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Prompt 1:
Things Unheard was used to waking up without a sense of where he was. He had been told by his tribemates that now and then he wandered with his eyes closed, unheeding to anything anyone said or did. Sleepwalking, they called it. Sleepwalking, he'd let them believe. The truth was more troubling and more thrilling all at once. When he wandered, he followed the urging of voices, of the spirits that whispered secrets when the rest of the world was still.

And maybe she, the doe with the crown on her head, was a spirit, just a vision like some of those who let him on his wanderings turned out to be. Maybe she was real. He didn't have time (or the courage-- or foolishness?) to touch her himself and find out. He simply gathered himself and rose, then shook his pelt and turned his attention toward where she gestured.

Slowly, one hoof after the other, he paced that way. Dream or vision or bad idea altogether, he would understand it when he reached his destination and not a step before.

Prompt 2: THE BEGINNING

As soon as you accept your quest -- the decision made in your mind whether or not you voice your willingness aloud -- the graceful queen is gone, leaving you only to blink at the dreamers around you and then move forward on your quest.

This is most certainly unfamiliar ground. Even those of you experienced in tracking, who have explored the far lengths of Matope, will find no landmark that jogs your memory. Worse than that: for each step you take forward, the land behind you becomes unfamiliar as well.

This is the way of dreams.

But it is only after a few paces that something will catch your attention ahead: the swell of a cheer, a large number of kin shouting something unintelligible. You do not choose to run, but find yourself doing so all the same, to enter a clearing in a rush.

There you find the crowd, forming a tidy circle around the main event.

Two owlcats fight. one is black and one is white.

A dark-eyed acha with an overly wide grin is taking bets on the outcome. He won't let you leave until you pick one over the other.

_________

OOC INFO:

This is the first elimination prompt! You must reply to the prompt above in whatever way you'd like., but you must, somewhere in your post, specify if you're betting on the black or the white owlcat.

When you post, please also roll a 20-sided die. In past events, this die has been used to put some members back into the running, even if they choose the wrong fork, so it is to your benefit to do so!

You have until December 29th at 11:59 PM EST to complete this prompt and join in the event [but, realistically, I'll probably accept entries until around noon on the 30th XP].



OK....GO!

Murkcrow trudged forward thoughtfully, analyzing the ground every time he placed a hoof. The doe had called it a "marsh", but he wasn't sure that was accurate - though the ground felt spongy like a bubbling wetland, the feeling was all wrong, too. And he was becoming aware of other kin in the dream, though whether they were dreamers themselves, or merely dream-shades, he couldn't guess and cared little enough to ask and find out.

So he was surprised to find a crowd of cheering kin. He was more surprised when he ran into the center of the group, headlong, without giving it any consideration. He was not extremely surprised by what he found when he got there, though; there were only so many things to be found at the center of cheering crowds, after all.

"You want to place a bet, mate?" a grinning acha asked him.

"Not particularly," Murkcrow replied, but the acha cajoled and wheedled him until finally he gave in. "Alright. I'll pick the black one."

Lust looked at the empty space where the Queen had been, and remained silent for a long moment, as he took his first steps... Which gave the sound of cheering time to easily overwhelm his thoughts. He turned towards it, running hard, not aware he'd begun to do so. His eyes were wide with surprise at the energy in him, the need to get to the noise. He'd never thought he'd have such a desire for a thing like that.

The circle confused him, for shouldn't some one be breaking up the fight? Were not these owlcats some one's companion? He didn't understand, and he couldn't comprehend WHY everyone was betting and cheering. It seemed cruel, in his eyes, but... When he tried to leave, that acha wouldn't let him. He had to pick? He made a disgusted face, and, glowering at the Acha, he snapped out "If I must pick, then I choose the Black Owlcat. Satisfied?" All he wanted was to move on... The cruelty of this all upset him.

Run. She doesn't know if it is a command from the dream or a desire but she runs all the same. Runs until she finds the crowd and then she stills as she takes in the scene before her.

She doesn't like this -- why are they fighting -- and she really doesn't like the wide grin of the dark-eyed acha. Or trust it. And though, in reality, she'd attempt to stop the fight or converse with the acha, in the dream, she settles her eyes on the warring owlcats and watches. Decides.

"The black one then," she bets when she turns to face the acha.

Winter almost felt as if another dream had passed. Perhaps this entire thing was still that same dream from before. There was only one way to find out so he set out into the marsh.

The changing land was interesting and he just kept on his path, not trying to think on what would happen if he strayed from it.

A cheer caught his ear and something pulled him to the crowd. The sight made him sad. The two poor owlcats fighting wasn't right with him. But the insistent bothering of the acha was too much. Only because it was so much like himself he picked one, "The white".

PROMPT 2: THE BEGINNING

Through Your Eyes pays the other dreamers no mind. Their quests were their own. She had no interest in offering them anything, especially not the one that she knew. Too close to them and that old fear prickled uncomfortably at her spine; she kept her eyes hard and low. Deliberately forgotten, the feeling of falling apart tugged at her limbs and made her mean. Any kin unlucky enough to get in her way got a snap of teeth against their pelt or a hoof striking at their legs.

She walked with eyes roaming the ground, taking in very little as the landscape morphed all around her; it was impossible anyways, the moment her eyes landed on anything it melted away into something completely different. Despite her feelings of discomfort, she moved across the marsh quickly anyways, hooves carrying her swiftly in her characteristic loping gate, more wolf than kin.

She moved near the front of the pack of dreamers running against their wills and plunged headfirst into the crowd, the kin melting away and parting for her the way that crowds always do when there is something to reach in dreams. The pain, the fear, the discomfort, was forgotten as she took in the scene. Her eyes narrowed, not out of disgust of disdain, violence was natural and it bothered her not, but out of recognition of something in the fight.

She smiled, shrewd and joyless, at the acha and, perhaps, when their eyes met, their was a recognition there, him of her practical, remorseless violence, and her of his easy, seamless cruelty. Her teeth flashed and the word black almost slipped past them, biting in their finality, but something held her tongue even as her breath tumbled out in a rush. A self-deprecating grimace and then a playful, mocking smile for the dark-eyed acha who watched her, predatory, Through Your Eyes shook her head at announced, with much more confidence and nonchalance than she felt, "White."