[PRP] Little Angels & Demons (Myrllin & Serotia)

[xo maho]

This is a private roleplay between Myrllin (Mahogany Sunset) and Serotia (Cajmera).
Please do not post without permission.

 

[xo maho]

Myrllin slunk through the tall grass of the grasslands he'd grown up on, looking for someone to play with. His sister was nowhere to be found today; she was probably over with their mother and father. But he was fine by himself, he knew - he was a grown up. Or at least that was what he'd told himself. He couldn't remember, and he didn't seem to be growing. And he felt old, not like his baby sister, who was shooting up like a weed.

Eyeing the long grass ahead of him and annoyed that he couldn't see over it - he could never see over it, dumb grass - Myrllin summoned his magic. It took a lot of concentration, though he could sometimes do it on accident if he was upset or something. Tensing the muscles behind his ears that led up to his headwings, he flapped them a little and the grass rustled around him. Flapping them even harder, the grass blew down in front of him, nearly flattening for a moment under the force of the gust. But then he lost control of it and it went flying away before dissipating a few feet ahead of him. With a sigh, he flopped down on the ground, the grass instantly cushioning his small form.

At least I can find my way back, he thought, looking at the tunnel he'd made in the grass. Maybe he'd have to eat his way forward... Now that spring had come, the grass was growing unchecked. Settling to think on it more, he laid there in the grass and looked at the sky.

Cajmera

 

[Cajmera]

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Serotia was bored. Sure, it was easy enough to claim boredom without trying to do anything about it, but she had been thorough! Her usual stomping grounds were empty, there was no one around in the sparks field, the pond was barren of even ducks. It was almost as though they'd known she was coming, she thought ruefully, and all she ever wanted to do with them was tweak their tails...among either things. Regardless, whatever she might have wanted to do was moot, because there was nothing to do it to. Or with, she reminded herself. She should never rule out the possibility of doing something WITH something, but it was so hard to find proper motivation. Maybe if there were other imps around...

But no, there were no other imps. A pity, because she was sure they could get up to a lot of fun if there were more of them. Other races, in her experience, could be rather stodgy. But ever since she'd come to the Kawani, she'd maintained hope; after all, she hadn't been the only imp out there!

Still, the fact remained that she had done her best, but she was bored. Consequently, she ambled along through the tall grass in no discernible pattern, summoning up crackling sparks as she walked. They might not be much, but at least they gave her something to focus on.

Bored...

Mahogany Sunset

 

[xo maho]

Myrllin was just getting ready to get up and gorge himself - he'd ended up making the decision that yes, he would eat his way forward - when he heard a sound like that of leather snapping against itself, or a whip cracking in the air. But it wasn't exactly the same - it sounded more like a fire crackling. He'd heard that before, when he got too close to a group of natives camping out near the trees. They'd had a fire going, the likes of which he'd never seen before, a great tall pyramid of logs all leaning against each other, flame dancing up its length. Someone had decided to put a branch of pine in there with needles intact, and the campsite had lit up with popping sounds.

Standing to crane his neck over the long grass in front of him, Myrllin was thwarted once more. Annoyed, he called his magic again, flapping his headwings in the direction the sound was coming from - in front of him. The grass waved under the pressure of the gust, and he saw ahead of him for a moment before losing control of the wind again.

Was that a purple usdia? With headwings like his? Maybe we're related! he thought, and bounded forward to meet the small soquili, grass whispering against him as he plowed through it.

Cajmera

 

[Cajmera]

Serotia hadn't really been expecting anything to happen, so when it did, she was more than a little surprised. One moment, she was ambling along through the grass, making sparks and minding her own business, the next minute she was getting blasted in the face by a gust of wind that blew up almost literally out of nowhere. It wasn't so strong a gust that it knocked her backwards, but the grass in front of her was nearly flattened and the spark that was in the process of snapping in front of her ended up snapping right in her ear, making her jump and yelp at the same time.

So much for maintaining dignity along with her casual air of boredom!

