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 Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:29 am
Aquila, usually easy to track down, had moved from her usual haunts, and the purple-winged mare’s friends had told him that she had left with the intention of coming to visit him. This was, Diego felt, pretty typical of his luck lately. Still, at least he knew his daughter well enough to guess that she’d be using this route, and at least she wasn’t Urin’s fastest traveler.
If he was right about the direction the short-maned mare would be taking, he ought to run into her fairly soon. The sleek stallion’s blue eyes flicked over to the river he trotted along by, and he smiled. Aquila always had been fond of rivers, and the plants that tended to grown on their banks and beds.
Still smiling, Diego trotted onward, scanning his surroundings as he moved. He could count on Aquila to help him, he knew, so all he had to do was find the girl. He hoped she didn’t take the news of her half-sister’s disappearance too hard, though, she always had been soft-hearted, and quick to worry about those she loved.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:41 am
There, on the bed, was what she was looking for. She didn’t know what it was called, but the long, wavy, weedy, grassy and slightly slimy stuff was one of her favorites. The reason she didn’t know what it was called, Aquila decided, was because nobody else she had ever met would put it in their mouth even if they were paid to do so. Well, the purple-maned mare grinned, their loss and all the more for her.
Chuckling internally, the small Jala took a deep breath and plunged her head into the river.
Impaired by the water though her vision was, Aquila was still able to pick out to patch of green that was her target, and therefore to close her teeth about it and give a good yank. The stuff, whatever it was, came away from the bed easily enough, and the gold-bodied mare grinned around her prize as she lifted her head back above the surface and snorted water out of her nose.
This done, the stocky creature set about chewing away at the green-slimy-yummy stuff that definitely needed a name. Perhaps she ought to give it one herself until she knew what it was properly named. Smiling to herself at the prospect, Aquila munched on.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:53 am
He spotted her a moment before she stuck her head into the water, and Diego grinned to himself and shook his head slightly. That was Aquila; her and her weird food choices... Had she grown? The sleek stallion trotted closer, coming to a halt on the bank just behind his daughter. Yes, he decided, she had grown, but not upwards; Aquila was looking more muscular than the last time he’d seen her, he was sure.
As the mare’s head popped back up into the air, he was quite sure of it; the line of her neck was different by a little, and this difference was only emphasized by her wet coat.
She looked well.
The blue-eyed stallion smiled fondly and cleared his throat to announce himself. “Still eating that Gods-awful stuff are you?” he asked rhetorically as his daughter started and turned about with a mouthful, yes, of that foul green stuff. He’d tried it once, because she’d been so insistent that it was the best thing ever and because she’d seemed upset that he didn’t believe her. It had taken him nearly four suns to get the taste off his tongue, and Aquila had been most apologetic, if a bit amused at the same time.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:04 am
The sound of another Nequus nearby made Aquila’s heart leap up in her chest, and the small mare whipped around as fast as the water would let her. As she laid eyes on the creature that had ah-hemed, the purple-winged mare relaxed, grinned and waded to the bank, which she scrambled up in short order. Once she had finished her mouthful, the gold-eyed mare gave herself a good shake off, which extracted a cry of mock-disgust from her sire, and grinned again.
“Yes,” the small Jala chuckled, trotting over to the sleek stallion before her and rubbing her face against his, “still eating it. Are you still tasting it?”
...Humm. This was a bit odd. What was her father doing out of his father’s herdlands, and how had he come by her? Mere coincidence seemed unlikely, but Aquila was glad to see the elder Jala a little sooner than she otherwise would have, and decided to let the issue slide until they’d caught up a little; the blue-eyed stallion might even explain the reason for his presence himself. No sense rushing to ask and looking as though she wasn’t glad he was here or something.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:16 am
Diego laughed a little and shook his head before returning his daughter’s affectionate nudging. “No, not quite,” he chuckled, drawing back, “but the memory remains strong. Not a chance I’m ever trying something solely on your advice again.”
He probably would if she really wanted him to, though. He never had been all that good at refusing his children things like that. Discipline, yes; refusing to play, or try something, or help them with something, most emphatically no. Between the first six of them and their mother, Diego considered with a slight smile, they had made a big softy of him.
“So,” the sleekly-made Jala stepped back a little so as to converse more easily, “you look well; are you?” Physically, obviously, he could see, but he always worried about his children when he wasn’t around them. Were they lonely? Were they sad? Lost? Had they tried something important to them, and failed? Not having day to day contact with his offspring was not something Diego relished in the least. True it gave him more time to himself, more privacy and everything but not knowing if they were alright or not tended to be a weight on his mind, albeit a small one.
Usually a small one.
His half-dozen he had learned not to worry too much for; they were all adults after all and capable of looking after themselves but Sekhmet was different. Sekhmet was a foal, should still be with her mother and himself. Certainly she shouldn’t be out fending for herself, if she was out there alive somewhere. No. She had to be. Of course she was alive somewhere. She was a smart girl. She was fine. She had to be fine.
