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 Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:08 pm
 Extraction hears the sounds of insects, gathering in multitudes. Clicks, songs, chirps, and wing-vibrations abound in the quiet air as he steps ponderously forwards, half-holding his breath in anticipation as he listens to the quiet beginnings of what promises to be a tumultuous cacophony of insect noises. It's a promising noise, one that brings him a step closer to finding the answer to his goal. He has been trying to fulfill it for what feels like an eternity - an insect, some sort of chitinous creature with an intelligence to understand commands. A pet, or a familiar.
But what he searches for is nothing as mundane as a moth or wasp. Not that he would complain about one - he would welcome the strange, disconnected loyalty and nearly-silent companionship that they can provide. No, he just wants to find something a little less fragile, or intimidating. A good, companionable insect to provide a steadfast loyalty, and the ability to carry out useful little tasks, maybe...
He pauses as he sees the swarms, crawling in carefully-arranged detritus. He pratically trembles with excitement as he creeps forward, his gaze flickering across the ground as he walks forward, minding to keep from stepping on marching lines of ants carrying their tiny white offspring and randomly-crawling beetles skating around between the havens of rotting vegetation.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:58 am
What greets Extraction is not a fluttering butterfly among the tangled vines, or a sturdy beetle with an iridescent shell: not even the continued droning of insects going about their daily lives. It is a rising drone that starts as a throbbing and quickly ascends up through the register to a whine. It has to be something large to make that loud a noise, and soon Extraction will see why. The leaves rustle and then part as a large, sleek chitinous head burst through: that of a giant wasp, all in gold and amber and black. Its huge faceted eyes reflect a million Extractions as it turns its head this way and that; its mandibles click once. Perhaps it is talking in wasp-language, all drones and hums and clicks. If wasps could frown, this one would be doing so. Its barbed legs help pull it free of the rest of the vegetation, and it hovers in front of Extraction, wings beating so quickly they are nearly invisible. There is a barb on the end of its abdomen that would spell death to smaller animals, but merely pain to a kimeti.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:04 am
He has trouble taking it in. All the sounds, the scents, the details. But then, something comes in that commands his attention in all it's completeness. From one of the trembling piles of vegetation emerges a gigantic, flying insect. A wasp. It is beautiful. Everything about it is hard and sleek and predatory. The sleek, strong exoskeleton, the rapidly-beating wings. The way its black-and-golden body hovers almost perfectly in the air, the way the sunlight glints off of its multifaceted eyes.
He watches the large beast, not stepping any closer to it as it hovers in front of him. He glances at the ground behind, and underneath him, before settling to sit, examining it from a lower vantage. The barbs on its legs, the curve of the stinger. Really, he finds it fascinating how different they are from the soft fur-and-flesh bodies that other Kin have.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:24 am
"Bleeder," a voice warns from behind the curtain of greenery; the name must belong to the wasp, because it immediately turns to look behind it, hovering in the air. All interest in the buck has immediately gone. It looks almost abashed, if wasps can have such looks. The voice is deep and somewhat husky, like honey poured over gravel. It is a voice still creaky with disuse. A moment later a doe steps through a curtain of underbrush, not having to force her way through: there is a hidden path to the inside of the garden, not visible at first glance. Beetleshell would do nothing so wasteful as push her way through the leaves and insects. To do so might destroy some of the more fragile colonies set up among her garden's boughs. The doe, who appears healthy (but a bit exhausted; receiving visitors during the day is draining when one is largely noctural), looks Extraction up and down with a curious intensity -- and then cocks her head. "You are one of Harvest's sons." After a moment, in which the wasp disappears into the garden again, "Please excuse my wasp." It is spoken with stiff formality that hints she has to apologize for the creature often.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:45 am
The voice is rough, slicing raggedly through the buzzes and clicks and chirps in the air. But still sweet, somehow familiar, if that were possible. The wasp responds, turning away, and he loses interest as he watches a vividly-colored doe step out from behind a curtain of moss.
She must be the steward of this small paradise - she commanded Bleeder to leave, and steps forward with a sort of familiarity of terrain and surroundings that only comes to longtime inhabitants of places. He regards her with interest, watching as she looks him up and down, and tilts her head. She opens her mouth again, and that strange, disused voice pours out again, like a ball of ladybugs tumbling from it's former safe place. But it does not burst, it simply rolls over... more like a roly-poly, then, he thinks with delight.
After a short moment, he ponders the bit of information she has given him - she knows of his father. He disregards it once he thinks it over a moment - he holds no real interest in the buck who sired him, at least not for now.
And then she apologizes. For the marvelous specimen... potentially the guard...? that greeted his first arrival. "Oh, no excuse is necessary," he replies in amusement, his voice sounding almost as if on the verge of a light, whispery laugh. "He... or she, I suppose... is an absolutely splendid creature." His voice is warm in admiration as he says it, and the way he slightly tilts his head towards a raised shoulder belies some sort of unconscious gesture of fascination, or possibly just interest.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:43 pm
"Bleeder," Beetleshell replies; that must be the name of the wasp. An answering buzz comes from within the wall of foliage, which -- when looked at carefully -- crawls with life. Sometimes quite literally. A large, iridescent insect of some variety crawls down a leaf and then takes off with a drone that punctuates Beetleshell's next statement. "He is quite nice. Loyal. He hatched here." As if this is surprising. Beetleshell's haven is a paradise for insects.
After a moment, still regarding him with her inscrutable golden eyes, she asks, "Who are you?" She knows he is one of Bitter Harvest's children; his coloring is distinctive. She has met one other and the little filly shared that same reddish violet. As these two offspring seem sane, her hopes rise, and she twitches -- perhaps her equivalent of a smile.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:18 pm
The buck smiles as he looks back, at his own pale hide. "I am Extraction," he states, looking at her again after a moment. The extraction of the inevitable toll. He is smiling faintly as he says it, temporarily-distant eyes warmly remembering the dream that had him born into this world, as if he could recapture being who he had been in those glorious moments... or was it days? After a bare moment, though, he seems to waken himself from his temporary reverie, and smiles gently at her.
"May I ask you who you are?" he queries, "And how you know who sired me, too, maybe." The questions may not be too important, but the doe looks to be too tired to ask the really good questions, like how she manages to get so many different types of bug to all live together, in such close quarters, with such harmony, and whether or not she would consider letting him expand to her collection, or to ask her the chances of finding an insect or two, rather like the giant wasp and the equally-oversized moth known to the kimeti, that can understand enough to become an intelligent companion.
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