta-catch you—

--and it was done in seconds; suddenly there was a tiny plup and there you were on my nose and I could feel how dizzy you were and the soreness in your bones because your landing was kinda hard for a lizard that was just inches long—but you were so happy and I was happy and scared and mad at you all at the same time.

Especially when you looked at me and I could feel the questioning emotion already bubbling right back up.

“Fuck no, I’m not doing that again.”

But you knew I was gonna.







@[Mauja] first please! Then others welcome!



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So, uh—

--a lot of stuff happened all at the same time, so I’m not sure how or where to start or whatever.

I guess I should focus on you, because you’d like that, wouldn’t you?

(Narcissist ass--)

Because you were…like…floating on air. Like jeez, did you have any chill or nah? Cuz you’d been alive for—what—some days now and there hadn’t been a minute where I felt at least one scrap of sadness or anxiety or anything and it would have bugged me if your happiness didn’t make me smile so wide.

And boy, were you happy.

Especially then, when you didn’t plup back down on my nose like I expected, and instead you were taking an extended ride through the skies and the winds and the rays of sunshine and the everything and you were soaring outside and inside and I didn’t see your little lizard eyes bugging out but they were probably bugging out and wide and lizards don’t fucking smile but you were probably up there surrounded by soft owl feathers and fierce owl talons smiling your ass off.

While, down below, I was freaking.

“OH HOLY SHIT,” I screamed (shut up, you shut up), my eyes bugging out as soon as I felt the leap in your heart and the missed beat of your landing on my nose. I stared straight into the sun, which was smart, because then I really couldn’t see you, or anything for that matter—which really poured gasoline over that little catastrophe, huh? Because my pulse was skyrocketing and the sweats were back and I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in the 6.23 seconds it took me to glimpse those owls soaring through the air (yes, it took those many seconds, I counted). And even though your blind, fierce excitement raged in my mind, it did awesome battle against the tidal wave that was my fear for you--and, as soon as I saw a white shape darting out of the glare of the sun, the air crackled around my face and there was lightning shooting out of it before I could even register holy crap that white thing was an owl.

A white owl.

A white owl.

And I felt stupid for thinking it, because there couldn’t possibly be only one white owl on this whole goddamn world (technically I was right to assume because—uh—how many snowy owls are there that travel down so far south?) and it wasn’t until I glimpsed the brown shadow following playfully behind the white’s wing beats that I allowed my instinct to break through the surface. (My hope.)

No, fuck off, it was an instinct.

But the realization did weird, awful things to me, down in my gut, up in my head where you could see it, and maybe you weren’t paying attention to it at that moment (what with the flying ‘n all) but you would sure as hell remember it for later (because I guess you’re a douche-nugget who does shit like that, y’know, bring up old shit). I paced back and forth, my eyes still on the owls because my heart was still thumping like mad (for you), but my ears were twitching this way and that; I strained my sense of smell to catch a musk that I had memorized; my body started buzzing electric for a touch that I—

--uh—

--I mean, whatever.

But I was still pacing, and I was feeling awful because I had shot lightning at the damn birds and I was feeling like a jerk and then I was mad because you had been snatched from me and then I felt like a jerk for being mad at his owls and this probably doesn’t have anything to do with anything but I hadn’t bathed in some time and it was just now starting to worry me and to be honest I—

--I just wanted you back.

“Cheek,” I gurgled weirdly, still pacing, my eyes still glued to the zooming of the birds, “Cheek.” Because I knew how much fun you were having and it was making my spirit soar but—

--jeez—

--you were so high up and I…I couldn’t follow.

(for now)

“Shit Cheek,” I garbled, coming to stand at the crest of a hill as I watched you frolic in the air. Please don’t drop his ass. He’s so tiny.









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It was crushing, like great icy fingers closing in on your heartstrings, wringing them too tightly, an untrained puppeteer. I watched with wide, horrified eyes as the owl’s talons seemed to open—and there was just the teeniest of shadows, nothing more than a speck of dust floating in the breeze, really, gently falling from the sky from its place within the bird’s feathered feet. And it seemed like it was falling so gently because it was so small and it was falling from so fucking high up.

I was watching you tumble to the ground.

And, in a split second, you were gone from my sight, because you can’t see dust falling through the sky from so far away, you dip-shit.

“CHICOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—“ I called, my voice breaking and raging and sobbing almost all at the same time, and I almost, almost bounded forward right then and there, into open space, because fuck me I was still on a hill but you were falling and I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings anymore and if I ended up leaping off a hill towards a fruitless endeavor to try and catch an invisible body and crushing my clavicle in the process then—

*"Elding?”*

But then that happened.

