|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:50 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 5:31 pm
 The sun warmed Destati's hide, turning her usually salt-dulled coat to a vibrance of color. That was, she thought, one of the three drawbacks of living on the beach - the dull coat. Salt was hard on fur and hair alike, and after a day in the salt spray of the ocean, everything was a tangle. For that exact reason, Destati had had a two-legger braid her hair when it had been long enough to do so. Dealing with the knots that would otherwise inevitably tie themselves in her hair was just too much to handle for a creature without hands or a raccoon familiar. Sure, she had Dragoon, but he was a crow - the most he could do was delicately set the beads and ornaments in her hair to rights.
The other two drawbacks of living on the beach were the footing and the weather; the rocky places made turning an ankle dangerously likely, and the weather was volatile. It could be bright and sunny at one moment, and then the clouds would roll in and it would be hailing the next. Those drawbacks were the reason that she and her family took shelter in the trees above the beach at night, or even when the weather turned; it would not do to be caught on bad footing and in bad weather. That was especially true now, when she and Niall had a little one to look after who was even more prone to accidents than her father.
Lifting her head up from the tamped down bush of grass she had been using as a pillow, Destati looked for her little blue filly. She had popped from her basket a few months ago, tail first, wings plastered to her sides. Since then, Delmaria had lost only a little bit of her knock-kneed clumsiness; the tail that the spirits had given her was both a blessing and a curse. It did not much more than flop around on land, but in water, Delmaria was the strongest swimmer that Destati had yet met. Her wings, sadly, though beautiful, were more a curse than a blessing; they were prone to tearing, were not strong enough to give her the gift of flight (as Destati's ancestors' had), and when Del went into the surf, they became totally useless, weighed down with water and sticking to Del's hide.
Delmaria was done where the waves lapped against the shore, standing there staring into the blue with her father. It was strange - the only inkling there was that she belonged to either of them was that she had Niall's hair and Destati's markings, though Delmaria's went far beyond Destati's own. But, she supposed, that was the spirit at work. At first, she had feared that she and Niall had picked up Delmaria's basket and taken it from some parent who had left it in a foolish place, where the surf could get at it. But the more they thought about it, the more they wondered if the spirits hadn't left it there for them. Niall had been the first to notice the basket's markings - she had been standing over it, and the markings around her hooves matched up with those of the basket.
The moment of certainty was when Delmaria had emerged from her basket and those wings of hers made their way into open air. Niall had called it destiny, and Destati had thought the same. And now that little filly with bright blue butterfly wings was standing with the stallion who loved the both of them, down by the sea, probably playing some sort of searching game. Content, Destati sat up to watch them for a while.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 7:43 pm
 The waves rushed up almost to the cloven tips of Niall's navy hooves, but they did not quite make it up far enough to break over them. "Now," said Niall to the little, brilliant blue and white filly beside him, "We're going to play a little game. It's called I Spy." Golden eyes met pale blue ones as Niall looked down at his daughter. She was so small, tinier than any foal he'd ever met. Perhaps it was her flutter blood; it ran in Destati's veins, too, though hers was heavily diluted. His mate was only slightly smaller than a regular mare, but when compared to him, she looked tiny... Niall was a giant by his breed's standards, or so he'd been told. He was bigger even than most tall regular soquili. And so, he dwarfed his daughter, who not only had flutter blood, but was not yet full grown. "This is how it works. I describe something to you like this..." Squinting out at the horizon, the cerynei looked for something obvious, and spotted a gull flying, scanning the water for fish. "I spy, with my little eye, something grey and white. Aaaand then, you have to guess what it is. What's your guess, Del?" He smiled down at her and waited for her answer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 6:23 pm
 Delmaria listened intently to her father, nodding along, her forelock bobbing and bouncing against her forehead. "I love games!" she interjected at one point, and then screwed up her face in concentration as Niall explained the instructions to her. Following his line of sight out to the ocean, Del looked for something white and gray. Everything was blue, though! The sky was blue, the ocean was blue, the clouds were - well, not blue, but they were fluffy white and not gray, either. Then she spotted the bird. "It's a gull!" she yelled, jumping up and down as her wings fluttered. Looking up at her father, the filly grinned. "It's a seagull!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 6:47 pm
Niall chuckled as the little filly beside him jumped up and down, her wings whirring in excitement. "Yes, that's exactly it!" he said, and readied himself for the next part of the game. The spirits only knew what she would pick for her object - it could be anything, from the vast sea to a certain grain of sand on the beach. Del was unpredictable like that, just as the sea who had brought her to her parents. "Now it's your turn. Pick something and describe it to me, but you have to say "I spy, with my little eye," or it won't count." Niall braced himself for whatever she chose, and started watching her closely, meaning to follow her line of sight if it would help him figure it out before too much time had passed. His daughter was often better at these little games than he was, and she liked to rub it in his face, lovable as she was.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 7:25 pm
 Sephora was watching her hooves, wings stretched out wide for balance as she stepped over one of the rockiest parts of the beach she and her mother had yet discovered. She tested every rock before stepping on it to make sure it wouldn't turn under her already substantial weight. Though she had the light bones and grace of a wind, she still had to step carefully - if a rock rolled under her, she wouldn't be able to flap her way to safety. The wings she had been born with did not well hold her weight.
