Battle of the Tribes Daily Drabbles (ft. Murkcrow)

[Tiarana]

Transferred from Gaia Online. Original Thread

Each day during the course of the Battle of the Tribes event, you are encouraged to come into this thread, generate a random number between 1 and 50, and then write a drabble [a very short story] for one of your kin based on the corresponding theme below.

All drabbles should be between 100 to 200 words in length. No longer, and no shorter. This is not a long involved story: it's simply a snippet from your kin's life.

For every 5 drabbles completed on a particular character, you will get 1 legendary req filled. This caps at 3 reqs per kin; after you have completed 15 drabbles for a specific kin, you can no longer receive reqs from further drabbles and must stop or switch to another character. Please only post one drabble per post, as you must roll to determine your theme from the list below, and please only post once per day.

The Themes:

Spoiler

1. Kiss
2. Forgiveness
3. Soft
4. Are you there?
5. Loneliness
6. Working
7. Dancing
8. Abandoned
9. A Misunderstanding
10. Vacation
11. Flowers
12. Smile
13. Tears
14. Rain
15. Sunshine
16. Winter
17. Innocence
18. So Far Away
19. Silence
20. Stars
21. In the Moonlight
22. Tickle
23. Sweet Dreams
24. Blue
25. Honorable
26. Walls
27. Happiness
28. Sensual
29. Food
30. Over the Rainbow
31. Take Your Time
32. Sugar & Spice
33. Holiday
34. Beginner's Luck
35. Forgotten
36. Misery Loves Company
37. Comfort
38. Candy
39. Present
40. Hold My Hand
41. Spiritual
42. Starving
43. Joy
44. Heaven
45. 31 Flavors
46. Silk
47. Keeping a Secret
48. The Path Less Travelled
49. Lace
50. Forever and a Day

Please also include, somewhere in your post, your kin's name. You don't have to use the same kin every day, but you still can only do this once a day.

If you roll the same theme twice, you're welcome to pick a different one from the list, your choice.

[Tiarana]

It was late spring. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the flowers were in full bloom. Murkcrow sneezed. He hated spring.

"If you weren't such a fuddy-duddy, maybe the flowers wouldn't bother you," his mother pointed out to him. He rubbed his nose with a hoof. He was pretty sure they'd still bother him.

"Nyeeeeeh, sucks to be you," his sister sneered at him. He rubbed his snotty hoof on her. That got rid of her in a hurry.

"Maybe if you went somewhere else," his brother suggested. "The beach, perhaps? There's less flowers there, aren't there?" That was the best suggestion Murkcrow had heard all day, but he didn't really like the beach either. The idea of vast, bottomless bodies of water unnerved him.

"Go jump in a lake," Stalker muttered at him. He wasn't sure if she was giving advice or telling him off, but he decided to do as she said anyway. It granted him some relief - at least, it got the pollen off his hide - but as soon as he climbed out of the water again, he was back to sneezing and snuffling.

Sigh. Spring.

"unnn...hi, Stalker...," Murkcrow mumbled in the general direction of his erstwhile friend when she prowled into his clearing, like she did on a regular basis.

Stalker frowned down at him. He was lying prone on the ground, not moving much. Finally, after several minutes, she said, "What's wrong with you?"

Murkcrow groaned. "Bucks, you know...I'll never find the right one..."

Stalker didn't really know. She started poking him with her hoof. "That's nothing to lie around all day about. Get up and do something interesting."

"It's not like you've got anyone either," Murkcrow said. Anyone who was watching might have seen Stalker twitch. She kicked him.

Murkcrow still wondered about that dream sometimes. The sand, the strange tree, the oasis. It was all so vivid. And he had apparently slept an entire day. The only explanation was that it was a product of the Motherfather, but even when Murkcrow had asked a legendary what it meant, the best answer he received was "it seems many kin have had that dream." Nothing had happened since then. Now he thought perhaps it had just been a long, strange fever dream, the product of too many restless nights or some bad eggs. But the feeling of the dream still lingered vividly, and it worried at the edge of his mind. He wasn't sure if the idea made him anxious or excited, but he was certainly feeling vaguely agitated these days.

"Stalker," Murkcrow grunted. "Do you have to bring that thing here?" He was looking down at her pet caiman. The caiman was looking up at him, and smiling its wide and uncannily skeletal caiman smile.

"No," she said, "but I know you love it."

