[PRP] Beachside Blues [Helix & Krio]

[Gl!tch~]

The beach was always a great place for discovery, if you had the mind for it. For instance, Krio could swear that the water level changed at different times of the day. There was just no way for him to figure out why. Perhaps it was random? Magic? Just the way things were? Who could rightly say?
The first time he observed it, he almost thought he was crazy! A young foal then, he ran to his parents, thinking there might be something wrong with him. At first, his mom just thought he was afraid of the water coming up in great splashes before receding back to sea. Her wry chuckle stopped dead when the child stuttered out that the water seemed lower than before. Like the water line changed. The mare, taller than Krio at the time, furrowed her brow and looked out towards the water. Yup, she agreed, it was different.
And yet the next day it was high again! And then low. They almost had to drag him away when they moved on.

Krio reflected that maybe his fascination might have scared his family a little. After all, he did spend the rest of the day (and most of the night) glaring at the beachfront for any tomfoolery. He could still remember the huge headache he got out of concentrating so hard.

A long time later, and Krio himself a lot bigger, the dark stallion was back on the sand. No obnoxious sister to bug him, or painfully slow father, or judging mother. He was free as a bird, and good riddance.
So, of course, Krio took that freedom to explore the world around him. He chased off the loud seagulls, trotted after crabs...watched as they buried themselves in the sand. After the tide pushed in then pulled out, he noticed there was a hole where the crab had hidden itself. Intrigued, he started raking the spot with one hoof, seeing if he might be able to find the weird little thing again.

His efforts weren't getting him anywhere fast enough, so he started to dig faster. Water splashed over his fetlocks time and time again. He was going to find a way to make sense of this, dang it!
His tail waggled in irritation.

Nikkichomp

 

[Pijrrh]

Helix meandered along the edge of the water, scuffing his hooves as he went. He stopped and watched the water fill in the scrapes he was leaving behind. Would time fill the scrapes in his heart the same way the water filled these? Though, they felt more like gaping gashes than scrapes. He suspected the gashes would be there forever, in some form. He could only hope that one day they would merely be scars.

Helix flopped to the ground, water immediately absorbed into his hair, leaving him soggy. He didn't care. His front legs were tucked under him, but his front knees jutted out toward the water, and the small waves that rolled up the sand collided into him occasionally. He let his wings droop, feathers pushed askew by the sand, also soaking up water. In the back of his mind, he knew they'd be a pain to dry later, let alone remove the sand from, but it just didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

Just a few weeks ago, somehow an impossibly short and infinitely long while at the same time, he'd been happy, whole, cheerful, and full of life. His life had revolved around a beautiful mare - like him, she had blue throughout her coat, but her primary color was white. Everything about her entranced him - her voice, patterns of speech, the way she moved, her smell...he was head-over-hooves for this girl, and he'd thought she felt the same way. She'd told him as much, and he'd no reason to doubt her word. But then, he'd happened upon her, hiding out from their herd, much too close to another stallion. A stallion who suspiciously matched very closely all descriptions he'd heard of her former mate - the one who'd broken her heart several years before. He stood looking at her, dumbfounded. When she'd turned and their eyes locked, he could see it without having to ask. She was going with this stallion instead of staying with Helix. Helix's face set in stone. His stomach felt like it sank out of his body and onto to the ground as he turned and walked away. He didn't stop even to say goodbye to any of his herd members, who were practically family, and had ended up here by the water.

And now he was tired...so tired. He wasn't sure how long he had walked, but it had certainly been more than one sunrise since he last rested. His eyes drifted closed as he lay in the edge of the surf, keeping him from noticing that the waves were starting to hit him more frequently and weren't rolling away from him quite as far as they had before. His breathing deepened and slowed as he slept, unaware of the impending danger the water presented.

Gl!tch~

Sorry for the long wait!!

