08-04-2020, 03:27 PM
She was not quite what you would call refined.
The summer days do drag on.
Normally the bright flowers of the Pampas would delight her, varied and wild, white and yellow and purple and orange and pink and red. The poppies in the field are like scarlet drops of blood warming in the sun, perfuming the air with their heady scent, and she drifts nearest those, as much for their name as for their color, but they do nothing to improve her mood. She is weary and irritated, and the sharp squeals of the twins do nothing to help, either. Manikin is laughing and Avocet is not, but she leaves them to run wild despite suspecting that her strange, pawed, daughter may be earnest in her attempts to eat her fully equine brother.
The children grow without discipline, but there are few in the Pampas for them to bother. They would not even greatly bother their mother if it weren't for the weakness that fell over her following their birth, her nimble hooves suddenly too heavy for dancing, her wings too weak for flight - too weak even to fold away beneath her skin, so the great, glossy, black and red limbs droop low at her sides. She is moody and sleepy-eyed, curled into a nest of savaged flowers when the shadow passes over her and it makes the bird in her heart leap, but the little seal bay does not react nearly so quickly. Her head lifts slowly, cranes up to see what has passed overhead.
Too slow.
The shadow is gone, no darkness stains the sky, but there is a quiet thud not far away, the tell-tale sound of hooves landing, and her feral twins disappear in the tall vegetation like fawns, Manikin with a growl and a clatter of her beak. They are not used to strangers, and it occurs to Popinjay that she should warn the intruder that her daughter will bite and scratch like an insulted badger if they come too near, but she changes her mind.
That's not her problem.
Instead, she turns her head - reaching just above the lush tangle of wildflowers - to the shadowed copse where a bat-winged stallion lingers, herears tilted back and her capricious nature leaning heavily towards peevish.
"You must be lost," the skin around her nostrils grows tight, curling her upper lip lightly, "Go be lost somewhere else."
Popinjay's daughter is not the only one who bites.
Normally the bright flowers of the Pampas would delight her, varied and wild, white and yellow and purple and orange and pink and red. The poppies in the field are like scarlet drops of blood warming in the sun, perfuming the air with their heady scent, and she drifts nearest those, as much for their name as for their color, but they do nothing to improve her mood. She is weary and irritated, and the sharp squeals of the twins do nothing to help, either. Manikin is laughing and Avocet is not, but she leaves them to run wild despite suspecting that her strange, pawed, daughter may be earnest in her attempts to eat her fully equine brother.
The children grow without discipline, but there are few in the Pampas for them to bother. They would not even greatly bother their mother if it weren't for the weakness that fell over her following their birth, her nimble hooves suddenly too heavy for dancing, her wings too weak for flight - too weak even to fold away beneath her skin, so the great, glossy, black and red limbs droop low at her sides. She is moody and sleepy-eyed, curled into a nest of savaged flowers when the shadow passes over her and it makes the bird in her heart leap, but the little seal bay does not react nearly so quickly. Her head lifts slowly, cranes up to see what has passed overhead.
Too slow.
The shadow is gone, no darkness stains the sky, but there is a quiet thud not far away, the tell-tale sound of hooves landing, and her feral twins disappear in the tall vegetation like fawns, Manikin with a growl and a clatter of her beak. They are not used to strangers, and it occurs to Popinjay that she should warn the intruder that her daughter will bite and scratch like an insulted badger if they come too near, but she changes her mind.
That's not her problem.
Instead, she turns her head - reaching just above the lush tangle of wildflowers - to the shadowed copse where a bat-winged stallion lingers, herears tilted back and her capricious nature leaning heavily towards peevish.
"You must be lost," the skin around her nostrils grows tight, curling her upper lip lightly, "Go be lost somewhere else."
Popinjay's daughter is not the only one who bites.
@[Set]
