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 Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:18 pm
Do dee do doooo~ Pebble hummed absently to himself as he made his way through the grasses, blue eyes moving this way and that to look for exciting insects. He had done his hunting and scavenging this morning with Cricket, and his sister had told him that he could have the afternoon to himself. The wild dog had invited her along with him but she had declined. She had important, female things to do that didn't involve him. Pebble knew better than to intrude on Female Matters. It was one thing to want to be a mother. It was quite different to do... well, to do whatever important things Cricket was doing now. He didn't question her about anything, and that included Female Matters.
With a small sigh he paused to orient himself, using the momentary break to scratch his ear. All the bugs were hiding today. Perhaps he had frequented this place too many times that they were all wary of him. It wasn't like he'd hunted every single bug here, but perhaps they had gone and tattled to their friends. It was a shame really. He'd wanted to play with them. Giving his fur a shake, the wild dog set off again, this time putting his nose to the ground. He would find those bugs!
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Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:14 pm
 Laika was trotting along with her nose turned skywards. She was watching a strange wisp of cloud moving across the sky, her legs working to keep her just under the very edge of its tail. If she paused to notice how far she had come in this manner she might have realized she was tired, but as wrapped up in her private game as she was she had no time for thoughts like that. Her rules were simple: never lose sight of the cloud.
She had stumbled three times already, almost losing the game at each event. It was lucky for her that she had entered into fairly flat plains: there was a lot less to trip on out here in the grasses. Every now and then she barked, giddy or impatient, or a mixture of both, as the cloud continued on. It occurred to her that it only seemed to be moving, because she was, but that made things a bit too complicated, and far less fun.
A sound reached her ears moments before she crashed into something large and furry. Leaping backwards after the impact, rolling onto her back almost submissively before reaching her feet again and bracing for a tackle, she blinked and stared at the wild dog. it was odd, but she had not known too many of her own species. Particularly not males that were older than her.
"Sorry!" she said, tail wagging. She had collided with him because her head had been turned to the sky, and had missed the fact that his had been bent to the ground, "I didn't see you! Did I hurt you? I was watching the clouds. They're really pretty, you know. Have you ever seen them at sun set? What's your name?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:39 pm
Pebble was definitely not expecting to run into another wild dog. He'd been so focused on tracking bugs that he didn't even see the pink wild dog until it was too late. With a startled yelp he sat back quickly on his haunches, blue eyes opening wide when he realized that what he bumped into was alive. He was quite used to hitting dead things like rocks and trees, but rarely did he collide with something living. Living things tended to hear him coming and get out of the way. But this pink thing was most definitely alive! And it was wagging its tail at him! Pebble was thoroughly pleased. His tail wagged in answer to hers, and he grinned.
"It's okay! I wasn't looking where I was going! It happens a lot!" Pebble's grin widened. "Hurt? No no! I don't get hurt very easily! Cricket says I have a hard head!" At this he laughed. Cricket had knocked him on the noggin several times to remind him that she knew better than him. It didn't bother the wild dog though. He already knew that Cricket was smarter than him so a couple of shots to the noggin didn't hurt. It wasn't like he had any pride to wound. "You were watching the clouds? That's great! I used to watch the clouds all the time when I was little. If you lie on your back you can pretend you're walking on them! And I've never watched them at sunset. Are they pretty? My name's Pebble!" He puffed out his chest when he said his name, and added, "The great explorer! Who are you?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:53 am
"Cricket?" Laika said, tilting her head and wrinkling her nose in confusion, "isn't that a bug? They don't talk, do that? I don't think they do. I've bounced on a lot of them and they've never said anything. Which is good because if they had I might not have jumped on them! I jumped on my dad once, and he got all mad and left. But he didn't say anything either. I guess he might be a bug. No. That's not right. Are lions bugs?"
She paused, perplexed.
