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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:27:14 GMT -6
She'd seen birds like that circle the docks before, but to find one here meant it must have been one of the smaller locals. They tended to be more trusting and generally friendlier than the larger locals or even their real life counterparts. It wasn't uncommon for their type to simply follow visitors home.
"I guess you're with us now," the sphinx mused, gently scratching the bird's head. Bilious snorted a puff of mist before turning on his hoof to bound off again. It was his first real day out and about and he didn't seem intent on taking any routes that even hinted at leaving the beach. At least his wiry bulk was easy enough to track - wet hoof prints made it little challenge to follow trails in the bone-dry sand. The sphinx smirked, shook her head and let loose the bird before starting after him.
She only got so far as a few paces before suddenly falling forward in a graceless tumble and pained yelping, ending in almost falling into the sand with a soft thud.
(14) August
Darky: 14
Bilious: 14 (4/5) / 34 (3/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:28:27 GMT -6
Face twisted into a tight expression, the sphinx rolled onto her butt, one leg stiffly raised. Somewhere behind her the thudding of hooves suddenly ceased, but her more immediate concern was to gingery pull her foot closer despite the stabbing pain.
At first she thought it to have been a sharp rock, then a sharp stick, or finally a sharp piece of glass (with how the Labs people talked about messages in a bottle being romantic themes, she had to wonder how many of those ended up on the beaches as simple shards). She did not expect it to have been a shell.
Tightening the mouth she grasped the small object and pulled it out of her sole, thankful it wasn't nearly as painful as stepping on it had been. The slim conical shape was vaguely familiar.. Though, she hadn't seen it in forever - turritella.
Figured.. The month was renewed and so had the shells changed, though unlike the smooth cowry, the turritella were far more stab-inclined.
(15) August
Darky: 15
Bilious: 15 (0/5) / 35 (0/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:28:56 GMT -6
Perhaps running headless around a beach wasn't the sharpest idea after all. Especially when one was more inclined to run bare feet rather than fortify their soles with anything. Boots were far from her comfort zone, but sandals were a different matter.
As she mulled her thoughts, the sound of hooves drew closer, their nature one of some hurry but also indecision. In so far neither she nor even Nightmare quite understood how far Bilious' rosy glasses extended. He seemed to know that life had some uncomfortable aspects, such as pain, but the way he acted made it seem like he never quite understood it.
As such, he realized that something Not Nice had happened to the sphinx but seemed unsure if it was something serious or she was just playing. Eventually he reached her, tentatively stepping around her perimeter, trying to read the room, so to speak.
The 'room' was that her foot was hurt and she was more embarrassed then despairing, but Bilious' mind didn't necessarily catch all that.
(16) August
Darky: 16
Bilious: 15 (1/5) / 35 (2/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:29:34 GMT -6
What he did catch, however, was a strong scent in the air. The nostrils flared as he sniffed, drawing closer, until he was but inches away from the foot. A drop of red had formed on the sole where the shell had been pulled out, the sphinx having been thinking about how best to clean it before even trying to hobble around anywhere.
A sudden cold sensation broke her thought train when Bilious lowered the horn and water began to drip off of it. Where it landed, it felt chilly at first until she realized it was more like a numbing.. or, more accurately, a cessation of pain. The drops shimmered in multi-hued tones and the small wound closed in on itself, looking for all the world as if it had never even been there.
Darky drew the foot closer, blinking then rubbing the spot with a thumb. Not a scratch, not a scar, not even a little soreness. For all that Bilious was called a kelpie, one who, supposedly, ought to drown unaware travellers, it was easy to forget there was a healing soul in him.
(17) August
Darky: 17
Bilious: 15 (2/5) / 35 (4/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:30:19 GMT -6
After having spent some time examining the work, she finally glanced up and gave a soft, "Thank you." The equillion seemed to beam at that, before turning around and dashing off again. The sea bird watched it all with but a small tilt of the head.
Evidently, it was all something a little beyond its capability for understanding. When she got to her feet, she tested the previously sore foot for a few uneasy steps, quickly returning to normal. Right, so.. A note to self - watch out and be careful where you run off to on this beach.
She could barely turn around when the sound of approaching hoof-beats signalled the equillion’s return, this time with something in his mouth. Initially it looked almost like cloth, but the wrinkles soon defined themselves to be something flat and round. Reaching the mammalian, he slid to a stop, sending sand spraying, and dropped it in front of her, ears forward and eyes bright.
