08-18-2019, 09:36 PM
Celina’s bright eyes are focused on Popinjay with a fierce fascination. The wait for an answer – dinner or adventure – seems to last an eternity and build tension in each bit of her body. When the bay yearling chooses an adventure, the tension explodes in a joyful little buck. It unbalances the pale filly and she has to stumble to regain her footing once all four hooves are on the ground, but she continues to hop about, excitement leaking from her nearly as effectively as it does from her projecting family members.
“Mushrooms!” She repeats in a shout, and then, remembering that they might not yet be out of sight of Lepis, says once more, quietly: “Mushrooms! This way!”
She charges ahead, her breakneck pace rather impressive for a child of barely six months. The weary burn of her lungs and the ache of her legs and hooves are gone before they’re even truly felt, a side effect of her physical regeneration that she is not yet old enough to understand. There is no path to the cave; she follows landmarks and gets lost a time or two on their journey north, and eventually her pace slows to a walk when she knows they are coming close.
“This way!” she says, and darts around a pile of smooth boulders.
Ahead, a gray granite cliff stands tall, not unlike those that line the cliffs of Nerine. The only water here is the spring water though, and it has run down the cliff face until a hollow twice times as tall as a horse and twenty times as long has been carved. It is only as deep as it is wide, and most of the hollow is hidden by a thick stand of young redwoods, growing closer together than their ancestors do in the rest of the woods. It;s into the hollow that Celina goes, gesturing with one small wing for Popinjay to follow.
There, growing from the acidic pine needles that have fallen over the centuries, grow a dozen kinds of mushroom.
Most are large and harmless, pale flowery looking things. A few will cause bellyaches if consumed in large quantities, and some dizziness and vomiting. Wolfbane has listed all of these things and more, so it is these that Celina avoids, kicking them over (minus a few bits of the big morels, because she is hungry) in her search for the one that they are definitely not supposed to eat.
“Oh!” she exclaims, having kicked over a large clump of fungus and spotted the little yellow-grey caps that she has been hunting for. “Found ‘em.”
Having located about a half-dozen of the Psilocybe mexicana. Celina looks back at Popinjay with daring in her seagreen eyes.“You wanna eat them first? Or me?”
“Mushrooms!” She repeats in a shout, and then, remembering that they might not yet be out of sight of Lepis, says once more, quietly: “Mushrooms! This way!”
She charges ahead, her breakneck pace rather impressive for a child of barely six months. The weary burn of her lungs and the ache of her legs and hooves are gone before they’re even truly felt, a side effect of her physical regeneration that she is not yet old enough to understand. There is no path to the cave; she follows landmarks and gets lost a time or two on their journey north, and eventually her pace slows to a walk when she knows they are coming close.
“This way!” she says, and darts around a pile of smooth boulders.
Ahead, a gray granite cliff stands tall, not unlike those that line the cliffs of Nerine. The only water here is the spring water though, and it has run down the cliff face until a hollow twice times as tall as a horse and twenty times as long has been carved. It is only as deep as it is wide, and most of the hollow is hidden by a thick stand of young redwoods, growing closer together than their ancestors do in the rest of the woods. It;s into the hollow that Celina goes, gesturing with one small wing for Popinjay to follow.
There, growing from the acidic pine needles that have fallen over the centuries, grow a dozen kinds of mushroom.
Most are large and harmless, pale flowery looking things. A few will cause bellyaches if consumed in large quantities, and some dizziness and vomiting. Wolfbane has listed all of these things and more, so it is these that Celina avoids, kicking them over (minus a few bits of the big morels, because she is hungry) in her search for the one that they are definitely not supposed to eat.
“Oh!” she exclaims, having kicked over a large clump of fungus and spotted the little yellow-grey caps that she has been hunting for. “Found ‘em.”
Having located about a half-dozen of the Psilocybe mexicana. Celina looks back at Popinjay with daring in her seagreen eyes.“You wanna eat them first? Or me?”