Seasonal | Don't Fall |

Ariadne | AberrantKapro

276 Words

The white, banded atopo was determined, perhaps more than ever, to get to her destination. She had decided that the top of this waterfall was going to be her place of relaxation of the day, but how she would get there in the first place, she was not sure. She tried climbing some slippery, alae covered rocks, but as expected, she started slipping down so she paused for a moment and huffed angrily as she started to look around. Surely, a short way up must exist. She didn’t want to walk around if she didn’t absolutely have to.

Behind her, she spotted two other atopos. A merle and one with some exoskeleton. She was intrigued, and wanted to see if they could help her find a solution to her predicament.

“Hello, can you help me find a way up?” Ariadne called out. “I don’t want to waddle all the way around.”

The two strangers approached Ariadne, who was beyond thrilled that they came to listen to her, at the very least.

“I would really love to get up and sleep on that rock in the middle of the waterfall, it looks so cozy. So if you help me find a way I can pay you back, a favour for a favour you know!” she babbled on, trying to convince them that her idea was, for sure, a good one.

The pale atopo longingly looked up and stood on her hind feet, leaning against a rock. She could more or less picture herself up on that rock already, feeling fulfilled and happy, enjoying the view with water splashing over her. It seemed so close, yet so far.

Yueling | Dillyweed

380 words

Yueling had been watching something rather interesting for a bit. It was an Atopo like her trying to climb the waterfall. She didn’t really understand why but it was something intriguing about the attempts the other one was making. It must really want to get to the top of the waterfall. Yueling sure wanted to know why but didn’t move from her spot at the water edge. She was comfortable with the waterline just above her legs.

It wasn’t until another Atopo joined her side. That Atopo was also brown, quite like her, but with a darker marking on her back. Yueling let her attention travel from the Atopo trying to make her way up the waterfall to the new Atopo by her side.

“Hello, I am Yueling. Do you know what she’s trying to do? Other than climbing a waterfall that high?” She didn’t waste too much time on introductions and directly jumped onto her question. “It must be something really interesting up top if she’s willing to climb all the way up the waterfall.” 

As if asking these questions had made up the Merle Atopos mind she rose from her laying position and started walking out to the waterfall to get a closer look at the other Atopo. And see if she could tell what was so interesting about the top of the waterfall. 

It didn’t take long for Atopo to ask if they could help her find a way to the top of the waterfall. And as Yueling was about to ask the other Atopo explained why she desperately wanted to get up top. Yueling let her gaze travel onto the top of the waterfall. There was indeed a big rock in the middle and it looked very comfortable as it got hit by the sun with full power. 

“Well, I am not sure if I know how to get up there. But now I kinda wanna get up there too! I would love to try and help.” Yueling got closer to the waterfall as she kept her gaze up high. “Can you imagine the view from up there?” She turned her head back to the darker Atopo who had joined her side before. Waiting to see if she also wanted to help them climb the waterfall. 

Roomba | Zhetan

489 words

She wasn’t surprised to see other Atopos at the waterfall, it was a fairly popular spot after all, not only for the location, but also how it was positioned so it got a great amount of sun for longer, even during autumn. At first she had kept to herself, a little self-conscious and also sad that Sponge couldn’t join her this far up the stream. Well she probably could, but there would be no space over for the other atopos then. Besides that Sponge was away for the moment, on what she called an "expedition" deeper in the ocean, where Roomba thought it was too cold. But she quickly shook off the feeling and forced herself to approach a brown and white atopo just at the edge of the stream, seemingly observing a more lively one at the waterfall, she was here to socialize after all.

 “Roomba” she replied to the other one's greeting, listening attentively to her questions. She couldn’t deny she was wondering the same. But before she had time to answer any of them, or suggest she maybe should ask the stranger about it, Yueling had seemingly decided to do so herself and got up from her spot to approach  her.
Roomba sighed quietly, but smiled and shook her head. The Yueling seemed curious and quite impulsive, maybe not as impulsive as the black and white atopo trying to scale the waterfall, but fickle enough to not even wait for answers, clearly. After just a few moments she decided to follow, and climbed up the few rocks to get to the would be mountaineer.

A Basking spot huh? It seemed so trivial, to expend so much energy to try, and so far fail, to climb a waterfall for such a thing. Yueling did apparently not agree with the assessment, wholeheartedly offering her help and her own thoughts on how it must feel to be up there. Deciding it could be fun, even if she didn’t quite see the point, Roomba joined in.

“Maybe we can climb on each other’s backs?” She thought out loud, looking towards the slippery rocks that seemed simples of the lot to scale. “And then the first two pull up the one left on the bottom” She glance back at the light atopo, who hadn’t introduced herself,  and then Yueling. Both nodded excitedly in agreement.
“I can start” Roomba volunteered, taking the bottom position and trying to spread her toes for maximum traction, so she wouldn’t slip.

The plan seemed to work wonders, and with only a few slips and close calls the trio finally made it to the top of the waterfall. The two others wasted no time to turn around and skip over to the coveted rock, seemingly racing to who got there first, laughing together, as soon as they had pulled Roomba up over the last ledge. Roma shook her head amused, and slowly started to saunter after them.