(18) August
Darky: 18
Bilious: 15 (3/5) / 36 (1/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:32:04 GMT -6
Darky looked from object to equillion, then back at the object again. Not many of her creatures tended to be quite so irredeemably jovial and affectionate. Sure, when they felt like it, but in Bilious’ case that tended to be the rule rather than the norm. She leaned down and picked up the object, turning it around in her hand. The make of it was coral, that much she could tell, though the purpose, origin or reason for it escaped her. briefly , she tried to move it up and down through the air, creating a small, albeit irregular breeze, seeing as the coral wasn’t entirely ‘intact’ throughout its structure.
Still, she smiled, reaching out to stroke the nose bridge of the kelpie, saying softly, “Thank you, Bilious. This is a good gift.” As why it was a gift in the first place? Perhaps the equillion had put two and two together regardless of suspicions. Her being in pain resulted in a kind of instinct to ‘fix it’ by bringing her something.
It certainly never worked with Nightmare, but then, Bilious never really stopped trying even then.
(19) August
Darky: 19
Bilious: 15 (4/5) / 36 (3/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 30, 2019 12:33:07 GMT -6
The two walked onwards after that, until the stretch of beach behind a taller dune seemed to give a change to the scenery - where soft sandy beaches lined with occasional plants ranged behind them, the beach ahead was battlefield of driftwood, littered with the remains of ships, wharfs, docks and debris, as if all the flotsam of the world’s oceans had been swept into here in one swell swoop.
For a time the mammalian gaped at it, each new sight of the ocean’s range and far-reaching hold seeming to surpass the last. But gaping wasn’t what they were here for, so they carefully ventures down from the dune’s side and into the patchwork of driftwood ahead, all the while the mammalian being that much more mindful of her step, after the seashell incident. The place was a giant splinter waiting to happen.
Creaks and soft whistling of wind through wrecks and seemingly abandoned shades filled the background, while mammalian and equillion searched the debris of anything interesting. Or, well, at least in Bilious’ case, searching for anything with a passably interesting smell, look or sound.
(20) August
Darky: 20 - (added)
Bilious: 16 (0/5) / 37 (0/5)
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Post by Renathan on Aug 30, 2019 13:10:56 GMT -6
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:05:07 GMT -6
As a resident of the desert the sphinx was well familiar with sands. As a resident of a dying culture she was well versed in seeing the sands overtake the ruins of the old, the broken and the discarded. But, as a resident of the driest place on Pethia, she knew next to nothing about the sea and oceans, other than it was salt water and, thus, bad to drink.
To then stand among the ruins of all that the oceans took of man-made things and spat it back out at the border of their domain was humbling to say the least. They passed beneath the beams of an old lighthouse, under the shadow of a shattered wreck of a caravel, among the stones of old tide breakers and more. To search through all of these ruins would have taken months, so instead they mostly drifted from one to another, taking it all in.
Or, the mammalian at least was, for the equillion was like a field trip of strange new things.
(21) August
Darky: 21
Bilious: 16 (1/5) / 37 (2/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:05:35 GMT -6
Water splashed as the kelpie trod his way through shallows and pools only to stop and stick his head into a spotty, hollow log. The sounds of his snorts echoed faintly out of the other side, amplified and distorted. Though his eyes glowed a bright white, they weren’t even close to a proper light source, serving to only dimly illuminate the sun baked hollow and cause a few small crabs to suddenly scurry off into their holes and sandy caves. Bilious’ head turned, horn bumping into the roof of the log and he flinched backwards, backing out of the small confines.
A moment passed of him simply standing and deliberating, before off he went again, jumping over the log as attentions were drawn by some seaweed hanging off of a ship deck stuck vertically in the sand. In some ways the sphinx envied him his ability to feel so carefree, though suspected the cost on his perception wasn’t one easily paid by just anyone.
(22) August
Darky: 22
Bilious: 16 (2/5) / 37 (4/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:06:04 GMT -6
Wandering beneath an old broken mast, the sphinx brushed aside some broken rigging hanging in tatters below it, like a heavy-set, salt-encrusted curtain. The hazard collection of splintered wood ahead seemed to contain the rest of the broken ship’s masts, though there the trunks were connected by a cascade of sail cloth, more hole than sheet at this point.
