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 Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:20 am
"But I - I -" he started, watching as the buffalo began to walk away from him and the direness of the situation began to sink in. Looking back at the orange mare who stood in front of him, nearly slack-jawed, Herod made his escape as quickly as was possible, flicking his wings to carry him out of range of her hooves and teeth. Unfortunately, that landed him in the rain, and almost immediately, he was sent spiraling to the ground. Before he fell in the mud on just the other side of the bushes, he transformed back into his full size. "I hope we meet again sometime, pretty lady!" he called over his shoulder, plodding along behind the buffalo - he had never realized how big they were before. As they passed a certain tree, he ducked around it to pick up the bag he kept his armor in when in flutter form. It was no easy task to get it on again, either. But that could wait. With the bag in his mouth, though, he could ask no questions of the buffalo; instead, Herod was forced to follow in silence. He better not mean to beat me up. Once in a day is already more than I wanted.
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Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:10 am
The buffalo was nowhere to be found. Bracken sniffed the air, nostrils flaring, wondering if that might help her find him. He had a certain smell about him, a buffalo smell, just the way that horses smelled like horses and squirrels smelled like squirrels. In the last few minutes, the rain had started, and that, combined with the light way that Oak stepped - for a buffalo - left her footprintless. Even on all the pine needles, where a disturbance should have been obvious, there was no sign of him. Maybe he had finally taken her advice and stepped on rocks and tree roots, for they were objects that were immalleable and would not bow under pressure, unlike soft ground and grass or, in this case, pine needles.
Groaning in frustration, Bracken laid down in the shelter of the trees right at the edge of the plain. Of course, she was careful to camouflage herself; it would not do to be caught in the open by some predator whose footsteps even her superior ears could not pick up. After all, she was small and armed with naught but what the spirits had given her: antlers, hooves, and teeth. If she was backed into a corner, she would be lost. That was why she camouflaged herself. If nothing could see her, nothing could find her, and nothing could eat her. Along similar lines, if she was camouflaged, she was more than likely to see whomever was sneaking up on her before they truly spotted her.
It was a few minutes more before she heard footfalls that she recognized as her familiar's: heavy, but nearly silent. He had learned, over time, to meet her demands to step carefully, lest he be dealt a smarting blow with her antlers. Those blows often made her head smart as well (and ache for a while, sometimes), but she did not let him on to that. Bracken knew what inconsistency meant. Inconsistency meant complacency, and complacency was intolerable.
A few seconds after Bracken heard the quiet footfalls of Oak, she realized that something else overlapped them: footprints loud enough that something could have been stomping right behind her familiar, on his path. There was also an odd jangling noise that she'd not heard before; it had the same artificial sound as her medicine rattle. Curious, she lifted her head up slowly. Her antlers, tall as they were, gave her away far too often. Oak had become adept at spotting those slow movements of hers, of what looked like branches rising up from behind bushes or around tree trunks or, sometimes, from under leaves. Half the time he saw her doing this, he laughed. The other half, he just shook his big fluffy head at her. That part she did not quite understand - all she was doing was trying to survive. Was that a crime? Surely not.
Eventually, the owner of the second set of footsteps came into view, and Bracken bolted to her feet. Was that a...? "Stalker!" she cried, lowering her horns toward the large soquili following Oak. "You brought a stalker home?! How many times have I told you to cover your tracks?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:36 pm
Oak could do nothing but sigh as his little nymph jumped into his path. "I covered my tracks, or else you would have found me earlier," he said, shouldering past her and leaving Herod to gawk at the little mare in his path. "Where are we off to next? Rain's back the way we came, and butterflies don't do well in the rain." Looking back at Bracken after he had scanned the plains before him - and noticed the roughed-up grass where once his nest had been - Oak added, "He's coming with us, no argument. He needs protection from his lack of common sense, and you're always whining about not having anything but your horns." Oak nodded at Herod. "Now you have something."
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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:48 pm
Herod didn't know whether to be indignant at the buffalo's treatment of him, outraged that the little pipsqueak (the pipsqueak with the savage horns, said his common sense somewhere off in the back of his mind) thought he was a stalker, or annoyed that he apparently didn't have a say in the fact that he was going to be going with them. He settled for highly irritated, dropping the bag on the ground so the armor within landed with a loud clank."I'm not a stalker. Your buffalo dragged me out here, away from a very pretty mare that I thought I was courting rather successfully." he said, his nose lifting a little arrogantly as he spoke. Turning his gaze back to the buffalo, he narrowed his eyes. "And I do not lack common sense! I just... I just..." What did he just? He forgot. Why does this always happen to me! This was so stupid. But what better choice did he have? If he went back, he'd probably get skewered on that mare's long horn. That was, of course, if he didn't get skewered on this one's first.
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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:15 pm
Huffing, Bracken stood aside to let Oak pass, but her eyes did not leave the stalker. He was a flutter, the counterpart of the pixie breed. And he was short, too. She rolled her eyes at him, somehow finding a sense of humor for a moment. "You just...? What, make up for it with your brilliant wit?" she said acidly. Maybe if Oak would not allow her to argue this point, she could just brush this little fly away with a few stinging words. Her horns were still lowered dangerously, and her eyes ventured to the leather bag he had dropped. When it had hit the ground, she had heard that sound again - the sound of metal, she was certain of it. Leaning forward to sniff the bag, but never letting her gaze leave his, she frowned. All it smelled like was leather; the scent was too strong to smell anything beyond that. Straightening, she asked, "What's in the bag? You keep souvenirs of your courtships or something? Carrying things will only slow us down." The last sentence was directed at Oak, but even as she said it, she could feel him rolling his eyes.
Without asking permission - which was foolish, because he could very well be overly sensitive about his belongings and attack her - Bracken stuck a hoof in the bag's opening and pulled it toward herself. As she did so, something metallic fell out onto the pine needles. As she gazed down at it, she felt her eyebrows raise. She turned her gaze back to him, wondering if she ought to change her first impression of him. "Armor. Either you court very unique mares and keep odd souvenirs, or you are more battle worthy than you let on." Turning back to look at Oak, Bracken asked, "Did you know he carries armor? He carries armor." Her gaze found the flutter stallion again, and then the piece of gold and violet armor glinting at her from the ground. "That's better than I have..." She smirked up at him. "All right, you can come with us. I am Bracken, and that one over there with the bulk and the fluff is Oak." Nodding backward with her antlers, she nosed the piece of armor back into the bag it had fallen from before nudging the whole thing back toward its owner with a ginger hoof. The spike on that piece of armor had looked dangerous, and she did not want to be on the offending end of it. Turning and walking to Oak, she said, "Come on," and went to look at the plains with her familiar.
Where would they go next? There was rain back in the forest, and while it probably wouldn't be any escaping it, she didn't want to knowingly go into it. While rain was good for washing away tracks, it also gave chills and damp, and none of them could afford that. "Any preference on where we go, Butterfly?" she called back over her shoulder.
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