Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gabe nosed around the grass, searching for another rock that he could add to his growing pile. It was kind of tough to pull them out of the ground, since a lot of them were quite happy to stay where they were, but he had a little over ten rocks already and his mom would be happy with him for finding so many when she came back.

It was a sunny day and Gabe was happy to be left alone in a clearing while his mother worked on her art. A rock was uncovered by his pushing through the grass, and he slowly started to work it out of the ground with a stick he had found just for that purpose.

A little while later, there was a thunking noise on the other side of a tree and a pained shout came quickly after. Gabe looked over across the clearing and wondered what the noise was. He looked fearfully down at his rock pile, now numbering twelve, and back up at the tree that had seemingly made the noise. What was over there? Was it going to try to take his rocks? He didn't know, but he hoped his mom came back soon...

He watched as some bushes rustled and a brightly colored foal came trundling over to him. It didn't look threatening, but Gabe wasn't fooled. His mom needed rocks and he would protect them.
Then again...no. He looked down at the tiny thing that had walked up to him warily. It didn't look like he wanted the rocks, but you never know.

"I'm collecting them for my mom..." he said cautiously.

Gabe was ready to defend his small pile from any and all dangers.

Gabriel frowned harder, laying his ears back a bit and moving fully in front of his small pile of rocks. His mother was always ranting about rocks, and so he figured they were important. She smiled when he gave her some, anyway. Also, they were kind of pretty...

"She likes rocks." he said, testily. He didn't have to explain himself to this tiny being. Gabe was going to make his mother happy with all of the rocks he was finding for her and that was that - his thought broke off at the absurd things coming out of Florian's mouth. He was speechless for a moment while the foal rambled on about eating rocks or something.

"Of course I don't eat rocks, dummy. My mom doesn't either!" he shouted. 'Honestly, who would be dumb enough to try to eat a rock?' he thought to himself.

Wind blew through the clearing, causing the trees to sway and light to dance on the edges of it. A sparkle caught his eye and he zeroed in on a particularly sparkly piece of granite. Those were some of his favorites...but if he left his rock pile this weirdo might try and eat one...

Gabriel let out a tiny squeak of fury as the tiny foal took off with one of his rocks. Wait, what?! Throw them in the river?! NO! These were for his mother! He'd spent all morning finding so many sparkly rocks. He ran after the thief intent on getting his rock back before he could throw it in the water. It was easy for him to overtake the other colt, since his legs were almost twice as long, and he quickly turned to put the river to his back.

"That's for my mom. You can't throw it in the river, or skip it, or whatever! Put. It. BACK!" the final word was punctuated with a stomp of Gabe's hoof. He glared at the one who had dared steal one of his rocks.

Gabriel nudged the rock so that it rolled behind his front hooves and put one in front of it possessively the moment it reached him. The smaller foal was babbling again and he looked up in time to see him approaching. Before he could back up the other was walking around under him, hair just barely brushing his belly. It tickled, but Gabe was determined not to give in to the urge to giggle. He was still mad!

...hunting for bugs and swimming and finding buried treasure sounded kind of fun though. Treasure was probably sparkly, he bet his mom would like that.

"We could hunt for treasure..." he said grudgingly, "but only if we split it in half! And I get the sparkliest things."

Gabriel nodded, satisfied that he would be able to bring his mom a lot of sparkly rocks today. The thought was enough to send him off into a daydream about bringing her a mountain of sparkly rocks and how happy she would be... He followed his new rock-finding-friend absently, not bothering to wonder if he knew where he was going. When the little foal asked him his name he snapped back to the present. "Oh, sorry, my name is Gabe - er, Gabriel. Ev'ryone just calls me Gabe though. What's yours?"

((Fair enough, haha. We sure do end up walking around dangerous bodies of water and rickety bridges pretty often though, lol))

"Hm. I kind of like the name Flo. What about Flori? Or Flora? Ha, how about Flower?" Gabe teased as he followed his new friend.

Before the other could respond, the foals rounded a patch of weeds and bushes to see a small but swift stream, with a ramshackle bridge spanning it. The bridge was little more than a few long tree trunks set next to each other and imbedded in either bank of the stream. It looked like it had been fairly sturdy once, but the wood had since rotted and a couple of them had broken or dislodged from the shores of the stream and were now half submerged in water. It didn't look fit for a full grown soquili to cross, and even smaller beings would only have enough room to cross one at a time.

"Hey look, a river! I bet there's some great rocks in there." Gabe exclaimed.