Gingerly the mammalian stepped between the great big sheets, wondering off-handedly how it was people learned to use, tie and untie these great sheets in the first place. It seemed a great enough task on the ground, much less having to be a dozen or more feet up in the air, balanced on a thin pole of wood at the same time. She reached down and lifted an edge of one of the sheets, sending all manner of bugs and creatures scurrying off into new hiding spots the second sunlight hit them. At least it was a good thing the equillion took to more open spaces on this beach, otherwise he’d find himself pretending to be a string puppet in short order.
(23) August
Darky: 23
Bilious: 16 (3/5) / 38 (1/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:06:32 GMT -6
If they took all that sail sheet home, turned it into strips and weaved them all together, the resulting rope could probably at least cross the City end to end, if not just circle it entirely. Unfortunately, in the state that it was in, there was no more use for the cloth other than kindling, given its fabric was thin and fragile, its structure filled with gaps, bugs and the occasional spot of mold.
Darky weaved her way through the wreckage toward what seemed like a hole in the ship’s hull. The hull itself was on its side in the sands, with half of it missing beneath the waves and sand, but a hole on the deck would have been more of a doorway and not the more accurately descriptive giant gaping wood-based wound it actually was.
She’d done this once before, way back when the Mansion had a deep ocean theme. Back then there weren’t exactly ‘options’ other than almost drowning or exploring, but then, back then she had been alone and not in the company of a water horse who could (in theory) have her back if something went wrong.
(24) August
Darky: 24
Bilious: 16 (4/5) / 38 (3/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:07:30 GMT -6
The sea bird shrieked faintly above, circling the two as the mammalian approached the hollow, pausing only to call to said emergency aid equillion, “Bilious! Don’t go too far, alright? Stay close!” It didn’t quite do to ask him to follow her, for the ship hull was a cramped enough space when the ship had been new and sea-worthy, less so now that it was half-covered under sand and looking to fit a whole horse-sized creature in it.
But, last time, there had been a few chests to pry open, which was her hope this time as well. Regardless of what the original purpose of the ship had been - trading, war or something else entirely - it would have had some form of cargo. Provisions, if nothing else, or some personal effects, if the sea had been kind enough to wash it ashore with more than just ruined rigging and broken shell.
Of course.. It could have also housed some worse things, but the idea was to be optimistic at that time.
(25) August
Darky: 25
Bilious: 17 (0/5) / 39 (0/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:08:14 GMT -6
The thought didn't have far to go before something interrupted it, Bilious seeming to come galloping towards her.
The equillion had wandered off, not quite so far as to concern the mammalian, but still further than perhaps the instructions would have liked. He had lightly hopped between stone and wood, sniffing and peeking between all sorts of debris, broken crates, beams, shelves, masts, sails and ropes, getting the same results as before - bugs or crabs scurrying away towards new hiding places. Suddenly, however, his head shot up, ears flicking every which way, an attentiveness normally looking rather rare for his personality. A noise had caught his ear, and following some pinpointing, the equillion bounded off to the side, just as the echoes of the mammalian’s instructions faded behind him.
Between some clusters of rocks, now on the bone-dry portion of the beach though their make clearly showed them to have been storm-breakers in another dimensional space, he could hear rustling and flapping. It wasn't a bird’s wings, not exactly, and the sound was accompanied by the occasional clattering. Bilious leapt over the stones, landing on a larger, flatter one on top of the formation and glanced down between a few of the stones.
(26) August
Darky: 26
Bilious: 17 (1/5) / 39 (2/5)
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Post by Darky on Aug 31, 2019 9:08:51 GMT -6
What he saw he didn’t quite understand at first. The equillion’s head tilted to the side, ears forward, eyes bright, and he moved a little to the side, hopping onto another rock to get a better view.
It was.. rope.. or something like rope. It had some things in the end and some seaweed in the middle of it, along with something blue that was moving very rapidly. For all he knew it was some sort of strange bird, for it certainly had wings like the sea bird had, but it was short and stubby otherwise, with a thin tail. The clattering came from the round things on the edges of the ropes, seeming to hold it down.
Bilious leaned in, towards another end of the rope-like-thing, and gently gripped it with his teeth, pulling the net up.
The flapping got worse.
Panicked, the equillion spun around, ears flat and tried to figure out a direction to run to, before opting for a random one of just ‘away’ and bolted off, net still in his mouth and the flapping thing seeming to follow him in it as well.
(27) August
Darky: 27
Bilious: 17 (2/5) / 39 (4/5)
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