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Ghost had almost given up on waiting for some poor schmuck--erm, Kimeti--to wander over and sample her mushrooms when the grey buck with the curls wobbled to a stop in front of her and inquired. She nearly jumped from the sheer joy of a test subject willingly coming to her. Generally she had to trick her test subjects into doing things."They're mushrooms. I have reddish, purple, white, a couple of funky brown ones, this really weird glowy one--I dunno what that one does yet, I haven't tried it--which do you want, and do you think you'll be coherent through the trip?"


"Ehm. Sadly, no, I can't quite recall at the moment. It was an interesting name, though, I do remember that much. And the one-liner. He was trying to be suave, I think." She was quite frustrated with her lack of memory. Now if she would only remember to make charms for remembering, everything would be perfectly fine. "Perhaps his name will come to me after we've tried some of this salted duck. Shall we?" Charm offered her shoulder to the surely head-sore buck, balancing him on his feet.

He smiled helplessly at the description - well, the other brother sounded fairly normal he supposed, which was much better than a rather violent and possibly deranged father. Encouragingly and gratefully, Pieces insisted, "you've already given me for information than I could expect - so thank you very much. I'll be able to find him," he was sure, filled with a strange optimism that probably wasn't good for his health. If he were a little more normal he would've hit on this very nice doe already, but instead straightened up with gentlemanly effort. "Yes, let's shall!"

Silent shifted nervously under the unfamiliar creature's study. "Light colors," the female, at least she thought it was female, dictated. She had quickly finished with Whistles before they had even gotten a word out, and now it looked like it was their turn. The painting had looked like fun, if rather ticklish, and fairly quick.

"Excuse me," she spoke, hesitantly, "but what are you?"

The cat changed his mind then. The doe may have sense and his (very badly trained) pet might like her but he didn't. If he hadn't found himself so comfortable in his shady spot, he might have tried to scare her away. As it was, he stayed where he was and imagined all sorts of way to rid himself of both nuisances. It was ever so hard to own a pet.

Travels in Circles was oblivious to his cat's delusion of ownership, for one, and of his desire to run off the doe. Not that he would have minded the first, he rather considered them a pair. The latter might have been met with a frown for this was one of the longest conversations he had ever had. He often met with an annoyed huff of breath and that was the last he saw of the exasperated, if anyone attempted talking to him at all. Which was often unlikely.

"Ah, yes, I would suppose so," he replied absently, wondering how one made friends. Besides cat he had little luck with that. And to be perfectly honest he hadn't even known he needed to try. Well perhaps, he amended, that was changing. For surely this doe was his friend now. Or would be once he knew her name. "My name is Travels in Circles, and you are?" he asked finally. It really shouldn't have been a surprise that he would think to ask that last.

The buck nodded in agreement. He knew he wasn't all there -- it was very hard to find there -- and it escaped him that that was more than likely not what she meant. Although being the good humored fellow he was he likely would have agreed with her if he did.

He shook his head at her discovery she hadn't given her name. A smile was ever present stretched against his lips and he seemed to pause, almost freeze as her name was spoken. He considered it and thought it not wrong but not quite right either. "And yet you speak loudly," he seemed to muse to himself and then once again he was smiling. He kind of liked it. And with a grin he said as much, "I believe I like it."

Hours pass before the red-and-grey kiokote decides to launch the last event -- this one, he thinks, will be one that will have the Swamp reeling for weeks to come. It will be the subject of all of the gossip, and if anyone wins this one ... well, it isn't hard to imagine does and bucks lining up to meet and talk to that one, at the very least.

Tossing his mane out of his face, looking around at the floodplain in the slanting golden sunlight of the evening, he yells, rising up on his hind legs for a moment to get all attention onto him. Because of his voice, and because suddenly he is the tallest thing in the field, heads turn -- there is the occasional snicker or chatter from the gathering, but in a moment, all is silent except for the rising drone of cicadas.

"This is the last contest I have planned! You all have looked at, stood upon, or gathered around the subject of it," he said, sparking a rise of excited looking around from the gathering, "But now is the time to test your mettle! The rock that I stand on was deposited here in our father's-father's-father's time! It is as old as the swamp itself!"

"The one who moves this boulder I stand on is the winner of this contest, and will be declared the best athlete, the strongest, in all of the swamp! Let the Motherfather mark my words!" With that, the kiokote leaps down from the rock, leaving the competition up to fate.

-*-

When night rolls in over the finished games it brings a thin fog, the kind that isn't uncommon here, brought on the breeze from the swamp up into the open. The thin fog becomes a thick one by the time the small hours of morning creep over the mostly-abandoned field, where a few lingering competitors and spectators snooze or whisper among themselves or sleep off the effects of Walks-Between and Mirebeat's liquor, desperately trying to avoid a hangover.

The boulder, too much for even the most hardened Kimeti, stands where it was left--it will take, perhaps, a team to move it, or maybe it will stay here as a monument to the day that the Kimeti, Kiokote, and Acha came together in a friendly spirit.

But eventually someone notices, one of the light dozers or the quiet gossipers, and a ripple spreads through the scattered gatherings, shaking the sleepers awake: "the boulder is moving!"

A few young ones make nervous jokes about ghosts and monsters; there are answering giggles. In the thick fog it is impossible to see what is happening, only that the rock is shifting in its seemingly unconquerable seat--and then, with a mighty thud that shakes the earth and awakens those that haven't already become riveted to the scene, it turns over with slow majesty. And then it turns over again.

Excited chatter breaks through the crowd, and some dash forward to try and get a glimpse of the hero that managed to shift the stone, after it was thought impossible.

But it is dark, and the mist is thick.

Galloping away on heavy hooves is a shrouded shape, the sturdy silhouette of the winner of the feat of strength...

Throughout the games, a figure lurked in the shadows. Every so often, his brilliant green could be spotted, only to disappear once again. You see, Xenophobe refused to get involved; to mingle with the tainted air of the kiokote and acha. Yet, he could not leave - he felt he had to keep tabs on them. If one of them did something bad, he would be all over them like a moth to the flame.

But waking up, and seeing that silhouette of yet another intruder - not kiokote or acha... he couldn't take it anymore.

With a snarl and a curse under his breath, he chased after the creature. Trying to stick to the shadows as much as he could, the buck lost sight... and went sulking back into the Swamp - where he could think in peace, without those Evils around to distract his Pure mind.

"Yeah, they're all over the place here, they're easy to catch and keep." Glow responded to Ochre's question. Well, maybe they were a little harder to tame, she had just found Browning Leaf outside her log-home and he'd been around ever since.

Glow squealed when Ochre moved away and she could finally crane her neck around to see what the painter painted.

"Eeeeeee! I look like Browning Leaf! Look Leaf, we match! Ochre, thank you so much! You're so cool!" She bounced around pretending she could fly and almost rammed right into a kiokote.

"Ohmyswampgoddess I'm so- a question? Um, sure, I've never had anyone ask permission to ask me something, but sure, you can ask." She looked at the kiokote as she finished speaking, and noticed that, oddly, he glowed. She hadn't seen or heard of kiokote that glowed, but maybe they didn't talk about glowing kiokote because it was normal for them to glow? But she hadnt' seen any... but she hadn't seen many kiokote in the first place, and there seemed to be several more of the glowing kiokotes, now that she scanned the crowd, and she thought she might have seen them in the race as well. She opened her mouth to ask, but she realized it was rude to ask him before she'd given him a chance to ask her.