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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    there's a bad moon on the rise; Popinjay
    #1
    Rust and snow and every shade of shadow. Rust and snow and every shade of shadow.

    Lepis repeats the phrase to herself without conscious thought, the tongue-twister making less of a sound than the soft crunch of snow beneath her hooves. It had fallen last night, soft and fluffy and less cold than she’d anticipated. The flakes that had fallen on the winged mare have long since burned away from the heat of her skin, though a faint dusting of melting ice adorns the edges of her gold and blue feathers. Her descent from the heavens had been very recent and very swift. The shock of it has her repeating the names of the three colors as she makes her way through the redwood Taigan forest.

    Rust and snow and every shade of shadow.

    Heda’s stories had given Lepis an idea of what to expect as far as landscape here, and the woods around her do not disappoint. Farther than her eye can see, the forest stretches on. Ancient trees touch the sky, their rust red trunks wider than her own body. The Comtesse knows that there are meadows, small clearings in the tricolored forest where grazing is plentiful and conversation can be found. The path her navy legs tread is not toward any of those meadows. Instead she follows the trail of a brook that babbles cheerily, treading in the shallow waters at hock-depth. Whenever it becomes deeper than her knees, she takes to the sky in a few wingbeats, dropping back down where the water is fordable.

    There is something in the trees. One blue ear flicks toward it, but just as swiftly returns to the gurgling water. The snlight of high noon does not break through the shadowy canopy often, but when it does it glimmers off the miniature rapids ahead of her brilliantly. The water feels almost alive here, and the dun tobiano pegasus smiles to herself, taking a brief moment to pause and sip the crisp water.
    Reply
    #2

    The small mare catches Popinjay's attention and she is watching her from the shadows, a shade of shadow herself, black-bay coat blowing softly in the cold winter wind. Her fascination is not with the mare's size, or even her color - is everybody here golden? It is with something else. The filly is quiet in the way that birds are quiet when a stranger walks by, one they are not afraid of, but are still decidiing on, watchful and weighing, calculating. Is this stranger the sort to toss crumbs of bread, or to mount small birds on ladies' hats?

    Perhaps those are not the exact thoughts running through the youth's mind.

    She is sneaky when she wants to be. She often doesn't care, she is often brash and bold and charges about confident that the world will make room for her, and, so far, it has done so. But she can also be quiet. When she is doing something she knows she probably ought not do. For a moment, she turns away from her quarry, looking to be sure that Lethy is not nearby to stop her. Or to say something. The motherly mare is not immediately in sight, however, and cannot stop her young charge from this mischief. Dark eyes return to the mare at the creek. It's hard to sneak about when you don't know whether or not the one you are sneaking on can read your mind, or has eyes on their butt that are already watching you, but it doesn't stop her. It doesn't even cross her mind that the winged mare might already know that she is there.

    It is hard to be quiet crossing the forest floor. Luckily, her hooves are very small, and the loamy ground is soft and damp, the leaves give way with almost no sound at all, and no traitorous stick snaps underfoot. She is the color of the forest beneath the canopy and has begun to take its scent as well, the smell of damp wood and smokey leaves and the mist that clings to the leaves like a veil. It is so hard to be quiet, but everything depends on it.

    While the winged mare drinks, Popinjay approaches her side, wary of rear legs that can kick, but caution thrown otherwise to the wind. The chance must be taken! The object of her fascination becomes obvious now because she cannot keep her eyes off of them. Those feathered wings! A small muzzle reaches out, snakes out as quickly as it can, short, and very white, teeth bared as the small bay attempts to bite at the long, trailing, primaries.

    Almost there...

    Popinjay
    She was not quite what you would call refined


    @[Lepis]
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    #3
    Though her gaze remains on the waterfall ahead of her, Lepis keeps one blue ear turned back. The something in the trees has become a someone, and a small young someone at that. Her own children play a similar game they call hunt-the-hare, though Lepis is not accustomed to being the quarry. Still, she is ever fond of children, and allows the girl to sneak up quite close before giving any indication that she is aware of her presence.

    “You’ll have to be faster than that next time,” Lepis says just as she pulls her wing out of reach of the brown filly’s grasping teeth. “And maybe a little quieter too.” She adds with an amused smile. With a single quick tug, Lepis removes one of the feathers that the girl had been trying to steal and holds it out to her with another friendly smile visible on her navy mouth.

    “Or you could just ask.” For all her amusement at the girl’s bold efforts, Lepis cannot help but wonder where the girl’s parents are. The bay filly is not one she knows, and Lepis had been rock-sure that she knew everyone in the Taiga. There were some shadow dwellers, some that linger on the fringes of the forest who she does not know by name. But this girl is not theirs; they’d not let one of their young out alone. She’s the triplets’ age, the Comtesse decides, and she smells faintly of Izora Lethia. Not enough to be her child (and besides, that buckskin mare hasn’t yet borne her child), but perhaps an acquaintance of some sort, maybe a recent fosterling.

