Tree:
Kate: Nooooooo... okay maybe a little bit...
I'm very happy for your country right now! Admittedly I didn't expect it would happen so soon. It's such a delight to be proven wrong in this case!
Hen: Thanks for the track! <3
Mjrn:
Sen: Thanks! <3

Eee, thank you. ;; <3
Jin made the bio, she did such an amazing job of it!

Having had no luck on his own, the stone balancer falls back to the one who he’s come to depend upon most readily.

In the Birch, he is easy to find by scent alone. Stone approaches him completely uninhibited, offering his typical, affectionate greeting. He is, however, to anxious to settle into a full groom.

Scenting the air once more just to be certain that he cannot detect her here either, stone lowers his head, disappointed. Hopefully his friend will know something.

With some alarm, stone realizes they've never really spoken—he had spoken at the hart, he can hardly avoid the habit now—and he is not even certain if he will understand. Not everyone here spoke like him. In fact, though they for the most part seemed to carry on conversations as detailed as he, often more-so, he seemed to do so in a much more archaic way than the company he kept. He knew the Magic must have changed his body, because he never could have made this range of sounds which he finds himself capable of now, nor could he control his lips or tongue with such precision. When he came here, he found himself speaking like a human, as if he'd always been able to.

Now fretting over this on top of his reason for coming, he stares off into the Birch. Not wanting to delay any longer, he speaks, in plain English.

“Have you seen Stria recently?” He hopes that his friend will know her spoken name. He is not sure how to explain—in his native tongue, he never cared enough to ask another about a specific being. Their name only existed where they themselves did. “I have not scented her for some time.” He does not state that he is worried; his distress is too obvious to need it.

The Eld's actually pauses for a whole four seconds, awaiting a response, before he realizes that his friend is responding... As best as he can. Reading the red deer's concern, the stone balancer is thrown almost violently back into his old ways, but it has been so long since he communicated this way. It is not nearly so eloquent, he realizes, not at all specific enough to communicate with for his needs, with his diminished capacity for it.

'I have lost myself,' he realizes with building horror—but he does not have time to dwell on it. He will remember when Stria is home.

By habit, he almost shakes his head 'no.' Disgusted, he does his best to reassure the hart. He snorts in frustration with his own inadequacy. He realizes he must have seemed rather distant all this time, with all his commentary having never once been understood. He struggles to recall a time where he really tried to speak in the old tongue since coming here. He cannot.

In ways, he is even more alienated than a fawn, as this language is born of instinct rather than knowledge, and he has strayed far from his old ways.

He makes an effort to relax his body. He’s angled himself well away from his friend, has twisted in such a way as to be facing away from him in a display of utter trust, but he holds himself flush to the red deer, and his head rests almost on his own shoulder now so that he may watch his friend in detail. He cannot remember if this is how he is supposed to be standing. There is no present danger, to them. He is still visibly apprehensive, but the red deer has seen him far more worked up over nothing, and thus—he hopes—will conclude their safety.

How does one ask a feral being, more honest and pure than he, about another who is not there? He does not have Stria’s scent upon him. He makes an effort to draw attention to that, emits a brief burst of scent marker from his facial glands and rubs his own scent on himself, looking back to the red pitifully. He digs at the ground, shakes his head, turning from tree to tree as if searching for an answer.

“You really can’t understand me.” He says to himself, stunned, disappointed. He supposes he should simply consider himself lucky that anyone could.

Having had no luck whatsoever with the effort at communicating that it was Stria’s absence which had initially disturbed him, the old Eld’s felt rather helpless.

The sangai moved to reposition himself, draping his head briefly over his friend’s shoulder in his best attempt at an apology for being so dire and yet so vague. Still, he did not make an effort to groom the other, as the task at hand occupied too much of his cognitive capacity. Though certainly more human than many, he was still a deer, and could only do so much at once.

If not she herself, and not the word which served to represent her, what else could serve to stand for Stria? Her scent was long gone from any part of the Forest he had visited. He had not been around often enough to know if she frequented any area specifically that the red hart might know her for. His memories of her were all he had for the time being. So what was something that reminded him of her? He puzzled over it, staring quite intently at one birch tree in particular without much looking at it.

He exhales sharply in something that is half-laugh and half-not. It would have to do.

Nudging the other male with his snout, he walks a brief way before turning his head over his shoulder, pausing, then moving onward. Finally, something they could agree upon.

It is a brief walk, and like his friend, stone sees no present reason for caution. Despite this, prey animals that they are, they move quietly.

Stone descends into the Blue Bowl. This time of year, it smells overpoweringly of ripened blueberries even from a distance. Within it the deer are actually quite vulnerable, as smell is their strongest sense. He intends to be here only briefly.

