@Jeon
The Fish & the Rabbit
here you be! thank you muchly for your patience in waiting to receive your prize ^^' any changes you'd like, let me know :>
The Fish & the Rabbit
In the next cycle, will we know each other? wrote:
Of all the regions of Sornieth, spring came last to the Southern Icefields. Come it did, however, relentless before the ice’s stubborn clinging to the land. And not all were displeased by the sun’s return; with it came the warmer winds and bold green blades poking up through the snow.
Indeed, the early spring time served the rabbit well. Their white fur still found refuge amongst the patches of snow while their belly—thin and starved through the long moons of cold—remembered again the pleasure and want for food. Fasting foregone, the rabbit spent the majority of their days not curled inside a subterranean burrow but seeking those brave new growths, digging for them in a flurry of small clawed paws, and at last, nibbling, tearing, feasting.
Their joy was not yet complete, however. A cycle of seasons prior, the rabbit in their adventurous youth had dared approach the nearest of the four inland pools. They had once fed by but were now parted from the far-off crashing shoreline, due to a shifting of the Earthshaker long ago.
The fur around their paw pads cushioned their steps so they made no sound as the rabbit crept onto the flat cold stones encircling the pond. No green smells greeted them here; the reigning moss and lichens were brown and dull still, not yet woken to the sun’s caress. The rabbit moved in short, anxious bursts of movement. Their ears twitched at every rustle of wind and creak of branch; they stopped frequently to watch the sky for a winged predator. One such that would spot them easily, white and alone, against the drab gray backdrop.
Yet they crawled ever closer to the water’s edge, for it was water—the rabbit’s usual stream had stayed locked beneath a sheath of ice too thick to crack, but here, the pools were not touched by even frost. Cold as the night sky still, oh yes, the rabbit smelled, then felt, when they touched their nose to the surface. But liquid, moving, living, and the rabbit dipped their head down to draw that life into their own body.
In the ripples the small workings of their jaw produced, the rabbit saw an unblinking eye, round and enchanting, looking up at them from deeper within the pool. Their ears swiveled around; they went very still, afraid. The eye remained in place, but for minute shiftings in examining the rabbit’s alien face. Gradually, as the ripples faded, the rabbit saw red-gray scaled flesh and graceful, slender fins and gentle undulations of gaps in the flesh lined elegantly in the spaces behind the eyes, and knew a creature utterly unknown to their world.
The rabbit and the fish met, for the first time.
~
The fish hoped that “first” anticipated another meeting. She had spent the winter with her fellows in the deepest reaches of the ponds. Cold, cold here, and each of the four schools aligned their bodies vertically to the water column with their heads tipped up towards those distant specks of light. They stilled their bodies, until not even tiny movements of their fins were needed to hang in place. They stayed, growing colder, colder, refusing motion. Finally, their gills ceased pumping, and the ice claimed them for the dark.
It was still dark when they awoke again. The thawing hurt, hurt worse than the cold, and it was still so cold, so much so that as soon as her body regained movement enough to twitch a fin, the fish wiggled and wiggled until her fins unstiffened and she swam with her school toward the growing light. The ice cap they did not touch, but swam close to it, their bodies twisting to thrust water against the translucent stone so tempting in its uneven wavering light.
Let it crack! the fish cried out when their turn to swim against the ice cycled. Give us the new air and light our bodies crave! A prayer as old as the schools themselves, and the fish added her own wish at the end: Let her encounter that strange fur-fleshed creature with the all-black eyes and nose at the boundary of where their worlds touched. Let them once again exchange water and air between them, and transmute novelty into familiarity.
~
These four inland pools, despite the rabbit colony’s nervous reverence for them, were no wishing wells. Yet the fish’s desire was still made true. By the time the rabbit’s curiosity overcame their hunger and they again made the uncertain journey to the moss-furred stones, the schools had succeeded their task. As the sun strengthened, so too did the fish. When the rabbit reached the first pool, they witnessed gleaming silver bodies leaping from the water with mouths agape. They sat and watched, dazzled by the display even if their body hunkered back at each splash of the fish landing back into the pond. Confused, too—for what purpose did they of the water fling themselves from their world, to briefly partake of the sky claimed by those with wings?