 

[Gl!tch~]

Looking up from his fruitless search, Krio noticed a lump in the distance. A somewhat colorful lump, at that. At first it seemed like a strange rock painted over by human hands (humans seemed to like touching things, especially with colors, he had observed in the past) and had dark kelp clinging to it.
On second glance, however, he took stock of the multiple horns, and...those were definitely wings on its back. So this was actually a horse. Huh. Krio furrowed his brow. Why would any adult think to sleep on the waterline like that? Wouldn't it be a bother to have the waves pestering you?

In any other situation, he would have just called the dark blue stallion 'odd' and continue his search for understanding more important things, like crab habits, but...the waterline WAS rising again.

Krio's mouth set in a straight line. Cursed distractions. He hated those. And this sure was a distraction if he ever saw one. But something, this pesky thing called morality maybe, made him stomp on over there to the stranger. He was prepared to be annoyed at this horse before the first impression. As far as he was concerned, this horse was already a moron for wasting his time (assumedly) and for sleeping on the water when there weren't any kelpi traits to be found.

But...looking closer...was that THREE horns? Uni and kalona? With feathered wings? Krio blinked. He had no idea that a three-way breed was possible! How fascinating!

Oh. Right. The issue at hand. Krio cleared his throat. "Hey. You." He started prodding at the blue fur to make sure he got attention. "I wouldn't recommend this area as a place to sleep. The sand dunes, maybe, if you want to eventually be burned by it and have crabs crawl all over you, or the grasslands if you want to be cushy. But HOPEFULLY you realize that you could end up drowning here. Or at least get all soggy and wrinkled." Krio snorted distastefully. "PLEASE tell me that you have some self-preservation. You might be the only uni-kalo-wind to exist and just for that it would be a shame for you to die in such a pathetic way."

Nikkichomp

SORRY FOR THE SUPER-LONG WAIT. orz

 

[Pijrrh]

The water lapped softly against his knees, slowly creeping further and further up his torso. The exhaustion Helix felt kept him sleeping despite the faint tickle of the water on his skin - the only sign he had of the danger he was in. His mind raced as he dozed, dreams filled with images of the life he'd left behind only a few weeks before, though it felt like it was an eternity ago and just yesterday all at the same time.

An incessant nudging began to make hits way through his restless dreams, awakening his consciousness. With it came an unfamiliar voice. His eyebrows furrowed grumpily. "Go 'way. Tryin'a sleep," he mumbled. His voice carried a note of annoyance. He didn't know who would bother a complete stranger during a nap, but he didn't have anything nice to say to such a creature. But to his continued annoyance, the nudging didn't cease. The stranger's words finally began to register. Drowning? he thought, confused. His eyes snapped open and the sight of an entire ocean directly in front of him with his own body partway immersed greeted him. Alarmed, Helix scrambled to his feet and backed out of the surf. All other concerns faded away as he focused on his own immediate survival.

Once he was safely out of the water, Helix stood with a slouched, defeated posture. His wings drooped slightly, rather than being tucked in along his sides. His legs, chest, and wing tips dripped seawater, and sand dusted most of his body. He sighed heavily. It wasn't bad enough that my heart is broken?! he thought in despair. Now I've gone and embarrassed myself in front of someone I don't even know! Discomfort was plainly visible on his face. Nevertheless, he had not lost his manners entirely. He cleared his throat and then spoke. "Uh...thank you for rescuing me," Helix said gruffly. I shouldn't have even needed rescuing in the first place, he chided himself. He looked closely at the stallion who had helped him for the first time. A handsomely dark coat met his gaze, with rich, brightly colored socks that reminded him of amber. Delicate silver markings trailed across his hide. He hadn't seen this particular combination of coloring or markings before, but he found it pleasing to his eyes. He shook his head, his attention returning to the matter at hand. Right, manners. "Please let me know if there is any way that I can make it up to you," he offered. He didn't have much heart for helping anyone right now, but it was better than being indebted. He raised his gaze from the sand under his hooves to meet the eyes of the stranger. "My name is Helix, by the way."

Gl!tch~

So, so sorry for the long wait heart Life seriously ate me for a while there.

