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 Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:00 pm
Laika was exploring a new territory that nearly overwhelmed her. Everything about this patch of land was new and exciting. Her home was on the savannah, in a small patch of green grass between a rock and a tree. She was used to the sound of the water hole that burbled nearby, and the way the wind would pick up in bursts and rustles the perpetually brown leaves of the canopy that kept the area shaded. That was why the grass was green, the burning sun unable to penetrate the interlaced boughs and burn the grass.
Not that Laika bothered herself with the why. All she knew was that her home was the prettiest place she had ever seen. Or at least it had been, until now. Standing atop a high rock, she looked down over a sloping valley a deep green. The sky about was crystal clear, save for the one cloud she had been chasing, the one that had lead her here. The valley was nestled between high cliff walls, as if the earth had once, long ago, shot up and this ravine had been created. It was beautiful, without trees but lush with dense bushes and flowers like she had never seen before.
Sniffing furiously, she followed the cloud down into the pass, her footfalls wild over the soft green blades. They even felt different than the grass in the savannah. Barking happily, a noisy creature even when she was alone, she marveled at the way her voice bounced off the walls. Barking back at the echoes, she found herself suddenly locking an orchestral resonance of her own voice, which she kept raising, her fur bristling as the sound rose to a cacophony.
To her it was beautiful, exciting, and really, really fun.
What in the world was that racket? Mavundevunde lifted his head, his white mane and sky blue face peeking up above the flowers. It was rare to see the god on the ground. He much prefered to be in the sky, flying among the products of his domain. But yesterday had been cloudless, leaving him dreary and bored. So he had landed and, in absence of a distraction, had fallen asleep.
Now he was awoken by the echoes, blinking blearily as his ears throbbed from the suddenly loud sounds. He was a quiet individual, he was unused to such polution of sound. And, having very little experience with disterbences of any kind, he was unsure of what to do. He wasn't even positive about what was causing the noise. Certainly he could look around and find out, but either he was too groggy from sleep or his drifting mind didn't allow for such focus.
Laika continued to bark, but the sounds tapered as boredom set in. The novelty wore off and she heaved a sigh, looking around and wondering what else she might be able to do in this new land. Looking up, she spotted the lone cloud high above her and she was struck with an idea. If she had so much fun chasing clouds, what would it be like to chase sound? She knew it moved, because she had just heard it do that: it was getting softer. And, she knew from experience, when someone got further away their voice got softer. It only made sense, then, that the sound was moving down the ravine.
Barking furiously once again, she leapt from her seated position and scrambled down the soft slope, her body struggling to keep up with her erratic, nearly untamed feet. They moved faster, sometimes, than she was able to deal with, but it never stopped her from running like this. Not one for learning from experience, she kept her good and bad habits. It was one of the reasons why she had not ‘grown up’ mentally, while her body had grown larger. Running blindly, barking through pants and chasing the fading echoes as they whipped by her ears, she did not see the blue form sitting in the grass.
And then she ran into something very soft, but very sturdy, and she bounced back in a daze.
His ears pulled back a little. At first it had seemed like the noise had ceased...but apparently he was wrong. It had started up again with a vengence, bounding about in his ears uncomfortably and growing louder and louder. He didn't realize that it meant the source was drawing nearer. He just knew he wished it was go away...he didn't like it at all.
Suddenly he felt something hit him. It wasn't very big, since it din't force him to move or anything. It was, however, enough for him to notice the impact, even if it was only like a pat against a pillow.
He turned his head a little, staring blankly over his shoulder. There he saw a very strange looking creature. He had met a wilddog before, but he had never actually figured out what it was. It hadn't bothered him then, since he had felt harassed by other issues at the moment, but now he started at her with the vaguest look of curiousity. It was barely recognizable.
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Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:01 pm
Flopped on her back, Laika took a moment to gather herself before looking down her furry chest, between her splayed legs, to spy the lion looming near her. She panted happily, instantly recognizing his colors as those of the sky, and his mane identical to the clouds she was so found of chasing. She wiggled and eventually found her feet, pushing herself upright and turning a complete circle and a half before finding him again.
