Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Normally, I wouldn't post these here, but this is for the Mush medic mini-event :3

Enjoy~ <3

Username: RaiMidori
Preference List (in order of preference): 4, 2, 3, 1
Eat or be eaten.
Prompt: You're no puppy, but you sure do act like one. Oftentimes you find yourself being teased over your inability to do anything but play. Participating in such games as 'catch the tail', 'hunt' for voles, and childlish things like that. You tell yourself that you do these things only because you just haven't had the chance to be the adult you certainly look.

Well, your luck is about to change. While engaging in a riviting game of hide and go seek (with one of your puppy playmates no less) one of your counterparts manages to hide behind a large mound of snow on the frozen lake. This seems as good a place as any....until the ice starts to crack.

The next thing you hear is a SPLASH and a yelp for help. With only puppies for playmates you know it's up to you to best your fears and try to save your friend. The only problem is......maybe you're just not ready to grow up.

He was a barn owl.

He was a barn owl, a vulture, a bald eagle- soaring high above anyone’s yawning jaws, zipping with absolute ease through the forest of sugary white, tail bounding behind him. He was faster than any of the puppies, so he let himself linger in places, giving them a chance to run before catching up to them, playfully pawing at their bodies. Snow was kicked up, flung into eyes, branches jostled, unloaded of their frigid weights. He shook his head playfully, yowling with surprise at the many terrors he faced in his plight, trembling with glee inside.

They called him a child.

He didn’t mind this, didn’t try to mind it, but his heart told him otherwise. If he let himself stop for a second in his youthful activities, he would hear them in his head again, the careless cajoling, the teases and rants. His fur still shone with that exuberance that never left him as a puppy, and he cursed it, sometimes, wishing he could carry a little bit of the weight the adults did.

The day was young and the forest grew alive with the sound of yips and scampering, the virgin snow being kicked into disarray with the tiny feet and his set of larger ones. His pelt shone brilliantly camouflaged in the backdrop of pristine whiteness, only showing where the speckles of tawny honey came out on his fur. Mahogany eyes glittering with delight at the prospect of surprising one unknowing pup that hid behind a tree when he heard it, crackling through the clearing like a gunshot-

Crack.

He flinched and nearly slid on the wet snow, ears cocking upwards as he listened closely.

Crack.

A small yelp filled his years, and a bolt of panic electrified his veins. Before he knew it, he was racing towards the frozen lake’s edge, eyes fervently searching for the cause of trouble.

And there it was, horrendously obvious to the eye- a hurricane of limbs and flying water in a rather sizeable hole that fell in at the ice’s surface, cracks still crawling deliberately outward. The pup that was trapped was slowly sinking downward despite his best efforts, blue eyes locked with those of the adult.

He was no longer a child, he knew that. He was no longer a child, and it was up to him to save this puppy, yet…

He froze. Completely and utterly unmoveable. He didn’t know what to do, and even as his mind screamed with manic to get up and do something!! He had no idea where to start, how to even prolong to life of the terrified child.

It seemed like an eternity before he set his jaw and squinted into the glimmering mass of ice that glared pugnaciously back into his eyes.

“Relax, pup, I will help you,” he called out, more to himself than the drowning puppy, surprised at his unwavering voice.

Any other day, he would have dove in and carried the puppy to safety, but he knew he was past the young and audacious age to try something so risky. From the ice and the temperature of the air, he knew his muscles would most likely not work well enough to carry the both of them. Instead, his eyes scanned the area with a panicked desperation, looking for anything that might be of use.

There was nothing in the deserted clearing but a dead tree branch that wasn’t long enough, but his eyes hardened and made his way there, anyway. From the water, a small voice piped up, not from a frenzy of fear, anymore, but from a slowly paddling pup that looked less terrified than before.

“I don’t th-think I can do this m-much longer,” he cried in a warning tone, looking towards the adult for help.

The white dog only nodded once with conviction, turning to take the rough branch into his mouth and throwing one end over the ice.

It came a few meters short.

Cursing underneath his breath, he took a few steps onto the ice and listened to the cracks that ensued, knowing he would have to do it sooner or later. Still holding the branch, he craned his neck further, recklessly padding even closer to the hole. The cracks widened with malicious intent, but he ignored them, looking towards the pup wordlessly.

The child clung on to the lifeline.

And it was that moment that the gunshot sound echoed again, and the ice collapsed under his own weight, but he refused to let go of the branch. The icy water pressed in from all sides, and he felt his breath leave him in a violent release of bubbles that tackled the surface with a speed he wished he could take on. He thrashed with his fiercest strength, resting the weight of the pup on the branch over an aching shoulder. They seemed to go at a slower rate than anything he had ever experienced before, and the ripples wavered above his head from his oxygen-deprived dizziness.

Faintly, he felt two paws digging into his back, and he knew the child was above water, taking in the air that he needed so desperately, now, so, so, desperately…

His eyes rolled up at the fading light- night was falling? Darkness, darkness, a bit more distance, now, darkness…

Warmth. Paws. Voices. Anger- something loud. A vague impression of pain in his shoulder. He cracked open his eyelid.

There they were, not just pups, but some adults, too. The moon had risen and was casting a cyanotic tinge to the land. The sound of the water lapping up to the snow bank muffled his senses. A menacing growl pierced his ears, and he attempted to move back from the muzzle that filled his vision, but his head was resting against the snow. He opened the other eye.

“What were you thinking?!?” came the piercing scolding, but he stayed unflinchingly, waiting politely until the grown adult was out of his way before he stumbled onto his three good paws. His right shoulder still throbbed.

“You could have gotten yourself killed out there, why did you not call for help when you knew there were some adults nearby?!?” her voice shrieked with strange accents on odd words, and he only barely suppressed a snicker as his eyes scanned the crowd for the drowning pup.

There were adults nearby? He should have noted that. It was his heroism complex that had done him in, at the end, but he was pretty sure no adult would have made it there fast enough for the puppy to be alright. The adult rambled on.

Inside, he smiled at his bravery, the way he did not fall back or flatten his ears at this show of anger. He stood tall, chest out as much as it could without agitating the sprain he had suffered, mouth pulled back into an unfeeling expression of patience that he had seen other adults exhibit.

Catching sight of the shivering pup, he was glad to see the blanket that had been thrown over him, and he waited until the adult turned in exasperation until he let go of a small wink, throwing an expression of thankfulness onto the young one’s face.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured teasingly at the adult female before turning on his heel and limping steadily away, feeling more gallant than he had ever felt before.

He would do well to get himself warmed up by a fire somewhere, maybe get his shoulder looked at, and when all of that was done…

He let his smile show through, for there was no one watching as he turned.

He’d surely come out and play again.