[FIN] Back to the Borderlands (Meets & Slide)

[hybridic]

Meets-the-Sea and Walks Without Rhythm moved together companionably through the swamp as the sun was setting, heading by mutual agreement back to the borderlands together. Meets was still exhilarated from the excitement of the Games and her race with Pillar, Slide's little mongoose, riding on her back. She smiled as she spoke, more animatedly than was her usual habit, to the buck beside her. "I think overheard one of those strange little creatures calling themselves an Acha! From the desert, Slide!" Meets tilted her head in thought, not paying attention to the ground she was walking on. "They certainly seem to fit the descriptions from the old tales...it must have been a long journey, though. I wonder why they've come now..." she mused, lost in thought. "Perhaps we could befriend one and learn more."  

[phoenix kiss]

Walks Without Rhythm walks in his peculiar loping way next to Meets-the-Sea; he has not said a word in about an hour, instead enjoying their companionable silence. Occasionally he will spare glances to the mongoose resting on Meets' back, wondering at how easily Pillar has come to accept the doe. There have been a few unfortunates who haven't been accepted as readily, and those few were covered in mongoose bites before the hour was over. With Meets-the-Sea, Pillar hangs as loose as a shed watersnake skin across her back.

Slide grunts his amusement at that before Meets' words bring him out of his reverie. After a moment, with the air of someone not used to speaking about himself (and certainly not about his dream), he has to shrug. "My naming dream... I found myself in a great desert. There was something under the dunes I had to be careful to avoid." He pauses for a moment, and then turns to regard her, "Perhaps we will find an Acha. Maybe they will pass by the cave."  

[hybridic]

Meets turns her head towards Walks Without Rhythm, her eyes shining with soft emotion. For the stolid buck to tell her of his naming dream like that...it was touching, meaningful. Her heart pattered in her chest.

"Your dream..." she mused, tearing her eyes away from the buck's profile at last. "I can't imagine that...not having seen the place of your dream. My own was of the ocean. My first journey as a filly was towards the sea." She tilted her head. "I would be more than happy to help you find this desert, Slide."  

[phoenix kiss]

Slide doesn't seem to notice; in point of fact, if one were to give a brutally honest estimation of his character, it seems as though much passes him by. But that would be false -- Walks Without Rhythm is keenly aware of changes to his world, things that put pressure on his normally well-known boundaries. One eye is always opened towards any oncoming challenge.

He keeps walking towards the borderlands, feeling the ground change underneath his sensitive hooves (walking in the swamp has made him ache, made his muscles sore, from so much wet, sodden ground), and at length grunts another response, turning one blue-on-blue eye towards the doe: "Are you sure? In my dream it was vast. There was no water. And no other living things," except, he thinks, that terrible presence underneath the sand that threatened to swallow him whole.

"I have never seen the sea; the most water I have ever seen was at the games. And all of it befouled by mud," he adds, wrinkling his nose. It is an odd expression coming from the weathered buck.

"An Acha should suffice. Perhaps we will become lucky and find one."  

[hybridic]

Meets lets her own dark eye lock with Slide's blue one. "You could survive the desert, I am sure," she replies, her tone one of honest praise, not flattery. "It would take some adaptation on my part," she continues, turning her eyes forward, "But I'm sure I could manage it, if taught." The statement seems to carry the weight of some other commitment, as of yet unproposed and unrealized. The weight of it settles on the doe, her subconscious working away.

After a few moments of silent walking, the doe continues. "The swamp is full of mud, yes. But there are oases of clean, pure water there as well. The sea, however...the sea's water is vast, unthinkably huge. But all of it salt -- you cannot drink without getting sick." Meets grins to herself, imagining Slide's reaction to the salty brine of the ocean. "Perhaps I'll take you there sometime," she teases.

"There seemed to be quite a few Acha at the games," she continues, changing the subject. "I'm sure we will have no trouble in finding one willing to tell us of their homeland."  

[phoenix kiss]

Slide ascends over a fallen tree trunk with a grunt; his hooves find purchase on the half-rotted, felled grandfather cypress and he propels himself up it, to stand on the top where the wood has not been left spongy and weak from constant damp and rot. He makes the motion look easy -- a sudden bunching of lean muscle, back legs flexing, tail out for balance -- and he stands on top of it, looking around. The damp breeze ruffles his mane and makes it stick to his face, obscuring the blue-on-blue glow of his eyes, and he takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring. Everywhere, the scent of water, of life and growing things and mud, but Slide can smell the water the way predators smell prey.

The log is big enough for Meets-the-Sea to walk under it; that would have been the easier route for Slide to take, as well, but something propelled him up the log, some unknown, unconscious urge. Standing with his tail lashing, he shifts his weight on top of the log and watches his companion emerge from the greenish shadows underneath it; how prettily she moves. Graceful, but with an economy of movement, each step measured out -- she would be able to exist in the desert, he thinks, and satisfaction blooms within him.

But only for a moment.

