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The little blue heron's present situation was not very comfortable. No bird liked soaked wings, not even the ones who spend their days swimming and diving or picking through the water like he did. And this heron especially did not like wet wings. In fact, he disliked discomforts of any sort, always preferring the easy life of good weather, cool water around his feet, and all the time in the world.
And as such, he was now having quite a hard time persuading himself to keep pulling the stupid branch over the forest floor.
Could he leave it here, and come back for it tomorrow, when his feathers were dry? He didn't want to be spending the night here, so far away from the heart of the forest. But did he really have to drag the branch all the way back today? If he were to go ahead for another half an hour or so, he'd feel safe. And surely noone would take a battered-looking mangrove branch during the night?
He didn't think any creatures ate mangrove branches. And even if they did - why stop to nibble on a broken-off bit, all muddy from being dragged behind the heron, when there was a whole swampfull of fresh mangrove just a while away?
Ah - that settled it, then. The little blue heron pushed the branch into a nice crevice formed by the roots of a tall, aging tree - covering it with a few leaves and some more dirt. It didn't really make the mangrove branch look less obvious - just even more dirty. But the heron was satisfied, and with a rather comical nod of his long neck, he resumed in the direction he'd chosen.
For a while he was quite pleased with himself, for having found a way out of such a tricky situation. His solution might not have seemed very genius to a smarter creature... but as most of these creatures knew, the little blue heron was not very smart. He didn't mind feeling smart, though.
So he did.
Until, little by little, he began to feel uneasy.
Still high-stepping over the roots and rocks that made up the forest floor, he twisted his long blue neck around a few times, glancing back into the shadows. The shadows, which were growing longer - strange trees that he had not seen in his favored part of the forest looking menacing now, claws against the darkening sky.
He thought of the mangrove branch, under it's blanket of dirt and leaves, and let out a nervous click - had that really been a smart choice? Who knew what was out here!
No, no, no - he's made a mistake, he realized. Spreading his now-unruly wings in panic, he turned and ran back into the shadows. No longer carefully high-stepping, he stumbled and fell - finally running into a suspiciously soft tree. He let out a high-pitched squeak, stumbling and flapping to keep himself upright -
Where did he leave that branch again?
In the high canopy of trees Margay slept, his tail drooping lazily down from the branch he was occupying as he fulfilled the stereotypical feline role. He yawned faintly, his small form rolling a bit to stretch out, paws reaching up towards the darkening sky as his biological clock began to rouse him. A low rumbling purr escaped him, before he rolled again- clear off his branch.
Now, under normal circumstances Margay wasn't one to just so wontonly fall from the sky, but unfortunately he'd forgotten that he hadn't taken to sleep in his usual branch and he thus found himself falling at an alarming rate towards the ground, backwards. As his mind caught up with his surroundings, Margay's tail flashed into actions, and in moments Margay had landed on his feet with a soft thud. He growled to himself at the foolishness of letting himself fall in the first place, before lifting a paw and beginning to lick the mud from inbetween the pads of his feet, only to stick his paw back in the mud to lick the other.
Once he realized the futility of that whole endevour, he decided that it would be best just to climb back up into the trees before making moves to clean himself, and he turned to do just that- until a sound was passed to him from the wind, and his ears flicked to catch the direction from whence it was coming better.
Margay's good eye twisted towards the bushes around him, and he crouched low, ready to pounce, and attack if it was something small and edible, or to make a mad scramble back up one of the nearby trees.
He'd lifted himself onto a slick rock with a flap of his blue wings, and was standing there on one foot, as he did when he was nervous. And he was rarely nervous, having very little in his life to be nervous about - in fact, this might very well be his first time being nervous in entire seasons... not that he was overly observant to the passing of seasons.
His neck stretched out to it's fullest, he turned his head from side to side - trying to find a tree with a little pile of sticks and leaves between it's roots. Problem was... most of them did have such piles gathered there, where the winds could not blow them out.
He let out another frustrated click - then jumped backwards as he saw something hurtle down from the treetops - making surprisingly little sound as it fell. It was quite a distance away, whatever it was... but in the still, quiet darkness the little blue heron could swear he saw a low, slender figure... an animal certainly, but which sort he could not tell.
You'd be a fool, to run towards a strange shape in the darkness.
And the little blue heron was indeed a fool. And he was desperate - he needed to find his branch. This creature, it had been in the trees - you could see a lot, from the trees. Perhaps it knew?
He lifted his wings slightly as he made his way towards the shape at the foot of the tree. Not usually one for conversation, he tried his best to gather up some form of greeting in his panic.
The best he could muster, however, as he stopped some distance away, his head bobbing anxiously - was a rather strange-sounding:
"Hello! It is dark."
