[Battle of the Tribes] Daily Drabbles

[Minsuil]

37. Comfort | 7/5

"What shall we do next?" Her companion looked at her with dark glimmering eyes and she felt at peace.
 

[fluorescein]

3/5: Glossbones- Comfort

Comfort was knowing she would always be by his side. Not chatty in the best of times, they were heart twins and she spoke enough for him. Or rather, her words did the cutting he wish he had skills for. Comfort was having his family nearby. Comfort was them not worrying over his gaunt frame. He stopped counting the days. It made it much bleaker when food was scarce. Comfort was the satisfaction and admiration of a job well done. Glossbones was overly happy. It meant he could sleep well at night with an clear conscious. Life was very good.
 

[Patmos of Endtimes]

The patch of light was perfect, the grasses a wonderful blend of coarse and aromatic, and Tipsy could not resist plopping down in it and rolling like a youngster. The scents of the herbs rose up around her, and the coarse grasses itched her hide blissfully. The summer breeze rippled over the meadowy area, and she relaxed, sure that her sons were handling business just fine for now; she needn't go bustling back just yet. After the good roll, she laid out, sunning herself and letting it bake her scales. It prickled, but in a good way that she sort of missed from the desert. She smiled to herself: It would never entice her to go back.  

[Tiarana]

6/25 - 31 Flavors - Wasp IV - 103 words (Hollyhock I, Dogrot I, Murkcrow IV)

It started as a dare, that turned into a game, that evolved into a full-blown competition. "Eat your way across the swamp!" The latest fad. "The last one not struck down by severe digestive distress is the winner!" Eat bark, eat roots, eat flowers, eat insects, eat everything in sight! Wasp, of course, had been at the center of it from the beginning. He had, by his count, sampled parts from 31 different plants, 27 insects, and an unfortunate caiman that strayed too close. Now he was beginning to regret his decisions. Some of the things he had eaten were definitely not edible.  

[Amizade]

Candy
Expecting to Fly | 10 of 10 | 135 words

Her mother had shown her them once before. It had been many moons ago now, but the memory of the sugary juice still lingered on her tongue. They were rare and hard to find, and she was craving them.

Fly had spent the whole day digging, moving piles upon piles of dirt to no avail. Now she sat in the latest hole, exhausted and disappointed. She had all but given up when her leg broke through an air pocket…

HONEYPOT ANTS! Eagerly, she popped one into her mouth, rolling it around her tongue before bursting the abdomen. The sweet liquid exploded in her mouth and she smiled in bliss, letting the liquid melt away before picking up another one. She continued this way until she had eaten all five. Not many, but totally worth it.  

[Nuclearity]

Rising Sun; 4/5: "Take Your Time" [114]

It was one of those days. Rising Sun's tail dragged along the path behind her in the form of a wet mop, caking up mud and miscellaneous filth. She was walking through one of the Swamp's famous thunderstorms.

Sunny had to admit, it was rather serene; The heavy blanket of water combined with the overcast sky made for a very solitary environment, which the doe actually found therapeutic. Although she could hear muted shouts in the distance of worried mothers ushering their children home, and of companions that must have separated from one another, she found her peace and could clear her mind easily. Perhaps she would take her time going home this evening.

 

[Chrystali]

Hold My Hand
Bones of the Forgotten | 1 of 5 | 131 words



"Do not hold my hoof through this," he told the spectre of the dead kin. "I can lead you this far but I cannot go where you must."

This one was flimsy, not quite congealed, as though it were resisting departure. The milky figure had wrapped around his leg, though it left no pressure nor temperature. He was unmoving, unsympathetic to clinging to life; his purpose had been to give the deceased a proper burial and help them move on. If they did not wish to, he would not dally and waste his time. He had little patience for ingrates.

With a turn of his head, he slipped away from the clinging ghost, hearing the ethereal gasp of loss and the shuddering sigh of fading from existence. He was done here.

 

[Amorpheous]

Rush of Wind: 3/5

5. Loneliness

He wasn't lonely. There was only him and the desert, the sand beneath his hooves, the sun beating down on his back, and the rush of wind and blood howling in his ears. All these things were company enough for him. He had never truly known the companionship of other kin so there was nothing for him to miss, nothing for him to long for, no sense of emptiness that could only be filled by other living creatures for him to point to and call loneliness.

He had only one void in his soul and that was the one that had to be filled by the hunt and by the red that haunted his vision.

But that was not loneliness. Loneliness was yearning for others and it was something learned. So long as he continued running and running and never learned companionship, he could not learn loneliness. He could be an island unto himself, adrift in a sea of sand.

Then he ran towards the Swamp. He thought nothing would change, it was just a different sort of grey after all, but Chases the Wind found him and he would learn them both: companionship and loneliness.

196 words  

[Tiarana]

6/26 - In the Moonlight - Hollyhock II - 103 words (Wasp IV, Dogrot I, Murkcrow IV)

Bristletail was restless, and that made Hollyhock restless. He tossed and turned beside her in the dark. "Stop moving so much, Bristletail," she whined at him. "You won't sleep any better like that."

But he just kept twitching. Finally, Hollyhock started singing a lullaby to him.

Look and see the moon,
Rising in the sky,
Go to sleep, little one,
And dream that you can fly.

Look and see the stars,
Twinkling high above,
Close your eyes, rest your head,
It's time for you to sleep, my love.

"I'm not a little baby," Bristletail grumbled.

"Sometimes you act like one," Hollyhock shot back.  

[fluorescein]

4/5: Glossbones- Silk

Spiderwebs glittered in the night sky. They loomed over him, taunted his gaunt frame and he veered to the right. Each cobweb held a poisonous jewel at its center but he hunted bigger game. With a long twig, he batted at each cobweb, careful to twirl his forest fingers so that each strand did not break or stretch the intact web. It took him many monsoons to pick up this particular skillset. With a quick flick of his head, he dislodged the spiders. Careful, he stepped back and brought home his prize: soft spidersilk for the skulls. The consumers were going to eat this one up.

 

[Chrystali]

Heaven
Bones of the Forgotten | 2 of 5 | 145 words




He awoke with a start, jostling the two familiars that slept against him though they did not wake in turn, used to this by now. The buck slowly shook his head, his cragged maw parting to briefly lick his muzzle, bone helm laying near by. Blinking blue eyes blearily, he tried to hold on to the dream, tried to again catch the fleeting wisp of a memory that refused to be grasped.

There was no thing that he could relate it to, which is why he figured he could never recall it; all he knew is it was a land without color, flat, something glowing in the distance like the moon, another kin that he couldn't focus on...was it heaven? Was it the end? Was it a prophecy? He didn't know, and he couldn't ask anymore questions of his addled mind. It was gone.