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 Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:07 am
Normally Ansel wasn't one to leave his boy behind, but Christien had always given him freedom if he so chose it. Now that their new Native friends had showed what great freedoms they gave the horses they called "Soquili" Christen had even taken to leaving the fence gate open. It was a strange rush, true freedom.
Ansel tossed his head, his chestnut mane turned deep umber in the dark, and let himself wade into the chill of floating water and freezing loam. Now that he was out, he could hear cicadas in the distance, yet none near here. It was odd, to say the least, and Ansel found himself pulled irresistably forward by a curiosity. The beast in him knew that such silence only brought bad things, but intelligence was the Soquilli and Human's curse alike. Once Intelligence was factored in, it often lead to curiosity, and together they could over power the common sense of instinct. It wasn't long before he reached the edge of the meadow. Once more, Ansel cast a glance behind him, but he was too far gone to turn back now. With a snort that cast a temporary fog of its own, Ansel returned his gaze to the woodland and pushed past the treeline.
He had trod through many a stand of trees in his life, the ranch he'd begun on having been littered with the kind, but the plants in this new land were still foreign to him. In the night there were even more smells of uncertain orgins, and songs of creatures he couldn't identify. His instincts told him to run from the dangers most certainly come with these foreign things, and Ansel's curiosity blanketed them till they were little more than a mosquito buzzing about his ear. He flicked even that away, time and time again until it was annoyed enough to find easier prey.
Nothing came with barred teeth or growling threats, much to Ansel's growing delight. Yet, he hadn't found the source of that unnatural silence, either. It didn't persist as heavily here as it had at the cabins, for there were calls of hunter owls and busy insects in the background. Though dulled by the chill, as most insects were, it was still a little too quiet for his liking. Ansel stopped, suddenly, half down a tiny cliff that had likely been cut by water or a trees root decades ago; he wasn't home and hadn't been for quite some time. Perhaps what he thought of as unnatural was natural here? He pondered that a moment, a statue hewn in the stillness of revelation and wonder for all to see by the moonlight that night. For months they had toiled here, and worked their way into this New World. Even Christien, heart-broken and anxious as he was, had come to like, if not love, this new land. Yet, despite their time here, Ansel had not accepted it as his home.
The thought of ever making that trip back across the turbulent, tossing waters they'd come from was enough to make the large Soquili shake and break his ever-stiffening stance. No, he would never be 'home' again. There was a sudden, hard lump deep inside of his chest that Ansel knew, as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the East and there would be a rainbow after a storm, he'd never quite shake. He'd told himself since he was young that his home was with Christien, no matter where it took him, but the reality wasn't quite so simple as that.
Ansel's eyes closed and he heaved a small sigh. He was an adult, and as such he could handle a little homesickness, no matter how odd or sudden it was. He set his hooves to moving again, lifting them as high as he always did no matter how much he wanted to let them drag. Sure, he wasn't home, but that was no reason to mope. There wasn't a thing anyone could do of it now, and Ansel truly wasn't certain he'd return if he could. Another sound reached his ears in the still of the night, and Ansel perked them towards it. Running water, he realized after a moment, turning his nose towards it. A drink was definatly in order.
The location wasn't very far from where he'd been, either. Ansel allowed himself the faintest of smiles for the tiny, clear babbling brook. A few fireflys danced lazily in the mist that still clung to the edge of the land about them, as if they hadn't the sense to get out of the cold. Somehow the sight lifted his mood a little, and Ansel gave a low, wickering laugh as he lowered his muzzle to the stream.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:10 pm
This night had already succeeded in seducing Huyana, luring her away from her sleeping family and into the nearby woods. She never once stopped to consider where she was going, though, because destination simply isn't important when one is being drawn by the breeze, the darkness, not when the journey itself is the true objective. Nor when the invisible spirits have a much better idea of where she ought to go anyhow.
The young Soquili often traveled with her eyes closed, focusing instead on the feel of the air and trusting the night to guide her safely; despite this, it was still immediately clear to Huyana when her setting changed, the trees clearing way into a soft meadow, carpeted in a gorgeous array of pastel greens and speckled in dew. She could hear the grass, smell the brook, feel the soft touch of a stray firefly; she knew exactly what she'd find before ever opening her eyes, but this didn't stop her from feeling a slight rush at the sight when she finally did.
