[ORP] The Flood

[Tiarana]

Hollyhock detected the roar of water well before it was anywhere near the Swamp, and it made her fur stand on end. Saying anything now would, probably, accomplish nothing, because nobody else could hear it, because everyone else had eyes that could see, and they didn't need their ears to compensate, and maybe it was just a low rumble right then, but something about it sounded so wrong to her, and her fur definitely was agreeing with her. But she could at least save herself, and her sister, with whom she was practically joined at the hip...She nudged Stumble, and attempted to do so lightly, but she never HAD learned to control those muscles quite properly and maybe it was a bit harder than she intended. "Weeee, we need to get out of here, Stumble! Weeee need to go!" Hollyhock shoved her sister in the direction the sound wasn't coming from. "Comeon comeon comeon!"

***

Hollyhock half-bullied, half-helped her sister, who was also lame, southwards, but there was no way they could outrun the water, between the blindness, and the bum legs. She could hear water now, deafening, rushing fast and destroying, the sounds of trees breaking under the stress of it, and...other creatures screaming. Already it was sloshing around her feet. "Stuuumble! Youcanhearitnowtoo, right!? Let's gooooo!"  

[hybridic]

Thoushalt had heard the animals first, screaming and crying and running from something they did not understand and could not name. It was not until he made out the words 'big water' amidst the chaos that he had an inkling of what they were dealing with, and the realization swept over him. Flood, he thought, his heart pounding as he began to see the water level rising higher and higher. The animals...the animals will be drowned.

With little thought for himself as the first waves began to sweep through the swamp, Thoushalt began gathering up helpless creatures as they all fled from the flood. A pair of snakes slithered out of the trees and wrapped themselves around his leafy horns, remembering the buck who came to speak to them so often and trusting him to keep them safe. Thou spotted a family of four or five foxbuns -- it was too difficult to count them amidst the rushing waters -- and bent down, ushering them onto his back. A mongoose skittered after them and leapt onto his head, the rivalry between its kind and the snakes forgotten amidst the disaster of the flood. Thou had a moment of worry for his crane, Of Course, but then there was a squawk from the sky and he looked up and saw her flying in circles above his head. "This way!" she cried to him, pointing her beak and flying in a curve towards - Thou assumed - safety. "Follow me!" Thoushalt nodded, afraid to open his mouth in the ever-increasing water, and trudged after her.  

[Xerianthe]

“I am called Alder, little Whistles Twice. And you are very welcome” The buck nuzzled the shaken colt, breathing deeply. A few more breathes and he spat water onto the wet bark, moving to spit it into the floodwaters proper. His nose wrinkles but he manages a grin for the foal. “Flood water is not the best.” That grin disappeared with a frantic call for help, two voices twining.

“Stay safe, be back,” he rasped, smiling at Whistles Twice before quickly shoving himself off the platform and into the water once more, making a beeline for the struggling doe. He was weaker this time – but not too weak to accomplish this. He snarled in his head, the chaos and grief and loss going against his very nature. Another kimeti – the legendary – had answered the call as well, reaching the doe and filly just before himself. Alder swum to the doe’s other side, nudging her head above water.

He looked over the doe’s head to try and catch the other’s eye – between the two of them the little doe and filly could make it back to the platform. The stag looked tired, and far more ancient than himself, though perhaps that was due to his Chosen status. Whether he was underestimated the legendary or not, Alder was more than a bit worried that if he took the filly to the platform and tried to come back to help something worse would happen.

“I can help too.”  

[hybridic]

Hollyhock had heard the noise first, of course -- being blind had made Bowlegged's beloved sister much stronger in her other senses than most kimeti. So, even though Stumble couldn't hear anything, she trusted her sister implicitly and followed in the direction she was pushing, trying her hardest to keep her crippled legs from buckling underneath her.

"I hear it, I hear it," Stumble cried, nuzzling her head up against her sister's neck in panic as the water began to rise, buffeting her already weak legs. "It's water, Holly, water everywhere," the crippled doe said, in her lifelong habit of describing the world around them to her blind sister. "There are kimeti and kiokote running, running...and animals, and -- oh!" A root hidden underneath the murk of the swirling water caught one of Bowlegged's hooves and her knee turned inward, collapsing. Holly was there beside her though -- Holly was never more than a few feet away from her -- and she caught herself against her sister's back, struggling to her feet. "Holly, it's coming, the water keeps coming so fast, I'll never be able to outrun it." She pushed her sister with her nose, nuzzling her cheek lovingly. "You have to keep going, Hollyhock, you have to run!"  

[LOLLI qAq]

Always looked about frantically as the waters reached the swamp, pulling and dragging animals and debris about in swirls and crashing destruction. Out of the corner of his sight he saw what could have been a doe careen through the water before getting drug under, but she was too far for him to reach and it broke his heart. Surging through the currents and rapids he held his head high as he was forced to start swimming. It wasn't until he spotted what was obviously an injured doe being led by her equally stumbling sister. What- Were they both lame, and with no one else to help them? Frowning the brown buck knew he couldn't stand for that and swam his way over to the pair of sisters.

"Quickly!" He shouted at the pair and nodded his head to the paler-blue one. "Get your sister to grab my tail in her mouth and you- you find a way to climb up on to me." He knew there was absolutely no way he could swim with her on his back, but maybe if he could get the right footing... No! "No, no." He said to Stumble, "climb HALFWAY up on to me and together we can swim and direct your sister!"  

