Common

"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity... "

"...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Winter was a terrible time for herping, Darwin had found out. The sea turtles were all adrift, having migrated South during the fall of the year. The snakes, lizards, frogs and salamanders were all safe and snug in their hidey holes, snoozing away the foul weather to emerge come the first warm day in spring. The tidal pools were iced over, barnacles dead or picked clean by sea birds who screamed at her when she got too close.

All in all, winter was a bummer for an aspiring Biologist like Darwin.

Having tired of the birds who offered nothing but shit and deafening screams, Darwin had wandered inland. She’d hoped to come across a deer or something, but even they had spirited themselves away into the deep parts of the forest. She stopped every once in a while to sniff at a cluster of worn-out tracks, but the scents seemed to be older than she was. Disappointed, she had somehow managed to find her way into the very place she hadn’t been going: the Common-land.

Not ready to settle (just yet!,) the lavender-looking mare turned herself right around and made the attempt to leave. But that was when she heard the call! Curse her curiosity and damn her social nature--Darwin couldn’t help but pick up a ground-eating trot that carried her to the torn-up, blue-and-yellow mare. Darwin shook out her mane, a tangled mess of mats and twigs, as she stepped closer to the other mare. Offering her nose, complete with a few curious snorts, Darwin introduced herself without saying a word. Then, she stepped back, eyes alight with interest.

“Darwin,’ she trilled happily, sounding like some kind of idiot bird and whether it was a name or a statement was left a mystery.

“How did you get such a neat coat? I’ve only ever seen white patches, not yellow!”

DARWIN | | | | | | | |