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 Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 11:35 pm
Tonestue took a deep breath to control her temper. Clearly, this, this "female" had no idea what it was actually like to be female. Let alone pregnant! And yet, he seemed to think he was qualified to be telling her what to do?! He clearly was no healer, had no knowledge of a star's body, so what right did he have to tell her, a healer by trade (albeit an inexperienced one) and a mare who had now been pregnant for some time?! No! This nonsense stopped right here, right now! Especially if Saltic was serious about keeping "her" around. If "she" was going to live with, in, or near the Shadow, she had to learn some boundaries and "her" place now. There would be no better time to establish it than when she was still new to this place. Tonestue took another deep breath and rallied her arguments. "Damiana," she said flatly. "My unborn children do not make me an invalid. Pregnant stars have always kept on their feet--it is healthier for the foals to be kept suspended from their mother's body than to be squished beneath her weight. Furthermore, I was raised in the Shadow by the Death General--I am strong, and I have been active all my life. I know my limits. If I was incapable of being here tonight and caring for you, I would not have come. You would have been dragged before me for me to treat you in the comfort of my own shelter. I am not injured. I can stand. I can walk. I can even gallop.
"If you wish me to save my energy to heal my nephew's leg, then very well. I will concede to your wish--it's better for my herd, and clearly, I will be making no progress of any kind with you. As for getting back to camp...I can do that on my own." She smiled. Most of the time, Tonestue's smile was a warm, happy, welcoming one, full of the innocent cheer and genuine goodwill that her kin and comrades lacked. But this one was full of edge and danger. It was the sort of smile found on a scimitar or in a lightning strike. It was a Shadow Herd smile. "Danger? In these woods? These are the woods of the Shadow, Damiana. We are the danger here." It was true. There were no wolves in this wood, no bears, no cats, no snakes. Anything that could possibly harm a star had been slaughtered a long time ago. The Shadow was the second eldest herd in all the land--they had been living in these woods since stars first began to Fall.
Tonestue felt safe here. And the reason for that marched up to the arcturus mares with a stretcher carried between them.Retinadeath narrowed her eyes at Damiana. "Let's go." She said nothing else, only led the way. The stallions brought up the rear, with Saltic carried between the other two. Tonestue would follow, and this "Damiana" character as well. "She" would not be allowed to leave this place. Now that she had made it this far into the territory, and with Saltic protesting that she be brought with. Huh. Well, she would face the Queen's judgment soon enough.As the party of knights approached the mares, Saltic's heart sank. Tonestue was angry. Not at him, no, but at Damiana herself. Why? What could his new...acquaintance...possibly have done to anger the duchess? He'd never seen Tonestue, no, wait. He'd seen Tonestue angry. At Cataracta, mostly, when she'd done something annoying, or at Osteocyte when he was being a jerk. But at a stranger, or at someone not of the army? That was unusual. She usually tried to get along with people. It was disturbing to see her upset.
But Saltic couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for Tonestue. Instead, his attention snapped to Damiana. He'd heard the last few seconds of her conversation with Tonestue. He covered his broken leg (anesthetized by his aunt's magic) with his wing. "So...what's a vampire?" he said, hoping to distract her. And, he refused to admit to himself, to distract himself. He was in deep, deep trouble when they got back to camp. He just had to hope that the queen wouldn't find out until the morning, when she'd be in a better mood.
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Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 3:44 pm
"As you say so, sweet cheeks" Damiana said reaching out with a wing to tap Tony on the cheek gently before sashaying around the pregnant mare and over closer to those that carried Saltic through the wood. Wanting immensely to stay away from the haughty mare who seemed to be giving hir a stare of death. Turning slightly, hir attention went to Saltic, blocking out all the others around them. Seemed that everyone wanted a piece of hir and it wasn't a good piece.
"You don't know? We are creatures of the night, we feed on the nutrients from another living creature." Shi looked off into the distance as they started walking. Snorting as they went, "These injuries will fade away when I have had something to eat, its too much being around all these other. Many could taste fantastic about now." Shi lapped at hir muzzle before shaking hir head. Shi could get something to eat later, when everything has been said and done. This who thing with meeting the leader of the herd... It didn't sound exciting.
"My brother and father are the same as I am. Though more skilled. When they feed they can take without killing if they really wanted to. Me... I haven't mastered it. Sometimes I get too carried away and take too much." Damiana frowned slightly as she tilted her head. "They were always better at things that me. Always."
