Curiosity Killed The Canine REDUX (Open.)

[Jair]

She hadn't left yet. She was too enthralled with the new, yet strangely familiar world before her. She had taken the time to explore the Orchard and had found a suitable spot to lay upon. It was a small hill that overlooked a multitude of birthing trees in every direction. It was, in her mind, the best location to see a live birth. She had experienced birth itself, yet she had not witnessed it happening to anyone else. At the moment it was driving her crazy, Kaolin was devoting her entire existence just to see it happen. Most might find that absurd, but not her. Life intrigued her! And the masculine female wanted to witness it begin!

That wasn't to say other things were not on her mind. She had a strange feeling in her stomach, one that her mind instantly attributed to hunger. The canine's tail wagged ever so slightly when she was able to so quickly identify the sensation. It was a happy feeling being able to recognize something that you should otherwise have no knowledge of. It made you feel smarter than you really were.

Kaolin paused and looked down at her paws, curling them in and out. What made one smart? Who determined if one was more intelligent than another? Was she smart? These thoughts and many more flooded her mind as she stared down at herself. Completely oblivious to the outside world (this seemed to be a trend) she thought on. Hopefully she wouldn't miss what she so dearly wanted to see.

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Tags: @reeddragon

[Deleted]

Life was okay, River supposed. She had companions to live with, including a healer that could treat her when she injured herself during a hunt. She had a comfortable nest and plenty of prey. It seemed like she should be content. Instead, she was restless. It had been far too long since she’d set a paw outside her tribe’s territory, and she wanted to see what the world was like, so she wandered away from the plains and headed in a random direction.

Apparently, “a random direction” meant into the orchard. That was fine. She’d seen this place before, but not in ages. Maybe it’d do her some good to be among the trees again, and to see creatures smaller than herself. It would remind her of Shadow – a friend she hadn’t seen since she was quite young.

As she looked around, she noticed the pods forming on the trees. Some were very new, and others looked about ready to drop. It must be birthing season already. A rather slow one…she hadn’t scented many new creatures this year. Maybe the birthing had just started?

A fresh scent caught her attention and she tracked it through the land until she could see the source – an aboriginal canine with a vaguely similar pelt to her own. Strange… Curious now, she padded forward, keeping her footfalls heavy in an attempt to warn the canine of her presence. She didn’t like being sneaked up on, so she imagined her soon-to-be companion didn’t, either.

[Jair]

The practically newborn Canine was staring down at her paws, simply thinking. Although, it could be said nothing of what she thought was simple. In fact, for such a young pup many may think her thoughts thoughtful! Profound and intriguing. Or, perhaps they would see them as banal and trite. The things her newborn brain was pondering could very well be what every young-ling pondered. How had she been born? She already had a vague idea as she had experienced it a few hours before. But she wanted to know the specifics. Why had it been her? Was there some overarching power that had decided? Was it simply by random chance? Did she have any parents? Kaolin's mind was alight with the flame of wonder! The flame so all encompassing that her other senses were not being used and the rather large feline plodding up behind the mostly dark creature was missed.

As River came closer Kaolin contemplated her existence more. Was it possible for her to have any parents? Now, the fact that she knew what parents were was a topic for another time, but it still intrigued her nonetheless. Was the tree she was born from her parent? This led her to the whole, "how was I born?" idea again. And these ideas led to more. The rather masculine looking female finally looked up from her paws, but she was still no more aware of her surroundings than before. Looking at the trees and their birthing pods made her wonder even more about her original reason to be here, birth. Oh how badly she wanted to witness it, so badly in fact her body was physically shaking to the point of making it difficult to sit still.

The wait was killing her. She really hoped something would happen, anything really! Funny thing was, she may get her wish a bit sooner than anticipated.

[Deleted]

River continued to approach the canine, holding back a snort of annoyance when she realized that the newborn wasn’t paying attention. What if someone wanted to befriend her? Or, on the other paw, what if someone wanted to hurt her? She was making herself a very easy target and stirring up temptations that River had to force back down. She wasn’t exactly a good creature. Not internally. She had to work to suppress the urge to use her claws – something her companions never seemed to struggle with. She wished it was different. She didn’t want to be blood-crazed. She hoped that continuing to repress it or using it to fuel her hunts would make it go away, but – so far – she’d had no luck.

Finally, she was within a few steps of the creature. She stared at the canine a moment, wondering whether to speak up or prod her. The canine hadn’t picked up on audio cues so far, but she was still working to get herself back under control. Perhaps speaking was the better option now.

“Hey.” Hopefully, that would get the canine’s attention.

