[PRP] Guided by Nature ( Calixte & Amaltheia )

[xo maho]

Calixte turned away from what she'd been doing - organizing a late-blooming batch of dried flowers for a life-mating ceremony - and listened. Somewhere in the distance, the forest whispered, one of her daughters was playing in the midday sun, frolicking about the forest. It was a strange feeling, she thought, being a mother again; Cali had never really gotten used to it the first time. Now, with four daughters and a son, she was sure she'd never get a break from it. Smiling, she went back to her sorting, recalling her own ceremony. For some reason, it struck her as a simpler time. There had been no purewalkers, no daughters sneaking around, and only a little herd drama.

Sighing, Cali heard a little one's soft, approaching footsteps, even without the help of the surrounding plants. One of the girls wanted to talk to her - the question was, which one?

All three had come relatively quietly from their baskets, each very much a thinker in her own right. Amaltheia and Faun resembled herself and Kenton the most, though each had her personal twist; Amaltheia had been given special plants and darkened eyes, Faun a flame spirit and extraordinary fairy wings. Ithillún, though was the different one - a blue that existed in neither Kenton's nor her own heritage, Hallow's Eve had outdone itself with her. She even had ghostly markings... But she had Kenton's nose and her mother's eyes. Smiling a bit to herself, Cali waited for a little voice, as one would surely manifest.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, Cali heard it - Amaltheia's definitive, happy voice. "I'm over here, darling," she called back, hoping that Amaltheia would be able follow her voice. It wouldn't be the first time; the young filly, having inherited long ears, had incredible hearing. Not too far from the family's nest, Cali was in a small clearing wear the Gatherers stored most of their non-food-related finds.
 

[xo maho]

Smiling, Cali watched her daughter prance into the clearing. She really was a tiny little thing - Cali hadn't been around too many foals since her own children had grown, and wasn't used to their small size yet. Bending her neck slightly, Cali nuzzled Amaltheia on the top of her head, right between the ears. Her warmth was comforting, and her scent reminded Cali of a soft, young forest.

Straightening herself, Cali looked back down at the flowers. "Sure, you can help me, sweetie. I'm just sorting these... Why don't you take the wild roses and put them there?" She gestured to a spot a little to the right of the pile. "They're the dark pink ones that smell like a sweet-scented breeze. You can pick them up like this." Demonstrating, Cali plucked a flower from the pile with the cloven part of her hoof and transferred it to its respective place with a light shake of her foot.

Glancing back at Amaltheia, Cali smiled at her, and couldn't help but wonder what she would look like when she grew. That, however, was a long way off. For now, she was still Cali's sweet little Ama. "Now, darling, what did you want to ask me? We can talk and work at the same time," she said, transferring yet another delicate blackberry blossom into its proper place.
 

[xo maho]

Calixte tried suppressing her grin at Ama's irresistibly infectious happiness, but it didn't work - she felt the corners of her mouth move upward as though someone had pulled them. Watching her daughter learn to move the flowers was like watching her take her first steps; it had taken a certain amount of time, but the reward was worth it. Seeing that proud expression was worth it.

"Aw, good job!" Cali said, before pondering her daughter's real reason for finding her. There was, after all, a more serious topic at hand than Amaltheia's accomplished flower-sorting. Gazing skyward and humming slightly in thought, she said, "You're not strange, love. I hear things, as well. It's nature's way of speaking to you - of telling you things that may be out of sight or earshot." Eyeing the little mare before her, she wondered if maybe what Amaltheia interpreted as shadows was yet another twist that Hallow's Eve had bestowed upon her already well-endowed person. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing had happened - Ithillun, not too long ago, had discovered that her flowers glowed in the dark. This, of course, had caused quite a few late nights since.

"You know, Ama, the shadows are probably part of your hearing things. Is it bothering you?" This, she realized, was probably the issue - as she hardly talked about hearing things herself, Cali thought that Ama might feel alone, as though it didn't happen to anyone else. And that would naturally inspire a fear of being different, or strange, or abnormal. That was the last thing she would ever want one of her little girls to feel - having been raised among the Vanaras, a people that looked very much alike to one another, they already knew they were different. Cali and Kenton, however, had tried to raise them to feel special, rather than weird. Their appearance, after all, was a part of them, but it didn't define who they were.

Candle Wick Ghost

I am sooooo sorry for the wait. v.v  

[xo maho]

Relief flooded through Calixte's veins when Ama told her that the shadows weren't bothering her. In fact, it seemed as though she was comfortable with them, which was more than she could say for herself sometimes - the manifestations of her own hearing had certainly come at unwanted times before. Nodding, though, at Ama's admittance that she'd never heard of anyone else seeing shadows, she said, "Most won't admit it if they do see or hear something, especially if it's unusual." Lowering her voice to a whisper, Cali looked off into the distance, where her winged daughter was probably meditating on the far edge of the forest. "Maybe ask Faun about it sometime... I think she hears but doesn't tell.

"As for what I hear," Cali continued, "It's usually hard to interpret, as the trees are always whispering about something." She'd lived her life hearing things, and the signals still got jumbled, some filtering through her thoughts clearly and others never even making it through the rest of the 'static.' "It depends on how close something is, I suppose. Sometimes the trees only gossip so far into the distance." Wondering if that made any sort of sense, Cali watched her little green and brown daughter. It was astonishing to see just how Halloween had gifted her so - the mother wondered about it often, and she'd found that it was, once in awhile, a topic of conversation among the herd.

