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 Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:26 am
Spring was coming again, and that meant that the snow was melting. For a white reindeer this was not such good news. Sesilida could hear the dripping all around as ice became water. When she was away from the other reindeer she didn't know where to hide anymore because she could only find the snow by walking around to feel and listen for it, and if she moved around she was more likely to attract unwanted attention.
Nevertheless, as she stood in one place she could feel the ground becoming softer under the pressure of her hooves. Slowly she was sinking into the mud. She carefully sidestepped, but found herself on even softer ground. Suppressing the urge to overreact she closed her eyes, held her antlers out in front of her, and picked her way through the forest until she could feel snow under her hooves again.
Abruptly her head was jerked back. She stumbled and there was a moment of panic, of reeling in empty space, until she awkwardly regained her balance. Something was keeping her from moving her head and she was stuck holding it to the side. Prickly things brushed her face. Oh no... She kept her eyes squeezed shut to protect them. Her antlers were caught in the bough of a tree.
"Um... um." She cleared her throat and stammered, "Anyone out there... um... help? Please?" And prayed that there would only be reindeer around to hear.
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:45 am
Tumi carefully picked his way through the muddy forest. Most of the adults seemed to be pre-occupied with something or other. They all seemed agitated and were generally just acting... strange. The calf didn't mind so much, though. He enjoyed coming up with little games to play on his own; watching birds or finding blow flowers.
At the moment, however, he was very interested in the strange itching sort of feeling atop his head. His first head of antlers ought to be coming in soon, he realized. He started to rub the orange tuft of fur on his head against a tree trunk when he noticed something odd a little way off. Something white--whiter than the muddy snow. It might be Glosoli... No, it looked like a cow. Sesilida. And she seemed to have caught her antlers in a tree. Tumi snorted a laugh around the stick he carried in his mouth and again started working his way through the forest as carefully as he could.
When he'd gotten near to her, he stopped and rested his walking stick against his shoulder so he could speak. "Don't worry. I'll help you get out."
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:04 am
"Oh thank you." Her savior was the male calf of the herd, Tumi, she realized. She wondered how tall he was and if he was going to be able to reach high enough to untangle her. Maybe she could pull her head down a bit if he couldn't reach. "Thank you very much." Struck with guilt at the burden she was on the herd she clenched her teeth for a few moments. Then it passed. At this point she was accustomed to being a burden; she had to be. She held still and waited patiently.
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:15 am
"It's no problem," he smiled and, taking his stick in his mouth, walked over to the tree. He tried standing on his hind legs with his one good leg against the tree for balance, but that didn't seem to work. When he pulled too hard on the branches, he lost his balance and fell.
He leaned his walking stick against the tree and stared at the branches for a few moments. "Hmm. Have any ideas?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:30 am
She tugged lightly at the tree and it rustled ominously, but it didn't give very much and she didn't dare pull too hard for fear of somehow making it worse. "The problem is that I can't see the branches," she explained. "If you could tell me where to move, I might be able to get out on my own." The wood slid along the bone of her antlers as she shifted position slightly and uncomfortable vibrations went down her spine. Well this was quite an adventure, wasn't it.
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:40 am
"Oh, that might work." He started to reach for his walking stick, but paused, "Let me try one thing first. Don't worry!"
Instead of holding the stick near the top as he usually did, he grabbed it by the bottom. Little bits of mud and dirt got in his mouth, but he ignored them as he leaned against the tree again. This time he tried using the stick to free Sesilida's caught antlers. Mostly this involved a lot of lively wacking of innocent tree limbs. This also had almost no effect whatsoever on said limbs' desire to hold Sesilida prisoner.
When Tumi was quite convinced that he'd made a valiant effort, he climbed back down and dropped the stick from his mouth, spitting out a bit of mud with it. "Ew. Didn't work. I guess we can try your way now."
