[FIN] The Painted Egg - (Shierra/Adenah)

[Painted Moose]

The Painted Egg
Prompt 1

Solo or RP Format
Counts as 5 RP growth Points
Solo word minimum is 750, RP post minimum is 7

Spring has arrived in Tendaji; in most places flowers were blooming while others might only see a slight temperature increase. The weather was nice so you decide to take a stroll. As you leave town and enter a small clearing, you notice strange colorful dots all throughout the grass.

"Oh stop right there!"

Freezing, you stop with your foot hovering just a breath above the grass and then as you slowly take one step backwards you notice that something colorful had been nestled against the ground. What was this? A Gaein girl comes forward and offers a big smile, "Thank you for stopping! You nearly crushed the egg." From there she explains that the whole field is full of colorful eggs that she had spread out for the villagers to find. Apparently in Belrea this time of year is a time for festivities and one of their most popular games is finding brightly dyed eggs that children create with their parents who later hide them away. As a member of the Academy she had been granted permission to come and share this knowledge with those in Tendaji and so offers to allow you to play with those already shifting through the wide expanse of fields.

[ Roll a 1d20 to determine what happens during your hunt!]
1. You are reaching out for an egg when it suddenly floats away! What in the? But then you notice wings behind it. A sprite is trying to steal your egg away!
2. You find a total of 8, totally normal, painted eggs!
3. You pick up what appears to be an egg but doesn't have the same weight a normal egg should have and you notice a line down the center. As you pull the two halves apart, a strange vial [an eye of the goddess] falls out!
4. You find a total of 2, totally normal, painted eggs!
5. You pick up an egg but later begin to smell something foul coming from your bag, it seems that you picked up a rotten egg!
6. You feel a bit competitive and run around as fast as you can to collect every egg, too bad a little boy just left with a basket full!
7. Oh no, watch your step! You accidentally step on and break an egg!
8. You find a total of 10, totally normal, painted eggs!
9. You find an extra large egg hidden in some tall grass. Later, it hatches into a Xaraan!
10. You're a little late to the party, all the younglings have already gathered all the eggs before you even got a chance, how sad!
11. You find a total of 5, totally normal, painted eggs!.
12. You hear a quiet scratching noise coming from a slightly larger painted egg you just picked up. It later hatches into a Sailscale!
13. You find a total of 1, totally normal, painted egg!
14. As you're walking, you hear a strange noise coming from the bushes. A keldari pops out at you! Whether you get startled or just shoo it away, a few eggs fall out of your basket and crack as they hit the ground.
15. You find a total of 3, totally normal, painted eggs!
16. You're walking towards a particular egg when you feel something beneath your foot as you take a step. Whew! Close call, you move your foot and the egg remains unharmed and you add it to your basket!
17. You find a total of 15, totally normal, painted eggs!
18. You feel your basket start to wiggle a bit and then hear giggling. As you look down, you see a youngling taking your eggs! They make off with 4 of your eggs before you have a chance to stop them!
19. You find an unpainted egg. Figuring it's not a part of the egg hunt, you leave it alone and continue on.
20. It seems that something is weird about one of the eggs you've picked up. As you stare at it the egg begins to wobble and even glows from the inside?! It later hatches into a Sitara!  

[Cornetified]

Shierra's roll~  

[Cornetified]

Oba did not have too many areas of actual grass, but the occasional oasis could be found either naturally or artificially. A rather substantial area had been built in the outskirts of town by a few of the more wealthy residents with access to magic, a water supply, and employees to maintain it. This was one of Shierra's preferred places to go when she missed the lush Matori homestead.

Heading through the sparse but well-tended trees, she peered ahead at some strange colors in the grass. What was-?

Shierra's head snapped around when someone yelled. Was this another hybrid? No, the shades were wrong, and the eyes... "Egg?" Shierra stepped back and stared at the egg as it was plucked up. Oh, this was a Belrean! Bringing over some sort of spring tradition?

Oooh, it was a contest! Grinning, Shierra swiped up a basket and nodded. There was no obvious prize aside from the eggs themselves, but she could not turn down a good contest~  

[Painted Moose]

Cornetified

None of this made sense to her, but Adenah was willing to try anything once.

The teenager had been in Oba for all of a few weeks before the strange Belrean had accosted her about stepping on eggs. She didn't understand at first; in all honesty she'd thought the woman was mad, but then she'd seen them. A field of sand and sparse, dried grass covered in brightly painted eggs. Oban children mired around the edges, looking on eagerly with their friends before starting the 'hunt' in earnest. So it was just...a big game? To hunt stinking eggs in the desert?

Someone had tended to the area, though not nearly enough for it to survive a hoard of trampling feet. She was ready to walk away from it all when the Belrean pushed her to join, even going so far as to give her a plain little basket. Scrunching her features, Adenah did as she was bid and moved forward, bending down to pick up the first egg she spotted but...ultimately touching anothers hand instead. "Sorry, you can have it."  

[Cornetified]

Her crimson eyes darted around in search of the odd treasures. She would never have thought anyone would be making fun with hunting eggs, but who was she to argue? It was something different to do, and offered a challenge; albeit a rather simple one.

Hand snapping out for an egg, she looked up quickly to see her competitor. However, the other girl seemed to back right off. Really? "If you're sure, thanks," she said quickly, plucking up the egg before the other girl could change her mind. Straightening up, she watched a boy run by with a basket practically overflowing with eggs. "Ugh," she huffed. "They shoulda made an announcement or somethin' so ev'ryone got a chance."

