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The situation would not be quite so interesting had Twilight been paying attention at all.

She was deep into the marsh, deeper than she'd ever gone, where the sunlight filtered down through the trees [bigger around than she was long] in little motes. Even the bird songs were different here, silent, hushed. The water which she'd slogged through for half a mile is now completely, opaquely green, choked with duckweed; she has resorted to hopping and mincing from floating log, to rock, to cypress knee, to get what to what she seeks. She's never seen another kimeti this deep into the marsh, and that in itself is something worth noting.

Shaking her head to get a fly out of her ear, Twilight stomps a back hoof, calculates her distance -- and leaps onto a floating log, which sways wildly in the marsh before eventually slowing to a gentle bob, with a dark-furred kimeti doe on top of it, crouched down as low against the log as she can manage.

Something splashes in the water behind her, but she doesn't notice. It could have just been a stick or branch disturbed by her leap.

In the center of a clearing [if such a thing could be called a clearing this deep in the marsh] was a still pool of absolutely clear water, not covered over by duckweed, without even so much as marsh reeds growing in it. And in the center of the water she could see something glinting .. and, well, there have been stories told about curious foals and alligators for a reason...

The first thing that happens is that Lower Down will very nearly get a hoof in the face. The dripping, muddy, slime-wreathed creature that rises out of the swamp behind her does make her jump, and she very nearly falls off the log, which would have made her similarly slimy -- but the sheer force of her indignant anger keeps her balanced enough to lash out at the other kimeti (because, as far as she knows, swamp-monsters do not have horns, ears, or eyes that glow that particular color).

She looks vaguely indignant as she stands bobbing uselessly on the log; after a moment, she simply jumps off into the surprisingly cool, clear water of the little clearing, and speaks in a voice best described as prim, "Do you think that was funny? I thought it was juvenile." She's not really mad, just irritated, and then asks, "How long have you been following me?" Waiting for a chance to do just that?

And then comes Peeper. Unlike the slinker and the jumper, Peeper, well -- Peeper bounces. He bounces from one place to another, not particularly avoiding the great big swaths of scum, so that occasionally he hits with a flat sound like a buck taking a belly-dive into water and a great tidal wave of grossness going flying.

He seems to find this as amusing as bouncing along the way he is, as if he has springs in the bottom of his hooves and gravity is not quite holding him down all the way. He's just in time to see the roar and the rise of the muck monster, and he grins, because isn't that just awesome? And if neither of them have seen him -- or heard him and that is regrettable, he admits, but OH WELL, OKAY? -- he leaps from the rock to the log with a mighty spring--

Which sends him into the water when he misses, because the bottom of his hooves have gotten somewhat slimy, though he does hit the end of the log with two hooves, which means that there's a tremendous SPLASH sound and the log rises up on one end...

And then comes down with enough force to send another tidal wave of green muck everywhere.

Peeper pops to the surface in a newly-de-mucked portion of the water like a cork, and grins, shaking water off himself. "Hi. That was so awesome. What are you doing out here? That is the neatest shade of green ever, don'cha think? What makes it that color?" He says it all very fast-- with the sense that here is a buck that doesn't slow down (or walk) often.

For a moment, as she stands there flanks-deep in the once-pristine water of the small pool, it looks as if Twilight is plumbing the depths of her considerably intelligent mind to come up with just the right words for these two bucks: idiot comes to mind, or perhaps ridiculous, but even those won't do them justice. Instead, she opens her mouth, shuts it again, and then dunks under the water to clean herself; her glowing blue markings are dampened somewhat by the water, but at least now she no longer looks like "--some ridiculous sort of Swamp monster!"

The outburst's not an answer to Peeper's statement, and it completely ignores Lower Down's own, but -- well, bucks will be bucks. Some, perhaps, forever.

Then, with a sniff, she turns to wade deeper into the pool (thankfully, the pink buck de-mucked a wide swath of it) and then abruptly dive underneath it. For a doe, she's a decent swimmer. After a moment she comes up with the shining thing in her mouth -- some sort of jewel, or glass, or even clear sap, which winks in the murky swampy light. If her eyes didn't glow such a bright blue, the fact that she rolls them (not at the bauble, at the collection of morons in front of her) would be much more visible.

