Prompt Opportunity 02

[Prompter]

PROMPT THREAD

SITUATION

Excessive driftwood has stopped up the river, causing a halt in the flow. Many plants that thrive from the river water have dried and numerous lesser animals have moved elsewhere. The beauty of the River Garden is on the decline, and the debris at the focal point of this descent is heavy and difficult to remove.

CHARACTERS

Three characters are involved, posting a minimum of six times.

PRIZE

Thirty five EXP to all participants.

[alehue]

arya loved the river garden; it was probably the most beautiful place in this world she had been placed in – not to mention, this was her home, the home of the group she and apani had originated together. it seemed to the canine like the cult had become the centre of her life – for indeed, it was the centre of her life. anyone and everyone she had met had been part of the cult, or soon became part of it. so, on the glorious day that she was presented with today, arya decided to take some time away from the cult, and enjoy her life. the blue tapestry that was set above her head held no clouds, not a single thing obscuring the flawless canvas above her.

the canine was padding along the riverbed, her eyes half-closed as she tried to focus on the absolute perfection of the morning, when she finally realize that something was missing. the normal lulling noises of the water, the crashing against the high riverbed, the gurgling as it passed through shallow patches, riddled with stones… it was not there. opening her onyx orbs fully, arya turned towards the riverbed, only to find…no water was there. she needed to find out why.

[mysteryfaith]

Apani's legs ached; after a long, tiring run, she was ready to return to the hub of the Cult and relax, letting the less advanced members bring prey to her paw. With a sigh, she turned towards the den of her beloved group, expecting everything around her to be just as she had left it. However, she had a sudden sensation that it was not - that something here had changed in the time it had taken her to run around the territory. Admittedly, she wasn't a fast runner, but what could have changed in the space of a few hours?

The air? She drew in a deep breath, opening her mouth to let the scents invade her jaws; no, that tasted just the same as it had before, without the metallic tang of blood or the distinct stench of pollution. The ground? Apani prodded it with a hesitant, feline paw; it didn't crack beneath her weight, and had seemed perfectly fine before now, so she assumed nothing had changed. The noises in her ears? She flicked them once, twice, three times - yes, something was missing there.

The birdsong was exactly as it had been before - those same, annoying little creatures who flitted overhead were just as irritating as they had been before she left. The water was - no, wait. The cool, refreshing sounds of water were not there; disappeared, gone, they were no more. With a hesitant sniff, she realised that she had missed the most obvious thing about the River Garden - the scent of the river.

Swiftly, the feline trotted towards the riverside, pushing through undergrowth and sand with a hue not dissimilar to her own pelt colour, forcing herself to face what she might find unpleasant. The river was a constant source of comfort to her; could it have just . . . disappeared? No, no! This was all wrong. This was not good.

Apani reached the bank, and realised with a sickening jolt in her belly that before her was not a proud, powerful river, but a massive trench of dried mud. It made her nauseous to look down at an empty space that once matched the colour of her pretty blue eyes; now, it was more like the golden colour of her pelt.

This can't be true! Desperately, she threw herself down the edge of the river, paws pounding against the almost vertical slope of the riverbed until she stood on the vast expanse of hard rock where water would once have stood. The floor didn't even feel damp - how long had she been ignoring this river, taking it for granted without actually realising it was gone? More than a day, for sure; this couldn't have happened in just a day. But how?

Apani looked towards the bank, and noticed Arya, her fellow Cult leader. Relief flooded through her; perhaps the canine could help in some way. Maybe she had the answer. Apani threw herself back up the edge of the river, trying to reach the bank - but to her dismay, she found herself slipping back down on to the dry riverbed. The slope was too steep for her to climb back up - so it looked like until the water came back, she was stuck here.

"Arya!" called the feline, her long, fluffy tail swishing with fury. "Arya - what happened to the river? Where did it go?"

[crumblebread]

Yamir wasn't one who liked to admit to any type of weakness, even when it had him on his last leg. But it didn't stop him from being any less thirsty. After several hours of high-maintenance friends and his own fair share of unwanted running, he ended up with a throat dry as bone and sore paw pads. What he was searching for, of course, was some water. Anything - a pond, a stream, a lake - literally any type of good news that he could bring back to the others. But as he slipped through fronds and smooth, rain worn brush, he saw a riverbed.

