[AW] ain't no rest for the wicked.

[Ptolema]

PTOLEMA

momma hen extraordinaire

Dawn Court held many things, but sometimes... one needed a break. Ptolema found herself in the Eluetheria Plain, as she had many times before, grasses attempting to tickle through thick feathering on her legs, catching and pulling on the hairs gently. The large mare made her way through the thickest parts of it, feeling tall grass on her belly (unusual, considering her height), before she finally came to a stop near a bubbling stream. It wasn't that fast, or deep, and she stepped forward slowly, mostly to submerge her hooves in it and duck her head, allowing her lips to touch the moving surface and smiling against the cool liquid.

Her reflection looked back at her, the soft bumps on her nose and the mess of her mane wild around her head. She looked tired, but she also felt tired; it had been a tough day when she had helped a sick patient earlier. They had rested well though, once she had finished helping, and she had sighed and made her way here. Pregnancy was common for her to see where one would be sick, it came with it. She couldn't help but suddenly frown a little to herself at the thought, orange eyes closing as she drew her head up, and absently lifted a hind leg to scratch at her belly.

She could never conceive, herself. Cursed in the wrong body at birth, it was something she constantly seemed to fight with. Some days she was happy, others... well. Other days reminded her how she had been born, and she loathed it.

Shaking her head, she dropped her hind leg with a splash, huffing out instead and trudging a little further up the stream, to a deeper part. That didn't matter. It didn't matter if she would never carry a foal herself, she could still help raise them and help them grow. Help the orphaned ones toughen up a little and dote on them when they were sleepy.

She was fine the way she was. She would change for no one.

open!

[Cress]

There's no walls & no ceilings as far as I know

just the echo of scars and the unbeaten road

It was massive, and it was ignoring her.

The little blue jay stood in front of the bison, who’s head was buried in the tall grasses, idly munching away. She put her nose down in front of him and gazed into the dark honey eyes of a creature that was easily twice her size. The bison flicked its tail and lifted his head to chew and Cress snorted loudly and shuffled a few feet away. 

“Meanie! You scared me!” She shifted her wings against her backside, her feathered crest raised in both curiosity and surprise. The bison did nothing but continue to chew the grass, eying the blue creature in front of him dispassionately.  

“Can you talk at all, or maybe you can’t understand me?” She asked the silent goliath, who responded by ambling to the left and continuing to graze. “Maybe both?” The silence continued. Cress finally sighed; the bison did not want to be her friend, and she was lonely. She missed her adventures and those she had met in the other places she’d been. She missed…

She stopped herself abruptly. No. She wouldn’t think about that.

Without thinking about there where, she unfolded her wings and took a running start up into the sky, letting the summer sun wash over her, the wind running through her feathers and across her body, taking with it the brief melancholy that had tried to sweep her as she delighted in the one thing that she could always turn to: flying.

Cress dipped lower toward the ground and glided, letting the tall grasses brush her legs and the tips of her wings, leaving a wake as if she was over water instead. She laughed and tried to make patterns – but she was never quite fast enough to finish one, as the grasses were quick to stand back up again. 

Growing tired and thirsty, she spied the river up ahead… and someone in it! She grinned, perhaps whoever this was would be a better conversationalist than the bison had been. The little blue jay landed nearby the stream, a lot neater than her last crash landing at the cliffs, only sliding slightly as her hooves adjusted to the sand and pebbled bank. Her not-friend-yet was out in the middle of the water, and Cress took a moment, bright yellow-orange eyes running over her markings and large mane with a childlike curiosity before walking into the water herself.

Cress didn’t wade out as far as the striped draft, letting the water come up just above her knees before she stopped. “Your mane is very pretty, it makes you look like a lion.” She said with a smile, shifting her wings against her back, the long feathers sliding over her haunches. “Can you turn into one? I’ve met people who can. Well, not a lion, but, other things that weren’t horses.” She shook her head a little.

“I’m sorry, I’m supposed to say hello first right? And also I’m Cress. It’s okay if you can’t turn into a lion. The guy I met who could wasn’t very nice.” The little bird stopped then, almost realizing that she’d been babbling and looked at her new found companion, hoping this wasn’t another bison in disguise. 


@Ptolema - hope its okay Cress jumped in here! Pto seems so lovely I couldn't resist <33

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