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Post by KAREE on Nov 12, 2011 3:53:38 GMT
The grey mare moved quickly through the thicket of trees, her breathing becoming less and less rapid as she began to relax a little bit more with each step she took. By the time she had reached an uphill incline, her breathing had almost returned to normal. 'Damn men...' she thought, tossing her sweet little head in a mild show of distaste, steadily walking up the hill. The day had began to melt away, leaving the world in the beginnings of the night. The little mare made sure to hide her tracks, placing her hooves on tufts of snow grass or stone where she could. She steered away from the dry dirt, knowing that her hoof prints would more than likely stay there until rain came...if it came.
She arrived at the top of the sloping hill, and traveled a long it, seeing the twirling and curling smoke make its way up into the sky from down where the Hut was. Gedala snorted, wrinkling her nose at the sight and smell of it. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she made sure to keep a steady pace as the hill started to drop away into more trees. The mare sighed in relief at the sight, she didn't like open spaces like this, but seeing as it was dark and her coat would simply melt into the darkness, she wasn't as worried as she would have been in the day time. She'd simply look like a shadow passing over the top. The Ridge was the last place she had expected to be, after spending a short time down at the Gap, she had decided that she would go and see if there were any horses down in Yarraman's Valley.
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Post by koresh on Nov 13, 2011 23:01:24 GMT
It is said among the Brumbies of our fair land that the thundering of a Nightrunners' hooves is a prelude to death and disaster. Fires erupt, burning away all life. Tornadoes touch down, plucking horses from the ground like berries from a bush and throwing them down faraway, their corpses broken and bloodied. Great thunderstorms pour rain down upon the earth, flooding water bodies, drowning the land's inhabitants, and electrocuting those unfortunate enough to be caught outside while it holds reign. Many a mare and filly are found dead the day after the disaster, their cause of death injuries completely unrelated to the disaster itself. These Nightrunners are said to be in possession of two traits that are considered trademarks of their kind: a coat of blinding white with strange eyes the color of blood.
The dark sunlight of dusk filtered down through the tender young leaves, sprinkling the ivory stallion with deep gold dapples. The pattern of these dapples were ever-shifting, their positions and shapes changing with each hoofstep he took. Those hooves rose and fell with a speed that most other horses would never attempt with the sun dropping like it was, especially in such a dense stand of trees as he was currently in.
This stallion was not like most other horses.
His skin was an innocuous shade of ivory, marred only by palest pink around his nostrils and genitals. The galloping stud's locks, snowy white to match his coat, were only of average length and thickness. If you did not look too closely it would be easy to mistake him for a rather underweight cremello. Push that forelock out of his eyes, however, and you will see him for what he is: a Nightrunner, his supposedly demonic pedigree as pure as the new fallen snow.
He slowed down noticeably as the trees began to thin, the thunderous din of his hooves quieting down to a soft ba-bump. The dapples of sunlight scattered over his body shifted into a thick horizontal bar across his head and back. He felt a sense of strange pleasure at being able to look into the sun at all. Many of his kind could not do even this. Due to the reckless inbreeding that had torn from the Nightrunners much of their strength and beauty, some were truly vulnerable to great injury when they exposed themselves to sunlight at any time of the day. Others were simply too scared to risk damaging their eyes or burning their skin. Thinking of his mother, who had had to coat herself in mud to be able to leave their forest home at all during the sunny hours, motivated him all the more to build his herd and restore glory and health to the Nightrunners.
His attention was snatched away from his thoughts when he heard the thud of hooves coming down the hill toward him. He lifted his head a little higher, pricking his ears. Yera flared his nostrils to pull in the scents around him in the hopes of discovering the gender of the approaching equine. If it was a mare, the lightweight stud would stay; if it was a stallion, he would flee. He was all for making friends, but a run-in with another male during breeding season could be disastrous, to say the least. He could detect the stench of smoke, likely from a man's fire; the peculiar odor of summer heat; the typical perfumes of Kosciusko during the warmer months; and... mare. There didn't seem to be any sort of masculine scent around her, which was a good sign. A bit of a smile seemed to play around his lips as he processed this last bit of information. He neighed a pleasant greeting up to her in the hopes of starting a conversation.
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Post by KAREE on Nov 16, 2011 3:42:54 GMT
The grey mare moved swiftly down the hill, dodging rocks and trees with an expert hoof, even in the darkening day. Her swift and nimble body showed some of her silver heritage...being a great great granddaughter of the Silver brumby King himself. Gedala was determined to show everyone that she was just like him and to get her name around the whole High Country. That was her wish, and she was sure she would be able to put up with any stallion that came her way. Just as she thought that the deep neigh of a stallion shocked her out of her thoughts and the concentration she put into her footing slackened. She slowed her pace and looked up in the direction of where she could see a pale coloured stallion standing.
