08-11-2020, 12:05 PM
She was not quite what you would call refined.
Manikin pounces when he falls, but even as he is slow to rise, she is slow to do it, wastes too much time in the crouching, in getting the motion and balance just right, and when she leaps at last, he is gone and she lands in a clumsy pile of limbs that twist and writhe. Disappointment flavors her first hours. No milk, no meat, just dirt and stiff feathers.
From high above the tiny dramas, Popinjay watches passively, and it's a strange feeling that twists her smiling lips into complaint. The birth of twins has left her weakened far beyond the usual - she cannot be certain what the usual is but other mothers she has seen have not looked as she feels now. The dark bay is worn and weary, her limbs as feeble as her newborn's own and even folding her wings back beneath her own skin feels impossible. The foals tussle and she does not care, does not worry about the hunter's gleam in her daughter's eye, but the whining boy sets her ears back against her poll. She nips sharply at his curled mane while Manikin finds her feet again and lets her frail and fatigued wings droop down so that he is hidden from the strange little chimera.
Manikin finds her brother guarded thusly - her dam's size making the block efficient despite her lethargy - and growls.
Unfair.
It's unfair to play favorites, especially when she is so clearly the superior choice. She hisses at Avocet and stalks into the flowers nearby to shred their petals to confetti. Popinjay lets her hanging head turn, curling her neck to pin the speckled colt with a dark eye whose sparkling laughter is turned to disapproval instead.
"I don't know who you think you are, but I won't fight your battles."
A strange thing to say to a child - any child, but your own, especially. Children, it turns out, are not very much fun, at least, not when they belong to you. She lifts her wings slightly, testing them again and grimaces. No, not today, but as soon as possible, she will leave them both here and return to the Taiga alone.
From high above the tiny dramas, Popinjay watches passively, and it's a strange feeling that twists her smiling lips into complaint. The birth of twins has left her weakened far beyond the usual - she cannot be certain what the usual is but other mothers she has seen have not looked as she feels now. The dark bay is worn and weary, her limbs as feeble as her newborn's own and even folding her wings back beneath her own skin feels impossible. The foals tussle and she does not care, does not worry about the hunter's gleam in her daughter's eye, but the whining boy sets her ears back against her poll. She nips sharply at his curled mane while Manikin finds her feet again and lets her frail and fatigued wings droop down so that he is hidden from the strange little chimera.
Manikin finds her brother guarded thusly - her dam's size making the block efficient despite her lethargy - and growls.
Unfair.
It's unfair to play favorites, especially when she is so clearly the superior choice. She hisses at Avocet and stalks into the flowers nearby to shred their petals to confetti. Popinjay lets her hanging head turn, curling her neck to pin the speckled colt with a dark eye whose sparkling laughter is turned to disapproval instead.
"I don't know who you think you are, but I won't fight your battles."
A strange thing to say to a child - any child, but your own, especially. Children, it turns out, are not very much fun, at least, not when they belong to you. She lifts her wings slightly, testing them again and grimaces. No, not today, but as soon as possible, she will leave them both here and return to the Taiga alone.
@[avocet]