Painted Moose

 

[Painted Moose]

Cornetified

"What good would that have done? Little brats like that would still find a way to come out on top." Adenah watched the little boy with a quiet look of disdain. He probably paid someone to do his hunting for him; why else would he have so many eggs so quickly? Hiking her basket up her arm, she nestled it into the crook of her arm and moved at a faster pace into the quick of it. "Come on, we'll tag team them! I might not win but I'm not coming out of this without a few eggs!"

It wouldn't be much; at this rate they were getting snatched up quickly and the hybrid was slow to spot them. Every time she ducked for an egg a tiny hand was there to snatch it up first, and as frustrating as that was, Adenah didn't feel like taking them from children. Not while they were in front of her, anyway.  

[Cornetified]

Lips pressing, Shierra couldn't help but to nod in agreement. Some of these spoiled kids had everything handed to them. When the other teen kicked up her step, Shierra instantly matched. Her grin brightened, and she hurried off with a nod. "We'll show 'em we don't need our parents ta cheat an' get what we want," she assured. Her parents would surely never have let her get away with such laziness! Kids these days... "I see a couple on that tree branch~"

Painted Moose

 

[Painted Moose]

Cornetified

[3/7]

"Hell no we don't!" The last thing Adenah needed was her parents breathing down her neck. Not that they would help her win; if anything, her mother would be pushing her to do it on her own and her father would find some way to cheat the system. Either way, she hadn't been raised to lose, even if it was to a bunch of kids.

Adenah stopped short of the tree, and looked up. Sure enough someone had managed to get a few shoved up into the branches of an old, warbled desert tree. She was so used to the massive, sprawling jungle of Jauhar by now that looking at something like this was almost laughable.

For a second she started to climb up it, but thought better of it. Adenah wasn't exactly a little girl, and that thing...didn't look so sturdy. "Hey, if I let you climb up my shoulders, do you think you can get them?"  

[Cornetified]

Shierra was already assessing the tree, mentally working out the best approach. Then a little teamwork was suggested, and Shierra grinned brightly. "Can a xaraan outrun a bushi?" she asked in reply, hurrying over eagerly. She patted the other's shoulders briefly to check her footing. "No problem. Just help me up 'n' we'll have ourselves some good ones!" It looked like it would be two each! She could see a few kids starting to eye the trees, and she put her hand on the trunk. "Them vultures are onto us. We better get movin'."

Painted Moose

 

[Painted Moose]

Cornetified

[4/7]

Oh thank the gods. That retorical question was just local enough to make Adenah so beyond happy she'd come back to Oba. The shifters had their own way of speaking, and while it wasn't bad it just wasn't home.

She hurriedly sat her basket down so when the other girl started her climb Adenah could properly support her. It wasn't....particularly easy to hold someone up like that, but it also wasn't her first time. She and her sisters had done it hundreds of times as kids, just not so much since she'd grown. I really need to work out more she mentally grimaced. Still, Adenah braced her self, using the trunk of the tree as additional support while her eyes looked over the approaching vultures.

"Got 'em yet?"  

[Cornetified]

An avid climber of various things, Shierra had no trouble scampering up to grab the branch for extra support. "Almost," she called back, stretching out her arm for the colorful prizes. "Aww man!" she huffed, realizing that it would only be one egg each. Still, she put both into her basket. "I got them." Shimmying back down without incident, Shierra held the eggs out for the other girl to see. "Take the one ya want."

Despite the retrieval, one little girl still came over to peer up the tree, and then at the eggs being held out with a wistful little expression.

Shierra glanced at the youngling's full basket and hissed. "These eggs are ours, pest!" The youngling shrieked and ran back to her friends, leaving Shierra to snicker without any shame.

Painted Moose

 

[Painted Moose]

Cornetified

"You're awesome!" Adenah squealed. She reached for a pretty purple egg, one with fancy little golden designs, and barely noticed the youngling. Admittedly at first she was extremely skeptical of this whole thing, but now she was actually having some fun!

At least, until she had her hands on the egg, and the other girl was hissing. "Alright, so... you have got to tell me. Hybrid to hybrid; you're part perzi, right?" She snickered, and slipped the egg into her basket. So what if it wasn't the exact way she would have handled the little buggers; the results were piling up either way, right?  

[Cornetified]

The tease had Shierra giving a sharp grin in return. "I've been called worse," she replied with a chuckle. It was surprisingly easy to imagine herself with little pointed ears and a tail twitching behind her... Maybe a couple sharp fangs protruding just slightly from her lips.. "Rowr," she teased, swiping lightly at the air between them like a feline batting a fly. "Once a perzi gets her prize, she holds onto it~"

Painted Moose

 

[Painted Moose]

Cornetified

[6/7]

"Is that so? Well, what about when they caught up to us?" She motioned behind the teen to a small group of parents, each stomping in front of a separate spooked child. Somehow the game had turned on them, with these pampered brats and their full baskets ending up the 'victims'. Adenah could just see a full on lecture crossing each of those parents faces, and she just wasn't ready for that today.

"What's the plan? Stick it out and hope for the best, or bail out? Because I don't know about you, but I don't want any of what they're bringing." That one mother had bad breath written all over her tacky dress, and Ade had no doubts that she'd tried to push her face into theirs, spraying them with skunk smell.  

[Cornetified]

They? Shierra looked over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. "I told ya. Pest," she said with a sigh. Hopefully, none of those parents knew her or her mother.... She didn't want to get an earful of that later! "Plan?" Shierra turned to give the girl another sharp grin. "I don't know about you, but I'm outta here. Best that we split up. Thanks for the egg help. Name's Shierra, by the way. Or Perzi Girl, if that's better." Giving her partner in crime an amiable slap on the arm, she turned and bolted to run before the mob reached them. She left behind a few sparking balls of fire in the air as a distraction, hoping to give the both of them a better chance of successful escape.

Painted Moose