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 Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 1:29 pm
In all her travels, Up-and-Down had never encountered a predicament quite like this before. The water here was swift, a coursing river. To try and ford it would probably be certain death. Perhaps that was a bit much, but she'd certainly come out battered and bruised, and black and blue wouldn't make her look any prettier. That was something Bob was fairly certain of -- she had pretty legs.
Her legs aside, there was no way over this river. On the banks, she could see evidence of what had been a bridge of some sort; a tree trunk was at an odd angle on this side, the end in the river jagged and cracked. On the other, she could see a deep gouge about the size of the trunk. Lovely. Her way across was gone.
"Acha dung!" Bob frowned and sat down. This was a bother indeed.
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 1:42 pm
After a short time, a buck came along. This was Farthest Away Mountain, although that was a mouthful, and so he went by Farhill. He was a local in these parts, and still damp from the morning's sudden rainstorm that had passed as quickly as it had come. He took one look at the ruined bridge and felt extremely cheated. "Oh, bog farts! My bridge!" he exclaimed, stomping a hoof.
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 1:54 pm
"Bob farts?" The doe wrinkled her nose and looked indignant at the newly arrived buck. "I certainly did not! I've been sitting here staring at this bridge." And that was true. She didn't think she could make the leap across the gap and not end up in the river. Certainly not with the trunk being slippery. "Whomever smelt it, delt it, " she finished with a sniff. "And it's not your bridge. It's not a bridge at all."
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 1:59 pm
He looked at her funny. "What? No, BOG, not bob." He sighed deeply and approached the broken log. "Well, it was my bridge, as in the one I used every day to get over to my favorite berry patch. A little out of the way, but who doesn't go out of their way to get their favorite food?" He morosely put a hoof on the log. Apparently this was enough to dislodge it completely, and with a loud, splintery crack it fell off into the rushing water and disappeared downstream. He stared after it in shock, hoof still in the air. "Fine! Take it!" he cried, disgusted.
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 2:07 pm
Your bridge, then? Whoa. Talk about your fixer upper." Bob smiled sadly as she watched the trunk float down the river. "You may have used it to get to your berries, but I need to get across it. And eventually, to come back." The doe began to look around, the log gone and disappeared, but not after splintering some more. She shuddered, her coat rippling. Yep, not going to try and swim across. "Is there another way? Do you by chance have a spare log hidden somewhere?"
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 2:15 pm
Farhill glanced sidelong at the doe, not sure if he was into her humor or not. "Just around the river bend, I think," he said. "Depends on how the river has changed, as it so clearly has. Perhaps it has washed all the rocks that are now here out from somewhere else." He clattered up the pebbly shore and regained more solid ground heading upstream. "Should that fail, I recommend going back down the river to see if the log jammed up in a different place."
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 2:29 pm
Glancing at the water and then at the retreating buck, Bob decided to take her chances with the stranger. Standing up from her sitting position, she scrabbled after him. "Don't... Don't, ah.. Leave me?" Now where did that come from? "I mean, if you were to fall in, there'd be no one to help you, no log to catch hold of." Bob moved upriver, eyes scanning quickly for any gaps where a decent sized tree could have been. Ah. There! But... "Damn. That is one big tree." Bob didn't think she could move it on her own. "Fizzles. This might not work..."
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 2:33 pm
Farhill looked where she was, browridges going up. "That...? I mean, if it was hollow it might work. Should we inspect it?" It was a really big tree, too high to be easy to climb up on, but if the center of it was rotted and the outside still sound? Maybe it would work. Cross your hooves and hope for luck.
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 2:52 pm
If it was hollow, which she hoped, it'd be lighter and easier to move, but also more prone to floating away because... Because it'd be hollow. Obviously. And the best way to test it? "Lots of Kimeti will travel on this, right? You're not the only one who uses this bridge?" Bob moved closer, putting her ear against the side. Nothin'. Then again, it wasn't a seashell to echo back the ocean. But hollow things would echo... That's it!
The doe backed up, facing away from the fallen tree. "Hee-yah!" As she cried out, her back legs kicked, meeting the tree with a resounding thud! If it survived that, it'd be one of two things; it was not hollow, which would mean harder work, or it WAS hollow, but sturdy enough to support a bit of weight. "How did that sound to you," she asked the buck.
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 3:00 pm
He marched around it, finding the smaller end broken of in a sort of jagged, tapering way. He pawed the inner bits, finding them rather rotted. When Bob hit it, bits came off. "Yeah, a lot of my neighbors and friends cross the river often." He jumped over a thick branch stump that could stabilize it. "Sounded pretty rotted to me. Ah!" He found the root area, seeing that a lot of them had already been dug out by something. "Come look!" Inside, there was a hollow, though it was hard to see how far it went in.
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 3:12 pm
Bob poked her head in under his, accidentally brushing his chin with the top of her head."Mmm. Sorry." Bob peered in, then slipped in, feeling with her hooves to make sure she wouldn't step in anything squishy. "It's... Uh.. It's dark. And smells like mushrooms" The doe wrinkled her nose, not sure if she liked the scent or not.
By this point, she was a full length in and had yet to encounter anything alive or slimy. So far this boded well. It was tight, but she managed to turn around, ducking her head a little as it seemed this far in, it was a tad more narrow. "What d'ya think? Could it work? By the way, my name is Up-and-Down. You can call me Bob if you want to. You can't say that I fart, though."
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 3:18 pm
Farhill let her pass, getting a whiff of her scent as he did. He found it... rather pleasant. "Ah, I uh... I suppose it could work... Bob." He shook his head a bit. "I'm Farthest Away Mountain, but Farhill works fine." He found he enjoyed her bold attitude, and he followed in, finding they could at least fit side by side. He accidentally bumped her neck with his head. "Excuse me... Well... Ah, if we get it into the light and dig it out, it should work. Might be a few days of work though."
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 3:24 pm
"Few days...." She thought about it, then nodded. "I should be okay for that. My mother sends me out to gather stuff sometimes, but I think it's more to get me out from under her hooves than for anything pressing." The doe slipped out of the tree. "We'll need some vines as well. Or to smooth the ground out so we can roll it towards the water." Her tummy made a noise. "And... Possibly food? Berries are over there; what's over here?"
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 3:27 pm
He emerged back into the fresh air, looking around. "Well. Mushrooms, the eating kind at least, and I know of a place nearby with some good greens. Hey, we might even find some good bugs under the log."
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Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 3:45 pm
Bob began to think about the task ahead. It seemed a little daunting. "Why do we need to make it hollow?" She turned and put a shoulder to the bark and pushed. It took a bit of straining and effort, but the tree shifted a little. Not a lot, but a little. If they could engineer some sort of lift for it, they may be able to do it more easily.
"How about this...." And she began to explain her plan to Farhill. If they could find at least two smaller sticks and get them under the tree, they should be able to roll it relatively easily. Balancing the sticks on rocks so the ends were under the tree, and up in the air on the other side, it'd be easy enough to get the felled thing on the support poles. Kicking the rocks out from under the two would then put the poles on the ground, and the tree could roll more smoothly.
"What do you think?" Bob smiled up at the buck, moving her head to toss her hair out of the way. "Could it work? One of us could look for sticks, the other for food?"
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