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 Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:14 am
This is a foal rp between Totchli and Lepus  
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:17 am
Totchli stirred a bit when a current of cold water swept past. He snuggled up closer to the warm body at his side and continued to drift in the half asleep gloom for a few moments longer. Gradually he surfaced into true consciousness. It was still early. He could tell because he could hear his brother’s gentle snores beside him. He didn’t hear their mother, however. She didn’t exactly snore. She made delicate little sleeping noises. Totchli knew this because the one time he told her he found her snores soothing, she told him that they weren’t snores. Ladies didn’t snore. Totchli had stored that knowledge away as a fact of life. Usually, their mother was the last to wake. He listened for another moment before he finally lifted his head and looked around. When his groggy mind processed what he was seeing, or rather what he wasn’t seeing, he nudged his brother. “Lepus… wake up.”
Lepus snapped awake almost instantly, choking on the middle of a snore. He stared around him trying to find the threat… or whatever had woke him up. While Totchli had always been slow to fall asleep, and slow to wake up, Lepus had possessed the gift of instant sleep and instant consciousness. He spotted what had bothered his brother faster than Totchli had, and had processed how early it was. “Where’s Mom?” he asked Totchli. If anyone knew where the mare was, it would be his baby brother.
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:18 am
Totchli shook his head. “I dunno,” he said, swimming closer to where their mother usually slept. She hadn’t let them sleep close to her since they were newly popped. She had a tendency to toss and turn in her sleep, and didn’t want to risk squashing her children. Especially not when they had each other to keep one another warm. Totchli was careful not to touch anything that belonged to their mother. Another rule that he was very careful to follow. He didn’t like upsetting Mom. He probably shouldn’t have worried too much. None of their mother’s possessions were around her bed area. In fact, there was no sign of her having ever slept there. Confused, he looked to his brother for an explanation.
Lepus took in the same details as his brother, but unlike Totchli, Lepus wasn’t blind to their mother’s many faults. He knew his baby brother loved their mother a great deal. He also knew that it would crush Totchli if the younger foal knew the truth about their mother. And now that the selfish mare had taken off, Lepus was the one who had to break the news to Totchli. She couldn’t even stick around to abandon them to their faces. He hesitated, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it. Finally, he went with straight to the point. “I think she’s gone,” he said, bluntly. Rather than looking around their little cave, he kept his eyes on his brother, trying to gauge Totchli’s reactions.
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:22 am
“I can see that,” Totchli said, wryly. Really, sometimes Lepus acted like he was an idiot. Totchli was smarter than Lepus gave him credit for. They just disagreed about their mother. Lepus didn’t like her much. He was always arguing with her. Totchli knew that she was doing the best she could. After all, she was raising them all by herself. Their father had cruelly abandoned their mother when she was pregnant with them. What else was she supposed to do? “When do you think she’ll be back?”
Lepus sighed and resisted the urge to bang his head against the nearest rock. He loved his brother. He did. Really, honestly, he did. He knew Totchli was smart. So very smart. Maybe even smarter than Lepus. It was just that Totchli had a colossal blind spot when it came to their mother. “I don’t know… Maybe a few hours. But… Totch, she took all her stuff. What if she doesn’t come back?”
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 4:13 pm
“Why wouldn’t she come back?” Totchli argued, frowning a bit. He could see that their mother had taken her things, but that didn’t mean anything. She could have… gone to sell them, maybe. Not that her mother had ever deprived herself of shiny things… Or maybe she was trading them in for new shiny things. She could even be out looking for a new daddy for them. She talked about finding a nice stallion to live with all the time…
“Why would she take all her things?” Lepus countered. “She’s probably gone to find herself another boyfriend or something…” He was tempted to continue his rant. To explain that she might not come back if she decides it’d be easier to attract a male if she wasn’t lugging along two sons. Their mother had always felt the need to have someone admire her. Lepus had seen that from an young age. She always seemed to feel better when Totchli started to gush over her or compliment her. On the flip side, she was always angry with Lepus for saying what he thought and what he saw. He did consider the possibility that Totchli wasn’t the one who was blind when it came to their mother. Maybe Lepus was too hard on her. But it was hard to argue with the evidence that was facing them right now.
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 4:16 pm
“Maybe she got bored with it all,” Totchli offered. “None of it is new anymore. Mom likes new things. You know that.” New things were always the best. It was why Totchli always brought home the pretty rocks and shells he and Lepus found when they were out playing. “Maybe she took it all so she could trade it for new stuff. Prettier stuff.”
That… actually did sound like their mother. Still, Lepus shook his head slightly. “Yeah… she likes new things… but maybe she got tired of us.” And maybe he was being too harsh, but it was too late to take the words back now. Besides, Totchli needed to hear this. If their mother came back, Lepus would apologize to Totchli. He might even apologize to their mother for underestimating her. But he was pretty certain that he was right and Totchli was wrong. All he had to do was get Totchli to see that, and then they could figure out what to do next. After all, they had no father, and now apparently they had no mother.