Gedala snorted, coming to a stop. Her mind instantly sought out an escape route, for the just in case something bad happened. Her eyes roamed past the brute and over the darkening land that she knew well. A little way through the trees, there was a drop off point where the ground just broke away and stood above the next part a good two metres or so off of the ground, she knew that if she ran fast enough that she would lose him there and disappear into the shadows of the trees if the need should a rise. She nickered softly to the brute, acknowledging his presence as he had hers. "Good evening O' white one," she cooed, stepping aside, around a group of rocks and around some trees to come around to the stallion's right. She watched the trees behind him, waiting for more figures to appear out of the scrub and stand by his side...but no one came. Hmm...she guessed he either hid his herd somewhere in the mountains or had lost them in a fight...either way there was no one else but the stallion, herself and the rest of the unaware night creatures.
ooc. sorry about the shortness D:
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Post by koresh on Nov 20, 2011 20:13:34 GMT
She had come to a halt on the hill's downward slope and was staring straight at him. Yera stared right back, appraising her as best he could at this distance. She was much more slender and more delicate in appearance than the average Brumby. Perhaps she too had a healthy dose of Arabian somewhere in her bloodline. He did not spot any obvious conformational defects, but, then again, it was nearly impossible to without her close by. The mare's coat color put him off a little. It was not that he did not like grays; it was just that he was not able to tell her true color, which bothered him a little. He wanted to try and gather a mostly cream herd, and did not want to take in a mare that would not give him cream children. He did appreciate the amount of white she displayed on her face and legs. Such markings often made what would have been a dull, unattractive horse into an eye-catching beauty.
He noticed when her eyes began to roam past him and over the surrounding area. If he were human, he would have quirked an eyebrow. What exactly was she looking for? Yera thought that perhaps she was using her eyes to hunt for an escape route, which was what he would have done if he was in her hooves right now. He was appreciative of a mare with common sense, as there did not seem to be too terribly many of those left these days, but it also bothered him that she should have to do so. She was a mare, for heaven's sake! She shouldn't have to worry about protection; that was her stallion's job... or it should have been, at least. He wondered if she had ever had one to begin with.
The cremello champagne was drawn back into the real world when she offered him a friendly nicker in response to his own call. "Good evening O' white one," she said. Then she started down toward him. He watched her very carefully now, evaluating her movement. The way she moved could reveal to him weaknesses that were not terribly obvious before. Her legs moved in a free, unrestricted way. The gray did not seem to favor any of her legs when she walked, which was particularly pleasing. He did not want to possibly include a mare in his herd that was unable to move properly due to a birth defect or as a result of injury. He dipped his head in an unconscious nod of approval.
Well met. he replied as she came up to his right. He bowed his head respectfully for a moment, this time on purpose. He did so slowly with very little excess movement; moving too quickly might shake his forelock out of his eyes. My name is Yera. he told her, hoping that she would offer her own name without him having to ask for it.
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Post by KAREE on Nov 27, 2011 9:30:47 GMT
Crickets rubbed their legs together, creating a nice racket that echoed throughout the whole Ridge. Occasionally a wise and old owl would take flight from it's perch with a hoot to the moon that stared over the whole Country. It's light never ending. Gedala, however, payed little attention to these sounds, they were the usual things one would expect to hear and see in the night. They were comforting sounds, as they did not alert her to anything that would be unusual. Like man for instance. She was suspicious of this stallion, but not so much that she would see him as much of a threat. She knew this bush better than he would, and even in the darkness she would be able to escape his greedy gaze and melt into the shadows if he tried anything funny.
But, for now, the stallion remained respectful and polite. And while he remained this way, Gedala would also too. He bowed his head, and she watched curiously. He had a strange body structure; from what she could see he was either extremely thin or was just one of those lighter built brumbies with a great mixture of blood. She found him odd, but it did not raise any alarms that would indicate anything unusual and so she bowed her head as he did. A small smile dancing across her pretty face, "I am Gedala, named for the day." She stated simply, lifting her head to once more gaze at the stallion. "It is a pleasure to meet you Yera, I must say you are a strange sight to behold on a night such as this...and in such an unusual place." She said, briefly glancing around her to make sure that there was no one creeping up behind them or anything. "I mean, I've never seen another horse whilst travelling along the Ridge at this time of night; usually they are all tucked away safely with their herds and such." Gedala spoke softly, but Yera would have no trouble hearing her.
ooc. soo sorry about the wait! D:
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