[Jair]

Kaolin was oblivious to the annoyance she was causing in the creature that she was also oblivious to. Something she was also unaware of was the struggle within the absconding feline. So blissfully unaware of how close the canine may have come to claws ripping through her flesh. At the moment, however, there were many things going through her mind. Some of them were mentioned earlier, some of them were not. It was hard to pinpoint any one topic or thought, it was too much of a cacophony within the dark creature's cranium. A plethora of ideas all screaming out, vying for attention, wanting to be the focus of her brain, all of them suddenly silenced by a single word uttered from the maw of a rather large cat.

Only for a moment. Just as suddenly as her mind was silenced it once again erupted in a cascade of colors and noise. These ones fundamentally different from the last. No longer was she thinking of birth, life, and her strange fountain of knowledge, now she was thinking of how to respond. Kaolin did not seem surprised by her new companion, in fact she was rather excited. The moment her brain had processed that there was another to talk to the other side of her body responded. Her tail began to wag and her stocky mouth opened in the likeness of a smile.

A small pause as she thought of what to say. "Mrr... Hellr... Hello!" It was still a bit difficult for her to speak. Her voice was low, more masculine than feminine, but still mostly androgynous. After a few moments of looking River over Kaolin noticed that the feline's coat was mostly similar to her own. Her tail wagged a bit faster in response. "Hmmr... Here for birth... Too?"

[jobie]

Gelisha:

In one of the Orchard trees near the conversing feline and canine a pod was about to break free. The cocoon like structure was large enough to have finished it's duty of growing the little one inside, and was much too heavy for the tree to keep a hold of any longer. It wiggled a moment before falling to the ground with a dull thud. It rolled to the side and split down the center. 

The aboriginal feline within was unaware of her decent to the soft green grass below until light shown through the crack in her pod. She squinted her orange eyes at the brightness while she tried to figure out what was going on. One moment she had been safe and it had been dark, but now there was a light shining in at her still sensitive eyes. She wiggled around in the warm, moist pod and saw the light grow bigger. The more she moved the more light she saw, so she kept at it until she rolled from her cocoon onto the grass. 

What she saw outside the pod was marvelous, unlike anything she could have imagined. Before there had been only dark and warmth, but out here there was light and color! From where she lay on her side she could see and feel the green grass growing from the dirt, and she could see the tall brown trunks of the Orchard trees. She flipped right side up so she lay on her stomach and looked up at the tall trees, noticing the leaves on their tops and the varying sizes of pods like hers hanging from them. The place was beautiful!

Gelisha stood up then and noticed the residue from her pod still on her. Oblivious to the canine and feline not far away, the aboriginal feline licked her fur clean from the liquid, or whatever it was. The instinct to clean herself was something the feline felt strongly to do, and once she was done she felt much better. She sent a silent 'thank you' to her instincts and stretched out her petite tabby colored body. Her movements were unsure and somewhat shaky as she learned how to control her body, but after stretching and cleaning she felt better.

She flicked her tail and inhaled with her too-large-for-her-face nose. The smells of the orchard engulfed her and she continued to be oblivious to the pair not far away, as she didn't catch on to their scents. They were there, of course, but her mind had not processed that there were other creatures aside from herself out there. She took in all the smells as if they were just the scenery, and not something she'd think to interact with. Her tail thrashed again and she blinked her eyes and tilted her head up at the tree her pod had come from. She set about thinking of it and her origin, amazed that a tree could produce a feline like her.

((OOC: Hope this is alright. And my Alters haven't been able to set up yet, so I hope this is fine.))

[Deleted]

Finally, she seemed to have caught the canine’s attention. It didn’t seem so at first – the canine hadn’t jumped or anything. But her tail wagged and she smiled. River nodded to her and sat down. She’d been on her feet for a while, so a rest was welcome.

The canine struggled out a response, and River took that to mean that she was a newborn. She was an odd newborn, with a more feminine than masculine smell but more masculine everything else. She couldn’t think of meeting anyone else that was so in-between. She supposed it didn’t matter, but it was a new experience.

The canine’s tail wagged faster and she asked if River was also there for the birth. River shook her head. “Not really, no, though I may as well watch while I’m here. I got restless and wandered off, and just happened to come to the Orchard.” She flicked her ears. “I’m guessing you’re not a newborn, then?”

As she asked the question, a sound nearby caught her attention. She looked just in time to see a pod fall, and watched as a sandy tabby feline came into the world. It was strange…she’d come into the world just like that, a long time ago. The feline seemed so small and frail to her. Had she seemed small and frail to Silva? She shivered, hoping that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t weak! Not even then! That meant this feline probably wasn’t either.

((It’s fine with me if it’s fine with Jair. ^.^ Your alter should be set up now. I went to do it earlier and saw it was already made. Let me know if it’s still not working and I’ll see what I can do.))