[PRP] Pfft... Males... (Liquid Bismuth & Medea)

[Ktns]

It was close to mid-day and Bis had taken a couple days away from the healing spring to travel toward the outskirts of the jungle. He loved his job, his life healing, but sometimes it took a lot out of him. He stood close to the jungle's edge that sloped down and toward the swamp lands. His ears moved faintly with the sounds of various birds in the foliage behind him. He knew somewhere his mate would be overhead watching out for him, even tho she didnt need to. That made him smirk a bit, and brought a warm feeling to his heart.

He was young in age, but truly and old soul. His eyes closed a moment as his muzzle lifted toward the sky. He took in the scents around him, and whereas they were different, they carried the scent of another nearby. He wasnt too fussed, it could possibly be one of the Guardians of The Jungle, or it could be one coming for healing at the spring.  

[Lady_Ourania]

It had been a long, meandering march from her old home to these new lands, and evidence of the journey stood out against the darkness of her coat. Muddy patches swirled along her legs and splashed her belly, smudges of lesser dirt and grime threading through her mane and tail. Her last encounter with fresh water had been miles back, and it was longer still since she'd felt the need to stop and bathe. Beneath the layers of filth, shiny pink scars were gathered in a knot over her left shoulder, still tender enough that she unconsciously checked her gait with every step. Still, she hardly noticed the slight twinge of it as she walked now, eyes directed warily upward.

The area Medea found herself circling was nothing like the muck-filled deathtrap she'd recently left behind, nor did it bear much resemblance to the grasslands of her youth. Thick coils of green hung overhead, reaching down to brush with unnerving softness along her flanks. Every breath was heavy with humidity, trickling down her throat until she was positive that the air's intent was to slowly drown her. The trees she was confronted with were nothing like what she was accustomed to, their very abundance creating such shadowy contrasts that her eyes deceived her at practically every turn. There was something primal about it, the chirps and growls she heard echoing from within making her ears flick absently.

It was true that she had been wandering around the perimeter of the jungle for only a short time, but the vastness of the place was not difficult to imagine. Plant life stretched as far forward and as far back as she could see, a near-impenetrable wall of it that forbade the onlooker to pursue any other path. Internally, the mare debated whether or not to continue forward, brows furrowing as she paused beside an opening that led deeper in. She was tired, and the plushness of some of the larger leaves looked inviting. Still, the instincts that had kept her alive this long encouraged her to continue scoping out the area, guaranteeing that she was not overlooking some dire aspect.

She turned her head, and a flash of disparate color in her peripheral vision provided the threat she'd been waiting on. The mare jerked back, lips already pulling away from her teeth in a snarl of warning. The Soquili that met her stare was so audaciously bright that she was stunned at not having noticed it before, the sunset tones nearly searing to look upon. A stallion, she realized, gaze sweeping quickly down his body, evaluating him without hesitation. Her expression immediately soured, a neck that had been bowed under the heat straightening to match his height. The horn that topped his forehead had her beat by about a foot, and she knew enough to be more alert to the danger it presented. He did not look like much of a fighter, not like the stallion by the river had, at least. Still, she knew better than to assume at this point, and the fact that he had the advantage of being uphill made her jaws clench shut.  

[Ktns]

The closer the mare came, the easier it was for him to pick up her meandering sound rather than just her scent. An ear flicked as he slowly turned his head toward her direction and his eyes flickered over her form. His first impression was that indeed she was here for the Healing Spring. She didn't look like any others that he had seen, not that he claimed to know all within the hundreds of miles that the jungle spanned.

His eyes moved over her quickly to make sure she wasnt in dire need of extreme healing. No obvious gashes or broken bones, or things sticking out of places they shouldnt be. In his slow, methodical actions he hadnt even really paid attention to her notice of him, to her defensive stance. It was when she was about eye level to him, and finally settled on her own, that he shifted his eyes to meet hers. A soft, sincere smile curled his lips and he bowed his head in a show of respect, something he did out of common courtesy for most all other living things.

"Greetings...", his strong, smooth voice trailed off. She seemed very tense and a little on edge, so he kept where he was as, even going so far as to lower his head a bit perhaps to view himself smaller, or not as towering. He was very keen on others perception, and most he dealt with were on their last nerve as it was.

"Are you here to be healed?" he asked, though he was sure he already knew the answer. His look was soft, neither demanding or expecting.

