Stars are not small or gentle [KK]

[Deleted]

hildegard

As far as decisions go, this one? Not great.

The ocean, for all its incomparable beauty (and laying eyes on such a sight for the first time had been an experience, certainly) was at its core a whole lot of salty water and not much else. Once the view had lost its ability to entrance, Hilde turned her back on the shore, seeking greener vistas. The sand, however, was more encompassing than previously thought. Not prepared to brave the open desert, she skirted its borders, flanks darkening with sweat as her legs began to ache.

The great red hills drew her in for the simple fact that they were the only discernable landmark in sight. As she approached she found them to be not simply hills, but the walls of a great labyrinth. The shadows within might as well have had their own gravitational pull, attracting the weary traveler to rest in their shade. The walls rose and rose on either side, smoothed by centuries and subtly colorful. Her eyes travelled appreciatively along the striated rock. While it was darker within the canyon, it wasn’t necessarily any cooler. The stone itself seemed to radiate heat, becoming stifling. When she heard the trickle of flowing water, she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

Her freckled face turned to the sky, she clipped a hoof against a bone-pale piece of diftwood, a legacy of the canyon’s slow formation. It skittered across the sand, surprisingly light.

Then, there was the rattle.

Something ancient reacted within her, as Hilde staggered backwards, her head thrown high in alarm. Her back end met the canyon wall and she reared up, daggers striking out uselessly as a frightened cry doubled and tripled throughout the narrow space. The snake writhed on the ground at her feet, rearranging its coils to appear as threatening as possible, while its tail shook out a definitive warning: I bite to kill.

TAG KK WORDCOUNT 319

[KK]

NO AIR ,  NO AIR

He felt he might be at peace, eyes full of sparkling colors and florid rock. Tyrion was alone. The walls were built like prisons but beautiful to the eye and smooth to the touch. He drifted his nose over the red stone and was delighted by the dirt that came off on his lips. His mouth had been so dry, so void of affection. He couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed something; he couldn’t remember the last time he had used his mouth for something other than sustenance. It was no coincidence that he was alone, but it started to take his toll. Tyrion’s loneliness was his fault. There was no taking back what he had done, and he had to make sure he was properly punished for his past.

The violent clop of another’s hooves clattered across the canyon. Ty stopped, body poised for battle, for companionship. He turned, muscles snaking tightly underneath his smooth, tan skin. With slick jerk, Tyrion began to canter, alarmed ears poised to attention. The other’s noise was aggressive, guttural. Something instinctively went off in the stallion’s body; he expelled anxiety and the need to protect.

She smelled of fear and screamed similarly. Tyrion launched forward blindly, slammed his hoof down on the writhing coil in front of her. Rearing up didn’t do much good, and Ty was irrationally exasperated. The snake, now dead, continued to roll around on the ground. Tyrion didn’t want to kill it, but it would have attacked the girl. He was angry that she didn’t pay attention, angry that he had stepped in and slammed his hooves as if he were some kind of god. The man whipped around, seared the girl with fiery green eyes.

He thought better of himself, and though his gaze still burned, he did not allow that to affect his words. His voice, surprisingly light and concerned (he still had some empathy), “Are you okay?”

---

@edo yeee

[Deleted]

hildegard

Hilde was no stranger to snakes. Well, she was no stranger to the idea of them, the threat of them, the suggestion of movement in the tall, rain-heavy fields. This one was so abruptly there, so tangible, like lighting coiled and breathing at her feet. She touched down once again, daggers light against the sandy turf, primed for action. Only her mind was frozen in fear.

A sound like thunder, distorted and amplified by the canyon walls drew her eyes away from the serpent, and to the fast-approaching stallion. For one horrifying moment, she thought she faced a second foe. His actions were brutally swift, descending upon the rattlesnake without hesitation, the clip of his hoof against the shale echoing back to her, again and again.

