Muddy Little Pond [Doom x Streams of Silver]

[Anhelisk]

[Reposting from AIM roleplay with Fluo's Permission]

 

[Anhelisk]

Streams of Silver picked her way through the muddy riverbed, holding her hooves up in distaste as the mud squished into her fur. It wasn't so much the thought of dirtying her luminous fur - no, she wasn't that vain - as the fact that she'd just bathed in the pond downstream. But this was the way she'd found her way to the pond in the first place, and now, she was stuck going back the way it had come.

"There's no way I'm walking through brambles..." she muttered to herself, mincing up to the first sign of a well-worn trail, and half-hopped onto it, wincing as the mud squelched against the dirt.  

[Anhelisk]

Doom was casually chasing a family of fluffy Furbies when she noticed the glint of silver in her peripheral. And because Furbies were the Swamp's joke of an animal and punching bag anyway, Doom switched courses. There wasn't much meat on them. She could always find more to swat around later. Mosing along through the bushes and vines, she caught sight of a silver doe. Talking to herself. Yes, another weirdo for the swamp.

But Doom was in a lazy, uncharacteristically carefree mood. She heralded the other hopping kimeti, "Well aren't you a pretty frog?"  

[Anhelisk]

Silver was broken out of her self-centered disgust when a smooth voice cut through her distraction. She bristled slightly at the insinuation that she was pretty, but paused at the frog bit. A rough chuckle came up, and she opened her mouth, then paused, examining the brightly-colored stranger.

She probably heard me already, she considered, which means lowering my voice is useless. Oh well... I guess I'll just... speak naturally? She walked forwards, noticing a quivering in her peripherals. She must have interrupted this doe in some sort of hunting exercise. "Well, I can't say I've ever been called a frog before," she replied, deciding to leave off lowering her voice. She didn't want to risk seeming even more silly in front of a new face than she already apparently did.  

[Anhelisk]

She continued her lazy assessment of the foreign doe. Small. Dimunitive. Possibly sprightly but this she did not know. This doe shone the way some of her brethren glowed. Maybe this doe was stuck between worlds. Jokingly, she considered it. The doe seemed like she was stuck between worlds as the mud suggested. Smaller than most kimeti suggesting she was different. "The more I think about it, little one, you do resemble a frog with all that mud."  

[Anhelisk]

The shining doe winced, raising a now dust-caked muddy hoof for their combined examination. The caking slowly oozed along her hooves, dripping small chunks of half-dried dirt as they watched. She put her hoof down, scraping the worst of it off, paying as little mind to her sad state as she possibly could as she addressed the other kimeti.

"Well, to be fair, I did try to avoid the worst of it..." she started... "and there was no other way to get out of that little dead-ended pond."  

[Anhelisk]

Fire all but shooting from her eye socket, Doom sprung up with a new purpose in life. Pond. Did she say pond? Doom loved ponds and watering relaxation areas. And just as there was no other way out of it, there was no way around the fact of the matter that Doom was entranced. Wincing aside, this tiny doe would be her guide. "Where is the pond? Let's go. Show me" Excitement all but oozed out.

"You're already muddy, little frog" Doom commented. An afterthought. Her blood crusted tail waving to and fro, waiting.  

[Anhelisk]

Silver paused, watching as the... apparently bloodstained at a closer glance... doe shift with excitement. A hunter for sure, then, she thought to herself, deciding to pay it no more mind.

"Very well, then," she said, leading her to the stream. "It was down here." She turned, showing the other doe the stream, which was trickling somewhat cheerfully down the muddy expanses, already wearing the large holes where her hooves had pulled large expanses of mud from the riverbed, filling them with water, and slowly smoothing the muck into the grooves.

"It's to the north, she said, dutifully trotting into the watery sludge.  

[Anhelisk]

All too cheerful, Doom followed. An odd sensation as she usually led. But it was an odd day. She couldn't shake the peculiar feeling that on this day, the world was thrown out of sync. After all, a little frog was leading her. During their trek, a furby jumped into view. As they were without much intelligence or sense of self preservation, Doom watched it play as the distance between them grew shorter. Then she punted it into the water all too joyfully. She all but whistled.

And so the two of them set forth for their new exploration. Or rather, it was Doom's virginal, she snickered, journey. Never one for much smalltalk she struggled with an appropriate topic but threw that away in favor of more candid living.. "This way, is it close to the achas?"  

[Anhelisk]

The doe considered it as they walked down the riverbank, watching the ball of fluff as it dissappeared, wailing, downstream, with no small amount of amusement. Once it had finally faded from sight, she answered.

"Well, I suppose it is closer to the borderlands, so technically, I suppose?" she said. "Specifically, though? None that I've come accross... I haven't seen to many Acha yet." She grinned, almost grimly. "One of them tried to talk me into giving them my pet wasp for some reason. Something about paper nests?"  

[Anhelisk]

Doom blinked, but still kept her easy gait. "I have a cheetah I don't see very often. It comes and goes, so not quite unlike its kind. It likes to attack things with wings.Fancies itself it can eventually fly if it collects enough. That shithead" Despite her harsh words, she ended it on a happy note.

"I saw a Totoma once and a kiokote. Well, we don't see kiokotes often but enough were there at the flood." In fact, Doom remembered, Gloom was surfing a dead one.  

[Anhelisk]

Silver's eyes flashed with fascination at the mention of the barely-known kin.

"A totoma? Really? You mean one of the warrior-types... the ones from the cold lands? What did he... or she... look like?" Her eyes gleamed with fascination as she regarded the other doe, hardly paying attention at all now to the squelches and sucking noises their hooves made with the mud, and the stream started to level off. If she had been a good guide, she might have mentioned that they weren't all too far from their destination now. But no, she was too curious about the warsome kin that she'd so often loved hearing about as a foal.  

[Anhelisk]

"It was during the Games. The kiokote like to run, the acha sing, but the Totoma was the real surprise. Were you there? The final competition was of strength. A huge boulder. Someone was straight up ******** with everyon. One by one, kio and kimeti gathered around to push. Even the silly acha with their stick legs. I reckon several tried in tandem but it only budged when the stranger came. He, she or it came with its own welcoming party. Surrounded by fog, it was like a meeting with destiny, but I had business to attend to shortly after so I couldn't stick around." Doom almost laughed at her own joke. " With the flood transforming the landscape maybe we'll see them soon." Doom broke off the lecture and looked around since the ground was getting more slippery. Little tendrils were making their way to the edge. Doom did not bounce, but maybe her curls did just a bit. "Little frog, look we're stuck in the mud like some sticks"  

[Anhelisk]

Silver listened intently to the doe, shaking her head to the one question. She'd missed the most part of the games, through circumstances entirely... but listening to the stranger's account was fascinating nonetheless. She eventually noticed the mud sucking on her hooves again, exactly the reason why she'd stopped in the pond to bathe originally. She nodded.

"We're almost there, now. Step lively, and we'll hardly get sucked down at all."  

[fluorescein]

And just like that Doom was reminded of her babysitting trials with Look-See's children. She twitched. They relished the pain they caused her when they called her "Auntie Doom." And far too often did they like to ask, "Are we there yet?" With that thought, she purposely squelched down her desire to ask the other doe the same questions.

Small talk. She should make it. This she knew. It was the only.. polite.. thing to do. But why force something instead? She continued onward and kept up the pace. She stepped a bit too hard on the uneven ground, causing mud to fly up and hit the other doe on its right flank. Oops.