Before she knew it, the little filly had reached the end of the rocks, taking one final step onto soft sand. Looking back for her mother, she saw the black and tan mare fifty feet behind her, still making her way over the worst of the rocks. "C'mon, Mom, you're almost there!" she called, and then looked ahead.
What she saw surprised her greatly.
Not a hundred yards away stood a brown stallion and a little blue filly - a beach family she hadn't met yet! Grinning, Sephora put on speed and shot over to them, but paused halfway there and looked back for her mother. What if they weren't friendly? They looked friendly, but she'd been told to not judge others based on their looks before. Could that mean that these two were bad? Sephora looked closer at the filly; something was nudging at the back of her mind, and she spotted it.
The filly had a fishtail.
Kelpi. The word was half fear and half wonderment in her mind, and Sephora took a step back. If the filly was a kelpi, what did that mean of the huge stallion next to her? Something else bothered Sephora, though... The filly had wings - butterfly wings. That made her tilt her head to the side as she took another step back. Better wait for Mom.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:41 pm
 Shaking her head at her daughter's overenthusiasm at being over the rocks, Kalypso didn't look up from the ground before her. Unlike Sephora, she did not have grace bestowed on her by her ancestry; she was just as graceless (at least when compared to her daughter) as any other soquili. She, as an adult, was also heavier than her daughter, who was so petite and delicate that Kalypso ofttimes wondered how she did not break. Even so, the filly was hardier than some fully grown soquili her mother had known.
Looking up for a moment, she saw Sephora trotting away from the rocks, over the beach, to where a pair of soquili stood. She stopped halfway there, though, and Kalypso thought, Good, she's waiting for me, before turning her attention back to the rocks. If those soquili were unfriendly, Sephora knew how to flee. She had been taught almost since emerging from her basket that not all would welcome her bright little presence, and those that gave chase now would find a hard catch.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 10:15 pm
"Yay!" Del exclaimed as her father confirmed her answer, and listened to the rest of his instructions. She had to pick something? She would have been content to do all the guessing and be right all the time. "Okay, okay..." she said, mostly to herself as she scanned about. First she turned around and laid her eyes on her mother, with her gold coat and pink and white wing markings glowing in the sun, but that was too obvious; Daddy had seen her turn around, and aside from that, he would know a description of Mommy anywhere. So Del casted about, looking first at the sand (but there were so many different colors), then at the sky and the sea (the only blue things besides herself and Daddy's mane for miles), and finally, she turned to the right, and her eyes landed on the filly heading toward her. Del jolted with surprise at the sudden appearance, but her words were not fazed. "I spy, with my little eye, something cream and salmon." Eyes wide, Del picked up her feet and trotted toward the newcomer. "Hi hi hi! I'm Delmaria! I haven't seen you before!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 11:41 pm
At the sound of a high, little voice that did not belong to her daughter, Kalypso looked up once more. Her gaze landed on a small blue filly. At first, Kalypso was delighted, for her gaze landed on the filly's wings, which were almost fairy-like in their whimsy. She had never seen butterfly wings on a soquili before, and a filly such as this, whose wings couldn't possibly allow for flight... Well, such a friend would be a good one for Sephora to make. She needed friends who would not leave her behind on the ground when they took to the air.
