"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
Sickle had been told to stay in the playground, so of course she did not. It wasn’t that she was feeling particularly rebellious and she’s sure her mom told them these things to keep them safe.
She wasn’t actively thinking about how she was doing something that she shouldn’t be, she wasn’t even really thinking at all. It’s just that the playground was boring and when she turned her head and saw a greater number of horses milling about in a nearby meadow - well, that seemed a little more interesting. Before the thought even fully forms in her head she’s turning around and trotting into the long grass, unaware that the short mane that runs down her spine is now ending in a long unicorn tail instead of the usual one.
Her eyes are bright and wide as they take in everything, from the snails that she follows for a while on the ground to the very smelly adults that are walking around like they have somewhere to be and as if they aren’t already in one of the most interesting spots in the entire world.
There is too much to see and she is changing direction so often that her head starts to get a little dizzy and she needs to pause beneath the shade of one of the large oaks in order to settle her mind a little bit. Which does not work because there's this glowing blue egg nestled beneath the roots of the tree she had picked and it sure beats all the other interesting things she's seen so far.
06-01-2021, 08:35 AM (This post was last modified: 06-01-2021, 08:36 AM by Chasm.)
c h a s m .
Like Sickle, Chasm had been given instructions to keep close. But like most of his kind, he didn’t take too kindly to being given instructions. Unlike his mother, Chasm was a hell of a lot more curious about areas away from the water. He was far more comfortable venturing away from the water than his mother had ever been even though he was still so young, much to her displeasure – something that he must have inherited from his land-dwelling father.
Still, he was lucky that despite the warnings not to go far, he didn’t have a helicopter mom. Kelpies pretty much raised themselves. Family bonds were definitely important, but they didn’t tend to hover or smother like some of the land dwellers did. This was something Chasm absolutely appreciated already. Even at this age, he already knew it wasn’t his thing. So he’d begun adventuring further and further from his home, testing the bounds of what he could get away with. Lately his mom had been super distracted so he’d taken full advantage. And today he’d made it all the way to the meadow. It was interesting in the sense that the long grass vaguely reminded of him as an ocean when the wind blew just right, but that’s where the similarities ended.
He’s not super interested in meeting others, and steers clear of the others. He doesn’t need to accidentally run into someone from Hyaline who’s going to report back to his mother he’s been spotted in the meadow. He imagines that wouldn’t go over well for him, given everything going on. He makes a face at the thought, but it isn’t enough to send him back in the direction of home. There’s still too much to see – too much to explore. He’s not going to stay in the lake forever.
He continues his not-so-sneaky perusal of the meadow before a girl about his age catches his eye. He hasn’t seen anyone his age here yet, and it’s pretty obvious that she’s not here with her parents. Probably for the simple fact that they’re the only ones who are literally blue in the meadow at this present moment. Dead giveaway. But she seems focused on something under a tree, so he makes his way over to see if she’s found something interesting.
“What’s that? Did you bring it here?” He asks, looking at the weird glowing egg. They definitely don’t have those in Hyaline, but it looks kinda like the girl so maybe she brought it with her.
come on down to the bottom of the sea,
there’s room here next to me.
Sickle is glad that someone else arrives, but her hopes that she’d be able to ask this colt some of the questions that are forming in her head are quickly dashed. He asks questions first, and she turns her mismatched gaze to look at him with something close to derision. “How would I bring it here? In my mouth?” She tries to open her mouth wide enough in order to accommodate the egg, and her body flickers into the shape of a blue thylacine (and its great gaping jaws). Okay, maybe she could have if she had been in that form.
This realization zaps her back into the form of a blue filly and she answers a little more seriously.
“It was just sitting here when I was walking by.” She lowers her head towards the shell but as soon as she touches it it burns her skin. She yelps, and flies back a foot - flashing into a wolf and then a griffin and then back to a filly in the blink of an eye. The burn has already healed but she exclaims anyway. “It’s hot!”
Did it just shift a little after she had touched it, or had that been her muzzle moving it?
She looks to the boy now, hoping he might be able to answer a question of hers after she had answered his. Even if her answers really weren’t much of anything. “What kind of egg do you think it is?”
Chasm watches her explode into a…well a something…with very poorly concealed fascination and just a dash of apprehension. The fact the she was a shifter was actually pretty cool. Shifters didn’t bother him at all, obviously. He was a kelpie shifter born and raised in the shifter kingdom. But he didn’t know what the bloody hell it was that she had just shifted into. So that was…neat. And just as quickly as the creature had appeared, it was gone and the filly was back standing in her place, completely unphased.
He blinked his golden eyes twice as she continued on as if this was completely normal. He watches her with interest as she continues her inspection of the egg. He thinks about telling her not to touch it, but at the same time part of him wants to reach out and touch it too so he holds his tongue. He’s just as curious about the egg as she is, but is desperately trying to keep his cool. But when she yelps and jumps back, he can’t help but jump too, instinctively bearing his kelpie teeth, as she shifts into multiple forms in rapid succession. He immediately schools his expression into something more neutral when it’s clear that the egg isn’t a threat.
