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."

Darwin squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as the stallion approached, opening them only when he’d come to a halt and he’d joined the conversation. She’d half expected him to run pell mell at them, all snapping teeth and snaking his head--and she eyeballed him suspiciously for a few moments before letting her guard down. Clearly, he wasn’t feeling the need to base his decisions on hormones just yet. For that, the purple mare was grateful, as she was already feeling rather glum about the lack of wildlife on the Islands.

The lavender woman stiffened and cocked a back hoof as the stallion ran his lips along her shoulder, one of her ears flicking back and her head raising slightly in objection. She hadn’t invited him in, and the first thing she had learned as a filly (much to her disgruntlement…) was the importance of personal space. Men were a little stupid when it came to body language, though. His touch didn’t indicate that she needed to move out of his space, and it left her confused. There was no command to it, and they were not friends so there was no grooming to be done.

But instead of (vocally) protesting further, Darwin scuttled a few feet away, her motions much like a crab, while her nose rattled out a warning snort. She settled back down and poked her ears forward, the strangeness of the last few seconds apparently forgotten.

She let the stallion answer the smaller mare’s question as she committed his name to memory. As it was, Darwin had no idea where she was and didn’t exactly care. All she knew was that she was in for another adventure, full of discovery and likely despair!

A skeptical look graced her features at Neala’s response to her prying. Perhaps none were as curious about Life as Darwin (something she didn’t quite understand) but she was sure the answer to the question was hidden somewhere away just out of reach.

Darwin stayed silent in favor of listening to the mare’s strange and sad tale, sneaking a few looks at Solomon in between studying the other mare’s patchwork coat. At least, she stayed quiet until--

“Earthstomping! I’ve heard of that. I think it happens when something real big gets angry, but I’ve never seen anything big enough to cause it...” Her eyes were bright with renewed interest as she let out an excited breath. Horses, apparently, did not know about plate tectonics… or at least, Darwin didn’t.

DARWIN | | | | | | | |