Candle Wick Ghost

 

[xo maho]

Cali felt her mouth twist slightly in thought as she tried to find an appropriate way to answer her daughter's question. Most people didn't want to talk about seeing or hearing things because they thought other people would call them crazy, ostracizing them. Cali, though, hadn't grown up with that filter - she'd been told to listen to what the voices in her ears were saying because she needed to understand them in order to take care of her forest. Ama hadn't grown up with a filter, either; the herd had taken care of the children, raising them as much as Cali and Kenton had. The Vanaras were completely fine with any... quirks that manifested in the foals, though it didn't stop them from discussing them.

"Well," Cali began, "There are places, herds unlike ours, where hearing voices or seeing things that others don't see isn't accepted. Those who don't hear like we do or see, like you, think it's strange and turn the ones who can hear into outcasts. For those who have only ever known that kind of environment, being an outcast isn't tolerable, so they either don't admit it or suppress it. It's a really unfortunate situation," she finished, hoping that would be explanation enough for Amaltheia, for she wasn't exactly sure how to further explain.

Faun was more difficult to explain - though she was the one that looked the most like her parents, she was possibly the most enigmatic filly Cali had ever known. "Faun... I don't think she doesn't want to talk about it, exactly... She just doesn't talk about it. It's just something that neither your father nor I ever brought up with her. Or at least yet, anyway."

Calixte couldn't help a smile as Amaltheia caught on, though. "They do, they do," she replied, grinning. The trees were responsible for everything, from the faintest whisper in the distance to the nearest, only slightly hushed gossip. "The flowers and the grass don't talk much, I've found," Cali said in response to Ama's next question. "The flowers, especially, are fleeting beings, but they beckon butterflies and bees. It might just be that we can't hear them like the insects do." Now slightly out of breath from answering one question after another, Cali reached down to nuzzle Ama's cheek. She was so full of questions! It was amazing how far her curiosity could take her, though the mother sincerely hoped it wouldn't get her into trouble someday.

Candle Wick Ghost

 

[xo maho]

Feeling her eyes began to water as Ama looked at her in expectation, Cali closed them for a moment before looking back down at her filly. "Of course we would, darling," she replied. "That's what honorary membership is for - aside from lifemates, anyway. If someone comes to us because their herd cast them out for a reason like that, we'd take care of them, especially since things like that can be traumatic." It went without saying that if the stranger had ill-will toward the herd, they wouldn't be let in; that was why the greeting parties looked so stern half the time. It was to scare away any intruders with less-than-benevolent intentions.

Nodding again rather than repeating herself, Cali smiled at Ama, letting the filly rub her softly fuzzy cheek against her own. She wasn't sure what it was, exactly, that made her light up so much around her foals - sometimes she felt ridiculous from smiling so much. But that was almost ridiculous in itself: there was nothing wrong with being happy, especially around one's children. Better happy than sad, right? "Now, Amaltheia, do you have any more questions?" Cali asked, using her daughter's full name for the first time in a long time. Though it was a pretty name, like Lun and Tin, Cali had just never gotten into the habit of calling them anything but their nicknames. This rare occasion was more than what it may have sounded like, however. It was really a veiled attempt at trying to get back to uninterrupted work, as the mother had a lot to do before the sun went down. If her daughter had anything more to ask of her, though, Cali knew she'd allow it. She loved having the chance to talk to her girls during the day, since she sometimes felt like she'd hardly gotten a chance to since they'd popped from their baskets what seemed like so long ago... Despite her desire to see them grow up - a desire that, she thought with a little exasperation, was probably pure vanity - Cali knew that these three would forever be her little girls. Tin had grown up so fast and Enaran had retained his colt-like innocence into adulthood, but these three... Cali had a feeling she would never have to let them go. They were pure and good, untouched by anger or by the twist that had so changed their appearances. They were perfect.

Candle Wick Ghost

 

[xo maho]

Cali turned her head a little to study her surroundings. She'd been so engrossed in the conversation with her little one that she'd almost forgotten that they stood in the Gatherers' clearing. At her feet, of course, were the flowers that she'd been so intent on organizing earlier in the day. Now in their respective places with the help of Ama, Cali looked at all the other small piles of flowers, leaves, and healing herbs that the herd kept stocked and dried in the safe clearing and realized that she couldn't think of anything to do. She was supposed to be preparing for an outsider's lifemating ceremony - one she'd have to travel a ways to get to - and she couldn't really organize any more flowers until the Gatherers brought back more. "Well, I was kind of hoping to take some berries and things to Oke," she replied, "I think he's going through a growth spurt again." The bear, usually her 'fearsome' shadow to those who didn't know him, would soon grow into his full size, though she knew his personality wouldn't change for a long time. A big softie, the bear had been raised alongside both sets of Cali's children. "Do you want to help? All we have to do is scoop them up in baskets and get them over to him." Having been raised away from meat but still having the voracious appetite of a growing boy, Oke ate what seemed to be his weight in roots, insects, and fruit every week.

Knowing that the feat of transporting the roll-y berries would seem harder than first thought to both Cali and her daughter, the mare grabbed an unused Gatherer's basket in her teeth and pulled it over to the berry pile. Tilting it slightly so that the wide brim touched the ground, she scooped berries into it with a gentle hoof, careful not to squish them. Some of them had been dried to preserve the sweetness for treats for children in the future, or just as desert; others were used for pigments. Most, however, were simply for the occasional familiar that had been weaned from meat, or for a Vanara that had a craving. "Here, I'll give you this basket, if you want to take it," Cali said, gesturing to the filled one before her. The long handle would go neatly over her daughter's neck, padded with a wrapping of grass for comfort.

Candle Wick Ghost