Blinking, she dropped the subject entirely as the subject of clouds came up. She certainly loved the clouds, and everything around and beyond them. Her tail wagged so furiously it threatened to topple her over, despite her sitting position, a billow of dust floating into the air. Nodding excitedly, she barked her agreement, her words falling out between the sounds.
"I've never walked on them, but I used to watch them from on my back! They're really pretty when the sun is going down or up, though, so you should see it sometime. It's hard to miss, so I don't know why you haven't seen it, but we'll fix that! And I'm Laika!" She bounced to her feet and moved closer to him, sniffing curiously at his puffed out chest. She thought he was trying to show her something, "But I'm not a great explorer! Pepple is a funny name! I like it! What are you doing out here?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:09 pm
Pebble giggled at her story involving crickets, but shook his head. "No no no! Cricket is my sister's name! She's a really, really smart wild dog. She knows everything." He gave a sage nod. "She even knows about stuff that probably nobody else knows about! Like this one time we met a lioness with wings and she was called a goddess! And Cricket knew what they were! I'd never even seen a lioness with wings but this one had really big wings like a bird and it was really cool!" The wild dog was forced to take a breath, though it was hard for him to keep still. He wanted to bounce around while he was telling his story! But Cricket had told him that it was only polite to sit and talk to people. It wasn't very nice to make them watch you while you bounced.
"Lions are not bugs!" At this he laughed again, tail thumping happily behind him. "They're much bigger. And very nice. Like this one time, I met this lioness who told me that giraffes ate stars! And then, and then, I made a cheetah friend who took me to see the giraffes but we missed them." Pebble made a face, scrunching his nose up at the memory. It had been very sad that he hadn't got to see the giraffes eat the stars, but it had been very good that he got to meet his cheetah friend! She was very nice.
The dust was making him itchy, and the wild dog paused to scratch his ear. Laika's excitement was contagious, however, and he found himself grinning widely along with her. "I didn't see the clouds 'cause it was my bed time! Cricket wants me in before dark 'cause there are times when I forget to come home and then she gets mad. And it's nice to meet you Laika! You have a pretty name!" Pebble had a proper name, but his mother never used it so neither did he. It was too complicated to remember two names anyways. "And I'm out looking for bugs! Pretty bugs with pretty, shiny shells! Have you seen any?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:09 pm
"Everything?!" Laika said, taken back by this idea. She had met creatures that certainly knew a lot, mostly about things she had never even seen before, but she had never imagined meeting someone that knew everything. She watched, stunned, as Pebble continued, nodding her head at his every word. Goddess was a new word to her, and she could hardly imagine a lioness with wings on it. Shaking her head, boggled, she had to remind herself to close her gaping mouth.
Laika, having never been told such things about manners, bounced up and down when Pebble continued on about the difference between bugs and lions. She had thought there was a difference, but the conversation had confused her. She didn't know what a Giraffe was, either, but now she wanted to see them if they ate stars.
"Thank you! I like my name! My dad calls me Flower, but I like Laika better because it's my name. I don't remember where it came from though. I've just always had it!"
She tilted her head, then looked around dutifully, lifting her paws just to be sure she hadn't stepped on any bugs, "I haven't seen any yet, but I wasn't looking! I can help you find some! I like chasing them when they try to fly away, but they don't taste very good so I don't eat any more."
She was wandering away as she spoke, her nose to the ground. She was naturally loud enough to be heard over her sniffing, though her words were punctuated by the gasps of air. "Why are you looking for them, though? Do you do something special with them? What is a goddess? Do they like bugs too?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:56 am
[Sorry for the late reply! D:]
“Yeah-huh, everything! She’s just super smart like that.” Everybody compared to Pebble was considered “smart”, thus it did not take very much to be super smart in comparison to the rather stupid wild dog. He had his intuition to tell him not to do things that had hurt him in the past, but he lacked much as far as general intelligence. It made him easily fascinated and easily deceived, but so far nobody had been cruel enough to try and “bring him back to reality.” Cricket probably made sure that he didn’t have his spirits crushed, despite the fact that she found his stupidity rather annoying at times. But she was his sister, and siblings had to look out for each other. That was just the way things went.