"Man..." Serotia murmured a somewhat grumbling tone of voice, bending down one wing to rub at the injured ear. "That was not good ti-whoa!" Breaking off in practically mid-thought, she jumped backwards in one spectacular leap as she saw the other body barreling towards her, self-preservation her first and only thought. But in that moment, she realized the barreler was, in fact. Another mini. Not just another winged mini. For a moment, her spirits soared; another imp, finally! Though then the feathers registered, and she greeted the stallion with a resounding, "You're not an imp, then."

Mahogany Sunset

 

[xo maho]

When he was finally up close to her, close enough to see that her headwings were not quite the same as his, Myrllin grinned. If they were different, what did it matter? They were still both usdia, and he had only met a few of those since he had emerged, full grown, from his basket. He supposed he must have had a family in his previous life, the life he could not remember, but what did that matter? What mattered was here and now, and it looked like he was about to make a new friend! And the last time that had happened, well, he had just come out of his basket and met his family... "Hi, I'm Myr-" he got through saying before she cut him off, and then he blinked. "No, I'm not an imp, what's an imp?" he replied, a grin still wide on his face. "I'm Myrllin." Flapping his headwings, he summoned a tiny gust of his magic and tried to ruffle her forelock with it.

The more he looked at her, though, the more she looked like she was in a sour mood. She had not been particularly happy to see him; that much had been clear by the tone of her voice and his not being whatever she expected him to be. He had to cheer her up, it was sad to be sad! "I'm a wizard," he said playfully, flapping his headwings again. This time the gust was a little bigger, a little more powerful, but still only enough to fan her hair. "Want to play? I can do some magic."

Cajmera

 

[Cajmera]

It wasn't that Serotia meant to be rude. Growing up, manners had been heavily impressed on Serotia and her siblings, along with a stern admonishment to remember those manners when they were out in their own 'in the world at large.' And while the youthful Serotia had been known to roll her eyes and snort a bit at those admonishments, she had still tried to take them to heart. But good intentions or no, the plain facts of the matter were that manners were more of guidelines to Serotia, secondary to getting her point across as swiftly and neatly as possible. This was even more the case when she was feeling impatient or displeased about something.

Though she did did feel a twinge when she realized she'd cut the stallion off; she had never been a fan of interrupting, whether she was the one being interrupted or the one doing the interrupting. At least he didn't seem bothered by her faux pas; she had enough to process with his extraordinary comment about not knowing what an imp was without having to run damage control on her own bad manners! Though really, how was it even possible for him to not know what an imp was, he was an Usdia with headwings himself! Surely they belonged to the brotherhood of winged Usdia, who knew all about each other's breed!

Except for the fact that she herself had no idea what the stallion was. No imp had feathery wings, just the leathery kind. Apparently they were both failures as members of the brotherhood of winged Usdia. "I'm an imp, Myrllin. These are imp wings," she said with a slight incline of her head. "You don't have imp wings, so that's how I knew you weren't an imp. What kind of thing are you, with those feathery wings?" Curiousity was piquing her interest in the little stallion, not imp as he was, especially at his mention of magic. "Magic? What kind of magic can you do? Are you controlling the breeze? Is that your magic? I can do magic like that too, except not with a breeze," she said as a mischievous smile crept onto her face. This could be fun, after all! Perhaps with his breezes (and whatever else he was able to do) and her sparks, they could make up a game that was even more fun than traditional Imp Sparks!

"And I'm Serotia. Serotia, but you can call me Sero if you want, because Serotia is awfully long for a name." Better to introduce herself late than never, now that she had decided to give Myrllin a chance. "And I think it's nice to meet you, even if you're not an Imp." Yes, those were kind words indeed!

Mahogany Sunset

 

[xo maho]

"Nice to meet ya, too, Miss Sero the Imp," he said, grinning. He stared at her wings for a moment, trying to figure out what exactly an imp was, what made her different from him. Didn't she just have bald wings? But no, hers had points, and he was pretty certain that his didn't have those segment-looking things hiding under his feathers... "I don't know what I am. My momma, Aurora, she said that I came from a wish made on a star, so I got wind magic to go with it!" The connection he made between the star and the wind wasn't quite a reasonable one, but to Myrllin, it seemed to fit, for whatever reason.

