[PRP] An Ardent Missive (Bath + Zar)

[Toshiful]

Mud Bath could not write a note as such, and it did take him a rather long time to scratch out anything, but he didn't have an assistant and he certainly couldn't entrust the task to anyone else. The one person he would have entrusted it to was the subject of the letter.

It did not, of course, read properly and exactly with what he wanted to say, as the written language was rather pictoral, in nature, but he hoped there was some expression of feeling in the way that he wrote it.

The letter was as follows, but not literally, but if it had words it would say something like:

Dearest Bizarre,

Please excuse my crude scratchings
My tongue and heart are bound up
with the greatness of my feelings.
You are the rarest and sweetest grass
The first shoots through the snow
A fire over dark and distant hills
After a long walk in the night
A welcome sight
To look at you is to drink
To be near you is to be fed
The most cultivated bed of moss is not as soft
The caiman not as fierce
More welcome than the deepest sleep
Better than the sacred root
Worth profanities and desecrations
Worth binding my tongue and heart to
Even if all in secret.

Your Admirer

And this bark Zar would find in his den, on the floor beside the slime pit, for lack of a better place to put it.

[Baneful]

Zar didn’t write much, but he could read, as many in seven could. When you lived in such a dangerous territory with such dangerous kin, it helped to have everyone on the same page when it came to symbols carved into dangerous places in the territory. Some kin used the symbols to make poems or even record the words to old songs in a permanent way, but it was a slow and difficult process. Zar had grown up reading the names of the different herds carved into the stones in the tribe, and the rules and laws that were embedded into their day-to-day life.

He’d never been given a poem before like a gift.

Sitting down, he leaned in close to read it, taking his time over it, assuming that it was some news of grave importance. It was of grave importance, but it wasn’t even close to news.

If it hadn’t had the symbol he used as his name at the top, he wouldn’t have believed it was for him at all. He was not worthy of the beautiful things it entailed and the sweet and clever wordplay between the symbols, profanity used as a compliment.

He read it and then he read it again. And then once more, before sitting down, a little bit dazed and completely stumped.

He had no idea who this admirer could even be and found himself deeply upset at how it made him feel, all fluttering delight and blushing joy.

There was only one thing for it.

He leaned down to carefully pick the bark up in his teeth, passing it over to his tentacle-like tail and trotting off urgently to tell Mud Bath to be on the lookout for this admirer around the territory.

[Toshiful]

Bath was quite nervous already about the missive, but having Zar approach his den he just felt in flustered tatters. He told himself to play it cool, but he wouldn't know immediately, he was sure, couldn't know. Had he guessed? It was the line about the sleeping, Bath was sure. He'd wanted to give some idea but had been worried that part would be entirely too forward, and if Zar intended to reject him outright and immediately he wasn't sure he could handle it.

"Hello, Zar," he greeted him instead, as smoothly as he could, which wasn't very smoothly.

[Baneful]

"Hi!" Zar said, a little distracted and still thinking about the poem.

"Bath have you seen anyone slinking around my den?" he asked, looking concerned.

[Toshiful]

That didn't sound like an immediate rejection at least, which was good news.

"No, no I can't say that I have, particularly. Err. Are you...missing, anything?" Bath asked, just in case Zar hadn't seen the letter at all, and in the very worst case scenario, someone had in the time between placing the missive and now rifled through all of Zar's things and taken the bit of bark too. Bath couldn't think why this would be the case, but you never knew. Maybe someone had mistaken it for something else.

He really hoped this wasn't the case, because it had taken him an absolute age.

[Baneful]

Zar presented the bark to Bath with his tail.

"No not missing. I've gained something. Someone left this in my den." he said, sounding a bit scandalized.

He yanked it back before he could read it though, a little bit flustered about the nature of it.

"No one's ever said such things about me!"

[Toshiful]

Alright, well, good, that allayed most of the fantastic scenarios Bath had convinced himself that had occurred. Zar had gotten the bark. He didn't seem to have figured out who it was from. All good. And if Zar absolutely hated it, that's part of what the anonymity was for.

"It looks...long?" Bath hedged. "Are they err, good things, or-?"

[Baneful]

"That's why it's so strange!" he said huffily. "Yes they are nice things, which is... well I mean, you've seen me. Very nice things. It's someone clever too, the things they've done with the symbols.. well it's fit to run shivers up the spine."

He looked it over.

"Look here. They've used a better than with sinweed but part of tree, and the symbol for sacred or hallowed. More than sacred sinweed or the root. And that's just dripping with innuendo, obviously in the symbols. And then.. well these are practically forbidden symbols. The symbols for forbidden or the one used to desecrate a sacred place. Parts of Do and Worthy." he squinted. "Worth all of those things."

He flushed. "And that's innuendo too!"

His long ears flicked back slightly and he fidgeted from one hoof to the other.

"I don't know why anyone would write those kind of things about me." he said. "They must have meant it for someone else."

[Toshiful]

"I think you're entirely worth nice things," Bath said, "And I'm sure they're for you. That's your symbol at the top. There's not one like it in the tribe. And you said it was near your den. I think...very certainly, very definitively, it was meant for you." Bath was pleased. Nice, clever. And Zar didn't seem off-put. Although there was still the concern that the identity of the sender might prove to make the letter less welcome.

"Innuendo?" he said politely, looking at the indicated symbols. "Well, yes, um, I can say, I think, reading it, rather, it...seems like a love letter."

[Baneful]

Zar looked stricken at this.

"A love letter? You really think so?" he looked devastated about it.

"Oh I hope not. I don't want to disappoint someone with such wonderful words."

He sat down with a heavy sigh. "I hope it was a mistake. I don't know any kin in the tribe that I'd be interested in that way. I've ...I've already quite got my eye on someone else. Someone a lot less charming."

[Toshiful]

Bath's heart felt like it was in his throat at the unexpected confession. No telling who it was, of course, but...the notion...oh, he very much wished that were the case.

"Are they not clever?" he asked, "Your less-than-charming kin? There's no chance that they...they might be the writer?"

[Baneful]

Bath got a very sceptical sort of look as Bizarre seemed to consider this.

"The kin I'm thinking of?" he said. "No, I shouldn't think so. I think the kin in question would start one symbol and then fall asleep or find himself distracted by a passing butterfly."

He shook his head.

"Absolutely no chance at all that they could write something as moving as this."

[Toshiful]

He. It could be, couldn't it? Bath almost felt his ears pound at sleeping.

"Perhaps if it was something he felt intensely about," Bath said, "which the letter does seem to indicate. Here he says he's fed and watered by you. Sustained. It might be worth the few days of carving. Maybe even especially because it was a difficulty."

[Baneful]

Zar seemed to consider this for a moment, trying to imagine a world where the kin in front of him would spend so long writing or be capable of such eloquent flights of emotion. It became even more incredible and unbelievable when he considered the sweet things which had been said about him, and trying to apply those sort of things to Bath was a leap he couldn't quite make. Bath knew him, so he knew how flawed he was, they'd been friends for as long as he could remember.

"I mean I don't.." he said. "I don't feed and water anyone else but you, so it must just be flighty language in there." And there was a beat of hesitation as he considered it again, finding it odd to say it out loud.

He tilted his head at Bath.

"I mean. It wasn't you, right? You don't write things."

[Toshiful]

"Not very often," Bath admitted, "I do like language, generally."

Bath looked at Zar, conflicted.

"Would it be too terrible, if it was me? Would it...would it still put you at odds? With your- the kin you fancy?"