and haunts your waking dreams

After a time, the rains finally begin to slow. The sky still weeps from time to time, but the showers are scattered and infrequent, their fall light and easy. The clouds even begin to part, flashes of blue woven throughout the gloom, a ray of sunshine piercing the murk.

But it only serves to shine light upon the destruction left in the storm’s wake.

The flood waters are still high and raging, the streams flowing far past their banks and drowning the surrounding meadows. The swamp has become one big, stagnant freshwater ocean, downed trees hiding in the muck and waiting to knock horses off their hooves. But the greatest change lies in the Sussoro Fields, where the earth has seemed to collapse in upon itself, leaving holes several tens of meters deep.

Sinkholes have ravaged the ground, hidden tunnels broken and fallen. The ground is unsteady and prone to mudslides, every step treacherous and uncertain. The cries of horses and other animals can be heard, half-buried beneath the mounds of dirt and mud. But rescue itself is also uncertain, when every step might prompt another section of ground to fall suddenly fall away.

With the storm passing and the sinkholes beginning, you can’t help but wonder: is the true disaster finally over, or has it only just begun?

One section of earth has caved away gradually, forming an easy slope down to the bottom of the sinkhole. And at the bottom lies the entrance to a tunnel: the collapsing ground has newly revealed it. It is small, but perhaps a small horse might be able to weave their way through it. Already a crowd has gathered to inspect it, murmuring amongst themselves. Is it wise to explore the tunnels? The earth may continue collapsing at the smallest provocation, but the mystery of it all is enticing.

The ground is rumbling, and for a second you could swear that you hear footsteps beneath the ground. Whatever has caused these holes and buried tunnels may still be lurking below, and based on the size of them, it was no mere groundhog.

Still, you may feel called to it… and already, one bold soul has stepped forward with a torch hovering beside them, ready to explore the hidden city.

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RE: what lurks in the ground - Jaxis - 08-19-2018

JAXIS

HANDS STEEPED IN BLOOD

The rains had flushed them out from the swamp, for now. Jaxis at her full grown height of nineteen point two hands, and Enyo, of her twenty feet. The earth shuddered under every step the Indominus took, and the mare was aware there were many others that saw the two of them, that fled from the mere sight.

She cared not. Rather, she wandered toward one of the massive holes, aware of the presence in her mind nudging at her. 'What could be down there?' A murmur from Enyo, ever curious. She was still young, and while she was hesitant about going underground, there was an undertone of excitement about what it could be. Could it be food? Could she eat it?

She seemed annoyed though, when she came to realize that the hole deeper in to the tunnels was only big enough for Jaxis, letting out a rumble and instead clamping her mouth open and shut, snapping it with sharp sounds of powerful jaws.

"Easy Enyo..." She murmured. Certainly, the dinosaur could very much make her way in, perhaps if she were to bulldoze her way through, but who knew what the tunnel was made of. So far, Jaxis seemed to be one of the only ones stepping forward, and her bonded made a distressed sound.

'You better come back in one piece.' But oh, didn't she always?

@any || lmao anyone ever see a dino go underground bc you're about to

RE: what lurks in the ground - Lysander - 08-19-2018

He could not linger forever by Florentine’s side, telling her stories and praying (to what gods? To what ghosts?) for her to remember him. Lysander did the best he could, as the rains fell and fell and the waters rose and the golden mare’s wounds knitted but her memories did not.

And so, one afternoon as she slept and the rain faded to only the patter of fingers on the roof instead of fists, the stallion waded through the swamp and out into the muddy fields.

Even in the rift he’d seen nothing like this chaos, and it was impossible not to wonder if it was born of gods or nature. By the time he reached the gathered crowd he was indistinguishable from most of the other horses, dark with mud and soaked to his knees. But all his discomfort was forgotten as he took in the scene at the bottom of the slope – a crowd, a cave, a monster.

With a slow inhale, he approaches all three. It is not hard to find the monster’s companion, tall enough the mud and muck hardly reached her barrel, her gaze sharp enough to cut. For a moment he looked between the two of them, and then at the narrow mouth of the tunnel.

“I can understand wanting to take her with you, but I don’t think she’d fit,” he says wrly, glancing back over his shoulder at the enormous beast. It lingers only a moment before flicking back to the equally-towering mare, and the antlered stallion lifts a brow. “To be honest, I’m not sure you would either.”

Indeed, the tunnel would be a tight fit even for him, had he any intention of going – it was a narrow darkness, quickly fading to black in the bleak afternoon light. In the scant moments the crowd is quiet enough, Lysander thinks he can hear something within – the sound of feet, the whisper of paws on soil and stone.

But such silent moments are fleeting in this kind of crowd, and eventually the stallion steps away from the entrance and the appaloosa mare both, watching the latter’s face as it flickered in the torchlight. “But you two don’t look like a pair that listens much to the word no. You might be able to widen it – if you don't collapse the whole field on yourselves first.”

If that was their intent, then it would be his to return to the hospital and the flooded swamp before they found out just how much they didn’t fit - but Lysander could feel that familiar dark interest, a curiosity both for what lay (and walked) within the tunnel, and just what this pair planned to do about it.

oh, we'll brace for it
and conquer everything

@Jaxis