Then, Kalypso's gaze shifted to the filly's tail, and the mare's whole demeanor changed. "Sephora!" she called, an urgency in her voice that she had never had to use before. If this filly was a kelpi, even a crossbreed, some viciousness might linger in her, and Kalypso could not risk her precious daughter being around that, not even if this filly was too young to know what evil was. Worse, if this filly held the same ability to lure another into the sea as some kelpi out there... Kalypso did not want her daughter to be friends with her. "Come back here right now. We're turning around!" Kalypso would have turned right then and begun walking in the other direction, but she would rather have her daughter in front of her than behind her - it would be much harder for this filly (or her parents) to reach Sephora if Kalypso stood between them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 1:40 pm
Sephora looked between her mother and the kelpi filly, confused. She wanted to talk back to the filly, but her mom sounded like something had scared her, and Sephora knew that something could only be the kelpi tail attached to the filly's hind end. She knew it because Mom was not afraid of anything else. Scars did not scare her, nor did the burns or wounds that caused them. She claimed to be unafraid of the monsters that kept Sephora awake at night sometimes, the ones that lurked in the shadows of her imagination. Her mother was not afraid of ugliness, or scary people, or anything - as long as they were not kelpi. Kelpi terrified her mother, and they were the only thing she professed being afraid of. And before Sephora stood one such.
But she was friendly! She seemed just like any other filly, at first glance - and she was excited to see her. Sighing inwardly and glancing back at her mother, Sephora made no move to go back to her, instead waiting as the filly met her with confident, prancing little strides. "I haven't seen you before, either!" said Sephora, and then she frowned a little as she realized she would have to introduce herself to this filly. She still had yet to master the rolling of her R's, though she was a few months old. How had her mother learned so quickly? She claimed to have learned it from someone who was from a place far to the south, where it was warm no matter the time of the year. But she had only been a couple of months old when she learned... And Sephora was nearly that age. Shouldn't her skills be kicking in now? "I'm Sephora Querida," she said, rolling the R in the second part of her name. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of letting the filly struggle with her full name all the time, but shook the thought away. That would be mean to the both of them. "But usually people just call me Sephora," she added, and looked back at her mother. She was still walking toward the pair of them, but her stride was much more hurried now, and much less careful. Kalypso was looking straight at her, instead of at the rocks, like she should have been. "Mom, watch your feet!" she called before turning back to look into Delmaria's bright blue eyes. "I like your wings. Can you fly with them? Mine can't make me fly, but they're good for balance." Holding them out flat and tuning them this way and that for demonstrative purposes, Sephora said, "See?" Of course, the learning that she could not fly with her wings had not been determined without many, many attempts - and the little cream filly was still not convinced that she would never be able to. She still tried. Most of her was convinced that it would only be after she was fully grown that she would be able to fly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 2:16 pm
Eyebrows raising as his daughter looked in every direction and then focused her gaze west, Niall felt his mouth drop open when Delmaria stated her I Spy. When was the last time he had seen another filly on this beach? Not since Delmaria had emerged, surely? And something about the filly made her even more rare - she had wings. Something between dumbstruck surprise and elation flitted through him, hiding beneath the surface of his skin. Her wings were small, but they were feathered, unlike Delmaria's, which were butterfly-like, or Destati's, which were beautiful markings. Perhaps they would afford her flight, were they to grow bigger.
Just behind the little filly - and his daughter, who was trotting toward her - Niall saw a mare whose coloration was almost similar to his own; while hers was black and tan, his was somewhere between. She looked plain, though, like Destati, so something in him doubted that they could be related, despite the nearness in color. After all, coloring did not mean that they were related: Delmaria was proof enough of that. "Destati," he called up the beach to his lifemate, his eyes not leaving the newcomers, "we have visitors. A mare and her daughter, by the looks of it." As he spoke, he watched the mare watch his daughter, and then freeze before standing up straighter. She barked something at her daughter; the distance and the crashing of the waves made it unintelligible from where Niall stood, but her eyes never lifted from Delmaria. Oh no, Niall thought, and he too, nearly froze.
They had been down this road before. Kelpi were regarded as vicious monsters of the deep by some - many, even. And those that thought that did not even look upon a filly with kindness all too often. Delmaria had met her share of those who shunned her, and some who even shunned the whole family. A soquili and a cerynei should not have produced a kelpi, they proclaimed, and when they were told that she had been adopted from the waves, more than once they had been told that they should have left the basket where they'd found it, to be beaten on the rocks. Delmaria, though, had never so much as flinched at the words. She was strong, stronger than her parents. With a sigh, Niall took a step forward. Del seemed to be making a friend, and he only hoped that she could be strong in the face of that friend's mother.