This place, this small clearing in the middle of a non-too-special forest, was her own vision of heaven. And as she lowered herself down into the grass, wanting nothing more than to lay awake all night, enjoying every moment of it, the soft trickling sounds of the stream was already beginning to lull her to sleep. And before long, she was.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:37 pm
Ansel's ears perked when he thought he heard something move on the other side of the stream. It didn't come again, and he was rather enjoying the freezing bite of the stream. A whisper played in his ear, Christien's voice reminding him not to 'flouder' himself. It was an annoying reminder, but Ansel had a tendency to indulge himself. Slowly he pulled his muzzle from the stream and tossed his head to rid himself of some excess water sticking to his muzzle. One of the fireflys came up to investigate him, then. It circled about his maw as he tossed his head, and flew up to make patterns about his ears. He danced himself, just a little, on the shore, his hoofs slipping in the mud as he watched his 'partner.' Eventually she flew off, and he watched her go, back across the stream over a small pair of ears and into the night.
...'Ears'? Ansel blinked a few times. His gaze flew down through the mist to the strange, unearthly sight to be held. The Soquili's mane and tail seemed to be made of mist, by this light, curling about her strangly marked face. The darkness of her contrased with a nearly glowing blue tattooing her body and highlighting her legs. No, by the light of the moon this creature did glow as readily as the glistening, filmy wings fluttering lightly upon her back as she slept. Ansel was struck still and speechless once more, but this time his thoughts stopped just as readily.
Could this creature actually exist? His practicallity warred with knoweledge of myths told long before those of Christien's carpenter. Despite having heard the legends, he'd never known of a horse version of those mushroom dancing fey, though perhaps they existed if their humanoid counterpart did? Ansel shook his head clear, a whicker breaking the silence and for a moment his own voice startled him further.
If she was real, how did she come to be there? He'd been certain he'd seen no one when he'd first come to this place. Normally he'd have left the sleeping souls lie, but this mystery perplexed him so much that he had stepped into and across the stream before he'd known it. Ansel's head lowered towards hers and he got his first close look. Her mane, it seemed, was a real mane butit glowed as much as the mist about them... and its curl mimiced it in a way so natural that it nearly defied nature. It wasn't possible for this creature to exist, so surely she must be a fey.
Briefly, his mind reminded him of the bird-winged Soquili and those with horns and spikes and all amounts of 'unnatural' appendages he'd met since coming here. Somehow that didn't seem to matter in this, and the child in himself wanted very much for this beauty to be as unreal yet charming as the legends of King Aurther and his Gwuenievere.
Dumbstruck was a world well used, for his mouth was suddenly made of glue.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:00 pm
Ansel wasn't being loud by any means; certainly not enough to disturb Huyana from her deep sleep. Still, most creatures have a mysterious sixth sense about them, and this obscure feeling was precisely what pulled the Soquili away from her dreams and back to her physical surroundings. She showed no surprise when she awoke to find herself inches away from the nose of a stranger, but she was visibly overcome by an insatiable curiosity. She'd seen many, many others like herself before, but never any with such odd decorations adorning their faces and backs. They weren't quite her "flavor of grain", so to speak, but then again, if she tilted her head just so, she could begin to see a strange appeal to the... whatever they were.
Realizing her staring was beginning to breach the realm of "rude", she unlocked her eyes from Ansel's harness and instead turned them toward his face. She was still plagued with a lingering sluggishness, but made a strong effort to look respectably alert.
"...and here I was certain nobody else had taste fine enough to visit this meadow at night. Unless, perhaps, you're lost?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:21 pm
Ansel took a step, or two, back when she awoke. Jerking his head up, the male gaped a moment before snapping his mouth shut with a slight click. Oh yes, that was elegance at its finest. He visibly shook, reminding himself not to be so uncontrolably male. Another glance down at her found her simply staring at the tack his owner had left on for some reason that night. At least he didn't have the saddle on, that would have rubbed his fur off! It somehow made him uneasy that she stared at that particular aspect of his; it was almost as if he were the unusal one here.
Of course, to her he likely was. That insufferable common sense was back once more and Ansel was yet again reminded what it was like to be an adult. Perhaps he wasn't there quite yet, but he did hope he was close. It was then that she spoke, an action require much more of his attention were he to ever hope of doing more than drool into the grass.
After what had to be a wonderfully awkward pause for both individuals involved, Ansel finally managed to unstick whatever mental cog had corked up and formed something of a suitable reply, "I... wouldn't say lost, M'lady... Though I cannot claim knowledge of this place prior to arriving here, either. It is a lovely meadow.. is it yours?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:46 pm
Initially, Huyana was amused by the stranger's awkwardness... and then, relaxed by the notion he wasn't acting overly gruff, unlike some of the other, daresay unlikeable, stallions she'd had the displeasure of meeting prior.
"I must admit to being something of a regular to this meadow myself... however, I've never before seen it in such a state of divine loveliness. ...Not to say," she quickly amended, taking into consideration the feelings of the meadow itself, "that it's ever truly lacking in beauty."
