"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
Well. She was bored. Bored, bored, bored. Yes, yes, the jungle was safe. But Anni was quickly coming to learn that safe was how grown-ups said NOTHING EVER HAPPENED. Oh, sure, she’d gotten to play with her very extensive family. Aunts, uncles, grandma, lots of fun people who were all about the playtime and the cuddles and of course there was Maul. Her twin was pretty much the best person ever. Well, although Daddy did have fwoosh, and that was pretty badass. But Maul. Yeah, probably Maul won.
But Maul was busy, and sitting alone in a boring jungle where nothing ever changed was getting old, okay? So with a mischievous little grin and a glance around to make sure everyone was distracted, little miss Annihilate snuck into the extensive undergrowth and crept silently away. Well, as silently as a kid her age could manage, anyhow. Hey, she was pretty decently sneaky for a girl only a few months old. So maybe her legs sometimes got a little tangled up in tricky vines, but it was rare now! Sneaky enough to slip past the watchful eye of her babysitters, anyhow, so there!
It was a game they played, or at least that’s how she liked to think of it. A game called How Close Are You Watching? She’d slip out of sight, and see how far she could get before there was a falcon flying overhead, or a cloud of mist where there shouldn’t be, or a hoppy little blue frog blinking up a her with an expression somewhere between amusement and exasperation. And it usually didn’t take very long, but everyone was quite distracted today. Maybe they really didn’t see her sneak away, or maybe they decided to let her have a bit of fun while they watched surreptitiously from the sidelines. Probably at least someone was tailing her, because she’d never gotten far.
But no one stopped her this time.
Well. Either she’d succeeded in escaping, in which case she deserved to have a bit of fun! or the fact that no one stopped her was basically permission to continue, in which case it would be a tragic waste to do anything else. So Anni bounded off toward adventure, with really no idea where she was going. She kept right on bounding along until she found other horses. At which point, she lit up with a playful grin and pounced on the nearest of them.
“Hello, new friend! My name is Annihilate, destroyer of peace and quiet, terror of the eight kingdoms, and all around good-natured hooligan.” Or at least that was various family members had managed to call her, all pieced together-like for the sake of formal introduction. “D’you want to play with me? Oooh, I bet we could climb people! D’you want to try?” She looked around for the tallest, broadest body she could find, and chased after an unsuspecting ginormous stallion, not even noticing that her new ‘friend’ had mostly stared at her and then turned away and she was therefore chasing a strange man all by herself.
Without a word, she raced up to the drafty stallion who was built a little like her uncle Drow, launched herself into the air, and scrambled to hook her front legs over the stranger’s back and drag herself up onto him. Which might have gone a little better if he hadn’t promptly shrieked like a banshee and bucked, sending her flying off back into the crowd. “Ow, dammit,” she grumbled as she collided with someone quite solid and slid her way to the ground. “Thanks for the catch,” she muttered, looking up at yet another stranger as she lurched back to her feet. “I’m Annihilate. Who’re you?”
He’s prowling the Meadow, looking for something to play with. Something that was worth his time, that sparked his interest. The pickings are slim, winter driving most that visited back home and trapping them there. He doesn’t mind the cold nor the snow, it doesn’t keep him locked in the Chamber. His prowling comes to an abrupt halt when he notices the filly that rockets into the place. Even if you missed her sudden appearance, you can’t miss her shrill voice. She’s launching herself at everyone and everything and his ears pin back in annoyance. Stupid girl. Even stupider parents to create something this idiotic and then let it loose on the world unsupervised. He’s not interested in her or her chatter, wanting something a bit more adult to toy with at the moment. He tries to block her out, turning his back from her and her ramblings. However when she is flung into his backside, he can’t ignore her anymore.
Crimson eyes blaze as he swings round on the foal who is picking herself up, unfazed and still talking a mile a minute. A growl falls off his lips as red eyes narrow and he lowers his scowling face close to hers. ”Someone you shouldn’t be falling into.” He snaps, shaking his head with irritation. ”Annihilate is it? Where exactly are your parents little girl?” He has half a mind to snatch her up and spirit her off and do the world a favor but he’s rather torn. Having to put up with her might not be worth it plus he should figure out exactly whose child this is and if it’s worth stirring the pot for.
Porrim has wandered an awful lot in the past few years.
