The island is utterly unconcerned with the traditions of weather, season, or reality.
Though across the cracking bridge it is spring, warm and bright, here in the jungle even the thick, glossy canopy of trees cannot totally block out the grayness of the sky and the way rain comes hurtling down. The ground is fearfully loose; leaves and roots and hooves slides in the mud. The birds with their strange metal eyes go hurtling through the wet air, and O — small thing that she is, drenched to the bone — stands stubbornly against the gnarled body of a jelutong and tries not to shudder as the water seeps into her skin. It is not fear that twinges in her chest, but it is something like that. Who could blame her?
She has never been a quitter. The antidote to that kind of laziness runs in her blood as thick as anything else. No, even as the little forest animals go scurrying underground, as strangers flee the island for the ocean and as thunder cracks and splits overhead, O holds her ground. She is spattered with mud and scruffy from what must already be days away from home. Bexley is here, somewhere — they’d caught sight of each other near the leather-black unicorn statue — but has disappeared somewhere O is not willing to find her. No matter. She can take care of herself.
The little girl narrows her eyes, and rain goes flooding from her eyelashes down her cheeks. The jungle is empty, but it is flooded with sound. High-pitched caterwauling, hollow birdsong, the drumbeat of paws pounding over the dirt. She tosses her hurlbat in perfect circles in the humid air by her head. The sound of its sharp edge slicing through the wind is somewhat of a comfort. No matter what, she thinks, this belongs to me.
The crack of a tree bough sounds, too loud to be any more then ten yards away, and O slashes the axe out in front of her defensively, where it bobs like a ghost. She squares her shoulders. Overhead, a bird with fool’s gold for eyes watches and twitters in disappointment.
Coyote snorted as he pranced through the jungle of trees and green. The sky had been turned gray by the rain that poured down, plastering his black, white, and acid green mane to his neck and his matching tail was sticking to his rear legs in a way that thoroughly irritated him. This island seemed to be attracting the entirety of the realm and he was no different. Stopping, he stepped deep into the dim undergrowth. A crack jolted through him as his green hoof met with a thick branch and broke it. The multi-hued stallion swore softly under his breath as he tried to calm his racing heart. He was never this jumpy!!
Turning around, he began to try to locate something that would show where in the world he was. This was probably the furthest he had been onto the island and nothing looked familiar. At least he was on an island! Travel in one direction long enough and he should find ocean and then could find his way back to the bridge and the lands beyond it. That thought alone made him feel infinitely better and he decided to just pick a direction.
After a few yards, he began to see movement. Moving carefully, he pushed through the underbrush to find himself face to... blade... with a floating axe. "Well then..." He exclaimed as he slid to a stop and stared at the weapon with wide eyes. That was not the movement he had been expecting! Focus shifting back and forth, the stallion saw the young horse behind it.
"Um... Is this thing yours?" He asked, still a bit shocked by the discovery of the weapon in his path. Taking a few quick steps backward, he put a little distance between him and the blade. Once he was back enough that he felt that he could avoid bloodshed, he took a moment to really look at the figure before him. A momentary lull in the pouring rain gave him the clue that she was a female, but she seemed young. Cyan eyes traveled over her flashy, yet wet form and he waited for her to speak.
When the form breaks through the dense line of trees, it is both stranger and more familiar than O was expecting. It is a horse — thankfully enough, for she is not sure even she could hold her own against the things of this island that are blessed with claws and teeth — but he is larger than her, significantly so, and swatched in a green even brighter and louder than the patterns of the judgement. O watches him with narrowed eyes, silent for a moment, then whips the hurlbat back toward her and away from him.
“Yes,” she says, and gives him a small, shameless grin. “Sorry to startle you. It doesn’t bite, though, unless I want it to.” O makes note of the few quick steps he takes away from her. Some part of her is amused, that her, slight in stature and soaking wet, could intimidate him. The other part hosts a begrudging respect that at least he knows how to conduct himself — were she in the same situation, she would probably react the same.
(Despite the atrocity of her stubbornness, O is smart. Smarter than anyone gives her credit for. And beyond that, she has learned to control herself more than anyone could possibly know — so that no matter how much her animal heart begged to be let loose or the hurlbat whined to taste blood, no matter how narrow the corner she is backed into, she thinks before fighting.)