Turning, my eyes wet and wild and my voice the exact same, I saw him, again, always there when some shit was going down—and instead of leaping into stupid space, I whipped my body around and launched myself at him, screaming “LEE, SHE DROPPED HIM, SHE DROPPED CHEEK, CHEEK’S FALLING--“

But I had gone like—what—4, 5 steps or so before I stopped in my tracks, my voice dead in my throat, my eyes blank and slightly crossed and my mouth hung open in stupor because—

--well—

--you were talking to me.

And yeah okay whatever it wasn’t really talking. Shit. Semantics, yo. You were communicating in a telepathic manner in such a way that I understood that you weren’t *actually* dying. (Did that pedantic shit appease your Nazi ass? My god--) In fact, I guess what was really capturing my attention was the fact that this was the first time I was feeling something other than happiness or gleeful assholishness from you.

It was alarm ringing through you. And I couldn’t see it, but you were probably wriggling in the owl’s grasp (that you were still in, oh thank the stars’ sweet nutsack--) with the alarm you were feeling, the confusion and fear that was coursing through you, a novel experience.

You were alarmed at my own distress.

And as it registered in my mind that you were worried about my own freaking out--well. It was as though the huge frigid fingers that had been holding my chest and mind together in a blur of panic suddenly let go, bored of me all of a sudden, and my head was falling back into place and my chest was expanding and inhaling real air and I could barely remember exactly what had utterly terrified me before and I was slowly becoming aware of the blank, stupid look on my face and the glazed stare of my eyes and how utterly foolish I probably looked just standing there, freaking out over absolutely nothing--

--right in front of Leos, no less.

I mean, shit.

“Uh,” I said, my eyes sliding back into focus and onto the rough-cut edges of Leos’ tentative grin.

Well, damn. How do you play off something like this?

(I mean, I could drown myself--)

I would have looked away, or walked away, or something, but the terror left me empty and you had calmed down from your own anxiety and you were actually laughing at me now, you awful shit and allowing the soaring feeling to overtake you again and I was too blank to really think of something witty (or dignified) that could save me from this sticky situation. In the back of your mind, you kept an eye on me, because I guess you wanted to see how I was gonna screw this up some more.

(Or maybe you were just so ready to finally, finally meet this guy).

“Uh,” I said again, eloquent as fuck, “Wha….why are you covered in thistles?”

Oh yeah, smooth like butter.




[Ros has no chill, bruh]



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The throb of my heart was receding, which only meant more room for my mind to settle and my perceptions to right themselves on their bases. Slowly, the impact of Leos’ presence settled on my shoulders and haunches until I realized why it was such a big deal in the first place. My ears perked steadily upward and my face was probably pulling into all kinds of taut, fantastically weird positions, because it was a stupid mess in my head with how glad I was to see him and my gears weren’t as well-oiled as they could have been and the struggle to keep the idiotic grin off my face was all too real and critical. So I uh…I probably kept at least half of it off.

Good work, team.

It didn’t help that a whole half of him was fucked up, and my brow rose as he seemingly owned up to the shit, like it was deliberate or whatever. “I mean,” I sort of blurted, because even though my head and my heart was returning to the closest thing to normal as it could whenever I was around Lee, that doesn’t mean I could think, “I ain’t trying to judge or nothin’, but uh…” My eyes swept his form top to bottom, taking in his scruffy appearance with greater detail (a free card to stare if you wanna be picky, but you shut up) “….it looks like you just got done bustin’ your ass.”

And then it got funny and I was having trouble keeping the smirk off my face because the longer I looked, the more I noticed that the thistles and the debris and whatever that clung to his coat seemed to be concentrated on one side of his body, like he really had bust his ass not that long ago—and I dunno, the image tickled me a little more than it should have and I was biting my lip a little to keep the grin from getting any bigger than it already was and fuck me if I wasn’t already screwing things up in all the 4.59 seconds of us speaking together and--

I turned suddenly, my gaze careening behind me in a nervous tick, eyes scanning the sky for shadows that weren’t gonna be there.

Because I hadn’t stopped feeling your happiness, had I? And maybe that was the giddy bubbling in my head when I should have gone back to being cool and collected; maybe that feeling in my gut was still you, and there was a flash in my head of clouds and wind getting in my too-big lizard eyes and a growing adoration for winged creatures you thought were the bomb-diggity--

--but I was remembering other things, too, things that sobered up the bubbles that poured from your head and into mine. The bite in my lip got harder and the lines in my face fell a little and suddenly there wasn’t a smile anymore. “She won’t—uh, actually drop him, will she?” I asked quietly, my voice sort of oozing out from behind my teeth before I could stop it. “He’ll be fine, won’t he?” And I knew it was kind of a dick thing of me to do, to start doubting him and his owls after I had attacked the bastards, oh yeah, that happened didn’t it?, but ah, I couldn’t help it. The afterimage of your tiny, falling body had faded but the impression was still engraved, the faint worry still tugging at me, and I couldn’t help it.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted suddenly, turning back to Leos again, the words rushing quickly from my mouth, “I—I couldn’t help it, I didn’t see who it was, I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to hurt her or any--“ No, of course I didn’t mean to hurt her, not after I had realized who she was, who she was associated with. But in the moment Chico had been snatched from my reach, and into the heavens—no, I was trying to fuck someone up. There was no point in sugar coating it.