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 8:45 am
Totchli frowned a bit at that. For a second, he believed that could be true. Their mother didn’t have a long attention span with… well, much of anything except for the males she was trying to charm. In those cases, the males usually wander away from her before she had a chance to lose interest in them. Or they found out about her sons and took off. Maybe she left because of that…. But no. He shook those thoughts away. No, their mother loved them. He had to believe that. “She wouldn’t do that,” he argued, firmly. “We’re her sons, not pretty rocks. She wouldn’t get bored with us.”
Lepus stared at his younger brother, stunned that Totchli could still believe in their mother. He sighed. “Totch, she doesn’t…” he stopped that sentence before it could fully form. He couldn’t just tell Totchli that their mother didn’t love them. He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. He told himself that he didn’t want to break his baby brother’s heart like that, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Despite the fact that he never had any delusions about their mother, she WAS still his mother. He never believed that she cared about them. He knew she was too selfish for that. But deep down, in his heart, he didn’t want to believe it either. He wanted his mommy to love him, just as much as Totchli did. He just wasn’t as good as his brother at fooling himself into believing it. He could no more burst his brother’s illusion than he could take that tiny little hope away from himself. He hesitated, not sure what else to say.
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 8:47 am
Totchli waited a moment for his brother to finish that sentence. When Lepus didn’t, he took it as a sign that maybe he was getting through to his brother. “She does,” he insisted, guessing what Lepus didn’t want to say. “You know she does. She would have said she didn’t if she didn’t. Mom never held back anything. You know that. She wouldn’t just walk away from us for no reason… and she would have told us if she had a reason to leave. So… she’s coming back. I know it.”
He wanted to believe Totchli. His brother was right about their mother. She was never shy about dumping truths on her children. It was one of the reasons Lepus was stunned that Totchli could love her as much as he did. Then again, Totchli never seemed to aggravate her as much as Lepus did. Still… “What if she did?” he asked, softly. “How long will you wait for her to come home?” How long would Totchli hold out hope for a mother that Lepus never thought it would come.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 4:32 pm
“I’ll wait for as long as I have to,” Totchli said, stubbornly. “Because she didn’t leave us. She IS coming back. You’ll see… she’s coming home. I know it…” He had to believe that. Their mother wouldn’t have just walked away from them. She wasn’t a bad mother, despite what Lepus might think. If she had left, then it was because they had done something wrong. Lepus was always arguing with her, and she hadn’t left them yet, so it couldn’t have been anything HE had done… which means that Totchli would have been the reason. If she had left… but she didn’t. She’d be back.
“Then just in case,” Lepus tried a different tact. Maybe if he prepared Totchli on hypotheticals, he wouldn’t notice when their mother actually didn’t turn up again. They were still young, but old enough to take care of each other. Lepus was sure that others had managed it at a younger age than them. And if not, then he’d take care of Totchli and it would be all fine. The plan made sense in his head, even if it wasn’t very well thought out or even remotely resembling a plan. All he had to do was convince Totchli to cooperate, and that meant eventually accepting that their mother had abandoned us. “We should plan for just in case. That way, if it takes her a long time to come home, we won’t… uh… there won’t be a mess or anything waiting for her.” There, that appealed to Totchli’s faith in their mother, didn’t it? Lepus held his breath as he waited to see if it would work.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 4:36 pm
Totchli considered that for a moment before nodding. “You’re right,” he agreed. We should make sure we don’t make a mess. First thing is first, we shouldn’t touch Mom’s sleeping area.” With that decided, he swam away from the corner where their mother usually slept and kept her things. “I’m hungry… are you hungry?” They had just woken up. Breakfast was in order. He considered what they had, trying to figure out what they could make or find.
Lepus let that breath out, relieved. He could work with this. “I’ll find something,” he decided. Usually, they kept a store of food for any time their mother didn’t feel like going out. But Lepus knew of a patch of sea plants that made good snacks. “Or… you should come with me,” he decided as an afterthought. He didn’t like the idea of leaving his brother behind, alone. “We’ll eat and then come back and continue planning… waiting,” he corrected. He didn’t want his brother to realize he still didn’t expect their mother to return.
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 9:52 am
Totchli wanted to say that he was a big boy. He would wait behind. Someone needed to wait in case their mother came home. What if she didn’t find them and so left to look for them? But he also didn’t want to be alone. “Maybe we should leave a message for Mom,” he suggested. They could move the rocks in an arrow or something so their mother would know where to start looking for them if she came back… Yeah, that seemed like a good idea.
