the serpent and the rainbow

Elijah Winters · 05-11-2011, 06:24 PM

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+5. For Alaine! NANA TO THE RESCUE. I'm assuming Alaine is nearby as Nana is not in the stable, so I'm leaving her location open.

Day in and day out, Elijah followed his singular pattern. He woke and sought food, and once his belly was full, he made his way down the hallway in a very particular way. First away from his own room, then right, then right again until he had returned to the steps. There he would climb down with stiff-legged leaps, hardly as graceful as his sister. The boy had begun to shed his velvet-soft puppy fur and grow a darker pelt of wolf-thick fur. It was thick but not coarse, and took after his mother’s breed in this respect. One might hardly think of him as a wolf, for very little signs gave this fact away. Perhaps as he aged it would change; Elijah didn’t think of these things, though.

He thought, simply, of becoming a horse.

He did this daily, and he did so because it pleased him. The kingdom of dogs became Elijah’s kingdom, where he ruled over all the butterflies (though he could not grasp this word and called them flutterbies) and birds and little bugs that he found. His sister thought of him as stupid, and had shown him how she played once—she crushed the butterflies and squirmy-worms with a cruel pleasure that even reticent Elijah could tell was wrong. Luckily, she had stopped trying to play with him. This meant once again Elijah was left to be king of the green land where bounty was plenty and he ruled without question. When he reached the grass, he turned into a stallion.

Today, though, as he made his way outside he was greeted by a familiar subject. His mother’s horse, Nana, was grazing without supervision near the field he had claimed. Pleased by her appearance, Elijah let out an odd bark-whinny and leapt towards her. Used to his behavior, the rotund mare snorted as she might at her own child and proceeded to watch the boy as she grazed. Elijah bounded through the grass with stiff-legged leaps, imitating the way he saw horses move, babbling in and out of high and low speech.

“Imma horsie, Nana! King Lijah! Flutterbies, I get you!” He barked, chasing after them. This world was warm and golden-green and his and his alone.

So when he came across an odd looking animal, too big to be a squirmy-worm but looking very much like one, he did not think it might hurt him. He did not fear anything, and this was perhaps one of his greatest flaws. With little hesitation the puppy reared up. “Rawr, squirmy-worm! Go ‘way ‘fore mean Elvira comes and gets you!” Yet as he landed with a thud, the odd-looking squirmy-worm coiled up and lifted its triangular head. Amazed, for he had never seen an animal and certainly not a squirmy-worm do such a thing, the boy began yapping loudly for the horse that even now was approaching at a speed that the puppy was oblivious too. “Nana! Nana look at the squirmy-worm! Look at what it does!”

Alaine Winters · 05-20-2011, 10:49 AM

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Word Count → 5+

Alaine had risen early, feeding her pups before gathering her belongings and heading down before the two youngsters had fully roused from their full bellies and heavy-lidded eyes. The day was warm and pleasant, and the lush emerald grass in the field before the old Chien Hotel beckoned in the dazzling yellow and golden sunlight. With a lackadaisically mirthful and surprisingly tranquil emotion taking her over, the generally tense and wary Fae shifted the meager weight of her satchel over her slender shoulders, and jogged the short distance to the stables.

Because the day was so blight and the grass so fresh, it seemed only fair that the Apothecary allow her rotund travelling companion to soak up the sweetness of the weather. Unlatching Nana's stall, the colliewoman rubbed fondly at her large head. The docile mare blinked her lovely doe-eyes once, and snorted warm honey-grass breath at her smiling mistress. Not bothering to fasten a tether to the fat broodmare's rope halter, she left the stall door open and strode back out into the sunlight, pleased to hear the heavy clops of giant hooves on the compressed ground behind her as the mare dutifully followed.

Enjoying stretching her own legs, she did not ride Nana back to the hotel, but the pair wandered along amiably - The giant, sweet-natured matriarch, and the slender, faded beauty. Having entered the Chien's field, Alaine found a pleasant spot in the sun, sitting in the plush grass and leaning her back on the worn remains of an old fence. The deep bay, her slightly mottled pelt lovely in the warm light, plodded lazily about, swinging her large head and flaring her sharp pink nostrils to sniff out the sweeter patches of still-dewy grass.

It was not long after then that the boychild emerged. Absorbed in her chosen task of mending some cloth bandages by stitching them, Alaine did not look up from her small bone needle, but gently hummed to herself. The boy was instantly lost to his fantasies, and only Nana watched from the corner of her placid eyes, bemused by the child's antics. It was a morning routine that they had followed numerous times before - Nothing hinted to the danger lurking in the grass. The sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue, stretching forever over the fragile serendipity below.

The boy's excited yapping again drew the attention of the slow-moving mare, who perked her stubby ears in interest, for she did seem to adore the strange wrongling. It was then that the still tranquility shattered - Huge, heavy hooves pounded the earth, rumbling like thunder as the mare's eyes tossed bone white. She charged towards the boy, equine teeth bared as a shrill whinny sought to call the child who was not hers back to her; but the little lowspeech he knew had never before been confronted by such a sound.

Alaine, however, was quick to leap to her feet, but far too slow to prevent the strange and horrifying scene from emerging. In an instant, the snake curved back to strike - And Nana was upon it, rearing and plunging, the serpent and the sweet little boy lost from view in the dust and the frantic movements of her hooves. The Apothecary screamed, but her cry was lost to the sound of the frantic mare, who for all appearances had just trampled her son into the warm, uncaring earth.

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Elijah Winters · 05-23-2011, 09:20 PM

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Elijah had seen monsters before, but he had never felt the earth move.

It started with the rising of the squirmy-worm, whose black eyes and copper-brown head followed the pup’s erratic movements. Then came a sound that the boy did not recognize; his head turned to find the source, and that was when the snake made to kill the noisy thing that had crossed its path.

The boy did not scream—he was not afraid of Nana—but he moved with a sudden speed and grace that was unbecoming of his pudgy body and otherwise awkward steps. Instinct, brought from his mother’s collie ancestors, shot the child low and far, into the tall grass and away from the trembling earth as his horse-mother’s hooves slammed down again and again and made the Kingdom tremble.

He sunk low, ears pinned, but he watched. Nana was being mean to the worm, and his mother was screaming. Scared she might try and punish the horse, Elijah bolted towards her with that same speed. He moved, perhaps surprisingly for his Wrongness like a true dog. Low and fast and tail high he charged, yapping all the while. It was almost aggressive, for all purposes, but he could never be like that towards his mother. A protectiveness of those he loved overcame all fear, and he did not wish to see his mother punish Nana as she had punished Elvira.

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