10-06-2019, 07:16 PM
She doesn't know anything about politics, she doesn't bring with her words of diplomacy or of war, she doesn't know the history that lurks under the quiet border between Tephra and Taiga. There is nothing to say that perhaps the leaders of these lands have not always been friendly, or whether they now are. There is nothing at all to demarcate the border, the foliage blends until the redwoods fade away and the ferns grow larger, more dense. It is warmer, but that, too, happened slowly, with the creeping scent of sulfur that reminds her of somewhere else. In places, the lava flows, the air above it wavering, shivering, giving warning of the red-hot, molten, rock that rolls below the cooler, black, surface. A break in the canopy gives her a good view of the volcano, the broken-topped mountain is quiet today, but scorched earth underfoot suggests this is not always the case. The soil is dark with decomposed lava rock, breaking down faster than one more familiar with the war might have expected was possible.
Popinjay has no purpose in entering the kingdom, in fact, she was not entirely certain that she had, at first, but now, stepping carefully around a tangle of vines hanging from a tree only slightly shorter than her own impossible redwoods, she knows that she has certainly left the more temperate rainforest behind. The animals here are so drastically different, not chipping sparrows or blue jays or cardinals flitting from branch to branch and scuffling through the loam and ferns and fog. Even the brightest of her birds, the yellow warblers, the goldfinches, are drab compared to the colorful, jabbering birds of the tropics. She catches snippets of repeated conversations and words among their calls and her ears twitch, eyes turning upward to the canopy.
Did that bird just say hello?
It might not be so very odd for a bird to say hello, it could be a horse that has shifted, or perhaps the companion of another, though she has never been able to hear Turul's mind-voice, so why she would hear another's is beyond her. The yearling rears up against a tree though she gains no great height by doing so, and stretches her neck into the air.
"Hello? Hello! Can you talk? I never met a talking bird before!" She shouts up at the high branches of the tree, standing until she loses her balance at last and drops back to all four legs. The birds above look down with glittering black eyes. Somewhere, one laughs and is answered by a raucous shouting that spreads like wildfire among the flock until she is surrounded by a cacophony of squawking and wingbeats as several swoop among the branches. It is madness, but she grins at it and tosses her head excitedly, ignorant of or simply not caring about the fact that some resident will surely come find her, the din making her location so obvious.
@[saint]
Popinjay has no purpose in entering the kingdom, in fact, she was not entirely certain that she had, at first, but now, stepping carefully around a tangle of vines hanging from a tree only slightly shorter than her own impossible redwoods, she knows that she has certainly left the more temperate rainforest behind. The animals here are so drastically different, not chipping sparrows or blue jays or cardinals flitting from branch to branch and scuffling through the loam and ferns and fog. Even the brightest of her birds, the yellow warblers, the goldfinches, are drab compared to the colorful, jabbering birds of the tropics. She catches snippets of repeated conversations and words among their calls and her ears twitch, eyes turning upward to the canopy.
Did that bird just say hello?
It might not be so very odd for a bird to say hello, it could be a horse that has shifted, or perhaps the companion of another, though she has never been able to hear Turul's mind-voice, so why she would hear another's is beyond her. The yearling rears up against a tree though she gains no great height by doing so, and stretches her neck into the air.
"Hello? Hello! Can you talk? I never met a talking bird before!" She shouts up at the high branches of the tree, standing until she loses her balance at last and drops back to all four legs. The birds above look down with glittering black eyes. Somewhere, one laughs and is answered by a raucous shouting that spreads like wildfire among the flock until she is surrounded by a cacophony of squawking and wingbeats as several swoop among the branches. It is madness, but she grins at it and tosses her head excitedly, ignorant of or simply not caring about the fact that some resident will surely come find her, the din making her location so obvious.
@[saint]