His question took her off guard, though, and befuddled her to no ends. While she did have a vague concept of ownership, as she owned herself in the sense that she had freedoms to think and roam as she pleased, and together with her family, she somewhat "owned" the Teepee they lived in... she couldn't even begin to correlate the concept with a meadow. The notion was both perplexing and, on a larger scale, terrifyingly frightening.
"I'm... afraid I don't quite understand. Is that... a joke?"
Markie, her sister, loooved jokes, so she was no stranger to those. Nor was she a stranger to her own incapability of understanding many of them.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 9:02 pm
Ansel had to admit, this vision was certainly well spoken. His eyes flickered around the meadow, forced away from the sight of her by the fact that he was being unspeakably rude. She hadn't, after all, stared at him no matter how odd he probably looked to her eyes. For a moment he wondered if there was some shame in being as plain a he was. Certainly, all the native Soquili he'd met were flamboyant to a fault compaired to his modestly coloured peers. Such distracting thoughts. Ansel wondered when he'd become so introverted, and almost laughed at himself for the irony of the act. "A joke?"
Turning back towards the young mare, he tilted his head. How could that be a joke? Ansel attempted to wrap that around what he could gleam from Cassandra's hopelessly lost mind and the little interraction he'd had with her father and friends. Nothing came up and after a moment he tried to rephrase the question, "Does your.. Friend. Human friend.. ah.. keep their home near here?" Usually grazing pastures were near a human establishment, he thought. Sometimes it was hard to tell what these new humans referred to as their "territory" without fences or decent scent-marks.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:37 pm
"...Oh! Well, Ama lives about an hour's walk away from here? There's a small river, really quite beautiful, and our home is right on the bank. A few times the river flooded over and we lost our home... but that hasn't happened in a long while, so I think it's finally pleased with us." Huyana's contentment was clearly spoken with these words; she loves her home and would be saddened to leave, but willing, of course, were the river ever to insist upon it.
"I travel away from them most nights, though. I lured them here-- Ama, and my sister-- once, and they just... didn't understand." A sigh. "Beauty is one of the most complicated mysteries of the world, don't you think? What's breathtaking to one is often negligible to another..."
Huyana was rambling, her voice sounding almost hypnotic, as though she were still being half-consciously led around the forest by forces she hardly understood. She didn't think to stop, though; even were she to consider it, she'd decide this: strangers will inevitably come and go, perhaps stay, some liking her and others not... but nevertheless, it would never be her place to sway them with falsehoods.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:54 pm
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ansel almost wanted to chuckle at the more lamen's term phrase of what she'd just said. Of couse, she hadn't used common language, the way she'd termed it was much more poetic. Ansel had to admit he was fond of those who could speak in such fashions, and took heed to her words.
Indeed, while he'd been focused inward the true and total beauty of the place had been lost upon him. He'd thought of it as eerily silent and mysterious, but there was another skin to it all together. The fireflys still performed their ballet around the two Soquili and for a time Ansel contented himself with watching them. Somehow it didn't seem as if the conversation was lacking simply because he wasn't speaking--as if her hypnotic voice had taken him with it. How.. strange.
Eventually, he did speak, "You speak as if the river would understand that you live beside it."
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:09 pm
In the silence that followed her words, she too allowed herself to once more be entranced by the meadow's eerie glow, appreciating minute detail she'd missed previously, re-admiring already discovered treasures...
...and it was almost, almost enough to soften the blow of Ansel's remark. She'd never quite experienced anything quite like the sudden jolt that went through her heart, as though he'd just physically assaulted her, tearing it out and... crushing it, twisting it into the ground. She mentally stumbled, mouth opening oh-so-slightly in utter disbelief at his... utter lack of wisdom regarding the...wonderful, awe-inspiring world he... supposedly lived in! Or perhaps he was simply trying to insult her? Her mind was a mess; this situation was entirely foreign to her, and she wasn't sure how to react, or feel.
"...Of... of course it understands. It keeps us bathed and nourished and... it listens to our stories, protects us from harm... feeds us... how... how could you possibly insinuate anything otherwise...? How could it not... understand..."
Hurt was the only emotion flowing in these awkward, stuttered sentences, but a hurt thick with a defensiveness of her friend and utter, pained disbelief at the incomprehensible insensitivity of Ansel.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:22 pm
That he'd insulted her somehow wasn't too hard to fathom. What Ansel truly didn't get was HOW he'd insulted her. He blinked a few times as the peaceful atmosphere of the meadow skidded to a halt, and his honey eyes turned to the beauty still laying in the grass and mist. Only now her mouth was agape and completely .... disgusted? It occurred to him a moment later that if this were a fae creature, he'd likely made a dire mistake.
