Oh wow look at this place!
The tiny, and slightly chubby, putti pranced along the pretty pretty mountain path, her dark eyes wide and happy as she stared all around herself. She so loved finding new places! She could hardly wait to explore and then, if she could find Tanny or Kali, to bring them back here to explore all over again! She loved the high mountains she could see, with their glittering peaks so white in the sunshine way so far up high above her head! And she loved the winding weaving wandering forest path she had found and was now bouncing along. And and and especially most of all she loved the big, huge lake she could see glistening through the branches! Kali would love the lake. Kali liked lakes. And rivers. And ponds. And, oooh, that rock stuck right out over the lake!
Squeaking with glee, Fidget abandoned the trail and scrambled through the stony brush to where the she had glimpsed the outcropping. The underbrush did not seem to want her there very much, and she left a few strands of her red main and at least one little green feather snagged in the bushes, but it was ever so much more important that she find her way to here as fast as possible! Grinning ear to ear, Fidget crept carefully out onto the rock, testing the first few steps for wiggles of badness. When none came, she giggled and pranced all the way out to the edge where it jutted sharply over the lake. This was such a pretty place! “Hi!” she chirped at her reflection in the water. It was so still! And it looked so cold! Curious, she stretched a hoof down to test it, eager to watch the ripples spread where she touched the surface. It was further down from the edge of the rock than it looked, and she had to lean a bit further to reach. Just a bit further. Just a bit...
He loathed the sun. It was too bright. It glared down from the sky, all heat and light, stinging his eyes unmercifully if he even glanced up from the welcoming shadows of his watery home. Severi would have been content to stay below the surface, wrapped in the cool, dark waters of his lake forever, but he could not. Just as the light above burned his eyes, the air in his chest burned when he stayed too long in the soothing embrace of his lake. Snorting, losing several bubbles of the air that was beginning to burn, the striped soquili shifted in the bed of mud he had settled on. He would need to aquire fresh air soon. He could not simply live down here, drifting on the subtle currents like the flashing fish he caught and ate. Those lucky creatures never needed to brave the sun's glare and heat. All their lives they spent darting to and fro with the rest of their kind in the sweet darkness, and in a way he envied them even as he ate them. They had something he lacked.
The water flowed smoothly over his skin as he left the soft huddle of lakebed he'd curled on to glide towards the surface. His feathers, the useless things, clung and stuck to his skull when he tipped his head free of his lake and snorted a nose of air. The burning in his ribs subsided as he took another breath, his eyes shut against the overbearing light of day, but his return to the lake's bottom with his fresh air was halted by a cheerful voice. There was a trespasser in his lake. Slowly, Severi's eyes slitted open, catching sight of a small soquili perched precariously on one of the stoney outcroppings. She was dabbling at his lake, she was not supposed to be here, and yet she was about to be in his lake.
“What are you doing?” he half hissed and half snarled, his raspy, underused voice carrying surprisingly well given the distance. His lake was often quiet, even his voice could be heard if the other were listening. But so often they did not listen, and then it fell to him to deal with them. “Leave,” he snapped coldly, starting towards the distant stranger. If she did not leave, he would make her go. And if he could not make her go, then he would make her stay. Forever.
Just a liiiittle bit further, surely she was almost there. Her hoof had just barely touched the water, starting the tiny ripples that distorted her reflection, when a sudden hissing voice made her jump. Usually meeting new people was fun and nice and all kinds of exciting, but that voice did not sound happy. She could handle it though, usually it just took a little talking and explaining and being nice herself to help make the other person feel like being nice too. But it startled her, and she jumped, but instead of standing on nice, soft ground, Fidget was currently leaning almost too far off of a slightly slippery rock. Unlike the grassy earth she was so accustomed to, the smooth, hard rock was much less forgiving of her surprise and her slightly uncoordinated response.
