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Post by leavingneverland on Jun 3, 2015 4:44:59 GMT -5
Charlie weaved through trees, taking care to place his hooves very carefully on the ground, so as not to disturb anyone who might be trying to connect with their inner magic man. He knew the healers and mages trained here, that they gathered their supplies and rekindled their magic in the Silver Wood. His mother had taken him with her when he was younger in the hopes that he might follow in her hoofsteps and become a healer himself. Needless to say that didn't happen, and that wasn't why Charlie was here. In fact, he'd come 'to pray'.
Charlie wasn't a religious fanatic -- yes, he believed in unicorns. Yes, he said his prayers every night when he went to sleep, and every morning when he woke up. And yes, he did feel thankful for all they'd given him. But he didn't visit the holy spots very often, and he wasn't the sort to stop and talk to them in the middle of the day, having entire one-sided conversations like some of the more devout. So Charlie's appearance today at the forrest was a rare one.
He'd come because his mother had wanted him to help patch up the sick and injured. Charlie hated that. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to help; Charlie loved nothing more than to be considered useful. It was just... ever since the war, he wasn't so good with blood. The sight of it made him a bit queasy, and sent the earth beneath his hooves rocking back and forth a little bit. He hadn't told his mother (how could he?) and instead had been making up excuses to get as far away from her as possible. The one she loved most was 'I HAVE A DATE!' despite the fact that he never did. He'd been using that a little too often though, and it was starting to look suspicious. So he went with the next best thing: I'm gonna go pray. Because why not?
So here he was. He'd whispered a prayer to the unicorn that had lasted all of five minutes. It had started off with "Thank you for carrying me through the battle", and moved on to "bless Mum, and Dad, and Ziara, and...". Around the three minute mark, he'd run out of people to bless, so he'd just started talking: "I found a four leaf clover yesterday. It was pretty exciting." And then he ran out of things to talk about. And his prayer ended. He had no idea how people carried them on for hours and hours. He'd picked up and started heading out.
He couldn't leave yet. If his mother saw him, she'd drag him behind her, chirping gleefully all the way. So he wandered around, looking for something to entertain himself with. That's when he saw the figure, silver as the woods around her. And his heart dropped to his hooves. OH no. Nef. He'd spent his last (what was it?) thirteen years avoiding her entirely, and all that trouble led up to this? Nope. Nope nope nope. He took a few steps backwards, slow and cautious (there was a good chance she hadn't seen him yet) and when all seemed as though it was going well, that he was getting off completely scot-free, his hoof landed lightly on a twig - and it snapped. He froze. Crap.
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Post by midnitella on Jun 3, 2015 10:56:26 GMT -5
Another fruitless training session. Nefertiti Had been yet again out in the wood trying to show any sign of magical prowess, with no results. She came from a long line of mages and she was the first dud, and the only one left to boot. It destroyed her endlessly to think the great line would end with her. Her fathers nagging ringing like a distant echo in her head constantly about 'how he didnt want to be the cause of the end of the great line' since they'd been mages under the king since the time of the unicorns.
Shaking the thoughts out of her head, she paced on towards the river, now close enough to it to hear its waters lapping at the shore. It was only about midday, and the sun was just starting to lay it's heat down upon Chevalin, but Nef knew it was only going to become worse until the sun started it's decent again. Picking up her pace, she was now at a slow trot, letting her dainty hooves push her forward through the soft grass that grew in the wood.
Catching sight of something dark out of the corner of her eye, she halted to look. Noticing the contrasting dark hide against the trees, she thought it strange for someone to be out in the wood alone. Well, someone other than her. Turning slowly she started to pace over to the figure to get a better look, standing in the shade of a nearby tree. She recognized him as a son of one of the healer mages, since her father was a healer mage himself while he was alive, he made it pertinent for me to know all of his friends and their offspring. But that time had long gone and she had forgotten his name over the years of solitude and rook training.
"Excuse me? Are you alright?" She asked, her voice ringing out like bells into the air.
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Post by leavingneverland on Jun 4, 2015 3:59:00 GMT -5
That one sentence loosed him up a bit. She didn't remember him, did she? He supposed she had no reason to, considering they'd met maybe twice when they were young, and he'd spent the rest of his life avoiding her and her temper. "Uh..." he started, glancing briefly around and making note of escape routes. Just in case this got a little too awkward, as things like this tended to do. "Yes?" He hadn't meant for it to come out as a question, but his mouth rarely did as his mind told it to. "Why, do I look distressed? It's not on purpose. That's just... just my face," he told her. The words sounded ridiculous even to himself, but he hated leaving the air between them hang empty. He didn't want to present the universe with a chance to instil upon them a crushing, oppressive, endlessly awkward silence. He just couldn't form proper sentences when he was nervous. He wasn't sure why; usually he had no problem talking to anyone, but this was different. This was Nefertiti.
