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[AW] after the fall - Printable Version

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after the fall - Ciaran - 05-30-2020

It had been far too long since the feathered girl had allowed her younger self to show. So she flies, through the open plain, at speed. Her feathers are flat as she runs, the wind whipping past her. Her tail streams out behind her, the plume on the end flattened to create less resistance as she speeds down the plain. Beyond her, Karsi stood atop a hill and watched. He did not run with her, unable to keep up but with no desire to exert energy the way she did. He merely watched, eyes bright, as the cyan and sand figure dove over a small mound and rounded the hill.

In her arc, Ciaran Zhaoiani ran up the hillside, feeling the slope beneath her steepen as she stretched out her stride. As she came to the crest she slowed until she fell to a high stepping trot and finally slowed to stop. She shoved her head towards Karsi, roughly bumping him with her blue eyes gleaming with a mischievous light. The bear grumbled, and Ciaran grinned.

“One day, you’ll come for a run with me,” she says with that grin upon her face.

“That is unlikely, child,” he replied. “I’d sooner go for a walk in a desert rather than attempt to keep at your side.”

Ciaran seemed to pout but then chuckled at his words.

“Fair enough. Maybe I’ll change your mind, sometime. It felt good to run, it has been a long time,” she admitted. She stretched out her neck, shaking the remaining tension. It had been good to let the energy out and expel any of the remaining ill-feeling she’d been carrying with her since the return to her birthplace. As much as the memories were treasured, Ciaran finally felt no connection to that part of her life and had finally severed that bond.

It had been freeing, she’d realised. And she smiled at the thought of being unshackled for the time, with a whole new world out before her to explore. There was so much to see… and, really, not enough time.

There never was enough time.
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RE: after the fall - Kassandra - 01-01-2021




I started keeping a clean head
intellectual eloquence / but you wouldn't believe that

Summer filled the prairies with life. The grass grew taller than some equines, bountiful and fluffy, in shades from emerald green to butter gold. Gentle slopes shaped the flow of the land as they angled into each other, ruffled here and there by thick groups of tall trees that reminded Kassandra of eyebrows. It was fun to imagine Sideralis was the face of a giant being who made up the world and everything in it, and Kas was walking along his eyelashes in the long grass. It felt more physical and corporeal than this talk of gods and Tempus and abstract concepts of divinity, and yet the world was always theirs and never hers.

Perhaps thinking they lived on the face of a giant was childish. Growing up, growing old, and maturity were all concepts Kassandra was struggling with; she felt she should be more adult without knowing, exactly, what that entailed. Psychologically, the early years of her youth had been stolen from her and so with that development gone she would always be slightly behind. But who really defined what it meant to grow, and be grown? Was is the trees, who grew all their lives until they splintered and fell under their own weight? Or the grass and it’s cycles of sprouting up and limping over? Was it the sprouts of Creeping Jenny and their tiny, yellow flowers, fighting up through the grass shoots only to be defeated and trodden down, or munched upon by some unknowing cervine?

Kas stepped over a brook, about a foot wide from bank to bank, and let one of her hind hooves draw through the pleasant summer water. The wind is sweet in the switchgrass and the sky above is clotted with gray clouds; they are false prophets, their bellies blue-gray with rain that refuses to fall.

There’s a distant whoosh and then something goes speeding by her, Oculos hard on its trail as the hound tosses up clods of silt and grass, paws gripping the earth so hard with his strides even his dewclaws furrow the ground. The rabbit, Kassandra realizes, bobs and weaves in a serpentine escape pattern, but it is no match for Oculos, as he was meant to bring wolves to bay, and his heart is full of the joy of the chase and hunt.

“Oculos,” she scolds, her voice quiet on the wind but loud in his head, as such is their bond. “Don’t kill it, please.” The response in her own brain is a flat line of red instinct and the vague feeling of jubilation.

Kassandra sighs and hangs her head; there comes a small ping of acknowledgment at the back of her mind and she breathes a little easier.

Oculos, meanwhile, is churning up earth as he speeds after the hare; so focused on the hunt and thrill of the run he doesn't realize, as he is speeding up a hill after his quarry, he is about to run straight into the hind end of--

oof,

Oculos' neck is jarred and he stumbles back, shaking his head. His vision is slightly blurry, opening his eyes painful, but he falls on his rump and looks up and--

a-- giant-- white bear? he murmurs, his voice a whine. He sits there, looking confused for a moment, before the implications fall on him like a summer thunderstorm and he leaps up with a yelp. a giant white bear!

