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 Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:08 pm
Storm clacked her teeth together, and drove her foot down. Her body kept this trotting motion, clack, bob, thrust. She could trot for hours, and at the moment, she planned on doing just that. For the day had been unkind to her, or at least she figured.
All the Nequus needed their heads pounded in and if even one dared to cross her path she'd beat it into the earth without a second glance. Well, she might give them a quick warning first, but it was doubtful.
In fact, V-lining someone coming up behind her sounded like a wonderful task to do right now, especially if it was Clytaemnestra. Oh she'd nail her, right in the bloody nose, and then watch it bleed all over the perfect green grass.
Damn grass, she snorted and shoved her head down, ripping up a new shoot and chewing on it, never once breaking her rythymn. One might have thought she was practicing for the military with all her special timed movements. As Chester would say, boy she was gorgeous when she was angry.
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 6:42 am
A patch of movement and colour caught his pupiless eyes and the silver-marked creature found himself heading over to investigate. There was something odd about the slender figure but it took him a moment to realise what it was. Though her wings were like those of an Aeri or a Reya, the mare's horn was more like his own than any other kind. A crossbreed. Oh.
The tendril-winged stallion came to a halt some way off, uncertain suddenly. From the way she viciously ripped up grass and the way she held herself she was not in a good mood. And she was a crossbreed. Perhaps leaving the ocean to look for better grazing hadn't been such a bright idea after all.
Well, he was here now so there was little to do but make the best of it. "Hi there," he called to the golden figure, hoping that she wasn't as angry as she looked. With his luck, the stallion considered wryly, there was little chance of that.
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 5:33 pm
Storm was so busy fuming and pacing her mind was not searching for danger. She heard the voice and snapped out of her trance, snorting and bolting a few steps before she gained her composure. Great, now she felt vulnerable. Stamping her feet and swaying from side to side she persisted to stay where she was and give a few more snorts of warning before deciding it was safe.
"What!?" she snapped from her safety position in the grass not to far away. Her ears went from being forwards to being pinned, her weight shifting easily from side to side just in case somebody tried something.
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 5:43 pm
Yesh, what a disagreeable little... well not that little really; she was actually quite tall. To be fair he had startled her, too. People tended to get annoyed when you caught them wrong-hoofed and as he'd observed, the golden mare hadn't been in the best of moods to begin with. Then there was the fact that she was a half-blood and his experience with those had taught him very well how volatile such Nequus could be.
"Just hello," Maurice said with an equine shrug, doing his best to look non-aggressive. "Didn' mean t' startle y' miss. M' name's Maurice." Perhaps this had all had been a big mistake. Hadn't he learned his lesson about half-breeds?... Well of course not all of them were the same and he oughten to judge her on what she was but so far she was fitting his stereotype down to the ground. Hopefully she wouldn't carry it all the way through; he didn't like the idea of having to outdistance the white-maned mare a-hoof or a-wing.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 8:32 am
Storm cocked an eyebrow. Darn right she wasn't disagreeable! Not unless she said she was. In fact, she could be everyone's best friend, but only if she wanted to, and no one was deserving of that at the moment. In fact, when were they?
Currently, she had some thick skulled Ichsa hot-tailing her about her attitude right off the bat. If she knew anything about Ichsa it was that they were pompous prejudice bastards that were a hell of a lot better underneath the hoof than as friends.
"Just hello my a**," she muttered under her breath, her ears still swivelling for any sign of ambush. She obviously didn't have great faith in her seerness yet.
Wait?
What lesson on half-breeds? Storm snorted, her attention suddenly grabbed. She wanted to know about it, she'd never heard stories about how they acted. Might have been because she was a Jala before this damn seer business.
"Storm," she snapped from her safety location. "You think I'm going to bite you or something?" She stomped a foot as if daring him to come closer.
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 11:11 am
Maurice watched the stamped hoof carefully, wishing he'd caught exactly what she'd muttered a moment before; it might have been a clue as to what she was thinking. "Well... Storm. Not bite me maybe but yea, I kinda thought y' might attack me." Storm. A strange name but somehow fitting. Powerful, unpredictable, beautiful just like the tempests that sometimes swept up the sea to fling it against the coast.
Still, it was the power he ought to be watching most right now. He probably didn't stand a chance in a fight and he hated to fight in any case. Perhaps he'd strayed into her territory... did she have a herd? If so he might be in more trouble still for surely she held some position in it, if there was a herd.
