[PRP] Some Enchanted Evening... [Rasp/Rest in Peace]

[Maxx D]

It was one of those listless nights where the air was calm with the occasional frog call, and even so it seemed to be too hot and lazy for even a chorus of frog calls - a little event that would have offered at least the slightest bit of entertainment for the dissatisfied buck. His thin tail flicked slowly, irritably, at the humidity and boredom as he stepped over the muddier parts of the ground. Even playing 'stay on solid ground' wasn't good enough today.

As if to punish his impudence, his hoof landed in the classic 'leaf over mudhole' spot, and was soon swallowed by a pothole of muck. The lamenting sigh echoed through the surrounding brush.

Ruriska

let's see how this goes

 

[Ruriska]

She had been watching him. If you could even use the term watching when the watcher was a sightless Zikwa. Semantics aside, she had been watching him, following the bright heat of his body as he meandered his way through the night and patiently keeping track of each twitch, each jump and each sigh.

It was only as he made his misguided step into the mud that her voice floated out from the darkness and she shifted from the cover of bushes to add her burning glow to the night.

"Are you lost?"

Maxx D

Indeed.

 

[Maxx D]

At first, when he looked up, he thought he was going mad because he was started to hallucinate a bush talking to him. It wasn't until he traced the golden glimmer of her chest up to her cheek that he realised it was a kin. As with any talking bush kin, it only seemed right to play along until he could tell just how much was kin and how much was foliage. With interest, but feigning weariness now, he said, "Yes. And a terrible mess too, I'm afraid." He shook the hoof for good measure, but the mud was quite insistent. "Pardon my complaints. It hasn't been a good night."  

[Ruriska]

If it wasn’t for the steady glow, her silence and stillness was so heavy one might have assumed she’d simply turned into the bush she so resembled. But her mind was still at work, cataloguing scents and sound, listening the weary lilt to his voice and weighing it up against his smell which contained neither tiredness or distress.

"I see," she said finally, noncommittally and slowly drawing the conclusion that this wanderer probably didn’t need her assistance all that much, even with his hoof squelching in the mud.  

[Maxx D]

"I don't suppose you would know a lake or a stream nearby?" He continued steadily, unfazed by her amorphous comment. "A drink would be lovely, besides the mud, if you would be so kind." He had to inspect the zikwa up close - or even just see her rustle while she moved. Rasp was ready to latch onto his stimulation for the night.  

[Ruriska]

There was probably someone else out there, desperately wandering in circles through the night and in need of help but in general, kin didn’t really get lost in the Swamp. Most of them were just living in it and so exactly where they wanted to be.

Which meant Rest In Peace had the option of waiting for one of the rare ones to stumble by, as she had been for many, many days or amuse herself by assisting the stranger with a muddy hoof. It was a rather obvious choice.

"This way," she told him, flatly. When she moved, it was slowly, as if she were a bush that was just getting used to the concept of walking.  

[Maxx D]

"Thank you," he solemnly fell in step with her, watching her with fascination. No eyes either, this one. "You must know this area well, to navigate without sight. How did the Ache treat you?"  

[Ruriska]

Even without eyes, she moved around obstructions without faltering. She had once tried to explain to someone that although she had no vision, there were so many other senses that did the job just as well but it had been a pointless endeavour.

"Yes," was her first answer followed by a long and thoughtful pause. Nobody had ever asked that before. "The time was right and I am here." The Zikwa had been ready to emerge and she had stepped into the open world without hesitation, even though none of her family had followed.

Maxx D

 

[Maxx D]

"It must be nice to have such guidance," he said with a wry smile, casually stepping over twigs and watching her do the similarly. "To know where to go, what to do - and now you're here! What do you do now?" Other than sleep, eat, and sleep with other kin, he filled in mindfully, because that was his mode of living. What would a bush-doe do? How...inappropriate his thoughts went.  

[Ruriska]

He made it sound so simple, prompted by her own response but she didn’t know how to explain weight of what she thought of as fate, the uncertainty that had rolled off her brethren or the sharp longing that still settled on her during the longer nights, when she remembered that she was now alone.

"I watch," she replied. "I find those who are lost and offer them my assistance."  

[Maxx D]

"The first thing I noticed about you," that was a lie - the first thing he noticed was that she was a walking bush, "is that you are full, full of purpose." They reached the little stream, and he took his time to step in it and flush the mud out of his sole. "What do you consider as 'lost'? How do you know they are lost?"  

[Ruriska]

It was good to have a purpose. She couldn’t imagine life without one - what would be the point?

She had halted at the edge of the stream, head held slightly tilted, listening as he washed away the mud. "I simply know," she replied. "It’s a smell, a sense, it’s a quick heartbeat or a panicked heat. It’s uncertainty and frustration."  

[Maxx D]

"Ah," he said, with the mild realisation that he was caught behind a rock and a hard place as he had so easily told her he was lost without quite meaning to be, "then you needn't have asked if I was lost..."
If he was going to be punted into the water now, though she seemed rather too polite to do so, he knew this would be the time. Rasp lowered his head to the water and sipped after the mud flowed away from the edge, watching her out of the corner of his eye.  

[Ruriska]

For the first time some life entered her voice, edged it with amusement. “No, I did not,” she answered.

She stepped into the stream to wet her hooves. “But it had been a slow night.”  

[Maxx D]

There was a poignant pause, perhaps a somewhat embarrassed silence, as he processed the rather vicious burn her replies had entailed. On the other hand, if she was still here, that was a good sign.
He flicked his nose up, splashing some water on her legs playfully. "I have been fortunate then," he decided on teasing, "it was a slow night for me, too. Does the water please your little leaves?"