03-03-2010, 10:45 PM
[html]
ooc: 8]
To her compliment, the young slate hybrid beamed proudly, puffing out his downy white chest and fixing Sylvie with a heart-melting smile. He looked comically amusing once more, with those large ears, one erect and the other flopping over clownishly. The big grin didn't help. But his sweet blue eyes twinkled merrily down at her as the collie-girl surveyed him a moment in silence, meeting her glittering lavender gaze unhesitatingly.
If she had found what she was looking for in that quick assessment of her companion, Sylvie did not say. Instead, she turned and entered the crumbling old building, and Caillen followed obediently. Her following words surprised him, and that one upstanding ear pricked towards her eagerly as the young girl spoke. In all their time together, Sylvie had never attempted storytelling, and the boy felt an ominous, serious nature descend upon him, as if what she was telling him now was gravely important unlike the lilting tales of his own creation. The slate wolfdog listened silently, his paws padding softly behind hers as they ascended the stairs, as they slunk to the bedroom doorway. There she stopped and Caillen nearly bumped right into her in the darkness, his soft blue eyes still avid on her lilac form as the girl turned to look at him, the silence a heavy weight. Her story was paused, right at the crucial moment of delivery, where the nightmare was real and the ending tangible.
Her eyes were little portals, and for the briefest moment he could look right into them, right into the darkness that clung secretively to her mind, it's horrible face that of an unloving mother and an uncaring father.
But then she was just Sylvie again, with a soft little smile, and that twinkle of happiness as she delivered the punchline. The little girl deftly stepped forwards to bump her soft brown nose against his shiny ebony one, before turning back to trot into the room. For a good long moment Caillen stood on the other side of the threshold, his eyes wide, his soul strumming tight with that feeling of impending doom that his mother often suffered from. But it confused him; He didn't understand the way and icy fist had clenched about his heart, the way his sixth sense tingled as if someone had strolled over his grave.
When awareness came, he shook briskly, and let the cold foreboding slid back into subconscious memory. By now, Sylvie had curled up onto her little nest of bedsheets. The young wolfdog boy turned to his own low cot and bounced up onto it with an awkward, wolfish grace that he'd yet to grow into. Their two little beds were parallel to each other in the smallest room of the hotel, so when Caillen flopped down into his own scratchy-warm blankets, he looked straight across at the collie girl, separated only by enough room for another bed between them. He sleepy question made the now wide-awake boy smile, and that smile helped to sooth away the final prickles of unease.
" Alright, b-but you have to be real quiet. If mama knew we were a-a-aw-awa... Not asleep, she'd be mighty cross."
He let silence descend over them, the dramatic nature of the storyteller filling his head with images. If Caillen had been able to write, somebody would have told him he had what was commonly known as Dyslexia, but because he couldn't, it just seemed that the boy had a particular talent for envisioning things.
" Once upon a time, there was a little girl," His voice was low and mellifluous, a soft lullaby of sounds, " Who came in a strange boat from far, far across the seas. She was found by a native lady, who raised the girl like her own blood..."
The boy's tale flowed out into the silence, and images leaped to life like flames kindled by warm breath.
"... One day, the girl was in a field, where a terrible monster was fabled to live," Though familiar, his story came smoothly, the child's bright-blue eyes glowing with trance-like luminosity as he continued, " And as the monster bared down upon her, the girl, who was very brave and very smart, did not run. She turned to the beast, and shouted, 'I am not afraid of you, you disgusting monster!'" His voice rose, but remained subtly low, so as not to wake the young mother sleeping in the opposite room, " The battle raged on, but the girl was quick and clever, and she remembered her days on the strange little boat and she remembered the love of her bond-mother... and grabbing at his clawed face, the beast was so shocked that it knew fear, and turned from the girl to run back into the darkness... and the mother said, 'You are a hero! you will be princess of our people, for ridding us of that monster!'... and the girl lived happily ever after."
There was a thick moment of silence as the light dwindled in Caillen's eyes, and he blinked absently, rubbing them with one ivory paw.
" The end. Are you s-s-still awake?"
