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 Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2025 9:04 pm
 Prompt: You hear a stifled sob, and you turn abruptly to see his her tears falling on the floor.
"Ofelia! Ofelia, what is wrong? Has someone hurt you?" Hipolito cast his eyes about, looking for this villain, this cruel stranger, this evil being, who would have brought his daughter to tears. Who could do such a thing? How dare they? How dare they?
He wrapped his wings around her and pulled her against his body, keeping her safe as she sniffled and hiccuped against him. She was trying to speak, but he couldn't understand a single word, not while she was in this state, so there was nothing to do but wait until she had calmed herself down.
He would find whoever had upset his baby girl, and he would make them pay. Dearly.
Ofelia had always been an emotional girl - she got it from her father, who was in his own way passionate and quick to vacillate from one feeling to another. Sometimes, though, her feelings were too big for her body and she just couldn't contain them all.
Which meant she cried. She cried kind of a lot. It wasn't something she did on purpose, even though it did have the occasionally beneficial side-effect of getting her father all riled up and in the mood to give her whatever she wanted.
She loved that about her father. He was the best dad in all the world, if you were to ask Ofelia.
Then again, she didn't have much to compare him against.
Eventually, her tears quieted and she was only sniffling against the warm, familiar darkness of her father's shoulder. She peered up at him and said, her eyes big and wet and shining,
"I'll never learn to fly!"
The words burst out of her with such force that even Hipolito seemed surprised by them. He'd been putting off teaching her - not because he didn't want her to learn, he did, but...
But she was just a baby. If he taught her to fly so soon, there was no telling where she'd go flying off to. It wasn't safe. He wasn't ready. She wasn't ready, no matter what she thought, no matter what she'd convinced herself of.
Wait. If he was the reason she was crying - devastating to him - did that mean that he had to kick his own a** over it?
Hipolito sighed. "Princessa, mi corazon, I love you so much. You are not yet ready to take to the skies, I am sorry. Your wings have not fully developed enough to carry your weight yet."
This was...mostly true. It was truer, however, to say that he wasn't ready for her to take to the skies yet.
But he would be. Eventually.
Probably.
"Don't lie, Daddy!" Ofelia demanded, actually stamping her foot. "I saw another filly with wings like mine and she was flying! She was flying just fine! I should be flying too! I need to learn now so that when I'm big I know how! Daddy, it's not fair! If you won't teach me then--then--then I'll have to teach myself!"
Tears welled in her eyes again and but she turned away before they could spill out. Three, two, one...
Hipolito relented. He always did. They began flying lessons the next day, and she got special sweetberries for dinner.
Yes, her daddy was the best daddy around - that was absolutely sure.
((WC:
Hipo: 333
Ofelia: 266))
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Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 9:02 pm
Prompt: “Cooking is an art form.” Cooking was an art form. That's what Aith's mother always said, anyway, and the older Aith got, the more she believed that to be true.
The older she got, she also believed it was an art that she herself had no talent for, and would never have talent for. Mostly she didn't need it - mostly she was a vegetarian, and required very little modification to her food for it to be edible.
But sometimes? Sometimes.
Sometimes it was just nice for some of her favorite foods to be cooked, or edited in some way - improved for flavor purposes. Some things tasted better crushed up, or seasoned, or lightly toasted over an open flame. Sometimes, Aith thought, she deserved a special treat.
But a special treat she was not destined to receive, because alas, she was a terrible cook. She burned anything that got within an inch of any open flame, except her candle, which did not produce real heat, and so could not cook anything whatsoever. If she tried to fancy something up with special seasoning, she over-seasoned it, or she was allergic to the tiny powdery substances, or the berry juice was toxic, or something.
Someday...if Aith was ever lucky enough to have a mate, she vowed to herself as she ate the driest, least-flavorful salad maybe ever consumed by any living creature, them knowing how to cook was an absolute must.
She just didn't deserve this, she thought. Aith tried not to give herself too much credit, she really tried to stay modest and humble given her abilities, but she just - didn't she deserve a really nice meal on occasion? Something that really filled her, and more importantly fulfilled her.
Yes, Aith sighed to herself. If she ever was lucky enough to meet someone and fall in love with them - they would have to either know how to cook, or be very willing to learn. Quickly.
((WC: 318 ))
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Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 9:48 pm
Prompt: Daydream. So the problem was this: being grounded was so boring, and at least being out in the world - running for her life - was exciting. The more she was stuck in the confines of the herd, the better getting out was sounding. The further she got away from the trauma and fear, the less devastating it seemed, in retrospect. After all, it's not like she'd died, or even really gotten hurt. In fact, she'd helped someone - not only saved Ayaz, but healed him. Physically healed him! She'd watched him get physically better, right before her very eyes.