Margay's sharp eyes watched the strange creature bop before him, and he tilted his head. He couldn't recall seeing a bird quite like this one at night, and he might've pounced on the other, had Heron's long beak not looked so threatening to the small cat.
Margay stood up from his hunched position, keeping a wary eye on the other.
Well. He didn't seem threatening...
In fact, he really didn't seem very smart at all. After all, if Margay hadn't seen a bird like him before that meant that he was a day-creature, and generally day-creatures didn't see in the dark very well (or at least, that's what Margay believed). So the bird musn't have been very smart at all, since it was coming towards him.
Either that or it was entirely unthreatened by any prescence because of that long, eye-gouging beak of it's.
Hmm.
Margay pondered over this for some moments, before the other's voice startled him out of his thoughts, and tipped the scales in Margay's head towards the answer to his questions.
Turned out the silly bird was indeed just that.
"It's generally dark when it's night out," Margay replied, rolling his eyes despite trying his best not to, "It's what happens when the lion's eye closes and the Pantheress opens her own to watch us all,"
Margay had been taught as a young cub that their was a mother pantheress who watched over them from the heavens, and that during the day her brother, a mighty lion took his turn watching out for the creatures of the planet. It was also said that the two only had two eyes between them because of past quarrels, and fueds over day and night. But margay-beliefs were not currently the topic, and thus Margay didn't explain any of this to the little blue heron.
The heron's wings fluttered a bit more as he waited for a response to his statement. Had he spent more time conversing with other creatures, he would have learned that a statement did not always warrant a response - being, of course, a statement and not a question. Bot all he really knew of conversation was that you said something, and something was said in return -
He's said something. But the shadowed creature's words-in-return were almost as irrelevant to his ears as his statement had been to the night, which was always dark and did not care.
"A pantheress? Where?" His head turned side to side on it's long neck - he had a vague idea of what a panther looked like, all sleek and black and predatory. A night-creature. But everything around him looked black and predatory, albeit not always sleek.
This being before him, though - he was sleek and predatory. A night-creature, too. And so the little blue heron, with the little power of reasoning he had, decided that if he said there was a pantheress there must be one, somewhere. And if she was watching everything, as the cat had said -
"Well this pantheress, if she is so intent on making things dark and watching them, has she seen something of mine? I lost a branch, today - I left it for a bit, but when I came back I could not find the place where I left it. But it is quite important that I get this branch back!"
He watched the creature, almost as if he expected him to call out to the supposed pantheress, and relay his question regarding a misplaced branch.
And as such, he was now having quite a hard time persuading himself to keep pulling the stupid branch over the forest floor.
Could he leave it here, and come back for it tomorrow, when his feathers were dry? He didn't want to be spending the night here, so far away from the heart of the forest. But did he really have to drag the branch all the way back today? If he were to go ahead for another half an hour or so, he'd feel safe. And surely noone would take a battered-looking mangrove branch during the night?
He didn't think any creatures ate mangrove branches. And even if they did - why stop to nibble on a broken-off bit, all muddy from being dragged behind the heron, when there was a whole swampfull of fresh mangrove just a while away?
Ah - that settled it, then. The little blue heron pushed the branch into a nice crevice formed by the roots of a tall, aging tree - covering it with a few leaves and some more dirt. It didn't really make the mangrove branch look less obvious - just even more dirty. But the heron was satisfied, and with a rather comical nod of his long neck, he resumed in the direction he'd chosen.
For a while he was quite pleased with himself, for having found a way out of such a tricky situation. His solution might not have seemed very genius to a smarter creature... but as most of these creatures knew, the little blue heron was not very smart. He didn't mind feeling smart, though.
So he did.
Until, little by little, he began to feel uneasy.
Still high-stepping over the roots and rocks that made up the forest floor, he twisted his long blue neck around a few times, glancing back into the shadows. The shadows, which were growing longer - strange trees that he had not seen in his favored part of the forest looking menacing now, claws against the darkening sky.
He thought of the mangrove branch, under it's blanket of dirt and leaves, and let out a nervous click - had that really been a smart choice? Who knew what was out here!
No, no, no - he's made a mistake, he realized. Spreading his now-unruly wings in panic, he turned and ran back into the shadows. No longer carefully high-stepping, he stumbled and fell - finally running into a suspiciously soft tree. He let out a high-pitched squeak, stumbling and flapping to keep himself upright -
Where did he leave that branch again?
In the high canopy of trees Margay slept, his tail drooping lazily down from the branch he was occupying as he fulfilled the stereotypical feline role. He yawned faintly, his small form rolling a bit to stretch out, paws reaching up towards the darkening sky as his biological clock began to rouse him. A low rumbling purr escaped him, before he rolled again- clear off his branch.
