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 Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:40 am
Utena nodded, and followed Maurice's suit. She went after the highest ones she could find because she wanted to leave the low-lying delicacies for the two shorties.
She'd gathered two or three, and decided it was plenty enough to satiate her appetite. Then she settled to a stand to munch on them. She really wished they didn't hit the ground. Ohtori and its stone slabs had spoiled her a little too much. The sweet smell of the blue fruit reached her nose as she took the first juicy bite. She could feel the blue dripple down her chin and stain her muzzle, but she didn't mind. She realized after a moment that it was probably going to be far more noticeable on her than on either of her blue muzzled companions. She hadn't really thought that one through.
Shrugging it off she took a few more solid bites before eyeing the core of the item. It was very . . . seedy. Himemiya had always removed these things from her food. What had Ohtori done to her?
"Would anybody like this core?" she asked politely, trying not to look like a complete idiot with her blue stained face and said core clamped between her teeth. She hoped ocean water would do well to wash it off.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:12 am
Spyke, who had just finished the first fruit provided for him by his father, perked up with a grin. “Sure,” said the foal who cheerfully ate anything from waxy leaves to salty seaweed and beyond, “chuck it over ‘ere?”
All food, in his eyes at least, was good food; he had yet to discover something that he didn’t like. There were quite a few things that he suspected he might not like, but those were the things that he had been strictly forbidden from even tasting. He couldn’t remember the reason given for every single on, but he knew what they looked like and that was what mattered.
Sometimes he wondered if these forbidden plants were the really tasty things and that his father wanted to keep them all for himself. This theory, however, was one that he had largely abandoned based on the fact that he doubted his riruy would deliberately deprive him of something nice.
Balanced on his hind legs once more trying to collect more elppas, Maurice snorted softly. Spyke the bottomless pit; sometimes he wondered if the blue and brown foal was all stomach and nothing else. It might explain the complete dearth of common sense, certainly. Shaking his head to himself, the silver-marked stallion stretched up as tall as he could and pulled down the last fruit within reach. Once back on all four hooves, he set the blue delicacy down close to Spyke before trotting away some distance.
Turning back to face the tree, the well-built stallion hoped that he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself again and charged.
About half way to t he tree, the pale-winged stallion succeeded in taking off. Changing his course slightly so that he was heading towards the outermost branches, Maurice opened his mouth and squinted at the encroaching target.
A moment later, he whipped his head out, grabbed an elppa, and shot on past the tree to land a little distance away. Wishing that he’d mastered staying in the air at lower speeds, the blue stallion trotted back to his companions, grinning around his prize.
“Tada,” he said indistinctly.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:32 am
Utena was very much obliged to follow Spyke's request and in just a few moment's the seedy center went from despised to apreciated before Spyke's feet. Grateful for getting it away from her Utena started on her second fruit. It was slightly more tart than the first, but she liked it that way. Everything in life was just a touch off. She repeated the first word in her head for emphasis before swallowing the bit she'd been chewing.
The sound of the waves crashing reached her ears a bit delayed and she looked up. Perhaps they'd gotten a bit stronger? She could just make out where the sand met the water from where she was standing, and the waves seemed to crash down just a touch heavier than before. She frowned a bit. Was it her, or had the water level risen. Utena, as she had never visited the Ocean before, did not know about tides, and tides in the Nequus world could be very dramatic.
"Does it storm here often?" she asked between mouthfuls, still keeping an eye on those seemingly dangerous waves. They'd felt so safe when she'd first come, but now the smarter side of her mind was starting to calculate things.
Well, it didn't matter. If things got dangerous, Utena was sure that they would tell her. In the mean time she was full up. Granted, she could eat Elppas into forever, but she had enough sense not to continue eating until she puked. Then she wouldn't want to eat elppas anymore, and that would be a sorry thing.
"Is the water safe to walk in?" Utena asked after a moment. "I'm a bit . . . untidy," she addmitted with a guilty look.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 12:09 pm
Maurice looked up from his elppa, studied the water for a moment, and then nodded. “Yea, looks fine t’ me. Keep an eye t’ stay within y’ depth though, currents can be pretty nasty sometimes, especially if y’ not a strong swimmer.” He suspected that Utena had the sense to know that, but better safe than sorry. Still, he’d be keeping an eye on her and could always give her a yell if she was getting too far out for his liking.