That was the problem. That's all he saw. Just the riverbed; there was no water flowing through it. Fantastic, really. His head rose and his eyes strained for metres ahead, but all he got was more dirt. 'I love to start off the day dehydrated.' Gingerly he hopped into the riverbed, paws pressing hopefully, yet it wasn't even moist. There weren't any trickles of river hesitant to pass on and continue. Besides the trill of the birds and scrape of dirt ahead, there was absolutely nothing for him here. His heart lurched to the bottom of his stomach, a sort of sensation he hoped would not make a repeat appearance anytime soon. He drew himself further up the bed, searching for any sign of rushing water.

As he trekked on, he heard that same scratch of dirt, and - voices? Interest piqued and fur raised, he scrabbled up with some difficulty to the bank of the river and craned his neck for the sight of any other creatures. Well, he saw one blurred shape far ahead, but it didn't look like the voice he'd heard matched the body. Were there two? Perhaps one further up, still in the riverbed? Cautiously, he slunk forward, trying to look unassuming. What if they knew about water? Well, they'd just have to tell him, wouldn't they?

[alehue]

there was a dizzy sensation around the female, a dizziness that she had never felt before. she was not physically dizzy, but rather mentally - the very event that this river could dry up was to large to fathom, so with her head cocked slightly to the left, arya began to think of something else that could have caused this once-raging river to become this dry bed - it was seemingly overnight, and not a trickle of water was able to quench the parched surface. the female's stocky head dipped closer to the ground as she thought, a strange habit she seemed to have obtained sometime between when she had joined the cult and now - perhaps it was just a canine's intuition, the want, the almost obsessive need to pick up smells that clung to the ground with a certain stubbornness, never leaving, until the rain washed them away.

with such an anchoring point in her life brushed away like it was simply a stray piece of grass (for arya did not like to admit it, but she often latched onto things, and when those things changed, she became very nervous, and somewhat unstable, at that), the young canine was grasping at straws, trying to find something familiar that she could - and would - grip onto like there was no tomorrow. she felt almost weak, needing something to keep her from going crazy, but any animal, canine or feline, would feel quite a disturbance if their source of water (and, when you consider it, food, for the animals only visited the river garden to get water, and some lingered just a bit longer to admire the landscaping) were to be destroyed. shifting nervously from foot to foot (not a single part of her body tapping out a beat, a rare occurrence), arya became very jumpy, but also very desperate.

when she heard the familiar, chiming voice of her partner-in-crime, apani, arya could not help but let her lips draw up into a small half-smile, though the situation at hand, and the words being spoken to her, were nothing but funny, or worth smiling over. deciding that it would be easier for both parties to converse if they were on the same level, arya decided (in a split second, which was not advisable) to go down the steep incline of the riverbed. as she did not have the grace of a feline, nor the light steps, and her path was almost vertical, arya ended up falling more than she did walking, though at the end she managed to gain enough control to not look like a total buffoon as she approached her partner.

arya's paint-dipped tail, normally wagging at a speed that was yet to be rivaled by another canine, lay limp, and was slowly beginning to tuck between arya's legs in fear. "i don't know what happened, apani! i even took a drink from the river last night before we went to sleep!" arya was quite frazzled as she said this, but she still had enough of her wits about her to look, and see that she and apani were not the only two who had noticed that the river had dried up. she gestured with her tail (not wanting to make it too obvious to the 'intruder' of sorts that they knew he was there) to the canine, who was now moving slowly towards them, in a manner that seemed more feline than canine to arya, the slinking motions worrying her - anyone who had to slink could be up to no good.

[mysteryfaith]

Apani felt a puff of fear running through her at Arya's words; so her canine companion knew just as much as she did about the river drying up. She was about to murmur a few words of comfort - the canine's tail was creeping between her legs, showing her fear - when she spotted a stranger approaching.