“I have no idea but I’m hoping it wasn’t whatever the hell it was that you just shifted in to, to be honest. Well. Any of the things you shifted in to.” Considering that she’d also panicked shifted into a griffin and something fluffy and with teeth that vaguely resembled a wolf before she had re-fillyed herself.
“It’s probably a bird, right? It doesn’t look like any of the eggs that come from sea creatures,” he muses, aloud. That was the one area where he had any sort of expertise. Eggs from marine reptiles normal were more pliable than bird eggs, and it most definitely wasn’t a fish egg. “Definitely never seen one that color though,” he said frowning, looking back at the filly. His brow furrows as he looks from the filly, to the egg, and back again.
“You know you almost match. Are you sure it’s not your egg,” he adds, suspiciously.
come on down to the bottom of the sea,
there’s room here next to me.
She laughs when this boy tells her he hopes whatever isn’t in the egg isn’t any of the things she had shifted into and she glances at him with a wild grin. “You’re a big baby, did you know that?” Sickle thinks it would be pretty cool if a griffin hatched out of this egg right now or a wolf. Though she’s pretty sure that, at the very least, wolves don’t hatch from eggs. She’ll have to try to remember to ask her mom about that when she gets home.
He mentions that it is probably a bird, which makes the most amount of sense. Just not the sort of bird egg she’s ever seen before, like the ones she’s poked around in Tephra before the parents come and chase her away. And none of those had ever been hot.
His suspicions about the egg being hers make her frown and she comments back “Well I didn’t lay it or anything.” Because she’s very extra sure that she would remember doing something like that.
It does sort of match her, but she’s not about to let him know she agrees with him.
A crack appears in the shell and she jolts a little bit, waves of different colours and patterns skittering across her skin when she does, but she doesn’t move back again. She stares with bright, wide eyes as the egg begins to splinter apart and then there’s a baby bird looking up at them both, wreathed in blue fire. “Look!! It is a bird!” She’s pretty sure, at least. She’s seen birds woven from flower before but never one on fire and looking very content about it.
He is simply aghast at being called a baby. Not even his mother called him a baby. He knows that she’s joking but the boy is protective of his pride. However, he doesn’t want to be rude to her either because he hasn’t had many (any) real chances to make friends. He can literally feel the retort burning in the back of his mouth, but it takes every ounce of his self control not to take the bait. Instead, he simply rolls his golden eyes and shakes his head – letting the smallest of huffs escape him as he does.
However, he can’t help but smirk when it’s clear that he’s needled her just as effectively as she’s needled him. ”Hmm, if you say so,” he offers, but this time there’s clearly jest in his voice before one side of his mouth raises in a lopsided grin. Obviously, she didn’t lay the egg, but the odds of finding an egg that literally matched her exactly had to be pretty crazy. But then again, Chasm knew that crazy wasn’t all that hard to find these days. The thought made him feel guilty for having snuck out of Hyaline, but only just for a moment. Because it was then that the egg began to split and crack and his attention became entirely focused on the splintering blue shell.
Chasm looks down at the little thing. He’s definitely never seen anything like it. Fire isn’t really something he sees a lot of considering where he spends most of his time. But baby birds are usually naked and ugly and this thing was certainly…one of a kind. Only seemed fitting this strange girl had been the one to find it. Its only then that he turns his golden eyes to the branches of the trees, looking to see if maybe there’s a nest that the egg had fallen from. But the branches above are devoid of any side of a nest big enough for the egg to have fallen from.
”I’ve never seen a bird like this one before,” he said, while still looking down at the thing. ”Do you have birds like this where you’re from?” he asked, wondering if flaming birds were more normal from wherever it was she called home.
come on down to the bottom of the sea,
there’s room here next to me.
She hadn’t thought to look up at all, or look for a nest or even look around for a mom bird angrily staring at her waiting for her to move. She’s too busy focused on the little hatchling that’s almost fully out of its shell to notice the colt beside her look up and examine the tree - and without help, she likely will not think about where the egg would have come from at all. It is simply there, and the fact that it matches her so well is obviously a sign.
She’s distracted from watching the little creature finish emerging from its shell by the colt’s question and she looks up - but it’s just to stare off into space as she considers it. “Uhhh… little orange ones. Like hummingbirds? I’ve only seen them once. There’s lots of other colourful birds though...” In fact, the jungle was full of them. She’s pretty sure whatever this creature is, it’ll feel at home in the jungle. And maybe her mom will know what to do with it.
That thought, because of course Wishbone will have the answers, solidifies things and she glances down at the now-chirping baby bird and nods. “Well, I guess it’s mine now.”
Sickle says this with finality, as though she has some (or any) authority.
This presents new problems though - and though the first one should be ‘what will it eat’ and maybe the second one is ‘how will I carry it back home’, neither of these are the questions that she speaks. Something far more important comes to her mind first. “What should I name it?” And then she turns to the colt, realizing she’s just asked for name ideas from someone who she hasn’t even been introduced to yet! “Hey, what’s your name?"