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Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:30 pm
Taking...nutrients...? From living creatures? Saltic blinked. That sounded a lot like a predator, a carnivore. A wolf or a bear or a cat or something. Not something with...well, with hooves and a mane and all. That didn't seem right at all. He looked her over again, noting this time her long fangs. They would certainly be perfect for piercing flesh...
She hasn't hurt me yet, Saltic realized. She hasn't tried to hurt me or shown me any aggression. She hasn't shown anyone here any aggression. There was no reason to be afraid of something that ate meat, right? It was just...just something. A quirk. Like how her head didn't match her body. Yes. No reason to be afraid. No reason to get upset or offended at her. After all, it's not like I asked her about it earlier. Besides, Ruadh said things similar to that all the time, and everyone knew that was because Ruadh was certifiably crazy. He believed he needed to bathe in blood so that he wouldn't die. Some people just had weird obsessions, that was all. "You probably just need practice," he said to her. "Your father's older than you, after all. I don't know about your brother," he added, reaching out his neck to nuzzle her, "but knowing siblings the way I do, he probably cheats." He had no idea how you could "cheat" at feeding, but siblings always found a way to cheat. It was a well-known fact. Saltic smiled. Yes. He hoped that would make her feel better, though he still wasn't sure how much trouble he was going to be in for thinking that.Kesmi I changed Saltic's posting color xP
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 8:16 pm
Plamen was tempted to ignore Osteocyte, but the freudian glee he felt at anyone suffering, especially one who'd given his darling Retinadeath offspring, was too good to pass up. Pity that he hadn't been the one wreaking said havoc. Not that he'd want to subsume his queen's prerogatives. Sheesh. Watching Queen Blodeuwedd, it made sense why Retinadeath was her Death General. Aside from being good at it. The two mares could be so deliciously cranky and vicious when riled up.
But an invasion? Eeesh. Not something for the court to worry about. With a smirk and a snigger, Plamen got up and went to find a good escape route, on the off-chance that their glorious battle was lost miserably.Blod considered briefly ignoring Tepey's question. The last thing she needed to deal with at a moment like this was her specially chosen idiot lifemate. However, she couldn't afford to lose his support.
Pasting a sweet, serene smile on her face that fringed on gooey, she replied, "Of course I will, darling Tepey."
Wheeling around slowly, she nodded curtly. "An invasion, is it? I'll join up with Wolfbane and lead the troops to the front. Back to your duties." With hardly a further glance, she strode purposefully toward the rally point, prepared to defend her borders.Stormlight opened his muzzle for another whining protest, but his boss' daughter had already pranced out. Daring heroics. Right. As if anything the Shadow did could be filed under "heroic." It wasn't really in the herd's vocabulary. And his deceptive brat could never be found when he needed her. Not that Stormlight really knew what to do with the adult child he'd worked so hard to get. He'd never thought that far along. The Decepticon rarely did. He'd never admit it, but he'd never been all that talented to begin with.
He got to his hooves, stretching languidly as he went, prepared to go right back to whining when no one else was in a good position to kick, bite, or gore him.Irishstorm was too far away to make out too many details. A pity, that. No glory, no chance to scheme, no opening to assert her position as a Star to take note of. But, on the other hoof, if this turned out to all be for naught, anyway, then it was probably fine if she continued to do her job properly. In the meantime...hey. There was this. Being out on patrol just after the Other Da had come in and was probably trying to sleep meant that Irishstorm got to miss out on Stormlight's abrasive whining. Times like this, Irishstorm felt maybe, just maybe, it hadn't been worth it to follow the Other Da to the Shadow. Which fortunately wasn't all that often.Haruto listened quietly to the commotion outside his small den. An invasion, huh? Curses. But it sounded like it had come from a long chain of sources, so it might not be reliable. And if there was an invasion, well, there was always the coward's way out: Point out that the herd had never loved him, or cared about him, and that he was fine with not revolting or causing trouble, as long as it would involve him not dying.Hyperopia grinned viciously. Well, even if nobody died at her tiny hooves, any kind of pain was still good pain. "When would I not? Let's go join Wolf," she replied. Behind them, she could hear Stormlight get to his hooves, and she could almost hear the whine she'd begun to associate with the shadowy-glowy stallion. How did one accomplish that? It seemed utterly fascinating...just not as fascinating as blood. Which Hyperopia hoped would soon flow.
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Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 5:20 pm
As she approached the camp, Retinadeath heard a lot more commotion than she would have liked to hear. It sounded like the entire herd was awake. She glanced at the shadowy--intruder--following along with them, bickering with Tonestue. This Damiana--girl?--was upsetting Tonestue and had gotten her grandson badly injured, but she didn't seem like much of a threat. All she'd done since they'd met was argue and ask incessantly over Saltic. She wasn't even trying to assess anyone for information, and despite being a self-professed vampire, she hadn't even tried to eat anyone yet. No, Retinadeath was not at all convinced that this arctara was worth the trouble of waking up the entire herd--especially as she recognized one authoritative voice in the mix.