His body was intrinsically feral, tethered to instinct and tightly wound. It felt like she had traded one snake for another. She sucked in breath after breath, but the heated atmosphere felt oxygen-deprived, a labor for her lungs to process. She was aware that she was trembling, and she hated herself for the fear she still felt burning in her throat like bile. When he turned his eyes on her they were as sudden and nonsensical as the presence of the snake, all threat made suddenly, impossibly real. She jerked back a step, brushing the wall again. Reminded of the confines around them, a desperate sort of courage took over for her fear.

“Yeah I’m alright.” Her voice, defensive and close to anger. A whisper in her mind suggested that he might be due a thank you, but rattled by his arrival, his killing of the snake, and the audacity present in every fiber of his being, she actually felt affronted. Something about small spaces and near-death experiences, probably.

Silence could echo and grow as well as any sound, and she let hers flourish. A glance down at the twitching carcass and her lip curled up at the dark suggestion of blood, already absorbed by the parched earth. “You do that a lot or something? Killing what could kill you?”

TAG KK WORDCOUNT 344

[KK]

NO AIR , NO AIR

She was startled, afraid of both the snake and Tyrion. He was burning and could not stop the adrenalized sensations, the tingling in his shoulders or the ringing in his ears. It was too late; he needed to calm down.

A canyon as cavernous as this one echoed wildly, and Ty’s hoof smacked the earth with an unnecessary amount of noise. It was instinctive, a form of aggression he could comfortably display (ironically feeling confined, having just slaughtered another). He watched her as his body slowly loosened, intrigued by the precautions taken to protect herself from him. Amusing, he thought, how very liminal.

“Yeah I’m alright,” a gruff voice, still feminine but somehow grating and irate. She was blatantly defensive. Her eyes suggested she was going out on a limb here, as if sticking around were an action she wasn’t completely comfortable taking. His face, though without wrinkle of irritation, was blank (for the most part). The furious feeling in his eyes slowly faded, replaced by a cool indifference masking a curious concern. He was pretentious, too stuck up his own tortured ass to actually try to keep up a conversation.

Ty’s tail slapped quietly against his rump. A small group of bugs buzzed. Nothing happened.

She asked him, interrupting the thickening silence, if he did that often. Tyrion laughed, a brief exposé into who he might actually be, “Used to.” Another whip of his tail, this time louder. “Do you attack in the opposite direction of your foe a lot?” It might have been a little snarkier than he meant. Thinking better of himself, he added, “I didn’t want to kill it.”

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@edo they actually click in an ok way

[Deleted]

hildegard

Her mouth was a desert unto itself. She could feel the pulse in her skull, making her vision tremble as the silence played itself out. She remembered then the stories of heat-induced hallucinations, and was beginning to wish this whole encounter was just a mirage, and she was suffering from heat stroke. Death would probably be cooler.

Her ears twitched backwards at his sudden laugh, somehow bizarre in this instance. She felt unwillingly curious at the meaning behind his response, but before she could formulate any full thoughts on the matter, he had managed to irritate her once more. Mockery was so intolerable because it was the only way another could match her own personal vitriol and self-judgement. Those were privileges reserved for herself, not for the amusement of others. She stared back, her tongue pressed hard against the roof of her mouth to stop herself from shouting whatever her insulted mind could produce at this point.

I didn’t want to kill it. Something about those words turned the situation on its head. She couldn’t say that she felt any real pity for the snake, but the reality of its death had somehow made a terrible circumstance even worse- heightening the sickening reality of the encounter that left her heart tripping uncomfortably in her breast. She sighed, some of the tension released from her body as she ducked her head, exhausted. Russet cords slipped down into her eyes, quickly shaken away. “Thank you.. I guess.” She flinched internally at her own uncertain tone, the residual brattish resentment. She was ashamed of it, and corrected herself. “No, that is… thank you. Really.”