--he watches her, and his expression grows into something like horror as he sees the caiman laying, half-hidden in the mud, across her path. One more step and she will step on it, and caiman are like snakes, he thinks; they do not take kindly to being stepped on. With vision suddenly sharpened to hawk-like clarity, he watches the caiman's wise, calculating reptile eyes take note of Meets, and then, in a moment, the long head whips up, the jaws opening--  

[hybridic]

Meets watches Slide leap to the top of the fallen tree trunk with admiration -- there is such strength in the lean muscles of his thin frame -- and as such doesn't pay as much attention to where she's stepping as is her usual habit. She smiles up at the buck as she emerges from under the log, her happiness fading to confusion as she sees the look of horror blooming across Slide's face. Her eyebrows furrow together and she tilts her head at him, opening her mouth to say Slide, what's wrong?, when suddenly from underneath her there is a snapping noise and she jumps instinctively backwards. Pillar lets out a little shriek, digging his claws into Meets' back as the doe backs away, her eyes not leaving those of the slowly advancing caiman.  

[phoenix kiss]

The caiman is not an especially big one: it wouldn't be, this close to the borderlands, where both water and kimeti are scarce. Who knows how it got out here, but because it is here, it's likely starving. Slide and Meets are the first kimeti it has seen in over a week. It advances on Meets-the-Sea with a cold glint in its inscrutable reptile eyes, and hisses at her when the mongoose chatters at it -- Pillar is often far too brave for his tiny mongoose frame.

The caiman lunges forward, short legs propelling it towards Meets with more speed than it should have, and as it does so, a shadow falls across it.

Walks Without Rhythm simply leaps off of the log and lands on his forehooves, putting all of his not-inconsiderable weight behind the blow (after all, he is a full-grown buck). The caiman immediately stops moving as Slide's hooves crush its long, scaly head. Caiman can too easily snap a leg if they find it in their jaws. The sound the caiman makes as it is crushed is enough to make Slide wince, though he does not regret his actions -- done with a precision and a fearlessness that may be a little surprising coming from such a self-contained buck.

Standing over the body of the caiman, listening to Pillar chatter and hiss (the mongoose has puffed himself up to twice his size), he looks to Meets, flanks heaving. "Are you alright?"  

[hybridic]

Meets is astonished with the speed and power with which Slide descends upon the attacking caiman, his hooves poised perfectly to crush the animal's skull. She stands, frozen in surprise and shock, adrenaline rushing through her veins. It is over almost before it began, before the little doe has a chance to really feel anything besides the thrumming rush of her fear.

And then Slide turns to her and on his face Meets reads an emotion she has not seen on the buck before -- fear? Relief? Concern? Meets is not sure. "Yes, I -- I'm fine, Slide, thank you," she breathes out, the air hitching a bit as it stumbles past the knots of receding fear in her throat. The doe looks at the buck and realizes his actions have done something important, signified something that she cannot currently name. Her brain has still not caught up with what has happened. Violence is not something Meets has ever been drawn to, but there is something about the way that Slide is standing -- his breathing heavy, his eyes full of that unreadable emotion as he looks at her, watches her. He has killed for her.

A shiver runs through the muscles of Meets' sides, visible to the naked eye. She has forgotten about the mongoose on her back. She is still staring at Slide as the adrenaline completes its rushing course through her body and she is left suddenly empty of energy. Something has changed. The doe takes a stumbling step forward, careless of the dead caiman at Slide's feet, and wraps her neck over his shoulder. Her nose is at the base of his neck and she can smell him -- sand and sweat and heat, dry bones bleached in the sun. It is, somehow, comforting. It is the first time the two have touched this much, and it stirs something within her. "Yes, thank you," Meets continues, murmuring under her breath, almost more for herself than for the buck. "Thank you, Slide. Thank you."  

[phoenix kiss]

Slide breathes in deeply through his teeth, eyes wide -- he stares first at the caiman, and then his gaze lifts to the horizon, seeking the borderlands. They have not come far enough if caimans still attack.

Tremors still shudder through him from time to time. He has expended a lot of energy in a very short amount of space; it isn't like him. The buck normally keeps quiet and docile during the day, active mostly at night and at dusk, when the sun is not so burning hot. But when she touches him, he starts: his hide ripples all the way down his back, and after a moment he controls his breathing, forcing himself to calm down. His hooves are still painted with blood and worse, and still she touches him.

His trembling eventually settles; he is as solid and unmoving as a rock underneath her. His voice is a rumble, low out of his chest. "You are welcome," he says, and then adds -- wryly -- "Now you see why I prefer the desert. You can at least see things coming."

He pauses. "Should we stop to rest?"  

[hybridic]

Meets feels the shudder run through Slide and it moves her to action -- she pulls away, although the distance is not as great as it had been before. "Well that's definitely a shining endorsement," she laughs, smiling brightly up at the buck. "And I will be happy to be back there with you."

"But you are right," she continues, the tone of his voice bringing up an emotion that she is almost prepared to accept. "We should rest."

Leaving the corpse of the caiman behind, the two kimeti move away into the woods, to forget their troubles.