Still. Hopefully she'd calm down, hopefully see he wasn't a threat. More to the point hopefully she wasn't as sadistic as the last hybrid he'd had the questionable fortune to meet. She might be different. She wasn't even the same mix. Looked like Reya and Ichsa, not Reya and Aeri. Yet it was hard not to be a bit warier of her than he might have been were she pure-blooded.
With this realisation, that he couldn't totally separate the Nequus Storm before him from his experience of mixed-bloods, Maurice couldn't help but think less well of himself. Didn't he hate it when people made assumptions about him because he was an Ichsa? What right did he have to do that to someone else? Damn. Even knowing that, knowing it was stupid, irrational, bigoted he could help but wonder when she was going to spring at him and laugh when he tried to get away.
"I... Am I in your territory?" the Ichsa asked after a long pause. "If I am 'm sorry for the intrusion, Storm."
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:06 am
Storm clacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Oh she'd attack him alright, under normal circumstances, but these were most certainly not normal. In fact, she couldn't count a day that was in the past two years. Storm laughed at the difference between his mind and Nestra's. While he was full of fear for her intentions, the mare would have found her pathetic. Where, then, did Storm find herself placed in the world? Wherever the hell she wanted, she guessed.
Storm played a mental image over in her mind. Springing on a helpless, and no doubt pathetic, Ichsa fleeing. No, she didn't sport with Nequus which knew their bounds. If they kept their distance and showed some respect, all was well and good.
"Nope," she said calmly, moving to the right looking for a spot she could nibble on foliage while still keeping an eye on him. "Don't know where this is, actually." It really didn't matter, she was here, and territory or not, people better give her space.
Tearing up a piece of grass she chewed on it thoughtfully. "You're kind of . . . tame for an Ichsa."
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:38 am
Maurice couldn't help but chuckle at her words, especially since she didn't seem as though she was about to fling herself at him this very moment. "Yea, Thanks; I think. 'm not much of an Ichsa really I guess. Don' 'ave a lot t' do with my kind these days if I can avoid it." Humm. ‘These days’. That made him sound a little old. Ah well, it mattered little one way or the other what she thought of him.
It was nice to be thought well of, yes, but hardly necessary. Perhaps he hadn't retained the striking pride of the Ichsa from his youth but relaxed self-assurance had replaced so all was well and good. Provided he wasn't threatened. Maurice sighed inwardly; he really needed to work on that. One of these days he'd be as dauntless as he had been when he ran with the other males cast out of the herd. Hopefully the angry violence would stay gone though; he'd no desire to bring that piece of his history back to life.
"...You don' seem as evil and nuts as crossbreeds are supposed to be," he said after a pause, watching the mare nibble at the grass underhoof.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 12:21 pm
Storm nodded, but didn't look at him, clearly occupied with what she was doing. She wouldn't be anywhere near the Ichsa if she had half a chance, either. They tended to be a . . . well, she didn't like them. Then again, she didn't like anybody, except maybe Lucius and Sereva.
Storm was curious about this bit of 'history', but decided to leave that past to himself. There was no point in digging for information she didn't need, at least not at the moment. Perhaps one day those terms would get her into trouble, but it hadn't yet.
She snorted at his next statement. "Oh believe me, I can be. Very much so, in fact, I pretty much settle in comfortably with the stereotype, but as long as people keep their distance, I figure they have enough brains to keep their hides on." She gave him a grin and a wink, though on the inside her mood was still fowl.
One Nequus she wouldn't allow in sight was Nestra. She'd run the blasted woman straight off if she came anywhere near. Further pushing of the issue and it would no doubt come to war.
"You got family?" she asked, attempting to strike up conversation, since he was there afterall, but definately not wishing him any close. She made that clear with her body posture. This spot was hers.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 12:56 pm
Family? Mother, once so warm and loving inexplicably going to icy cold. Tall, scowling Dorian, acid Cassidy. Their faces as he'd cursed them and galloped full pelt away from the herd beside his... companions. Were they family? Well they were blood and that was probably what the golden crossbreed had meant.
"...Yea, ain't seen 'em in a time though. We didn' part on good terms t’ be honest. I’m in no ‘urry t’ seek ‘em out," the Ichsa said with a shrug for things passed. What they did or did not, had or had not thought about or felt for him mattered little, especially now that he had a home of his own and did not have to think of the place he had grown up in as such. Still. If he ever mated, had foals he would be sure that things were different for them then they had been for him. The past was, after all, there to be learnt from so that successes could be repeated, mistakes avoided.