Giving the tall mare a smile, Maurice lowered his head once more to get back to work on his elppa but now with a watchful eye on the sea in anticipation of Utena going in to wash off.
Finishing off the last of all fruits and cores offered to him, Spyke licked chops and grinned up at the slightly blued Utena. “C’mon,” he chuckled, “let’s go wash.” While the juice didn’t show up too well on his dark coat, the colt was feeling both sticky and in the mood for splashing about in the waves.
“Catch us up when y’ done there, ‘kay old-timer?” he said to his father with a grin before setting off at a trot.
Maurice, who didn’t think he was all that old at all (physically at any rate, looking after Spyke would age anyone mentally) glowered good-naturedly and nodded. “Yea, alright y’ cheeky little scrap, get on now before I come after y’ an’ pull y’ tail off.” Evil little git; old-timer indeed. The silver-marked stallion munched on his elppa some more and tried not to feel old.
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Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:21 pm
Utena waited patiently for Maurice's verdict. She'd never actually swum before, so she didn't think staying within her 'depth' would be a problem. She just wanted to wash off her nose, and maybe splash in the waves a little bit. To be honest, she was chicken to go out any further. Courageous though she may have been, she hadn't lost completely all her wit to the clouds of azirism.
Utena set off after him at a brisk pace, though she slowed down considerably when they reached the pathway down. She wasn't sure quite exactly what made her pause, but it might have had something to do with 'racing' Himemiya. She'd almost always lost, for one, and for two she'd managed to get horribly lost the first night. Perhaps the purple haired Reya had buried respect and calmness in Utena's brain, or maybe Utena had taken it from Himemiya.
Her calm demeanor, however, did not last quickly as she would have liked. Her grace was sorely lacking despite her agility, and she very quickly caught her hoof on an oversized bit of rock. "Fiddlesticks," Utena said, trying to catch her balance but ending up only creating inertia. She dug her back hooves into the earth and skidded the rest of the way down creating a nice cloud of dust as she went.
She trotted her way out of the whole mess elegantly at the end, and made a princely display out of it. Her mind, however, was sighing in relief. She hadn't gone head over heels and rolled the whole way down the pathway; possibly taking Spyke with her.
"That felt a bit dangerous," she noted with a scan of the distance she'd come and a nervous flash of teeth in the blue and brown colt's direction. She did not want to do that one again.
"Hmmm. . . " she noted towards the see. "It looks a bit different up close." It looked a lot different. Those waves were a whole lot bigger. At the same time, she loved this overbearing feeling. Sure they were dangerous, but she kind of liked that prospect.
"Last one in the water is a rotten elppa!" she shouted heartedly, breaking into a sprint towards the foaming mess on the sandy shore. How far her feet sunk into the sand was alarming at first, but she quickly got used to it. Perhaps it was a bit gritty, and a bit icky, but she'd be in the water soon and it would all be washed off.
When her hocks first hit the hard sand and white wave she gave a shudder. Chilly spray smacked against her sides, and Utena found the feeling almost alarming. "Cold!" she squeaked but managed to press further.
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:00 am
As Utena skidded past him down the path before coming to a halt at the bottom, Spyke gave a whiny of amusement and stamped a hoof in approval. That had looked like fun. His attempts to emulate her, however, were unsuccessful, and so the brown-winged colt had to settle for hopping down onto the sand with a flourish and a grin.
“That,” he informed the pale mare with a grin, “was really cool.” He would, Spyke decided, have to work on learning to do that himself. His father would probably be driven close to murder by such antics, but so far as the white-horned colt was concerned something that awesome was well worth an earful.
At Utena’s challenge, Spyke laughed and took off as fast as his small legs would carry him. Sadly, however, it seemed to be his turn to be the one in last place; the wingless Ichsa’s long legs actually managed to get her to the water before him. Oh well, you couldn’t win them all, he supposed.
At the pink-maned creature’s exclamation, Spyke laughed again and bounded into the sea, diving directly through a wave and coming out the other side drenched. “Is a bit, isn’ it?” he grinned, tossing his head to flick his sodden forelock of of his eyes. A moment later, the grin became decidedly devious, and the blue-brown Ichsa gave himself a good shake, spraying droplets of cold salty water every which way. “Very cold,” he concluded with a smirk.
