[WP09] Dreamy Drabbles (Bare Trees x Unyielding Winter)

[Aric Val]

12. Color




A wide field of bright green, the sky a calming blue and of white pure clouds, even though Twig wasn't here right beside her, she felt --- comforted. With light hooves she ran around, the grass dancing to her steps, everything seemed right, and Bare Trees wanted to ignore the strange feeling that seemed to hand above her amid her joy.

"Hello!!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, though she expected no one to hear, "Hello!" The doe exclaimed again, even hoping someone could share in this peace.  

[Chrystali]

"Are you always so loud?"

Manifesting between where the clouds met the green field, the green and white doe put one dark hoof upon the field. Where she stepped, red shot out like blood, flowing and encapsulating the area. The trees began to wilt and weep into a dark red, the land without the red blades of grass similarly a crusty crimson. By the time all four hooves were on the ground, Winter staring at her galloping daughter like she was still a disobedient child, the one beautiful and peaceful dream was a wasteland of carnage.  

[Aric Val]

If the other didn't even speak, she would have noticed very quickly that she was there. Though the other doe was of bright green and pure white like the colours Bare Trees loved -- the crimson that followed and the look in the doe's eyes terrified her.

"M-mother--!" She trembled a little, well, she was looking for someone to share it with but never had expected her mother. This was a ...dream that turned into something else.

Bare Trees saw that look in her mother's eyes, ears lowering a little and though she did want to run towards the endless grassy field --- she breathed in, slowly walking over to meet the vivid red, eyeing how quickly it seemed to.. well, die.

"No-- I just--I thought I was alone. Are you alright?" Oh motherfather, she already probably said something wrong.  

[Chrystali]

The huntress stood stoically where she was, poised but ready to spring as always. Her eyes narrowed slightly upon Bare Trees as the other began to...what was that? Was she simpering? It was a marvel to Winter that this one even survived her womb. The buck who gave the younger doe her brown would surely be equally as disappointed.

"What is wrong with you?" she countered in her quiet tone, the likes of which could slice and draw blood with the sharpness alone. "Who dreams of plains, but the prey that eat the grass? Who screams to make themselves known, but the owlcat who is stuck?" If possible, her eyes narrowed even more, barely slivers of sunset against all the red.  

[Aric Val]

The older doe certainly wasn't shouting but it did cut into her sharper than a high screech. blinking around her bright grassy dream as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn't be doing.

Breathe, breathe, you can do it. She had many conversations with her mother in her mind, but of course words couldn't come out properly now. But --she had to try. Winter probably had a judging look on her this whole time she was trying to think.

"Nothing is wrong with me," she said, "I just -- like seeing things grow and bloom." It was strange saying that to her mother--- who was literally surrounded in red and dying trees. "You look--well, are you well?" she added quietly, obviously this was a dream and her mother was terrifying but she was her mother and -- there was a part of her that was relieved.  

[Chrystali]

NOTE

Winter curled her lip, taking one heavy step forward - and with it, the entire landscape was snuffed out into an eternal grey horizon. There was nothing. It was very one-note, singular, and clearly was how the doe felt about the other before her.

"Do you think me weak, child?" she sneered, teeth bared at her own offspring. "Do you think so little of me, think me so incapable I can't take care of myself? That I'd be as miserably dull as the life you lead?" Her entire body was taut, back slightly arched. Bare Trees would easily recognize this gesture as something Frostbite did -- before the gryphon pounced to kill.

"How did you fall so far from me?"  

[Aric Val]

The sudden immense change and aggression surprised Bare Trees, she knew her mother was fierce and -- so very the opposite of her but this was different. She panicked a little, yet her stance immediately went to a defensive stance as she has when she is hunting, though ready to fight back if needed -- she wouldn't really attack her mother, but it was.. a precaution.

"I didn't--- No! Not at all." She started, back arched and hooves digging into the ground and signifying she wouldn't back down, she had to be strong! "Of course you can take care of yourself, mother, you're-- the strongest I've ever known! But----" she breathed out, "It's because I'm not you."  

