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 Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:26 pm
((Lily Robinson meets Marriane the Tailor ))
Lily dropped soundlessly out of the tree... until, of course, her raccoon feet hit the forest floor with a squishy thud. "Damn Swamp." She muttered under her breath as she shook her makeshit boot to one side. "These are my best shoes too." Sigh. "My only shoes."
"Where'd ya get'em?" asked a squeaky voice from the bushes.
Lily rounded quickly, her reactions quickly showing better than they had when she'd fallen from the tree a moment before. Lifting her curved bladed weapon into a defensive posture, she showed her teeth menacingly to the unseen foe. "Come out here where I can see you, maybe then, and that's a BIG maybe, I'll answer some of your questions."
"Ah, coony, doant chu be waving that spoon at me." Lily about spat in frustration when a small Opossum came limping out of the bush in front of her. She was an old opossum, with a slightly crooked spine and a very crooked smile. "Now, where'dja get'em boots?"
Lily rolled her eyes and sheathed her sword back in her belt. "That's none of your business, you old biddy. What are you doing leaping out of the bushes at creatures like that? You're likely to get a sword in the stomach for all that it's worth!"
"You kin sharpen spoons all yi like, but they'll always be sharpened spoons, coony." The old opossum limped forward and walked awkwardly around Lily, looking her outfit up and down. "Yi look like yi just climbed out of a dumpster." And then she laughed... a little old lady opossum laugh, short and shriveled and high. Completely insulting.
So what if Lily had just jumped out of a garbage can? What business was it of this biddy? "What business is it of yours? You just gimp your way on out of here, cause you know what? You're insulting me, and I don't take to insults." Lily brandished her (indeed) sharpened spoon at the other creature and lowered her stance so she was more at an eyelevel with the old girl. "I only have so much compassion in me before I'll just up and kill you. I don't killing the old and weak, mind you, but you'll have pressed me into it, you will! AND STOP DOING THAT!" Lily brushed off the old opossum's scrawny claws as the shorter woman tried to feel her shirt, and danced somewhat nimbly through the mud to get away from her. "I made these boots myself, okay? They're made from the skin of a rhinoceros!"
The old lady cocked an eyebrow at Lily. "What... is a rhinocerous?"
"Um...." Lily sighed. "I don't know, actually. I just know that it's big. Look." She wiped the mud off her spoon.... sword... by running it deftly along her pant leg. "Who the hell are you?"
"Marriane the tailor." She grinned and squinted up at Lily. "Who are you?"
"Lily Robinson, of the Robinson Raccoons." She stood a little taller.
"You mean... of Helix Robinson?" Marriane looked deeply impressed. "You must be quite the swordsbeast then."
"He was my father." She turned away from Marriane and started to tromp her way out of the mud and away from the opossum.
Marriane watched the red raccoon walk through the forest until she was almost out of earshot before calling to her. "If yi ever need a decent pair of boots, I kin make'em!" She smiled softly and waved absentmindedly. "Must be a fine swordsbeast indeed." She turned and started to hobble away back down the path. "Shame about'cher father. ... Shame indeed."
