[PRP]A murmur in the trees. (Secret Story)

[LOLLI qAq]

A long sigh wafted softly through the leaves of the trees. A step was taken. Followed moments later by another. Then another whoosh of wind slithered past again. To anyone patient or just in the right situation to be still enough the sighs were like that of a song. Each note soft, wheezy, and held too long; but music it was. Each step was like the gentle push of the back beat that slowly urged the music forwards toward the climax. A crest over a symphonic hill that would never come.

It wasn't Story's way- To finish a song. As he moved amongst the giant roots of the oldest mangroves, as he watched the new life that fought it's way past the elder trees, he would simply sing. He sang of life and he sang of death. He sang encouraging words to both the young and fading life about him. These things were eternal, and so he felt his song to them should have no end.

As it was in all times past, so it was for him today. Wise eyes gleamed as the sturdy buck stood and swayed gently in the breeze. One with the plants that towered above and around him.

Jun D

(( Backdated to when Story first met Secret.))  

[Jun D]

She sighed no sighs, she moved in silence. She moved in silence, slender back arched and supple like a proud sapling. She moved in silence but her steps swayed with the leaves; her eye was a leaf, curved and green. Where she put her hoof down she was one with the earth - where she pulled her hoof up, she was but herself again: whole, entire, closed. She was a tree; she was a single limb - she was not a tree, unrooted, self-contained. She was but she was not. She was Secret.

A secret is a story but not a story; a secret is a story yet untold: such stories gravitate to stories in the telling. So did Secret move, as yet closed, as yet unknowing, towards the Story that was ever in the telling.

charLOLLI sheen

 

[LOLLI qAq]

The music continued. A story of how all things existed and didn't exist at all times and together. As the song flowed on the buck closed pale eyes and stopped his movement. He breathed the air. He sang it back out. There was a new thing on the horizon. The trees told of it's passing. The trees called out: 'this is new!' The wind whispered: "it is old." The buck felt a stirring beneath his thick skin as he contemplated moving and searching for this secret thing.

"Ahhhhhhh-uhhhhaaaaahhhhhh-mmmmmm," the sound escaped his lips as he breathed in. "Wheeee should start movinggggm." A breath out at the same time. He spoke to the trees. To the leaves that unfurled at his speech as though soaking up the morning sun. It was before his time to move on towards a new grove, but this new thing. This special thing called out to him. A slow ache that he had not felt since he was little more than a sapling himself.

Jun D

 

[Jun D]

There was a song on the wind. It was a slow song, an old song. It was a song she knew; it was a song she did not yet know. It was a story in the telling, and she lifted her head to it. The leaves sussurated, the leaves sssighed where she did not sigh. The leaves whispered to someone, it was not yet her; the leaves whispered back the story on the wind. With the wind she flowed towards the growing grove.

A secret is no secret without someone to keep it.

charLOLLI sheen

 

[LOLLI qAq]

He was used to messages on the breeze. The whispers of the leaves as they learned and saw new things. He was well versed in the cries of the birds or the tales they wove as they sang, strand upon strand like the nests they built to house their young. This was still a strange thing to him, though. They weren't just twittering on about silly fiction or warning against danger- They were talking to him.

Cresting over him like waves on the shore the language of the swamp beat at him harder. Louder. Until all that remained in his head was the ever-growing tingle along his hardened back and the message meant only for him: "Find it. It comes for you." Each wave urged him on in a pace he was not accustomed to. Each step coming down to the peat and water in a quickened way he was not sure he was ready for.

Jun D

 

[Jun D]

The farther she flowed, the louder the song, the swifter the sighing of leaves. It was near. She did not hasten her steps. A secret is patient; an impatient secret is not a secret for long. She did not hasten her steps, but she was not slow. She moved with the wind. She moved inexorable, a vine that winds its way unyielding, a sprout that pushes through the dirt; it unfurls. She moved with the wind and the wind brought her closer. The wind sang him, the Story in the telling; she heard before she saw - and then she saw.

He was coming from the grove; he was the grove.

charLOLLI sheen

 

[LOLLI qAq]

A curious thought bloomed within his mind as he emerged from the growth he'd so carefully tended to. An idea. An epiphany; an absolute truth that wormed it's way between his ears to the space behind the eyes, down his throat, and in a sinking yet alternatively flying sensation; that truth settled itself in his chest.

