May 17, 2011 - 3:11pm — Seed
I awoke to the sensation of rain over my body, repetitive and rhythmic as the fingers of a piana player. The world felt weightless, fresh and clean. Perfect. I said my hellos to Virgil, drowsing in the rain, and went on to find Ourania by the playground rocks.
We played for a while, sloshing our hooves in the puddles that collected in the rainy rocks, butt-dancing in my preffered rock...The tall one, you know, with the ramp. It's a very good rock for bird-watching. Anyway, Ourania and I played like this for a while, before we decided to rest under the rock-ramp, out of the drenching rain. We were joined for a little while by the fawn Nayu, who I'd like to meet again: he fell asleep so quickly that I barely had time to learn his name.
The sound of the rain was so heavy, so lush, like a jungle of noise with its great canopy trees filtering out the light, its slick jungle underbrush of puddles and wet leaves and splashing noises of water-on-water. In that jungle lived so many strange and quiet sounds, the sort you hear best in the rain, like the croaking of frogs and the different raindrop beats. The song and the light together formed a lullabye, and drifted me off to sleep.
When I awoke, Ourania was heading near the ruins, and we stopped there for a while. It seemed Ourania was listening for something, but I couldn't tell what. I went back to sleep just after that...I wonder if she ever found it?
When I returned to conciousness, I heard Queze and Mystress off in the distance: I hadn't seen either of them in ages, and Queze's absence in particular was keenly felt. I rushed over to greet them: they, too, had gravitated to the rocks, and sitting with them (both were shocked to see me: perhaps my absence for much of this year was also keenly felt? Oh, I do kid myself...) We sat together in the rain, and I was hit by a sudden downpour of memories. One stuck out: when I was a fawn, there'd be impromptu nuzzling and cuddling in the big oak, keeping warm in the cooling rain. I miss those days. Maybe next rainy day, I'll go and announce my presence there and see if anyone shows up. It was very relaxing, sitting in the rain, thinking these warm little thoughts.
Eventually, a deer who I vaguely recognized (I knew his picto, but not his name) came by, needing a set. Mystress fell into a light sleep to speed up the process, but it still took ages. I swear that the magic itself has favorite spells, ones that it will see dozens of time before it brings forth the one we needed once. It's fickle, our forest magic.
When we were done, we were so relieved that we just danced for a while, the rest of the set forgotten. Saosin came over for a little while, but vanished when my head was turned. It was a delightful dance, even if I couldn't work it into a proper conga line. Then Queze left, and we remembered our friend still needed his (or was it her?) antlers, and I myself went and curled up under the bridge after that,
lulled back to sleep by the reflections of the water on the bridge, disrupted by the rain.
