rivers or veins; any

[brave]

can't tell if i've got rivers or veins
running under my skin

Immortal mother births immortal daughter.
During a rainstorm, which is why the medicine hat mare had sought out the home of the giant redwoods. Here, there was fog and damp but nothing like the rain that sluiced down her swollen sides as the foal kicked and turned inside, demanding release from her pent-up prison of flesh. The mare had known it would be a filly as she had always known with an innate sense the sex of each foal she bore. What she had not known, was that it would have eyes as blue as the sky instead of the familiar black of their bloodline.

Scalped gave birth to her daughter on the thick bed of pine needles beneath the boughs of a great big mothering redwood that kept the rain off her fur. She’d given birth in rain storms before but something told her not to with this child. It must have been something that Coyote had whispered in the old mare’s ear while in the form of a fly buzzing around her head that made her seek out this place instead of any other. So she’d laid down at the base of a giant redwood, grunted and strained and out slid the filly in a slick lifeless heap.

The mare tore the birth sac back from the nose with her blunt teeth. Swiped her tongue over the nostrils and face in quick mothering strokes that woke a sucking gasp of air from the little one. Cleaned the rest of the sac and fluids from her skin to reveal a palomino splash underneath all the birth-muck, as her tongue laved across the fur fuzzing it out and introducing life into those tender new muscles with each lick and small chew. Encouragement came from a bump of her nose to the small one’s rump and the foal rocked forward than back, like a misshapen canoe newly made and thrown to the mercy of the river.

Her knees crooked beneath her as she swayed and tried to pull those four tender hooves together to hoist herself upright. The curls of baby mane frizzed up and out, small dandelion colored puffballs that ran down the length of her neck with one tiny bob between her ears that would one day become a forelock. Finally, brain and hooves connected and she found herself at a new height, shock evident in the bright blue of her eyes as they met the proud black of her mother’s gaze. One puff of air blown against her face nearly sent her back down on her rump but somehow, she remained up but unsteady on her matchstick legs.

There was more encouragement from her mother. Touches of lips to hip and shoulder and back and face. Puffs of air blown onto her and sucked back in that took the sweet newborn scent of her with it. She made her first noise to indicate the gnawing pit in her belly to which the creature that she instinctively knew as her mother responded with an erstwhile bump of her nose to the foal’s head that turned it toward the mare’s pale sweat-damp flank to which a few pine needles had affixed themselves to. Persuaded that this is where the source of her nutrition lay, she turned and swayed and somehow made it the scant step or two to that flank that she poked about until pushing up and under it, bold in her acquisition of the milk-heavy teat.

She drank until her belly was full. Guzzled until the milk clung to whiskers and ran down her chin to stain her yellow breast just above the white that splashed it. Then she curled up to sleep at her mother’s front feet. Scalped, just as tired, stood vigil over her that night and all the nights thereafter. Their mornings and afternoons a pattern of nursing and exploration and their nights spent just like this, nursing then napping. But as it happens, the filly could stand it no longer and she longed for something to break the monotony of it all.

So Brave, being that she was just that - brave, went gallivanting off into the redwoods farther from her mother’s keen sight and side than she ever had.

brave

[Cyrus]

Adventure was on the forefront of his brain these days.  Growing more knowledgeable of what he was and capable of doing.  Gaining strength as he traveled great distances.  His mother not needing to be close for him to know she was available if called upon.  She had her own tricks that he understood more than anyone else.

Today he traveled a narrowed path on the northern most edge of the redwood forest.  Here it was almost renewed to it's former glory.  The close confines of the bark-covered pillars caused him to weave through them carefully.  The pine needles were thick here.  Against his soft paws they were brittle and crunched.  Frustrated that he was making too much noise he extended his stride.  Covering more ground with less contact.  Though his intentions were to improve his art of stalking, the crunching sound continued.  He stopped suddenly.  A faint sound of crackling needles was still heard.  

