[PRP] Far from the Madding Crowd [ Distant Tidings/Your Eyes ]

[Jun]

[imgleft]http://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/image ... gs_jun.gif[/imgleft]The Winter Market was winding down.

You could feel it in the thinning of the throng, the vanishing of tokens – the chill of deeper winter, creeping ever-onwards into your bones. Distant Tidings did not mind the creep of chill into his bones – the cold never bothered him, anyway. But the creep of cold into his heart – ah, that bothered him, and that was not the touch of ordinary snow.

When the throngs thronged, and the tokens flowed – when there was laughter in the air, and the answering chirrups back-and-forth of a hundred Kin: a buck could wrap himself in the laughter of a hundred Kin, and laugh along. But when the numbers dwindled – the throngs thinned - it was impossible to forget you were alone.

No – no, that was the opposite way of things. The more Kin, the more talk, the more bodies, communal, single-minded, the more impossible it was to forget you were alone. The Winter Market still thronged, in force, the tokens plentiful; the air was thick with voices. It was he – it was Tidings, who tired of it all. He had chirruped, and laughed, and fished, and flipped, and kissed – to what end? He would never fit in. He would always be alone. A hundred Kin, and still, he stood alone.

Quite literally, beyond the brush at the outskirts of the market. He tired of it all.

[Maxx]

[imgright]https://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/imag ... uncert.png[/imgright]
Your Eyes too, had momentarily wandered into the Winter Market, had a little laugh, a little taste, then came to notice they watched her, her dark eyes bordered by stark peaks, and blinked slowly - almost daring them to say something - at their gaze. Then she left, because it made her self-conscious, and that was the end of her joys.

She let the liveliness drain from her shoulders, slowly collapsing for a drink at the stream outside. It had continued to move despite the cold, and had a delicately icy taste to it. It suited her sullen mood, lying down, lapping at the chill.

[Jun]

He wanted a drink. He wanted water - iced, as cold as possible, to match the cold in his heart. He tired of it all; he walked the stream, cold as ice. He bent to drink - and met the nose of the doe on the other side.

[Maxx]

"Oh!"

She blurted out because his nose was cold too, and jumped back up, her hooves skidding a little.

Her eyes were wide, but then softened at the sight of a rather comely acha, a pretty thing, so pleasing to see. She opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't think of anything, so off-guard from all the circumstances.

His face was so lovely. She couldn't think of anything, but she felt the weight of her brow.

Her hooves moved quietly to look away from this handsome acha she couldn't quite face.

[Jun]

She was a beautiful doe – beauty touched her every step, streamed down her back, to the tip of her flowing tail. He could see why she turned away, why she minded so – the helm that held her head was hard: it thrust dark rocks into that stream and broke the gentle flow. But that, too, he thought was beautiful, at odds, and harsh, against her smooth softness. That was unforgivingly beautiful. It framed her shy, blue eyes.

"What beautiful eyes," he told her.

[Maxx]

"It's too bad, what's around it," she said a little bitterly, and then they widened in the realisation that she was rather too candid with a poor, pretty, stranger she had just encountered, who gave her such a wonderful compliment.

"I'm sorry," she bowed, feeling that ever present weight, chiding her for her ingratitude. Totomas never complained of the heavy helm, they wore it proudly. So did her mother, all airy, joyful and not quite there.

"You are so pretty," she said, tilting her head, then blinked at him, eyes flicking up, then down again.

"...and thank you. I'm sorry to be so rude."

[Jun]

"Oh, not at all," he made a little bow, "and thank you kindly.

"You'd only think so," he laughed a little, "because you can't see what's inside. I'm rotten to the core, I'm afraid. Rotten, and so cast aside.

"A little guard is not much to be ashamed of, next to that," he said, winking boldly, "Totoma maidens are all the more striking for it, are they not? And strike well too, for that!"

[Maxx]

She approached him, a little cautiously, and in retaliation for flirting with her, headbutted him gently on the shoulder.

"Well, with such a pretty face," she felt a little saucy at the moment, "you could try to do something about what's inside. It can't all be rotten, if you were so kind as to praise me."

Then she retired from being quite so confident, but backed away with a lip-bitten smile.

[Jun]

"Ohoh," he said, "perhaps you might be able to save me yet, fair maiden."

And then he plumped himself down onto the bank, looking out upon the marketgrounds.

"If I were not so rotten, I might still be frolicking among the crowds. But I am too rough a stone to slip into the dam. I have turned this way, and that, but still, I haven't fitted. It is not so bad, though, is it? Or I would not have met you, here."

[Maxx]

"I'm out here too, you shouldn't say such things about yourself you wouldn't of me," such hypocrisy, "it's nice to disappear into the crowd, once in a while, but when they start to pick you out, it's hard to slip back in."

She sat down next to him - well, a little way away, to be polite, but still adjacent.

"You're right, it's not so bad to be out here."

She let her eyes watch the little figures of the marketplace wander, and wondered how they looked to them, two little figures sitting together next to a little stream.

[Jun]

"It's getting colder, these nights. It might snow," he hummed, watching her watch, then turning his eyes to the sky, "enough to cover the ground, even here.

"Have you seen the snows at the foot of the mountains? Enough to cover a Kin such as myself several times over, they are. Great big mounds of white."

[Maxx]

"I haven't gone far enough, no," she felt then a little ashamed of her totoma blood she'd never appreciated, the weight of her brow, "it's the first time I'd seen the snow, here. I wonder if I would mind it, the cold. Do you?"

[Jun]

"Oh, I don't mind the cold, me - but people ought. It gets into your bones. But you mightn't. You should see. I can bring you, if you'd like. It could be farther, just the foot. Not as far as the sea."

[Maxx]

A moment of pause, as she considered what to say or do - some part of her was afraid, but some part of her also curious. Perhaps she would. Perhaps she wouldn't. With this buck though, some part of her believed, in his airy tone, she would feel compelled to.

"I wonder if I would mind the cold," she said again, and dipped a hoof into the icy stream, "I suppose it would bite, if it were very cold."

[Jun]

"Oh, it would," he assured her, "like little fangs that never go away. But some quite like that."