[open] Cool with wasting my time [ANY]

[Narcisus]

I’d barely touched down before the strangeness set in.
Should’ve expected it, being in these woods. The forests of Beqanna never were my kind of place, felt like being in a prison all the time. Not that I had anything against trees - they were alright as far as living things went. I just hated the way they crowded in on a horse, made them feel… claustrophobic. I shrugged; useless to get upset over nothing. I was wet and tired, that was all. Needed a good night’s sleep and a plan. Nothing good ever happened when I was irritable and tired.

At least the rain wasn’t so bad down here. I’d torn a hole in the branches descending and let a bit of the worst weather in, but I wasn’t intending on staying in this spot. That was how you got targeted, and I didn’t need someone else’s blood on my conscience right before a long rest. Best to be moving until a secure location revealed itself, and in the meantime I kept myself occupied by picking out twigs from my wings.

There wasn’t much else to see. This place was a dump - overgrown and eerily quiet. Most of the native trees looked alike. They tended to have pale bark, contrasted like sentinel ghosts against the day-dark. I thought I was moving quietly enough for a Pegasus, winding between them and keeping an ear out for trouble, (one way or another we’d find each other again) but how quiet could I really be? I was an outsider; we had a way about ourselves that hinted at our wrongness. Those who belonged somewhere always seemed capable of sniffing it out.

Except this time, I heard the phantom gait that didn’t match time with my own.
Drifting off into the shadows, I listened to the high-pitched voice of the horse who’d been following me. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying as I travelled upwind and then doubled back, but the sound faded and then rose again: they weren’t moving anymore. I could’ve probably left right then and gotten away clean, just not by flight. Would’ve been easier, simpler.

I don’t like simple things.

So I doubled back to get a look at whatever was keeping me from my rest, chuckling under my breath to find a little kidd tailing me in the big dark woods. What a joke. I wasn’t about to let this little ant run me out of a good R&R situation.

“You like trailing after strangers in the woods, pest?” I strode out from the shadows, on the opposite side from where I’d been when she first lost track of me. There was little light to see by, and I was already muddy and unkempt from constant travel, but somehow the black on my skin was writhing, alive with activity like a trick on the eyes. Under the grime and grit it moved, spreading out in strange patterns to cover my face until the only thing that stood out under the black tangle were the orange reflections in my eyes. “Don’t you know what happens to little fillies when they stray too far from mommy’s side?”

Narcisus

@[Calavera]