Tilting his dark purple face towards the sound in the distance, he continued to listen.  The sound was nearing.  Ducking behind a boulder, his eyes scanned for whatever was approaching.  The dim lighting did little to for equine eyes but the eyes of his wolf form transformed what little there was into enough to see a pale hoofed creature meandering about.  Straightening himself to watch from his hiding place he waits until she is within pouncing distance. 

He lunges out from his spot behind the rock formation with a loud "Hi!."  His soft paws landed hard on the pine needles.  All but one crumble under his weight.  A stabbing pain causes him to let out a howl.  Collapsing his small body to the forest floor, he rolls onto his back with a whimper. "Oh that hurts!!" His amethyst eyes look to the creature he may have frightened away.  Pain clouding his eyes with tears...

C Y R U S

The Spirit Wolf

@[brave] went out on a limb with this one lol

[brave]

can't tell if i've got rivers or veins
running under my skin

Brave was immortal.
Her little heart burst with the implication of this and it made her, well, all the more brave. She feared nothing that lurked in the shadows (nothing lurked near her since her mother was not all that far and a mother-mare was more than wolf or bear were willing to trifle with at the moment) and did battle with the monsters of her imagination that were little more than sticks and pine needles kicked up, tossed about, that she threw tooth and hoof at to make them think twice about contending with her. Her bravado met no match in rock or redwood as she wove amongst them on light innocent feet.

In the midst of her play, Brave picked up on a strange crunching that made her peer down at her own hooves. No, that sound was not made by her feet but something else or someone else’s. She guessed at this, but the interruption was enough to make her abandon her games to sniff out the source of the crunching in her neck of the redwoods. Lowering her muzzle to the needled dirt, she began to sniff at it as she tried to pick up other threads of scent besides that of earth and tree but her nose is not as keen as a wolf’s.

Brave, not the type to quit, realized that this tactic just would not work for her. Sniffing the air might be a tad bit better but all she caught was the smell of her mother, herself, and the forest that breathed and grew around her. Everything smelled green and growing, and she lost herself in the smell of it as her eyes closed and she savored each breath she drew deep into her lungs, exhaling rather loudly because what did Brave have to fear here? Nothing, she told herself. Nothing. Not even the dimness of the forest is a threat to her; she had been born into it after all.

(Wolves have superior night vision, to be sure but horses are designed to detect these types of predators in dim conditions. The darker the night, the harder it would be for her to see him. Horses though, do see better in dim conditions versus bright sunnier conditions as evolution has given them some aid here so he is negligent in his assumption that Brave would never see a wolf pup leaping about. Other senses would clue her into him but alas, she is forever inside the world her own brain has crafted - imagination winning over instinct.)

She flicks a single ear; the crunching had stopped some time ago and the redwoods fell back into their familiar mystical hush. Brave angled close to some rocks, curious as to their placement there amidst the towering trees when all of a sudden there came a loud greeting and a scrabble of paws (so different from hooves!) on the needled earth. She jerks her head up and half-rears as the thing gains shape and recognition in her eyes - a wolf, but a mere pup, and she felt no threat from him as he rolled around, whimpering in pain.

Brave did not shy away but grew suspicious at how a wolf could talk to her, a horse. That, and she was a little bit concerned when their eyes met and she could see the tears brimming in the corner of his purple gaze. “How come I can understand you?” she hissed, a little breathless as her blue gaze tracked his rolling trajectory across the forest floor. “Stop rolling around and let me look!” she blurted out, not sure if he had a needle in his paw or sprained it somehow on his rather awkward landing.

She huffed in irritation and tried to near him despite instinct telling her to get the hell away from him, screaming from every quivering muscle and rebelling vein. “Lay still!” Brave said rather bossily as she tried to snatch at his tail with her teeth to stop his rolling.

brave

@[Cyrus] it was perfect, he's so cute! Brave's not trying to be mean, just bossy haha <3

[Cyrus]

One minute he is gliding through the air and the next he is curling into himself on the forest floor.  Favoring his right paw and howling in pain. He tosses one way and then the next.  Hearing a faint voice even though she is right there questioning him and then scolding him. Stop rolling around and let me look! Her question is lost to the agony of his injury.  His fluffy purple tail whips around him as he settles.  Looking into the face of the hoofed creature he had been watching.  She looks to him with stern eyes and he straightens to a sit.  Holding his paw out.  A pine needle extending from the soft pads of his foot.  "Ow. Oh owie. That hurts," he whines.  

