[open] The Mud-Beast

[Illu]

The heat could be stifling at times. A dry sort of heat, which was better than those days where a horse could hardly breathe for humidity, but that wasn’t saying much. Gunshot hated them all the same. It was enough to anyone want to bury themselves in a wombat hole and never want to come out until nightfall.

Today he’d taken refuge at the banks of the Crackenback, wading knee high trough the cool water and occasionally dropping his white head to drink. Even the leaves of the gums were drooping in defeat. He was joined here and there by the odd kangaroo, possum, or bird anxious for the relief of the water. Gun, who found it way too hot to even bother trying to be obnoxious, was cordial for the most part and listened to the news they brought.

There was no one around now except for the water lizards, and they weren’t exactly known for their friendliness. Gun found himself travelling north through the river, the skinny colt picking up his overly long legs as much as possible. His black hide was burning in the suns rays, and the occasional flicking here and there from his soaked tail provided a welcome respite.

Tired and hot, at length Gun came to a stop, peering about for anything he recognised. The country was still foreign to him, but if he was right, he thought he could guess where he was relative to Kosciusko.

Not that that helped this blasted sun. Lowering his head, Gun set forward again, making his way through carefully in the search of a shallow shore with fine dirt. Apparently a feat easier said than done. Most of the banks were steep and rocky, but he eventually managed to find one smooth enough for him stop and roll in the shallow water, managing to coat his white head and legs in a layer of thin mud. But hey, at least he was marginally cooler.

[zebra]

The sun covered the land with bright beams. The mare ran and twirled. She was happy to be free, no one telling her what to do. Her white markings soon turned darker as she splashed in some mud. The heat of the day made it hard to stand still. Tana snorted and let out a long breath tiered after her little romp. She shook her mane and trotted off.

Tana trotted away from the mud, hoping another horse would enjoy it. She sniffed the ground nibbling on grass here and there. A bird let out a cry, Tana turned and scampered off. Tana looked at her surroundings, taking notes of trees and paths. Just in case she happened to get lost. It had only been a month or so since she broke free from her parents.

Tana strode to a small water dip. There she drank the sweet flat liquid. Tana snorted. She was tiered and worn out. Tana followed the routes that she took around the trails. When she came to the open area she noticed another horse took her place. Tana snorted and let out a whinny.

[byrch]

(ooc: not my best post so far, excuse the repeated words)

Stepping lightly along the bank over the river, Cooinda sighed a relief. No horses in sight, though the occasional breeze brought along the occasional scent of one. This was surely a hot day, Cooinda's flanks were patched in sweat. Looking for a decent way down into the river, she scanned the banks, not really paying attention to where her feet were going. A rock appeared out of nowhere, tripping Cooinda. Snorting in her clumsiness, she righted herself, and continued on, now paying a little more attention to her surroundings. As a cooling trickle of wind came, the scent of strange horses came also. Pricking her ears up, she side stepped into the surrounding trees, hoping they wouldn't catch sight of her.

Trying to walk soundlessly through the brush, she made her way north, hoping to see who the scent belonged to.

She came to a spot where the river wasn't just steep bank. It had a gentle slope with fine sand and dirt. The water wasn't clean, but all muddy, as if a horse had just rolled there. After having that thought, she spied a long legged colt with a shocking white face, and a fabled moon filly with a splash of white on her face. Staying in the cool shade, Cooinda watched the two. The colt was in the water, splashing and rolling, making a rocus, while the moon filly stood up the bank, not far from Cooinda, dripping wet. Startling Cooinda, the moon filly whinnied to the colt.

Deciding it would be better to see what unfolded between the two, if they were love sick young ones or strangers, Cooinda waited out in the shade of the gums.

[Illu]

OoC: Booyah, 4am exhaustion posts. I wasn't sure if Cooinda was visible or not, so I decided to assume she was only just out of sight.

As far as feral horses went, Gunshot wasn’t the most observant. Having been owned by men his whole life, he’d simply never needed to rely on his hearing, sight or smell for survival. A brumby would have realised horses had been the area straight away, but it took Gun a few solid minutes.

He noticed the smell first. Barely detectable, but present. Gun raised his now mostly-brown head, stained ears pricked and nostrils flared. Now that he wasn’t single mindedly focused on finding a suitable bank to roll in, he was surprised he’d even missed it.