    “What is your name, little feather thief?” asks the forest mare, her blue-grey eyes meeting those of the girl brightly and with no little amusement. The paint mare has tucked her wing back against her side once more, and resettles it with a small roll of her shoulder. Behind her, the creek chatters happily as it falls from one stone to the next.

    @[Popinjay]
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    #4
    Foiled!

    Teeth close on nothing, coming together with a small clack when the golden mare pulls her wing away speaking a quiet reproach. Popinjay squeals loudly and scampers off a small distance, nosing at some of the redwood forest's endemic ferns as though to imply that she wasn't doing anything. The filly is not a very good actress, however. For a moment she snuffles at some moss with her upper lip as if thoroughly entranced, but quickly those wide eyes turn back to the winged mare. Her tail flicks impetuously, wagging like a dog's tail against her dark haunches.

    When the feather is extended to her, she reaches out, hesitant, nose jerking back repeatedly, but slowly - so slowly! - she creeps forward again, head tilted slightly to one side to get the best look, while also granting her an inquisitive air. Once within reach, she grabs at the feather and pulls back, out of reach.

    "M Fofnchey!" she says around the stiff wing-feather and through clenched teeth, thoroughly indecipherable but refusing to drop her prize. She snakes her neck from side to side, feeling the feather catch and push the air, and trots in a tight formation, pulling her knees high as she does so. "Lessy brah-me hrr."

    Speaking of the purple-eyed mare (maybe?) Popinjay peers through the trees to where she knows Lethy is grazing, or was, but now one small ear catches the snips of drifting conversation. The adults' conversations never make a great deal of sense to her, and they bore her silly, so she is in no hurry to return just now, but having her nearby bolsters the young bay. She closes the distance between herself and winged mare quickly and, feather still firm from her lips, thrusts her nose up to meet nostril-to-nostril.

    "Thnks fr thfther!"

    Popinjay
    She was not quite what you would call refined


    @[Lepis]
    Reply
    #5
    The girl says something – perhaps her name? - but it is muffled by the prize she carries and the joyous, high-kneed prancing that follows. Her feather-thief has no fear, it seems. That only further disqualifies her as one of the Shadows, and Lepis is quite sure that the garbled ‘Lessy’, must mean Izora Lethia. The bay filly is old enough to feed herself, but she is not yet old enough to leave her mother. What had happened to separate feather thief from the mare who birthed her? Lepis, growing wide with her own child, briefly dwells on the more frightening of possible reasons.

    calm she reminds herself, and exhales a long breath rather slowly.

    Fortunately, this is all while the bright-eyed foal is prancing about, and for a bit of the time she listens for the horses she had left behind. Lepis’ own ears turn in the same direction without conscious thought, and the familiar distant voices of Aten and Lethy drift through the trees. She nods, mostly to herself, and then looks down to where the filly has come up quite close.

    It is only the recently projected calm that keeps her hooves on the ground. Lepis does not like to be startled. She hides it with a sharp huff of her breath that might just be a greeting snort, and her blue-grey eyes do not roll in a way that might startle the dark-nosed Popinjay. The muffled gratitude of the girl further quells her nigh-invisible agitation, and Lepis is smiling as she pulls away from their greeting.

    “You’re quite welcome.” She tells her, “You’ll be able to amass quite the collection of feathers here in Taiga. There are many winged horses in these woods, and I think they’d be happy to share if you ask nicely.” She makes a mental note to tell her son and daughters, and to ask her husband to wear wings on the off chance she runs into the Commander.

    “My name is Lepis.” Says the Comtesse as she resettles her wings and smiles. “Could you tell me your name again, but maybe without the feather?”

    @[Popinjay]
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    #6
    She doesn't notice Lepis' anxiety. It's not that she isn't observant, only that she is a child, and as a child, she picks up on the things that are relevant to her. The nervousness of impending motherhood, when so many unknown paths exist, is not one that she can understand. Instead, the filly is filled with the bright gaiety of her youth, and the winged mare has calmed before Popinjay returns her attentions to her.

    Introductions pass with a warm breath, a promise of more feathers, and a name. Lepis and Lethy and Aten and Turul. She is collecting names as well as feathers! On request, she lets the feather drop from her lips, twirling quickly through the air until it settles among the fallen evergreen needles, and after watching it for a moment, she turns her wide-eyed gaze back to Lepis.

    "My name is Popinjay!" She announces, boldly, with a toss of her head, "Lethy brought me here to meet Barry Bushes, but we haven't seen him yet... Have you seen him? It's okay if you haven't, I think maybe he's shy and that's why we haven't found him. We did find Aten though, and he has a bird named Turul. Me and Turul are friends."

    She arches her neck to emphasize her friendship with the golden stallion's gyrfalcon, eyes shut and tail flipped over her back, but this pose last only a second, a brief pause, a breath's length.

    "Do you have a bird? I never saw a horse with wings before I came here. Did you eat him? Is that why you have wings? Aten won't eat Turul to get wings, will he? He better not!"

    Popinjay stamps her foot, scarring the moss underfoot and laying bare a small spot of rich soil. No, he better not try to eat Turul! She will bite him, if he does!