Seeking understanding, to sate their wonder, the rabbit dared approach the first pool once again. They waited at the water’s edge until their fish—the body of red-gray scales—surged up to leap.
~
The fish saw the rabbit and thrill tripped down her body, along with pleasure at their watching of her form. Younger, they were not as skilled at the insect-catch as their fellows, but now they were determined to leap their best, so that the rabbit may gaze upon them and marvel. Even as she prepared her jump, the rabbit idly flicked their ear to rid it of the bug biting at its soft interior, sending it in an helpless arc over the pool.
The fish knew her opportunity. With one powerful thrash of their body, they rushed up, up, OUT into that too-thin medium. Their body crafted a perfect bow, water sliding free of their scales in a terrifying stream that exhilarated the fish so, while their prey sat a mere swallow away.
In that hover between uncertainty and victory, the fish’s eye swiveled to catch movement. They saw what the rabbit—whose attention was for the fish alone—did not. From that painful blue dove the arrowed body of a dragon, its claws outstretched to sink into the rabbit’s unprotected flesh.
Meal forgotten, the fish twisted her body, flashing her scales to indicate Danger! Flee! The school below scattered, plunging deep into safety. The fish was glad, but it was not for them she signaled.
Their intent was lost on the rabbit, ignorant and unheeding to the fish’s warning. The fish watched in horror as their rabbit jerked their head up only when the dragon’s shadow fell upon them. The rabbit’s haunches bunched to bolt just as the predator slammed into them.
Then the fish herself struck the pond stones, stranded.
~
Shadow clutched the rabbit. The dragon predator atop them, heavy, immovable—the rabbit kicked with their hindfeet at its belly anyway, panic response, desperate—its hugeness blocking out the sunlight, the warmth of the day, life. Claws pressed the rabbit’s head to the side as the predator bent its head to nip their neck. They saw the gleam of red scales, heard the slap of wet flesh against rock, and knew horror as they gazed upon their friend quivering and helpless on the land.
The shadow shifted as the predator turned to look at this new sound. Sunlight fell harsh and bright on the rabbit, burning even their cooling flesh. The predator moved, towards the fish. Their fish. Their body could no longer move, so it was with their loosened spirit that they lifted up and grasped that living fire, twisting it free from the heat of their pelt and claiming it as their own. The predator raised its forefoot to strike, and doubt assailed the spirit.
A rabbit was not of the air. A rabbit did not attack another.
Very well. The spirit would become their predator, then.
~
Thought fled the fish as surely as easy movement was denied of her body—doomed by the land, to do nothing but stare up at the claws descending on her. There was only despair. The predator had killed her friend and now would kill her, too. She could not even look away.
She could not look away, and so was the first to behold the blazing light that engulfed the predator. First its claws, stopping it short of the fish’s killing blow. Then the light snapped and bit in all fervor, darting up the predator’s leg and leaving only black scorched flesh behind. The fish saw it, witnessed them, the dragon of white fur and fire, who dove upon the predator and clamped great jaws about its throat. Burning, burning within the new dragon’s body was the spirit with whom the fish had connected, enchanted, befriended.
Rabbit! she cried.
The spirit beckoned their great wing. Fish! In land and water we were separate. Let us join now in the air!
Her body lay limp on the stone. The fish writhed to be loosed from their flesh, but it was too much, the heat and the light. Their spirit flinched from it. Not yet! Not yet!
The predator twisted free of the fire dragon’s teeth. It swept around and with a roar, lunged to drive them back.
Protection. Defense. Where the pond, its water, had failed the fish before, she knew the force that kept her safe when she needed it most. Ice, hold me, they pled, as they lifted up and took from the fire spirit’s call a plan for their own new form. Coldness, sustain me. She sprang free.