“Hi!” She barked eagerly, her voice exploding in her excitement, “are you a bug?! No, wait, that’s not… you’re a lion! Like my daddy! But you look just like the sky! Are you the sky? Did you fall from the sky? Did you fall down? I fell down. I landed in ants once, when I fell down, and they itched. Have you ever sat in ants? Are you an ant? No! I know you’re not an ant! I’m a Laika! I mean, I’m Laika. That’s my name! What’s your name? Do you have a name? That would be sad if you didn’t. Can I call you Cloud…y?”
Laika was all words and little sense. Having grown up largely on her own, she hadn’t learned many of the basic rules of conversation. She spoke whatever thoughts came into her head, in whatever order they appeared. It was often non-sequitur, yet she always expected responses to everything she said. She somehow remembered her wild train of thought, finding it perfectly normal.
Devu wasn't very good at conversing either. But it was for the opposite reasons...at least, he had opposite tendancies. He tended to say nothing, or say very little, and found nothing strange about it, despite the frustration others might feel in his presence. He took his sweet time if he responded at all. But with his general confusion with mortals he was more likely to simply become confused than anything else.
With her chattering away incoherantly there was no way he was going to understand any of it. He stared at her with the same blank expression, feeling the words fly through his ears without sticking to any point of his brain. It was just too much nonsense for the daydreamy god.
"...hmmmm?" He voiced. It was all he could manage.
Laika panted happily, barking at his response. It was as if he had told her a thousand things, and she suddenly understood the meaning of the universe. She leapt and ran a large circle around him, stopped right in front of him to chase her own tail before, swaying from the dizziness, looking up at him with her passionate, innocent sea green eyes. She moved toward him, not showing any hesitance or concern for how he might react, and sniffed at his blue fur intently. He smelled like the sky. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.
How else would the sky smell?
“Are you a goddess?” she asked suddenly, a conversation with another wild dog suddenly coming into her head. He had told her about a goddess that had wings like a bird. The fluffy poofy things on his sides could certainly pass as wings, though they looked nothing like a birds. So maybe this was a goddess, like Pebble had told her. The idea that a male went by a different name didn’t occur to her, because she hadn’t been told that Gods had genders, “can you fly? Do you chase the clouds? I bet you could do it better than I can! They just keep running and running and a lot of times, I just get lost.”
Devu leaned back a little as she began to sniff him. It wasn't something anyone had ever done, at least not openly, and he was taken slightly aback. He couldn't even find the words to describe his befuddlement. Instead he just stared as her excitement seemed to have no end. He wasn't a very energetic person to begin with, but just watching her was making him more tired.
"I'm a god," He murmured, the first of her questions being the only one he could really catch. He sat back a little, so that he wasn't so close to the ground and to her. His swirling wings and tail, very much like clouds in themselves, began to turn a little off white at his confusion and distress. They weren't close to gray, a dreary color, but they weren't his typical oblivious white either.
“A God! That’s the same thing, right? So you do fly! I wish I could fly! Do you need to fly? Can you walk? I think I like walking, too, so if I had to pick I would stay walking and not fly. But you bring the sky with you!” She wagged her tail furiously, it making sounds as it whapped back and forth rather forcefully through the air. She was as happy as she had ever been, looking the God over with ever increasing curiosity. Crouching, she sniffed at the ground around him, then found his tail.
“Oh look! Even your tail is like a cloud! Or is it really a cloud? Do you chase it? I chase mine, but it’s not a cloud. I chase clouds, too, but they’re not tails. But yours is both! That’s really cool. Is it soft?” She dared not touch it, positioning herself as if she were scared of it. Her paws stretched in front of her, her back end high as her muscles coiled. She was ready to leap away if it turned out that clouds were full of evil and sadness. She watched with interest as it seemed to change colors.
“Do you know how to talk, Cloudy? When I was a baby I only knew a couple of words, but you don’t look like a baby to me!”
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Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:02 pm
He pulled his tail away as she began to examine it. For some reason it made him uncomfortable, having her analyze him at five million miles per hour. He wasn't used to it to begin with, at least not in large doses, let along with this bombardment of questions. It was overwelming and he was starting to feel his brain sink into discontent.
