[PRP] Dinnertime | Lizardskin, Frenzy & Love | FIN

[phoenix kiss]

Out in the sawgrass marshes, and especially in the stillness of dusk, the little frogs come out to play. They announce their presence mostly by their calls: peep peep peep peep, rhythmic and loud across the night air. It's hard to see them, but they're everywhere, nestled in amid the tall stalks of grass, burrowed down in the mud, and swimming around in the pools of still, shallow water that break up the stands of grass.

A green and black snake slithers through the grass, his stomach already fat with several unfortunate frogs, but still looks for more. Though he has no interest in eating more, he looks for the long-limbed kimeti who prowls along several paces behind him. The kimeti is a brilliant green color, striped with black; the brilliance of his coat is dulled somewhat by twilight, but he stands out amid the sawgrass. His movements are slithery, lanky, a little reptilian. His gaze is totally focused on the little snake in front of him.

Seethe is going to help him find dinner.

Lizardskin, as the buck has called himself since before he tumbled out of his sac, picks his head up suddenly, ears flicking back and forth. Beyond the constant peeping of the little frogs he likes to eat, there's another sound, a rustling. Seethe didn't seem to notice, but the snake is surrounded by sawgrass: it muffles outside sound.

There can't be another kimeti out here; he hasn't seen one for hours, which is exactly how he prefers it. His expression sours a bit, but then he returns to his single-minded concentration over the task at hand.  

[lostandtold]

The rustling continues, quiet in the dusk, first in one direction, then in another, fading and swelling with the passing moment.

Then, suddenly, there's an explosion of movement, and a grey-and-white form comes crashing through the reeds to Lizardskin's left. It's a doe, wrestling with what has to be the biggest fish on this side of the swamp, kicking up splashing explosions as she tries to wrest it out of the water.

A sleek, blue and black form whips from around her shoulders -- another snake, sinking teeth into the fish. It takes a few minutes, just long enough for some of the water to settle, before the fish goes still.

Frenzy tossed it up onto a bank of moss, dunking her head and shaking to get rid of the blood. She doesn't seem to notice Lizardskin at first, tearing a chunk of fish off and swallowing. While her snake begins to gorge, she turns her head to regard Lizardskin with dark gray eyes. "What are you doing, up this late?"

 

[phoenix kiss]

Lizardskin regards the doe with cool, pale colored eyes. There's no interest given to the fish, or the snake, or even that the doe herself is distinctive looking; all he cares about is the fact that now every frog in the marsh has gone utterly silent. The fact that his ears lay back isn't because he's trying to listen for a telltale peep -- it's because, honestly, he's a little irritated. Maybe more than a little, although his expression doesn't change. In short: there went dinner.

Seethe returns to his master and begins to climb up the kimeti's leg; Lizardskin picks up one hoof to make this easier, and turns the motion into preparation to just leave. When he does speak, he doesn't look at Frenzy, nor does he attempt to hide any of the cold irritation from his mildly sibilant voice. "I was attempting to eat, before you interfered."  

[lostandtold]

Frenzy watches him with flat eyes, almost amused by the flicker of irritation. She drops her head to eat, not breaking eye contact as she begins to tear chunks from the fish, chewing them into smaller pieces for her snake. "Is that so?" The fish is already rapidly being reduced to bones. "Then I suppose I'll have to make it up to you."

And, with her appetite momentarily appeased, she wouldn't mind hunting other prey. It'd be more interesting than waiting around for the gnawing hunger in her gut to become unbearable.  

[phoenix kiss]

Lizardskin doesn't break eye contact; if she thought the crunch of bone and the tearing of flesh would somehow unnerve him... she's picked the wrong buck. His tail lashing against his flanks, he turns back around (turning a full circle, one last hurrah in searching for frogs) in a sinuous, snaky motion. "Do tell."  

[xelhaspixiestix]

"Scale, Scale, Scale!" That means that the frogs are probably gone for good, but Love skids to a stop and puts her ears back at Frenzy. "Who's this? What are you doing? I found the perfect rock!" She stomps both forehooves in the grass, tail switching happily back and forth.

This rock is clearly a big deal to her. She frisks around Scale, bumping his shoulder with her own and resting her chin over his back. " What are you doing? I'm hungry."  