Immediately, she thought of the word 'intruder' - after all, she hadn't seen this creature before, and she'd met quite a few of the nearby residents. However, this land was a free land, where all could roam and find their way; much as she hated that, and would rather live in a controlled, no-strangers-allowed environment, she found herself staying here just for the ease of living. It wasn't difficult to stay here - and it was certainly easy to start a Cult, like she had with Arya.

Even saying the word made her flood with pride; their little group was small, but it would soon grow bigger. They would be doing powerful things, and their influence would spread; soon, creatures would be begging to join, just so that they would be protected from the harsh world. Living alone could certainly be frightening, and with the Cult, you would never have to do that; they were a community that supported each other.

Well, a community that supported her. She didn't care much for the lower ranks - if they found brotherhood in the cesspit area of the Cult, then that was fine for them, but she wasn't going to rejoice in it. The higher ranks, however, were like her family; Arya was her Cult sister, and the creatures that shared their rank were her children.

Straightening her back and unsheathing her claws, Apani let a small, not entirely happy smile fall across her feline muzzle. The creature approaching looked canine - she knew that with two canines around her, she would have to put her more aggressive side across. She was a feline, and was considerably smaller than both of them; though she hoped Arya would never gang up on her, there was always a chance that she would get too power-hungry. If it came to it, Apani had to be ready to put up a fight, especially with larger creatures around; they might think they could stamp on her just because she was smaller than them, but they were wrong.

"What brings you here, canine?" the female called out, eyes narrowed. Arya didn't seem like she was going to challenge the newcomer, so Apani took it upon herself to make it clear that they would stand together; they were not to be picked on. Some cocky strangers visited these lands, and they often had to be put in their place by Apani - a simple, assertive questioning of a newcomer would state loud and proud that she wasn't afraid to fight.

The riverbed seemed cold and dry; it was sucking the joy out of her, making her shiver. Apani wanted to cast a fearful glance at Arya - what were they going to do without the river? - but she kept her fears to herself; if the stranger saw any sign of fear, there was a chance he could leap on it, and pick on Apani. She was rather paranoid of being singled out from the crowd as a weakling, simply because she was a female feline; from her very beginning, she had fought to be equal to the males and the canines.

"Come here for a nice visit, have you?" she sneered; better to be mean to strangers than kind, she thought, or they might think you're weak. "What do you know about the river drying up?" Perhaps this mysterious stranger knew what had happened to the water - and if he did, she would be sure to squeeze the information out of him.

[crumblebread]

Ooh, thought Yamir with a stab of muffled nervousness, these ones don't look like they're about give me a friends-and-family 'hello'. His expression cooled and he straightened up, realising that perhaps his manner of walking had looked shady (most about him looked shady, it was simply his first nature). He had no ill intentions - please, what would he be cross over? - but he also wasn't stupid.

Taking in the creatures' interesting characteristics and way of familiarity with the river, he wondered idly if they were part of this Cult that Silva had spoken to him hours ago about. Vaguely he recalled a reassuring tone that they were at least tolerating of newcomers, but with the feline's faintly hostile expression the memory did little to soothe his nerves. Blandly and with unimpressed eyes, he drew nearer and observed them silently. They certainly seemed at ease here, if not frayed by the news of the river. When the feline spoke,

"I certainly didn't come here for the amicable welcome committee," he remarked, drawing near enough so that he wouldn't have to raise his voice to speak. His muscles were relaxed, but his eyes were keen. Starting a fight was the last thing he wanted, and he hoped that came across clear. "Most use rivers for the same thing, so I would say it's not too hard to figure that I came here for the reason that you two did - water." He glowered momentarily down at the dry riverbed, traces of agitation splayed on his face when he looked back up. "I know less about the river than you do, for sure. I was actually kind of hoping you would have a clue."

So, they knew not a thing about the dry river. Gaze roving it once more, he heaved a sigh to himself. This is inconvenient. Did it continue on for miles like this, without water? The thought was just shy of frightening. "I'm Yamir, by the way." Save the time for awkward introductions.

