[WP09] Rockface, Hollyhock,

[theCorniest]

Sleep

The world is dark, and the air is a cool, still mass that hosts a grand gala of fireflies, twinkling as they dance sedately to and fro. The day has been long, and he is tired, so tired. It's so good to rest in the soft, fragrant grasses and watch the fireflies dance above him...  

[theCorniest]

Past α

The air is full of cries and the sound of rushing water - running everywhere, fast and deep, washing away anyone too weak to keep themselves afloat. He gasps for breath and kicks and kicks but it isn't doing anything, he's being spun and buffeted like so much jetsam in the current, collecting bruise after bruise.  

[theCorniest]

Past β

"What is that, some clay someone's stuck to his head?"

"What d'you think is under it?"

"If we kick it hard enough, do you think it'll split off?"

The colts and fillies crowded in around him, sneering over his strange, rough plating as if he wasn't there - or as if he was some kind of animal, only capable of responding in muted cries and flight. Cowering low to the ground, still unsure on his legs, he thought that they weren't too far off.  

[Tiarana]

Past α

The water roars in her ears and she can't hear anything else. Suddenly she is transported to a years-ago time, an event she almost didn't survive. Suddenly? Did she ever truly move past it in the end? The nightmares never stopped, but Bristletail was always there to soothe her nerves when she woke up. He slept so rarely.

But Bristletail was gone, or rather, she was the one who was gone. Maybe this time she would just slip quietly into the water and disappear. Maybe she would become a jellyfish. What a silly thought. This was a dream...this was a dream...

"No!" Hollyhock shouted, carried along in the current of emotions and flood of water, flailing blindly. "Stumble! Stuuuumble!"  

[Tiarana]

Sleep

It's peaceful, so peaceful. The quiet buzz of off-season cicadas fills the air and water laps gently at her hooves. All around her she hears the chirps and buzzes of insects and birds, and the muted rustlings of small animals seeking food in the quiet hours before they bed down for the night. It must be dusk, she thinks to herself. Perhaps she, too, should go to sleep, but then she perks her head up. That doesn't sound right. She's already asleep, isn't she?

She stands up with a splash, water rolling off her back and dripping back into the swamp. Hollyhock feels strangely reminded of something that happened before, but she can't remember what it is. She takes off at a run in a sudden fit of panic. In her dreams she can always run through the swamp uninhibited by the obstacles that plague her in waking, and she does so now, charging heedlessly in a long straight line. Every step throws a plume of water into the air with a loud splash that shatters the silence of the swamp until the trees ring with the sound of her passage.  

[theCorniest]

Past α

The flood ducked him under again and again, and each time it happened he was more and more certain he wouldn't be able to break the surface again - but somehow, every time, he thrashed his way back to breathable air. This time, there was a tree ahead of him, and he barely had time to wobble sideways so his legs impacted its trunk instead of his ribcage. The shock of it made his knees creak, and would have knocked the breath right out of him if he hadn't been as vigilant.

Before he could even try to catch his breath, though, he heard one panicked cry rise above the others and the background noise of thundering rapids. A strange doe - no, a familiar doe, blind, trying to survive and looking for her lost sister.

Hollyhock.

He briefly considered letting her go this time, to save his ears, but there was no way he could follow through with that trail of thought. Gritting his teeth, he called to her, "Hold on!" and kicked off from his temporary refuge.  

[Tiarana]

Past α

Somehow she heard a voice over the rush of water. The sound of it pulled her out of the current of emotions. It was...familiar? Who was shouting at her? It wasn't Bristletail, and it certainly wasn't her sister. She kicked towards it, struggling to keep her head above water and puzzle out who it belonged to, and began to find the going a little easier. A lost lover? Her brothers? If was her father, she thought, she would rather like to drown him. What was one more corpse in the water? She stopped where she swam, treading water uncertainly.  

[theCorniest]

Sleep

This time, it turns out, there are obstacles in her path - well, there's only one obstacle, really, but one is enough. It also turns out that getting run the heck over by a charging doe will really wreck even the most restful of quiet evenings. The loudly approaching splashes should have alerted him to his impending doom, really.

With a muffled thump and a harsh rasp as most of the air in his lungs left in a hurry (presumably to other pressing engagements where the vessel around it wouldn't be suddenly compressed by a sudden crushing blow), doe's legs collided with buck's side.  

[theCorniest]

Past α

It was a fight, but he managed through sheer force of will to work his way to the dark doe's side, panting "I'm here, I'm here," as he approached. The water dragged him under again just as he got to her, and he ended up bonking his headplate into her shoulder unhelpfully. He wriggled and fought for the surface again - and wormed his way under her in the process, lifting her a little higher out of the water, but leaving his own head still mostly submerged. Gasping and spluttering for air, he told her haltingly, "We have... to stop... meeting... like this."  

[Tiarana]

Sleep

Hollyhock's momentum flung her into the air and she somersaulted head over heels over Rockface, coming to rest in a tangle of legs and tail some distance beyond the buck. She lay still for a long moment, trying to ascertain if her bones were merely bruised or also broken, before finally staggering to her feet to investigate what hit her - or what she hit, as the case may be. She felt her way carefully back until she bumped up against a raggedly breathing lump.

"err..." Hollyhock wasn't quite certain what to do. "I...didn't realize there was someone there...um...sorry."  

[Tiarana]

Past α

Hollyhock clung onto her rescuer, still trying to remember who he was. His complaint jolted the memory loose. "Rocknose? Why, I haven't seen you since...since...well." She waved a hoof in the water with a small splash. "You saved my life." But this was a dream. Any thanks she had to offer probably wouldn't reach the real kin.