He grinned a little to emphasise his okay-ness - it came out lopsided and wobbly, not reassuring at all, perhaps enforcing what she probably thought already: who in the name of all things holy is this crazy babbling brute?
"Nice day, innit?" he asked, trying to lure his thoughts away from the conscious while filling the empty air between them. He could hear the birds in the branches above them filling in the gaps between their words with chirps and sad songs. "If you like sunshine. Which I do. I mean rain? Who needs it? Apart from plants. And rivers and things. Water. Ew. What are you doing?" he asked her suddenly, perhaps changing the subject a bit too brashly. He regretted the words as they came out, but that was true of at least a third of the conversations he held with strangers. He just wasn't good at the whole talking thing, not when his heart was racing and his nerves were tight as piano strings.
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Post by midnitella on Jun 4, 2015 14:06:32 GMT -5
The rush of questions surprised the mare at first, and she blinked a bit confusedly at him. Shaking her head a little and walking towards him slowly and stopping a few feet from him, she decided it best to only answer his last question. She waited a moment before answering, just in case he wanted to throw another question at her.
"I was just catching up on some training on my day off duty." Nef spoke a bit hesitantly, looking him over once more. It had been a good many years since they had last spoken, since she vaguely remembered it not going well. Her head perked a bit as she remembered him saying he didn't like water, that must have been it. She loved the water, and she tried very hard when she was younger to get everyone around her to love it as much as she. "How about you?"
She hated she couldn't remember his name, since they'd played together while they were younger, but then again so she did with many others. Pushing the thought out of ehr mind, she watched him curiously to see his answer. Assuming he would answer with a 'training' or something along the lines of it, she let one ear sit off to the side to keep an ear out for any others in the wood.
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Post by leavingneverland on Jun 5, 2015 3:19:10 GMT -5
Charlie recognised the hesitation in her voice and wondered what she could possibly be thinking about. Maybe she did remember who he was, and she was trying to cover it up. The idea made him nervous, but he shoved the urge to babble aside. (it took all his strength of will, but he did have some sense of self control. Some.) If she did remember him, she must remember their last encounter. It had practically scarred him for life. She wanted to go swimming; Charlie didn't. He was terrified of water, always had been. His sister had drowned, and his mother had filled his head with stories of demons dragging children down to the waters' murky depths. Even drinking from anything larger than a puddle sent him shaking. He was certain she'd known this about him, how self-conscious he was about it, but she'd made fun of him anyway. She'd splashed him and called him names, and he'd never forgiven her.
He broke out in hives just thinking about it, and her sweet, tinkling voice brought him back to the Silver Wood, to the here and now. He blinked at her a moment as the words processed in his head, suppressing the terror he felt when she looked at him with those big, beautiful eyes, the echoes of childhood taunts.
"Me?" he asked. It was pointless -- of course him, there was no one else around! "Avoiding my mother. Just as important as mage training. And just as crucial to the safety of the herd," he told her, trying to cover up his unease with humour. "... she makes me help sometimes," he told her by way of explanation, then put on his best mother-impression voice, a deep, throaty, haughty thing that sounded absolutely nothing like Paladium. " 'HOWLD the bahndages Cha-lie, whhhhile I stitch up this nice mahn's intestines!' Nope. No thanks."
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Post by midnitella on Jun 6, 2015 20:47:19 GMT -5
Snickering softly at his imitation of his mother, she smiled at him. "Not a fan of blood either i take it then?" She chuckled, shaking out her coat and giving a huffing snort. Her memories of him slowly coming back to her the more they talked. His tense demeanor didn't go unnoticed though, which confused her a bit. Nef had always been easy to get along with, and very rarely made an enemy, so it also surprised her. She knew she was a bit bossy at times, and almost commanding at times, but she never was cruel or unreasonable...
Except when she was younger. Her raging hormones made her into and raging brat, and she was hard to contain. Even her parents found it hard to keep her attitude at bay, which caused a good many fights. The more they seemed to want her to be one thing, the more she wanted to just do the opposite. Perhaps he too was burned by her once overly stubborn self, and thus the unease? Asking wouldn't hurt. "Are you alright? You seem tense, sweetheart."