If she had this power - if she could recreate it, hopefully in less stressful, terrifying situations - then didn't she owe it to her community to use it? She'd seen other Unicorns heal before, but she'd never known she had the ability to do the same. She'd always admired those members of the herd, venerated them even, and the idea of counting herself as one of them...
But she had to get better at it first. As she daydreamed about the day that she would be a grand healer, someone that everyone in the herd could come to for help - both physical and emotional, maybe - she also began to plot and plan. She couldn't sneak out again - that would betray her father's trust in her, which was too precious to put at risk further. No, she needed to convince him; show him that she was capable. Prove to him that she could handle herself out there in the real world.
If he would just give her one more chance...
((WC: 264))
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Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 10:02 pm
Prompt: Bloody. His first mission ever - his first real mission, not counting the one that ended before it began - was completed.
But at what cost?
He wasn't sure he'd ever get the blood out of his coat. Off his talons. He wasn't sure he'd ever really feel clean again, and it had nothing to do with bathing or washing himself or his things.
It meant something, to take a life. It was a heavy, heady burden, and it was one that he had not been prepared for. Not really. Sure, he'd practiced the moves, he'd trained himself into a finely-honed blade with a single-minded dedication that had spanned his entire life.
But he'd never killed before. Not another being with sentience - nothing beyond what prey animals were needed to survive, on the rare occasions Ayaz ate meat. He'd never killed someone before.
He'd had to. That was the job. It was either die or kill, and Ayaz had chosen kill. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Soquili he had killed wouldn't have thought twice about making the same choice, and certainly would not have mourned Ayaz's loss.
But Ayaz wasn't like that. That was the whole point - being better. Being judicious. Brave enough to make that decision, and wise enough not to make it unless it was absolutely necessary.
It had been necessary in this instance. Ayaz knew that.
So why wasn't it any easier to deal with?
He'd realize later - much later - that he didn't want it to be easy. It shouldn't be easy. Taking a life was not something that should be brushed off or gotten over. Every time he killed, it was because he had to, not because he wanted to. He carried every soul with him. Usually, they didn't weigh heavily on him, but every so often, he'd imagine himself the way he'd felt that first night:
Bloody.
((WC: 314))
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:25 pm
Prompt: Temptation. Pyxis Gloriosa lived happily in The Flock, where everyone had a job. Everyone had a duty, a place in the hierarchy - they all knew where they were supposed to be, and what they were supposed to do.
And for the most part, Pyxis was happy with her lot in life. She got to spend all day in the greenhouse, growing and studying the plants that lived here. She loved learning about them, experimenting, and if she was lucky, creating new plants by grafting.
But sometimes? Sometimes...
Pyxis Gloriosa just wanted to dance.
She was not the best dancer; she knew that, embarrassingly. She would never become a Flock Dancer, and she didn't think she even wanted to - dancing was something she loved, not something she wanted to have to do.
The problem was that she still wanted to dance. Just a little, just sometimes. The temptation was strong - but she couldn't even stand to do it alone, when she was by herself. It was too embarrassing. She loved it, but she forbade herself from participating in it, and that...
That was a devastating sort of heartbreak. And she couldn't even share it with anyone - that was the downside of having a secret like this. She just suffered in silence, watching with envy and admiration as the dancers in the Flock paraded their talents around the herd. They were beautiful - and they expressed so much emotion without speaking a single word. Pyxis Gloriosa sometimes had difficulty expressing herself - but when she gave into the temptation and let herself go, gave in to the music in her mind...
Pyxis felt freer than the wind - and the more she gave in, the more she wanted to give in, so she tried not to. She tried to resist the siren call - she had a job, and she was good at her job, and that was what she needed to focus on. Not the patter of hoofbeats hammering out a beat, not the music. Not the song of her heart.
Just...flowers, plants, and all the growing things under the sky. That was her lot in life, and that was... fine. She could be happy with that.
She would be.
((WC: 364))
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:57 pm
Wink had never had a real home, that he could remember. He had been lost, emotionally and physically, for quite some time - until he'd found, or rather been found, by Ruby Maxine. They had immediately gotten into trouble, of course, by way of a cruel Shifter, but they'd been rescued and eventually came to find their new home.
Wink had never known what it was like to be truly found. He had a home now, and every day he was amazed at how much he cared for it, and for all the denizens of that home.
He'd kind of been harboring a secret crush on Ruby Maxine - but fortunately, that had faded into a gentle, abiding friendship. He still worshiped her, of course, but in a friends way.