The smile faded away from Diego’s face at this depressing avenue of thought, and the golden stallion heaved a heavy sigh. He was not looking forward to telling Aquila about this mess.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:24 am
Aquila smiled and nodded her head. “Yes, I’m fine...” The smile on her father’s face had faded. She’d seldom seen him look so distantly lost and worried. The small mare gave a whicker of concern and stepped close enough to give her father’s cheek a nudge. “Are you?” she asked quietly, stepping back once more to regard her sire carefully. “You look... Worried.”
He did. What could be on his mind? Was that why he was here? Had he been looking for her to tell her something awful? Suddenly rather worried herself, Aquila shuffled her wings uncomfortably and waited for Diego to reply.
Surely if it was anything truly horrible he wouldn’t have greeted her with smiles, he would’ve got straight to telling her... So maybe it was something only slightly awful? She hoped so, hoped that nothing bad had happened to her family, or to the herd or to anything that might be important to herself or her father...
Yet something had to be amiss, and not something tiny and niggling. A moderate-sized worry or disaster at the very least.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:44 am
Diego sighed and sagged, shaking his head slightly. He’d hoped to put of telling her for just a little longer, but though she didn’t share his intellect Aquila certainly had people sense, and lying to her to trying to hide the truth from her was pretty pointless. It only pissed her off.
“It’s Sekhmet,” the gold stallion said after a moment, “she went missing a while ago without the slightest bit of warning. I’ve been searching for what feels like forever now, and I’ve not heard even a rumor of her passing by anywhere I’ve been so far, and I’ve covered a lot of ground. She seems to have disappeared off the face of Urin and I was looking for you because I,” the stallion shrugged his wings miserably, “well, I hoped that you’d be able to help.”
He knew she would, of course, refusing would be so out of keeping with her character that he’d be left who’d stolen his stocky daughter’s body... Still though, he hadn’t wanted to phrase it as an order, or a forgone conclusion. If Aquila didn’t feel that she had a choice in the matter, it wouldn’t be fair; he knew she liked to feel she had choices even when there was only one thing she could possibly do in the end.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:05 am
Aquila felt sick worry creep into the pit of her belly and slowly spread through her whole being as her father spoke. Sekhmet. Skinny little thing she was, and though she had enough sense for twelve normal foals, she was also brave almost to the point of stupidity. When she was scared, she tended to approach the thing that was scaring her unless it was obviously insane to do so. How would that turn out in the real world? It was impossible to say.
“Of course I’ll help look!” Aquila exclaimed after a few moments of worried silence. “Can’t stand the idea of her being out in the world all by herself... Do you have any idea at all why she vanished?” She couldn’t imagine the black filly wanting to run away from home, she doted so on her siblings and parents, so had she been taken by somebody? Why would anyone want to? A hostage, perhaps, or was somebody who Diego had wronged in the past out for a bit of vengeance? Perhaps she had even been captured to become a trophy mare; with her slender build and striking markings she would certainly be a seen by many stallions as a prize once she was grown...
Yet horrible as all of those options were they were better than the possibility that she had somehow met an unpleasant end. She could have fallen into a river and drowned, her small form washed away downstream never to be found. She could have been attacked and killed by a Nequus of evil temperament; her remains could be carefully hidden even within the herdlands. She might’ve fallen into a ditch somewhere out of the way and broken a leg, starved to death, or died of thirst.
Aquila shuddered and pushed such thoughts as far to the back of her mind as she could. There was no point dwelling on what might have happened; right now all her energies needed to be put into looking for her half sister... Who was looking after her other half siblings?
If Diego was out here, perhaps Bastet had gone off looking too. Doubtless somebody would be watching the remaining two foals but nevertheless, the purple-winged mare couldn’t shake the feeling that her father ought to return to his father’s lands and let other people search. The very idea would doubtless infuriate him, but she was still going to have to mention it now she’d thought of it. If she didn’t, it would be a stain on her conscience forever and that was the last thing she wanted.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:22 am
Diego smiled wanly at his daughter’s offer and then shook his head to her other words. “No,” he elaborated, “we’ve no idea at all how or why she left... Makes it that much harder to look, we don’t even know which border she left across.” Even the couple of Nequus in the herd who were good trackers didn’t know. It had rained heavily the day she’d been found to be missing, and foal tracks weren’t exactly uncommon in any case. She could’ve gone anywhere. Anywhere.
“Thank you, though,” the blue-eyed stallion thought to say after a moment of silence, “even one more person on the hunt is a big help...” Well, it was. It didn’t make the odds of finding Sekhmet good but it did make them better, and Aquila might even be able to urge her friends into helping or something. So. Him, Bastet on and off, the Aeri Lucius and anyone he’d found to join in, Aquila... Was that it? It certainly seemed that way. Great.
“So ah... Would you like to drop in and visit the herd?” Who knew, word of Sekhmet’s whereabouts might have made it there somehow, and he felt the need of even one day’s break from his searching. Bastet probably wasn’t expecting to see him at all until summer, but given how well they’d got on when she’d sought him out in D’ob he doubted she’d be peeved to see him sooner.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:27 am
Well, that sounded like a perfect opportunity to make him go back to his duties within the herd. Beginning to think that she’d inherited some of her sire’s deviousness after all, Aquila gave a weak smile and nodded. “Yes, I’d like that... I was coming to visit you all anyway so yes, let’s.”
