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 Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:46 pm
 The summer heat lay thick on the ground like…like something thick and hot. Too much fur. Too much hair? Something like that. Ugh. Now was not the time for poetry. Green grass felt cool against Doc Perish’s face when he first laid down in it, but the longer he laid in the grass, the warmer and stickier it felt. Insects buzzed all around, in the flowers, in the trees, along the creek moving so slowly it might as well be standing water. Every so often, he had to flick his tail to discourage some fly from landing on him, or twitch his skin to stop them from bothering him. He didn’t want to hurt them, really, they were living things, just as he was, and if they preferred drinking his sweat to drinking the creek water, who was he to begrudge them? But their tiny feet were ticklish on his skin, and it was simply too hot to put up with that kind of thing.
Underneath the branches of the willow he was at least spared some of the worst of the heat. Direct sunlight right now was like a sharp branch to the eye. Quite literally, too—the light was just too bright right now. The clouds in the sky weren’t doing their job blocking the sunlight, just hovering above them, keeping them all the more humid. It was humid under the tree, but at least it was cooler. All in all, the tree was the lesser of the possible evils right now. Which is why it baffled him that Kryzas would be wandering around in the grass doing anything when it was more comfortable to lie down and stay safe. It was yet another behavior that he would never understand from his best friend. “Kryzas,” he croaked at last. “Lay down, please. Just thinking of you running around in the sun is giving me a headache.”
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:50 pm
Kryzas never understood how Doc Perish could stand to spend so much of his life lying down, doing nothing. There was too much to do all the time, too much to see, too many people to challenge, too many people to fight with. Like the flies, which kept biting him and chasing him around! He ended up having to drive up static electricity in his coat to keep them off. Or the butterflies that kept bothering him. Or the bumblebees in the flowers. They wouldn’t even pay attention to him, not interested in a fight! Shameful! No challenge to be found here, no, nor honor. Everything just kept…dancing around. Like sunlight under a tree. Birds sang and chirped, but none of them came low enough to fight him. It was boring with nothing wanting to do anything but sit in trees and make noise.
Or, in Doc’s case, sit under a tree and make noise. Kryzas snorted and glared at his friend. “No. You’re just—sitting around, doing, doing nothing. I’m bored. Need to move around. Need to be active. Need to, to do stuff.” He just didn’t know what kind of stuff. Nothing was interesting, and it was hot, too hot. Too noisy. Even if there hadn’t been a sound in the world, the humidity alone would have made it too noisy. He was almost tempted to go wading in the creek, just to see if it was cooler in there, or if there might be frogs to fight, or fish skeletons or snail shells or something.
Then something caught his eye. Small dots of color on and underneath a bush. Not only were the colors vibrant, but the smell was enticing too. It smelled…well, it smelled sweet, but something a little more. Intrigued, he trotted over and ate a berry that had fallen from the bush. The texture was soft and squishy, but the flavor was complex. Sweet, yes, but mellow, without a harsh tart undertone. A little bitter, maybe? Yeah. Yeah, tasted a little bitter. But he tasted another one just to be sure. And another. It was the most interesting thing he’d found all afternoon, and he wasn’t going to waste it!
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:52 pm
Doc sighed. There was no talking to Kryzas when he was like this. Sometimes his friend was lucid, capable of intelligent (or at least coherent) conversation. And sometimes he just turned…funny. It was, unfortunately, entirely expected. Sometimes the need for activity, for stimulation, just got to be too much and his friend had to let the energy out. Sometimes they could let it out through a vigorous hike, or by swimming, or exploring. And sometimes there was no letting it out except by sparring. Doc could spar, just as most ponies could, but it wasn’t his favorite activity. He’d much rather go looking for exotic wildflowers, or try to document every beetle he ran across. Fighting felt like a waste of time, even a playfight. And, well, frankly, Kryzas was better at fighting than he was. No one likes playing a competitive game they aren’t good at with someone who’s very good at it and also takes it way too seriously, and that was what sparring with Kryzas was like, one long, competitive game that ended with both of them bruised and battered because the Imp took the fight way too seriously.
Sometimes Doc wondered if Kryzas was actually trying to hurt him.