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:06 pm
 META POST (and rp contest) Bale strode down the rock path to the ruins, a smile on his rabbit face, and a jaunty whistle on his smiling lips. He wasn't being quiet, of course, as he fairly skipped through Mossflower's truce lands, and if a beast was nearby for whatever reason, then they'd be able to hear him singing a happy song. His voice was fair, and strong, well trained so that it traveled well through the dense forest area. Every once in a while, Bale would kick up behind him and thump the wooden crate his had strapped to his back with a heel... making a crude drumming effect. "Happy creatures in the fores' skip skip skip skip Good strong voices, rich and porous skip skip skip skip Music will take us, lift us and war us skip skip skip skip Silence be damned, you'll just have to abhor us." Each time he sang 'abhor us' he ended in a laugh, a deep chuckle coming up from his gut. The thing was, Bale really did love music. He felt that it got inside you somehow... it could tell a story, and keep history alive, express feelings, and so so so much more! "SILENCE BE DAMNED! YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO ABHOR US!" He came up next to a tree, laughing heartily to himself. It had been a while since he'd laughed like this, and it was high time he did too. Dropping the box at the base of the tree, he flipped it upside down with a deft foot and hopped up on top of it. He pulled a piece of painted linen from his hip pack and nailed it to the tree with a small rock and wooden peg. "Good strong voices, rich and porous... " He fairly whispered the words to the song as he stared up at the poster. "skip skip skip skip." A sad tear rolled down his cheek, but he kept smiling. "Well Aster." He was no longer singing. "I'll do it right, and I won't forget, I won't." He smiled sadly and placed a white paw on the linen poster. "I know you'd want this." Closing his eyes, he leaned against the poster for a moment... then pushed back with a smile and leapt off the crate. He broke into a song the second his feet hit the forest floor again... "Keeper of silence, you're time has come, Skip skip skip skip This forest of voices, no longer is dumb skip skip skip skip Aster me pal, don't be so glum, skip skip skip skip For you and old Gaffie, the geetars will strum... " He was well packed up and on the move again, before he was even halfway through his song... "Happy creatures in the fores' skip skip skip skip Good strong voices, rich and porous skip skip skip skip Music will take us, lift us and war us skip skip skip skip Silence be damned, you'll just have to abhor us." Soon he was gone, left the opposite direction from where he had come... there wasn't anything left of the happy rabbit except the faint echoes of his song, and the linen poster that he'd left behind... I suppose you wonder what it said? You're a lucky forest dweller... because I'll show it to you. Okay, so here's the rundown. I'm offering at least three musical instruments here. They can be edited into your pets cert if you like (if you win). What Bale is calling for here, is at least three new musicians to come and play with him habitually in Mossflower at the Old StoneCourt (the ruins in Mossflower). He recently lost the two other members of his performing troupe in a battle, and he's finally at a place where he's willing to start over. What you have to do to take part in this contest is write up a solo rp where your creature either builds, or uncovers an old musical instrument. I want them to be FOREST APPROPRIATE please. Made of acorns and sticks and hollowed out branches, leaves and such. Maybe a rubber band or two (but tell me where you got them). Think of all the things that could be used to make musical instruments in the wild if you were mouse sized. Things that will help you win are showing a working knowledge of the area, and what's available, using your imagination to build an instrument (even if your creature has had it for a long time, I still want to know what it's made of), and perhaps even writing a short song like Bales. ^_^ The winners will receive an image of their instrument on an item bar, and (if they want) the instrument placed in their cert with the character who plays it. I would be willing to look at the possibility of the items being used as weaponry if it makes sense (I'm not going to let you bash a Badger over the head with a penny whistle for example). Keep in mind that we're trying for a little bit of realism here, so if you do choose to use your instrument in a battle and bash it over someone's head, you may very well break it. ^_^ entries to be posted here in the thread.
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Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:43 pm