With a squeal Fidget started to slide off the rock and into the lake which, she discovered as she began to slip, was very cold. Oh it was so cold! And so dark! Was it deep? How deep? Was it too deep? Suddenly she did not love the lake anymore. “Oh oh oh oh!” she squeaked, scrambling frantically with her hind hooves. Hooves, she knew from experience, were not all that good at holding onto things, especially things that were as smooth as this rock. “I don't want to be in the wat-” she tried to plead, pointlessly, with the rock and gravity and all else before she lost the fight not to finish overbalancing and hit the water with a clumsy splash. She immediately and instinctively flailed, hooves and tiny wings both, but it did not do much in the way of righting her. She wasn't even sure which way she needed to go, everything was dark and her eyes were squeezed shut. Up, she wanted to go up, she wanted to be out of the water. It was so dark and cold and she didn't have any air in here!
Severi snarled as the trespasser jumped into his lake immediately after he told her not to. How dare she. She trespassed, and then she added insult by ignoring him completely. With quick sweeps of his tail he drew rapidly closer to where the little trespasser had plunged into his lake, intending to snarl one last chance for her to get out. If she did not heed him and leave the moment her silly little head cleared the surface, then she would stay like all the others who failed to heed. Severi squinted at the water, rippling and bubbling, and then glanced around at the otherwise still surface of his lake. She had not popped up again yet. Was it possible that she too felt like she belonged in his lake? She had not seemed properly equipped for it, he was almost certain she had been covered in only fur without any scales or sleek fins but his eyesight was not the best. If she thought she belonged, he might need to deal with her in a different way. This was his lake and he did not wish to share it.
She still did not surface, and Severi snarled again and slipped beneath the surface of his lake. His eyes immediately felt better with the cool curtain of water between him and the searing sun. It was not difficult for him to spot her. She flailed herself in circles, kicking and thrashing and flapping so that instead of moving in one direction she mainly just spun. Severi watched her for a moment, easily determining now that she did not belong here. There was no doubt that the lake would claim her as easily as it had many, many others who did not belong to it. But she was not invited. She was still a trespasser, small as she was, and he still wanted her to leave.
He watched for only a few seconds more, as her flailing grew more desperate, then he angled himself to avoid her hooves and instead wrapped his talons around her scruff and one upper limb, intending to drag her out of his lake so he could send her on her way. Surely she would not argue with him now.
Something had her! Fidget squealed in terror, then choked as air was replaced by water. She took back everything nice about the lake! Everything! This was an awful, terrible, horrible, no-good place! It was cold and dark and there were scary things in it! Or at least one scary thing, she wasn't sure. But one was enough! The putty started to sob, then coughed water, and then coughed more. She was drowning. She couldn't breathe water, she wasn't a fish, she needed air. Thrashing, she choked again and-
Air.
Fidget coughed and sputtered and vomited water as she flopped limply where she was dragged. Cold. Cold and dark. It was scary. So scary. She should not have trusted that rock one bit, even after she'd tested it for wiggles. The rock had dropped her and then the lake tried to eat her and then a thing with claws got her and she was not having a good day at all!
Severi hauled the sopping wet trespasser out of the lake, dragging her part of the way onto the mud before relinquishing his hold to tower over her instead. She was very small, and perhaps just a little round. Was it a filly? It was a strange one. He had never seen a creature with wings like that. Of what use were wings on a tail? Certainly they did nothing to aid her in swimming. He watched as she choked up the water she had, for whatever reason, begun to breathe when he grabbed her. She was very small. Maybe she was a filly. But she was still a trespasser. He would not deal with her any more lightly than he would any other intruder.
“You do not belong here,” he told her coldly, his talons digging into the pebbly mud on this shore as he spoke. If she protested, if she refused to leave, then he would deal with her. But she was not invited, not yet. He did not want her here. She did not belong here.