He dismissed the thought immediately. Kryzas wasn’t like that. They were friends, or at least he thought they were. Well, Doc was a friend to Kryzas, at least. Besides, if Kryzas wanted to kill him, if Doc was being honest with himself, he would have succeeded years ago. No, Kryzas didn’t want to kill him. He just needed something to relieve the pressure that built in his mind sometimes. He needed an outlet, and for some reason, the ritualized violence of a battle with a friend soothed his mind. Maybe we need to introduce Kryzas to the concept of a game. Like, something he can use his noggin on, instead of just resorting to violence. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he needs more opportunities to use his brain.
It occurred to Doc, even as he thought this, that Kryzas had gone oddly quiet and still for the last few minutes. That was enough to bring Doc onto his belly, his head whirling from side to side, trying to catch some glimpse of Kryzas’s ruddy flanks. Nothing. He couldn’t see Kryzas from where he was sitting.
Even as he scrambled onto his hooves, he opened his mouth. “Kryzas?” he called out. “Kryzas, where are you?!” No response. Doc’s heart began to pound in his ears. It wasn’t just that Kryzas could make trouble when he was unsupervised, especially in his current mood. It was also that he could get hurt. There were predators, after all, and while Kryzas could take a coyote or two, he couldn’t take a whole pack of them, and a mountain lion, bear, or pack of wolves was well beyond his abilities. By all that was cold, there were Soquili he couldn’t stand a chance against, especially if they were shifters or had some power his little Impish lightning couldn’t protect him from. He puts too much confidence in the lightning! Doc picked up the pace, now shouting his friend’s name, hoping that he hadn’t drowned while Doc was lolling about in the grass with the flies and the beetles.
At last, he heard a mumbled response from beyond a bush. Doc tore around the side of the bush to see…Kryzas. Lying in the grass next to another bush, happily chewing berries, his tail still in the grass beside him.
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 2:08 pm
Once he ate the first two berries, he just kept eating them. He hadn’t realized before how hungry he was. That was the problem with what he was becoming (stronger, tougher, faster, bitier)—sometimes he forgot to eat. Sometimes he forgot what being hungry felt like—sometimes he forgot that he was thirsty and needed to drink, or sleep when he was tired. He was going mad. Sometimes he understood that. Sometimes he understood that he couldn’t keep living like this, all full of pent-up energy. It wasn’t healthy. It wouldn’t let him last long. But he didn’t understand how he’d become like this. He didn’t remember when he forgot what it felt like to be hungry.
But he was hungry now, and these berries were so, so good! He finished off the berries on the ground and started on the ones on the bush, though the ones on the bush were a tiny bit harder and a tiny bit tarter. It didn’t matter, they were all good, the best berries he’d ever had. He finished off all of the berries he could find on that bush and looked around until he could find another. Turns out there were lots of bushes around here with ripe berries like these ones. It was a little difficult to get to them, though. It was very hot, after all, so hot that he was starting to become a little unbalanced. There was a pleasant fog in his head, though, and while the ground swayed alarmingly under his hooves, he was still able to visit first one bush and then another. All the while, the heat of the afternoon grew more intense, and the sticky berries all the more enticing in the face of the heat wave. It wasn’t all bad, though. The bird song was sweeter. The flies didn’t seem so bad. And the creek moving slowly past the banks looked all the cooler and more comfortable the longer he looked at it. I’m gonna go swimming later, he told himself. It looks so cool in there. So cool on a nice, hot day. So cool. See if I can get Doc to join me too, he’ll like how cool it is. He smiled and stumbled over to the next bush. Maybe there will be bugs in the water he’ll like!
It took him a while to notice that Doc was calling for him. “Over here!” he called back, and just like that, Doc stepped around a bush and stared at him. Kryzas grinned at him. “I ate most of the berries,” he said. “But there’s still some around if you want some.”
Kryzas couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed an afternoon like this without getting into a fight. He almost thought he liked this better. It was hot enough just sitting under bushes, he couldn’t begin to imagine how hot it would be if they were running around being active.
Doc Perish, however, did not join him in eating the berries. Instead, he peered at the leaves on a bush, then looked over at Kryzas, his expression unreadable. “How many of these berries have you had?” he asked.
Kryzas shrugged. “Haven’t really been keeping track. Sorry, was having too much fun to count numbers.” Of course Doc wanted to know the numbers. He was a numbers kind of guy. He was probably trying to figure out how many berries were on a bush! Such a nerd! Doing dumb stuff like his “natural history” instead of enjoying himself! Kryzas couldn’t help but laugh at his friend’s screwed-up priorities. “Guess you should’ve been over here keeping track for me!” he giggled. “Instead of napping under a tree.”