She nears him.  Blue eyes looking over him.  Inspecting what was wrong.  Seeing the unmistakable reason for his whimpering. Lay still! He stops shifting nervously. Amethyst eyes filled with tears, look to her in question, "Wait... What are you gonna do?!" His eyes trail from her to his paw and back to her.  Thoughts racing through his mind.  Raising his other front paw to shield his eyes, "I can't look... No don't touch it! ... Ouch. Ok, just do it. WAIT! Ohhh." He tries sitting still as he winces his eyes closed.  Anticipating the excruciating pain of the needle being yanked from his delicate foot...

C Y R U S

The Spirit Wolf

@[brave]

[brave]

can't tell if i've got rivers or veins
running under my skin

Brave is a demanding chief in this redwood forest - her forest, as she comes to think of it and this purple pup is an interloper. He rolls and howls and finally settles enough for her to peer at the paw he holds up. Sure enough, there is a pine needle embedded in it just as she had expected. How Brave had known was anyone’s guess but she was smart enough to figure that he had been careless and playful enough not to mind where he set his little paws, but she always knew where to place her little hooves - it was just instinctual and he seemed daft to instinct. He was also somehow proving to be quite the annoyance, as she squared up her little shoulders and listened to him whine about the pain.

She did not think him weak - just annoying, though somewhere in the back of her mind, there persisted a small dim thought that he was exactly that, a weakling of a wolf but figured a needle in the paw was quite the same thing as a stone in the tender frog of the hoof, bruising and hurtful. That and that alone softened her just the slightest bit towards him and his ridiculous plight. “I haven’t done anything yet!” she snaps as he howls on and on about the hurt in his paw. Brave was about to do something about it though…

Until his amethyst eyes pin her with their teary questioning stare. Uh oh. Her heart softened in its hardness towards him just a little bit more and Brave let loose an exasperated sigh. “I’m going to pull it out.” she tells him, grave in her sincerity as he covers his eyes with his other paw and blathers on. Oh for heavens’ sakes! Brave wishes for a moment that she was deaf so his terrible cries could fall on ears that couldn’t hear but alas, she has to listen to him tell her to do it then to stop then to get on with it and finally, Brave does just that - she gets on with it. With a snort, she grasps the needle in her milk-teeth and gives one sharp fast tug that tears the needle free from his paw.

“You can look now, it’s over and done with.” she says around the needle still in her mouth before spitting it out to blend in with all the other pine needles littering the forest floor. She thought about leaving but he never quite answered her earlier question about why a filly could understand everything a wolf pup was saying to her, and figured that gave her some reason to stay besides to see how he’d react now that his paw was free of it’s irritation. Brave took a step back to give him room to do whatever it was the pup would do next and just looked on him with curious blue eyes and a face still pinched in a frown.

brave

@[Cyrus]

[Cyrus]

The wolf pup squirms and squeals in more fear than pain.  Trying to compose himself but failing tremendously.  I'm gonna pull it out, she says. He howls even more and through his whining he doesn't hear her say the deed is done.  He yelps softly as canine teeth chatter together.  A low thrumming inside his chest cavity rising.  

Curiousity causes him to peek through parted toes.  Eyes falling upon the annoyed face of the filly.  The needle held between her lips.  His ears flatten in embarrassment as the paw that covered his eyes lowers to the forest floor.  A shamed chuckle is expelled from his elongated muzzle, "Oh. Ummm. Thanks." He turns his injured paw over, eyes inspecting it.  It seemed intact and functioning so he lowers that paw to the ground as well.  Still seated upon his hunches he looks up to the gold and white girl, "Hi! I'm Cyrus.  What's your name?" His dark amethyst tail wags happily.  By nature he was curious but not entirely courageous.  He small triangular face tilting to one side as his ears perk forwards... 

C Y R U S

The Spirit Wolf

@[brave] sry for wait!