Gypsy ran back towards the Spire in a hurry. She looked around and realised that nobody else was with her. For a long moment, she was confused and became worried. Was she doing something wrong in this race? How come nobody was at the Spire again? It did not cross her mind for a while that she was actually winning the entire thing. She stood around at the spire worriedly with her stone in her beak, unsure of what was happening. Surely, she couldn’t actually be in the lead? It was only when she saw Mongo head towards her that she realised she was in fact in the lead, and that she had wasted precious time being absolutely silly. ‘Oh bummer!’ "Gypsy speaks" 'Gypsy thinks'

The baby llama slumped forward in dejection when the weird white and black bird flew off out of range and yelled at her with his annoying, screeching voice. Great, now she didn’t have a target to spit on for fun. Braying loudly, she tried to get on her hooves for the first time. She stumbled clumsily, but she eventually managed. The crowd’s cheering was too loud and hurt her head. She wanted to get away. Shaking herself, the white llama walked out of the obstacle course area. She couldn’t even see what was happening because of the crowd, not that she cared much. She supposed she should simply explore this place to see where she was and analyze what kind of other creatures there were. No beautiful ones, she hoped. "Boo Speaks" 'Boo thinks'

//exit Boo

verve in his heart and the sheer will of determination ringing through him, Howl furiously dug through the stones, no longer bothering to throw useless stones behind him for the competition to sift through again. Honestly, anything would work at this point. "Ah-hah!" He crowed excitedly as he palmed a stone with red painted upon it, stuffing it in his mouth. Snatching up a stick between his teeth, he scampered away to the Spire. As he took off, he hollered behind him, "hah funh diggin' thrugh dirh!" Well, to the best of his ability, considering he had a rock the size of his mouth in his mouth.

When Bremen finally reached the riverside he swooped down to grab one of the many branches that were scattered about, snatching it up from a pile with his strong beak and landing on the ground a short ways away. The stick was a lot heavier than he thought it might be, but that was a good thing! This way it wouldn't break on him while he tried using it to knock rocks out of the way. Hitting rocks with his horn would probably hurt after a while and digging through by hand would mean he couldn't scooch some of the bigger rocks out of the way.

Once more the small hybrid trilled, feeling pretty smart for coming up with his super winning strategy.

"Rock." Bremen chirped at himself through the held stick as he wedged it into a nearby pile and unsettled a rock about as big as he was. "Rocks." he repeated, digging a couple of smaller ones out from the top.

"Red rock!" he exclaimed as a flash of red poked out from the pile, prompting him to dive forward and claw around until he had unearthed it. "No, not the right red rock. Just a ruby."

This search was hard! Lots more gembound were wandering about too, and a decent number had found red marked rocks by now. Just as the hybrid was about to move to another pile he happened to knock a yellow rock out of the way and saw a rounded rock with a red x mark on it. Perfect!

The rock looked like it would be small enough for him to carry in his beak, but to do that he'd have to drop his stick. He liked his stick. Stick would be useful for when he got back to the spire. Perhaps he could roll the required red rock?

Placing his stick down for a second Bremen grasped the rock and flung it up and away from the shore onto flat ground, immediately claiming the branch again and chasing after the projectile in a catlike manner.

Bonk!

The rock rolled a bit farther as Bremen thwacked it with his stick and sent it flying a few feet farther. Giddy laughter filled the air as this action repeated several times and echoed into the distance; the childish gembound making his way back to the spire with stick and stone.

---

’Thinking... thinking... thinking…’
"This is my voice, isn't it neat?"
Tags:

She had lost so much time trying to work out what was going on, she was starting to fall behind. Others were at the spire now, and Gypsy’s nerves rose. She suddenly couldn’t remember what she was even supposed to do here. She stared cross-eyed at the rock in her beak. Was it something to do with the rock? Fluffing up her feathers in dismay, she hopped anxiously on her talons as she looked around to see what the other gembounds were doing. She would just have to copy them after observing. "Gypsy speaks" 'Gypsy thinks'

Envy burrowed into the stony pile with vigour and tenacity that would impress even the steeliest of cave dwellers, and with Good reason. In their mind, this win was rightfully theirs, and they were still desperate to claim it. They would not give in, goddammit! Besides, the humiliation of admitting defeat would be even worse than that of losing! And whatever the reward was, they supposed that they could always steal it later, even if that wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.

Still, Envy urged themselves on searching on until the clatter of rocks around them grew warningly loud. The little weasel let out a shrill titter, and emerged from the pile just as it sank in on itself in what was, to Envy, an avalange of boulders almost all big enough to squash them flat. The little weasel spat with rage, and continued searching.

"speak."

Approaching the Spire once more, Howl spat out his rock for a moment to free up the stick and deposit it on the floor. Rocking back onto his haunches, he deftly maneuvered the stick so that it faced the right way and ground it into the dirt. The moment it stood up on it's own, like a strange sort of tower, Howl snatched up his rock once more and took off towards the starting point.
He was going to win this if he had anything to say about it!

Thwack!

One move big ole hit and the marked rock went clattering up to the glowy blue spire. He'd made it! Bremen pranced up to the stone with stick in beak and looked around. He was supposed to do something with the stick now... what was it?

The sight of the monkey nearby jogged his memory in a flash. Plant it! But why were they supposed to plant it? Was it supposed to grow again? If the stick became a tree then it would cover up the spire and no one from that side would be able to see it really well. Or perhaps if they surrounded it with trees then something magical would happen and they'd all grow really big and twist around and fuse with the spire and make a new mega-spire! This place did seem magical after all so that wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

The hybrid deftly plunked his stick into the solid ground below him where it stood on its end for just a second and flopped right back over. No good? Perhaps if he put it on the spire itself it would stick like a magnet. Because magic.

But alas, no matter how many times the curious little hybrid jumped up and put the sick on the side of the spire it always came tumbling back down. It was pretty fun but now his feet were all tingly from climbing on the glowy rocks.

---

’Thinking... thinking... thinking…’
"This is my voice, isn't it neat?"
Tags:

Damn, he was falling behind!

Sebastian growled low in his breath, putting more energy into his strides. His paws were starting to hurt, but he dug in his claws to propel himself forward.

Finally, he found himself near the pile of sticks and stones. The Puma set his hind claws into the ground and began to use his forepaws to dig through the heap.

Stone... stone... stick... stone... not stone... where were the red stones?! Finally, his eyes caught on something red, and he was quick to lean down, taking the marked stone in his mouth.


___________________________________________________________

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags:
notes:

The filly cantered to the large pile of sticks and stones where the majority of Gembounds still in the race seemed to be, finding herself looking for a spot with fewer GEmbounds. Thankfully, there was a fairly bare spot, and she dropped to her knees with a pained groan. Oh her legs hurt.

Using her head, she began to dig through the heaps of stones, looking for a sign of red.


"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.