Maurice had set off not long after the other two Ichsa, but at the top of the cliff he had paused rather than making straight for the beach. Bright blue eyes scanned the shore once more, but with more purpose than mere appreciation this time. With his two companions occupying themselves down in the sea in relative safety, he felt it was time to give his territory a good scan for any possible intruders. True he didn’t really keep strict boundaries, it was hard to do that alone, and he did welcome visitors to his patch, the blue stallion still liked to know what was going on.
Today, however, there was not another Nequus in sight save for Spyke and Utena and so, with a satisfied snort, Maurice kicked off the edge of the cliff and spread out his wings. For a little while he descended at a pace which, should he hit the ground at it, would have been decidedly bone shattering. Before he was even half way to the beach however, the stallion’s tendril wings succeeded in slowing him and driving him more forward than down.
By the time he reached the water, he was moving at a comfortable speed to land and did so, reaching out for the ground with his forehooves and cantering into the waves to slow himself. As he approached his companions and opened his mouth to speak, Spyke gave an impressive shake and the black-horned Nequus received a face, and mouth, full of water. Sighing and snorting the stuff out of his nostrils, Maurice turned to Utena.
“Delightful little chap, isn’ he?” he commented with a crooked smile.
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:18 pm
Utena paused in the waves; her eyes were intent upon Spyke's daring manuver. Her mouth was slightly open, as if to call out to him, but it closed seconds later when he emerged on the other side of a wave. He was approximately, oh, half her size?
Clenching her jaw, she grinned as well. With out a glance backwards she pulled her front legs from the water and spurred forwards. The wave before her rose up, up, and then she was swallowed in a mess of ocean smell and pounding water. She remembered this sound, and a sort of panic overwhelmed her before she magically came out the other side unscathed. Well, if being frozen to the core and bursting with adrenaline counted as unscathed.
"Woohoooha!" she cried, doing a Rit-bound over to Spyke. "I have to try that again."
She hid her head away against her side as Spyke gave a shake. She hadn't even noticed Maurice's arrival. It just showed how absolutely stupid and silly she was being. It was, however, so much fun that she didn't think to care.
"Quite," she answered with a smile once she was certain another torrent of ocean-water wasn't coming her way. Her judgement on that prospect wasn't entirely accurate as a rather gargantuan wave dunked her from behind. Utena came back out sputtering, her pink hair coating her face, and some seaweed clinging to her tail.
"I didn't see that coming," she said with a spit. Saltwater tasted nasty. "Blech."
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:39 pm
As soon as he was sure she was alright, Maurice chuckled at Utena’s seaweedy and otherwise disheveled appearance. “Y’ got a little something stuck in y’ tail,” he informed the mare with a slight grin. “Y’ might want t’ get that out before Spyke tries t’ eat it an’ pulls y’ tail half out.” The blue and brown boy was good at doing that. Sometimes Maurice thought he tugged on purpose... Speaking of doing things on purpose, his son was looking particularly evil right now.
The blue stallion ducked into the next large wave hurriedly; if he was already wet, being shaken on wouldn’t matter.
Maurice emerged the other side of the wave with a smirk on his lips at having thwarted Spyke and his curling blue mane weighted down with water. When he stepped out of the water, his tail would probably be annoying and drag along the ground as it usually did when he was sodden. Perhaps he should go to Ryuten and get the humans to cut it a bit... but when it dried, it would look daft much shorter and bedsides, Ryuten was too close to his old herd’s lands for comfort. No. Best just to put up with getting all sand stuck in in and having to go up the cliff to wash it and hang around on a grassy bank until it dried.
“So then,” Maurice grinned at Utena again, shoving Spyke firmly over as the colt tried to creep up on him for uncertain purposes, “what y’ think of the sea? Other than cold, that is.” He knew she liked the view, but it would be gratifying if she liked splashing about too. For some reason he always liked it when other people liked his home; probably some pathetic need to have his values validated by others or something.
The shove and an inconvenient wave sent Spyke temporarily below the surface and off his hooves. For a moment, the current tried to pull him out with a retreating swell but before he could start to worry about the situation, he fetched up against his father’s shoulder and surfaced. Spitting out water and getting his hooves back onto the sand, the Ichsa youth gave his sire an indignant n**, which was ignored. Spyke scowled; he’d been planning a really good splashing scrabble up onto the blue stallion’s back, too, and now his n** had been blanked. Oh well, you couldn’t get everything you wanted, he supposed.