 

[Lady_Ourania]

It took a drawn out moment for the stallion's stare to level with hers, his attention swimming back to the surface just in time to meet her growing irritation. Silence had been a standard reaction to her presence in the old herd as well, more notice paid to her unlovely frame than anything that had come out of her mouth. It was hardly a surprise to find the practice was not limited to the stallions she'd left behind, but it grated nonetheless. Her muddied, bedraggled state suddenly felt that much more liberating, and she tipped her chin back in challenge, daring him to comment.

What came instead was a greeting, one she met with a curled lip. It seemed an inconsequential pleasantry after he'd been so careful to look her over, an excuse to cover his tracks. "Had your eyeful?" Medea hissed in reply, the rasp in her voice equal parts scorn and thirst. The words were barely out before she bit down on her tongue, quickly sidestepping when he moved to lower his head. A charge at this proximity would not require much coordination; the lethal tip of his horn could find a home in any number of vulnerable places. The prospect of bleeding out on the hot, wet ground held little appeal, and she kept her feet firmly planted, not about to rear up and give him that many more targets to choose from. Fighting the giant by the river had taught her a few things, and there was no better lesson than the coppery taste of blood in her mouth.

When he failed to move further, she paused as well, having retreated a few steps to a more strategic position. Her eyes narrowed while she waited, nostrils flaring to draw in shallow breaths. Whatever she'd expected to follow, it wasn't the question he posed, sudden in the tense quiet. Medea stiffened, mood strung somewhere between bewilderment and fury. What did he mean "healed"? Did she look broken? Of greater interest still was that he had not followed through with his attack. He merely stood there, stooped and stupid, his posture so lax that it was difficult not to be insulted. She was not some sad, skittish little mare who jumped at the sight of a male, nor was she fooled by the soothing cadence of his words. If he meant to lull her, he would find himself disappointed. "Do I look like I need to be healed to you?" she snapped, tossing her head so that the dark, frayed braid of her mane rested lightly across her shoulder. No sense in advertising her newest weakness.
 

[Ktns]

Her reactions caught him off guard to say the least. One moment she was quiet, standing there, looking in need of some comfort and the next... all over the place. His mouth snapped shut at her words and he straightened. He quickly recanted all of the previous movements, words and expressions to make sure nothing was offensive. Somehow...something he did caused her to be so defensive.

His eyes held her firmly, and an ear flicked. For a moment her quick turn made him feel like perhaps she was a trap? A distraction for someone more dangerous to slip by while his attention was focused on her? He kept his silence a bit longer as he took these moments to look at his sides, at the air. His eyes scanning for any other movement, but there was none.

His eyes shifted back down to her. "Hm... not a distraction..." his words were soft, as he thought openly to himself. He didnt at all return her defensive stance, nor did he back down to coddle her. This one seemed a tad crazy and he wouldnt be caught unaware. Instead... he fell to answering her question.

"Not particularly. But looks can be deceiving," he was still sure she was here for the Spring, but obviously she was wounded in other ways besides, or instead of physically. He finally arched a brow as he tilted his head to the side a bit, "or... you could be here to visit the Jungle Queen?" Maybe he was wrong about the Spring, so he offered a suggestion on the Angeni who took the jungle as her ward.

"Either way, I am sorry if I have somehow offended you by crossing your path," he said sincerely.  

[Ktns]

Lady_Ourania

(( Just reminding its your turn <3 ))  

[Lady_Ourania]

A rush of savage satisfaction flooded her chest when the stallion startled back, clearly unbalanced by her willingness to retaliate. If he was intended as some sort of sentry, the brightly-colored buffoon left much to be desired. Still, Medea did not quite dare to drop her posture, hooves set slightly wider than usual, tongue running along the edges of her teeth with violent intent. Her blunt canines and willowy frame acknowledged that she was not bred to spill blood, but that failed to take necessity into account. If she were threatened, or in the mood to threaten, the limitations of her body could always be overlooked. He was bigger, better fed and less careworn, but she had survived against steeper odds.

His attention flickered without warning, tracing the outlines of the jungle's boundaries, right and left, before turning to look over her head. Medea hesitated in the face of his baffling scrutiny, the hum of her blood tangling with the buzz of insects and other miniscule wildlife. What was he looking at? He had gone from observing her for physical abnormalities, to cataloguing the clouds in the sky. The change made her reconsider her position, its weaknesses and strengths, second-guessing everything up to this point. The extended silence could be some ploy, she knew, a muscle jumping in her cheek as she snorted at the thought. Let him try to catch her unawares. She wasn't letting her momentary confusion get the best of her, though he clearly had other plans.

