ORIGIN

Shrimp-!

Haha, oh boy.

Acheron stared, and twitched, herself--very much in the way the shrimp had just done. Her eyelid, one leg--a twitch of unease, of uncertainty. "Uhhh--it looks... very good?" she tried.

It looked like bugs-! Water bugs? But... maybe bugs weren't so bad. She had met someone who'd even tried to eat a rock, after all. And anyway, it almost looked cute, with those big ears--were those ears? ...And was 'cute' any better to eat!? She swallowed down her unease, and crept forward a little, sniffing at the shrimp. The scent was new to her--strong, fishy; Lorelei waiting cheerfully was half reassurance, half unintentional peer pressure.

What the hell, Acheron decided, and leaned down to take a careful bite.

There was a soft crunch as she bit through crustacean shell--and then the squish of the white meat beneath. Her misgivings were quickly forgotten, her tail beginning to wag a little as she munched down the shrimp's remains.

"Tha's rlly goof!" she cried, without bothering to swallow, first. Then she did swallow, and corrected her exclamation: "That's really good! -Thanks! You eat those a lot?" she asked, surprised. Tongue lapped at her jaws, half washing away the new and fishy taste, and she dipped her head down to drink a little water after.

Bits of shell she left behind, the parts too hard to eat--forgotten.

Okay- Acheron's thought paused. She was trying to imagine "fish," but still the thought wouldn't quite connect. "Is fish--like those?" she asked, glancing down at the shattered shell.

Maybe the same, but bigger? Her thought was doubtful, purely because she had no real way of knowing.

Another question struck her, then, and she squinted hard, studying Lorelei. "Did you hatch underwater?" she asked, head tilting to one side. Maybe there were Gembound that were only meant to live in water, the same as she lived on land? Acheron had always assumed that Gembound lived on land as a sort of baseline; she'd never paused to consider that maybe that was only one type. That maybe just as many Gembounds--or even more!--lived underwater, or even in the air, or other places altogether... places she hadn't even seen?

Acheron found herself again wondering about Pisces, where Lorelei had hatched. She knew it was "down there," as they'd both parroted--somewhere below Fornax--and now she knew it had "ponds." She knew, too, that it sounded pretty--as she'd said.

"I sort of want to visit there," she said at last, tilting her head thoughtfully. "But you came up through water--right? Maybe I can find you there?" she suggested. "-If you ever want to go back!" The clarification was a hasty one; she didn't want to be a pressure on her new friend. "But do you like it here better? I bet it's more water, here," she added, mostly thinking aloud. This last was almost admiring. She'd definitely never seen as much water anywhere as here; she doubted that anywhere in the caves had so much.

Acheron squinted as a new thought occurred to her. "Hey--water falls down, right? But this cave's over everything else? But you swam here? Did you swim--up? Why didn't all the water fall out?" The thought was a tangled one, but Acheron wasn't sure about the route--and definitely not the physics.

Acheron went from lost in her own puzzled thoughts--confused imagery of waterfalls and water tunnels jumbled in her mind--to blissfully blank the moment Lorelei suggested 'magic?'

Yeah, Acheron thought. That was--oh; she had fallen silent! "Yeah, It's probably magic," was her hasty verbal agreement, and she clung to that thought with relief, allowing it to simply banish all other puzzlement. Life, she decided on the spot, was too short to be worrying about water flow directions.

Then her brain backtracked. "Look for water tunnel?" she parroted, belatedly, indeed becoming rather confused. But she shrugged it off, her friendly nature prompting her to just agree. "Okay." And then further confusion trickled in. "Um--how? Uh, how do you--how do I search for water tunnels?" she asked. Curiosity and interest flickered up in her. Was Lorelei implying that she--Acheron!--could somehow learn to identify water tunnels!? That'd be cool.

Swim again??

Poor Acheron assumed it was an invitation, and she was loathe to prove herself a coward. Fear spiked in her at the memory of the last attempt--her floundering and choking in the water. But she swallowed that down as best she could, and tried to look Lorelei in the eye.

"I can try," she mustered. "Um--how... do you know how I should move my feet?" Could Gembound with feet even swim?

Acheron stepped forward with hesitation, until she was wrist-deep in frothing surf. There she paused again, fighting back the fear and trying to stand her ground.

Only, she'd rather prefer it stayed ground. Water underfoot hadn't been pleasant--not one bit.