Now, under normal circumstances Margay wasn't one to just so wontonly fall from the sky, but unfortunately he'd forgotten that he hadn't taken to sleep in his usual branch and he thus found himself falling at an alarming rate towards the ground, backwards. As his mind caught up with his surroundings, Margay's tail flashed into actions, and in moments Margay had landed on his feet with a soft thud. He growled to himself at the foolishness of letting himself fall in the first place, before lifting a paw and beginning to lick the mud from inbetween the pads of his feet, only to stick his paw back in the mud to lick the other.
Once he realized the futility of that whole endevour, he decided that it would be best just to climb back up into the trees before making moves to clean himself, and he turned to do just that- until a sound was passed to him from the wind, and his ears flicked to catch the direction from whence it was coming better.
Margay's good eye twisted towards the bushes around him, and he crouched low, ready to pounce, and attack if it was something small and edible, or to make a mad scramble back up one of the nearby trees.
He'd lifted himself onto a slick rock with a flap of his blue wings, and was standing there on one foot, as he did when he was nervous. And he was rarely nervous, having very little in his life to be nervous about - in fact, this might very well be his first time being nervous in entire seasons... not that he was overly observant to the passing of seasons.
His neck stretched out to it's fullest, he turned his head from side to side - trying to find a tree with a little pile of sticks and leaves between it's roots. Problem was... most of them did have such piles gathered there, where the winds could not blow them out.
He let out another frustrated click - then jumped backwards as he saw something hurtle down from the treetops - making surprisingly little sound as it fell. It was quite a distance away, whatever it was... but in the still, quiet darkness the little blue heron could swear he saw a low, slender figure... an animal certainly, but which sort he could not tell.
You'd be a fool, to run towards a strange shape in the darkness.
And the little blue heron was indeed a fool. And he was desperate - he needed to find his branch. This creature, it had been in the trees - you could see a lot, from the trees. Perhaps it knew?
He lifted his wings slightly as he made his way towards the shape at the foot of the tree. Not usually one for conversation, he tried his best to gather up some form of greeting in his panic.
The best he could muster, however, as he stopped some distance away, his head bobbing anxiously - was a rather strange-sounding:
"Hello! It is dark."
Margay's sharp eyes watched the strange creature bop before him, and he tilted his head. He couldn't recall seeing a bird quite like this one at night, and he might've pounced on the other, had Heron's long beak not looked so threatening to the small cat.
Margay stood up from his hunched position, keeping a wary eye on the other.
Well. He didn't seem threatening...
In fact, he really didn't seem very smart at all. After all, if Margay hadn't seen a bird like him before that meant that he was a day-creature, and generally day-creatures didn't see in the dark very well (or at least, that's what Margay believed). So the bird musn't have been very smart at all, since it was coming towards him.
Either that or it was entirely unthreatened by any prescence because of that long, eye-gouging beak of it's.
Hmm.
Margay pondered over this for some moments, before the other's voice startled him out of his thoughts, and tipped the scales in Margay's head towards the answer to his questions.
Turned out the silly bird was indeed just that.
"It's generally dark when it's night out," Margay replied, rolling his eyes despite trying his best not to, "It's what happens when the lion's eye closes and the Pantheress opens her own to watch us all,"
Margay had been taught as a young cub that their was a mother pantheress who watched over them from the heavens, and that during the day her brother, a mighty lion took his turn watching out for the creatures of the planet. It was also said that the two only had two eyes between them because of past quarrels, and fueds over day and night. But margay-beliefs were not currently the topic, and thus Margay didn't explain any of this to the little blue heron.
The heron's wings fluttered a bit more as he waited for a response to his statement. Had he spent more time conversing with other creatures, he would have learned that a statement did not always warrant a response - being, of course, a statement and not a question. Bot all he really knew of conversation was that you said something, and something was said in return -
He's said something. But the shadowed creature's words-in-return were almost as irrelevant to his ears as his statement had been to the night, which was always dark and did not care.
"A pantheress? Where?" His head turned side to side on it's long neck - he had a vague idea of what a panther looked like, all sleek and black and predatory. A night-creature. But everything around him looked black and predatory, albeit not always sleek.
This being before him, though - he was sleek and predatory. A night-creature, too. And so the little blue heron, with the little power of reasoning he had, decided that if he said there was a pantheress there must be one, somewhere. And if she was watching everything, as the cat had said -
"Well this pantheress, if she is so intent on making things dark and watching them, has she seen something of mine? I lost a branch, today - I left it for a bit, but when I came back I could not find the place where I left it. But it is quite important that I get this branch back!"
He watched the creature, almost as if he expected him to call out to the supposed pantheress, and relay his question regarding a misplaced branch.