The Jungle had held – will always hold – a special place in her heart, and even though she'd waited patiently for the day the red X would mar her breast, it never happened. One day, however, the flowers and the okapi just – vanished. She wasn't certain why. Still isn't. The Jungle is a fierce thing, and it had seemed unlikely that it had simply loosened its hold on a sister of the Amazons, former or not. So she'd waited, and word had gotten around, eventually, to her on-again off-again home in the Meadow. Beqanna was angry. She hadn't been surprised, really – not after all the tumult in the past years – and had quietly counted her lucky stars that she'd struck out beyond the kingdom's humid borders not long after Quark. Porrim cannot fathom life without wings.
Though her drifting has taken her in some interesting directions – the Dale, once, almost, and Tiphon – she always seems to wind up in the Meadow again. Something about the peoplewatching, in a sense. And the decent company. And the... random encounters. Porrim shifts absently and lifts a wing to peer back at her side, already starting to look a bit broader than she's used to. What can she say? He was pretty. Call it a vice.
Speaking of random encounters. Porrim lifts her head as a flashy – and incredibly excitable – filly nearly bounds headlong into one of her companions, who looks less than impressed. Porrim doesn't get a goodbye (not that she's surprised) as the other mare hastily moves off without a word, taking advantage of the filly turning her back for a moment. She's – well, she's a bold one, that kid. Porrim flicks her ears back uncertainly as the painted girl pounces gleefully on an unsuspecting stallion and is promptly launched off his back. It's not the stallion she leaps upon, however, but the one she's thrown into that reacts nastily to the mishap, and the yellow mare's expression darkens as he rounds on her with a scowl. Nothing about this encounter looks any good, and, pinning her ears, Porrim picks her way through the snow to stand next to Gryffen, sizing him up as she waits for Annihilate to regain her footing.
“Apologies,” she replies, breath fogging in the cold afternoon air. “I know her mother. I'll take her back.” She doesn't, of course, but anywhere right now is better than a grown stallion trying to pick a fight with a foal. Unless, of course, Gryffen would like to pick on someone more his size.
OOC; Sorry for the lack of html! <3 Editing some as we speak.
Annihilate eyed the grumpy albinoish stallion, not at all impressed with the growl in his tone or his narrowed red eyes or the scowl on his face. Rude. She snorted, rolling her eyes at his question. If he wasn’t going to answer hers, she sure as hell wasn’t going to answer his. “None of your damn business, that’s where,” she retorted with her usual display of more sass than sense. “And I didn’t fall, anyhow, I was thrown. You don’t have to be a dick about it. If you don’t want to play, then walk away, precious. Walk away.” So maybe she’d been spending a little too much time with Uncle Drow. But he needed the cuddles, and if she happened to pick up some fun language in the process, well that was just a bonus.
It was probably for the best that she was rescued from shooting her mouth off by a very brightly colored mare who kind of reminded her of Auntie Dare, or of looking too long at Auntie Dare and then looking away. Oh, but also with funny see-through wings, which were pretty cool. Now, Anni had never seen this strange lady before in her life, but she was always up for a game, and lies were fun games to play. So she grinned at the lady who claimed to know Momma, chirping out a delighted, “Auntie Nova!” and bounding over to bump her nose against the stranger’s bright yellow shoulder. “You found me!” She wriggled with delight, cuddling up to her clearly best friend auntie who she’d known forever and always, right?
Right.
“Look, Auntie, I made a friend,” she said with a snort and a quirk of her brow. Growly probably didn’t have a whole lot of friends, and she certainly wasn’t one of them. And besides, he didn’t look like the type who was inclined to laugh and play and have fun, or at least not any kind of fun she was interested in. Ooooh, unless he could set things on fire. Nah, but he still seemed like he had a stick up his ass, so even if he could make with the fwoosh, he probably wouldn’t do it just because she liked to watch the flames flickering and dancing and devouring. “He hasn’t told me his name yet, so I can’t properly introduce you.” So sad.
His red eyes widen slightly with surprise as she goes zero to one hundred real quick and then a deep rumble starts in a chest and before you know it, he’s laughing. It’s perhaps the first time he’s ever genuinely found something amusing that wasn’t at the expense of someone’s torture or pain. ”You’ve got quite a mouth on you.” His body turns and soon he is towering over the girl which is something he’s not quite use to, peering down with renewed interest in the foul mouthed filly. ”Make me walk away… precious.” He sneers in return, goading her on.
Of course an overprotective mare makes her way quickly to the scene, apologizing and claiming she knows the child. The girl responds with delight at seeing the other and it looks good on paper but his crimson gaze narrows slightly on them both. He had been watching the meadow long enough to have not seen a hint of recognition appear on the winged mare’s face when Annihilate had graced them all with her presence. ”And who exactly is her mother? I would love to have a word with her on where her child has gotten such colorful language.”