His utterance about a distraction was largely nonsensical, but she bristled all the same, figuring it for the censure it had to be. "What? Am I not intimidating enough for you?" she growled, pawing at the yielding earth. His line about deception caused a barking laugh to make a break for her mouth, nothing of amusement in the sound. So now she was no threat and she was broken? She had attacked others for much less, and given the choice, she would dive into the fray if only to take the sting out of an insult and put it into a real injury.

But his next question stopped her forward momentum, made her ears perk with involuntary interest. A queen? Medea had heard of queens before, their image contained in snippets of outdated lore, in oaths used to taunt dissidents. They were much despised in the old lands, symbols of squandered power and vanity, less corrupted than useless. There had been no queens within the boundaries of her herd, and no female leaders had appeared in her lifetime. To hear of one mentioned so openly now, in a tone devoid of the usual disgust a mare in a position of power often merited, proved difficult to ignore.

"A queen," she repeated, careful not to let the curiosity overwhelm her survival instincts. "Of the jungle..." The seemingly endless path she had walked came back to her in bits and pieces: the jagged, bone-splintering chill of the mountains, the colorless drudgery of the swamps, each of them tugging at her resolve. And then the dense green that had risen up in front of her like an omen, devouring the horizon to make room for its sprawling glory. If this was a queen of the jungle, then her domain was vast, far beyond anything she had witnessed before. In order to rule such a place, she would need to be cunning, brutal, and without the weaknesses ascribed to her sex.

"... Yes," Medea said after a time, the word pulled out of her slowly. Yes, she wanted to meet this queen, to see her stand resplendent against the backdrop of her realm. To see if such a phenomenon was even possible, given the state of the rest of the world. At the internal reminder, Medea's gaze sharpened again, eyeing the stallion with the same thinly veiled suspicion from before. Both of the options he offered seemed as though they would lead her deeper into the jungle. Perhaps that was all that he wanted, her in an unfamiliar environment, made vulnerable by the terrain and his knowledge. Could he have known she would be so intrigued by the mere mention of a queen? "What are you, then? The queen's guard?"  

[Ktns]

Her aura was hard to ignore. Her muscles seemed tense enough to snap and crumble her own bone structure and even with his calm demeanor, his senses were picking up. Her actions, to him, seemed as if this one had some sort of run in and either something was likely following her, or she was indeed a trap. It was something he hated to even think of, but he had never met another that was so on edge... tho that was hardly the phrase for it, he couldnt put words to how intense and damaged this one felt. It had surpassed a sense of empathy to a sense of concern.

His own muscles were starting to tighten and he realized that in just a few moments he was starting to ache a bit. He shifted as he shook his head and took a deep breath. He blinked a couple times to clear his eyes. He eased a moment when she seemed to finally give some sort of answer. Finally... breaking ground, or so it seemed. He didnt dare make a comment on just how intense this mare felt, with how she was acting so far, it seemed unwise.

At her question he offered the same calm smile and a warm chuckle, one more of whimsy at the thought than amusement. "Ah no... Just the resident healer," he nodded. "Thats why I assumed you were here for healing." He looked over his shoulder as he motioned with his nose behind him. "I run a healing spring for those that need it, in the middle of the jungle. The queen is my mate's mother."

He let his words and thoughts flow freely. He was still on guard himself, but as of yet sensed no real danger. There was no harm in elaborating.

"Im sorry, I guess I just assume that most who come to the jungle know of the spring," he said sheepishly.  

[Lady_Ourania]

It appeared that her less than friendly feelings were calling to something similar in the stallion across from her, and she watched as his demeanor changed incrementally the longer they spoke, becoming more contained. Still, it failed to flare into outright hostility, the tempered words with which he treated her driving needles of heated distaste under her skin. Did he think she didn't notice how he was trying to handle her? The ways he sought to make her malleable, and thereby undermine even the scant authority she had collected on her journey to this place? If not for the enticement of a queen, she might have abandoned him to his pathetically placid existence right then. As it stood, she would still sooner charge past him and into the tree line than be led like some brainless filly to a potential slaughter. There was absolutely no reason to trust him, his soft-spoken, cautious mannerisms screaming of ulterior motives. At least the males she had encountered in her herd had been blatantly obnoxious in their supposed superiority.