Plucking a branch heavy with the dark fruit, the Eld’s moves to stand adjacent to his friend, and begins to rub them along the red deer’s side. While not actually making an effort to “paint” with them as Stria had, the action is so odd and out of character, he hopes that it stirs within the hart memories of the young hind.

Withdrawing a respectful distance away, at a polite angle, stone tilts his ears forward inquisitively—questioningly, he hopes—toward the other male. To dismiss the berries’ continued pertinence, he drops the branch and does not so much as look at it again.

He looks about, scenting the air, making a show of trying to find her in this place where he can smell nothing but berries. It is a foolish and functionally useless action, which he hopes will serve as yet another tool of communication.

Glancing back to the red for his reaction, he talks to himself. “I hope you understand.”

Noting his friend’s confusion with distinct displeasure, stone at once abandons that idea. Thinking back on it now, it had been foolish to hope that it would work.

Stone again adjusts his position to be just shy of submission, wanting to be as easy-going as possible. The closer to neutral he remained, the more likely he’d at least be able to communicate something. Still, he looks directly at the other hart, his eyes intense with thought, his brow as knit as deer facial muscles allow.

‘Lost.’ That word, by the grace of Magic or otherwise, penetrates stone’s mind. Yes, lost! His eyes brighten at the slightest communication between them. Stria is lost and he needs to find her.

Desperately trying a new strategy, stone makes his best attempt at calming his mind, quieting his thoughts. Despite his resentment of the Magic, he’d come to depend on it and what it had given to him. He had to forget.

He stretches out his neck to meet the red deer, delicately touching noses; the idea of contact with another being, highlighting their sense of smell, his strongest sense. He withdraws, ears flicking forward once more, head held high; there is something to be done, there is something to pay attention to out there in the world. His bodily position is virtually completely calm now, but in his serenity, he looks alert. He makes a grand show of it, stretching his head as high as it goes, his nose pointed toward the sun. His nostrils flare, filling him with the scent of blueberries and little else. He is looking for something.

Finally, he does not try to speak. He tries to communicate.

Stone follows without coaxing, trailing The Red closely. He is not sure where they are going, or if Red understood his intentions. A part of him is desperately hopeful that the red deer completely understood him, that they are on their way to her. Red will lead him through the Forest and he will see her silhouette, grazing alone. The hart will turn back to the Eld’s as if to ask him if he needed anything else. He and Stria will greet one another and graze together, quietly, peacefully, and there will be no grand reunion because she had never really been gone—the Eld’s was simply growing old and had made a mistake.

But he cannot allow himself to believe this. Not yet. He cannot handle being wrong.

He can't help hoping, though. It shows in his gait, how he nearly trots like a fawn.

The sangai is politely bewildered when they stop. Why are they returning to where they came from? Is she here, did he somehow miss her? But then he understands, his point never got across.

He is disappointed, but not surprised.

He stands beside the Scottish hart, looking melancholy but oddly peaceful, content with things. It is clear to him now that he is never going to be able to communicate with the red deer as fluently as he needs, not in this state. But they are still friends; he senses that if he knew he could help, the other stag would always try. That is simply the herd-animal's way.

He takes a long look out over the Forest, seeing little but sensing much. There is no trace of her, but there are others who may know. When last he visited her, she carried the scents of others.

He brings his attention back to the red deer. His movements, not at rest but not alarmed, imply a continued need for action. He has not found what he is looking for. He does his best to express gratitude, a friendly nudge and a quiet huff.

When he begins to walk away, he hesitantly looks over his shoulder once more. He is not certain that he wants to bring the hart into this more than he has already. He knows it may be distressing, even dangerous.

But he is really the only friend stone has, at least the only one he can find.

He turns back to face what lies ahead of him. Raising his head to the sky, it is not difficult to find the scent on the wind. Hopefully, they would understand him.

tracking :>

track

What a good Fighter , damn

wiggles all over

-shot-

_{track evu}

8- )

Tracky. ^^

woops

I'm so jealous of all the meanings the title of this has. (Courage) deer heart, dear heart, deer hart, dear hart...omg.

Track because I don't think I've ever tracked this before? (I'm the little orange doe there with you)

I've always been fond of your characters; all of them are lovely. ♥

Porcewatchin'y'sleep.


Legit.

#peepingPorceday





Couldn't help m'self. xD

Saosin is gonna be the most fashionable deer inforest with Porcehats and Kostyaantleraccessories.

''dis is...''






''dhappiestdayofmylief''

-
helpineedtostopmakingthese

She's now their child.
Yes.

(not rly tho)

Naw, it's where he stores his mini collection. Porce will be joining Riptail and Spyrre in there, I'm sure.