City
The moth-baby is still unsteady on her long pale legs; those knobbed knees shaky as the terrain morphs from stones to grass and back again. City tenderly picks at and grooms over the baby, bending her milky freckled neck to snake protectively around the fragile little thing as she nurses. Orion comes lumbering forward, his footsteps making the ground tremor beneath their toes, Oleandar breaks away from her mother with a start. City’s tail sweeps calmly from side to side with a subtle message of calmness for her daughter, the baby abides and returns to nursing while the blurred stone-gray figure of Orion approaches.
Molten gold. The day’s light hits her eyes just right while they peel over the dappled man coming forward so bravely, as if they’re good friends. She resists the serious temptation to snap at him and demand he give her space but she lets it go and keeps her teeth herself. She does nothing to hide the hard stare or the flare of her gray nostrils. He prattles on, a greeting, small talk and inquiry of her child’s name. No, but thanks. She’s about to find something to say, trying to feign interest in this recruiter who gave her a free pass to these cliffs, for which she is genuinely thankful for (so far). She’s saved however, another silhouette is slithering through the grass toward the trio. Two, actually.
The daughter is now staring with her giant globular eyes, pale jade in tint, pupiless and metallic in their lids and under those long white lashes. Her pink nose twitches and blinks curiously, her butt tucked against her mother’s underbelly. She can see the stranger sharply now, the day’s sunlight blinding to her sensitive night-keen eyes. The second stranger is only but a dark cloudy blur at first, but her voice precedes her approach. Another shadow creeps forward and she's not sure if she's seen another... Olea’s long, skinny almost antennae like ears flip toward the women and her intriguing voice. Her figure is broken in color, smoke and clouds, or stone and snow. The baby has only seen landscape in her short life and so these coats of all kinds are akin to such, apparently. Another child comes forward but they’re voiceless at first, blurry and then detailed as he gets closer. This one smells funny to her, that is the colt smell, different than the sweetness of her mother’s milk, the fern sort of smell of another mare or the musk of a stallion – no, colts smell much different, she’ll discover. City does not bother to snap at the Queen’s son but she eyes him suspiciously all the same as he seems enamored with the little winged thing pressed against her. the freckled gray mare disregards the coy game of wit the Queen employs; something about trespassers? The blood-eyed mother has zero interest in humor, or playful games of intimidation, or whatever the painted woman is trying to do. City ignores everything but her name and nods.
“I’m Castile” City’s attention, her eyes, flick back to the colt almost involuntarily but she says nothing, only looking to her pale wide-eyed baby for a reaction. She has a mother moment, realizing this is the first child, the first living thing beside City, to say anything to her. The mother wonders briefly if the baby might be frightened, but she’s not. She’s still and blinking, and silent. She’s still so very little. She is, however, very inquisitive and reaches out to bump her pink nose against his own. Something like a smile creeps at the edges of the mother’s lips but she soon remembers where she is and who she is around. She turns back to Nayl. “City.” She leans toward the boy, “Her name is Oleandar.” Her valley accent laces each word. She smiles awkwardly, noticing she is sort of pleased with how the boy is interested in the moth-baby. She finds the piebald mare again, “When she’s grown a little more, I can be of better use than just a body – intelligence, military, whatever. I can earn my and her spot here.” She casts her yellow eyes out to the populace scattered about, from horizon to horizon and back to Nayl. She expects the woman to tell her more; what shape is the kingdom in perhaps? What should the citizens do? Goals? Such a fetal little Kingdom must have goals and laws, yes? She searches the mare’s face, the Queen’s face for something deeper than a common greeting.
rushed and filled with all I found
more, give me more, give me more
