Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Yes there is," Rise said with an adoring smile. "Now pick one up and we'll go back - and you can return to sleeping."

"It's okay my dear!" Rise called anxiously, watching his child disappear into a nearby bush. "Come back, come back! We've got lots more!"

Rise cringed at the apparent noise of twigs and leaves being crushed, and frantically ran in its direction. "Are you alright? He yelled, head whipping from right to left. "Come back, it's okay! Come back to me!"

A rustle, and his son emerged with greenery dotting his magnificent orange-red mane, holding something in his mouth. He rushed over...

Though Best's revelation (and repeated announcement) of his name was in highly embarrassing circumstances, he revelled in the fact that he had, indeed, revealed it, and was rather big-headed with his father's undying joy over the fact. This would've been tempered by Run's decisive beat-down ("I said mine first, you idiot.") had everyone's names been discovered...as it was, two remained elusive and Best took any chance to lord it over anyone.

Not the dark little girl with her big, light eyes, no; she was too unfussed to be any fun, and Run quite literally stomped him for it. The icy colt however, took it really personally, which made it extra fun to alternatively heckle him for his slowness ("despite the fact you look most like Mother, really!") and to pompously give him 'advice' ("I would hate to be in your hooves, maybe if you got off your bum and did some real work it'll come,").

Today was no different. As they lazed about, Best sunning his stomach, he remarked to his favourite target: "Nameless, still nothing? Maybe if you think and think and think hard enough, it might fall off the tip of your tongue."

He glanced over with a bratty grin. "Is that it then? I'll call Daddy over right now and tell him it's 'Shove Off' and we'll call you Shove. It's a pretty good name for you." Now that he had the upper hand, his 'clever' brother was pretty much the best Kimeti to hang around all day.

v. Love Becomes You

The dark filly showed no inclination of revealing her name. She showed no inclination, even, of saying a single word. Nobody was quite fussed, they were young yet and had time to grow into words, one would presume, and she certainly seemed more than intelligent enough otherwise, never putting a hoof out of place, unlike some of her rather more tempestuous siblings. Nobody, of course, except for her dear old doting father. Why don't you speak, my dear? was a constant anxious refrain around her, Why don't you tell me your name, my darling? another.

It was not until they were all rather nearing the cusp of young adulthood that she suddenly responded to his tireless entreaties one day, as the sun faded for the ascension of a full, pale moon, beaming down upon her gleaming forelock, promising to look so much like her mother's lustrous colour.

"Love Becomes You," she pronounced with a voice like the cool whisper of dark leaves, in a tone that suggested it was nothing he shouldn't have already known, "and you really ought to stop staring, Father, the salamanders are getting away."

*******

And then there were the pets - but that's really another set of stories for another set of days.

END