fandomtownies | The Preserve; Tuesday After Classes [10/25].

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The Preserve; Tuesday After Classes [10/25].

Graham, Guillermo, and Triumph had all set a date to go exploring in the preserve that afternoon, but first, they had to get there, so Triumph continued to prove his status as Mighty Steed by carrying the burden of transporting them both deep into the familiar woods, so they they could better appreciate the scenery as Triumph dutifully avoided all the cats. If he was entirely honest, all these black cats suddenly showing up did make Graham a little bit nervous, but he wasn't about to admit that in front of Guillermo. Instead, he tried to turn it into a little bit of a game, to see who could count the most by the time they got to their destination, but it did not bode especially well that the number Graham was left with at the end of their journey was thirteen.

He almost considered nudging Triumph to walk around a little more until they saw a fourteenth cat, but once he caught sight of what they were aiming for, there was no stopping him, as his gait got a little quicker and he squeaked excitedly, and Graham held on a little tighter as Triumph picked up speed until he brought them to a rock.

It didn't seem to be a particularly special rock. It was big, sure, and its dappling of moss was rather nice, and there were a few porgs curled up sleeping on it who complained at being disturbed by their approach as they waddled away, disgruntled, but it was hard to deny, especially with the afternoon sun breaking through the trees onto it, it did hold a certain charm.

"And behold!" Graham announced with a wave of his hand toward the rock and a grin back at Guillermo, "Triumph's favorite rock!"

And their starting point for adventure now reached, he swung his long leg over Triumph's head to better slide of the side of him and dismount, and then offered out a hand to Guillermo to help him with doing the same.

[[ adventuring buddy modded with permission! Graham and Guillermo are here for their ~exploring date~, but open preserve is most certainly open for all your preserve-related needed! ]]

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It had definitely been an adventure riding on Triumph and being so close to Graham, that it had taken Guillermo a while to even notice that there were so many black cats around, which he didn’t mind as such and playing how many cats they could find had been rather fun.

He smiled brightly as Graham offered his hand to help him down, “thank you,” he beamed as he accepted the help,, feeling his cheeks go red, “so this is the famous rock I’ve heard so much about?”

And once free of his riders, Triumph immediately trotted over to the rock, nudging his face against it as if in greeting, before finding that one particularly rounded bit that jabbed out just enough to be the perfect spot for him to wriggle up against and get that sweet, sweet spot for scratching that was so rare, and thus was the reason why this rock, out of all the other rocks, was his favorite. No rock could even compared to the scratching that this rock provided.

And Graham, not surprised at all by this, had to chuckle fondly at his mighty steed's antics and appreciation for a good scratching rock, and the grinned over at Guillermo. "One and the same!" he declared. "We usually start all our adventures from here, so once he gets his fill, we can set off and start exploring! Is there any direction you think you'd like to start off in?"

Guillermo smiled as he watched Triumph scratch himself against the rock, “I can see why he likes it, it’s a great rock,” he added.

He paused as he had a look in the different directions, “what direction do you normally start with?” he asked, a bit unsure of which way to go first.

Graham shrugged his shoulders a little. "It depends," he said. "Sometimes, I let Triumph lead the way, and that always gets us into some interesting places. Othertimes, I'll just follow the direction of the wind, or go completely against it, or sometimes I'll just look for either teal deer or alots and follow them! Sometimes, I'll just toss up my cap and go in the direction of wherever the feather's pointed, or sometimes I'll ask the birds if they've seen anything interesting. Or I'll just pause for a good, long time and listen carefully for interesting sounds. The other day, I heard some interesting grunting and a sort of snick-snick sound, and I thought maybe it was some hideous beast with razor-sharp claws and terrible deadly teeth! But it was just some guy training with a sword."

It had been incredibly disappointing....but also kind of a relief.

“That must have been rather exciting though, thinking you were going to come up against a hideous beast,” Guillermo considered as he took that information in and tried to figure out what direction to go in, “I bet you and Triumph would have fought it off,” he added shyly.