So she was Flower and Laika. They were both very pretty! “Names come from… come from older creatures who know what they mean,” Pebble replied slowly, a hint of thoughtfulness in his voice. “And sometimes they pick good names for you, but sometimes they pick bad ones and you end up changing them when you get older. But I think Flower and Laika are good names, so you shouldn’t need to change them. I have a proper name too, but nobody ever uses it ‘cause it’s like my dad’s name and he was never around.” He gave a small shrug as this, obviously far too old to care about his lack of parental figures.
Pebble’s tail started wagging even faster when Laika said that she would help him. Hooray! He always liked having company when he was searching for bugs! The wild dog dutifully put his nose back to the ground and started sniffing along-side her, listening to her talk with one ear in her direction. “I just like to look at them. They’re really pretty and they can do all sorts of strange things that we can’t do, like glow in the dark! And a goddess… a goddess is like a lion who has powers. They have wings too, and they can fly like the birds. But they have like a… a…” He struggled to find the correct word. “Like a place or a thing that they represent and they gotta live by that.”
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:23 am
(No worries!)
"I don't know who gave me my name," Laika said, mimicking Pebble's shrug, but with a goofy smile on her muzzle, "I never knew my parents, so I guess we're the same because you said your dad was never around much. Neither was mine! I have a new one though, so I guess we're not the same after all. But that's okay, because we can still be friends."
She nodded sagaciously, lifting her head from the ground pointedly, as if this profound thought had been a great concern, yet she had managed to settle it. Tongue lulling out the side of her mouth, she watched him wag his tail as he started sniffing the ground. Following him motion by motion, her tail beating in time with his, she put her nose to the floor again and started sniffing with a bit less tenacity than before. Just so she might actually smell something.
Not that she knew what begs smelled like, exactly. She was abstracted from her search, anyway, when Pebble began talking about goddesses. That sound incredible. She had seen birds, and always had her eyes toward the clouds. Never once had she seen anything but birds flying up there, yet maybe she did not know how to recognize a goddess. She wanted to meet one, that was for certain. Maybe it would join her family.
Sniffing, but not following a trail, and walking, but her eyes unfocused in her musing, she bumped into a tree head first, plopping back on her haunches and shaking her head furiously. Surprised, she started laughing, yet stopped as she spotted a bug flutter from the bark of the tree she had disturbed.
"Oh look! There's one!!!"
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Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:36 pm
"You didn't know your parents?" Pebble repeated with an astonished gasp. "How did that happen? Did they go out exploring and forget to come home? My mom used to do that sometimes, but it was okay because I had Cricket and she made sure that we always found food and stuff like that." Without her, it was likely that family would have died off pretty quickly. Gzifa was not the most attentive of mothers. Not that Pebble had noticed, of course, since he had been more preoccupied with his life and his sister. "And of course we can be friends! I'm friends with lots and lots of creatures who are not the same as me!" He grinned broadly.
The trail from his last bug was cold by now, but that didn't stop the wild dog from snuffling around for a new bug. Ants tended to be the easiest to find – they had a particular, very sharp smell – but they were ugly and they were very nasty. If you poked them the wrong way or sneezed down their little ant hole they all came running out and started biting you. Pebble had had to have several talkings-to with the ants to make sure they understood that he wasn't going to hurt them, and had just got a tickle in his nose. He wasn't sure they understood him, since he still got bitten every time he visited their holes.
Pebble was so engrossed in his sniffing that he didn't notice the tree until Laika bumped into it first. He then proceeded to bump into her with a soft "oof!" and stopped to shake his head clear. "Oh! You found one?" He asked, immediately forgetting his previous discomfort to focus on the bug. "Ooooooh it's pretty~ What do you think it's called?" Girls always knew things like that.
