[ORP] The Hole

[rexcorvus]

Sleepy Time had a fleeting impression of the sharp edges of the snowy mountain ridges, the whiteness of the snow, and the fact that he was about to be smashed flatter than a bug under a rock as soon as he hit the ground - or whatever it was.

Except he didn't.

He did, however, end up on the ground after he bounced away, unexpectedly back where he had started and rolling in a heap until he came to an ungraceful and disheveled heap at the hooves of a nearby kin.

It took Sleepy Time a long moment to realize he was being spoken to. When he finally managed to pry his head out from under one of his limbs, he found that there were things wrapped around each of his legs, squishy and bouncy and a little see through. The kimeti doe he'd landed near was peering down at him with luminous yellow eyes.

"...I think so," he said, and tried, with what little dignity he had left, to get to his feet. He managed it, though he felt a bit wobbly. "I don't know, um, what just happened here."

[AMItotic]

Until's ears fell, slightly, at Bite's terse response. Perhaps she'd misread, and he didn't understand after all. A pity--it would have been so nice to compare experiences with someone else.

"I guess if it was related to the obelisks, the kincallers would have been drawn to it," she admitted somewhat forlornly, glancing over her shoulder to the wretched creature in the trees. "But I don't know...we've seen one survivor so far, and a second that may or may not come back out. So far, odds are equally bad or good, so...who can say?"

Her tail flicked when she saw Sleepy Time get up following his excursion, seeming only a little worse for wear. "How was it? What did you see?"

[Baneful]

Totem fell into the hole and into a ball pit that smelled like birthday cake. It was an entire world of plastic balls that she could swim through but not escape.

Someone was laughing, a voice that sounded masculine, feminine and neither all at once.

[phoe]

"Some kind of anomaly," Beetleshell said, with as much warmth in her voice as she could. The zikwa really had been through it, covered in leaves and mud and looking a bit wobbly. And there were no real answers. "There's no way to tell. Another acha just leapt in while you were -- on your way out."

She gestured with her nose to the floaties on his limbs. "I have no idea what those are."

[Baneful]

Stepping out from a shadow (had he been there the whole time?) I Always Come Back just observed the chaos, looking pleased.

[LOLLI qAq]

She wasn't sure at all what she landed on or in, but she did know there were three things of which she was absolutely positive:

The first was that like water she found it easy to kind of float on top of these very light ... rocks(she decided), but unlike water she wasn't afraid of sinking. The rocks themselves smelled weird, but she was pretty sure there was air down there.

The second was that the sweet smell was Even Stronger down here and she found her stomach growling.

And three was that she was unconditionally, and irrevocably, in love with this place.

Creepy laughter aside.

"Hello??" Totem called out confidently.

Outside of the hole Good Dog was having the time of his life smelling at other dogs and doing all he could to show them he was obedient and friendly.

[Baneful]

"Hello" something said.

The voice was at her ear, but was in her head. Too loud and too quiet. The acoustics felt all wrong, strange in a way that made it impossible to place.

And everything got stranger, the balls around her started to melt, thick and gooey like tar, harder and harder to move, gumming up her motion. She was breathing in a bubble and the bubble seemed to be getting smaller.

But hey, at least it still smelled like delicious cake.

[LOLLI qAq]

"Oh! Hey! I can hear you!"

... Oh, wait. She could hear them. That didn't seem right. That had only ever happened the one time that she could recall and it was that really scary upside-down stump that one winter.

Maybe, just maybe, this was a bad idea.

The rocks started to melt and hold her in place and her mind went in two different directions.
This was probably why she shouldn't have left Best Friend at home, but also why was she so hungry??

She opened her mouth to speak.

"Excuse me, " she said as brightly as she could, "would you mind telling me what that amazing smell is?"

That wasn't. That's not what she'd meant to ask, but ah well. If she was going to die here at least she'd die with her curiosity sated.