Newly reborn, the ice spirit spread their wings. Frost sparkled down her shed of scale, fur, and leather. She launched forward to guard her friend in their attack, the ice of her body stretching, growing, thickening, unyielding before claws, teeth, and tail.
Fish and rabbit met for the third time—for evermore.
Indeed, the early spring time served the rabbit well. Their white fur still found refuge amongst the patches of snow while their belly—thin and starved through the long moons of cold—remembered again the pleasure and want for food. Fasting foregone, the rabbit spent the majority of their days not curled inside a subterranean burrow but seeking those brave new growths, digging for them in a flurry of small clawed paws, and at last, nibbling, tearing, feasting.
Their joy was not yet complete, however. A cycle of seasons prior, the rabbit in their adventurous youth had dared approach the nearest of the four inland pools. They had once fed by but were now parted from the far-off crashing shoreline, due to a shifting of the Earthshaker long ago.
The fur around their paw pads cushioned their steps so they made no sound as the rabbit crept onto the flat cold stones encircling the pond. No green smells greeted them here; the reigning moss and lichens were brown and dull still, not yet woken to the sun’s caress. The rabbit moved in short, anxious bursts of movement. Their ears twitched at every rustle of wind and creak of branch; they stopped frequently to watch the sky for a winged predator. One such that would spot them easily, white and alone, against the drab gray backdrop.
Yet they crawled ever closer to the water’s edge, for it was water—the rabbit’s usual stream had stayed locked beneath a sheath of ice too thick to crack, but here, the pools were not touched by even frost. Cold as the night sky still, oh yes, the rabbit smelled, then felt, when they touched their nose to the surface. But liquid, moving, living, and the rabbit dipped their head down to draw that life into their own body.
In the ripples the small workings of their jaw produced, the rabbit saw an unblinking eye, round and enchanting, looking up at them from deeper within the pool. Their ears swiveled around; they went very still, afraid. The eye remained in place, but for minute shiftings in examining the rabbit’s alien face. Gradually, as the ripples faded, the rabbit saw red-gray scaled flesh and graceful, slender fins and gentle undulations of gaps in the flesh lined elegantly in the spaces behind the eyes, and knew a creature utterly unknown to their world.
The rabbit and the fish met, for the first time.
~
The fish hoped that “first” anticipated another meeting. She had spent the winter with her fellows in the deepest reaches of the ponds. Cold, cold here, and each of the four schools aligned their bodies vertically to the water column with their heads tipped up towards those distant specks of light. They stilled their bodies, until not even tiny movements of their fins were needed to hang in place. They stayed, growing colder, colder, refusing motion. Finally, their gills ceased pumping, and the ice claimed them for the dark.
It was still dark when they awoke again. The thawing hurt, hurt worse than the cold, and it was still so cold, so much so that as soon as her body regained movement enough to twitch a fin, the fish wiggled and wiggled until her fins unstiffened and she swam with her school toward the growing light. The ice cap they did not touch, but swam close to it, their bodies twisting to thrust water against the translucent stone so tempting in its uneven wavering light.
Let it crack! the fish cried out when their turn to swim against the ice cycled. Give us the new air and light our bodies crave! A prayer as old as the schools themselves, and the fish added her own wish at the end: Let her encounter that strange fur-fleshed creature with the all-black eyes and nose at the boundary of where their worlds touched. Let them once again exchange water and air between them, and transmute novelty into familiarity.
~
These four inland pools, despite the rabbit colony’s nervous reverence for them, were no wishing wells. Yet the fish’s desire was still made true. By the time the rabbit’s curiosity overcame their hunger and they again made the uncertain journey to the moss-furred stones, the schools had succeeded their task. As the sun strengthened, so too did the fish. When the rabbit reached the first pool, they witnessed gleaming silver bodies leaping from the water with mouths agape. They sat and watched, dazzled by the display even if their body hunkered back at each splash of the fish landing back into the pond. Confused, too—for what purpose did they of the water fling themselves from their world, to briefly partake of the sky claimed by those with wings?
Seeking understanding, to sate their wonder, the rabbit dared approach the first pool once again. They waited at the water’s edge until their fish—the body of red-gray scales—surged up to leap.
