05-09-2021, 05:11 PM
R I P T I D E
He has always been different, but it only became starkly obvious once he started to leave home. At home, he was simply a perfect melding of his parents—his mother’s sharp teeth and his father’s frosted scales, with siblings that were similar. Though the rattle at the end of his tail and the exceptionally reptilian shape of his head was indeed different from either of them, it was not considered strange.
Once he began to venture out into the common lands, though, he realized just how peculiar he looked in comparison to the rest. Not everyone had fangs and scales, this he already knew. But to see how few of them had oddly shaped heads, or rattles at the ends of their tails was enough to plant the first few seeds of insecurity into his young mind. He looked less equine than anyone he had ever encountered, and he found himself bristling at the way he thinks they—the general population—will react.
It does not stop him from making his way to the river, hoping that perhaps the afternoon sun would be warmer here than it is in Nerine. And without the seemingly incessant seabreeze, it does feel warmer, and he finds himself lazily sprawling across the sun-soaked rocks, letting the warmth of the sun slowly begin to melt the frost of his scales.
He is drawn out of his doze-like state at the sound of something hitting the water nearby, and with a disgruntled sigh he pulls himself up until he is standing, shaking the sleep away just as another rock hits the water. Following the sound he travels along the river bank, and he is rounding a slight bend just as she turns to face him, flinging a rock as she does so. He follows it with his eyes as it arcs through the air, landing in the grass nowhere near the river. “You missed,” he tells her dryly, and he looks to the river, and then back to her. “What are you doing?”
Once he began to venture out into the common lands, though, he realized just how peculiar he looked in comparison to the rest. Not everyone had fangs and scales, this he already knew. But to see how few of them had oddly shaped heads, or rattles at the ends of their tails was enough to plant the first few seeds of insecurity into his young mind. He looked less equine than anyone he had ever encountered, and he found himself bristling at the way he thinks they—the general population—will react.
It does not stop him from making his way to the river, hoping that perhaps the afternoon sun would be warmer here than it is in Nerine. And without the seemingly incessant seabreeze, it does feel warmer, and he finds himself lazily sprawling across the sun-soaked rocks, letting the warmth of the sun slowly begin to melt the frost of his scales.
He is drawn out of his doze-like state at the sound of something hitting the water nearby, and with a disgruntled sigh he pulls himself up until he is standing, shaking the sleep away just as another rock hits the water. Following the sound he travels along the river bank, and he is rounding a slight bend just as she turns to face him, flinging a rock as she does so. He follows it with his eyes as it arcs through the air, landing in the grass nowhere near the river. “You missed,” he tells her dryly, and he looks to the river, and then back to her. “What are you doing?”
— i slithered here from eden just to sit outside your door —
@[Anuya]