08-23-2020, 08:38 AM
She was not quite what you would call refined.
The children have gone quiet, but their bodies give them away, untrained, unused to stillness. The grasses tremble when they breathe, when they move, and in that strange way of motherhood, Poppy knows where they are without looking, so she does not. They draw attention enough to themselves, she does not need to add to it with her own gaze. Instead her eye follows the stallion as he drifts around her. The way his wings ripple and disappear makes her angry, she longs to be rid of the tired feathers clinging to her shoulders, or else to spread them wide and leave the Pampas - it's a lovely place, yet she hates it, Popinjay was not meant to be still.
No, not meant to be still, but she considers remaining bedded down in her nest while he circles and circles in his predatory way because there is a feeling of power in it, but the smooth shift of his muscles makes her own scream in agony. They want to run again. The little bay mare bares her teeth at him in reply, blowing air between them like a spitting llama, and gives in to the twitching in her haunch that drives her to stand.
She stands leisurely and stretches backward into a shake that throws dust and grass and fine powder-down into the air around her. A black feather drifts through the air, loosened by molt. He has changed while she found her feet and the cat shape elicits another growl from the shivering grasses.
Is she always disagreeable? Poppy is never disagreeable, she's quite certain of that.
"Did you come all this way just to ask me riddles?" she counters, curling her neck and shoulders to awaken weary muscles and blinking slowly, dismissively, "'Cuz I've heard better than that."
She tests her wings, lifting them upwards, their tips reaching hungrily to the sky, and feeling the faint shiver of atrophied muscle. There is less of it than before. Every day that rushes them headlong towards the coolness of fall adds the smallest tease of returning strength. It makes her more impatient to have the scent of freedom in her nose, makes her mood sourer. With a dissatisfied ruffle, the wings resettle loosely at her sides and she swings her head to bite irritably at her own chest before at last approaching the seated cougar with laughing eyes, both annoyed by and drawn into the amusement within them as a moth is drawn to the flame. And like a moth, and also rather like her old self, she is heedless of the space the magician might seek to keep around himself and steps close enough to thrust her muzzle into his thick fur, teeth bared to tug at it, to taste the rough hairs on her tongue. Shifting is no special trick, he seems completely ordinary.
"I suppose that isn't your fault - you're not a Sphynx. And not everyone can be clever."
No, not meant to be still, but she considers remaining bedded down in her nest while he circles and circles in his predatory way because there is a feeling of power in it, but the smooth shift of his muscles makes her own scream in agony. They want to run again. The little bay mare bares her teeth at him in reply, blowing air between them like a spitting llama, and gives in to the twitching in her haunch that drives her to stand.
She stands leisurely and stretches backward into a shake that throws dust and grass and fine powder-down into the air around her. A black feather drifts through the air, loosened by molt. He has changed while she found her feet and the cat shape elicits another growl from the shivering grasses.
Is she always disagreeable? Poppy is never disagreeable, she's quite certain of that.
"Did you come all this way just to ask me riddles?" she counters, curling her neck and shoulders to awaken weary muscles and blinking slowly, dismissively, "'Cuz I've heard better than that."
She tests her wings, lifting them upwards, their tips reaching hungrily to the sky, and feeling the faint shiver of atrophied muscle. There is less of it than before. Every day that rushes them headlong towards the coolness of fall adds the smallest tease of returning strength. It makes her more impatient to have the scent of freedom in her nose, makes her mood sourer. With a dissatisfied ruffle, the wings resettle loosely at her sides and she swings her head to bite irritably at her own chest before at last approaching the seated cougar with laughing eyes, both annoyed by and drawn into the amusement within them as a moth is drawn to the flame. And like a moth, and also rather like her old self, she is heedless of the space the magician might seek to keep around himself and steps close enough to thrust her muzzle into his thick fur, teeth bared to tug at it, to taste the rough hairs on her tongue. Shifting is no special trick, he seems completely ordinary.
"I suppose that isn't your fault - you're not a Sphynx. And not everyone can be clever."
@[Set]
