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Post by lopmon on Jan 3, 2016 19:45:08 GMT
Lopmon had been walking since he left the monastery. The land had grown hot and dry, a different kind of barren that made him long for snowfields. Still Lopmon walked, following the tug of his heart. Searching. At times he would begin to despair at his choices or his path, but he would pause a moment, still himself, and recenter. The sun was high in the sky, and he walked with his ears flared out to create a little patch of shade. Around midday, he stopped in the shade of a lone rock to rest.
"It didn't look so big on the map," he commented to himself. Feeling a breath of cooler air, he turned towards the rock and discovered it shaded a small hole dug out of the ground. Ever curious, Lopmon leaned his face over the hole to look in, leaning further when he couldn't see much. The edge of the hole crumbled, and he had a brief glimpse of a tunnel before it crumbled under his paws and sent the small digimon tumbling down into the ground, the tunnel at a steep incline. He tucked his paws in close to his body, curled up, and waited for the fall to end.
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Post by lopmon on Jan 3, 2016 23:08:24 GMT
It felt like a very long fall. Lopmon rolled into a small cave in a cloud of pebbles and dust. Now deep below the desert, the temperature was much cooler and the only light came from little patches of glowing mushrooms along the edges of the cavern's floor. He didn't move at first, just coughing and softly fanning his ears to clear the air around himself. He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, surprised to be standing in a space only a little larger than he was tall. Lop-sized. It was somewhat alarming, this sudden fall. But there were three tunnels exiting off the far side of this chamber, and he could feel a soft wind current. Chances were it would let out somewhere.
Lopmon chose the left-hand tunnel, after some deliberation. He set off down it at his usual toddling walk. It wasn't easy to hurry on legs like these; why bother? Every so often he would stop at intersections, ears lifted up and flared to catch the hints of breeze wafting through. And soon to catch something else, right on the edge of his perception. Some kind of sound. He listened and he followed it, quiet and slow.
After a while Lopmon stopped. He turned around, examining the way he came with a frown. He turned back to his course until he got to the next intersection. As at the others. he stopped, closed his eyes and listened. He turned right. Once inside the right-hand tunnel he stopped, lifted a rock and made a scratch against the wall in the shape of a crude bunny, He turned, walked back into the intersection, and turned back the way he came. He walked down into the tunne, looked to the wall. He was hardly surprised to find his crude carving right where he'd left it. The tunnels were twisting back behind him.
He could only go forward. So he did. When he stopped to listen he began to pick up a second sound; this one easier to place. It was a grinding, shifting. The tunnels turning back on themselves as he passed. He wondered what would happen if he made a wrong turn, but he wasn't curious or brave enough to try it. He listened carefully at every intersection. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there, how long since he'd made a sound. It reminded him of his days at the monastery....
Lopmon had been walking the grounds of the monastery. He did that a great deal, finding the Rookie dormitory... cramped. It was snowing, and his trail around the courtyard was in constant opposition to the gently falling snowflakes. Still he walked round and round, ears tucked around his shoulder in a modest yet warm robe. His walking came to a halt as his gaze fell on pairs of feet disturbing his tracks.
"Renamon, Patamon," he greeted them mildly. They didn't get along. Never had. Renamon, a one of a kind at the monastery, had always been slated for great things. It had gone to her head a little, perhaps. She had little tolerance or understanding for the little bunny digimon's character flaws, despite her own. Patamon, reasonably innocent on his own, idolized Renamon. He followed her in all things. And so here they were, likely to continue the old argument.
"Out here plotting more mischief, Brother Lopmon?" She asked, proving his suspicions accurate. "No mischief Renamon, I assured you that was the Pagumon we took in. Why will you not believe me, Renamon?" She sneered, prompting the same from Patamon. "Because I can see it in your eyes even if Brother Antylamon cannot. You are not pure, Lopmon. You will never wear the holy rings."
He was afraid she was right. Always was he afraid. Yet always striving to find that balance, that center as Brother Antylamon had taught him. He tried to remember those teachings now, to be the rock this river of tumultuous feelings flowed around. His expression placid, Lopmon moved to step around her and continue his walk. She moved to block his path. She always did. She was his test.
"I wish you would allow me to walk," he sighed. But she wouldn't. She never would. It was never easy for Lopmon to follow the tenets of the monastery, and she always took his slip-ups as personal affronts. They never got along and lately, she had been downright... antagonistic.
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Post by lopmon on Jan 4, 2016 2:24:44 GMT
There were many days, many encounters like this. On all but one Lopmon maintained his composure, his center as Brother Antylamon taught. On this occasion in the snow... Renamon accused him of taking something precious of hers. Lopmon of course refused guilt, the disagreement became heated. Too heated. Though she pushed and pushed, it was Lopmon that struck first, out of anger. His ear caught her square in the jaw and sent her sprawling to the ground before Patamon's shocked gaze.It was a moment of instant shame for Lopmon. He fled the courtyard immediately; straight to Brother Antylamon in fact. He confessed his crime. He understood the severity of attacking another monk. He offered to leave, to go on a pilgrimage to seek his center. This way at least he could spare them the shame of having to expel one of their own, outright. He promised to not return until he had found his balance. He set off into the snow, and he walked...And he walked. Lopmon stopped suddenly, blinking. He'd been lost in that memory, that shame he carried. He'd kept walking through the tunnels, and now found himself at the entrance to another small chamber. A small, raised mound of earth at the center cradled a very special digi-egg, bands of tan and brown visible beneath a spiraling band of metal that wound around the egg from tip to bottom. At its bottom six small red nails protruded from the metal band, steadying the eagg's perch. At the top two small, oddly-curved blades protruded from the band like metallic ears. Lopmon realized immediately why he was here, what had been calling to him. He closed his eyes, opening himself up to the digimental before him, and felt the flash of light and sound as it absorbed into his being. Eyes glowing silver, Lopmon called upon the data compressed into a corner of his being. "Lopmon armor digivolve to..." His form changed as he curled up in a cocoon of digicode. His fur turned to brown and tan while his body lengthened, his hind legs in particular growing thicker and stronger. His ears shortened comparatively, yet hardened and honed to a metallic razor's edge. He slipped his front paws into still-forming digicode gauntlets, heavy metallic gloves that bolted onto his forearms and featured a trio of long red claws for digging or attacking.  "...Prairiemon! The Wanderer!" The lights cleared and Lopmon marveled at his new form. Strong, fit. Rugged. He instinctively felt the knowledge of his new abilities spiral into his mind as he grew comfortable with his new form. Smiling despite himself, he flexed his new claws and waddled over to a cave wall, eager to test his new skills. The claws sank through the earth and stone at a preternatural pace, and soon he was out of sight of the caverns' strange mushroom glow. His ears lay back close to his skull, vibrating slightly and ringing in a way that told him where he was, where 'down' versus 'up' was, and other things not so easily quantified. His claws burst from the sand not thirty feet from the rock he'd sheltered under; his nose followed after until Prairiemon's upper torso was resting out of the ground, blinking in the sunlight and looking around with a new curiosity. He was strangely happy to be back up to the desert. He felt much more up to facing it, now.
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Post by Byakko on Jan 4, 2016 16:37:29 GMT
Annnnd ACCEPTED!
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