"Oh," said Graham, confidently, puffing out his chest importantly with his fists on his hips, clearly cutting a very heroic figure with his chin lifted boldly, as well. A figure that was maybe spoiled just a little with this grin slipping through. "Most certainly! We would have given that fearsome beast a trouncing he would not soon forget, and he would spread word all throughout the land that the mighty Graham Crac--"

But his declaration was suddenly interrupted by a loud thwump-ing noise from the underbrush around them and, started, excited, hopeful, Graham stopped and turned to Guillermo, eyebrows lifted in a silent question of whether or not they'd found their direction.

Guillermo grinned excitedly when he heard that noise, “well, how about we start exploring what that noise is?” he said as he peered in that direction, “do you think you might get to face that hideous beast after all?”

"Maybe!" said Graham, eyes lighting up as he pulled himself up a little bit more with eagerness. And then he realized how loud that was and winced down a bit, putting a finger to his lips to indicate that they should be quiet if they were going to proceed forward.

"And after ~~presumably~~ taking down that mighty monster in Fighting class yesterday," he added, now leaning toward Guillermo to whisper conspiratorially, "facing anything in these woods should be a walk in the park, right?"

With that said, he leaned away to listen again for the direction in which the sound was coming from, nodded, and then slowly began to creep his way over toward that particular tangle of underbrush, crouched low and with elaborately quiet steps, gesturing for Guillermo to follow. He stopped again, at a spot where a the thwumping sound seemed to be just beyond a thicket of leaves, and turned toward Guillermo.

"Ready?" he whispered, lifting a hand, moving it to pull away the leaves as soon as Guillermo confirmed so that they might get to look upon their potential quarry.

“Right, this should be easy after that,” Guillermo hoped anyway because that monster had been a lot.

He found that he was rather nervous as he tried to be quiet but his heart was thumping rather loudly as he followed Graham where the sound was coming from, bending as low as he could.

“Ready,” he nodded, whispering back.

Graham nodded, breathing out slowly. He wasn't sure if his own heart began racing on its own nervous accord, or if it was merely trying to keep up with Guillermo's. Licking his lips, suddenly dry with anticipation, Graham fought the urge to wipe the sweat away from his brow. His hands were clammy with it, it dripped down his spine, and he felt as if the whole forest had gone silent, holding its bated breath to see what he would reveal.

Steeling himself, Graham reached out, and slowly pulled back the curtain of foliage to unveil...

"Oh."

Graham's shoulders dropped, as did that rapidly racing heart.

"Never mind. It's just an Alot of Build-Up."

Guillermo wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointment, “well maybe we just need to keep looking?” he tried to be encouraging, “I’m sure we’ll come across another hideous beast or some massive creature,”

Though hopefully not as massive as the one they’d faced in class yesterday.

Graham was definitely disappointed, but he wasn't going to let that squash his adventuring spirit. Buoyed also by Guillermo's encouragement, he nodded a little and flashed him a newly charged smile. "And at least we now have a direction we can head!" he suggested. "Let's see what lies in wait for us this way! Come on, Triumph! Into the great wild wilderness we go!

"This'll be good training for me, anyway," he added, once they got moving again. "Have I told you before, that one of the tests for the Tournament of Knights is to fetch the eye of a Hideous Beast?"

Guillermo returned that smile as he followed Graham and Triumph, “no I don’t think you’ve mentioned that test,” he said as he thought about it, he was sure that he would remember being told about a tournament that required someone to fetch the the eye of a Hideous Beast, “I know you’ve told me about the Knight of Tournaments before,” he tilted his head, “the test must be extremely difficult, is there one specific Hideous Beast that you have to get the eye from?”

"Nope!" Graham said cheerfully, as he navigated through the brush, following the path cleared before them by Triumph's lead....which would occasionally call for sudden stops, here and there, as Triumph distracted himself with a little nibble or a bite at some grass and leaves here and there. "And that's the beauty of it! You have to be brave and quick and clever, all the traits that are important for a knight of Daventry to possess! I heard one guy even tried to bring in his ex-wife for it one year. It did not go over well."