There it was again, that suggestion of trickling water somewhere too faint to pinpoint. Maybe she was hallucinating just a little bit. She blinked several times, sweat burning at the corners of her vision. Just standing here seemed quite useless at the moment, once you eliminated all mortal threats. “I think… I’m lost.” Her mug wrinkled at the humility in the statement, but who else was going to be able to give her directions. “Is there… water… anywhere?”

TAG KK WORDCOUNT 322
Yeah I think they do fyi: that water she hears can be hallucination or real. Thought it could be the oasis somewhere nearby.

[KK]

NO AIR , NO AIR

Both appalled and indifferent to his attitude, Tyrion studied the girl. She was strikingly pretty. Her coat was a soothing strawberry, and her eyes were bright with life. The man knew that wasn’t everything, and accounted for more than just that. Tyrion was no fool - women were not to be trifled with, in the sense that they would always be more than pretty faces.

The air buzzed with her irritation, little gnats zipping in and out of Ty’s ears. His face flickered slightly, registered that she was almost a threat. With a slight tightening of his eyes, Tyrion shifted his weight onto his back legs. The situation relaxed just as quickly as it had tensed. Ty watched the red girl with softer eyes, now mostly fascinated by her. She seemed so surprisingly normal, as if each reaction she had was something one would expect (which was not the norm for Tyrion, and it ultimately felt weird).

“Thank you . . I guess.” Ty held back a laugh, pleasantly surprised by her reluctant response. She did not give him any sort of grief; in fact, her ability to be so blunt with her feelings impressed him. “No, that is . . . thank you. Really,” her words surprised him again, and he raised an eyebrow. How strangely normal she was.

Tyrion heard it, too. The soft dripping of water, tantalizing in the back of his mind. He just noticed that the girl was sweating, a quiet chord of worry strumming in the gentlest part of his mind. She probably needed water before she passed out - come to think of it, they both most definitely needed water. Tyrion, now slightly amused that he would be spending more time with the girl, turned in the direction of the sound. “Is there . . . water . . . anywhere?” Tyrion looked back now, visibly concerned. He stood still, waited for her to walk next to him. They could barely fit, but he didn’t want her to be knocked out without any sort of assistance.

“Yeah,” he murmured in the most soothing voice he could muster, “there’s a nice oasis just a little bit ahead. You can come with me if you would like.”

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@edo :-)

[Deleted]

hildegard

Water!

How had she come to wander so far from home? Home had never taken her through a desert. That had been her own mistake. Her band of a family had wandered for sure, but they had been led by experienced minds. How foolish she was, to think she could brave the world on her own. Barely a season gone and she nearly died in this canyon! Exhausted, she felt disappointment sink in.

She nodded wordlessly at his offer, stepping forward with an uncertainty of poise owed to standing in one place for far too long. Carefully avoiding the motionless serpent, she followed the dun’s cues to pace alongside him. The walls loomed close on either side, but they could pass through abreast of each other all the same. Heat from their flanks bounced between them, a sensation of which she was acutely aware. Her nostrils flared, feeling both anxious and quite deprived of oxygen by the hot, dry air. She turned her head carefully away, giving him space as they wound their way through the naturally formed corridors. There, louder than before and growing steadily more so, the sound of water acted as a siren song.

She was aware that he was helping her, a fact that would have ordinarily caused the filly to balk, pushing her to make her own way. He had already gone out of his way to alleviate a threat, any further dependence just left a sour taste in her mouth. As of now, she was simply too tired to dispute the situation. Mutinous gratitude settled inside her.

Anyway. She couldn’t keep thinking of him as “he”. She cocked her head in his direction, brown eyes sliding toward him. She was stronger as she spoke, the part of her dedicated to addressing the obvious and skipping the shit in between appearing quite active. “We didn’t introduce ourselves yet. Understandable, I guess, but anyway. I’m Hildegard.”

TAG KK WORDCOUNT 320
Sorry it took so long. I got pretty sick after I got back from vacation :/