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Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:42 pm
"No!" Laika said with another laugh, as if the idea of her parents losing her, or even leaving her on purpose, had never occurred to her. As far as she knew, she had simply never had them. There was nothing sad or strange about it. There must have been tons of other young animals in the same situation she was, after all, so it wasn't like she was a unique case. Of course, she was becoming increasingly aware that cubs and puppies had to come from somewhere, but until she was told out right that she had parents, she was in no rush to believe it. It was just practice, these days, to speak about them like they had existed: to remind herself of the facts of life that her lion father had taught her.
"I never had any parents, and I don't really think I ever did. But daddy tells me that everyone does, and I guess he knows. But I don't remember any, or what it's like to have them, or if it's any different than having Mito. You have very soft looking fur!" she said as he bumped into her, having been speaking from her seated position by the tree. She smiled at him, sticking her nose near the fur on his neck and sniffing as he looked up at the bug she had found. Easily distracted, his words brought her attention quickly from her exploration of his fur, blinking as she looked at the bug again.
"No idea!" she admitted freely, shrugging and standing. The bug had landed back on the tree, some distance up. It flitted its wings in irritation, and Laika raised herself onto her back paws in order to get closer to it, leaning her forepaws on the tree and pushing her nose as far forward as it would go. She sniffed it, but still did not know its name, "it doesn't smell very good!"
She lost her balance when the bug sprayed something into her face, a vile smelling mist that caused her to yelp and recoil. She toppled and landed on top of her new friend, half blinded, half stunned, and fully amused.
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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:12 am
“Never had any parents?” Pebble repeated, blinking his blue eyes at her. “Well, I think your daddy’s right ‘cause everyone’s gotta have parents! Or at least a mother. Fathers people can have, but they leave lots or people don’t know them at all. I’ve heard of that before, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t know their mother!” The words made him frown a little. Could wild dog pups be born out of thin air? Perhaps her mother was a goddess! A goddess could do something like that. Probably. He’d have to ask the next one he met. “Is Mito your daddy? Or does he just take care of you?” The wild dog wanted to know what a ‘mito’ was, but he supposed that could wait until later. Too many questions at once made people confused.
He grinned at her when she commented on his fur, giving it a shake. “I like my fur. My sister has pretty fur, and she makes sure that I have pretty fur too.” His sister was practically his mother after all, and if she didn’t groom him regularly then he would have definitely forgotten. Pebble remembered lots of things, but grooming was not one of them. Not until his fur started to itch a little at least. Her sniffing tickled and he giggled, back leg thumping against the ground when she hit a particularly ticklish spot. “Your nose is tickly!” He protested, though he didn’t seem too upset about it.
Pebble was about to ask her if she really didn’t know what it was, when suddenly she was on top of him and smelling Very Bad. His nose wrinkled instantly, and he wiggled underneath her. “I think we should call it the Smelly Bug! It makes you smell like something really smelly!” The wild dog clearly had the vocabulary of champions. “Did it hurt when it sprayed?” He asked after a moment, wondering if his new friend was injured at all. It would be no fun if she got hurt while they were bug hunting.
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Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:48 am
"Mito is my daddy! And he takes care of me! He's a pillow! I think every one should have a Mito! I found him on accident, and then I sat in ants. I hate ants! he was on a rock and I jumped on him and it turned out to be a lion! I didn't think it was, but I didn't know what it was, so I guess it makes sense that it was him! He's the best though. He taught me how to fish!"
She had remembered his questions from earlier, though she was hardly in the position to be answering them so casually. She was still on top of him, after all, and she smelled fairly potently of something she had never experienced before. She huffed and rolled when he wiggled under her, remembering that she was bigger now and was probably not as light as her soft pink fur made her look. She flopped onto her side, the continued rolling until she was a good distance away and bumped into a rock.