The rain still pours around them in sheets of pure silver. O shivers a little and shakes her head, ruffling her short, dark hair and sending water flying away from her. Overhead birds crow in astonishment. She looks the stranger up and down with two eyes (the third covered by the dark hair plastered to her forehead) and notes that although he is big, and strong, she cannot find any noticeable scars, nor weapons. Finally the girl relaxes, shoulders slumping slightly. “I’m O,” she greets. “I assume you’re looking for the relic, too.”
Which doesn't intimidate her. Her spirit, though competitive, is not one of jealousy. She is sure that the most fit will win. (Gods let it be someone she likes.)
Coy watched her take him in, her eyes narrowed. As he waited patiently for her to decide not to behead him, he tried to calm his racing heart. Flicking his tri-colored tail, he did his best to get it released from his legs. Even so, he did the best he could to appear non-threatening and hopefully avoid any new injuries. This land was dangerous to fabulous skin... The thought almost made him frown, but he managed to keep it under wraps as he waited.
“Yes, Sorry to startle you. It doesn’t bite, though, unless I want it to.” Coy couldnt help the chuckle that escaped his lips as he watched the weapon retreat. "Well... I am glad that it doesnt. Remind me to stay on your good side, squirt." He responded, cyan eyes twinkling now that the danger was out of his face. The pouring rain put a damper on his humor, making him more kind and almost fatherly than trickster. That was a strange idea... Coy as a father... While he like the idea, he was no where near ready for a foal to be following him around and learning his tricks. Heck... the world was no where near ready for another of him!
Shaking his head, he tried to get the soaked tresses out of his eyes. He usually loved the rain, but not when it was pouring this hard and making him look like a drowned rat! "This rain is sure something... not exactly the exploring weather, but at least if cleans the air." He responded as he watched the filly. How old was she? Was she really out here alone?
“I’m O, I assume you’re looking for the relic, too.” Coy dipped his head in a bow. "I am Coyote... but you can call me Coy." He introduced as he shook his head again. "Not necessarily looking, but I seem to be drawn to this place the same as a good amount of the inhabitants of this realm." He laughed softly, eyes traveling over her again before taking a moment to glance around them. One nice thing about the weather being so dreary... The greens seemed brighter and he was keeping his coat nice and clean.
She’s happy that he laughs. The feeling is entirely unexpected — O, despite her young age, is not necessarily the easiest to impress — but something about the excitement of the island makes her feel a little more generous, a little easier to get along with. At least the man has a sense of humor. More than once O’s tight grip on her axe has been taken as a threat that couldn’t be rescinded, steering strangers away with less than a single word.
Not this one. It would be foolish around someone else, but not her.
“It’s definitely not… normal,” she says of the weather, and turns her head up toward the sky. It is a roiling, tumultuous sea in shades of gray, navy and black; the rain is unceasing, beating down a loud, musical pattern on the glossy leaves and on O’s skin, plastering her hair to her forehead and her tail to her hindquarters. The atmosphere is rife with the cool, clean smell of dirt turning to mud and roots spreading through the mulch. It’s a bizarre turn from the way spring spreads over the rest of Novus — warm and only slightly wet — and especially from the dry, arid heat of the Solterran deserts where her family spends most of their time.
O holds back a barrage of questions — where are you from, who do you know, why are you not scared — but holds them back with a bit lip and a flick of her ear. (She tries not to think too hard about how close he would have been in age to her father, if he was alive. How they might have known each other in the right place and time. How they both find, or found, it easy to smile at her.) “Right,” she says. “Not like there’s anything more interesting catching people’s attention.” A pause, then, as she grasps on to the way he says inhabitants like he’s not one of them. “So you’re not from here.”
“It’s definitely not… normal,” Coy's eyes widened for a split second before narrowing back to normal. "I am guessing that it is not this bone-soakingly wet on a regular basis?" He hedged the guess as he watched the youth. There was a smile plastered to his face, the tri-colored stallion had always enjoyed time with foals. They were adorable and filled with life and questions. He took a deep breath of the clean air as he watched the filly. She was drenched as badly as he was, looking not to thrilled with the rain.
