[WP08] Foxy & Shush [FIN]

[Maxx D]

Foxy was drawn out of the bushes - she was quite fond of the swamp's little bushes now, though she had to shuffle quite close to the ground to stay hidden - by the pitiful mewling of a creature. She reprimanded herself for being too soft, for she was still practicing blending into the scenery (snow suited her light pelt much better), but as a doe with a pet of her own (one that was conveniently out on its own in a little roxy jaunt), Foxy found it hard to ignore.

Tracking the pathetic noises brought her to a tree. Her ears pricked up, and Foxy widened her eyes to look up.

It was an owlcat, mournfully yowling on a branch.

"Come on," she coaxed, her voice sweet and low.
The owlcat continued to moan.

She paused and considered her options in the face of a tree. Being a totoma, the first thing she decided on was slamming headfirst into the trunk.

There was a sharp yelp, and the owlcat clung to the branch. She supposed that wasn't quite enough, and tried again. And again. Again. Until there was a steady beat of tree-thumping and an owlcat's cries, now desperate in a different sort of way. The ruckus went on from quite a while in the late afternoon, continuing till the sun started to set.  

[Jun D]

Someone was crying.

She crept further backwards into her dark cavern of roots, hunching in upon herself.

Someone was crying, like the bleating of a foal.

It made her heart hurt.

But the sun was still high – she could feel the heat, beating down about the humid little cave she had made a momentary home (a momentary hide) – and she could not leave. Not while the sun was high and someone...someone might see –

Someone was crying, like the bleating of a foal, and her heart hurt.

On and on, on and on, she sat there, shivering, pulling inward, on and on, someone cried. She waited. Slowly, slowly, the heat began to fade. Slowly, slowly, the sun began to sink, down, down, down, into the far, far ground. Slowly, the coolness of shadows settled around the cave of roots.

Still, someone was crying, on and on.

It was not quite night yet – the air did not yet feel like the comforting cold touch of darkness – but someone was crying, and it made her heart hurt so.

Wrapped in shadows, Shush finally slipped out into the dusky Swamp, following the scared cries, on and on.

When she was near enough, she knew she was not alone. A thump, thump – a ceaseless thumping; it beat with the cries. She stopped. On and on – they did not issue from the same source, merely close. Someone was crying...and there was another.

It was not yet night. Someone might see.

She stopped, and pressed into shadow.  

[Maxx D]

Being Foxy, she felt there was a change in the atmosphere in between the thumps of her cranium, numbly against the tree, the heart of her headplate lovingly pressed against the trunk. As her earnest efforts became evidently increasingly futile, the owlcat wailing with its claws dug deep into the bark, she paused to swivel around and survey the surroundings.

Below her lowered lashes, head high, she saw the dying strands of sunset illuminate the lush locks of a pale Kiokote doe.

"Hello," she ventured pleasantly, shaking a dull ache out of her skull. "come over then, help this little thing out. It can't get out of the tree." And the part of her which was not patient sulkily thought and it won't get out of the tree, as she awaited the doe's response.  

[Jun D]

It had been so long since someone had seen.

A doe. She did not sound like a Kiokote...nor a Kimeti. She didn't know much about the others, she couldn't tell which the doe was. She was speaking to her. It had been so long since someone had spoken to her. Since...

- someone was crying, the "little thing." The little thing that "can't get out of the tree." On and on, it made her heart hurt. It had been so long since someone had spoken to her.

Uncertainly, Shush stepped out of the shadows. She moved towards the expectant silence.  

[Maxx D]

"Oh, you're lovely," Foxy noted, the gears in her head clicking, but also realising, upon a bit of a squint, that the approaching doe had no eyes...no eyes that she could see, at any rate. "It's an owlcat," she started explanations, trying to strike the balance between too obviously pandering and being mindful, "I came across it wanting to get out. I'd hoped it would jump off - as owlcats do, they jump quite far - but unfortunately it's only insisted on staying up there."

She left out a soft sigh that drifted along the wind.

"Perhaps we can reach it together. Come," she repeated, turning her head to the tree and gently brushing one of her tails across the front ankles of the pale lady. "See if you can climb up my back and reach it."  

[Jun D]

An owlcat...?

She jumped at the lightest of touches, skittered to a side, then cautiously trotted towards the voice. There was a foal of a cat caught in the tree. And she had to...climb up on a back...? To help it. The cat owl was crying, on and on. If she could do this thing, perhaps it would feel better.

(And so might her heart.)

With great confusion and no small hesitation, she raised her hooves, this way and that. Where she pushed against a side, she felt a strange softness, the yielding plush of dense fur – but when she reared sufficiently, her hooves came down upon a strong, armoured plate.

(Not a Kiokote, nor a Kimeti. She had heard snatches of conversation, in the dark, between Kin, enough to know there were others. She did not quite know which the doe was, but she knew she was...something. She had heard of soft fur, and hard plates.)

For a moment she stood there, her hooves on a strange doe's back, bewildered. Then she craned her head upwards, in blind hope. Wherever the tree was.  

[Maxx D]

She smiled at her shyness, though feeling somewhat helpless at her inability to guide her better. Yet, she managed it enough, and Foxy was built like a traditional totoma save the tails - strong. She breathed out, "almost there," encouragingly, even if they weren't really. They were just a head away. She peered upwards, wondering what to do.

It was then that Heart sauntered into the scene, conveniently, and rubbed against her ankle. Feeling like it would be too hard to explain, she merely commanded, with a sharp nod of her head at the owlcat, "up."

Obediently, the rox leapt up her leg, bounced off the pale doe's thigh, and used her forehead as a platform to the owlcat. In a hiss of surprise and a yowl of confusion, the owlcat fell out of the tree -

- and landed on its paws.  

[Jun D]

The thud of the paw square upon her head, the screeching yowl – it was all too much for a doe who had met too little lately; the owl foal cried no more, so she reared, bolted, fled for the comfort of a small, small space. This one was a cluster of rocks, a leaning overhang that made a little cave. She crept further backwards and cowered. The weeping lady would run no more that night.

But she would remember the doe, the first who had spoken to her – who had touched her – since...

- In a long, long time.  

[Maxx D]

Foxy was regretful that the doe scrambled away. Quietly, she mused to Heart as she backed into the shadows of the mangrove trees, "we could've done that better." The rox made the sort of noise that made it quite obvious it was not impressed by its share of blame, but its owner was too preoccupied by her thoughts to notice as they slid through the roots with ease. As the swamp canopy parted for the pale light of the moon, she wondered where she was.

END