… Hang on. That was a filly’s scent. Gun felt a thrum of excitement. He’d yet to run into a bush horse, although he’d heard enough about them. A filly was doubly of interest. The trouble was he had no way of telling where she’d gone.

It was only because he was paying such extremely close attention that he heard the clack of something striking rock in the thickly bushed rise ahead, followed by what was suspiciously like a snort. Gun’s head jerked in the direction of the noise. It sounded like a hoof, but he couldn’t be sure. It’d been faint. He inhaled deeply, but there was no new spells to provide any added clues.

He was actually a little anxious now, and unsure of what lay ahead. Every mud-soaked hair suddenly felt alive. What if they’d been watching him the whole time? He probably looked the fool covered in mud, and he mentally cursed himself and tried to shake out his coat, sending droplets of black water scattering back into the river.

He was just about to go ahead and investigate the sound to find out if it belonged to his mystery filly when he heard splashing from further up the river. Breathing out loudly, Gun looked around in momentary confusion to spot another young horse watching him curiously.

She was an unusual one, with a feminine whinny and strange but pretty colour. The significance of her coat, however, was lost on him. He was not a brumby, and therefore unfamiliar with their legends. She looked about equally as messy as he did – if not more – and he felt momentarily relieved he wasn’t the only one to try rolling in the creek. He neighed back, instinctively making a point to deepen his voice and arch his neck in an attempt to look more like a stallion and less like an overly leggy colt covered in mud.

He broke gaze only for a moment to glance back at the line of trees where he’d heard the faint sound from earlier. But that had probably just been his imagination right?

[zebra]

(Occ: sorry for the short length!)

Tana turned her head to see the shadow waving in the bushes. Tana took a few steps awkwardly as she evened out to the dry path. She watched the colt. The first time she saw the horse it seemed like he was any old Brumby. But as she moved closer into the mud ground a new sent filled her. Man. Tana lifted her head watching the horse, he was wild. no ropes or any thing but the sent shook her.

Tana watched the stallions looks. What was wrong? Then she realized it. She was different. The filly circled around noting that the two were covered in mud. Tana herd his neigh and raised her head. "hello.."

[byrch]

Seeing how the colt had jerked his head toward her, Cooinda cringed. She was sure to be spotted, her gleaming white coat a beacon to any and all colts and stallions. But he turned his attention back to the moon filly, who whinnied another greeting to him.

Both were caked in mud, which Cooinda so desperately wished to get to. With her light coloring, the sun baked through to her skin easily. She had somehow managed to avoid her muzzle becoming sun burned, but she was hot none the less. Taking a deeper breath, she realized she smelled something different about the colt, a strange smell that she hadn't smelled in years, and when she had, she was only a small foal, when her mother led her to where man was, and always told her to remember that smell, and to run from it.

But this colt, this smell, was old. The colt looked untamed, with no man around to order him, no ropes to control, no fences to hold him in. Cooinda was intrigued by him, even more so than the moon filly she had only heard stories of.

Deciding to do the unthinkable, she stepped out into the bright of day, her white coat glimmering.

[Illu]

OoC: Having a life sucks. Who agrees? Late, but here.

The way the white maned filly was simply standing there staring at him was starting to make Gun little self conscious. If it wasn't for the fact she was equally as filthy as him he'd have guessed she was doing a double take at his appearance. Maybe there were leaves on his head and he hadn’t noticed?

He was desperately trying to bite back from saying what he guessed was an inappropriate comment when the filly broke the silence first.

"Good afternoon, wild one," he greeted with the closest equivalent to a raised eyebrow a horse could manage, eyeing her usual white mane and tail again.

The conversation was short lived. From the corner of his eye Gun spotted a ghostly flicker of white between the trees. Heralding the arrival of yet another filly; this one paler than the snow gums.

Any other colt would have practically had a meltdown. A creamy was rare enough, but running into a moon filly (of all things), at the same time? And BOTH without an overprotective rockmonster of a stallion breathing down their necks? It was the sort of encounter most stallions would give their left leg for. And yet, here was Gun, painfully oblivious to the significance of what he’d just found.

Gun glanced back to his moon filly, then to the creamy again, seemingly at a loss as to which one he was supposed to address first. He walked up, abandoning his spot in the creek in favour of looking over them both quizzically. "Are you travelling together?" he asked with a look at both of them.