Tilney's feet dragged; literally. The hooves that were once gilded and light now felt heavier than a hundred bushels of pine bark - and he'd carried quite a number of bark stacks to and from the greenhouse in his time as a Moon Doctor.
Thankfully they were already in the territory they called Ultima when his encounter with the rift took ahold of him, lifted him skyward and plunged him back to the earth beneath with hooves and feathers of cold, hard stone. The physician had attempted many thing's to undo the curse that had been set upon him like rubbing and scratching at his rocky hooves, sometimes even thwacking them against other rocks or trying to wash it off in the surf - all came to no avail, and as he trudged miserably along the beach toward what appeared to be a cave he began to grunt and moan with each joint-stretching step.
To add to the frustration, Tilney was quite sure that poor Otem would have reached their destination days ago if it weren't for his lack of wings, let alone the fact the now travelled at a fraction of the pace he normally would. "JUST-
...meet me there" He had growled up to her when the sea caves came into view... at least four miles across the bay.
It took him a decent part of the afternoon to trudge over there, occasionally stopping to question if it would even be worth the trip. If Maude wasn't there it would be a dead end, and a heartbreaking one at that. Peatree on the other hand was having quite a marvellous day, one spent upside down upon tilney's antlers. the Bat had not dared to rise from a happy stupor for days it had seemed, and if Tilney didn't know any better he would have thought the creature had come across a ferment of some sort and drunk the whole barrel.
Upon entering the gargling sea cave, Tilney was met with quite a magnificent view. The surface was particularly glassy, and already he could imagine Maude singing in a place like this - she would have loved the echoes and how her voice might bound off the cave walls.
in my thoughts i have seen rings of smoke through the trees, & the voices of those who stand looking.
Tilney wasn't wrong.
Aside from the initial shock and surprise of seeing him magically moved by the Rift, the fact that his feet had quite literally turned to stone lost its intrigue and appeal almost instantly. The two had talked about what could have possibly caused this and ways of getting the stone off (knocking them against other stones, trying to remove them by friction and force), but of course nothing worked. This wasn't all together that surprising given the Rift's apparent penchant for mischief, but because it wasn't happening to her, she wasn't quite as sympathetic to Tilney's plight as she maybe should have been. Even so, she followed at his heels (at an alarmingly slow pace), and kept a helpful and patient smile on her face despite the fact that she was fairly certain a slug could have moved faster than her companion currently was.
There were few things in life that riled Otem quite as much as inefficiency did. And walking slower than paint dried, rather than flying swiftly to the cave, was about as inefficient as things came.
"Oh, are you sure?" Otem answered obligatorily.
"I am more than happy to keep walking with you.." She was of course required to say this, despite the fact that she would have given anything to move even slightly faster than they were currently going. "Then again, perhaps I should go on ahead. That way I can try and see Maude from the air, and if I find her, I can tell her that you're coming."
----- interlude ------
But Otem hadn't seen Maude from the air. She hadn't spotted the curly-haired songstress in all the time that she spent soaring up to the cliffs where they had first met. Although Otem was disappointed not to find Maude for Tilney's sake, she was also disappointed for her sake too. If Maude wasn't here, she'd have to suffer even more slow walking with Tilney, and she wasn't sure that her anxiety levels had lowered enough for her to stomach that.
As Otem spied Tilney enter the sea cave, she leaped from the cliffs and gracefully swooped down towards him, landing lightly at the mouth of the cave. "Hey!" She chirped brightly, not wanting to disappoint the stone-hooved father who was probably just as annoyed with his current situation as she was. "I didn't see her - but this place is really big. Maybe she's farther back in these caves!"
Ultima