Perfection.

He knew not what he was looking at. She was solid but light, like the heavy stone that grew and stood amongst the clouds. Like the tallest and mightiest tree. Was she one of his? That spark of green life in her eyes being a tale-tell sign ... Had the Swamp seen his long laboring love and care and sent him one of his children to him in the form of a companion? Did she know then already of the secrets he'd whispered in the darkest of his days. Did she know his story like it was her own?

This unsettled him.
He was a creature of the swamp. A creation that was both plant and kimeti, but also neither. He was grounded and held like the roots that formed the solid earth amongst the marshlands. There was no space for flights of fancy in his being. It went against all that made up his core self.

"What. Are. You?"

Slow. Steady. In and out. His breath flowed as he spoke, like a summer storm pushing itself through the trees in a hushed moan.

Jun D

 

[Jun D]

Her voice was dry like wood, but supple as the bending grass.

Her voice was neat like tended brush, but wild like winding vine.

Her voice was her own, but it leaned as the wind into his trees.

Her voice said, "Secret."

charLOLLI sheen

;_; <3

 

[LOLLI qAq]

Secret. A special thing you kept to yourself.
He was content to just look at her. The air around them carrying each others scent and whispered tales of where each other had been. What the winds told him was that she was real. Had been real. She wasn't a figment created for him or anything of the sort. Kimeti. A product of the swamp.

"A Secret you shall be, then."

Jun D

 

[Jun D]

So she smiled.

LOLLI qAq

YAY GO ME 3 MONTHS FOR 3 WORDS. QAQ I'm so sorry for the wait, darlin', I'm finally back RPing! We can probably timeskip just a little to them walking together, learning a bit about each other?

 

[LOLLI qAq]

---

They were walking side by side now in silence and had been for a small while. No words had come from either in their walk, the continuing breeze was seemingly enough for both. There was still that filling sensation in his chest that would make sense if he were underwater and drowning, but as it was that was not the case. Just two beings, the trees and their secrets, sharing a walk in the swamp. Then why did he feel as though he couldn't breathe?

Story stopped and looked to the doe as she walked. A nose reached out. Touched her on the side. Anything to get her to look at him.

Jun D

Okay. Okay. This came out way more dramatic and cheesy then I had meant for it to. D: I hope this is what you meant and that this reply is a good thing. If not we can end it right now.

 

[Jun D]

She was content to walk, silent, companionable, with him. The touch came, and so she looked over. She saw him needing, and so she smiled. It was a warm smile, quiet, loving. Already, she felt like she had been walking with him for all her life. They had stopped walking and still she was content.

LOLLI qAq

It is perfect but oh I'm so sorry this reply took forever also! QAQ Needless to say, you can take your time. *sob*

 

[LOLLI qAq]

Whoosh

The heaviness in his chest and the air in his lungs left him when she smiled. Love. That's what that feeling was. Like he was soaring and falling at exactly the same time. An uncontrollable dive into the unknown.

He returned the smile. The buck had not realized that anything was missing; that his story wasn't complete, but now he knew how wrong that ignorance had been. She hadn't been there and now she was.

What a glorious start to a new chapter.

Jun D

OH MY HOLY F-- I am so sorry this took THREE YEARS TWO YEARS (I can't count) to answer. Kill me now. idek know what to do from here? Stop soon? Keep going? Start a new thing for them?

 

[Jun D]

She drank of his smile for a good long time, her green eye solemn and gentle, then it turned to his brethen - their brethen - about him, and she slowly swept that eye over the trees that bent over them like well-wishers.

"You care for them all."

It was not a question. There was no question there. But it was not just a statement - perhaps more an invitation, to share.

LOLLI qAq

Here we go, my darling, we can do this!

 

[LOLLI qAq]

"Yes."

It was simple. Sweet. She understood and there was not much else to say about it. It was simply a part of who and what he was. The leaves and ivy that grew thickly along his hide shivered in the wind.

"They are all I've known for much of my life. The trees took care of me and so I care for them."

Jun D

<3