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+---- Thread: THAT ONCE WAS GREEN | PROMPT (/showthread.php?tid=8926)
THAT ONCE WAS GREEN | PROMPT - ORPHEUS - 01-11-2019
[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]/ for his weekly prompt i took forever to finish! not the history one that's,,, still a wip go me. i have no idea how cold this territory usually gets but i needed snow for this boy idk it's the only way my muse would cooperate. i'm calling it a oneshot but if you WANT you're free to post.
Love had always come easily to Orpheus. Small things in life could mean everything, right? The sunset and slow snowfalls, the gentle rise of ocean waves. Big things could get overwhelming if he didn't find a way to slow down. With everything weighing down on his shoulders, he needed to take some time to himself. For the last few days, he'd slowed down to explore. Though he wasn't the most experienced member here, it seemed that they were all new — he owed it to someone (Clarence? Himself? All the little kids?) to do a little bit better. That didn't mean that the exploration wasn't in itself fun. He'd fallen in love with the picture room when he first saw it, taking his time to study everything that people had placed up there. The idea that someone could disappear from this place but still be remembered by the artwork they hung on a wall was a beautiful thing, but at the same time sour; he doesn't know why.
Most of that feeling is long gone after a few more moments of exploration, his mind entirely back on his goal. Orpheus had ended up outside with the only destination in his mind being somewhere. The light snowfall that had left fairytale snowflakes on every patrol's backs had picked up within what could only be a matter of an hour or two. Now the snow is nearly brushing against the lion's underside if he sinks too far down with a careless step. Every gust of wind has him shivering violently, but he's lucky — for now, things are mostly still. It snows like the clouds themselves are falling down from a quiet grey sky; everything is slow and soft. Even the birds are muted when he makes it to the edge of the forest. But hey, he's dealt with quieter places. For a while the solitude even feels nice.
The lion leaps through unbroken snow like he's a kid again, blustering out little noises as he kicks snow into his own face. But it drops suddenly and his heart lurches a bit. His mind's only explanation is that the floor is crumbling underneath him, right up until he hits ice. Orpheus's breath catches as his heart begins to race, though he calms it quickly. It's a comical pose, his forelimbs slowly spreading forward and apart and his hind ones still up in the snow. After he gains his bearings, a little hop brings him fully to the ice. Aimless travel had always led him to pretty places, but this — this is different. Dawn eyes widen a little bit as he stares down at the marks his paws had left in the thin layer of snow over what he assumes is a frozen lake. It seems large enough for it, and everything is solid underneath him. Nothing cracks when he takes another step out (that's always nice) so he takes a moment to look more.
The ice is clear with a deep blue tint. It doesn't seem too deep and he can't see movement underneath, but the sand and rocks remind him of a dream. Orpheus swipes his paws along the ice as he takes a few more strides further along the ice until he finds dirt and roots. It's a tree, sleeping but still proud. Its branches seem to leave cracks in the sky; even if everything is so dully colored in winter, it's beautiful. The lion himself is a splash of light in the quiet world. When he sits down between the tree's gnarled roots, he finds himself stuck in that loop again. His heart feels too full. Lately there had been a little voice in his ear telling him to run away, take a step back. Everyone's gotten into his head. It's unsettling, uncomfortable — in some weird way, he misses being alone. He misses everything before here.
But at the same time, he doesn't. Missing out on this, a beautiful frozen lake and silent snowfalls, musicals and dry wits and a bunch of little kids... that wouldn't have fixed anything. Like he'd said, love always came easily.