Then he remembered her words - the ones that had almost gone in one ear and out the other as she introduced herself - and the little usdia almost jumped up and down. "You have magic, too?! Show me, please! I would love to see it. I'm sure it's wonderful." Big-eyed and curious, he waited for her demonstration.

Cajmera

 

[Cajmera]

Oh, interesting; so the mystery man Myrllin was an unknown element, even to himself! Obviously not an imp, but a species of such radical and mysterious origins that he didn't even know what it was! Serotia felt herself warming even more to the little guy. It wasn't his fault he wasn't an imp, after all, and she could do with a good mystery. Even an exceptionally perky one. Especially an exceptionally perky stallion who had astrological origins! She'd never heard of a Soquili or Usdia coming from a star before, so for a long moment she simply stared at the stallion; he was so earnest, it was hard to tell if he was trying to pull her leg ot not!

Still, she was a bit friendlier in tone when she finally responded. "A wish on a star, huh? I bet that's a cleaner way to go about getting a child than the usual way, so kudos to your mom. Does she have any little feather wings like you have, or are those unique to you along with the wind magic? Because seriously, those are some crazy little wings you have. I've never seen anything like that anywhere other than attached to the backs of a bird."

She had started to approach the stallion as she spoke, giving him a once-over that was so probing it was probably downright intrusive to Myrllin; once again, those pesky things called manners were being ignored, worthless when she was presented with the chance to truly indulge her curiosity. It was remarkable, just how alike she and Myrllin seemed to be, wing structure and obvious gender differences aside. They might have different wings, but they were in the same place, and had the same general shape. He seemed stockier than her, as well as taller, but she didn't know if that was because he was a stallion or due to something else. She didn't have a huge knowledge of stallions, but they tended to be larger than mares, she'd noticed...

But those thoughts were small potatoes at the moment. At Mryllin's query about her magic, the impish grin on Serotia's face became more pronounced. "Sure, I'd love to show you my magic," she said, right before she sent a massive spark snapping into the air between them. It was quite the spectacle, if she did say so herself; the spark went off with a loud, dramatic crackle that neither of them could avoid feeling. She wished it would have been a bit more visually striking, but it was the sensation that mattered when it came to sparks. "Cool, huh? I can make big ones like that, or else lots of smaller ones; whatever I feel like at the time," she finished with a large, self-satisfied grin.

Mahogany Sunset

 

[xo maho]

Myrllin waited mutely for her demonstration, taking her questions and determinedly filing them away to answer after Sero showed him what her magic was all about - after all, that seemed to be something the two of them had in common. As she gave him that once-over, he tilted his head at her curiously, wiggling a little and trying to avoid doing the same. Eventually, his eyes found the ground and her hooves - cloven hooves. And just beyond that, the thing that intrigued him most: her tail. It was long and thin, but oddly, it ended in a little spade-shaped point, like one of the many arrow heads he had found lying on the ground in the plains. They showed up with startling frequency; Mom had said that the buffalo herd had moved or... what was the word? Migrated? since he had emerged from his basket, and all the lost arrow heads that belonged to the natives that had once been used to take down the great beasts now littered the plains. She'd told him to take care not to accidentally swallow one if he pulled up a mouthful of grass and discovered one in it. She could only imagine what that might do to his digestion.

Eyes darting back up when Sero announced her intent to show him her magic, he grinned as the spark flashed before his eyes, somehow yellow and blue at the same time, and static seemed to lift his coat from his skin, all the way down his legs. "That was so cool!" The words came out of his mouth almost as a squeal, so exuberant and shocked were they. Taking a deep breath, he bent to run his nose down his legs, hoping to get the hair to lie flat again, but to no avail. Sighing, he shook his head and let the grin return to his face. "Okay, I'll answer your questions and then ask mine, okay?"