"I can talk," he said grumpily, disliking and not understanding the question. Why would she think he couldn't? Just because he didn't talk like her? He wondered if it was typical for mortals to chatter so. If it was he wouldn't want to meet any more any time soon. He got confused enough around them without this added bonus.
Laika watched the tail was it was taken away from her, barking at it and laughing. She sat back abruptly, settling on her haunches, and looked up at the God with a big smile on her face. She just stared at him, quiet because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Panting, her soft pink fur slightly ruffled from all the excitement. She wagged her tail and sniffed at the air, her eyes wandering away as she followed a new scent, a passing bug, before she looked back to him curiously.
“I talk too much, huh?” she said, smiling knowingly, “Mito tells me that, and so do lots of people. I don’t mean to, I just have a lot to say and I think quiet is sad, and I don’t want to be sad. And I don’t want anyone else to be sad. Are you sad?” She whimpered a bit, the idea upsetting her slightly as she forced herself to calm down. Her tail was still wagging, though, so it was clear that she was still in a good mood. Excitable, she was simply a timebomb waiting for something to set her off again.
"You do," he agreed simply. Having no real social manners he didn't find the phrase blunt or offensive. In fact, he felt more like he was just agreeing with ther than asserting his own idea. He didn't think he could gage whether or not she talked too much...though she did talk an awful lot more than he was used to.
He last question actually caused him to pause and think. Was he sad? He hadn't had much experience with the emotion. There was only one experience he could ever place it with. So, in order to check, he looked up. There were now clouds floating in the sky, unlike yesterday. The color of his wings and tails lightened a little.
"No, I don't think I am," he finally said. There were clouds out, so he couldn't be sad, right?
Laika smiled and watched him as he thought about her second question, his answer to her first one all but forgotten as his head turned toward the skies. She followed his example, glancing up and staring at the clouds in the bright blue sky. She didn’t know what he was looking for, but she could never turn down a chance to look up. She loved everything about the vast sky above, from the stars at night to the clouds of the day. She counted the diamonds against the black, and fruitlessly chased the fluffy white wisps whenever she was bored. They were almost her friends.
“I’m not sad either!” she said happily, not needing to be asked and glad to hear that he shared her current content state, “I like you, Cloudy. For some reason, when I sit close to you, I think I’m close to the sky. It’s because you’re blue and puffy, just like it, and it makes me feel like I’m flying. Or not really, but I can pretend. Anyway, I think you’re the most amazing God I’ve ever seen.” She left off the part about him being the only God she had ever seen.
She had not taken her eyes from the sky, and her attention was drawn as a bird flew high above him. She followed it with her head, its path making her crane her neck back. She wobbled and fell backwards, landing on her back once again. She was happy to stay there, though, because no she was comfortable as she stared up into the sky.
Devu had never been complimented before. Probably because there wasn't anything for him to be complimented about. He wasn't strong, he wasn't smart, he wasn't a lot things. So hearing her words of admiration, even if they were only babble because she said everything that could possibly come from her mouth, was a bit strange.
His ears twitched and he turned his head a little, turning his eyes away from the clouds for just a moment to look at her. "Um...thank you....hmm..." he trailed off and gave up on saying anything more, unable to find the words he wanted..or even really figure out if he needed words at all.
“You’re welcome!” Laika replied exuberantly, rolling onto her feet abruptly, “and I mean it. But I have to go now, because I think my Dad is going to be worried. I only just got back to him, and I think he’s worried that I’ll just get lost if I wander away. But I tell him I’m older now and he doesn’t trust me anyway. That’s okay! I love him, because he’s a pillow. He’s like a cloud, too, only green and heavy.”
She frowned at the imagery of her large adoptive father, a rotund lion, floating in the sky. Offering the God one last smile, she nodded her head in a little bow before bouncing a distance away, “I hope I see you again, Cloudy! Bye!” And with that she was running off, her attention already drawn to her quest home. She thought about fishing and sleeping but, mostly, she thought about telling Mito about the God she had met.
END!
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