Air. Air was good. She liked air. Air and sky. And dirt. And grass. Not water. No lakes. She hated lakes. Lakes were awful and terrible and she did not want to see lakes anymore. No no no no no. Fidget coughed and choked, still feeling soggy on the inside even though she was laying on nice, soft dirt again and breathing in very very nice air. Fidget was not entirely sure what to expect next, after falling into the cold awful lake there had been a thing with claws. Claws were a bit scary, but aside from a few little stinging spots, and all the water, she felt okay.
Slowly she looked up at a large shadow looking over her, and gulped. He was big. With claws, and fangs, and his eyes were narrowed and angry looking. Hadn't someone told her to leave right before the rock betrayed her? Was this that someone? Was he mad that she didn't leave? He looked mad... “I'm sorry,” she choked out, wheezing slightly as she still kept trying to catch her breath. “I'm so sorry. I fell. I didn't mean to! I just wanted to see it and then I fell and it was so scary! I don't want to be in the lake. I don't want to be here!” she tried to explain, feeling herself start to cry. It was not usually all that easy to get the sweet little putti down, but almost drowning was certainly enough to take the smile off her face for a little while... especially when it involved being snarled at by big, angry strangers immediately after.
Severi watched as the small soquili began to quiver and cry. Perhaps that was one way to deal with trespassers. She certainly wanted to leave now. They always did, after he invited them to stay. She hadn't been invited though. If her bawling was to be believed, she hadn't even really thought she belonged in his lake. Even if it were not true that she had not intended to go into the water, she certainly seemed to understand that it was not her place now. Perhaps that could be good enough. Perhaps, for a trespasser as small as this one was, it could suffice. Who knew, maybe she would even tell others not to go down this path and into his lake.
“Leave,” Severi ordered her tersely, bristling at her. She still lay on his lake's shore, her hindquarters with their useless tiny wings still submerged in the cool waters. If she truly meant what she said, then she would go.
“Okay,” she breathed, choking and sobbing. Slowly, wobbling, she tried to get up, then flopped back on her belly with another tiny sob. “I'm going,” she promised anxiously, scrabbling a little to get her hooves under her again. She was all wet, it was so cold, and she was so scared that everything was wibbly and wobbly and it was hard to get up... but she didn't want to make the stranger mad. Maybe he was a nice stranger deep down, but he was glaring at her and he seemed angry right now and she just didn't feel happy enough to try to cheer anyone else up. Maybe later she could try... maybe. “I'm sorry,”she sniffled, slowly stumbling away. It was just a bit selfish of her not to at least try to be happy. Grumpy people were often the ones who needed a little bit of happy the most, but she just... she just... couldn't. Not right now. Right now she wanted to go find her friend and curl up in a sunny meadow and be cuddled and warm and not having to think about how dark and cold the lake had been when it closed over her head...
Severi's lips had curled back in a snarl when the little trespasser agreed to go and then failed to leave. Was this supposed to be some sort of trick? If it were he would make her pay for it, and he bristled in anticipation, digging furrows in his lake's pebbly shore as he waited. But it was no trick, just a clumsy filly who could not get her hooves under her round little body. Severi watched as she sniffled, cried, and apologized, only really caring that she did it as she left.
That made two of them now, he mused once she was well out of his out of his poor sight. He kept his ears pricked forward, listening for any hint that she was returning. Two who left when he demanded it of him. But this little trespasser had not really be so different from the rest. She had learned that she did not want to be here before she fled. The other one, the one who wore a predator's talons, she had left before the lake had proven her unwelcome. It bore thinking on, now and again. With a snort, he closed his eyes and slid back into the water of his lake. The sun would set soon and he could prowl his shore in the peace and coolness of night. In the mean time, he was not going to sit out here and squint and burn in the harsh light of the sun. So long as no others came to disturb him, he was much more content to simply settle at the bottom of his lake and pass the time in peace and solitude. Surely it was not too much to ask to be left alone. He had been left alone long ago. It was his place here, in his lake, alone.
FIN
