02-08-2021, 04:44 PM
I lift my head drowsily from the thick leaf mulch I'd been nesting in. Something had woken me, but I'm not sure what. Mother isn't near, I don't think. Her voice carries. I glance at my friends, their empty eye sockets empty pits in bony white faces. "Did you hear something?" I ask them, and they don't reply. Guess not.
I debate going back to sleep, when the sound comes again. A shuffling, stumbling cursing, while raindrops begin to patter on the skeletal trees. I hold my stealthy position a moment, before the need to know gets too strong. Then, I am twisting and slithering from my den, between closely the woven boughs and mounded earth that disguise my nest. I am so practiced at this now, it does not matter that it is dark. It still takes me no time to emerge into the open, and to look for the noise-maker.
I have it in my head that maybe it's a wolf. Or a bear. Something large and furry, that I foolishly think I could subdue long enough to steal its coat. A warm new lining for my den that is always just a bit too cold. A disappointed groan leaves me when I make out the faint shape of a horse instead.
He's not one I've seen here before, and the woods aren't populated enough for him to have been missed accidentally. That means he's new. I stare silently as he plods through the leaf litter, eyeing the wings that lay heavily by his sides. My mother has wings, and she hates that I don't. I don't think I mind, though. It's too exposed in their air, no place to hide.
The soft blue strands of my tail flick, catching on the bony fingers of a brittle bush. It rattles at the unexpected weight, the sudden noise making me jump. "It's only me," I scold the barren plant. It quivers, until I yank the last lock of hair from its grasp, making it shake and then still. "That's better, isn't it?" I ask absently, forgetting that I had been following someone.
It's a good thing my mother has never asked me to be anything. I would not do well as an kind of sentry or spy, I don't think.
@[Narcisus]
I debate going back to sleep, when the sound comes again. A shuffling, stumbling cursing, while raindrops begin to patter on the skeletal trees. I hold my stealthy position a moment, before the need to know gets too strong. Then, I am twisting and slithering from my den, between closely the woven boughs and mounded earth that disguise my nest. I am so practiced at this now, it does not matter that it is dark. It still takes me no time to emerge into the open, and to look for the noise-maker.
I have it in my head that maybe it's a wolf. Or a bear. Something large and furry, that I foolishly think I could subdue long enough to steal its coat. A warm new lining for my den that is always just a bit too cold. A disappointed groan leaves me when I make out the faint shape of a horse instead.
He's not one I've seen here before, and the woods aren't populated enough for him to have been missed accidentally. That means he's new. I stare silently as he plods through the leaf litter, eyeing the wings that lay heavily by his sides. My mother has wings, and she hates that I don't. I don't think I mind, though. It's too exposed in their air, no place to hide.
The soft blue strands of my tail flick, catching on the bony fingers of a brittle bush. It rattles at the unexpected weight, the sudden noise making me jump. "It's only me," I scold the barren plant. It quivers, until I yank the last lock of hair from its grasp, making it shake and then still. "That's better, isn't it?" I ask absently, forgetting that I had been following someone.
It's a good thing my mother has never asked me to be anything. I would not do well as an kind of sentry or spy, I don't think.
@[Narcisus]