He was not proud, however, of how he had run, during the Shifter attack. He'd run as far and as fast as he was capable, rather than staying and fighting. So he had to learn to be better, so he could defend his new home. He began to practice endurance training, running a little further and a little faster every day. Then came strength training, and then, someday, he would learn how to use his horn not just for healing his friends and new family, but for bringing harm to his enemies - those who would harm the people he cared about.
What he learned, about a week into his made-up training regimen, was that change - improvement - hard work like this? It was, in fact, hard, and Wink had never been so exhausted in his life.
But, as he looked at Ruby Maxine with her new mate, he reminded himself that it was worth it - to keep them safe. It would be worth it, but still...
Wink hoped he never had to use his new abilities. He was gentle, soft, and he never ever wanted change that, but... he would, if he had to, for his new family.
((WC: 325))
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 4:30 pm
Somehow, everything was coming up Ruby. She had gone from simply drifting, somewhat aimlessly, through life, to experiencing abject terror at the hands of a Shifter that wanted to kill her specifically, to now...
Peace. Happiness.
She had a family. She had a mate. A mate who was strong, handsome, and more than anything, she knew he would keep her safe. He would protect her from the Shifter that had been after her - and any other Shifters or enemies that might get it in their mind to come after her. She felt comfortable here. Secure.
And that made her want to give back. Her mate was ranked highly within the herd - she didn't know how she'd gotten so lucky! - and she felt it was her duty to serve him however she could, however he needed. Mostly, it was support; emotional, when the goings got tough. She appreciated his mind, and she wanted to be a good mate to him.
She looked up at the moon, as shimmering-white-blue as her mate was. It was a constant presence in her life, and for a time it had been her only company. It filled her heart with warmth to watch her family under its soft light, and she sent a quiet prayer of gratitude skyward. To the moon, to the universe - whichever, whoever.
Thank you. She understood, now, why she had felt so listless before; why she had been led into the Shifter's deadly path. It was so she could wind up here - safe, warm and happy, with a family all her own. Thank you.
((WC: 262))
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 8:35 pm
Prompt: Brooding. It was coming up on the celebration of one of the silliest holidays, to celebrate one of the silliest emotions - love. Blech. Takutai had no lover, no partner, not even any friends close enough to celebrate a version of the holiday meant for pals. He was, once again, by himself.
Alone.
Not lonely! No, he wasn't lonely, he'd tell anyone who asked. No no no, definitely not. He was fine on his own, thank you very much! He preferred it, actually. Most people were very annoying.
That was why, Takutai reasoned, he pushed so many of them - okay, all of them - away. People: who needed them? Not Taku. He was all the company he needed, and he didn't understand or like how other sea-dwelling Soquili tried to approach him sometimes, all nice and stuff. So suspicious. What did they want with their smiles and their kindness? Disgusting. Probably a trap. It was safer to be on his own, he was pretty sure.
But here, in his little home, where there was nobody else around asking nosy, judgy questions - here was a little... well, okay, a lot broody. He thought about how other people were preparing for the holiday: maybe making special treats, or preparing secret gifts to surprise and delight their mates or lovers. Little inside jokes about how long they'd been together.
...Ugh. Ew. He didn't want that. Nope nope nope. Sounded gross. Definitely icky. Not at all something to yearn for.
So Takutai would spend this holiday as he had spent pretty much every other holiday since he was a young child: alone, and very secretly very annoyed about it.
((WC: 272))
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 8:53 pm
Prompt: Flight. Lavender Violet was not overly plagued by the concept of 'overthinking'. He was, in fact, given to flights of fancy, his mind as drifting and amenable as a leaf on a breeze. Bad thoughts didn't stay for long, and he wasn't given to revisiting bad experiences, either. He was, at his core, a happy bunny.
But his companions were not always so happy. Bunny, dangling as ever from one ear securely held in LV's mouth, was fine as ever, if apprehensive about practical matters that LV did not concern himself with. But his newest friend, Shadow The Mothman, as he had introduced himself to be, was...
...Different.
Shadow could fly, for one thing. More than once, LV had awoken with the sun and found Shadow not where he had laid him down to sleep. It didn't seem like Shadow was trying to escape, per se - Shadow obviously liked LV and wanted to remain in his custody. But the power of flight was beyond LV, and anything Shadow was doing up there in the sky was out of LV's reach, both literally and metaphorically.
Shadow was also a bit...pessimistic. He tended to think the worst in most situations. And that was hard for LV, who almost to a fault (or, okay, definitely to a fault) saw the best in everyone and everything. How was he meant to explain to Shadow that things weren't always so doom and gloom? Every time he tried to explain to the stuffy that people were basically good and everything usually worked out fine, he was met with cold, warning indifference.
