TheWanderer
When asked, once, what my favorite weather was, the first answer that came to mind (other than 'sun') was wind. Wind, in all its forms, is a wonderful and awesome thing; gentle breezes tousling hair and cloth, sudden gusts sending objects and laughter flying, howling rakes that tear asunder bark and steel and concrete. Wind brings life and motion, freshening stale spaces and ripping new surfaces bare. Wind is change, and wind is excitement, and wind is adrenaline. I love wind.
We've gazed upon the cardinal star from the oldest dregs of history. Provisional visionary, the magnetic anchor, giver of navigation, orientation, reassurance, appreciation, inspiration. Polaris--aptly named; mainstay of the starway, pivot of its pinprick field, nucleus of the galactic atom as seen from the earthly lens. Unobscured by the glow of a full moon, steady in untempered light, a gift (one of many) from higher hands to marvel over under the dark of unoccupied space. Up, above, overhead. North is a rising, a calling, a beckoning, a forward motion, an upward drive. What truer north is there than the stars?
I always like watching the stretch of the thin flesh around the edges of her mouth, usually hidden by fur. Those little fangs on full display, so small and yet capable of such damage; the ridged teeth spaced out along her jaw revealed with a cavernous gape under folded cheeks. Her ears always fold flat, pulled taut along with the rest of the muscles in her face. Many a photo have I snapped in the apex of the motion to be forwarded along to friends with a loud caption. My favorite part, though, might be her whiskers. They spread like the feelers of a deep sea creature, trembling faintly with the force of the facial musculature tensing and tugging, catching light that makes them glow like the lit stripes of neon special effects on a reel of film from the eighties.
It's all over a moment later--her face snaps shut with a little scrunch, and her tongue curves over her muzzle as she notices my gaze and chirps in pleasant acknowledgement. I extend a hand, and she lifts gracefully to her paws to saunter my way with a raised tail. "Big yawn for a little girl," I croon at her as she purrs into my scritching. Cats are interesting little things, and even such a mundane motion is fascinating to watch when on a face as endearing as hers.
The grey of the plumes was mottled, heavy and thick with roiling sun-blot. The heat, unbearable earlier, had simmered enough to be traversable--though with no small measure of misery--and though the footpath was overrun with debris, the going was steady and clear.
Her steps crunched sharply through the clearing, the sound cut short by the oppressive ashen ceiling. In the uneven light, the slate skittering out from under her boots looked almost like a shifting river. If only they could be so lucky.
Bending carefully, she slipped a finger beneath a shard. Its surface was, for all she wished it weren't, beautiful--smooth-grained, sleekly patterned, reminiscent of the carved patios of the town four miles south. Its edge was sharp.
She rose to her full height, taking the piece with her, and surveyed the blackened borders of the crippled forest. With time, and care, they would recover.
It shouldn't be a surprise that it's the most common favorite color. Sky, sea, flowers, jewels--soothing, easy, comfortable, sorrowful. Endless associations, countless moods it can portray. Easily one of the most versatile colors, able to look good beside almost any other hue. No matter who you are, there is something beloved you can think of in your life that is a shade of blue. The waves that break on the shores of the glittering lake you remember visiting as a kid, the tile of the bathroom in your home that you've lived in for years, the crinkled, smiling eyes of a loved one. Blue may not be my favorite color, but it is the color of many of my favorite things, and a cherished hue I'm thankful to witness so regularly.
It's not that he'd never considered it.
Really, it'd been a desire of his for many years of his adulthood. The yearning to care, to raise, to protect--it'd settled into him early and never left. It had only escalated in recent years, after his brother had made his announcement. There was a point to which it frightened him--how easy it would be to mess it all up.
And yet, being faced with it now, looking down at the twisted expression of fresh, blood-smeared skin and new life, he found he couldn't feel anything but vast, unknowable, depthless love.
normally id write something cute but im mega tired so im here to tell yall to go play monster hunter stories 3. i loved the first two and this one isn't perfect but it's a lot of fun so far. capcom my beloved monster hunter my beloved. if this prompt is still up when i wake up later tonight i'll make a legit post hehe
This far in, not much moved beside the shimmering heat haze. The dunes were too unsteady, too tall, too barren to host life beyond the occasional lizard or passing bird. The sun blazed down from the cloudless sky, silent and burning, and the horizon grew only fuzzier the longer she tried to look at it. It was a sort of hostile serenity.
Her cart creaked as it slid across the sand. The broad, smooth runners kept it moving, but keeping it steady and upright was up to her--and soon her sister, whose sleeping snout was barely visible above the cluttered edge of the inner shelf. In an hour or two, her time would be up, and they'd swap off; for now, the responsibility was hers.
It had been a profitable run, this month. Boxes and shelves laden with trinkets, clothes and fine jewelry hanging from hooks, piles of trinkets shoved against the wooden walls. Acutely, she was glad for her magic, lightening the burden of the harness already digging into her fine scales. Any more weight, and they'd have needed to take an extra day between trips, lengthening the journey home even further. As much as they loved the road, there was nothing quite like curling up on a patch of sun-soaked stone and napping beside the hot springs with a talon or tailtip drifting in the steaming pools.
Clio smiled at the memory, eyes trailing up into the unending blue from beneath her hooded shawl. Her sister grunted softly from within the wagon. She didn't have much, not truly. But she did have. And like the lizards that skittered across the desert, it was enough.
"You have HOW many gold pieces on you?!"
Mer blinked down at her. "Is that...unusual?"
"Unu-Mer, are you an *actual* dragon? You're walking around with a small hoard in your pocket! How is that not heavy? What if you get pickpocketed?"
"I assure you, my compatriot, the weight is negligible. And if an attempt were made to do as such, I would take notice."
Vespa quirked a brow at the dragonborn beneath her hood, a faint smirk crossing her face. The expensive-looking sack jingled and clattered as she tossed it up before the white snout, caught it, brandished it before surprised golden slits. "You sure about that?"
Perhaps the sense of restriction I feel when I wear a long sleeve isn't unique. I've known this. No one singular experience can ever be truly unique, with the vastness of humanity that have walked the earth before me. But that doesn't really mean much when you find yourself an anomaly amongst the common folk of your life. Made for tugging on by a young child, for warming the flesh, for decorating the human shape, for protecting the limbs--and yet all I feel is discomfort and unease at the scratch of fabric against the gooseflesh, at the tug of the seam beneath my armpit, two sizes too big the only tolerable state of it. Sensations, maybe, are given a little too much import in my life.
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