He had no problem picking on someone his own size. Or someone bigger than him (which had been the case lately) or smaller. He didn’t really care as long as it brought him something of use in the long run. His gaze runs along the translucent wings as well as the tell tale sign of her swollen sides. He had no intention of running along anywhere now that his interest was peaked and it was doubtful that the pregnant “Aunt Nova” was going to put her own unborn in harms way. His own breath mingles in the cold mist as he snorts softly, nostrils flaring as he looks back to the child and her loud mouth. ”Oh are we friends now?” He drawls, cocking a back hoof and letting his muscles relax beneath his shaggy white coat. ”Your parents need to do a better job if that’s how you speak to friends.” A deep sigh and a heave of his chest, it looks like he wouldn’t be playing the way he would like but this could be interesting all the same. ”Gryffen.” He pauses before adding on as if it was nothing. ”From the Chamber.”
Gryffen - - - - - The Big Bad Wolf
You get the gift of new Gryffen html as well haha <3
08-25-2015, 08:09 PM (This post was last modified: 08-25-2015, 08:10 PM by Porrim.
Edit Reason: Them thar tense changes.
)
The tirade that Gryffen's grouchy response earns him throws both of them for a loop, honestly. Porrim's expression shifts from general disapproval to disapproval and befuddlement, even if it earns Annihilate a laugh from the sour-looking cremello. However, the filly is enthusiastic about playing the I'm-your-family game (and technically, in a distant sort of sense, it is not a lie), and so when she flounces over to Porrim's side, the yellow mare cranes her neck and noses affectionately at the strange filly's withers. It's not even entirely an act. Porrim has become significantly fonder of foals since Uisce came into her life (and, granted, left just as suddenly and quietly). “Well, you didn't exactly make it difficult,” she teases. “You shouldn't speak to strangers like that, sweetheart, it's...”
Porrim trails off as Gryffen speaks up, blinking slowly at his request. “... Rude,” she finishes, cocking her head briefly as she gives him another once-over. “Well, I hardly think it's necessary for you to personally speak to her parents when I'm fully capable of passing the word along myself, but if you insist, which name would you like?” Her eyes narrow slightly. “Her mother's, you know--” She glances pointedly at Annihilate, a not in front of the kid sort of look. “--Can't speak,” she fills in, hurriedly. “Most of the family knows her as Spectre, but she's got more nicknames than I've got relatives.” Her mother had been a rambling presence in the Meadow some decades before – the least she could do was posthumously lend her name for a moment or two.
Gryffen relaxes as soon as Annihilate starts prodding him for an introduction, and so Porrim does too – at least to an extent. One ear remains trained warily on the rambunctious filly (Please, she thinks, do not divebomb this one also) as Gryffen somewhat reluctantly offers his name, and – oh. From the Chamber. Fabulous. “Well... her manners aren't perfect, but she did remember to introduce herself,” she remarks mildly, offering him a wry smile. “As I'm sure everyone within earshot heard - Nova. Of... everywhere, as of late.” A pause as she bumps her nose affectionately against Annihilate's shoulder, attempting to catch her eye. “I think you owe Gryffen an apology, hon.” Even if she would prefer to just saunter off with the kid in tow.
OOC; Gryffen's new html is lovely, omg <3 Porrim's decided to stop playing nice at the LAST possible second and I can't seem to iron out the issue (table bg color is giving me hella grief) so we are going to go without for the time being, apparently.
Oh! Hello. Growly had a sense of humor! She stared him down, a grin growing on her lips as he goaded her to make him walk away. Maybe he could be fun after all. She snorted at Auntie Nova’s admonishment, because frankly rude wasn’t her biggest concern. Besides, “He was rude first. Seems only fair I should get to be rude back.”
She was about to tell Growly that her momma had, in fact, been largely responsible for teaching her such colorful language, but Auntie Nova was painting a picture of a rather different mother, one who was mute and couldn’t have contributed much of anything to her vocabulary. “And not that it’s any of your business, but my daddy and my uncles taught me,” she added, which was certainly just as true as what she couldn’t say. “And I’m sure Momma would’ve if she could, too,” she said with a wistful little sigh.