“Right, Not like there’s anything more interesting catching people’s attention.” Coy chuckled softly. "New, mysterious, and dangerous... Makes it hard for beings to stay away. They tend to be fascinated by things that are new and unusual, even if they are frightening." He remarked with a nod. That was how he had watched others through his entire life. Even in his first band, he had been the unusual one, the one that everyone was fascinated with thanks to the vibrancy of his green markings. "Add in the fact that there is, or may be, something here to find and this place will be swarming with life until every clue is exhausted." He sighed, knowing that some were less likely to explore in ways that would preserve the land itself.
“So you’re not from here.” Coy laughed fully as he shook his head. "You caught that, did you? No... I am a fairly new transplant to the realm. It looks like I came just in time for the fun stuff though." He chuckled, shaking his head and taking a moment to glance around them.
@Apolonia "Coy Sass" Notes: Coy is pretty fond of O so far lol
The absoluteBESTrevenge... is to stay fabulous.
Coding: Dyzzie - Image: Chaosy
06-29-2019, 12:47 PM - This post was last modified: 06-29-2019, 12:48 PM by Huehuecoyotl
“Ha,” O says, and a laugh twinges in her voice. “Yeah, the rain is the weird part.” She snorts, and a little bit of it is derision, but most of it is humor; there’s more strangeness to be found, she’s sure, in the birds with their jewel-eyes and whistling leaves than in any amount of rain. Though it can’t help. If it were sunny, she could see a little better, not be so damn-soaking wet, not find it so woefully hard to run if the situation calls for it. If it were sunny she wouldn’t be stuck up to her ankles in mud. Wouldn’t feel her teeth chattering as the chill of the water soaks into her bones. (But that’s okay, she tells herself, it’s all okay; there’s nothing to run from. Nothing to run from.)
(Nothing to run from.)
They tend to be fascinated by things that are new and unusual, even if they are frightening. He’s right abut that, even O knows—she’s had her fair share of stares follow her in the rare moments her third eye peeks out, or when they realize that the girl with the axe on her hip is a child yet, a small one at that. Younger even than she looks. She could be considered unusual and frightening, but that has never really bothered her—it’s a power, isn’t it, to make people extra-careful around you? She wouldn’t have gotten this far if people took her at face value—if they saw her as just a kid and not a force to be reckoned with.
He’s not from here, the stranger says, and O is not surprised. She looks him up and down with pure, cool curiosity. The tufts of feathers on his ankles and the virile green of his markings are both traits she’s never seen in Novus before—never even heard of, if she’s remembering right. “Fun stuff, right. Weird stuff too.” She grins, and it pulls her dark lips into a smile like a shining crescent moon. Something like mischief is bright in her multi-colored eyes.
She raises her chin then, toward the sky, and closes her lashes against the continual falling of the rain; but it’s lightened up a bit, and now it feels like a kiss on her sooty skin. Then she cracks her gaze open and looks back at Coy. “Well!” chirps O with unusual enthusiasm, “Shall we?” and shakes some of the water from her suddenly curly hair. She raises her eyebrows in something like a dare, then turns and starts at a bouncy trot deeper into the forest, overturning patches of wet leaves and dirt as she slinks through the undergrowth with her tail snapping behind her.
07-03-2019, 02:42 PM - This post was last modified: 07-03-2019, 02:44 PM by Apolonia
“Ha, Yeah, the rain is the weird part.” Oh he liked this filly. She was so much the same in personality and humor and he loved it. It was not often that he met anyone that he felt so aligned with. "I mean... Islands with strange happenings are completely normal." He winked as he replied, his words dripping with sarcasm. "But rain... That is such a foreign thing that absolutely never happens anywhere." Coy nodded adamantly with a full grin appearing on his lips.
“Fun stuff, right. Weird stuff too.” Coy chuckled. "Sometimes fun stuff is weird... sometimes the weird gets more unsettling. I would rather weird and fun instead of weird and scary. What about you?" He replied with a grin. His eyes flicked to the forest around them, happy that the rain seemed to be letting up a bit and not being as harsh and driving.
“Well! Shall we?” Coy nodded. "Definitely! Lead the way, kiddo!" He responded excitedly, motioning for her to take the lead and waiting to see what she did next.
"Sass"
@Apolonia Notes: crappy post is crappy. Up to you if you want to continue the thread <3
Table by Kaons and edited by Chaosy - Art by Chaosy