“Oh wow,” Guillermo blinked a bit at that, “I can imagine that would have probably caused a lot of drama," he said as he tried to picture what that would have been like, "is the tournament always like that? It must be incredibly exciting to watch," he wondered what other examples someone might have used to get the eye of a beast.

"Oh," Graham enthused excitedly, "I'm sure it is! I've never been befofe, myself, but I've heard all sorts of thrilling tales and spectacular stories! Hey! Maybe you can come, too, when I'm finally old enough to compete! We can see Daventry together, see their a~leeeengendary~ flying castle, and you can cheer me on! It'll be just about a year from now, and then it's go time!"

Guillermo beamed at that, feeling himself start to go rather red, “I …I would love to visit Daventry with you and watch you compete and cheer you on!” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as he managed to stammer out a response, “is - is there really a flying castle in Daventry?” his eyes were wide as he imagined what that would look like.

Edited 2022-10-26 00:33 (UTC)

"There is!"

No, there wasn't.

"Well," Graham amended, because the mun realized that she'd been misremembering this whole time about the castle, "it's not so much a flying castle as it is a floating island."

They didn't actually have one of those, either.

"But it's still got to be impressive!"

It really, really wasn't.

"I've seen all the pamphlets and flyers for it, I can't wait to dee it with my own two eyes!"

“Oh that sounds amazing,” Guillermo’s eyes were wide, completely unaware that there was neither a flying castle or floating island but it was fun to imagine, “and I could get to see those things with you as well?” that was probably the part that he was most excited about really, spending even more time with Graham, even if it was whole another year away.

[and with the right comment this time as well, it would help to double check the post even :), sorry!]

"Well, sure!" Graham laughed a little. "What's the point in seeing the Fantastic Floating Island of Daventry by yourself, when you could go see it with ~friends~ instead?"

Especially now that he had some!

That weren't even woodland creatures!

“Friends yes,” Guillermo was trying very hard to keep his expression from falling at that because everything about that honestly sounded like his idea of an ideal date.

“I …I would…um like that, alot …um a lot,” he managed to stammer, rubbing the back of his neck as did.

"Then it's a date!" Graham declared cheerfully, but, just before an Alot of Mixed Signals no doubt was about to come trampling through the woods to intersect their path, he couldn't help but notice the shift in Guillermo's disposition for once.

"...everything okay, Guillero?" he asked, titling his head a little and frowning for a moment at those stammers, and then he looked around, especially over his shoulder. "Did you see something in the woods or the underbrush?"

He seemed nervous, so maybe he'd spotted something that they should be nervous about?

Guillermo was trying very hard to keep his expression from revealing too much and his insides twisted at the mention of the word date, he briefly wondered what Graham’s reaction would be if he told him the truth about how he really felt but that terrified him more, especially if Graham didn’t feel the same way, “um … yes, I mean I’m fine … “ he squeaked out, tried to sound convincing but was failing miserably, “er … “ he quickly looked around, “I think I heard a noise in the underbrush,” he finally stammered, “it sounded pretty loud?”

"Really?" asked Graham, now also looking around, to an almost comical degree of how much his head turned and twisted to try and get a better look around at whatever it could have been. After all, whatever it had been really seemed to have gotten to Guillermo, so it had to have been something really good, right? Probably scary! And so he started to feel that excited apprehension coursing through himself now, too! "Where? Do you think it's another alot? Or something else? Should we go check it out? Maybe it's more cats! Maybe it's our hideous beast!"

"I heard it over here," Guillermo turned and pointed into what he thought sounded like a good hunting direction, relieved for the distraction and all of his feelings for Graham and potential future dates and he nodded, “It did sound like it was making beast like noises,” he nodded in the direction he was pointing, “I think we should have a look, I mean just to be on the safe side,”

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The Preserve; Tuesday After Classes [10/25].

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