Growly Red Eyes watched her as he relaxed his stance, and she watched him right back. “Well, I was being sarcastic,” she explained patiently, and then paused, cocked her head, and added, “Though I’d probably talk the same way if you were my friend. And either way, it’s certainly…interesting to meet you, Gryffen from the Chamber. What’s it like there? I’ve never been.”
She was grinning again, curious about a new place to explore, when Auntie Nova bumped her on the shoulder. Wide-eyed, Anni turned to meet the yellow mare’s seeking gaze, and Auntie Nova’s words melted the smile off her face. Her eyes hardened, her jaw set, and she said one word. “No.” She wasn’t about to apologize just because some strange lady thought it would be polite. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even apologize if her own actual mother suggested it. Not unless the apology was justified, and this one was not.
“He was rude first, and I have every right to tell someone to fuck off if I don’t like the look of them, or if they seem like trouble, or if I get a bad feeling about them. I was at least relatively restrained about it, and my reaction was pretty damn reasonable, all things considered. I will not apologize.”
The child acts entitled and his head tilts as he ponders that. Who exactly does she belong to? He can smell the scent of their kingdom on them, of sweat and humidity and other dirty things that belong to that region. A princess perhaps? Is that why the mare is so eager to protect and the tortoiseshell girl gets away with so much? Comments are kept to himself, holding on to his theories for a moment. A thin smirk spreads on his lips as the winged female speaks of a mute mother and than the child chimes in on learning her eclectic speech from her father and uncle. Ah, there it is. ”I didn’t realize males were allowed in the jungle these days. Do you spend much time with your father?” He murmurs quietly, red eyes blazing as he speaks. Eager to catch them in a lie. His gaze rounds on the adult, adding quietly. ”I don’t mind, I’m sure she can read lips. I’m overdue for a visit to the Amazons anyways.” So many rumors floated through Beqanna including one of a certain spotted fallen from grace ex Khaleesi. His dear half sister. It would be nice to point and laugh at the one that had garnered so much affection and respect from dearly departed dad due to her accomplishments only to fall so far when she had reached the top. Family reunions were so lovely in the No Crosses Count family.
The Child questions him about the Chamber and he lowers his head to her once more. "There's a tree that blazes with fire when it's given a gift. We are ruled by a Queen of Ravens. It's a dark place and you can feel the land's heart beating beneath your hooves." He doesn't mention that the gift to make the tree burn is of blood. That they had recently murdered a meadow wanderer in the name of experiment and science. That Atrox's heart was what was beating beneath the earth. Such stories were beyond what little girl's should hear although this one might be into it. She was named after destruction after all.
His relaxed demeanor doesn’t change, content with simply observing these strange beings before him. Why do they do the things they do? Why was the pregnant mare so eager to protect a child that wasn’t her own? He was finding them being related questionable which made the question that much more enticing. Why was the foal out here by herself? And why did she speak the way she did, where did her boldness come from? For a minute he thinks of his little minnow swimming lazily in the pond back home and wonders if that boldness can be crushed out of the child as easily as it had been swept out of the pale lady he had taken as his own. The girl is on another tirade, this time directed at “Aunt Nova” and his eyes widen slightly as a grin spreads on his lips. ”My my…” He gives a low whistle, followed by a gentle tsk tsk. His gaze doesn’t waver from Porrim’s face, wondering how she was going to deal with this sass. Waiting for the exposure to seep through the cracks.
The Amazons – yes, he's almost definitely right, come to think of it. This close to Anni, Porrim, too, has recognized the familiar smell of the jungle, though for a moment she couldn't quite place it – truly, she has become too used to searching for things like tattoos, and up until Gryffen mentions the Amazons, had been scanning the distance for some sign of a tattooed sister arriving to collect her wayward child. “Suit yourself,” she replies, dark eyes searching Gryffen's red ones. “Though you don't look much like the visiting type, if I may be frank. I'm sure they'll give you a warm welcome all the same.” Though she has no idea what sort of history Gryffen has – with Tantalize or otherwise – she is not nearly as thrilled at the idea of an impromptu return to the jungle. She'd always pictured dropping in again, of course, just... not like this.
Gryffen responds to Annihilate's question with something that could almost be pegged for enthusiasm, and Porrim allows herself a moment to glaze over, returning instead to her scrutiny of the treeline. She is not interested in the Chamber, and maybe, if she's lucky, Anni's mother will finally come to collect her. Come to think of it, she'd practically come out of nowhere... not that Porrim had been looking for her in the first place, mind you, and neither had any of the other Meadow-frequenters who'd been caught up in the little one's initial flashbang. She sees the mare she'd been standing with, off picking at grass beneath freshly dug snow; she sees the poor stallion who'd thrown Annihilate in the first place, off by himself, looking rather abashed. She does not see any mares headed in their direction.
