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 Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 1:23 pm
This is a Self RP between Totchli Cottontail and Velvet  
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 1:32 pm
Totchli was still young, though he felt years older than he was. He knew he was full grown, and from what he had observed that was all it took to be considered an adult. At least that was what his brother had always thought. Totchli shuddered a bit at the reminder of his only sibling. Well, the only one he had known about, anyway. He knew now that their mother was less than exemplary. He also knew, logically, that she hadn’t left him and his twin because of anything they had done. She had left because she didn’t think she was cut out to be a mother. His brother had left to go find her. Or maybe she had taken him with her. Honestly, time had blurred in his memory, to the point that he really couldn’t be certain what happened when. The first few weeks after she left were a complete haze. So were the days after his brother’s disappearance. Some days he wondered if he hadn’t imagined having a family. He saw few of his own kind and always at a distance. Fear kept him from approaching them. Maybe he had always been alone. As lonely as the thought was, it was still a little comforting. He may not have remembered the days after his mother left clearly, but he DID remember the pain, the despair. He remembered the sense of failure, the knowledge that he hadn’t been good enough for her.
But if she had never existed, if he had imagined both his mother and brother, then surely he wasn’t broken, worthless. If he had made them up, then he hadn’t failed anyone. Then again, maybe his mind had created such painful memories to help shield him from even harsher reality.
“Don’t like that,” Totchli muttered to himself, as he was prone to do. Without anyone else to speak to he made do with what he had. Sometimes, anything was better than being alone with his thoughts. “What you remember is what it is.”
That was what he told himself whenever his mind went to that dark place. He refused to accept the possibility that the most painful point in his life was an invention to cover up something worse. No. He had a mother. He had a brother. Both had left him alone. This was his reality.
“Accept it,” he told himself firmly. He shook his head sharply, causing the small beads in his mane to sting his cheeks. “They left you. They will always leave you. Don’t get hurt again, and don’t wallow.” He had never understood why he had no patience for wallowing. When his depression began to overwhelm him, he always managed to snap himself out of it with the contempt he felt for wallowing. And the best distracting he had found was to talk a quick swim around the reefs.
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Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 1:36 pm
Velvet darted from one patch of seaweed to the next, her poor little heart racing as fear threatened to overwhelm her. The poor little dolphin had never been a particularly brave creature and the sight of a large… thing… had sent her into a panic. Within no time at all, she had herself convinced that what she had glimpsed was a shark, come to make her his dinner. She had fled immediately, and now, after hours of hard swimming, found herself very, very lost. Movement caused her to burrow deeper into the seaweed that formed a distinctly paltry coverage. Some of her concern eased just a bit when she saw that the movement was caused by a young mer. Still, she stayed cautiously hidden. Just because he didn’t look like a shark didn’t mean the mer wouldn’t act like one.
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Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 10:19 pm
Totchli had every detail of his reefs memorized. After living there for so long, it would be hard not to. It wasn’t like he tried to study each and every branch and fish. He simply… noticed these things. When one had little else, one paid attention to what one had. And he had a home. That was what he clung to when he was feeling lonely. Not that he ever really felt lonely, he told himself. Nope, not him.
Because he knew every detail of his home, he could tell whenever something had changed. The brief swim around the reefs was enough to help clear his head of the thoughts he didn’t want to think, but it wasn’t long enough that it would explain the mussed up seaweed near his reefs where something had clearly been hiding. The sand at the base of one small opening was also displaced. Now, he knew, from the time he’d been living there, that the sand could get unsettled just by the currents of the ocean. But the patterns didn’t match the currents. They were, in fact, going AGAINST the currents. Something had snuck into his home. Something… or someone… had invaded his private sanctum. In the course of ten seconds, he ran through three emotions rapidly, one right after the other. Fear, hope, and anger.
Fear, because what if it was a predator of some sort coming to hurt him? He could take care of himself, but his preferred method of defense had always been to hide. If something was looking to hurt him, where would he hide when the creature was in his very own hiding place? Or if it wasn’t a predator, what if it was some other mer or creature who had arrived to chase him out of his home? Out of the only place he had felt safe since his mother and brother had left him?
Hope, because what if it wasn’t someone coming to chase him? What if it WAS his mother or brother? What if they had returned for him? Maybe they had wandered around until they found this place, uncertain of where to find him. He hadn’t exactly stayed in the caves where they had left him… but… why would they think to look in the reefs he’d made his home? There was nothing, no signs that he had left, to indicate he was even still in the area let alone in these reefs…
And finally, anger, because he knew, deep down, that his family was never coming back to him. So whoever had invaded his home was either looking to hurt him, to drive him out, or at the very least to dash his hope. This would not stand. He would not allow it. Gritting his teeth, he entered the reefs and hunted for the interloper, burying his fear under the anger.
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Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 10:23 pm
Velvet heard when the mer returned. She could practically feel his rage through the water. With a small squeak, she burrowed further into the reefs and stayed as still as she could, quivering. She squeezed her eyes closed as tight as she could, hoping that he wouldn’t find her. She nearly blended in with the colorful coral around her, maybe he wouldn’t see her. Or if he did, maybe he’d see how terrified she was and would leave her alone. She prayed silently to herself, hoping that he wouldn’t find her at all, that he would lose interest and abandon the search long enough for her to slip away unnoticed.