And, in staying with Oculos form, instead of turning on his heel and running like any sane creature should, he dances on excited feet and yells, kass! kass! come see this!

She is at the bottom of the hill now, looking up towards his jubilant yelps, and her ears perk forward as she gasps in wonder. "Oh! Oh! Hello!" she calls, making her way up the slope.

Both of them are completely unafraid; they've not the sense to fear, and are entirely too curious to tilt towards trepidation.

"SPEECH." ! Oculos speech ! @Ciaran




RE: after the fall - Ciaran - 01-01-2021

From the run, beneath the brilliant rays of the sun, across the skin of the world had been entirely uplifting for her. Despite the heat sinking into her skin, the warm of the sun a little too strong for her, it had been worth the burning of energy. Karsi ambled, keeping to shaded regions, unconcerned with the world about him, was only focused upon his bonded.

Ciaran had propped, swinging about and striking out one foreleg into the air, letting herself feel alive. Heat be damned, let it melt her, just as long as she got to feel the pulse of her heart hammering inside her chest, let the adrenaline surge. As she propped once more, she swung about to face Karsi.

She looked ever like a child.

Ciaran did see the canine racing, though only for a moment. The figure was a blur, and the blur collided with the white of Karsi abruptly. The polar bear’s attention shifted, his head swinging slowly about. He didn’t jump, nor was there aggression or surprise - well, mild surprise but no startling.

Instead, he turned, and Ciaran drifted up alongside him as the bear looked upon the dog, wondering what it had been doing - hunting, most likely he thought.

“New friend there?” She asks the bear. He grumbled deep in his throat but did not answer her, so she merely grinned.

With the bear came one appearing to be adorned with the night sky, marked by star and ice upon her hide, with feet dipped in the snow and bright eyes. Ciaran was fascinated as she tended to be, but it was not often she was captivated by the appearance of another.

“Hello there,” she responds, with a flick of her tail and a bowing of her head. “Enjoying the heat?” She inquires, though she herself is still blowing somewhat from her run and gallivanting about and yet her blue eyes were bright, curious and wanting.

@Kassandra <3!
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RE: after the fall - Kassandra - 01-03-2021




I started keeping a clean head
intellectual eloquence / but you wouldn't believe that

Oculos, fascinated in perhaps what should be the face of fear, pranced on his paws with his tongue lolling. He was easily bored and so finding something so strange in a place so beige as this brought him an obscene amount of joy; of course, only a hound with the attention span of a gnat could find the bright blooms and sweeping hillocks of Sideralis boring. Oculos didn’t much care for things unless they were moving-- or potentially dangerous.

Kassandra was absolutely smitten with the large beast and it’s off-white pelt. She thought it looked somewhat grumpy and adorable; if she’d arms for hugging she may have thrown them ‘round it’s midsection and squeezed ‘till the stuffing came out of it. She’d seen black bears before, even here, snuffling up tubers and hunting for berries; but a beast of such striking size and composure? It was truly an enchanting sight.

And the bear’s companion! For that is surely what she must be, all green and gold and fantastic. The crest of feathers down her spine flashed and glimmered in the summer sun; and her antlers! She squinted at them for a moment to decide if they actually glowed, or just appeared to. “You have such lovely antlers!” she beamed, and then after: “and feathers. You are quite lovely in general. Though… is it hot under there?”

Oculos rolled his eyes. caligo’s teats, with the gods-damned antlers again, he grumbled under his breath. Kas swished him with her tail.

The question about the heat brings an irascible smile to Kassandra’s face; she looks for all the world like a child faced with a sweet of her disliking. “To tell it true, no, I loathe it.” She had been trying quite hard up until now to ignore her discomfort. “I’m much more a winter creature, I suspect. I try not to complain about things we get no say in, but I do hate it.”

"SPEECH." ! Oculos speech ! @Ciaran
kas has a crush oops




RE: after the fall - Ciaran - 01-07-2021

Nothing about the bear stirred. Only eyelids as they fluttered closed from time to time, and only his eyes when they trailed after the canine. Karsi did not look to Ciaran. She didn’t look either. She found his flat expression amusing though, knowing he found the antics of the canine quite entertaining.

For she, something about the dog reminded her of Kalina.