    Popinjay
    She was not quite what you would call refined
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    #7
    Lepis follows the fall of the feather with one twisted ear, but she is soon distracted. The girl’s name is quite fitting, the Comtesse thinks to herself; rather reminiscent of the jabbering blue birds that sometimes flit between the redwoods. Popinjay’s chattering is far less harsh than that of the birds though, and Lepis barely manages to hide a smile behind the curve of one quickly-raised wing. Barry Bushes indeed.

    “I don’t have a bird,” she tells the filly, interjecting when she can. “But I’ve never eaten one either, and I’m sure Turul is safe from Aten as well.” The thought of the champagne stallion chasing down the falcon for a bite is almost as amusing as the bay’s hunt for Barry. Lepis cannot quite bring herself to crush the girl’s impression of the mysterious figure that Popinjay is waiting to find, and so instead she gives a quiet call to the woods behind her, where she knows someone is waiting.
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    #8
    Quiet, shapeless daydreams have kept her still while Mama wanders, more like a fawn than a foal tucked into the thicket.

    The sound of her mother’s call draws her away from the half-formed images, and Celina stands with a start. She blinks her sea-green eyes and shakes away bits of leaf and debris from the fuzz of her nursling’s mane. It takes a moment for her to rise – a combination of stiff muscles and newly learned skill. When she does, she is moving as quickly as she can, stumbling then leaping across the thick carpet of pine needles. Hitting her mother slows her down, and the collision is turned into an affectionate embrace with Celina’s striped neck wrapped around her mother’s leg.

    A soft snort draws her attention away from the meal Celina had been contemplating. Her green eyes look up, and her flaring pink nostrils take in a scent that is neither Mama nor food.

    She steps around her mother on thin silver legs, her small head titled curiously. Wings that will one day light her in flight are, for now, tucked tight and quite small against her sides, covered only in the lightest layer of downy gray feathers. Her eyes, a shade of seafoam green somewh3ere between her father’s olive and mother’s blue, blink curiously up at the older filly. A matching smile turns up the edges of her mouth, just enough to reveal gums that are still curiously toothless.

    Celina has only met her members of her family before now, and a quick sniff tells her that this is neither Papa in one of his disguises nor the only brother she has yet to meet.

    “Hi!” She says, just as Mama leans over her shoulder to say. “This is Popinjay. Why don’t you show her the berry bushes?”. This suggestion brings further delight to Celina’s young face. She is hungry after all, and berries were as good a meal as milk at this age. “Wanna go, Pop?” She shortens the name the first syllable, the only one that she is very sure she remembers. “Raspberry or mulberry?”

    @[Popinjay]
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    #9
    A calm falls over Popinjay at Lepis’ assurance that Aten will not try to eat Turul, the righteouesness that was rising inside her suddenly quelled and dipping back to more usual levels as she considers this. She nods once firmly, resolute, then opens her mouth to begin an onslaught of secondary questions which die on her tongue as Lepis looks into the forest and calls out. To who? She did not even know there was anyone there! Curious, the filly cranes her neck, following the mare’s gaze and nearly standing on tip-toe to see who has been spying on them.

    At first there is nothing, and then, a crashing sound as ungainly legs carry the pale filly from her woodland bed and into the small clearing where Popinjay has been shamelessly assaulting Lepis with her queries. In the green light filtering through the trees, the white and silver coat almost seems to glow a gentle green, and when at last the other foal stands, the delicate fern fronds stroking at her belly as she embraces her dam, Popinjay does not immediately separate her from the plants. She snorts, incredulous, front feet drumming against the ground once, twice, before growing still. Her restlessness tells in her tail, which flicks and swishes endlessly, barely contained, while Celina joins her mother. Popinjay is leaning far enough forward to tip over when the other filly finally looks at her and Lepis’ voice releases her feet from the ground. She catches herself gracelessly, bounding forward, very close. Her breath comes deep, taking in the scent of dirt and foliage, and on its noisy exit from her nostrils, dislodges an evergreen needle still clinging to the other’s coat. Entirely too close.

    “Hiareyouaplant?”

    Because if her mom is a bird, the dark bay reasons, why can’t her daughter be a plant? This seems logical and Popinjay is content with her reasoning. Her attention is again grabbed by Lepis, leaning over Celina’s shoulder and suggesting they go find Barry Bushes. Dark eyes light up and she turns back to the other filly.

    “Raspery? Rathbry? Rassssssssszzpbry. ” It’s much more fun to say than mulberry which sounds boring and studious, although, without teeth one can’t be certain that Celina’s pronunciation is quite correct. Popinjay’s certainly is not. She knows where the blueberries stand, but Barry Bushes was not there. Perhaps now she will find him, though how so new a foal could have come across someone she has been seeking for basically forever is harder to figure out. Nonetheless, she falls in place besides the younger filly, pressing her nose to her flank. Lead on!


    Popinjay
    She was not quite what you would call refined


    @[Celina] it's fixed now. apparently i thought she was completely green all the time lol
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