"Hello there!" he called out, hoping the mare would recognize a friendly voice when she heard one. He had learned to be welcoming from Destati's family; they took in weary travelers all the time. They had even taken in a skinwalker's daughter when she had been abandoned and raised her to be good and gentle. "Beautiful day, is it not?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 3:09 pm
Destati was watching when Delmaria jumped up and down in excitement at whatever game she and Niall were playing. Smiling contentedly at her daughter's jubilee, Destati followed Del's line of sight and nodded when her daughter looked back at her. Niall must have been watching her, as well, because as soon as Del looked back toward her, his questioning gaze followed. Soon enough, though, Delmaria turned her gaze first to the ground and then out across the ocean. Finally, she looked off to the right, and then ran in that direction, her tail dragging along limply behind her and creating a furrow in the sand. Quirking a brow up, Destati tried to follow her daughter down the beach with her eyes, but there were bushes of grass and roses in the way. Mentally shrugging it off, she settled for watching Niall, instead, and gauging his reaction.
His expression was delighted at first, just as it always was when it came to dealing with their daughter; she was the light of his life. She had been since she had emerged from that basket and looked up at him with those big, pale blue eyes and tried to unstick her wings from herself. When Destati heard a pair of bright little voices off in the distance, she almost gasped, but Niall was still watching and had not made a move to go meet whoever was talking with Delmaria. Destati could tell from the tone and pitch of the other voice that it belonged to a filly not much older than Delmaria - she could have even been the same age or younger. Shock was written over Niall's face, though, and there was something about the lines of his face that told his lifemate that it was not a bad shock; it had just been initiated by something he must not have expected to see for a long time.
His voice shook her from her thoughts, rich and deep like the mahogany of his coat. Tilting her head slightly to the side, Destati's brows furrowed. "Visitors?" she asked, and at his elaboration, she heaved herself to her feet with a little grunt. Stretching the stiffness from her limbs, Destati wove down the beach toward Niall, moving to stand beside him - she was so close that their coats brushed, and she could feel the warmth of him through the tiny space between them, washing over her in a comforting wave. She leaned the side of her face into his neck for a moment, and then focused on the scene playing out before her: a pair of fillies were greeting each other, the apparent mother of the one that did not belong to the pair of them not far behind her daughter.
Just a moment after Niall called out his greeting, Destati started down the beach toward them; if those were wings that she saw on the new filly's back, Niall would probably be standing where he was for a while in dumbstruck fascination, and it would be up to her to officially greet these two. She would be surprised if his legs would carry him more than a few paces at a time. "Hello," she said, smiling down at her daughter and the filly standing before them, and then at the mare beyond. "I'm Destati. Welcome to our beach."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 3:43 pm
Kalypso started walking again as the blue and white filly closed in on her daughter, her eyes never leaving Sephora or the little one that was talking to her. It would take just an instant for her to strike, for the filly to reveal the sharp teeth that lurked beneath her delicate bluish white lips. Kelpi had sharp teeth, and Kalypso was certain that this one was no exception, despite whatever blood gave her those wings. But wait, were there not so-called flying fish? What if this filly was one of those, and not a foal of mixed blood at all? Would that not make her just as vicious as any other kelpi?