[Chrystali]

"Nor would you ever be." The reply was final, curt, matter-of-fact. "I did not raise you to be me, child. I raised you to hunt and be self sufficient. I raised you to survive!" Winter's muzzle wrinkled as she bared her teeth. Distantly - there was some strange lilting sounds: a screech, a disjointed song. She was annoyed, and her manner of dealing with such things was typically a bloody one.

Even so - perhaps remarkably - she did not take another step forward. She stared - glared - at her daughter, but there was just enough of a sense of confusion that she did not act. "You could never be me. You don't have the instinct. Why would you say that?"  

[Aric Val]

And it was only then Bare Trees noticed the surroundings, but didn't dwell on it for long, her eyes --- just like her mothers, looking back. The strange sounds merely at the back of her mind.

"And I have survived, I am alive. I hunt, I eat and sometimes I just-- I want to be myself." She said that last part a little softer than the rest which was louder than she ever spoke, "You are -- the perfect hunter, mother, I know this. And you taught me to fend for myself and hunt -- and I am grateful but -- " Pausing again, a gentle song of the wind brushed against them. "I am me, and you may not like it, but it is me." And somehow what she said was more of a revelation to herself than any.  

[Chrystali]

RAIN


"I never wanted you to be me, child. A sliver of me, perhaps, but I am alpha. You are not. I would kill you if you were." Winter frowned as the grey began to be washed away in the soft patter of encroaching rain. Slowly, the field and distant trees returned, but gloomy and wet with a rumble of distant steel clouds.

Winter's eyes never moved from Bare Trees, even as her fur grew heavy with rainwater and doused the younger doe. It was as though their surroundings were not there at all. She knew it was a dream - she didn't actually think she was speaking to her daughter - but it was strange. There was something very real about what was transpiring. "You are no huntress. I may be disgusted by your choice of life, but your dream is not mine, girl." It was as simple as that, to her. She may call Bare Trees 'child,' but it was not 'my child,' nor would it ever be. She'd birthed four hearty Kimeti, but they were not hers. They belonged to the Swamp, just as she did.  

[Aric Val]

She blinked at the rain that started to fall, eyes bigger when Winter responded to her -- the words, slowly sinking in. It seemed.. she had gotten everything all wrong.

"I..." The rainfall became harder, Bare Trees was a little thankful for it because it at least veiled her expression a bit. If this was a dream it was certainly a very vivid one, her chest becoming slightly tight but -- strangely also calmed with this revelation. "I'm sorry," she started, breathing out, lifting a hoof towards her mother. "We are different, very different, and--that is alright. But your blood will always run in mine and you will always be my mother." It was true, all that Winter was saying and she had a sense of clarity then. Though her family ties would always be in her heart --- somehow she had to let go of this ideal vision she always had and perhaps make it her own.  

[Chrystali]

Winter was unmoved by Trees' reaction. She could taste the sorrow on the air as surely as she could feel the rain drip off her jaw. "I birthed you, child, but you are not mine. You belong to the land, just as I do." She, too, seemed to sense what Bare Trees was aiming for, but she understood it significantly less. "If it is family you seek - make one. Have your blood flow through others. All I can do is let blood flow from others."

She could not be the mother Bare Trees wanted. Winter was honest enough with herself to know that, but apparently, she needed to be honest with those that relied on her.

It's weakness, she told herself, her thoughts strangely audible in the dream.

But weakness makes us stronger.  

[Aric Val]

"I birthed you, child, but you are not mine. You belong to the land, just as I do."

That made the blood in her veins pump harder than it ever had and this felt more real than anything she had ever felt in her life. If this was just a dream -- if this wasn't her mother and it was all an imagination -- that didn't matter. The rain was practically covering her sight but her mother was as clear as ever. "...Then I must." He nodded her head, for once the words from the other doe's mouth, that comforted her somehow.

"You are strong, mother," she said in almost a whisper. She had to let go of this image in her head. "Thank you for teaching me that."

It is family I seek. And she'd find it herself.

FIN