How had things gone this badly this quickly?! Cripes, she'd only been gone for, what, five, ten minutes? Had Wolf panicked? She shook her head. No, not Wolf. That boy had more sense than most people thought, and he had a cool head in a panic. In all likelihood the stooges he shared a herd with had managed to blow things all out of proportion. She had a short list of all the people she thought likely to have caused the hullaballoo, and she intended to wring all of them out at the earliest opportunity.
Retinadeath sped up so that she could enter the camp first, before anyone else could. "False alarm," she said disgustedly. "Saltic got frisky, that's all." Ah. Yes. The Queen was awake as well. "My most sincere and humblest apologies for the disruption, your majesty." She glanced back at Damiana. "Just a prisoner is all."Borne between Anand and Ruadh on his stretcher, Saltic frowned. Prisoner? Bad things would happen to a prisoner, he had no doubt. The Queen had been threatening to sacrifice someone to the dark powers for years now, and he didn't like the idea that he might have gotten Damiana into trouble. No, he'd gotten her into trouble, he could get her out of it. "I can explain," he said quickly while, at long last, his brain cells kicked into gear in a desperate attempt to figure out what to say. Damiana wasn't the only one in danger--he was as well, if he couldn't figure out a way to mollify his queen and his grandmother. "I swear, I can explain all of this." Please, oh please let him be able to explain all of this...Oh? Oh, this had better be good.
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2019 1:34 pm
As they neared the inner parts of the heard lands, Damiana shrunk back a little, hir tail down as she tried to keep close to Saltic. Ears flicking forwards then back once again, shi wasn't too sure what was going on. The place reminded hir of a bees nest that had been poked one too many times. Other stars were all over the place as others seemed to be watching as shi was led in. Wings set to quiver a bit, shi wondered just how far shi would get if the chance to run was opened. Not very shi assumed, this place didn't seem the forgiving kind.
"I don't like this..." Damiana muttered not really to anyone as shi tried to hide. The great offspring of a vampire cowering at the sights of so much meat.
Shaking the thoughts from hir head, she wasn't there to eat, not other stars anyways. She had only meant to stay around the fringes and leave when she had caught something... Small... Now things have exploded and shi was stuck in the middle of this harassed hive. As Saltic started to speak up, shi turned and looked at him. For his own sake shi hoping he wouldn't say a thing, but then again... Shi wasn't in the mind set to defend hirself from all those around them.
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Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2019 10:54 am
Before anyone had a chance to object to his speaking out, Saltic plunged on. His brain really had no idea how to proceed. He was going to have to BS his way out of this, but with everything that happened, he had no idea what to say.
If he could be honest--if this wasn't Blod and Retinadeath, the most powerful mares in the herd, that he was talking to--he would say...what would he say? He would say that he had found an intruder and chased her, but that she had gotten into trouble. He had helped her down...why? Because she was pretty. And she had needed help getting down. And she had said nice things about him. She really was pretty, to be honest. He liked her wings, he liked her eyes. And her deviousness was very entertaining--cute, too. He could see that she was trying to manipulate him sometimes, but Saltic was used to that--that was just the way everyone acted in the Shadow Herd. You were supposed to manipulate people. A bit of playful manipulation was how you interacted with the people you liked, the people you cared about.
So what could he say for her?
"Yes, Damiana intruded on our land," he said. "I gave chase to remove her from our lands. But, my Queen, my General, after interacting with her this evening, I think we should give Damiana a chance. She is an intruder, yes, but with everything she's said and the way she's acted...I think it's fate. I think she was meant to come here. Because right from the first, she's been acting like one of us. She's been acting like a member of the Shadow Herd. I think she could have a home with us, because I think she is one of us. Maybe she could have found a better way to introduce herself, yes, but sometimes...sometimes you just have to prove yourself, my Queen. Actions speak louder than words, and I think Damiana has acted in a way befitting a member of our herd. She is clever, and devious, and she knows what she wants. If we give her a chance, I think she will make us stronger. I think she could have a home with us."
He hoped she could. He'd grown very fond of her in the past...half an hour? Something like that? Yes, something like that. He looked over at her and smiled, a genuine smile, one he hoped was full of comfort. This hadn't just been a bad night for him, after all--it had been pretty sucky for her, too.
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