[lostandtold]

Frenzy finishes most of the fish, and her snake picks the bones clean bit by bit. At the sudden shout, she jumps a little, front hooves rising a bit off the bank and splashing back down lightly.

Still, the appearance of a vastly more talkative doe, perhaps the green one's mate, doesn't shake her much more than that. "I'm a hunter." A flick of her tail. She had just wrestled a massive fish up onto the riverbank. "I could help you get whatever you were looking for."  

[phoenix kiss]

Scale's demeanor changes when he hears his nickname sung out -- his ears flick forward and he looks over his shoulder with a smile at Love, and seems to tolerate her chin along his back without too much trouble. If any other doe had done that, he would have slipped out from underneath them. Rude, but necessary. "I was catching frogs," he explains; these frogs were just for food. The little brightly colored frogs he eats for fun don't live out here. "And was interrupted. But we have help," he adds, gesturing with his chin towards Frenzy, unconcerned about the twitch she gave when Love came skidding into their area.

Looking at the fish bones, and then back up to Frenzy, Lizardskin nods. "If we accept it."  

[xelhaspixiestix]

She considers this, her chin on Scale's back while she studies Frenzy. "Okay. Sure. Did you catch that all by yourself?" Its been a while since she's been so giddy; apparently that rock really is just perfect. She takes her work seriously.

"We like frogs. Well, Scale likes frogs, so I like frogs, but I can't hear any frogs now, so what about fish?" She bounces away from Scale, hopping a little bit in something like glee.  

[lostandtold]

The sudden switch is jarring. Mates, almost definitely. Frenzy studies the doe right back, not bothering to try and be discreet. "With Jaws." The watersnake slithers up one of her legs and coils over her tooth-like shoulder scale.

She grins, briefly, all teeth. "I'm a hunter. I catch fish, mostly, but I can get frogs, too."  

[phoenix kiss]

Seethe, annoyed by all of this sudden commotion, does what any snake might do: slithers up along Lizardskin's body and around his neck, its small head resting just over one ear. When Frenzy grins, showing all of those teeth, Seethe hisses -- and Lizardskin makes a small noise, a hiss, to comfort it. It's probably evident that the buck has lived among reptiles for long enough to understand them on a familial level... despite the fact that he eats them.

When Frenzy boasts of her hunting capabilities -- he jerks his chin towards the absolutely silent sawgrass marsh. Even though the light is rapidly dimming into true night, not one frog has been brave enough to start up the evening chorus again. Not with three kimeti and two snakes standing around chatting, and definitely not when blood has been spilled. "They're all gone," Scale says, with an air of longsuffering. "Don't bother."  

[xelhaspixiestix]

She noses under Scale's chin. "I'm sorry. I've never been good with frogs." Its a sincere apology, despite the way she bounces of after a likely shape in the dark. " Hi, Seethe. What's that!"

Love grabs the edge of a branch and pulls it up out of the muck, hauling it backward to dump it on some moss so she can nose the shape.  

[lostandtold]

Frenzy can't grin without showing her teeth -- she's bared teeth at so many rival snakes, and a crocodile or two, that it's become a habit. Jaws, tucked over her shoulder, sways a little, watching the water.

She snorts at the buck, flicking an ear. "Not here. The marsh is a day's journey across; the frogs will be congregating, and not that far away."

The doe's strange actions make her blink again, slowly. "I'm Frenzy." It's a fitting name, though she seems more...languid, now. Not at ease -- she's always tracking movement in the darkness, hunting.  

[xelhaspixiestix]

Love nudged the heavy branch and rolled it over, jumping up onto the heaviest part of it. "Frenzy, huh?" She rocked, testing the branch, and then gave up, jumping down and frisking back to them. "Scale? What do you want to do?"  

[phoenix kiss]

If Scale notices that he was rather rude to Frenzy, it doesn't show -- instead he stands looking between the does for a moment and then nods, once. Frenzy's technically right; the frogs will have left here and gone somewhere else. But it still rankles to have had his plans tromped merrily into the mud. He turns a shoulder away to begin weaving through the sawgrass, saying, "Let's go to where the frogs are. They'll start singing again."

At this, Seethe seems to happily slither down off of Lizardskin's neck and back into the grass, scouting out ahead. If two different sets of hooves don't follow Scale as he walks, he'll pick his head up and then look to Frenzy to see if she follows. She said she would, of course.