"D' you?" the blue stallion asked in response, noting silently how the other Nequus guarded the ground she stood on. The distance was fine by him; conversation was still easy and he'd no wish to aggravate the leathery-winged female.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:02 pm
Storm nodded. "Mother, her name's Rosie, I'm not where she's gone to, and a father, bedamned if I remember his name. He's dead, somewhere in that nasty forest." She indicated towards the mistlands with a jerk of her head, feeling a little uneasy again.
As little as she talked about it, she'd always longed to see her father. She had small memories of him and his wanderings. He was always taking some daring task on.
"Get this," she said, more to herself than him. "Their both Jala."
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:35 pm
"Both Jala?" the stallion blinked and ran his pupiless eyes over the mare before him. "But then 'ow?..." Were those feathers near the base of her wings? Yes, they were. Golden feathers. So... she had not always been as she was now. How was that possible? Maurice shook his head, amazed. If another were telling this to him he would disbelieve but seeing with his own eyes...
"So... you were born a Jala?" he quizzed, some of his wariness forgotten in curiosity. "If y' were then 'ow'd y' come t' look like y' do now?" He was sure he'd never heard tell of something like this before and yet there the evidence stood, and what reason had she to lie? She didn't seem to dislike her apparent mixed blood and the blue Ichsa couldn't imagine any other reason that one in her position might have created such a lie.
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Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 5:49 pm
Storm was feeling a lot better, for the time being. This one wasn't exactly bright, but he kept his distance, and so she grew a tolerance for him, despite the trouble she had with his accent.
"That's what I said," she confirmed with a nod of her head, having ceased from the grazing. "Born Jala, and if it stays, die a Crossbreed." She'd wondered this very question herself. It had come co-incided with the Seer powers, and it seemed, so strange, like a curse from the gods.
However, she did not believe in them, in the least, so how, then, could it be possible? She really hadn't the slightest idea, but she could at least give him what she knew. It was, also, a switch in her genetics, for her children bore the horns of Ichsa. Whey then had she gained Reya and Ichsa traits instead of Reya and Jala? Were they not said to be lovers? Wait, no, Reya was in love, and Jala was confused, that's right. Ichsa was horribly jealous, which is why the Ichsa and the Reya never meet. It is a cold indifference between species. She was the worst of crossbreeds.
"It happened one day, a curse, a lesson," she surmised, but avoided telling him she was a seer just yet. "To teach me to sit in others shoes, I suppose." Not that it had helped any.
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:40 am
Maurice gave a wry smile at the explanation. "Some lesson that must'a been," he murmured. "Biggest lesson I ever got were a scar or two. Can' imagine what could 'ave the power t' do... Hu." Pupiless eyes flicked skywards and the stallion gave an equine shrug before looking back at Storm. "Well I sure know a few Nequus that'd love t' meet y' so they could preach all the louder at any poor sod too slow t' get outa their way."
It wasn't that he had anything against the possible, probable even, existence of higher powers, that wasn't the issue at all. It was the way the strongest advocates of such powers tried to shove their messages down his and other creatures' throats that irked the silver-marked Ichsa.
"Still," Maurice went on, shaking himself from his thoughts, "I jus' don' see why whoever, or whatever did this picked you f' this lessen." Had she done something to 'deserve' such a lesson? Possibly, for all that mattered. Nequus did things all the time both bad and good without spontaneously switching species so it couldn't really have been a specific deed, or even set of deeds. So what was special about the golden mare before him? What marked her out from others of her kind? What was the truth of the matter? “Truth? What does truth matter? Lies, truth, it all comes to the same in the end with our bones in the ground. You've got bigger worries than a silly little thing like truth, matie, believe me.” Maurice recalled the Aeri-Reya's words with a brief scowl. Well truth mattered to him no matter how strange it might be and bigger worries could go hump a tree; he'd deal with them in their turn.
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Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:48 pm
Storm didn't want to talk about the kind of lesson it had been, was still continuing to be. Even if they had granted her Jala wings, she would have been content, but they stole that one attribute away from her in bitterness. Whoever they were.
"Your Nequus can shove their arses up a tree branch," she snapped, getting irritated again. The pressing questions, even if they were only inquiries were definately not on her job description for being nice.
"Well, whomever they were, they are blery idiots," she added, and flicked her ears back towards her skull. "I suppose I deserved it."
Then she left. The scowl crossed his face and Storm took it for a distraction, trotting bitterly away and taking to the skies, angry again, and cursing the absence of her wonderful feathered wings.
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