And then... Oh, dear. Things have been going almost swimmingly, but Porrim, it seems, has said the magic words, and abruptly she is entirely out of her depth. Raising Uisce had been an absolute breeze. Her luck with keeping him happy had been utterly ridiculous. Then again, her son was in no way, shape or form anything like the enthusiastic filly before her, and the instant that Annihilate fixes her with that steely (and oddly familiar, though at the moment she's not sure why) glare, Porrim knows she is in trouble. And Annihilate, true to her name, does her damnedest to deliver. Porrim's eyes widen. The worst part, she thinks, is that the kid has a fine point. Gryffen looks entirely too amused by this. Of course he does.
Porrim pauses for a beat or two longer. Then, sucking in a deep breath, she makes a gentle attempt to nudge Anni back in the direction of the jungle, fervently praying that this doesn't invite any more sudden eruptions. “Have it your way, then,” she replies grimly, glancing cautiously toward Gryffen. “But your father's probably never going to let you hear the end of it, all the same.” Or her mother - at least for running off. Maybe less so for giving Gryffen what for. This would be a lovely time for her to magically turn up, Porrim thinks. “We ought to get you home. You look cold.” Ice cold, as a matter of fact. What a kid.
Anni cocked her head at Gryffen’s off-hand comment about male in the jungle, genuinely baffled. “There’s a place where boys aren’t allowed? That’s stupid. Some of the best people are boys.” She pinned her ears, annoyed at the idea that somewhere she lived might keep her daddy and her uncles away just because they were male. “I don’t wanna go there if they won’t let my daddy in.”
The only people she’d really met so far were family, and the politics of a kingdom they didn’t really belong to hadn’t exactly been high on the list of things to talk about, so Anni genuinely had no idea they were talking about her birthplace. And as fun as the yes-and game was, it was getting a little too big for her to keep track of. “And ‘course I spend a lot of time with them, why wouldn’t I? They’re family, and family’s the most important thing in the world.”
Oh. Oh, but the Chamber sounded fascinating. A tree on fire? Whenever she wanted? She was probably good at presents, though what kind of presents a tree would like, she had absolutely no idea. And a land with a heartbeat? If nothing else that at least sounded fun. She’d have to tell Mauly all about it, and maybe they could go visit. Maybe Momma and Daddy would take them! Ohhh, that would be fun!
Auntie Nova actually did a relatively decent job of riding out Anni’s fury. And it would have all been fine, except Anni didn’t actually know either of the people who wanted to accompany her to some mysterious boy-free jungle that must not be her jungle because half her family was males. And even if it were, she wasn’t supposed to go anywhere with strangers. Granted, she wasn’t supposed to go anywhere on her own either, but she sure as hell wasn’t supposed to let strangers take her anywhere. That was Daddy’s biggest rule. Well, that and ‘stay the fuck away from magicians.’ But at least as far as she knew, neither of the strangers she was with were magicians.
Come to think of it, she had no idea how to identify a magician. She’d have to have another talk with Daddy when she got home. Which there two were absolutely not going to be helping her find. “Nnnno,” she said, less steel in her tone this time because she wasn’t angry or offended. Unfortunately, she also wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to get out of this without breaking the game. “I’m not going home right now, I’m on my way to…the playground!” Her eyes lit up, and her little tail wiggled with enthusiasm. “That will keep me warm, too, because running. So thank you for your offer, but no. I’m not going home ‘til after the playground, and I can find my way there by myself, thank you.”
Well, that was probably a lie. She actually had no idea where any such place was, only she had heard Grandma mention it once. For that matter, she wasn’t actually sure how to get home from here either. Oops. And come to think of it, she was getting hungry. She glanced around surreptitiously, checking to see if maybe she’d been found yet. But there was no sign of any of her many family members anywhere, unless Uncle Nish was being especially sneaky. Which seemed unlikely. Well, hell.
“It was nice to meet you, though! Gryffen, that is,” she added, with a winning smile in his direction. “And lovely to see you again, Auntie Nova,” she added with an affectionate bump of her nose against the stranger’s shoulder. “I…think I’ll be going now.” Not that she had any idea where to go.
((OOC: Oh, don’t worry, I don’t expect this to be the end of the thread. XD She just realized she’s in a little over her head is all.))
