to me, you will be unique in all the world

Your throat tastes of ash and smoke, but your mood is light and jovial. Your pace is a cheerful little jaunt full of innocent imaginings, picking your way through the underbrush of the Viride Forest, smelling all sorts of new scents and spotting so many new sights. There had been so many new experiences since your home had been swallowed by the flames. The wildfires had been frightening for quite a while, the smoke so very dense and cloying, scaring you away from your den and your kin in a dash of run, run, run! You had gone back to your den for a few lonely nights, waiting and hoping that your siblings or your parents would return… But no one had come.
 
It had been hard leaving behind what you knew. The den you shared with your siblings beneath the large trunk of an old oak tree, warm and comfortable and content. Your parents, wise and cunning. Your three sisters. Your favorite chewing stick… They were all gone, but you, oh you, despite your youth and innocence, knew that you could not remain. There was no future there.
 
So, you moved on. A petite, lithe body of sleek rust red, traveling with black paws coated with ash and grime through the burnt, skeletal remains of the Viride Forest. The sun would rise and then set, but steadily you made your way through the remnants of the fires, napping in hiding through the worst of the daylight before continuing on when evening arrived. Hunger pooled in your gut, clawing and terrible, and so you would hunt to scrounge up food, your efforts clumsy and uncoordinated. There hadn’t been much time to learn to hunt before the fires had come, but you did your best, rewarded once with a tasty field mouse just on the shore of the Rapax River. By then, the terrain had begun to change. You notice it, gradually at first. Where the world had been a constant state of browns and blacks, the large trees dead and charred, ash staining the ground and covering the dirt, the closer you grew to the Rapax River, the more green things had become.
 
Grasses, leaves, plant life in abundance. You drank from the river, the cold waters soothing the burn in your throat. Resting the day beneath a thick brush, you sleep, dreaming of playing with your sisters, your warm, loving parents, and the future you have yet to discover. Somewhere, somehow, something is falling. You dream of the colors of cream and spindly legs, of dual-colored eyes blinking at you with a curious sort of innocence that rivaled your own. You dream, and you learn.
 
As evening crested, you traveled once more. On and on, following that invisible little tug in your russet chest. Through the trees and bushes, through the hills and thick grasses, you crest the hillsides until a large shape looms in the distance. It is far larger than any shape you have ever seen in your weeks of life; made of stone, cresting up, up, up into the evening lit sky, taller than any tree you have ever seen before. It looks important. It looks scary… But that tugging has grown in your chest now, and you are powerless against it. Something unknown has begun to steal your breath, excitement bubbling through your limbs, creating your eager little jaunt once more.
 
Brazen, but with a note of caution, you approach the looming structure while remaining in the stretching shadows. Cresting the path you have chosen, maw half-open and tongue lolling from the corner of your mouth, you spot him; he seems to be searching for something, a stick brandished within his mouth, with his long, spindly legs and creamy colors. It digs into your memories, making you recall the dreams from before.
 
All of a sudden, you are thrilled. Some other force seems to grab hold of you, compelling you to act, and you look around almost frantically. Twisting about with an audible little cry, you find a small stick at your paws. It isn’t as nice as your chewy stick, the one lost at your den, but it’s appropriate all the same. Unthinking, you scoop it up, grasping it firmly within your jaws and tiny teeth. Next? Well, next you launch yourself forward and out of the shadows, towards this spindly-legged equine with his own chewing stick, and brandish your own with unfathomable pride.
 
’Play!’ You mentally cry, eager and ready and so desperate for him to hear you, to understand you, to feel you. ’Play!’
 

---

 

---

RE: The Little Prince - Regis - 12-12-2018

"I am the one thing in life I can control. I am inimitable, I am an original."

Even with the fires finally doused and the remainder of their home saved, Regis had been made to stay within the citadel walls for a couple days afterward as the worst of the smoke cleared out. As the fires raged, he had been overcome with a harsh, debilitating cough that had nearly caused his legs to buckle more than once. His too-thin frame quaked with each one, but there was little that could be done outside of leaving Delumine entirely – a venture that, honestly, he might not be able to make given his progressively declining state.

But as the days passed and the smoke cleared away, Regis had practically begged to go outside, missing the warmth of the sun against his tawny skin and the tickle of wind in his mane. The air still wasn’t what it had once been, but it was fresher than it had been in what felt like weeks. Following his parents outside, the little Prince was content to stand between them and revel in the freedom of finally being out of the citadel. It was difficult to look out across their home and see the destruction, the black scorch marks and smoldering trees replacing once green, thriving forests and wiping out a majority of their lush, rolling fields. Regis frowned as he thought of all the animals that also called Delumine home, like the birds, deer, and butterflies he liked to watch so much. Had they been scared, too? Were they okay? His childish innocence liked to believe that they were.

After a short nap sprawled out in the grass which still surrounding the citadel, Regis awoke when one of the strands wiggled against his nostril and caused him to sneeze. Lifting his head, the disoriented dun colt shook his head, enjoying his bath in the sun for a moment longer before rising. If he were lucky, he had another hour before his worried parents would herd him back inside, and for as frail as he had grown, Regis’ youthful urge to just play was sometimes difficult to ignore.

Without anyone of a similar age in Delumine, Regis had grown used to figuring out how to play by himself and allow his imagination to run wild. His favorite thing to do by far was to imitate the adults he spent so much of his time around, attempting his very best to show that he, too, was just as strong and capable as they were. His back was somewhat hunched as he trotted to the first stick he could find, the movement no longer fluid like it had once been and instead rather stiff with obvious discomfort. His lonely play sessions never lasted long anymore, his body taxing after just a short while, but there was only so much standing or laying around he could do.

Stick grasped between his teeth, the dun wrenched his head to one side as though swiping at some invisible foe, his front legs striking out. Then he turned, backing up a few steps to kick out in the same direction. Craning his neck closer to his chest, Regis shook his head back and forth as he paced forward a few steps in preparation to launch his next attack, which he did in as quick a motion as he could manage. But just when he went to jab his stick forward toward his enemy, the colt opened his eyes to see that he suddenly wasn’t alone. Thrusting his front legs out in front of himself, Regis looked on with wide eyes at his newfound companion, brief confusion almost instantly turning to glee when he spotted the stick in the teeth of the fox.

A grin spread wide across his maw, and with a childish laugh that hadn’t left him in well over a month, Regis charged forward with great care, dancing around the fox as he attempted to strike his stick against the other.

”Speech”

---

@Random Events
.

aimless | odeen

---