His foot twitched... and it hurt. ~~~~~~~~~~ His foot twitched.... and it really hurt. ~~~~~~~~~~ His foot twitched... and it was so painful he passed out again. ~~~~~~~~~~ His foot twitched, waking him up suddenly. The sunlight glared into his eyes and he rolled over onto his side. The motion brought bran new lengths of pain, and he groaned to himself. He lay there in a pile of something soft, smelling something terrible... smelling pain and suffering... smelling terror... smelling death. He peeked an eye open and glared out peripherally at the softness that made up his current bed. What he saw made him cringe and shut his eyes tight again. If he hadn't looked, he might have been able to will the other mice away... to convince himself that he was still in his little pile of aspen, hunkered in a sleepy ball, waiting for the next experiment.... but that wasn't where he was. He was on a pile of his friends and family. He didn't even have to open his eyes again to know that they were dead... Why wasn't he dead too? With a slight sob, he fell into unconsciousness again. ~~~~~~~~~~ His foot twitched... his tail flipped... his cheek twinged... his eyes opened slowly. It was darker now, and the light situation didn't hurt his eyes as much as it had earlier. The situation would have been better if the dead mice underneath him hadn't smelled even more dead. Which made sense. The little white mouse rolled again, coming up on his hind quarters. He ached, that was for sure, but he didn't feel like he was dead... just nearly dead. He carefully navigated the pile of mice, trying not to recognize any of them, even though it didn't really help. He knew that one and that one... oh... "You were... you were the nice one." He sighed and tucked the little girl mouse's limp paw up onto her little chest, and then moved on. It didn't take him long to discover that he was in a dumpster. "Probably thrown out with the trash" He groaned. Being in a dumpster wasn't the worst thing in the world, the other mice were pure proof of that, but it wasn't the best place to be either. There was probably some food in here, and even though he wasn't hungry right now, he would be later he knew. So he dug down into a bag that smelled like fast food, and was rewarded with three cold hard French fries and a piece of plasticy cheese stuck to a wrapper. Then he found a scrunchie, which he chewed a hole in and ripped strips of material from. Two of the strips he wrapped around his ankles for better support to his aching feet, and the third he wrapped around his shoulder to stop a dribbling puncture wound he found there. Lastly, he pushed the leftover scrunchie material to one side of the elastic it was on and stuffed the food he'd found into it. With the elastic backpack slung over both shoulders he began to limp his way out of the dumpster, but before he could make it all the way out, something glistened at him.... It was a piece of broken mirror and he could see himself in it. He looked a mess... he looked tired and hungry, sick and wasted, pale and unhappy... but there was one thing he wondered about. Wandering over to the mirror he pulled at a red tag in his ear. It had always been there, but he'd never been able to see it before. Holding it out he read the word on it in the mirror... It said 51V3. He puzzled over it for a moment, and of course, didn't know that it was the designation for the 51st rodent to be administered with Virus #3. In fact, in the mirror, with the reflection being backwards, the three read as 'E', and as the mouse tried to read it aloud, "Fffffffffiiiiiiiiiii------fffiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvve." he decided that it said 5ive.. and that it was probably his name. So it was, that on that moonless night, Five hobbled from the Laboratory dumpster wearing red ankle wraps and shoulder band, with a scrunchie bag partially full of stale french fries... born again from a pile of his deceased friends. Meta art in this post is by Dave. Tell her how awesome she is when you see her next.
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:11 pm
It had been 2 days since 5ive had been 'liberated' from his home in the laboratory, and he was enjoying the nature. He'd never seen the trees up close, or understood just how dirty water could be... in fact, he'd never SEEN dirt before, and this whole experience was slightly overwhelming. Not that you'd be able to tell if you looked at him. 5ive's emotions were kept well in check, hidden under a layer of meticulously cleaned white fur and passive pink eyes. No, 5ive the labmouse was emotionless. This didn't stop him from enjoying things, or from smiling at the sun every now and again, but it did make him very uninteresting to watch. Unless you were hungry. Then you might think that 5ive would make a good snack. The little mouse swung his walking stick back and forth, enjoying the momentum of the wood in his hands. 5ive didn't know where he was going, but he was glad to be out of the Lab. He enjoyed the way the stick in his hands sounded when it tapped against a pebble. But if you had super keen hearing, you'd probably think that the stick was incredibly annoying, and that the small white mouse you were going to eat for a snack wasn't very smart... 