Lit by sunlight, she shone. Remarkable as she was, her appearance had the drawback of being too bright. Unable to camouflage. Always on display, never to hide. Yet she too fawned over her newfound companion’s appearance, drinking in the colour. She admired darker hide, just as she adored some lighter. She was marked by starlight, and it made Ciaran’s heart sing.

It reminded her of the mountain top where she had grown. How it made her feel younger.

And she smiled.

“Thank you for the compliment. It’s not very hot though, the wind filters through well enough - especially when I run,” she replies.

Karsi and Ciaran both catch the roll of the eyes as well, though Karsi grumbled his agreement with the sentiment. The bear looked to Ciaran, knowing her words were partially meant for him. He exhaled sharply.

Ciaran grinned. Blue eyes turned back to the stranger.

“I was born in a kingdom of winter. Raised beneath the lights that danced in the sky, though I wasn’t supposed to be up there often as a youngster. I prefer the cold myself… heat is tolerable, but cold is so welcoming,” she agrees.

“My name is Ciaran. This is Karsi, the one who grumbles.”

The bear slowly blinked and fought back that very grumble in his throat, while Ciaran just chuckled.

@Kassandra <3 Ciaran ain't far behind :):)
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RE: after the fall - Kassandra - 01-16-2021




I started keeping a clean head
intellectual eloquence / but you wouldn't believe that

If it weren’t for hearing him speak and seeing the gentle lifting and falling of his chest, the polar bear could have been a stuffed animal. His stillness made it all the more tempting to snuggle up against him and feel the softness of his fur; if she’d arms, she’d have thrown them around his neck in a great bear hug. The thought made her giggle out loud; it made her look a fool, snickering for no reason.

ignore her, Oculos said, even though no one could understand him, she has issues.

The stranger was a beautiful specimen, to be sure; she seemed to be some glorious amalgam of bird and equine and cervid, what with her glorious rack of teal antlers. Compared to her own visage, dark blue splattered with white, with tangled silver hair and fetlocks oft stained by mud, Kas felt quite plain. She wondered what it felt like to have feathers; what it felt like when the fingers of the wind rustled through them, tousled them like children’s hair.

The teal princess smiled and it made Kassandra as warm as the golden stripes upon her new friend’s withers. She found herself beaming goofily at Ciaran, head tilted on an angle. “You look quite lovely when you run,” she said before she could stop herself. Hot embarrassment flooded her face and she shook herself from her stunned stupor. “I mean-- with the-- with the feathers. It’s all quite impressive.” There. Covered that slip-up nicely. No one would ever tell.

The fact remained that Kassandra was nearing 9 and she still spoke as though she was fresh-out-the-egg. Some things would (probably) never change.

The way the woman spoke of where she was born made Kas long even more for the chill touch of the colder seasons. Furae, for all its negatives (like the fact it’s king kept her locked in a tower), had four seasons, and three of them remained comfortably tepid, if not down-right chilly. She used to steal wicks from the candles she’d been allowed to have and draw fun shapes in the frost on her window-panes.

“Your homeland sounds incredible,” Kassandra said, unable to stop the dreamy notes from slipping back into her tone. “Especially the bit about the lights in the sky. I didn’t get to see the sky much as a child. I had two windows and the city blocked out most everything.”

Kassandra gave her best bow-- still in good form, even after all these years. Her etiquette teachers had done well. “The pleasure is mine. My name is Kassandra, and this skinny wretch is Oculos, the one who makes snide comments and thinks I can’t hear.”

no, I know you hear me, Oculos said, curtly tucking his hindquarters underneath him as he sat beside her. that’s the whole point. The hound sat stoic and still for a moment, as though inviting an oppositional argument; but then, something rustled the grass nearby, and another hare shot out from the undergrowth and took out across the prairie. Kassandra watched in slow motion as Oculos' predatory brain kicked into high gear, eyes flying wide, and he was off like an arrow from a bow, zipping through the shoulder-high yarrow and sending indigo Prairie Smoke pollen clouds into the air.

"Sorry!" Kas said over her shoulder as she took off after her best-- most embarrassing-- friend. "Hope we meet again soon!"

By the time she caught up to him-- panting and empty-pawed, but satisfied-- the white bear was not even a dot on the horizon behind her.


"SPEECH." ! Oculos speech ! @Ciaran
sorry i decided to have her exit this cause it's been sitting a while <3