12-08-2020, 06:21 PM
She was not quite what you would call refined.
Popinjay returns home, occasionally, because part of her still lives in the shadows of Taiga, a small and laughing piece of her childhood, and it draws her back to dance through the redwood kings, to search out the deepest blackwater creeks and test her hide against the scrubby hawthorns growing there. Dishevelled and scratched, she emerges from the canyon, dancing on legs muddied to the knee, the blaze of her belly dimmed by tannic water and leaves black with rot.
The northern edge of the territory bares marks of fire old and new, trees like blackened spears piercing the sky above. Here, great cliffs mark the border between Taiga and Nerine, they ris up in the air, solemn, long-faced, frowning, and her gaiety bounces off them like laughter at a funeral, a gaiety that dulls a moment when the mouth of a familiar cave appears gaping before her in the little forest clearing. Wildflowers bloom in the summer haze and clouds of gnats hover above them for no obvious reason, just waiting for someone less wary than she to wander through. The little bay stops, she remembers - sort of - coming here with Celina. The memory is foggy - something to do with the bitter mushrooms hidden in the cave - but it turns her expression stormy. In her minds eye two fillies race out of the darkness laughing, chasing an invisible fairy.
And now, one of those girls is dead.
Popinjay rarely takes the time to dwell on much, including the death of her friend. Celina was not the only one to die in the fires of Loess, she was not even the only one that Poppy had known or claimed as a friend, but she sat foremost on the list, and her death had made the least sense of all.
Remembering makes her angry and anger makes her reckless. An ear-splitting explosion reflects off those high, frowning, cliffs as the black trees dash to pieces in an earthbound electric storm, spears of wood flying in all directions, haphazard, uncontrolled, dangerous. Electricity crackles around her, white-hot and livid, and every step risks fire, but Poppy scowls darkly and races deeper into the woods, her hooves singing the loamy forest floor. Her anger, like her joy, is fierce and fast, and she gallops between the trees and the ferns as she might across an empty meadow, weaving as only someone raised among the enormous trunks could do. Loess stole Celina. It stole Ghaul. It stole Lepis. Its territory stole her independence, for a time (and if that was not exactly the fault of the land or the people within it is of no importance as far as she is concerned.) Poppy can find in herself no reason to love the southern kingdom, and so she settles for hatred, instead, but it is Taiga, today, that takes the brunt of her temper.
Another crack of lightning it hits water just as her hooves touch down and light scatters, whining, across the rippling surface, devouring the darkness - lightning, like fire, is always hungry. The glen is bathed in flickering blue-white light for the briefest moment, exposing an odd little mound of picked and fading flowers. It draws her, her fury rolling so easily into curiosity as if she was never angry at all. Beneath the wilted offerings a statue, carved perfectly from stone in the shape of a mare lying limp in the earth. Poppy waits - perhaps only a breath or two, but she does wait - with dark eyes glittering as they search the surrounding trees, but no-one comes forward to claim the statue, and wouldn't it look better in her own garden, guarded by black flytraps?
It feels fragile in her talons when she steals it; fragile, and lighter than she expected as if it is somehow hollow inside. How that can be is beyond her ability to understand, but it only makes the theft easier. Her enormous wings bend the youngest trees as they power to lift her through the narrow opening in the Taigan canopy, but soon she is gone, coasting on the currents back home.
The northern edge of the territory bares marks of fire old and new, trees like blackened spears piercing the sky above. Here, great cliffs mark the border between Taiga and Nerine, they ris up in the air, solemn, long-faced, frowning, and her gaiety bounces off them like laughter at a funeral, a gaiety that dulls a moment when the mouth of a familiar cave appears gaping before her in the little forest clearing. Wildflowers bloom in the summer haze and clouds of gnats hover above them for no obvious reason, just waiting for someone less wary than she to wander through. The little bay stops, she remembers - sort of - coming here with Celina. The memory is foggy - something to do with the bitter mushrooms hidden in the cave - but it turns her expression stormy. In her minds eye two fillies race out of the darkness laughing, chasing an invisible fairy.
And now, one of those girls is dead.
Popinjay rarely takes the time to dwell on much, including the death of her friend. Celina was not the only one to die in the fires of Loess, she was not even the only one that Poppy had known or claimed as a friend, but she sat foremost on the list, and her death had made the least sense of all.
Remembering makes her angry and anger makes her reckless. An ear-splitting explosion reflects off those high, frowning, cliffs as the black trees dash to pieces in an earthbound electric storm, spears of wood flying in all directions, haphazard, uncontrolled, dangerous. Electricity crackles around her, white-hot and livid, and every step risks fire, but Poppy scowls darkly and races deeper into the woods, her hooves singing the loamy forest floor. Her anger, like her joy, is fierce and fast, and she gallops between the trees and the ferns as she might across an empty meadow, weaving as only someone raised among the enormous trunks could do. Loess stole Celina. It stole Ghaul. It stole Lepis. Its territory stole her independence, for a time (and if that was not exactly the fault of the land or the people within it is of no importance as far as she is concerned.) Poppy can find in herself no reason to love the southern kingdom, and so she settles for hatred, instead, but it is Taiga, today, that takes the brunt of her temper.
Another crack of lightning it hits water just as her hooves touch down and light scatters, whining, across the rippling surface, devouring the darkness - lightning, like fire, is always hungry. The glen is bathed in flickering blue-white light for the briefest moment, exposing an odd little mound of picked and fading flowers. It draws her, her fury rolling so easily into curiosity as if she was never angry at all. Beneath the wilted offerings a statue, carved perfectly from stone in the shape of a mare lying limp in the earth. Poppy waits - perhaps only a breath or two, but she does wait - with dark eyes glittering as they search the surrounding trees, but no-one comes forward to claim the statue, and wouldn't it look better in her own garden, guarded by black flytraps?
It feels fragile in her talons when she steals it; fragile, and lighter than she expected as if it is somehow hollow inside. How that can be is beyond her ability to understand, but it only makes the theft easier. Her enormous wings bend the youngest trees as they power to lift her through the narrow opening in the Taigan canopy, but soon she is gone, coasting on the currents back home.
Hello, Poppy just stole Brazen's stonesuit and flew away so if you have something to say about it you'll have to come see her in Nerine
