[Hatch] Out - Printable Version

Filth looked on in awe as the image of not one but two Prides was imparted onto its retina, fuzzy as the images may be. It craned its neck to cautiously sniff at the Pride that was not speaking.

Could I do that? There was only one way to find out. Filth shut its eyes and focused very hard on its own body, trying to- what? Was it a matter of splitting in two, or willing an entirely new body into existence?

Not that it mattered in the moment. There remained only one Filth - only one dark, ungainly foal sitting in the garden. It made a little sigh of disappointment.

"I can not do that," it concluded. It's magic must be something else. It racked its fresh brain for unusual things that had happened in the short time since its hatching, which was a little difficult, as its hatching had only just happened.

But Pride was older and wiser, and yet there was one thing that had seemed to confuse the stag.

"If I try very hard, though," it began, hesitating as it pondered how to explain, "Everyone has this thing inside them. A living thing that goes-" It untangled its legs to stand up and stomped its front hooves a few times, tha-thump, imitating a heartbeat. "-Like that. If I try very hard I can hear it, or maybe feel it, even though it's inside people. Is that magic?"

Pride listened, ears flicking as he thought about this. The clack-clack of hooves in and of itself told him little, but something about the rhythm rang familiar.

He held the sound in his mind, brow tensed and body still as he struggled to place it.

"A heartbeat!" he blurted, rather abruptly, as he realized. Then he remembered his dignity. "You're hearing--or sensing--heartbeats. I wonder, can you try it now? You said you can hear it if you try very hard-? I might be able to sense the magic that you cast--and I'm fairly certain that it is magic, yes--and tell you what sort it is," he explained, thoughtful.

Preemptively, he reached out his mind, a glimmer of his own magic awakening and extending into the area around him--ready to be plucked like the strings of a violin, by whichever magical vibrations might be sent his way.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

"I will try," said Filth, and did so, lifting its head high. It should not be so difficult, it thought; Pride's heart was right there.

Its ears swiveled to and fro as it tried to make sense of the sounds. The picture was clear, this time, far from the tempest of noise that its first attempt had produced. There was Pride, indeed, next to it, bigger and slower. Filth wondered briefly what it would feel like to be twice that size once it was grown. Would it be taller than Vivilene? That was a little exciting.

"I can hear them now," it said, tilting its head slightly towards the stag. "There's mine, and yours, and I think I can hear Vivilene going away, and then there are a lot of very small and almost quiet things flying between the plants. I can't hear the plants, though," it said with a hint of dismay, and it occurred to the foal to wonder, "Do penches and berries not have hearts?"

The magic cast was powerful, despite it being of a lower-level. Or rather: not powerful, but beautifully refined. It might have been skill, or luck--Pride knew magic was fickle that way--but he appreciated Filth's work nonetheless.

"A good, strong cast," he said, his tone one of approval or maybe even admiration. Then he almost flinched at the mention of... penches. "Peaches," he corrected automatically, "No. Plants do not have hearts. At least, none that I have seen." There were stranger things about; maybe he'd just missed them. Maybe they had hearts after all, quietly pumping sap throughout their roots. "But your magic is... Hmm." He didn't know the names of elements. He was self-taught, and had in fact mixed up his own; Pride considered himself a master of "magic of the mind," unaware that he was skilled and focused both in Energy and Arcane. Take the two together, and he thought of that as "the mind." And Filth's magic-? "I think your magic is of the body, where mine is of the mind. It... senses and alters things about our physical forms. And controls them." He hesitated briefly; he knew one spell in that vein (ha), and it was not a pleasant one. "I know one piece of that magic. I can control another's body, for a time." He didn't offer to demonstrate. It tended to be distressing to the victim; Filth was just a child.

Nor did Pride have a lot of specifics. He knew generally what the magic did. But individual spells, exact details? It wasn't his field of expertise, much as he tried to learn all he could.

"Things like sensing others, enhancing your own body, controlling others-... Hmm. I don't think I know anyone who specializes in it." Otherwise, he might have suggested a teacher for Filth. Then he brightened, doing his best to be encouraging. "Perhaps you'll be the first."

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

"Peaches," Filth repeated slowly, memorizing the word. It thought penches sounded better, but resigned itself to the likely fact that Pride, as a grandfather who knew lots of things, was right.

It looked out over the garden, gaze following the tiny, diaphanous things fluttering about, as best it could. Some of them were colourful enough to spot even from a distance. They had to be alive, despite being so small; they did have hearts of a fashion, even if they did not sound much like Filth's or Pride's. Filth was suddenly acutely aware of one such creature playing passenger on its own body, tiny legs skittering on the fur of its forehead. Did the bug feel it too? Did it think and hear? What other creatures might be out there to discover?

"I will," it resolved, emboldened by Pride's praise, standing up straight and square with its narrow chest thrust out and for once looking something like a horse ought. "I'm going to learn all about bodies, and sensing, and physical things. I'm going to sense all the things. And then I'll come back here, and tell you all about it!"

It began to bound across the garden with stumbling determination, stopping to sniff at every critter along the way.

Pride turned, following Filth with his eyes. "I will hold you to that," he said, with gentle humor.

He watched it frolic--if one could call it that. Bounding about and sniffing everything. And he wondered. Where had Vivilene found this one-? Why was it determined to call itself such a terrible name? It reminded him of someone, to be sure. A black horse he had known, once slicked with disease, who had tried to spread it to put an end to things.

Was this another incarnation of the same? There'd been others besides Khloros, too, though he hadn't known them: the shambling equine horror that had been Tsetse. The monstrosity known as Pickles. Maybe some force beyond the caves kept sending diseased horses to it. Though... Filth was not exactly diseased, despite the name.

Magic of the body, hm?

What could be done with that..?

Well. All else aside, and purpose aside--it's in good hands with Vivilene.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave