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 Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 11:45 pm
 Night was approaching more quickly than he could have anticipated, rubbing away at the edges of his vision until even the path in front of him became indistinct. A mid-morning rainstorm had transformed the forest floor into a hazard of uneven ground and sticky pine needles. The latter clumped around his hooves now as he picked his way through the woods, making every step awkward on top of perilous. The indignity of hobbling around forced him to stop now and again to paw at a rock or some raised tree roots, letting the rough surface remove the worst of the build up. Still, they always came back, growing from one or two into dozens, all of them bristling like he'd stepped on a porcupine. Fenggan snarled as he scraped the gunk off once more, spitting oaths that neither of his parents would have allowed in their presence. It felt good as they rolled off his tongue, feeding into the air like a dare that no one had taken him up on. The forest was an irritation, the abundance of life that had seemed so inconsequential before slowly ganging up on him. A thick, sweet scent permeated everything, rising up from the half-drowned earth and sinking into his skin. Sap had matted his short mane, and the itch along his neck was intensely unpleasant. Even his sister would want nothing to do with him until after he'd cleaned up.
With that thought in mind, he set his foot down and started forward again, attempting to pick out specifics in the dawning darkness. Although it would still be daylight for an hour yet, the canopy prevented any real sunlight from slipping in, and poor visibility made it difficult to maneuver in some of the more shadowy spaces. The foal jumped when his shoulder knocked into something unseen, prompting a scatter of wetness to hit his nose in admonishment. A quick scan showed that it was simply a sapling, still damp from the earlier downpour. Feng growled at it, latching onto a bud with his teeth and viciously ripping at it. It came away in his mouth, the taste bitter and less than satisfactory. He chewed sullenly as he continued to walk, looking for a break in the seemingly-solid walls of blackness around him. Being separated from his family was nothing new, nor was getting caught out in the rain with very little shelter. But the experience had been somewhat different out on the plains, where everything was open and nothing unexpected happened. Even the rain was never a surprise so long as he could see the sky. The woods were suffocating in their secrecy, and he found it hard to believe that creatures voluntarily lived out their lives in such a place.
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Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 12:07 am
Wings rustled with the navigation of a tight, banking turn. Ae'ilvainyx narrowly missed crashing into a tree. With narrowed eyes, he flared his wings out, slowing, slowing, slowly landing on a bed of moss.
His eyes were adept at seeing in dim light, so this landing certainly wasn't because he couldn't see! Nope! He wasn't weak, and something as silly as not seeing in the dark would never be the reason he chose to land.
He was working on his wings, making sure he could begin to cover longer, more gruelling distances. His mother would be proud; at the thought, his small chest puffed out a bit more, and he pawed the moss a little, ripping a clump or two up in his zeal.
Ears perked as he caught the sound of something ripping, and then the softer sound of something stepping through the forest floor. What was a creature - any creature! - doing in his (father's) land? What right did they have to come here? Feeling brave and confident and capable, like his father, he strode forwards with a growl-like sound building in his throat.
...he didn't dare to bring it louder than that. He had the most awful tendency to squeak if he thought to make the more dominant and loud sounds his Papa could. That fact in particular never ceased to vex the young colt...and if he wanted to intimidate, then he should use the skills he did have to make a lasting impression. Right? Right.
Tail waving high, and head tilted at the ready, to meet foe with his long, sharp horns, he started his charge with a cry--a cry that wasn't of a stallion, but of a colt. And it ended with a short squeak. Had he thought to stop, he would have wanted to die from that pesky squeak. But he could only continue on and regain his honour by driving whatever creature this was far, far away!
And make his Papa proud.
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:11 pm
With the forest dripping a constant tattoo against the undergrowth, Feng was all but deaf to the smaller sounds. Any invisible things scrambling through the leaves were dismissed as lizards, grounded birds, and the occasional disgruntled squirrel. A body bigger than that of a rabbit's would have registered as a threat, at least. Or so he'd convinced himself, half-blind and bullying his way through the environment. He picked up a hoof to examine it with the usual amount of disdain, squinting against the dark to make out whether or not the sap had managed to glue some unfortunate creature to the bottom of his foot. The lives of bugs did not normally concern him, but even he was reluctant to continue crushing a beetle with every step.
A disembodied shriek rent the air behind him, followed by a series of crashes that made his heart valves clamp shut. Fenggan whipped around to find the source, panic ringing in his ears as he hurriedly backpedaled. His rump hit something unyielding, tugging an involuntary yelp from his mouth. He'd miscalculated, been caught, claws or teeth sinking remorselessly into his flesh. The foal kicked out on pure instinct, jarred when his back hooves immediately bounced off an object and nearly sent him tumbling face-first into the ground. He shivered through the aftershocks, realizing dazedly that the sharpness scraping against his hide, drawing pinpricks of scarlet to the surface of his skin, was ancient bark. A tree, rather than some beast thirsting for his blood and the marrow in his bones. It was cold comfort, given that a loud creature was still breaking through the brush in front of him.
The colt cowered away, blunt teeth flashing helplessly in the diffused light. He spotted the ghostly color first, and it was only the purity of that shade that let him make out the lowered head, the thin, pumping legs. Feng's panting breaths halted all at once, frozen in his chest by sheer bewilderment. He knew the gist of predators, the razor-toothed and fur-pelted things that wore horse-shapes just warped enough to make them wrong, declaring them the meat-eaters of their world. This was not one of them. A fiend of near-equal stature to himself, it was too small, too noticeable and flailingly ineffectual. To make matters worse, the screech coming from its mouth warbled and broke, ending on an almost girlish note. It was easier to hold his ground after that, the tree that had nearly scared him dead him now supporting his weight as he stared, a little wild-eyed at the other.
"You're a foal," he informed him once he was sure, the words breathy with surprise and relief tangling in his throat. Then, as that did not quite obscure the depth of his embarrassment, he added heatedly, "What's wrong with you? What are you even doing?"
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