Speak think walk
Table © James, courtesy of Hannah
ooc: 8]
To her compliment, the young slate hybrid beamed proudly, puffing out his downy white chest and fixing Sylvie with a heart-melting smile. He looked comically amusing once more, with those large ears, one erect and the other flopping over clownishly. The big grin didn't help. But his sweet blue eyes twinkled merrily down at her as the collie-girl surveyed him a moment in silence, meeting her glittering lavender gaze unhesitatingly.
If she had found what she was looking for in that quick assessment of her companion, Sylvie did not say. Instead, she turned and entered the crumbling old building, and Caillen followed obediently. Her following words surprised him, and that one upstanding ear pricked towards her eagerly as the young girl spoke. In all their time together, Sylvie had never attempted storytelling, and the boy felt an ominous, serious nature descend upon him, as if what she was telling him now was gravely important unlike the lilting tales of his own creation. The slate wolfdog listened silently, his paws padding softly behind hers as they ascended the stairs, as they slunk to the bedroom doorway. There she stopped and Caillen nearly bumped right into her in the darkness, his soft blue eyes still avid on her lilac form as the girl turned to look at him, the silence a heavy weight. Her story was paused, right at the crucial moment of delivery, where the nightmare was real and the ending tangible.
Her eyes were little portals, and for the briefest moment he could look right into them, right into the darkness that clung secretively to her mind, it's horrible face that of an unloving mother and an uncaring father.
But then she was just Sylvie again, with a soft little smile, and that twinkle of happiness as she delivered the punchline. The little girl deftly stepped forwards to bump her soft brown nose against his shiny ebony one, before turning back to trot into the room. For a good long moment Caillen stood on the other side of the threshold, his eyes wide, his soul strumming tight with that feeling of impending doom that his mother often suffered from. But it confused him; He didn't understand the way and icy fist had clenched about his heart, the way his sixth sense tingled as if someone had strolled over his grave.
When awareness came, he shook briskly, and let the cold foreboding slid back into subconscious memory. By now, Sylvie had curled up onto her little nest of bedsheets. The young wolfdog boy turned to his own low cot and bounced up onto it with an awkward, wolfish grace that he'd yet to grow into. Their two little beds were parallel to each other in the smallest room of the hotel, so when Caillen flopped down into his own scratchy-warm blankets, he looked straight across at the collie girl, separated only by enough room for another bed between them. He sleepy question made the now wide-awake boy smile, and that smile helped to sooth away the final prickles of unease.
" Alright, b-but you have to be real quiet. If mama knew we were a-a-aw-awa... Not asleep, she'd be mighty cross."
He let silence descend over them, the dramatic nature of the storyteller filling his head with images. If Caillen had been able to write, somebody would have told him he had what was commonly known as Dyslexia, but because he couldn't, it just seemed that the boy had a particular talent for envisioning things.
" Once upon a time, there was a little girl," His voice was low and mellifluous, a soft lullaby of sounds, " Who came in a strange boat from far, far across the seas. She was found by a native lady, who raised the girl like her own blood..."
The boy's tale flowed out into the silence, and images leaped to life like flames kindled by warm breath.
"... One day, the girl was in a field, where a terrible monster was fabled to live," Though familiar, his story came smoothly, the child's bright-blue eyes glowing with trance-like luminosity as he continued, " And as the monster bared down upon her, the girl, who was very brave and very smart, did not run. She turned to the beast, and shouted, 'I am not afraid of you, you disgusting monster!'" His voice rose, but remained subtly low, so as not to wake the young mother sleeping in the opposite room, " The battle raged on, but the girl was quick and clever, and she remembered her days on the strange little boat and she remembered the love of her bond-mother... and grabbing at his clawed face, the beast was so shocked that it knew fear, and turned from the girl to run back into the darkness... and the mother said, 'You are a hero! you will be princess of our people, for ridding us of that monster!'... and the girl lived happily ever after."
There was a thick moment of silence as the light dwindled in Caillen's eyes, and he blinked absently, rubbing them with one ivory paw.
" The end. Are you s-s-still awake?"
Speak think walk
Table © James, courtesy of Hannah