[Muffinsbaby]

Unlife was always last to know, but not this time. This time she was near when it appeared. Something odd. Something...not. She stayed away from it, not out of fear but because others were coming and others weren't safe. At the distance she hid she couldn't hear what was said, but she could watch what wasn't. The language unspoken, the actions of others, and interpreted it the way a new foal would before they understood what sounds were.

A pebble. A rock. A whole kin. No, two! It was all very boring and exciting at the same time. It was new but she knew nothing else. She felt....similar to the hole. Some wary, some curious, some excited, some scared. Another trick of the Motherfather. Even thinking the name brought a sneer to her features.

Deciding she was no longer satified in simply watching, she staggered forward toward the hole and those gathered around. She briefly glanced at the odd object being debated over and pecked and giggled breathlessly. "Maybe its a funny shaped scale no longer being used," she offered, her voice a whisper - or what she thought was a whisper, but was in fact just too loud and raspy. She'd seen plenty of odd shapes on the shoulders of the larger species.

At the edge of the hole she peered in, only briefly as she found she could not look at it for more than a moment, and gave a delicate sniff. Whether she could interpret what she smelled or that she was smelling it was none of her concern.

[Baneful]

"Cake." the voice said, sounding entertained.

Around her the walls began to casually close in, almost painful, like being squashed under a gigantic hoof, before just as abruptly as it began, the crushing seemed to halt, as if the one pressing the hoof down had a different idea entirely.

Totem found herself evicted from the hole abruptly with a strange retching sound, flying out onto clearing with the others.

Everything was normal, apart from the fact that she was now temporarily made of birthday cake. It would regenerate if eaten, which was probably a good thing, all things considered.

[Toshiful]

Most Wanted followed the sounds of a crowd, hoping the gathering and chattering meant there was a party with food that he could pinch unnoticed. It had been a few days, and he was running on nothing. His belly twisted with anticipation as he found his way to what had captured everyone's interest, slinking over to get a peek.

Nothing. A big hole. That figured. That was just his luck. It was hard for him to imagine a worse thing that everybody could have been hurrying to look at.

There was something else that caught his attention, though. It was the splash of red. When Most Wanted was hunting for food, red could be good or bad news. Berries: Good news. Blood: It depended. It was splattered (like Most Wanted's coat) on a fluffy, warm-looking totoma with eyes as red as the markings (like Most Wanted's). He didn't usually socialise. It got in the way of not getting noticed. Still, this one time...

"You've got tusks," Most Wanted said to Boar warily. "I haven't seen that much."

hi boar

[Baneful]

The hole for Unlife smelled like an overheated circuit.

[LOLLI qAq]

That was deeply unpleasant.

Totem felt slight relief that at least she was relatively unharmed and hadn't been ejected as forcefully as the other kin that went in before her. She wondered distantly if they'd been to the same place she had, but she could still smell the sweetness of cake.

Cake. A completely foreign word, but boy was she happy to know that somewhere such a thing existed. She could even still smell it on the air- Wait. No. She could definitely still smell it. Like it was coming from inside her own nose.

Touching snout to shoulder she breathed in deep. SHE smelled like cake.

Now that she thought about it she didn't really feel like kin, currently. Almost squishier and lighter.

She had no idea if anyone was looking at her, as she'd just come flying out of the hole, and she realized she didn't really care. Totem opened her mouth and licked herself.

A pathway followed in it's wake and on the tip of her tongue was the sweetest and fluffiest substance she'd ever had.

"I'm DELICIOUS!"

[Muffinsbaby]

Unlife squealed, head shaking violently back and forth as she reared back from this horridly offensive smell. Her nostrils flared and her mouth opened and closed as if the smell invaded her sense of taste as well, drool spilling unashamedly. She spat into the hole and hissed, "Motherfather curse you and Motherfather be cursed. A trick, a spoiled egg, a poison."

[Baneful]

The laugh that came from the hole only Unlife could hear, but it shook the earth beneath her hooves.