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Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:49 pm
The reefs were a warren of paths and tunnels, some so thick that he couldn’t quite squeeze through them. Some were so wide that they were practically little rooms in their own right. The search took long enough that his anger waned a bit. When he found nothing, he began to doubt his own sanity again. Had he gone so long without any interaction that he was making things up just to give himself the hint of company? No, he shook his head, trying to stamp down on his concern. He wasn’t imagining things. He knew what he had seen, and he had seen a hint that someone had invaded his home. Though… he began to doubt that the invader was particularly large. After all, most of the paths were just large enough for him to squeeze through. His home had been more spacious when he was a foal. He was done growing, however, and he still had space to move and the closeness was comforting rather than claustrophobic. Most days.
A slight movement caught his attention and he went completely still, even holding his breath as he waited for the movement again. When minutes passed with no more than the gentle swaying that came with the currents, he let out his breath and slumped a bit. Maybe he was losing his mind. Maybe the only reason he hadn’t realized it sooner was because there was no one else around to verify what he was seeing was just in his head. He went limp and let himself just float a bit as he tried to figure out if it even mattered.
Totchli was a loner by choice. That was what he kept telling himself. Maybe if he completely lost his mind, it would be one more reason for others to leave him alone. If people were afraid of him, they wouldn’t stick around when they found him. Not that he was found very often. Still, it was like having another defense. And if he just gave in to the illusions, then wouldn’t he be happier? If he just stopped doubting himself…
“If there’s no one else around to say you’re wrong, are you really wrong?” he muttered to himself, wondering if maybe truth was all subjective. Without anyone else around to argue with him, then wasn’t he, by default, right? What he saw, heard, smelled, felt… Even if it was all figments of his imagination, if there was no one else around to see, hear, smell, or feel something different, did that really mean it wasn’t real? So, if what he saw was real, then there was someone else in his reefs… But if what he saw something that wasn’t real, and there was no one to prove that it wasn’t, was there still someone hiding in his home?
The whole thing was starting to give him a headache.
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Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:53 pm
Velvet let out a tiny breath, her little heart starting to beat again when the mer started muttering to himself. She had adjusted just the little bit when she felt her tail cramping up. Unfortunately it had been right when he was practically on top of her. She had been so afraid that he had seen her. But then he started talking to himself, and she was no longer certain if he’d even have noticed her if she swam right under his nose. After a hesitation, she decided to test that theory, cautiously. She crept forward slightly, glancing toward the exit behind him.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2015 6:25 pm
There! There was the movement again! Shoving his concerns about his sanity to the back of his mind, he lashed his tail out to block the interloper’s path, blocking it’s escape. He had just enough time to realize that the invader was small and almost silvery in color before it darted back into it’s hiding hole. It was a small hollow that he had been aware of but had always discounted as no longer useable. When he was a foal, he had been able to curl up in there, but not since he had grown up. So, whatever had invaded his home was small indeed. Maybe it was a foal, like he had been when he was first left to fend for himself. The last traces of his anger faded away as unwanted sympathy filled his heart. Reluctantly, he bent down to peer into the hole.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded, keeping his voice strict. He might sympathize with a little foal, but that didn’t mean he was going to tolerate this trespass lightly. The child, if that was what was hiding from him, would no doubt leave him before long. Best to chase it away now. Even if his instincts demanded that he sooth it and take care of it. Better to protect himself against potential harm.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2015 6:30 pm
Velvet huddled as far into her hiding place as she could and peered out at him. “I… I…. I…. I’m s…s….sorry,” she stammered. “I…. I… I j….j….just….” she couldn’t manage to force out any more words.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2015 6:32 pm
Totchli listened to the creature stammer in a small voice for a moment before shaking his head and backing away from the hole a bit. “Come out,” he ordered. “Let me see you. I won’t hurt you,” he added the promise as an afterthought. The sooner he coaxed the stranger out, the sooner he could get rid of it.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2015 6:34 pm
Velvet hesitated a long moment, uncertain if she should obey or not. Ultimately it was the fact that she had nowhere else to run to that made her inch out just enough for her snout to be visible.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 3:20 pm
Totchli stared at the pale thing peeking out from the reefs. It was enough for him to identify the interloper as a dolphin, not a young mer. That… changed things, though he wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t a child. At least, he didn’t think it was. Didn’t dolphins travel in groups? Herds or pods or whatever they were called. What was this one doing in his reefs all alone? WAS it alone? He considered that then decided yes, it… she… was. He would have noticed if there were others swimming around his reefs. Maybe one might have been able to hide from him, but not a group of them. His abilities of observation weren’t that bad. So what was it doing there, in his reefs, alone?
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, then, remembering that she had had so much trouble speaking before, he changed his question to, “Are you alone?”
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 3:22 pm
Rather than trying to answer the first question and failing again, she nodded quickly to the second. Then she froze, realizing that perhaps she should have lied and said that there were others. What would he do with her now that he knew she was on her own?
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 3:27 pm
He watched the snout bob up and down in an affirmative. So she was without a he… er… pod. She was on her own. Maybe she was like him? Had she been abandoned as well? Once again, the possibility of finding a kindred spirit softened his heart. For a moment, he struggled, trying to remind himself that it wouldn’t last. No matter what they might bond over now, the time would come when she left him just like everyone else did. But… surely he could offer some sort of comfort without risking getting attached. “Do you have anywhere else to go?” he asked, gruffly.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 3:29 pm
Cautiously, she shook her head. Honesty was getting the better of her, though she had misgivings. She should have told him that she would be missed, though she wasn’t sure how she could get the words out when her throat was closed up in fear the way it always got when she tried talking to someone.
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