But how could a river feel or think? Surely it moved o fits own accord, or of the whim of the Great God that Christien's mother liked to speak of, but it didn't listen or feel. ... Did it? Things had been so topsy turvy as of late that he was beginning to question everything. If Soquilies had wings and horns and did the things that Soqullis did here.. did a river feel?
It was purposterous!
His brow furrowed a little, and he watched her with a rather obvious expression of confusion. This unearthly being must be testing him, he decided, like Angels were said to test people..... and a part of him had to admit that she fit the description of an angel, in Soquili form.
"Well... its... water..." He said, slowly. He didn't mean to hurt her, but he didn't understand. ".. we drink it and bathe in it, yes... and it is beautiful... well, here at least. But water has never been able to hear or protect anything. It is used... like one of the humans' tools."
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:38 pm
Huyana was torn between flying off far, far away from this villain, giving herself time to clear her mind and calm down.... and between attempting to educate this stallion's poor, underdeveloped soul. Being a Soquili of mercy, she opted for the latter... or rather, to attempt it. Still, there were long minutes of patient, deep breaths, closed eyes and forethought before she found herself once more able to speak, her voice soft but determined.
"...The ocean. You must know of the ocean. Have you ever witnessed a tsunami? A hurricane? Heard stories of them? Perhaps you've heard stories of large ships carrying humans, or Soquili, or both, being lost, destroyed, stranded because of them? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the ocean, which I assure you is capable of feeling whether or not your clammed-up heart can emphathize with that, was angry at them for disrespecting it? Did they not deserve their date, given they failed to ask it's permission? To thank it for carrying them along on their journey? Did they stop to thank the wind, which powered their sails? How would you explain the mysterious way water currents flow, or the wind blows then ceases? How about lightning storms, blooming flowers, trees? If not a soul, a heart, like those that help Soquili fouls grow into adults... then what? Nothing?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:47 pm
He had truly made her angry, or at least indignant. Of that there was no question, and Ansel found himself perhaps a touch insulted as well. Some modocum of maturity reared its head and kept him from snapping at her. After all, he was the one who had angered this angel.. he had obviously said something wrong. What was it that made her believe such a senseless, fateful force was alive?
He shook his head in wonder at it, and slowly moved to lay down as well. Standing, towering over her would only put her on the defensive even more than she already was, that maturity said.. or perhaps it was instinct. Either way, he gave her some space when he did take his own 'seat.' "I am one of the Soquili who has come from over the ocean," He explained slowly. "Nor is it a trip I would ever make again, were I to have a choice about it. We rode through many storms, and there were many sicknesses passed amongst the humans on board. Many died, human and Soquili alive.. and yet, without thanking the water or the wind, we made it to our proper destination. Rather, our human thanks God, the supreme being, who is the one that chooses where the water goes and what the water does. The water itself is not a living being, nor does God cater his whims in moving it to any one particular person. He hears those who speak to him and praise his name, and will give them what they need.. not necessarily what they want."
There was a long pause, before he added. "This is what my Human boy, Christien, has told me. There are tales, though, of other ways of thought on the matter, but I have never heard, first hand, a different persepective until now. Personally, I have never considered that the water might have a personality of its own.. after all, I drink it and use it just like any other creature. That something with a personality would allow others to feed off its own flesh is more than a little unsettling. Nor have I ever had a problem with any sort of water, until that boat trip, for not giving thanks to it or listening to its supposed whims."
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:04 am
She stood her ground, needing to feel strong around this individual, despite the honest truth that she'd never have the strength nor the will will to fight with anything beyond words, not even against one of the Earth's smallest creatures. Common sense rarely factored in, after all, when raw instinct was telling her she needed to be strong.
"...Whether you blame the ocean or thank your God, you admit to losing many lives. I'd hardly consider that a successful journey, nor would I consider any God who would allow such a thing to be merciful or protective. And you claim the river has no soul because you cannot hear or see it, and yet, where is the soul of your God? Can you show me physical proof of his existence? If not, are you not contradicting your own self on the matter?
Truth told, I've never heard of your perspective before, or of any besides my own. I'd like to think of myself as fair-minded, open to the possibilities of other Greater Truths, but I simply see no appeal or believability in yours. Many creatures-- like rivers and streams, which dare I say, are much kinder in general and more forgiving than the oceans, so clearly you'd have no confrontations with them-- live in symbiotic relationships with others, allowing mutual loss for a greater mutual gain. Is it not the same with us Soquili and humans? Do they not feed us, and do we not aid them in return? Do they not loose food, and us time? Energy? Does our mutual gain not justify it? I ask you: how is the river's relationship with us any different?"
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