Screwing up his face, he answered her questions in the ordered she had asked them, trying to remember each of them the best he could. "My mom... she's actually a wind soquili," he began, smiling a little sheepishly. "She has wings on her back like a bird's. My dad is a kalona, and he has wings on his back like yours." He nodded in the general direction of Sero's headwings. "Somebody said that the spirits' making me a mini seemed a bad joke, but I don't think it was all that bad. I like my size, and I like my magic." Giving her a big sincere smile, he fluttered his headwings, kicking up a tiny breeze.

"Now!" he exclaimed, jumping a little in his excitement, "It's my turn to ask questions! What about your wings? Are you the only one? Because you seem to know a thing or two about what you are, I guess is why I'm asking, and I've only ever seen those kinds of wings on bats and, well, my dad." And now, for his last and most important question, asked with a mischievous smirk: "Want to try putting our magic together?" What if they could make a tiny electric tornado or something? That would be so cool!

Cajmera

As putti and imp magic cancel each other out, I was thinking that maybe they pit their magic against each other, and it all just kind of stops/disappears? Idk, what do you think?  

[Cajmera]

Well, he might not be an imp, but so far this feathery little stallion was proving to be a great find. He might not be able to play a proper game of sparks with her, but she doubted any real Imp would be half as enthusiastic about her little display. Not to mention that any Imp she'd met would likely have much more conventional (and therefore, boring) roots. Imagine, being born to 'normal Soquili' parents via a wish on a star! She'd never heard of such a thing, and though she wouldn't have traded her own upbringing, his was something interesting to hear! "Man, that sounds like quite the story, Myrllin! Were your parents surprised when you appeared? Like, not just in response to their wish, but in general? I've never made a serious wish on a star," she added as she smoothed down her own statically charged hair, "But if I did, I think that I'd be expecting something a bit more like me."

But she supposed that in the spirit of fairness, it was time for her to let Myrllin have a chance to ask her about things. Even though she didn't think she had a lot of interesting things to share beyond her sparks, you could never say what might be interesting to a guy who came from a star! "You seem pretty zen about everything, Myrllin, so I guess you must be happy with the way things have worked out for you. So that's the important thing, right?" Grinning, Serotia bounced a little bit herself; it was hard to remain stoic in the face of Myrllin's energetic enthusiasm. "But yes, I can answer your questions too; that's fair, of course!"

Straightening up a bit, she started firing off rapid-paced answers in response to his questions. "Um, my wings aren't really a lot, I guess? I can flap them, but they don't really kick up things like yours do. But they're great for swatting at bugs," she added with a laugh. "But no, there are lots of Imps like me. We all used to live in a region beyond the Kawani lands, but then there was a rockslide type thing? And then there was a cave tunnel thing exposed where the rocks used to be, so some of us followed it, and here we are!" So far, 'here' had been a mixed bag in Serotia's opinion, but she had enough of an adventurous spirit to want to see the new world from tip to tip. Who knew what else was out there, after all?

"So far I haven't seen a lot of new types of Soquili; like, I don't think I've seen the type of Soquili your Dad is, because my wings are the only sort like them I've seen. But oh! Yes, let's try magicking at each other; who knows, maybe we'll even invent a new game." Already, she was starting to gather up the energy for another big static shock, her hair beginning to rise up and float around her.

Mahogany Sunset

I'd say the magical cancellation thing sounds right!

 

[xo maho]

Myrllin gave a little heh when Sero told him that his was quite a story; it was the only story he had, or at least, the only one that he remembered. His other story, the one that had happened before he had been stuck in that uncomfortably small basket, was lost to him. He had emerged from the basket as an adult, and that, at least, was apparently unheard of, so whatever had happened, he had surely lived some kind of life before he had found his family. "My parents weren't too surprised, I think? Maybe like a pleasant surprise, but not blown away," he said. "My sister was also born of a wishing star, so they have experience with that, at least." Carefully, Myrllin watched as Sero smoothed down her own hair and mirrored her actions; this time, his hair stayed down. I wonder if that takes more practice to get it right every time.

