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 Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:03 pm
A common painter a few days hatched toddled along the floor of the great canyon that was home to the majority of sandpainters. Her stumpy young legs tired quickly if she walked at any great speed, but that didn't deter her. She didn't mind taking breaks to rest along the way. It wasn't as though she had anywhere to be. She'd barely seen any other sandpainters since hatching, and when she did her survival insinct had forced her to scuttle into hiding, even though her curiosity warred fiercely with it. To her primative, juvenile mind, the larger members of her species were potential threats to her health and she would be well served to avoid them.
Caution didn't often enter the youth's calculations though. She didn't often calculate, either, acting mostly on her whims. That was what had prompted her to leave the nest she'd adopted as her home base and strike out on an adventure, despite the fact that adventures for young painters involved a great deal more walking than she had anticipated. Nevertheless, she was determined that she would have an adventure that entailed more than just scurrying to hide when a larger painter landed nearby or flew too low for comfort. She had also resolved that she would not hide from the next painter she saw, no matter how much larger than her he or she was.
That was the plan, anyway, but when you're young plans can change in an instant. And that's what happened with Sihri-ni. A bug with long hind legs was moving in a jerky fashion that allowed it to fly for brief periods of time hopped past her. Sihri-ni was riveted. She watched in fascination as it took several great leaps, and then began to mimick the motion. Because she was put together completely differently from the cricket, her attempts mostly failed, even when she tried flapping her wings while hopping, emulating the older painters she'd seen. The game didn't stay fun for very long, since she couldn't do it very well, but it was fun to try to make the cricket go in a certain direction.
That became a new game. She would pick a place she wanted the hopping bug to go, and then she would try to herd him to that place. She was being a mighty hunter-creature. She was also having a great deal of fun, her plans for adventure completely forgotten.
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Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 3:33 pm
Bored as usual, Marlowe rolled off the rock he was sitting on and stretched out his wings. Instead of lounging around soaking the sun all day, he figured to abate his prolonged boredom he'd look for something to entertain him. He wasn't quite sure what he'd find since anything, from other painters to interesting rocks, was his target. Yawning and giving one last good stretch to his wings, he sauntered away to a clifftop and gazed into the canyon. Same old canyon, same old sand, same old stuff.
But Marlowe felt that today he'd find something interesting here.
With a mighty thrust of his wings, the air-borne painter dove towards the canyon floor. Maybe he'd find a lizard to toy with, maybe other painters lounging around, looking for a chat. In the air, he swerved from one wall to the other, grazed his wing tips on the sandy ground, and looped gracefully, all the while keeping an eye out for signs of life. Nothing. Sighing, he landed on the canyon floor to search by foot. After all, flying around as fast as him meant that he could have missed a lot of small things.
Marlowe blinked as the cloud of sand that got kicked up settled, one reason why he rarely visits the canyon floor. Shaking any excess grains off, he began to slowly skulk around rocks and shrubs, hoping to find some treasure he could bring back to his cave, if he hasn't collected everything already. Intriguing objects attracted him, especially small shiny things. Marlowed quickly looked up as something flashed before his eyes, something...shiny? He pursued the fast fleeing thing, wondering what it could be.
The thing jumped around a corner and Marlowe quickly followed after. He took a leap towards the small thing and captured it between his hands. Opening slowly, he found it to be a very shiny shelled cricket. It must be young to have such luster to the shell! Chuckling to himself, he let the frantic insect go and looked to see where he was. Not too far away was a small painter, probably recently hatched, also playing with a cricket. A hatchling by itself? Interesting...
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:49 am
Sihri-ni heeded an irresistible urge to look behind her and her coppery-red eyes grew impressively wide as she stared at an adult painter many times her size. Her earlier decision that she would not hide or flee from the next adult she found reinserted itself in her mind, cutting through her initial concerns for her safety and the lingering playful feelings that cricket-catching had provoked. Not that there had been much catching going on. Cricket-chasing might be a more accurate term.