It made LV nervous.
But he loved Shadow, and Bunny agreed that it wouldn't do to abandon him now just because he was a little strange. Maybe, LV reasoned, they had something to teach each other. After all...
After all...
What if one day, Shadow was right?
((WC: 311))
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Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2025 11:45 am
Prompt: Season. Koa Ahi was so glad winter was over.
Or...mostly over, anyway. Spring was showing its teeth, anyway - fighting back against the brutally cold nights with tentative rays of sunshine that urged the flowerbuds to bloom - only for the frost to overrule and kill anything foolish enough to try and revivify itself.
Koa, of course, was not a flowerbud. He survived all kinds of weather, all the seasons.
But some seasons were more preferable to him than others. He was warm-blooded, which meant that summer's descent into fall and winter was a period of grumpy perseverance for him. Winter into spring into summer, however, felt like he - along with the rest of the world - was waking up fresh.
If it could just stop being so dang cold, he would really appreciate it. He missed the ocean, and it was too freezy to really enjoy yet, but....soon, he sighed to himself. Soon he would revisit the sea, with the warmth of the sun overhead.
Soon.
In the meantime, he curled up in his little cave and snuggled into the furs he'd collected and traded for - he liked to be cozy. He watched the cool of the evening give way into the cold of night, and sighed to himself. Spring would rear her head soon, he could feel it.
Soon.
As was usual, Koa satisfied himself with future plans - he drifted into what he would do when spring arrived for real. Making flower crowns was a good start. Planting seeds would be another good step. Soon his cave would be an explosion of color, and that...that filled him with warmth too, even there in the cold dark of the winter's tail.
Soon.
((WC: 279))
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Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2025 1:34 pm
Prompt: Frost. So here was the thing about being a horse-bear-deer thing: for 25% of the year, 33% of Sneffels Uncompahgre desperately wanted to fall into such a deep unconsciousness that he wouldn't wake for several months.
Some years, he allowed himself to shift, hunker down, and let the frost coalesce around him as he slept and slept and slept. He was, needless to say, very cranky when he awoke, but then again - he was very cranky most of the time, regardless of how much he'd slept or for how long.
But the thing about that was that he had to be full. He had to have fed enough to satisfy himself while he slept that deep dreamless sleep - enough to sustain him through the frozen months.
And Sneffels had not reached that threshold. That meant no hibernation. That meant that he was going to be forced to be awake through the frosty months.
Sneffels hated the cold.
While it was too late for him to eat enough to hibernate, he still took out his frustrations on his prey, killing and eating more than he needed, because someone should suffer, if he was to be forced to stay awake for these months. They would be sorry indeed that they hadn't come to him of their own accord before it was too late, sacrificing themselves to save their families, whom he also took out whenever he could.
The only good thing about the cold was that if he dug a bit, he could save any leftovers he had for later, for days he didn't feel like stalking his dinner. He had a voracious appetite, so it didn't happen frequently, but still.
Sometimes the terrifying beer Shifter just wanted a lazy winter day to watch the frost and ice and snow pile up around him. He deserved at least that, he thought to himself as he tore into the warm flesh of his latest unnecessary victim. Yes, he should treat himself.
...But all the same. Next year, he vowed, he would not wind up in this position again. Hibernation was the way to go, and anyone who got in his way would not live to regret it.
((WC: 363))
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2025 9:37 am
Splendida had heard a rumor - a ship from the aboveworld had crashed and made its home here, beneath the waves. She'd mostly overheard this information; it was all anyone could talk about, but nobody had told her directly, so she had to piece together the key details, like when and where.
She'd also picked up that some bossy Seathi mare was trying to keep everybody else out. That didn't sit right with Splendida, who prided herself on being the bossiest Seathi mare around; she didn't even bother pretending to herself that she had the pure, selfless motivation of 'shouldn't everyone be allowed a look at the latest curiosity?'. No, Splendida was too curious and too much of a contrarian for that - some part of her had always loved doing exactly what she had been forbidden from doing.
So off she went in search of sunken treasure. Whoever was trying to keep people away might have been able to control a crowd, but Splendida had not been among them, and she rather thought that this mare would have another thing coming if they went one-on-one.
It turned out not to be necessary, as when she arrived, nobody else was there. She called out to make sure, cautious about disturbing anyone who had made the sunken ship their new home, or worse yet, any predators that might be lurking in the shadows, waiting for some fool to swim right into their waiting maws.