~
The fish saw the rabbit and thrill tripped down her body, along with pleasure at their watching of her form. Younger, they were not as skilled at the insect-catch as their fellows, but now they were determined to leap their best, so that the rabbit may gaze upon them and marvel. Even as she prepared her jump, the rabbit idly flicked their ear to rid it of the bug biting at its soft interior, sending it in an helpless arc over the pool.
The fish knew her opportunity. With one powerful thrash of their body, they rushed up, up, OUT into that too-thin medium. Their body crafted a perfect bow, water sliding free of their scales in a terrifying stream that exhilarated the fish so, while their prey sat a mere swallow away.
In that hover between uncertainty and victory, the fish’s eye swiveled to catch movement. They saw what the rabbit—whose attention was for the fish alone—did not. From that painful blue dove the arrowed body of a dragon, its claws outstretched to sink into the rabbit’s unprotected flesh.
Meal forgotten, the fish twisted her body, flashing her scales to indicate Danger! Flee! The school below scattered, plunging deep into safety. The fish was glad, but it was not for them she signaled.
Their intent was lost on the rabbit, ignorant and unheeding to the fish’s warning. The fish watched in horror as their rabbit jerked their head up only when the dragon’s shadow fell upon them. The rabbit’s haunches bunched to bolt just as the predator slammed into them.
Then the fish herself struck the pond stones, stranded.
~
Shadow clutched the rabbit. The dragon predator atop them, heavy, immovable—the rabbit kicked with their hindfeet at its belly anyway, panic response, desperate—its hugeness blocking out the sunlight, the warmth of the day, life. Claws pressed the rabbit’s head to the side as the predator bent its head to nip their neck. They saw the gleam of red scales, heard the slap of wet flesh against rock, and knew horror as they gazed upon their friend quivering and helpless on the land.
The shadow shifted as the predator turned to look at this new sound. Sunlight fell harsh and bright on the rabbit, burning even their cooling flesh. The predator moved, towards the fish. Their fish. Their body could no longer move, so it was with their loosened spirit that they lifted up and grasped that living fire, twisting it free from the heat of their pelt and claiming it as their own. The predator raised its forefoot to strike, and doubt assailed the spirit.
A rabbit was not of the air. A rabbit did not attack another.
Very well. The spirit would become their predator, then.
~
Thought fled the fish as surely as easy movement was denied of her body—doomed by the land, to do nothing but stare up at the claws descending on her. There was only despair. The predator had killed her friend and now would kill her, too. She could not even look away.
She could not look away, and so was the first to behold the blazing light that engulfed the predator. First its claws, stopping it short of the fish’s killing blow. Then the light snapped and bit in all fervor, darting up the predator’s leg and leaving only black scorched flesh behind. The fish saw it, witnessed them, the dragon of white fur and fire, who dove upon the predator and clamped great jaws about its throat. Burning, burning within the new dragon’s body was the spirit with whom the fish had connected, enchanted, befriended.
Rabbit! she cried.
The spirit beckoned their great wing. Fish! In land and water we were separate. Let us join now in the air!
Her body lay limp on the stone. The fish writhed to be loosed from their flesh, but it was too much, the heat and the light. Their spirit flinched from it. Not yet! Not yet!
The predator twisted free of the fire dragon’s teeth. It swept around and with a roar, lunged to drive them back.
Protection. Defense. Where the pond, its water, had failed the fish before, she knew the force that kept her safe when she needed it most. Ice, hold me, they pled, as they lifted up and took from the fire spirit’s call a plan for their own new form. Coldness, sustain me. She sprang free.
Newly reborn, the ice spirit spread their wings. Frost sparkled down her shed of scale, fur, and leather. She launched forward to guard her friend in their attack, the ice of her body stretching, growing, thickening, unyielding before claws, teeth, and tail.
Fish and rabbit met for the third time—for evermore.
here you be! thank you muchly for your patience in waiting to receive your prize ^^' any changes you'd like, let me know :>
DRAGONS !