 

[Gl!tch~]

At being told to go away, Krio rolled his eyes so hard they almost hurt. He started to wonder why he even bothered to waste his breath when the blue horse seemed to realize where they were. "Ah. So you do have survival instincts," the white-maned horse commented while Helix returned to land. Although the other stallion was fully awake now, Krio noted how he still looked droopy. Like he was weighed down by water or internal demons or something. The former he could understand, the latter he wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Other people's problems. Ew.

He nodded a little at Helix's thanks. Then scowled some when it became obvious that this stallion was was looking him over. What was there to even look at? Krio, as far as he was concerned, looked rather dull, sans his deer tail. But that wasn't even impressive. His mother-yet-not had teased him relentlessly about it, growing up, and if he could cut the silly thing off, he would. "Well, if you're quite done staring...Helix. I was named Krio when I was born and haven't really bothered to question it."

The blue horse was certainly fascinating to look at, but Krio wasn't sure that there would be much to his personality. "I'm not really interested in favors," he snorted, "except maybe asking you to make a spirits-given effort to avoid anymore dull decisions. Especially the life-threatening kind. And, maybe, perhaps, you could enlighten me as of how you have three horns? That in itself is something of a wonder." Now it was Krio's turn to stare as he got a better look at Helix's features. "Kalona features mixing with uni and wind. Absolutely fascinating. Did the kalona mix with the unicorn? That sure would be a poetic tale of good and evil uniting," he said, the last sentence in a snide kind of tone at the thought of such romantic nonsense that some ate right up. "The wind and the kalona, maybe? Or perhaps an alicorn and a kalona...? Yes, that would make more logistical sense. Do tell, what did your parents look like? Unless you were adopted. Which would be a shame, since it would make this mystery unsolvable. But such things happen." Much like Krio's own past, adopted by a couple who looked a scary amount like him and his sister, but adopted all the same.

Nikkichomp

HE'S SUCH AN a*****e I'M LAUGHING I'M SORRY

 

[Pijrrh]

Although it was not visible through his dark fur, Helix had the good grace to blush when the stallion called him out for staring. However, his embarrassment quickly faded to dumbfounded, indignant disbelief. He had ignored the first comment about survival instincts, chalking it up to bad manners, but it seemed that this stranger just didn't have anything nice to say. And to top it off, he had the audacity to stare at Helix right after complaining about being stared at! The absurdity of his actions hit Helix like a hoof to the ribs, forcibly dragging him out of his slump slightly. With a huff, he stomped a rear hoof on the ground. "Well, I never!" he exclaimed.

He wrestled for a moment with Krio's request - or was it a demand? - that he define his heritage. On one hoof, he *did* owe him for the rescue from the incoming tide. But on the other, Krio had asked the question and then plowed ahead, mocking what for all he knew was Helix's actual ancestry, without waiting for a response at all. For a moment, he considered not responding to his inquiry since Krio had answered his own question, but Helix had been raised better than that by his adoptive herd. He supposed that he had to respond, whether it left a bad taste in his mouth to do so or not. He sighed heavily, then replied "I've got no idea. I never met my parents, although they did give me this very useful set of features. Why do you ask?"

He hoped that was sufficient to meet the social requirements of politeness. Helix certainly didn't owe this stallion his entire life story, and he didn't much feel like talking about his past at all, let alone the parts he had recently lost. Flashes of his past life in the herd who had found his basket, with no real parents, no siblings, never really fitting in. Other Soquili his age made fun of the very features that had just been pointed out. However, he'd learned to have a thick skin about it a long time ago. He was comfortable in his own skin, and that was really the only thing that mattered as far as he was concerned. Other Soquili could take him or leave him as they wished. And yet, when he'd found himself growing fond of a young mare in the herd, he'd found himself hoping beyond hope that she would not mind his unique heritage. And it seemed she hadn't -- until recently, of course, when his whole world fell apart. Yes, he was fond of his herd -- his old herd, he corrected himself -- but they were never truly his family.

Gl!tch~

OMG I laughed so hard when I read your last post! Poor Helix XD XD XD

So sorry for the delay sad