[hybridic]

Whistles Twice nodded as the glowing-eyed buck -- Alder -- told him to wait atop the platform, the colt's eyes widening in amazement as the old buck leapt back into the water to help another kimeti. So brave! Whistle wanted to be brave like Alder someday. He wished he wasn't so small, and weak.

Dejected and exhausted, Whistle acknowledged his inability to help and turned to see the other creatures standing on the platform. One was a kimeti, but Whistle's eyes were drawn to the other creature -- the kiokote, though he did not yet know the word. His glowing eyes stared, unblinking.  

[phoenix kiss]

As long-legged as the kiokote are, they are not without their strength. Seeing Mourning Fog -- who looks so different from any of the other kimeti, a thing that does not slip past the kiokote -- rescuing both the doe and the little one, it bites through a portion of vine that dangles from the grandfather cypress and flings the other end into the water, apparently to tow the kimeti in. Its voice is garbled by the vine in its mouth, "Hold fast! I will pull you in."

The water is still coming -- rushing into the swamp, heedless of what it collects. Though it does not come with the fury it had, the current is strong, and underwater, unseen things still pull at hooves and tangle around tails. The shortest of the mangroves (with their mazelike roots now a deathtrap) are now almost completely underwater; the water is definitely taller than a grown kimeti. It now pours lazily into the swamp, sweeping vegetation before it; huge rafts of torn-up grass and dirt float on top.

Several opportunistic watersnakes, correctly judging the flood for what it is, find themselves tangled around the budding antlers of a purple buck; other small creatures, seeing the same, mob other kimeti, using them as literal life rafts.  

[elufae]

Daring to tear his focus away from the cypress-platform, the chosen stag turned to the bark-colored buck and nodded in appreciation. Working in teams seemed to be the easiest solution in this situation. With the other buck helping the doe stay afloat, and Mourning Fog working to guide them and help carry the filly, they managed to make their way towards the wedged cypresses. He saw the kiokote toss the vine into the water and gently but firmly grasped it in his mouth. The stag locked a front leg around the doe's, making eye contact with the other buck and eyeing the vine. Hoping they were all attached to it and each other, he continued to pedal on despite the kiokote saying it would pull them in. Eventually, they made it onto the mass of trees. Carefully helping the filly down and setting her next to the colt that was already there, Mourning Fog began to feel dizzy. He wasn't exactly an -old- buck, despite his appearances, but he was not an athletic one either. This was more work than he had ever done at one time.

Collapsing, the legendary's energy was all but spent, and he wheezed, trying desperately to catch his breath and rest his worn-out legs. Already near the edge of the make-shift raft, the waters tugged at Mourning Fog's hind legs, but he hadn't the strength to move farther up. He dared to close his eyes for a moment, sleep and rest being so enticing now. But he forced them open, his chest heaving, and struggled to stand. He can't give up. There were bound to be more to save. Losing his footing, he slid into the water, too weak to bring himself back up.  

[hybridic]

Bowlegged, heartbroken at the idea of forcing her sister to go on without her (but even more heartbroken of the thought of her dying because of her slowness), was almost giddy with relief when the brown-haired buck came up to them, offering his help. "Oh thank you, thank you!" she exclaimed, turning to Hollyhock and nudging her head in the direction of the buck's proffered tail. "Here, Holly, take this, but don't bite too hard, it's this kind buck's tail. I'll be right here."

The water had risen as they spoke and now Stumble's weak legs were no longer touching the ground -- a thought which frightened her for a moment before she realized that she was, in fact, stronger and faster this way. Without her weight on them, Stumble's crippled legs could steer her through the water much faster than they could trip across the land. She swam, almost gliding through the water, halfway up onto the buck's smooth back, her front legs hooking over him. "We're ready," she said to the buck, reaching her tail out to brush against her sister's face reassuringly. "My legs are stronger swimming, I think...we can do this!" she exclaimed, hope surging through her.  

[hybridic]

Of Course had led Thoushalt into sight of the cypress platform and then flown off, likely to find some place farther out of the flood's reach to wait out the danger. Thou nodded at her in thanks and kept on swimming, hoping the animals on his head and back were holding on tightly as the water continued to surge around them. As he neared the platform, he saw a legendary slip into the water and his eyes widened. He swam forward faster, the animals leaping and hopping and slithering off him as he came in reach of the platform. "Let me help you!" he said to the legendary, nudging his head underneath the stag's. In any other situation, the gentlemanly Thoushalt would reel from touching one of the swamp's chosen without permission, but this was most certainly an extenuating circumstance.





Whistles Twice turned from the kiokote when he saw the purple buck swimming towards the raft, covered in rescued animals. His eyes glowed too! Surely this meant he was trustworthy.

Whistle inched forward as the purple buck tried to help the tired Legendary back onto the platform, and then, with a surge of bravery, leaned towards the chosen one and helped to lift his head, keeping it out of the rushing water and in the breathable air. The purple buck cast his eyes upon the colt gratefully and swam around behind the stag, pushing him up onto the platform.  

[Tiarana]

Holly clamped down on the tail with a death grip, because in the tide of sound washing over her, it was her only lifeline. Stumble...Stumble...her mind went blank with terror for her sister and for herself, and the flood hauled her up at the crest of it; the deafening commotion stripped away her senses, but she was already losing it. She tightened her grip on the buck's tail.