5ive also liked the way that the sunlight gleamed off the metal band on his scrunchie shirt. Every once in a while he would twist a little, letting the light blaze off the metal... slightly reminiscent of the heatlamp hitting the rim of his water bottle in his cage. He sighed... how could he be glad to be out of the lab and still homesick? It was this stupid metal bar on his shirt, making him homesick. He gave a spin again so he could watch the metal gleam, and just barely missed being caught in a pair of giant talons. As it was the foot of the bird caught him by the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground. "NO!" He cried out loud, and started to crawl away, but the talon caught in his shirt held him back, "No, please," He begged the unknown bird holding him, and flailed wildly as the bird righted itself. His little head crashed into the ground twice as the bird took a few steps to turn around, and then he was smashed into the ground a few more times as the bird tried to figure out where hie prey had gone. "Please..." He whimpered. "Stop... Mooving... I want... to eatchu." The bird's voice was rich and deep. "You're STEPPING ON ME! I'm not moving..." His breath was knocked out of him as the bird took another step, and it took him a moment to catch it again. As he was about to explain further, he was lifted bodily, up to a place where he was looking the bird in the face. It was an owl. "I'm dead." He whimpered. "You don't look dead to me..." The owl was very large, and very dark, with ridiculously large yellow eyes that seemed to bore right down into 5ive's soul. Before he even had a moment to think about his situation, the owl shook his foot violently, sending 5ive flying down into the dirt again. He didn't even get a chance to cry out, for the owl was standing over him, one foot covering his body in a split second. He was convinced that this was the end... at least he didn't die in a laboratory... "What is this thing?" 5ive felt a pulling on his shirt, and cracked open an eye to see what was happening. The great owl had his shirt in it's talon and was looking it over. "It's a shirt, your lordship." "Shirt? What's a shirt? And what's a Lordship?" The owl had a strange expression on it's face... one of mixed confusion and intrigue... it made the dark bird look positively terrifying... "A shirt, your Lordship, is a piece of clothing, WHICH," He jumped into the explanation quickly as it became apparent that the owl was about to shake him again... "is worn around the body to make one's appearance more desirable to others. Humans wear clothing so that they can be more popular, and so that they can look different from one another... " He spoke so fast that he ran out of breath... "And a Lordship?" The owl leaned in closer. "You, sir, you are a Lord, and thus a Lordship. A lord is a beast or creature that other beasts look up to, someone who is more impressive and therefore more entitled to be titled... sort to speak." He sighed and then gasped as the owl picked him up in it's talons, lifting him again, and began to pick at his shirt with it's beak. "Sire! Sire if you would please, I would like to be eaten with my shirt on... it's sort of a *gasp* sort of a status symbol, representing my freedom, my liberation from my past, and my desire to forget the creatures that died so I may be free." "Little mouse talks too much." and once again, 5ive's breath was knocked from him as he was flung to the floor... only this time the owl did not step on him. "Take off the shirt, I want to wear it." 5ive just stared at the owl. "Take offa the shirt! I want it!" His Lordship looked positively furious, yellow eyes ablaze. "Sire, if I may, my shirt is too small for you... it wouldn't do you... justice, sir." The owl's eyes narrowed quickly and 5ive about wet himself. "I COULD FIND CLOTHING FOR YOU,SIR!" He stammered quickly. "I could. We could get you some clothes of your own, clothes that are fitting for an Owl Lordship such as your Highness." He waited as the owl stared at him in thought. "Highness means... one up on high?" The Owl cocked his head to one side, and 5ive found himself turning his head the same way to respond. "Yes, sir. I refer to you only with titles of respect. Highness, Lord, Lordship, Your Grace, Majesty... all of these titles mean... entitlement... I suppose." He suddenly felt silly with his head cocked to one side and so he righted it. "I could, of course, call you by your name if you'd rather, Your Lordship. You have only to tell me what it is." The Owl uncocked his head and clicked his beak at the mouse in frustration, then again in decision. "Rathlin Wilk" He suddenly fluffed his feathers and looked a lot less angry. "You can call me Lordship though, or Highness. No Majesty. Come." He grabbed the mouse by the shoulder again, propelling him down the path in front of them. "You run, I will eat you, and I will take your shirt. We will find me some clothes for me to wear." 5ive rubbed his shoulder where the owl's talon had broken fur and skin, and started to walk off with a sigh. "I live to serve, Your Lordship." Anyone watching would have thought it a strange sight, a mouse in a red shirt, being followed by a waddling owl, both walking complacently down a path in Breezemoor. ((This meta's art was done by Dave, and the second picture was repurposed (butchered) By Keppit for a lack of her ability to draw a picture that she liked *seriously, I tried and tried.* ))
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:04 pm
"What does the mouse think of this?" His Lordship, Rathlin Wilk, the Owl, stepped back and forth trying to show 5ive the piece of material he had draped across his shoulders. Really, 5ive didn't care any more about His Lordship's clothing than he cared about global warming, but the owl's current obsession with clothing was all that was keeping the little white mouse alive. He touched his oozing face again... barely alive that is.