Snorting water out of his nostrils, the colt splashed a little closer to the beach; it would be easier for him to play around with the water closer to his knees and hocks than to his chest and belly. Whickering softly to nobody in particular, the skinny colt set about alternately hopping over and diving through the waves as they came. Later on, he decided, he would get his father back for spoiling his little scheme, but he needed to come up with something really evil, and that took some planning. Spyke smirked to himself and continued his game.
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:27 am
Utena squinted and then went to shaking her body down. Hopefully Spyke would get some of his own medicine. "Eat. . . my tail?" Utena registered a little to late. "Oh!" Reaching back, she pulled on the seaweed herself. It was salty, just like everything else in the ocean. She supposed you better not live by the vast world of water unless you wanted to feel gritty all the time.
A few quick yanks and the seaweed was almost completely out. The only problem was, she'd run out of places to pull it to. Frowning, she stepped on the edge and kicked her tail outwards with the edges of her hooves. With a phhlpt, the slimy green object was out of her tail and swaying to and fro in the waves.
Having learned her lesson, Utena took a watch of the water's waves. Her position was in constant change in accordance to where the ocean crashed around her. She didn't mind getting wet as much as she loathed the prospect of being caught off guard again.
"The ocean?" Utena repeated with a long gaze out to the foaming sea. Her white coat was slightly aglow with the vibrancy of the sun. It seemed to dance along the waters surface before it reached her eyes. A slight smile came to herself. Now that she thought about it the ocean was mellow for now. It seemed like a place to let time slip by and feel forever young. "It's lonely," she finally told him. "But it's peaceful."
She watched Spyke leave to shallower water, but felt no desire to follow him. She was in her opportune shallows, and it was nice to feel the water trickle off her belly. In fact, it kind of tickled. She jerked a back leg up and itched at her belly grimacing as her tendons strained to reach.
"How long have you lived here?" Utena thought to ask, and then it suddenly occured to her what had seemed missing. "Spyke doesn't have a mother does he?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:52 am
Maurice frowned thoughtfully. “Well I’m not sure, I guess I’ve been ‘ere about...” At Utena’s question/statement, the blue stallion trailed off with a sigh and turned his gaze onto the colt splashing cheerfully in the waves. “No,” the well-built Ichsa went on after a moment, turning back to Utena, “no mother... He doesn’ seem t’ mind though. Guess he doesn’ know any different.”
He’d done his best, Gods knew that, but sometimes he wondered if it was good enough. Was there something Lestra might have known that he didn’t, that he’d missed and was important? From what he knew, she’d got on alright with her family, so she probably had known vaguely what she was about. He hadn’t, still didn’t, didn’t have a damn clue... But it didn’t matter, hadn’t yet in any case. Spyke was healthy, happy, and he was a good kid, too, for all his nips and practical jokes he meant well. It hadn’t done him any harm not to have two parents at all... Right?...
A wave, swelling on its way to breaking further in, lapped a little higher up Maurice’s shoulder, and the black-horned stallion became aware that he’d been standing still and probably looking blank for quite some time. Shaking himself physically and mentally, the he gave the pink-maned Ichsa mare a tight smile.
“Sorry, days of distance away there... but yea, no mother.” He still missed her. Damn. Damn crossbreeds, especially that one, and damn him for being too far away to... To what? To die too? To watch more likely. Moriarty had proved with ease that he was the stronger, and being there at the time wouldn’t have changed that in the slightest. The curve-horned brute would have loved to make him watch. Still. Knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to stop the b*****d didn’t make it easy to feel that.
He should have been there.
Spyke, oblivious to the conversation between the two adults, had splashed out of the sea and begun to occupy himself with digging a hole in the sand just out of the water’s reach. He wasn’t sure why digging holes and watching incoming tides fill them up was fun, but it was and he wasn’t one to question good fun. Humming cheerfully to himself, Spyke scraped away at the sand with a forehoof in an industrious manner. If he wanted a fair-sized dent in the beach by the time the sea arrived, he would have to work swiftly.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:42 am
Utena wasn't sure what she saw in Maurice's face that made her expression solemn. His voice cut off in her mind, and she though back to Himemiya again. She hadn't had a mother or a father either. Not one that Utena had known of. All she'd gathered together was her brother. Utena, though trying to be a prince, and taken that away from her and tried to provide her own family in it's place. She had wanted Himemiya to be her family. Perhaps it was better if neither one of them were under Akio's ties, but. . . Well, Himemiya was still there.