[alehue]

thoughts flitted through the canine's fear as this time of great distress came upon her - but the first thought that came through her head was that she could not be fearful in front of this intruder on the cult lands. her onyx eyes, watery with tears, became dry again as all of the canine's focus was settled on not seeming fearful. her tail, which had been plastered against her body, was now waving behind her like a plume. however, arya did not much like the idea of being down in the riverbed, and with the deft way apani was handling this stranger, she would be able to make sure he didn't cause any trouble.

"just call if you need me," arya murmured to her partner, barley hearing the male's name - yamir - before she took her leave from the pair. she didn't much fancy the idea of being alone with no source of water nearby, but still, she would take that chance to stop from seeming so impudent in front of the newcomer, and making the cult look bad as a result. arya looked at the riverbed with a cunning gaze - she had gone about thirty yards away from the pair she had left behind, hoping they could sort things out while she went on their expedition for the liquid that was necessary for her survival. of course, she wouldn't be able to do anything if she couldn't get out of the steep sloped of the riverbed.

((sorry for lowering the bar a bit here, I just don't think that my mini-novellas are that exciting. xD))

[mysteryfaith]

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[atrb=background,http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h450/EllazTheAwesumz/finalbground.png] Apani was still wary of the stranger - Yamir, he had said his name was, but that could easily be an alias to throw her off his trail. She would keep a close eye on him . . . she was so consumed by her thoughts of the canine that she hadn't realised that Arya had stalked off on her own. Why? "Arya!" Apani called out, feeling a slight sweat building up now that her friend had gone; she had been left all alone with a stranger who was significantly bigger than her, and though she was determined to stand up for herself at all times, she felt fear growing within her. Alone with the canine, she thought bitterly, casting an anxious look at where Arya was walking away. Nothing I can do now, the feline told herself, shaking her head slowly as she let her icy armour form itself again. Don't show your emotions to him - be a rock. "So you say you don't know why this has happened," the feline scowled, hoping that her act was convincing, "and if you're not lying, then it looks like we're both stuck here together." Apani was still unable to climb out of the riverbed, her claws too clogged up with dried mud to cling on to the edge of the bed and pull her to the top. If she tried, she'd just make a fool out of herself in front of this canine - and she was trying her very hardest to put on her best show for the male, to prove that she was more than just a pretty face. With an angry lash of her tail added into her act for effect, she began to furiously pace, her eyes focused on the cracked ground beneath her. "What can we do?" she grumbled angrily. Although this was primarily for her display of macho I-can-be-just-as-good-as-you bravado, she truly was trying to think about any possible solutions. The river couldn't have just suddenly disappeared - something must be stopping it from flowing. "There's something blocking the river," the feline mumbled, shaking her head in confusion. "But how can we unblock it?" The feline cast one more longing glance after Arya, and an idea came into her head; from her experience, the river had always flowed to the right, meaning that the direction of Arya's movement was walking towards the river's source. The blockade could only be further up that way. Her paws were itching to run towards her friend, but before she could do that, she cast a sideways glance towards the canine - no matter how much she resented him, she couldn't just leave him uninformed. "The blockade's coming from that direction," she murmured monotonously, indicating towards Arya with her tail and not bothering to explain herself. "You either come with us and help out, or you leave now and we forget this ever happened." She added a nonchalant shrug for good measure, even though she knew this task would be much easier with the canine on board. "Your choice." Without a backward glance, Apani raced forwards, her gaze set firmly on Arya. She was close approaching the canine, and couldn't help but feel a slight trickle of relief; alone with Yamir, she had felt a little uneasy, particularly since he seemed so large and menacing. He definitely wasn't one of those happy-go-lucky fools prancing around the forest these days, trying to be "entertaining" by putting on an act of happiness. Apani was the master of her art, a true actor if ever there was one - however, she would prefer to be stuck with one of those carpe-diem amateurs than a canine who could seriously injure her with just one swipe. "Arya!" she called out, trying to keep her voice from wobbling - this would happen half from the rapid movement of her limbs as she pelted after her friend, and half from fear of Yamir, the stranger who was with them. "Arya, wait up! I know what we've got to do! We've got to go and find out what's blocking the river!"