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Post by leavingneverland on Jun 8, 2015 1:44:06 GMT -5
He laughed nervously when she asked about the blood, practically hitting the nail on the head. He gave her a shaky smile, clearly a bashful admittance to just that. "Nah, blood just doesn't do it for me anymore," he told her honestly. "Don't tell anyone though. It'll infringe upon my manliness," he added in an exaggerated whisper, only half joking. If word got back around to his mum, she'd sit down and 'have a talk' with him. He hated those talks. He already knew how it'd go: "NOW Charlie! You understand that this makes you NO less of a stallion! Many famous stallions had an aversion to blood, such as the great Toot Toot Mcbumbersnazle!" and she'd continue making up famous stallions that nobody's ever heard of because they never existed. And he'd stand there getting more and more embarrassed, blushing a deeper and deeper maroon. Urgh.
Her question caught him off guard. He'd thought he was doing a pretty good job of hiding his unease, but apparently not. But what was he supposed to tell say? 'Oh yeah! Remember when we were kids and you made fun of me for my deepest insecurity? That was fun, right?' No way in hell. He quickly fabricated something else, something just as believable as the truth. "I don't like... bees..." Yup. That'd do it. Good job Charlie.
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Post by midnitella on Jun 11, 2015 20:12:09 GMT -5
Snickering softly at his joke, she smiled warmly at the young stallion, until he did the impression of his mom. She let loose a particularly hard laugh, giving a rather cute (though she felt it to be unatractive) snort. Catching her breath, she let her smile fade into her usual look. This look was a mixture of seductive, dazzling, and curious. She didnt even know how she could pull this off, but here she was doing it ever so unconciously.
Bees? She didn't remember him being afraid of bees.
Letting the thought pass over her, her brows furrowed together. "Bees you said?" She inquired politely. "There aren't much of any bees around here, considering the trees aren't in bloom." Looking about the trees, she perked her ears up and twitched them in all directions before adding on. "It doesnt even sound like theres any bees around here at all."
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Post by leavingneverland on Jun 12, 2015 3:28:43 GMT -5
Charlie decided to roll with it. He could hardly take it back now, could he? Besides, the secret to a good lie was sticking to your story -- THIS would never be a good lie, but maybe he could make it a believable one. If he played his cards right. "Oh yeah. You know how they are; you never know they're coming till they get you in the neck. That's why they're the silent killer. Bees are." Yeah, that improved it. Before she had time to call his logic (or his facts) into question, he changed the subject. "How's the whole mage thing going, by the way?" he asked, figuring she'd have a thing or two to say about that considering her entire family was made up of mage this and mage that. Charlie's family had one mage -- his mother. She'd hoped desperately that Charlie would inherit that power, but he hadn't. She'd been a bit disappointed, but it didn't make him any less perfect in her eyes. It was getting hard for him to live up to the version of himself embedded in his mother's brain. "Have you got the whole... 'making things glow' thing down? Or the 'magic magic' with the stick thing?" he asked vaguely. "I'm not gonna lie, I know nothing about mages," he admitted. "I always kinda zoned it out when Mum started in on her lectures. Is there even a stick?"
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Post by midnitella on Jun 19, 2015 18:48:47 GMT -5
Raising a very inquisitive eyebrow at the stallion, she blinked blankly. Silent killer? Yeah okay. They buzz, not very silent if you ask me. Shaking the thought from her head, as he changed the subject a look of annoyance took over her whole body. She'd not conjured an ounce of useful magic in her entire life, no matter how much she tried. The long lectures every night and day from her prestigious father about his long line of mages, blah blah blah. She could go the rest of her life without hearing about mages or magic ever again and be a happier horse.
A smile broke through the annoyed look as she listened to him ramble about it, giving a small laugh. "Consider yourself lucky to be able to zone out to it." Nef snorted, straightening back up, making a very exaggerated impression of her father. Straightening her neck and arching with false pride, she slammed one of her front hooves on the ground in distaste, letting out a bellowing, deep, yell. "NEFERTITI! You are a shame to this family! You are bringing down a mighty magical line!" Huffing with a large amount of sarcasm. "Return to your studies AT ONCE!"
Relaxing her pose back into herself, she laughed at her own impression of her father. She thought she did it pretty good, honestly. Though most wouldn't judge since he was a deceased, well known Healer Mage, or they didn't know of him at all, so they wouldn't be able to tell anyways.
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