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 2:23 pm
Ah. Okay. Well, this was certainly A Development.
Doc loved nature. He loved things that crept and crawled between his feet and below his hooves, but he loved plants, too. He fancied himself a natural historian; he knew about the edible plants and herbs in the territory he and Kryzas lived in; he knew about the poisonous plants, and the mushrooms too. He knew what time of year it was safe to eat what, what parts were edible, and what parts were every bit as poisonous as a serpent’s venom. The color of the berry stain on Kryzas’s lips, the shape and number of the leaves on the bush, and Kryzas’s odd behavior were enough for the Usdia to know what he was looking at. “Cackleberry,” he said out loud. “At Buck Moon. Of course.” And judging by the size of the stain on Kryzas’s lips and the way he kept swaying back and forth, the answer to Doc’s question was probably not enough to kill him, but enough to make life entertaining.
The thing about cackleberry was, well, it made you cackle, if you ate it on a hot day when it had been fermenting for days in the summer heat. It took a lot of berries to take down a bigger Soquili, but for an Usdia? Not much. A couple bushes worth would be enough. He’d partaken once or twice, of course. For science! But he’d never indulged as much as Kryzas just had. He’d been introduced to the stuff by one of his big brothers when he was younger, and warned over and over again not to overindulge. Eat too many of the fermented berries and you woke up the next day wanting to die. Facing Kryzas tomorrow was going to be absolute hell.
But in the meantime, Kryzas was looking…happy? Calm, certainly, and he was laughing and making jokes. Just like he used to, Doc thought with a pang. He used to make jokes more often. But he’d been changing, and not for the better. He couldn’t help it, he just felt…sad at the thought that his friend wasn’t who he used to be.
Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because Kryzas tilted his head. “Are you…sad I didn’t leave any for you?” He looked around. ”There must be more…I think I ate most of them, but there must be some for you, too…”
Doc shook his head. ”It’s okay, Kryzas. Come on, let’s go sit under the willow tree. It’s cooler over there and you look like you’re feeling too hot.”
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 2:37 pm
Kryzas laughed. He couldn’t help it. There was a lot to laugh about. Like the way that Doc said “of course.” Or the fact that these berries were called cackleberries. Of course they were called cackleberries! They made everything funnier! He knew, in some vague kind of way, that he wouldn’t have found this nearly so funny if he hadn’t eaten these berries. But today felt like such a good day, so bright and sunny, and with his best friend by his side, that he couldn’t help but laugh at having the good fortune to find berries that made it possible for him to laugh at how good everything was. And then there was the fact that Doc wasn’t mad at him? He sounded a little disappointed that he hadn’t gotten any berries, sure, but he wasn’t mad at Kryzas! That was good!
“You know you’re my best friend?” Kryzas said. Walking back to the willow tree was hard, especially when he was so busy smiling and chuckling at the way a butterfly seemed to shy away from a dragonfly as if offended. But it was a lot easier pressed up against Doc’s side, leaning on him for support. Even if it was hotter and sticker with the amount of sweat they were both putting out, it was worth it to not go tail over nose bone. The heat was doing something to his head to make his footing unsteady. If it weren’t for Doc, he would have fallen already, and he wasn’t entirely confident he’d be able to get up again. If it weren’t for Doc, there were a lot of things he wouldn’t have. I don’t know what I’d do without him. I’d be so freaking lonely, for one thing. “You’re my best friend in the whoooooole—world.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “I mean, I guess, technically, you’re my only friend.”
“I know,” Doc said. “You’re my friend too, Kryzas.” To the Imp’s shock, Doc bumped his head playfully against Kryzas’s, making a pleasant knocking sound as their skulls touched. “But I’d like to ask you to make me one promise, okay?”
It took Kryzas a second to parse those words, and by the time he’d finished figuring out what Doc’s sentence meant, the other Usdia had guided him onto his side under the willow. “Um…okay…if I can…but I don’t know if I can. But what is it?”
Doc draped his neck over Kryzas’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort and camaraderie that sent a shiver down Kryzas’s spine. He lowered his head into the grass and closed his eyes. He could smell flowers blooming and the fresh smell of grass growing. Somewhere in the trees, there must have been a honeybee nest, full of honey, because he could smell the faint smell of it on the breeze. He almost forgot that there was a question when Doc answered it.
“Don’t eat so many cackleberries next time?” he said. “You’re a little, well. Giggly.”
How else was Kryzas supposed to respond? He giggled!
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