Nodding along as Sero told him that he seemed zen, Myrllin supposed he couldn't help but agree. He hadn't ever really questioned it, except to wonder what had happened before the spirits had had their little bout of fun. But then she stood up straight, and Myrllin prepared himself - and then she was off. Bug swatters, he thought, amazed, looking up at the wings on her head and then looking up at his own, or what he could see of them. Mine are probably too soft for that. "Oh, really?" he asked, wondering where this region was and if he could get there. "Are there others like me there? Or... Do you know what my kind is called?"

Humming a little, Myrllin let his wings dance on his head, not quite flapping them yet. She must not have been here for very long, if she hadn't seen very many kinds of Soquili - after all, his own family had like four different kinds! And that was just between his mom and dad and him. Shrugging to himself, Myrllin began to flap his headwings as he watched Sero's hair begin to fluff up again. Magicking, he thought, internalizing the word. He had always just called it "doing magic," but it was good to know that there was a word for it. "Okay, ready?" he asked, his eyes squinting and his lips pressing together in concentration. Taking a deep breath and flapping his headwings one more time, he said, "Here goes!" and released the mini tornado, its winds immediately picking up a flurry of grass from the field and a bunch of little grey-brown dirt clods. The tiny tunnel was only a foot across at its widest, but it sped across the space between Myrllin and Sero quickly, despite its size. "One, two, three...!" he said, half-shouting above the whoosh noise that the tornado made.

Cajmera

 

[Cajmera]

Well, chalk another surprising fact up to Myrllin! While Serotia was well aware of the practice of many Soquili and Usdia to tuck their newborns into woven baskets for protection, she'd never once heard of a GROWN pony being packed into one. Unless the basket was of mammoth proportions, that sounded uncomfortable at the least, painful at the worst, and like something to be avoided in any situation. Once again, she found herself staring at Myrllin with round, appalled eyes, and once again she didn't make any effort to censor herself. "Really, you were squished into a basket as a grown-up? Didn't it hurt? Wasn't your nose mushed up against the side, or your headwings bent, or your legs folded up into some weird position? I don't think I would have taken it, if I was you," she said with a firm shake of her head. "I think I would have tried to fight my way out even as they were trying to put me in!"

Whoever 'they' were, of course. Though if it was the spirits, or the stars, who were doing it, she didn't quite know how that fight would go, or even how it would work! But just because she was unsure on the specifics didn't mean she wouldn't try.

Still, short as their conversation had been, she was learning a lot about Myrllin's personality. He was a lot more laid back, a lot more accepting of things than she was, it seemed. Maybe that was why he'd been the spirits' choice to BE put in a basket and given to some non-Usdia parents? It was certainly something to consider; after all, it would have been a cruel joke to have some parents wish on a star and get a grouchy, ungrateful spirit child in response! Myrllin was clearly a better choice, in that light. Possibly even the best choice, given how obviously content he seemed with his familial situation. She could almost envy that.

But musings of that sort would have to wait, along with any further discussion of race/breed/family history; there was a game to be played! As she gathered her electrical charge, Serotia couldn't help but watch in fascination as Mryllin flapped his own little wings and made...well, she wasn't quite sure what the technical term for it WAS, but she was pretty sure it was wind. Spinning wind, gathered into a cone and sent whirling across the ground in her direction. She'd never seen anything like that before, and her gut instinct was to jump out of the way. It might be small, but it was LOUD, and it was spinning like a dervish! So jump out of the way she did, but not before releasing her pent-up electrical energy, which shot forwards towards the tornado and its carry-ons with a loud SNAP-SIZZLE!

But it was clear she needn't have worried. No sooner did her ball of sparks connect with the spinning wind than the whole thing broke down and vanished, the bits of grass and dirt carried by the whirlwind dropping harmlessly to the ground. For a moment, she simply stared at the spot where it had been, then she blurted out enthusiastically, "That was so COOL!"

Mahogany Sunset