Murkcrow frowned and backed away from Worm-Eaten Corpse carefully. He would never understand why anyone kept the things as pets, but Stalker and the caiman were undeniably a match made in...some murky woe-begotten corner of the swamp. He knew if he showed too much discomfort, the caiman would be back. Every day, probably. Even so, his instincts were screaming at him to run away.

At least it wasn't a full-grown crocodile. Murkcrow was convinced that Stalker lived in a nest filled with them.

If it was one thing Murkcrow hated about the swamp, it was the rain. It dripped and pattered and drizzled and drenched everything in sight. The water level in the swamp rose until there was no dry ground left. His own clearing became a sea of mud that reached up to his knees and threatened to suck him down if he was incautious.

The only good thing about the rain was that, as soggy as he was, Stalker was even soggier. She perched next to him on the enormous fallen log - in the swamp, one could be flooded, or they could be drenched, but they could not avoid both - staring morosely into the water. Her sodden hair trailed behind her, floating limply on the surface of the water. Murkcrow knew she'd remain like this until it stopped raining. Her hair absorbed its weight - perhaps even her weight - in water and mud, and would need more attention than usual when the rain stopped.

Murkcrow laughed heartily. If there was one thing he enjoyed, it was Stalker being the miserable one for a change. She glared daggers at him.

[Tiarana]

Flies.

In the summer the swamp blazed with thick, oppressive heat. The humidity climbed until Murkcrow wasn't sure if he was a fish or a Kimeti. And the flies swarmed over everything.

Big ones, little ones. Flies that drank blood and flies that drank sweat. Flies that were prone to biting, and flies without mouths. All the insects of the swamp, raining irritation down on the populace with delicate, lacy wings. Murkcrow swatted at one with his tail. Most sane kin would be sheltering any way they could when the flies swarmed the thickest in the twilight hours. But Murkcrow was still far from home, and didn't care much for wandering the swamp in the dark. He would have to put up with the flies.

Stalker was usually as prickly as any alligator, but sometimes she surprised him. "I brought this," she said around a mouthful of mongoose. "We can eat. Together."

Murkcrow looked down at it. He wasn't one for raw, bloody meat, but that was how Stalker ate it. "Yes, we can eat that together. I'll just find some fruit."

Over dinner, Stalker had that look in her eyes that she sometimes got. It made Murkcrow feel vaguely uncomfortable, like a rodent staring into the eyes of a crocodile. "Errrrr, Stalker, you're being awfully quiet." Well, she was always quiet.

She scowled at him. "Am not."

"Well, you've been...never mind." He didn't think he wanted to know. "Good...weather, isn't it?"

Stalker frowned at him. "Murkcrow is an idiot," she muttered. 

"Dad, you should really try these," Tree Skeletons said to him around a mouthful of peach that had soaked in fermented fruit juice for a month. "They are delicious." She giggled. "That Wasp's sister sure knows her way around a good fruit juice."

"Alright, alright," Murkcrow said, picking one of the peaches out of the tortoiseshell they had come in. He chewed it thoughtfully.

"Weeeell?" Tree Skeletons looked up at him expectantly.

"It's...it's good," he admitted. Very good, truth be told. He didn't care much for the slimy texture it had developed, but it was rich and sweet and syrupy. "You should bring more of these."

Tree Skeletons giggled. "See? Even you like them. I told you."

Murkcrow didn't quite understand why he was the one apologizing. Stalker was the one who had stumbled over a hidden tree root, or perhaps a rock, tripped, and fell headlong into the water, dragging him in on top of her in that brief desperate moment before she ended up in the water. Yet now Stalker was the one who was acting so offended. Murkcrow bowed and scraped as much as he was inclined to (which, admittedly, was not that much), but Stalker still wouldn't so much as turn around and look at him.

Which, well, was actually kind of refreshing.

It was an itch he just couldn't scratch. He'd tried, of course he'd tried, but even before all the gangs of offspring - Stalker's, his mother's - he'd helped raise, Murkcrow had never been good at meeting other bucks, or at least meeting other bucks who were interested in him. There'd been that one time...and that had ended exceedingly poorly. One day, he thought, he'd meet someone who'd change his life. But every time anyone changed his life, he thought sourly, it was a questionable improvement, at best.

Murkcrow reflected on this while he reflected on Wasp's constant invitations to party. Maybe Wasp was right. Murkcrow wanted quick flings as much as a long-lived relationship, and he'd surely find someone at one of those wild parties he heard so much about.

Tonight he'd go, he decided. Murkcrow was not a fan of parties, but he was not a fan of solitude either (much as he disliked other kin). Tonight...maybe he'd go along with his daughter...tonight.