I felt absolutely dickish. I mean, I dunno, maybe that thing that had happened to me was still playing shenanigans on my best judgments, because I was coming up with the weirdest crap to settle my nerves and make things right. In that moment, desperate to try and make up for nearly flash-frying his snowy owl, I ducked down and plucked some thistles from the ground—and, after sort of bumbling my way closer to Lee, I attempted to shove them onto his side, the cleaner side of him that seemed so desolate and pristine all at the same time.

“You’re lopsided,” I said in defeat.







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His laugh made me too happy, like I was getting high or some stupid shit like that, and I couldn’t stop the idiot grin from spreading back across my face, racing in place like it had just been waiting for the perfect chance to strike after all. Okay, so he forgave me. And his owl was fine and we were still square and as long as we kept our paws out of each other’s hair I guess we’d stay that way.

It shouldn’t have been anything to get ashamed at being happy about—his forgiveness, this game we were playing with thistles of all things. It shouldn’t have mattered that my ghost sort of lifted a little from the dark cloud of stuff that had attacked me only minutes ago. The issue was the way it kept rising, my chest and throat filling up with suffocating bubbles that came from both the sky and the ground where Leos had dropped and started rolling the thistles off. Trying, anyway. The smirk I had pulled into something wicked as I watched him tumble around on the ground. “Nah, it’s too late,” I said with a flick of my too-short tail, “now you’ll just be itchy and green.” I remembered the last time I had gotten thistles on myself (on accident)—and how itchy that left ass-cheek had been all during that day, and how some kid had come up to me, cussing a fire-storm and exploding the goddamned trees wherever she looked, wherever I pointed—

Lucky charms, I thought suddenly, imagining green streaks all across Leos’ backside, clashing with the purple barbs that had dotted his chest, and I couldn’t stop the ripple of a laugh that snaked its way out of my throat before I could even analyze the stupid thought I was laughing at. Then I snorted, turning away from where Leos lay on the ground; I started pacing, too keyed up to act on the impulse to lay down there with him—too giddy in a way I couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. I didn’t understand why I was so excited, and I couldn’t just keep blaming it on you, like I was all your fault that bubbles kept sneaking up my throat to try and choke me. My eyes sort of drifted into the sky, vague and sightless, because I wasn’t seeing you even if I knew you were somewhere up there, having a blast ‘n everthing.

I could still feel it too, if I focused on that corner of my mind. I could see with your eyes if I wanted to, feel your heart beating in your own chest, feel the wind whipping through the owl talons and right into your gaping, star-struck mouth. I couldn’t stop the shiver running up my spine every time I dared to share those kinds of experiences with you—because on one hand it left me too vulnerable, too open to the wide open plane that lay outside the confines of my skull. But then again, I trusted you to show me something amazing, even though you were just some tiny shit who had way too much fun seeing me embarrassed.

“…It’s so weird,” I found myself saying, barely coming back to myself enough to realize that my words were directed at Lee, wherever he was, “It’s like…his egg just came out of nowhere for me to find and…when he hatched--“ my ears pinned and twitched, the words failing the thoughts that wanted out, “—it’s like…I mean, I dunno. Like he could see right through me and I could look right into him and he’s….”

I bit my lip thoughtfully, and suddenly I was turning back on Lee, shooting him questions like bullets again. “Was it like that with you?” I asked, tentative and prodding, flailing with concept that I still didn’t understand, “When they hatched for you—were they…are they always there, in your head?” I’ve always known some horses to have these lil’ ass creatures following them around sometimes—my thoughts turned to Tinek and how he used to drape all silvery and badass across my Ma’s back—but I’d never had reason to believe there was something deeper and sightless that was going on between the two of them. I just always assumed they were bros.

My ear cocked suddenly and my gaze went unfocused—because I sensed a shift in you. Your happiness hadn’t abated and the cheer you were feeling kept spilling out in waves, but I could feel your little body start to squirm in the owl’s grasp, insistent and urgent, and I could feel the new sensation that our mind was sending me: you wanted to come back to me. And I didn’t need to really look for an explanation, because I was thinking it to: that this was the furthest you’d ever been away from me and maybe it was great for a while but there was a pull that neither of us could ignore. My eyes swept this way and that, looking for your shadow—where you might be zooming about, wondering, vaguely, if I still needed to catch you or not.


[oops figured I should try to get back to this lol]





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