it's harvest time!! [Common SS]

the Rift

[DROP] it's harvest time!! [Common SS]

Macaria Posts: 57

Outcast

Mare :: Unicorn :: 17 hh :: Three Years [Birdsong]

Psilo

#25

09-28-2016, 07:40 PM

i've got my feet on the ground

and i don't go to sleep to dream

They come and come, more and more, mostly young – where are they all coming from? Since when was the Forest so full of others in the middle of the day? Macaria snorts softly through shaky pink nostrils, her golden eyes moving over each face and then back to the gnarled face of the tree. Some of the others talk, but she's suddenly too nervous, too prickled with anxiety to listen. She only stares into the wrinkled edges of the tree's abysmal eyes. The unicorn day dreams for a moment what it might be thinking while it waits, or looks like it's waiting anyway. Its booming voice erupts from its syrupy mouth and it startles of the dappled youngling sending her sparks sizzling and flickering across her markings, fading away to nothing as quickly as they came to life seconds before.

When her eyes move to study the egg in the grasp of a million stabby evergreen needles her long thick cheeked head slants slightly to one side, her ears cocking in opposite ways while she trails off in thought about what it could be. When the tree's baritone voice slices into the chattering voices and shuffling feet Macaria returns her attention back to it's contorted trunk-face. His quest is an interesting one; one Aria would do for no reward at all – in fact she has before. Returning lost babies to their mothers, hatch-lings to their nests, freeing trapped critters or anything in need of rescue at all, is sort of her favorite-ist thing to do. She is starting her fancy herself quite the little knight, really.

Food for the thicket-dwelling creatures, aye? Her tail twists and dances in thought, her sulfuric eyes darting after the bodies that have immediately begun to scatter in all directions. Oh my, everyone knows what to do right away? Her hearts sinks and turns around in a few circles (it feels like) and her gut is crowded with stones, suddenly. She talks herself out of a meltdown and is soon on the track to a solution.

Now where is there something close to here, so I may gather in quantity and with haste? She admittedly doesn't know much about the flora and fauna and what is medicinal and what is poisonous or how it grows. Only the basics or what she has stolen from others by watching from the shadows like a creeper. A small huddle of trees just down the way from this here thicket, just around the bend, is filled with some things she saw a stranger gathering some time ago. It meant nothing much to her at the time, she was not hungry or in need, but still she can recall just where it was and that there was quite a bit of lovely fruits and nuts. The stranger carried them in a hammock made from what appeared to be a very big leaf.

She turns on a feathered heel, her dew-claws digging in the moss and soil, she canters off to the east with her plan in mind. She weaves through trees and bramble, over roots and even through a small shallow swamp. For her size she's quite graceful and moves in the density of forest, across the spongy earth with only muffled sounds. It's a quick trip and she's fairly confident she can weasel a roughly made leaf satchel full of whatever she can gather through even thickest patch of woodland she came through to get here. It's a small opening where the sun can peek in from above, large boulders watch over the patch of bountiful greenery. Thorny bushes full of ripe blackberries, wide leafed mounds full of delicious little elderberries and a giant hazelnut tree bristling in the wind, standing in the middle of the peaceful little forest room. She takes in a deep breath as she emerges into the warm beams of sun finding their way down to her. Her dapples sizzle and snap, tiny sparks bounce around and fade out soon after – she wonders if this is the stranger's secret place.

I hope I am allowed to be here...

She goes to work hunting down a suitable leaf. It takes her a few more minutes than she's happy with but she doesn't waste much time being disappointed. First she gathers a bit of hazelnuts, smashing their shell and placing their good bits in the center of her. It takes some effort to find the good ones – it pays to be tall. She places a few with their shells just in case some may prefer it that way. Next she plucks berries, which is quite hard actually. Carefully she handles them with her pink lips, tenderly plucking the choice fruit and tenderly placing it on the leaf. Elderberries are next and she finds them a little easier to harvest. She hurries back to the talking tree, leaf folded neatly like a fruit burrito (what is that, even?) and clasped tightly between her teeth. She finds a platform not yet spilling over and she unloads the contents of her tattered leaf.

There. She grins down at what she had gathered, her tail dancing with the energy of the moment.

She looks around with a bit of surprise. Again, then? She sees some moving off on more trips. She hops in place, leaving her old leaf behind, she'll surely find another, better one. She bounds off again on the same path to return for more. She'll do this until it's time to stop.

macaria