Chest heaving with something akin to panic, Kalypso redoubled her pace, the rocks clattering under her hooves. One misstep and she would be down for life, as her daughter so gently reminded her. But it was not her feet that she was worried about at this moment - she had walked the beaches all her life. Rocks she could handle. What Kalypso would be unable to handle, however, would be if she was not looking when the kelpi filly stole her daughter away. Her gaze was trained unblinkingly on the distance closing between Sephora and the filly - who introduced herself as Delmaria - even as, in her mind's eye, Kalypso was seeing her latch on to Sephora's neck and tow her down to the waves. "Sephora!" she called again, but then, suddenly, there was another adult there, standing beside Delmaria and introducing herself. Kalypso paused for a moment, nonplussed, and then began walking again, more slowly and carefully this time. She noticed a tiny nick on one of her hocks; she must have scraped it when she had not been paying attention to them, as she should have been. "Destati," she said as coolly as she could, though she could still feel that her voice was tight with unreleased panic. "Nice to meet you. I am Kalypso, and this is my daughter, Sephora, if you did not catch her name before." By the end of her greeting, Kalypso was speaking through gritted teeth. The kelpi was just feet from her, now, and there was obviously some bond between this mare and the filly. What kind of bond, though? She thought she could guess; Destati gazed down at Delmaria with a fondness that Kalypso was sure she reserved for her own daughter. How could this kelpi be her daughter, though? Farther down the beach stood a hulking brown figure, who Kalypso assumed was Destati's mate, from the way he looked at her; even just grazing her eyes over him, Kalypso could tell that his body language was centered wholly on the mare and the kelpi filly beside her. Was the filly hers by some bright blue kelpi? Kalypso couldn't imagine paternal heritage that would so firmly wipe out maternal influence, though she could imagine where Delmaria got her wings - the painted markings on Destati's back were proof enough of that. Still, Kalypso could not imagine Delmaria as being anything other than adopted; her looks were just too firmly against her mother's, even if some of their markings were the same. "Is this your daughter?" she asked.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:23 pm
"Sephora... Que-rrrrrrrri-da," Del tried, letting the name roll off her tongue the best she could, but at the end of it, she shook her head. She had not been taught to roll her R's or been around people that could roll theirs, so she just spluttered as she tried to get it right. Nodding as Sephora informed her of her usual nickname, Del said, "I think I'll just have to stick to Sephora, too..." She trailed off as Sephora turned back to speak to her mother - who was tramping hurriedly over the rocks toward them, not even glancing at the stones that clattered as she went. Del frowned, concern etching into her young face, but Sephora voiced her thoughts. It would be bad if she got hurt just as they were getting here, she thought. She might not be able to leave when she needs to.
Turning her attention back to Sephora as the cream filly asked her another question, Delmaria lit up as Sephora held out her wings. "They're so pretty!" she exclaimed. "I can't fly with mine either. This thing -" she flopped her tail around with a little grunt so the end of it landed near her front hooves "- is too heavy for me to fly with. Even when I shrink, it's still too heavy to fly with." She said the word "shrink" as if it was a commonplace occurrence, without even thinking to explain herself. "Not to mention," she continued, "I have to go into the water every once in a while so my skin doesn't get all dry, and that does all kinds of bad things to my wings." She frowned a little at the thought, but then buzzed her wings together and held one out for Sephora to look at. "They're sure pretty to look at, though. Like a butterfly's!"
Glancing up at her mother as she approached, Delmaria pretty much ignored Destati and took a step closer to Sephora to continue their conversation. As she stepped closer, she took a harder look at Sephora's wings - they had feathers, and they looked so soft, like maybe she could touch them and they would tickle. Suddenly shy, Del looked from Sephora's wings and back up to her golden eyes. "Can... can I touch them?" she asked, hoping the other filly would not take offense. She had never seen wings like these before, though she supposedly had an aunt out there somewhere that had them. They just... the feathers looked so tiny. She could barely believe they were real. Although... What if she touched one and it broke? Her eyes widened. It would be all her fault, too! That would be so sad. And Sephora would probably never want to be friends, then. "On second thought," she mumbled, "maybe I'd better not..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 8:17 pm
Looking the dark mare who had come to greet them up and down and finding nothing the matter with her, Destati nodded. Kalypso seemed tense, at least for a mare who was meeting new people - but then, even if their family looked friendly enough, perhaps Kalypso didn't like meeting new people. She had met some who didn't, after all. It was a possibility - but Kalypso seemed only have eyes for her daughter, and there was something off about that. "Yes, this is my daughter. Her name is Delmaria," she replied, stretching her neck out to run her nose along Delmaria's hip. The little mare might not have looked like their daughter, but she was as much theirs as Destati had belonged to her own parents: the bond that ran between them was thicker than blood. "She was born of a wish, if you had noticed the difference between she and us," she added, nodding to the tail and the wings attached to her daughter in turn. Then, tilting her head at the mare a bit, Destati made a quick decision - after all, the poor thing was so tense, but her daughter seemed lively, happy to talk with Del. "Would you like to stay for a while? Del could use a playmate, and it would be wonderful to have some company." Giving the mare as winning a smile as she could, Destati prayed for a yes: when was the last time she had met another mare her age? Or a mother? Kalypso might make better company than she could envision.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