Intent on showing she wasn't afraid, despite the newcomer's superior size, Sihri-ni's frills stood out, she spread her wings, and glowered as ferociously as she could at him. In an imperious tone she issued a declarative statement, conversing for the first time in the language she seemed to have been born knowing and had until now only used in talking to herself and narrating her own actions:
"You scared my prey away!" Her tone actually came across as more indignant than imperious, and far more childish than she had meant, but speaking the words aloud seemed to make the feelings she was trying to evince more real. Suddenly she was more outraged at the cricket's escape than afraid of the strange painter.
With her fear managed, or perhaps suppressed by some other emotion, Sihri-ni's frills relaxed and she folded her wings as tidily along her back as she could. She really hadn't gotten the hang of managing that third set of limbs, quite, and some mornings they tangled her up. Only when she was just waking up, of course, and she would deny up and down that it happened at all.
"You should say you're sorry," she pointed out before actually giving the adult an opportunity to respond. Though her grasp of language was intuitive, clearly her actual usage was still juvenile, and she hadn't yet learned that conversation also required that she allow others to speak, too. She couldn't explain how she had any concept of language, but she also had not given it a moment's thought. Like her wings, it was there, and usually she could make it do what she wanted, though not always.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:16 am
Marlowe blinked and tilted his head wondering whether he should be afraid of the little painter or laughing because of how cute she looks when she's angry. Before he could say anything, the painter squeaked again. Marlowe couldn't restrain himself and started to laugh. He began walking towards her.
"Hahaha....apologize? What did I do wrong? I'm pretty sure the cricket you were chasing didn't notice me from all the way back here. Hahaha...but if you want to insist that I did something bad, then I'm sorry." He stopped and sat a yard or so away from the young one.
Now Marlowe has never had any experience being around younger painters since he has never thought of mating before. He'd rather stay single for as long as possible since he preferred being free rather than being tied to a family. Looking at the young painter up close, he saw how cute a hatchling could be. No wonder all the females keep blabbing about having children of their own.
"So, what's a cute little thing like you doing here by yourself? Don't you know there are a lot of dangerous things out here? Ah, don't tell me you ran away? Oh no, that's a bad thing to do...I should take you back to your mother..."
Marlowe paused. Hold it, I'm not her father or anything, why do I care? But...if something bad happens to her...No no no, she's not my responsibility. He shook his head and looked around the canyon. Save for a few painters flying high above them, no one else was around. At least no one will notice if I just left her...
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 6:36 pm
Sihri-ni's eyes widened again, though they had narrowed with her fleeting ire. Like so many of her grand plans, her feelings came and went quickly and she rarely bothered to expend the energy to hold on to them. This time what had caused her eyes to widen was the sound of Marlowe's laughter. Every so often similar sounds had burst forth from her when she was feeling particularly joyous, and she had assumd that was just the body's natural reaction to such feelings, but the adult painter didn't seem to be exuberant at all.
Until she figured out what he meant by the outburst, she wasn't sure whether she ought to be offended, which was less fun, or join in. Being young enough that she'd made relatively few mistakes she lacked the self-consciousness that plagues more mature minds and decided to join in his laughter. She'd never tried to produce it on her own before, but it was surprisingly easy, and lightened her mood considerably, taking away the last vestiges of caution regarding the older painter, making it nothing to stand her ground as he came closer.
"You did not do anything bad or wrong," Sihri-ni said. "But the...cricket?...is gone and you are here."
To her mind, it was as though Marlowe had replaced the cricket, and therefore been the cause of the cricket's disappearance. She had assumed the cricket was afraid because that had been her first feeling. Despite she was fascinated by Marlowe she couldn't help thinking that he was much too large for her to pounce after like she did the cricket. She was thrilled to learn a new word though, and wondered why it was called a cricket. Her lexicon was incomplete, particularly when it came to nouns and verbs, though she was fairly good with expressing abstract concepts. Or she would be if she cared to try.
"I don't run very well," Sihri-ni admitted, misunderstanding Marlowe's meaning when he implied that she had run away. It would seem certain expressions were also not included in her internal dictionary. She knew what bad meant, though, and felt bound to defend herself: "And I'm not by myself. You're here."
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