"I'm okay!" she called, hoisting herself to her feet. She wagged her tail, panting while swaying slightly from the vaguely disorienting roll. The smell was making her light headed, as well, which only contributed to the way things were spinning. It was exciting and fun, and she laughed as she looked around in all directions, just to see how everything looked through this blurry filter.
"Stupid smelly bug! Now I'm a smelly bug!" She proclaimed through giggles, bounding toward Pebble, "and I'll make you smelly too!!!"
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Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 9:33 am
He was her daddy and he took care of her? Huh. Pebble was not entirely sure he understood how a Mito could be both, but maybe Mitos were special like that. He had always thought that your daddy had to be the same species as your mother. That was how they could have babies, after all! The wild dog's knowledge of procreation and other such things was fairly simple, but he understood that much about the whole thing. Still, maybe this Mito lion was special and defied all other classification. He would have to ask Cricket about it when he got home.
She really wasn't that heavy compared to Pebble, who was used to having his sisters and brothers pounce on him no matter how big they were. He always liked those kinds of games, despite the fact that Cricket rarely seemed to enjoy them. She always got cross with him when he tried to play with her. She said they were adults now and they didn't have time for such games. The wild dog thought she was being silly saying things like "they didn't have time for games" seeing as they seemed to have all the time in the world. But he knew better than to argue with Cricket. She was always right.
Pebble's tail wagged back when she replied that she was alright. He was glad! It would be no fun if they could hurt during the bug hunt! She seemed a little disoriented though, but since the wild dog often looked like that after he ran into trees he thought nothing of it. He was caught off guard when she came charging towards him, and he leapt back. "No no! I don't want to be a smelly bug!" Realizing it was a game he play bowed, and then bounded away. "No smelly bug!"
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Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:07 pm
"No I don't want to be the only smelly bug!" Laika barked eagerly, chasing him. She had grown up running, almost constantly in motion because her boundless energy did not allow her to stay still for too long. Yet, despite all the practice, she was still as uncoordinated as the day she was born. Her legs moved faster than her mind could keep up with, foot falls going unchecked and her balance tossed around wildly as she tore after her new friend.
Of course, the precarious nature of her haphazard run caught up with her in short order, one paw falling too soon while three others hadn't manage to hit the ground or had just left it. With nothing to support her, she sprawled forward, rolled, and skidded to a stop. She was on her feet and running again as if nothing had happened, barking only because she had lost some distance on her play partner.
She leapt and cut around things in order to close the distance, trying to estimate his movements but largely failing and often times beginning to run in the wrong direction entirely for her efforts. Yet she kept at it, determined to catch him even as he gained even more distance.
"Wait, come back!" She called, giggling childishly and destroying any hope of appearing sincere, "I won't rub it on you, I promise!"
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Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:13 pm
"You can be friends with the other smelly bug!" Pebble called over his shoulder, bounding in the opposite direction. At some point he would probably feel bad for running away from her and come back, ending the game because he did not wish to exclude anybody. But for now the game was still in the forefront of his mind, and so long as she continued to chase him and giggle then he knew her feelings were not yet hurt. The wild dog definitely did not want any hurt feelings in this game. After all, it wasn't like he didn't really want to be a smelly bug. That is to say, he would be a smelly bug if it meant that he and Laika would be friends again if he became one.
Her bark caused him to slow a little, ears perking as she fell. Laika, however, seemed to be made of some tough stuff and was back after him before he could even ask her if she was alright. With a bark of his own he raced off again, tongue lolling as he kept one blue eye on his chaser. Still safe! Still safe! Woo! Pebble was glad he had spent so many hours running and chasing things in his youth. It made it so much easier to race across the savannah without landing on his face like a pup. There were some benefits to being an adult, though Pebble did not have the brain cells to technically be classified as one.
"Do you proooooomise?" Pebble hesitated for a moment, staying out of her reach but no longer running. "'cause I won't come back if you don't really promise!"
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