He quickly directed his attention to the owl, putting on his best 'thinking' expression. His Lordship was wearing a blue strip of lightweight material drapped over his shoulders, tied in the front with a section of gold shoelace wrapped around it in a circle. The cape wasn't bad, 5ive had to admit to that. He wondered how well the owl would fly in it, but it did look rather dashing. It was the helmet that threw the mouse off. They'd spent the better part of yesterday pulling Pepsi cans apart and piecing them back together in the form of a hat for the bird. It was very shiny and very colorful. Then on top of that, Rathlin had supervised while 5ive had painstakingly attached leaves to the sides and top of the can-helmet. He thought it looked rather garish, but the owl was in love with it. Probably because it was shiny, 5ive thought.
"I like it." He lied. "You look like a Lordship, your Lordship."
"Like a lordship is not enough." The owl spat at the mouse. "I want to be a KING!" Rathlin danced back and forth a little in his frustration, making 5ive fear that he was about to be swatted again.
"But sire!" 5ive backed up so he was out of talon range. "A Lordship, is the same as a king with no followers, your Lordship! You are already of a King's status."
"Pfah." The owl flapped his wings and turned away from the mouse to look at himself in a puddle. "I want all a King's things. I want followers and a King house and lots and lots of clothings."
"But Sire..." 5ive started to protest, but before he could get the rest of his statement out, Rathlin Wilk rounded on him, grabbed him up in a talon and pinned him to the forest floor. 5ive's ears and shoulders were in the puddle and he could feel the water creeping up into his red fabric shirt. He sighed. "Sire..."
"Do not SIRE me! You tell me where the king house is, and where the followers are, and you get them or I will eat you!" The madness in the owl's eyes should have been enough to scare any creature enough to make them whimper... but 5ive was almost dead of emotions, and for some reason all he could think of was the dirty water seeping up into his bandage and clothing...
"Sire, I was only going to say..." He faltered. What was he going to say? "Sire, I was going to say that those ruins we saw... the StoneCourt? Those used to be a King's House, and there used to be a king there, don't you remember? I told you about the story that the rabbit told to the little animals?" He knew that Rathlin remembered... it was how the owl had known about King houses and such. "We just have to rebuild it for you, and you'll have a genuine King's house."
"Fine then." His Lordship stepped up off the little mouse's neck and began to preen into the puddle reflection again. "We will tell the forest creatures to build it and I will live there."
"Your Lordship.... Sire... it's... It's not that easy. The forest creatures are distrustful and habitual. They would as soon kill us as let us tell them what to do." He sighed.
"Then we will have an army. Go find my new army." The owl didn't look away from his reflection.
"Sire..." 5ive was becoming exasperated with His Lordship. The owl's thinking was too simple, and life was never simple enough to be accomplished by the owl's plans. "There aren't any creatures desperate enough to follow an owl, no matter how majestic... your Lordship, Sire."
Rathlin turned to 5ive and cocked his head to one side. "You follow me."
5ive sat down and tried to wipe the mud off his shoulders. "I'm one of the few, Sire, too glad to be away from my old life to risk giving it up for anything."
"Then we need more of you." He went back to preening.
"I can assure you," He said with a pang of guilt... the memory of crawling out of a dumpster of dead lab mice rising up in his brain to haunt him behind his eyes... "That I am the last of me left alive."
"Nonsense." Rathlin turned to regard the small mouse again. "Where did you come from? There are always more."
5ive's brain supplied him with images of the lab, hundreds of creatures in cages. Bright hateful lights shining on them all at odd hours, the massive shapes of humans reaching in and out of cages, bringing death and hurt and pain and sleep and then more pain... the smells, so brazen you could almost taste the pain... at first he thought his subconscious was trying to punish him, make him remember all that he ran away from, and pummel him with guilt for leaving the few creatures he'd always known... but then he realized that his brain was telling him where to find the army that Rathlin was looking for...
"Sire...." 5ive almost smiled (but he didn't). "I think I know where to find your army... but they're in trouble, and we have to rescue them first." 
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