[WP09] Swarm, Dapper Mantis

[Ruriska]

Past

Towering trees stretch towards the meagre light, fighting for space and tangling their branches in a slow and deadly battle. The rain drops that fall are big and heavy, slowly descending and shattering against the earth.

Swarm feels small in this world.

She feels tiny.

Perhaps because she is.

She remembers being young but she doesn’t remember such fear. This stumbling desperate foal is from a past that could have been but never was. There is no comforting buzz from Brother and Sister. In this realm they are not there and never were.

This is Swarm alone.  

[Jun D]

Path

Dapper moved, one hoof in front of the other, one hoof in front of the other. Dapper could not stop moving. Dapper moved. Dapper had been moving forever. Where was he going? Dapper did not know. The path was laid out before him, it always had been. Dapper could not remember a time he had not walked along this path. Dapper moved, he had been moving forever – he could not stop moving.

Dapper moved and moved and moved, one hoof in front of the other, one hoof in front of the other. And the further he walked, the smaller and smaller he became.

Past

He moved and moved and moved and then there was trees, towering trees in the dim, storm light. The rain fell and fell around him, and at first he could not see – and then he saw her.

Her.

There.

But a filly. A little filly, small and huddled to herself. A filly, he thought, about as young as he.

And colt-Dapper thought, she is the most beautiful thing in the world.

And colt-Dapper thought, so she is the one at the end of the path.

And colt-Dapper knew this was the reason he had been born.

Colt-Dapper said, "Hello?"

Ruriska

Aaaaahh here I finally am! I guess you have to roll for one more prompt!

 

[Ruriska]

Far Away

"Hello?"

The voice is a balm. It breaks through the darkness, the cold and the sheer loneliness chipping away at her being.

And so she smiles and stumbles forward, eager to meet him. "Hello!"

But with every step he is farther away.

"Don’t leave me!" She begs as space unravels between them.

Jun D

 

[Jun D]

Far Away

He struggles against the inevitable, throwing himself forward against the spiralling space, one desperate hoof after the other, battering against eternity.

"I'm here!" he cries, even as the ever-widening gulf of darkness makes a liar of him – his wide, seeking eyes can still see her tiny form, "I'll never leave you –"

Path

He can no longer see her, it is so dark, so far. The path is again before him, and this, he attacks. He runs – gallops – as fast as his limbs, stretching, heaving, will take him. He runs and runs and runs. She is at the end of the path, he knows that now. If he had known before, he would have always run.

He'll run until he finds her, faster, faster.

"I'm here," he pants, "I'm still here!"

Hoping beyond hope that she can hear him still, somehow, "I'm coming – I'll never leave."

Ruriska

*cuddles*

 

[Ruriska]

Day

She can hear him.

It compels fight against the distance, straining each and every muscle until her body is fire and that fire becomes the sun.

Daylight arrives sudden and harsh. The cold, the dark, the rain; they are all banished. The daylight is hope and life and she breathes it in with triumph.

Far Away

Swarm stops running because now she is big. She knows she can eat up the space between them if she wants too but all of a sudden isn’t sure if she does.

"Do you promise?" She hears herself ask, her voice echoing across the distance, still fragile and young. "You’ll have to find me."

Jun D

*snuggles* I hope you're doing better? I'm not even sure what I'm typing right now, haha.

 

[Jun D]

Far Away

"I promise!" he calls, flinging his voice into the void, "I promise."

Day

Light crashes around him, slamming into the ground, the trees. It had been dark, and now it is day. Everything is changed. Dapper stops running, because everything is changed.

"I'll find you," he calls into the light. He doesn't know if she will hear.

But he will find her.

Path

To his right is the Swamp, to his left is the Swamp. As far in front as he can see is Swamp, and over his shoulder, when he looks behind. But there, before him, cutting the thinnest of trails through the lush, thick green, is the path.

There is a far, far way to go. Too far a way to only run. Too far a way to only walk. Sometimes he must run, he thinks, and sometimes he must walk. Everything is changed, and this path also, and so he too must change to suit the path.

The one thing that hasn't changed, he knows, is that at the end, there she will be.

And so Dapper chooses to start with a run.

Ruriska

HRRGH

 

[Ruriska]

Night, Past and Path

She hears and she places his promise deep in her heart, where it will remain safe and pure. The space between them is now too much for her to cross but it doesn’t matter because one day he’ll keep that promise; that is the only truth and it will carry her forward into the unknown.

So she turns away from the light and back to the dark. Night descends, creeps in and wraps itself around her. Now she is a foal again but unlike before is not quite lost and not quite alone because even with no one beside her, she knows someone is searching. It doesn’t matter where she goes or what she does, the end result will be the same. It is reassuring.

Swarm is tiny and young, each step in a big world a mighty struggle. But she is strong. So she follows a path deeper, deeper, darker, until the shadows become her family.

And sometimes she hears a far-off buzz and she thinks there should be something else. Sometimes she feels cold and heartless, as if she has forgotten how to be herself. Sometimes she tastes blood on her tongue and she wonders if it is hers. In those moments she reaches deep inside and touches the promise, lets it glow and soak her soul in warmth.

"Hurry up," she says into the cold dark but she isn’t really in any hurry. She likes it like this. She likes the idea of it and fears the real thing.

So her long night continues until he finds the end of his path.