So saying, the purple-winged mare set off in the direction she’d been heading before pausing for her snack at an easy trot. As her father set off beside her, the gold-eyed Jala set her mind to finding a way to persuade the sleek stallion that he needed to stay home rather than seeking Sekhmet any longer. It was not, the mare realized with a glance at her sire’s grim features, going to be an easy task.
*****
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:43 am
“Hey there,” the striped mare said with a slight smile as both she and the other Jala came to a halt. “How are you both?” Probably a silly question, but hey, she had to ask it anyway and there was always hope that they weren’t miserable over the whole thing. She hated it when people got upset over Sekhmet, she really did, but she couldn’t very well do anything about it, especially this long after the filly’s disappearance.
Letting people know she’d known all along now would most certainly get her kicked in the face by Aquila, and might even earn her a booting from her mate, and given that he’d proved himself be a better fighter than she herself was, that was about the last thing she wanted.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:53 am
Diego returned the smile and shrugged. “Been better, been worse. Managed to find Aquila, as you see, but no luck on other matters yet.”
He didn’t need to state what those other matters were; it was pretty damn obvious. It seemed, too, that his faint hope that Bastet might have had news of their daughter was squashed as well; he was sure that if she had heard anything she would have told him right away rather than asking how she was.
Bastet wasn’t really one for teasing or keeping you in suspense, especially not over important things. Still, right then, he almost wished that she was. He’d wish almost anything right now if it would give him even a whiff of a clue about where Sekhmet was, and whether or not she was alright.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:05 pm
Aquila smiled at her father’s annoyingly pretty new mate, how did Bastet manage to make muscle look beautiful?, and nodded. “Yes, I’m okay thank you. Worried about Sekhmet, but okay.” She was a little worried, though concerned would probably be a better word, about how she was going to get Diego to stay put rather than going off to hunt again. The day and a half it had taken them to get from where they’d met to here had not resulted in any great flashes of inspiration.
Aquila was beginning to suspect, in fact, that she’d have to somehow get Bastet in on this one, and if possible without her father knowing that he was being ganged up on. Although given her sire’s sharp mind, that last hopefully didn’t exactly have great odds on it.
Oh well, she’d just have to do her best and hope that if he did catch on that there was a united front against him, assuming of course Bastet did help her try to persuade him, it would cow him into going along with them rather than annoy him and make him more likely to resist.
“How are you by the way?” the gold-coated mare thought to ask after a moment, running her eyes over the larger mare as she spoke. Yes, Aquila decided with an internal scowl as she took in the tall Jala once more, life was definitely unfair. Why didn’t her backside look like that... and this was definitely not the time to be going on a jealousy trip over long silky mane and tail, elegant yet strong legs, smoothly curving body...
Damn.
Too late.
Jealousy trip in full swing when she really ought to be thinking of other things. Still, maybe it was good to have her mind taken off said other things for a little while, even if the replacement thoughts were grumpy and seething things.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:21 pm
Bastet made a vague noise in the back of her throat and shrugged. “Not bad thank you, worried too but doing okay. Everyone else is pretty much the same, too. I’ve not heard anything yet, but I have been putting the word to travelers who come by, and going out of the herdlands for a day or a couple of days myself when there’s somebody free to look after Andre and Sao for me.”
Much though she loved those excursions, she didn’t like leaving her children with other people. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, not that at all, but she just felt that... Well, they were her responsibility, not their grandsire’s or the uncle’s or anyone else for that matter.
“Kinda missed you by the way, goldie,” the striped mare added after a moment with a smile to Diego. While she doubted it would get him to stop hunting, it was true and she didn’t want to spoil the beginnings of easiness and affection she had built with mate not so long ago by keeping back comments like that.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:57 pm
Diego sighed and smiled back at the tall mare. “Really? Well, I’ve sort of miss you too but... well, mostly I’ve been busy.” And tired. He was certainly looking after himself better than he had been, and that showed in the gleam that had returned to his coat, but he was still pushing himself hard. “I’m glad everyone else is okay,” the blue-eyed stallion added after a moment, “and I’m sorry that I’m not here to help you with Andre and Sao...” It couldn’t be easy, trying to keep them in order alone.
Oh they were good foals by and large, but they were still foals, foals swiftly becoming adolescents come to that. Still, if Bastet was managing then it was alright, right? ...Yet it still felt unfair to expect her to remain here and worry without being able to do much about it. Oh she’d tried to dissuade him from looking at first, but that was just because she’d thought it hopeless. He was sure that secretly she wanted to be out in the world hunting too, but she had a duty to her other two children as well as the missing one.
He did too.
He had lots of duties here that were getting harder to forget now that he was back here. His father wasn’t as young as he used to be, and until Sekhmet had disappeared he’d been doing more and more of the work. Now that he wasn’t about, presumably his sire had taken all those little odd jobs, and indeed some bigger jobs back on. Damn. Just what he hadn’t needed to realize.
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