“Yeah… okay,” Lepus agreed quickly. He would have agreed to anything if it meant that Totchli would go along with his plans. He quickly worked with Totchli to gather enough pebbles and then put them into the shape of an arrow pointing toward the patch of sea plants he had thought of. He didn’t think that their mother would bother to go looking for them on the off chance she actually came home while they were gone. She had never cared where they wandered off to while they were playing, why would she care where they were when she had left in the first place? But if it gave Totchli some peace of mind, he would make the extra effort. “There,” Lepus said once they had managed to get an arrow set up. “Are you ready to go?”
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 10:30 am
Totchli nodded and went with his brother. He couldn’t help but glance back every so often, half expecting their mother to swim out of the cave. Maybe they should have looked harder for her. She might have been there all along… No, that was unlikely. There weren’t many places for a foal to hide, let alone a full grown mer. But she might have been somewhere outside. He kept an eye out for his mother’s distinctive coloring as he followed closely behind his brother. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked, absently. He hoped they weren’t going too far. Maybe they should set up little signs along the way…
“Not far,” Lepus assured him, over his shoulder. “You remember the weeds that we played in last week? When Mom got so angry at us for getting so dirty?” Well, she hadn’t been angry that they were dirty, but rather that they had been a mess and had accidently stumbled on a date she had been on. Lepus thought that it wasn’t their fault, considering they hadn’t even known she had snuck off to charm a male. Besides, the male hadn’t seemed all that interested in her in the first place. But Lepus was pretty sure that Totchli wouldn’t remember it that way. “There were some tasty looking plants just a bit beyond the weed patch. That’s where we’re going now.”
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Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:52 pm
Totchli remembered that day. It had been the last time he had allowed Lepus to convince him to play in the weeds. It had also been the last time he had gone so far from their caves. Their mother had been so upset… But she wasn’t home now, and they did need to eat. Besides, it wouldn’t be too bad if they just didn’t get dirty, right? Right. With that in mind, Totchli followed his brother, keeping one eye on their home cave until it was finally out of sight. Lepus would know how to get them back. He had a great sense of direction… “You can get us back home, right?” he asked, just in case.
“Of course I can,” Lepus answered with a roll of his eyes. “I can get us to the food and back again. We can even take some stuff back with us so we won’t have to leave the cave any time soon.” Lepus figured it would take a few days, at least, for Totchli to completely give up on their mother. They could stock up on food to last them through those few days, and then gather some more. Lepus wasn’t certain if staying in the cave they had been born in was a good idea, in the long run. They were isolated from anyone who might be able to help them. Then again, they were also tucked away from anyone who might hurt them. He frowned to himself as he continued to lead Totchli to breakfast. It was a difficult problem. He wished he’d thought to try and learn more from their mother before she took off. Or at least found out why she had chosen to raise them in that particular cave. Had it been just a convenient place? Or was it actually safe?
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Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:58 pm
“That’s a good idea,” Totchli agreed, unaware of just what was running through his brother’s head. If they had food back at the cave then they wouldn’t have to worry about leaving signs behind for their mother. They could wait in the cave for her to return. Well, Totchli could. Lepus wasn’t very good about staying put for very long. He could go outside and play while they waited. Totchli didn’t mind staying behind for a little while. Lepus wouldn’t go far.
Lepus grinned a bit at the praise. He guessed what Totchli was thinking, but that was fine. They reached and then passed the weed patch. “Not far now,” he promised Totchli. True to his words, it was only a few minutes more before they came across the patch of plants. “Now… I haven’t tried everything, so we should probably just take what we recognize for now. I can always test the rest of it later.” He didn’t want to accidently poison his baby brother.
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Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:26 pm
“Okay,” Totchli agreed. He started helping his brother pick the plants that they recognized. Unfortunately, there were so many plants, and so few of them actually looked familiar to the younger brother. Totchli had never been the forager of the two. He had always been content with what their mother brought home for them… though some days she would forget to feed them altogether. It wasn’t her fault, though. She had a lot on her mind, Totchli was sure. On those days, Lepus had always been the one to go out and find something for them to eat. Totchli wondered if maybe that was where their mother had gone. Had she meant to go looking for food? But why, when there was a perfectly good batch here?
Lepus noticed his younger brother’s hesitance and realized then that he couldn’t remember the last time Totchli had foraged for his own food. If Lepus didn’t keep an eye on the younger mer, then Totchli might have starved by now. Still, Lepus didn’t want Totchli to feel inadequate or useless, so he tried to subtly guide his baby brother toward edible plants. While he was at it, he started chattering, keeping his tone light and toneless. He babbled on about the plants that he knew, telling Totchli everything he had figured out about them. All of his knowledge came from his own trial and errors. The spirits knew their mother was useless when it came to educating her children. Lepus didn’t have a clue how he and Totchli had turned out to be smarter than the rocks around them. Their mother certainly wasn’t.
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