But it appeared to be well and truly deserted. There were no bodies on board, which was nice; Splendida didn't have any particular love or hatred for humans, but she thought death was gross, no matter who had died, and she preferred not to confront it unless absolutely necessary. Either the humans whose boat this was had escaped, or they'd already been elsewise subsumed by the sea.
Splendida could see why whoever it was had wanted to keep onlookers from sticking their muzzle in. The place was loaded with all kinds of treasures - far too much for one Seathi alone to transport back to their home, Splendida realized with dismay. Maybe that was where the other mare had gone - to fetch backup.
This thought in mind, Splendida hurried along, poking through this box or that container. There was waterlogged food and strange powders galore, none of which interested Splendida; instead, she went right for the shinies.
Back in the very bottom rear end of the boat, she found a box that took a few shoves to open, but open it did, and gold coins immediately began to float out. She gathered as much as she could carry and firmly shut the box back up tight, then glanced around and tried to hide it with seaweed and junk. She would try to return and bring more treasure back, but just in case the other mare - or anyone else, for that matter - got any bright ideas, maybe this would keep it safe for a little while.
And if not, oh well. She'd gotten her prize - the gold glittered in the faded light from above the sea as Splendida swam her way home, content to rest her newest treasure with the rest of her trove.
((WC: 533))
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2025 11:58 am
Leucosia had never understood why some Soquili valued brute strength so much. There was no artistry involved in hunting like that - no sense of accomplishment, if you asked Cosi. Anyone could just...kill someone to death. Where was the talent? The planning? The intricacy, the dedication, the sense of accomplishment as one dug into one's still-breathing victim with talons and teeth?
Some people just had no sense of class when it came to killings. No sense of drama.
Besides. Why broadcast one's abilities, when it often served much better to keep certain talents quiet until an opportune moment? How did the saying go - more flies with honey than with vinegar? That was Leucosia's philosophy. When people perceived her as sweet, shy and retiring, fragile and maybe even in need of being rescued... it just played into her plans. Come step into my web, said the spider to the fly...
So on the surface, Leucosia seemed sweet as honey. Kind, generous, and interested in others. Nobody knew what lurked beneath this carefully crafted facade, and that was just the way she liked it.
Especially because occasionally, it meant she didn't have to kill at all. Sometimes, people just gave her things, because they thought she 'needed' them. The problems - for others - really only developed when these generous people overstayed their welcome, or began to ask for accommodations or affection from Leucosia. Then, she had absolutely zero compunctions about enforcing her boundaries, whether or not those boundaries had been communicated or not.
Shame on them for trusting her. Shame on them for trusting anyone. Leucosia would never make that mistake.
((WC: 267))
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Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2025 8:40 pm
That said, she didn't kill for fun or profit. She didn't chase prey for the sake of the it; only for what she and her herd needed to survive. Maybe then a little more on top of that, for emergencies. but not so much that they ever depopulated an area or caused serious ecological harm. She prided herself on that - on her restraint.
Unlike some of her herd, Soliloquy preferred to hunt alone. It was just...easier this way. More time for her own thoughts; less chance of screwing up or getting hurt, or getting someone else hurt. That just caused more problems down the line.
She loved her herd. She did. They meant everything to her. They were the sun around which she rotated. But she didn't always feel like she was one of them - or at least, not always. At times she felt like a piece of some larger puzzle, more than a complete image on her own. Lily didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing - but it was something to mull over in her mind. If she was her own image, what would her image be?
Just another reason it was easier to be alone. Besides, she was fairly confident that none of the rest of her herd was interested in these thoughts of hers - and aside from that, what was there to talk about?
((WC: 261))
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Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2025 8:50 pm
It had gotten him in some trouble when he was younger, Prince would be the first to admit - being loud, boisterous, and occasionally possessed of a trouble-making spirit had gotten him in more than a few scrapes.
But fortunately for him, those scrapes had also helped him develop more than a little bit of charm - a talent for sweet-talking. For flirting, when the situation called for it (and frequently, when it did not call for it). For charming and coaxing his way into or out of any situation he happened to find himself in, for better or for worse.
The thing about that, though, was that it did definitely require another person. And right now, there was a severe lack of other people around to fawn over Prince and tell him how handsome and smart and funny he was.
So he was on the move, looking for his next adoring fan. Surely they were out there somewhere - they had to be! He was, after all, handsome and smart and funny, and people loved those things. He just had to find them, so they could tell him so, out loud, and frequently, and then everything would be fine!
That was his plan: find someone, anyone, and be adored.
(The term 'bird-brain' doesn't not apply to him, but...well, at least he's got his looks!)
((WC: 250))
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