"Now, I got what I came here for. Duckweed aside, I'm Twilight. Now if you'd excuse me...?"

It's not that Peeper's all that interested in the doe, although she is interesting, but all she did was act snotty and cranky and fish something glowing out of the water, and what if all does are like this?

Terrifying thought. No, thank you, he's done with does for now. But the buck has volunteered information that is interesting and cool and neat and hey, fun. "Wow."He peers at the muck, then at Twilight as she comes back up. "...wow."

They will probably never see him actually walk; he frisks, he bounces, he splashes, he jumps, he runs-- but never really slows down enough to walk. He frisks over to Twilight, in fact, blinking at her. "I'm Peeper. Your name's nicer than you are. What's that thing? Why's it that bright? How'd you learn to hold your breath for so long? Where are you going?"

If Peeper is flirting, it's in a strange and roundabout way (which means it's probably not, can anyone imagine Peeper being subtle enough to do anything in a roundabout manner?). He is, however, actually curious about all of these things that he has just asked in a great tumble of words. Lower Down will get his turn next, once Twilight has answered him sufficiently.

All things considered, Twilight feels she's right to have such a sour attitude -- but she's not really this way. She's simply a prim doe; prim in the way that all things should have their time and place, and duckweed now matted into her fur is not one of those things. But there's no use driving people off because of it, and she considers changing her tune.

She shakes her head to get water out of her ears and then follows Lower Down to the bank, resisting the urge for a full-body shake to get the rest of the muck off of her. She drops the little gem neatly between her front hooves and looks a bit contrite. "I'm sorry," she admits, "You just scared the ever-living Swamp out of me. I've been out this way for three days and haven't seen a soul. I like to find places nobody else has. You get things like this," she indicates the jewel between her feet. "I didn't expect visitors." And certainly not when she was balanced on a log half her size.

As Lower Down glances back into the swamp, ears cocked and alert, she quiets. Seeing nothing lurking around [how could an alligator have possibly managed to stalk them through all Peeper's splashing and their raised voices?], she flips her tail against her leg. "What do you see?" Her voice is quiet, but the way her tail flips, Twilight might be the first one to go see what the problem is.

And -- yes, there it is, proof positive that Spring Peeper has never walked a day in his life. He waits politely until Twilight is up on the bank before frisking through the water, which has the added benefit of swishing some of the muck off of his legs and hooves by the time he hops up onto the bank and hops over a little bit.

"Something's creepy." Peeper announces it as if it's obvious, and bumps Lower Down's shoulder with his own in a bright and cheerful kind of hello; Lower Down's already got more points than Twilight, even if she is trying to be nice. He settles so that the three of them are looking three different ways, because that's just a smart thing to do even if he does seem awfully naive.

"The breathing--" He shakes himself, because Swamp, okay, that's creepy. It kind of feels like the whole swamp is breathing around them and is that not the weirdest thing ever?

But where there are things to be explored, there goes Twilight - where there is a chance that curiosity could kill an owlcat, there goes Twilight. Standing with her head held high between Peeper and Lower Down, listening to the thick, heavy silence that has descended upon their little area of the swamp. If the birds have stopped singing, that's a bad sign indeed; she looks around, and then her ears swivel back at the scraping sounds Massacre makes. It'd be a lie indeed if it didn't make her skin want to crawl up her back and off her body, but she can play at being brave for a little while. Besides -- the intense desire to find out what's going on, and be the first one to figure it out, is almost overwhelming.

She takes a slow step forward, tail switching against her flanks, and peers deep into the underbrush. She's walking directly towards where Manslaughter is hiding; for a moment, she freezes -- certain she saw something red and evil-looking glint out from beneath a cypress trunk, but nothing could fit under there without a squeeze. Peering for a moment longer, not entirely sure, she speaks in a whisper over her shoulder at Lower Down. "It's really close. It's right here! Somewhere within -- ten feet or so."