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:01 am
Having no idea what was going on except for a lot of whacking noises and the boughs moving around wildly, Sesilida was -- understandably -- totally freaked out. It was like the tree had woken up and started shaking her head around. And clapping its branches together loudly, which was unpleasant for the especially sensitive hearing she had developed to compensate for her blindness. She made a few strangled sounds and thrashed around while Tumi courageously battled the tree.
When he finally stopped she stood with her heart pounding and her legs shaking. She didn't even have the breath to ask what in Hoern's name was going on. After a bit of panting she put it aside and moved so that she was as much out of what she guessed to be Tumi's line of sight as she could be. "All right. Does it look like I could maneuver my way out?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:54 am
"I think... if you back up..." Tumi, oblivious to how much of a scare he'd given the poor cow, started slowly walking back and forth to examine the branches. He made a bit of a show of it, in fact, trying to look quite thoughtful as he did so. And again oblivious that his performance was wasted on Sesilida. "Back up and tilt your head to the left. Yep. That should do it." In point of fact he had very little conception of how to get her head unstuck and was just making something up.
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:07 am
Obligingly she backed up, going slowly in case she ran into or stepped on something. This caused her to have to stretch her neck at a very odd angle because her antlers did not follow her as she moved. "Left," she murmured, tilting her head and paying attention to whether or not there was any sliding around happening. Not really. She pulled a little harder. Hm. Surely this did not have to be such a difficult thing. Frustrated, she shook her head sharply. A small branch whipped free of the knot and all the branches bounced, carrying her head with them until their momentum was gone and they held still again. "Ah, there's a start at least," she pointed out happily to Tumi.
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:33 am
Upon seeing that his suggestions were actually working, Tumi started to focus and actually try to see a way out of the branches. The calf could be rather intelligent at times, when he bothered to pay attention. "I think there's one sort of looped around your left antler. If you pull to the right it might come off." He demonstrated the motion, again forgetting that she could not see him.
"How did you get stuck here, anyway?" While she tried to get out, he needed something to occupy his flighty mind, and limp-strutting around had already grown dull.
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Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:25 pm
Fortunately she did not need to see him to do as he suggested, and with a bit of maneuvering she felt the branches shift around and spring away from her. She staggered away from the tree and shook her head and neck around. No damage done. What a relief.
"Thank you, Tumi." He had been something of a hindrance at first but in the end, she was sure she'd gotten out faster than she would have just hanging there on her own trying to feel her way out. "I was walking along and I... got caught. Didn't notice the tree until I was stuck."
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 7:57 pm
"Not notice? How could you not notice?" As he spoke, he wandered over to a clump of interesting looking flowers. He didn't think he'd ever had them before, so he wondered whether or not they were edible. The calf sniffed curiously at them and nudged them with his nose. They certainly smelled ok. Maybe Sesilida knew what they were. And if she didn't, well, he'd just have to try some of course.
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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 8:05 pm
She blinked and raised her eyebrows. How could she not notice? Well, perhaps he'd forgotten. They didn't see each other very much, after all. "Oh... because I'm blind," she said simply. Remembering what she'd been doing when she got caught, she prodded the ground with her hoof to check its consistency. It seemed that she was in no danger of getting stuck in the spring mud at the moment. Thank Hoern.
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Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:55 pm
"Yeah but..." he wrinkled his nose, "how could you not notice?" He knew that she was blind, but clearly did not really understand what it meant. "Couldn't you tell the tree was there? It's a tree, so it doesn't move."
The calf watched her poking at the ground with her hoof. "The ground won't move either. Promise."
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Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 7:23 pm
"Oh..." she said again, but this time the answer did not come as quickly or as simply and she considered, frowning in thought. "Well, I can't see anything. The tree can stand as still as it wants to and I still can't see it."
She shrugged a little uneasily. The explanation of why she was alone in the forest testing the ground for muddiness seemed a tedious one and not a story she felt that Tumi would be interested in hearing. She knew she was tired of it. She also knew that calves were fairly easily distracted -- perhaps this one more than others -- so she changed the subject from the mud to something more interesting. "Have you seen Glosoli around?"
Okay, minimally more interesting... Useful, anyway, if not interesting.
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