"It's alright, Maurice," she answered him quietly. Her voice was barely audible over the crashing waves. Her gaze went quickly towards Spyke and she smiled. "I didn't have parents, and I turned out all right. Spyke, at least, has one wonderful father. I'd be proud to call you riruy," she assured him in complete honesty.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:52 am
The blue stallion cleared his throat uncertainly and dipped his head down to hide his embarrassment. For some reason he’d never been all that good at receiving compliments. “Thanks,” he managed after a moment, raising his head back up once he’d managed to collect himself somewhat, “that means a lot... Really.”
It did. He liked to think he did a good job of it but, again, it was nice to have other people believe these things too. It would, Maurice decided with a smile to Utena, be a real shame when the pale mare decided to move on once more, for he was certain she would. Still, maybe she’d come back and visit from time to time; that would be good.
“So,” the curly-maned Ichsa gave himself a shake and smiled again, glad to turn the conversation and his thoughts firmly away from Lestra, “you about ready t’ get out? Getting a bit cold m’self.” Then it would be time to head back up the cliffs, of course; he’d show Utena where the river was, and ramble at her about how to recognize the areas that they tended to be found near to the sea, and of course what to do if you couldn’t find a river or pond or whatever.
Until just then he hadn’t really noticed how much he liked to teach people things but, as the realization dawned on him, the bright-eyed stallion tucked the little piece of knowledge away for future reference. It was always good to know things about yourself.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:01 pm
Utena shivered at the sudden onset of the chill. She'd been so busy in her own thoughts- and in the thoughts of Maurice- that she had not noticed how quickly the water drained energy from her bones. Scrunching the muscles lining her back and curling her chin to her throat, Utena bounded once or twice until she was out of deep water. From there she trotted through the remaining waves to the shore. Her body shivered all the while. Perhaps standing wasn't condusive to staying warm.
"Yeah, I think I'm ready to get out!" she called from her safe spot on the beach. Her eyes caught the brown and blue colt.
"Spyke, what are you doing?" Utena asked bluntly.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:16 pm
The by now thoroughly sandy colt looked up at Utena and grinned broadly. “I’m digging,” he told her with a nod to the hole he’d made in the beach. “It’s fun,” he added after a moment, feeling that perhaps he ought to give some kind of a reason for his current activities.
Maurice waded out after the taller Ichsa, and indeed his water-weighted tail was dragging on the beach. The blue stallion spared it a glance and a sigh before turning to Spyke, eyebrows raised. “You young colt,” in informed his son with mock sternness, “are a mess. Get y’ bi-coloured backside in gear, we’re going to wash off.” The, turning to Utena he added; “if y’ let sea water dry on y’ get get all salt stuck in y’ coat. Chafes somethin’ awful, I c’n tell you.” He’d discovered that the hard way through very sore skin when he’d first arrived by the sea, and he didn’t want anyone he cared about to have to learn to rinse thoroughly the hard way; it was a very uncomfortable lesson indeed.
“C’mon then,” the silvery-marked Ichsa said with a chuckle as he turned back towards the cliff path and set off at a walk, “let’s go find the river.”
Spyke whinnied cheerfully to this; more water to play around in was good and he was getting somewhat thirsty from all the running around in any case. Restraining himself from having a shake off, his riruy told him it was rude to shake off close to people when you were sandy, the white-horned colt set off beside his sire at a trot.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:28 pm
Utena could already feel the icky salt clinging to her skin underneath and she was thankful that they were going to the river. She outwordly grimaced at the thought of it chafing away at her skin and quickly skittered off behind Spyke.
She wasn't sure that digging in the sand was fun, but maybe Spyke had been looking for something. Perhaps, better still, you had to be young to experience such joys.
It was a small glimpse, but it was there. For just a moment Utena wished that she could be young again.
She decided that she could stay here until the next allignment: approximately 9 more moon cycles away. She had hoped to celebrate it with Himemiya this year, but she was wise enough to know it wasn't occuring. After that, she'd have to leave once more.
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