His laughter seemed sudden and incongruous, breaking past her musings and sending a spark of irritation flitting down her spine. A healer, he said, and the apprehension that had clenched her chest relaxed into a disbelieving snicker. Not exactly a unique profession for a unicorn, though the more she looked at him, the less threat he seemed to hold in his wiry frame. If his inclination was toward curing the sick and the hobbling, it was unlikely that he made a habit of spearing creatures on his horn for kicks. That did not eliminate the possibility that he was lying, using his race's greatest stereotype as a means to subdue her, and Medea's resolve to be wary firmed up again before it had truly faltered. The sentiment redoubled when he explained his connection to the queen, recognizing what the tie bought him in terms of ownership. If his mother-in-law was a monarch, that dubbed him a prince, more or less, a probable heir by marriage.

"If you expect me to go down on bended knee, you're dreaming," she informed him tersely, ears flattening against her skull at the very idea. There had been enough kowtowing in her old herd to last her a lifetime: she had no intention of doing so here, in a place where a mare held the highest title. He had, after all, made no mention of a king, and that could not have been mere oversight on his part.

When he continued on about the damnable spring, she had to work not to hiss with impatience. "I'm not from around here, and I'm not interested in any spring," she said, tone dismissive and brooking no further questions on the subject. He had no right to make her feel like an outsider, and she was already irked at the realization that her options were less than appealing if she wanted to meet this jungle queen. While demanding directions and setting out on her own was more palatable, she faced the possibility of getting lost or ambushed in the process. Relying on him to lead her there rankled, but at least he could serve as a hostage in a pinch. Surely no one would risk damaging the heir's consort without good reason?

"If we're going to do this, you're going to walk at least ten paces ahead of me," she grunted at last, eyes narrowing to slits as she watched his face for deceit. "No funny business, either."  

[Ktns]

Her comment to him about bending a knee took him back, in fact it confused him. He had no idea what she meant by it so he shrugged it off as nothing. Of course him ever taking any throne, had he caught it, would have made him laugh outright. It was likely a good thing it didnt cross his mind.

When her tone shifted to that of the spring, again, he shrugged. Maybe some time later she would want to relax here, but it seemed quite obvious he had business with Xochi. It didnt really surprise him, she seemed just as strong as the queen here and perhaps she was on some sort of pilgrimage? Either way, again, it was painfully obvious talking was not her thing. He remained still and rather peaceful, but her next words made his brow arch. He steadied up to his full frame and height and looked at her firmly, he would only take so much. His words were firm but still smooth and kind.

"I am not your slave or your captive. And despite any self justified excuse you might have for being so demanding and rude, I am not yours to control or command. I will do as I please as far as where I walk, and you are more than welcome to join me, or not," he leveled with her. "I understand if you are wounded, or untrusting, but I will not stand for blatant degrading behavior."  

[Lady_Ourania]

Some part of her had expected his refusal – had actually anticipated it earlier, delivered in a harsher tone of voice and laden with insults, but the slight differences left her no less vindicated. His way was almost more cowardly, reminiscent of the colts who tormented the brood mares with half-understood power; they caught on to the cadence of their fathers' words quickly, listening to the beneficent subjugation implied within until it became their own. And she remembered being that young, taught to be tongue-tied and invisible instead, all that quiet poison building up with no place to go. It made this strange stallion's attempts to put her in her place that much more ironic, his reference to slavery nothing if not a blatant dig at the life she had left behind. The anger in her spiked, bubbled, a molten river that lurched through her, crackled in her organs like wildfire. She took a step forward, and it did not matter that she was the smaller, the weaker, the disadvantaged in an uphill fight. She had always been these things, always, but that had never stopped her. He understood, he said, and his understanding seemed to be rooted in the fact that she was somehow less: broken, as he insinuated before, in body or mind. He had no right, heir or otherwise.

"You know don't know anything about degradation, stallion," she spat, the words certain and sharp in her mouth, cutting like glass. "Don't pretend that you even know what the word means. Your kind has never been victimized, has never been ground down into the dirt until that's all you're left with. You have done what pleased you all your life, I bet. Why should that change now?"

Her teeth were bared, face stiffened into a mask that betrayed nothing. His stance had altered before, gone from conciliatory to looming as he chastised her, but it still wasn't as defensive as it should have been. If she charged directly into his chest, she could use the element of surprise to send him spinning out, use his greater size against him. But that would only work once, and the subtle ache in her shoulder was fanning out the more she tensed, infecting her leg, the base of her neck, everything threatening to become weighted and useless. It took a greater effort of will than she had exercised by the river to step around the stallion, eyes flashing with an unsubtle dare for him to stop her. If he did not want to agree to her terms, then she would set out on her own. She refused to submit to him or his natural, dominating instinct one second longer. "If you don't want to lead, then don't bother following," she informed him curtly, walking in a half-circle to avoid giving him her flank.