ORIGIN

Now this was somewhere Acheron hadn't been before. She'd been exploring when she came upon the long, winding, icy cold tunnel that twisted upward, and the farther she'd gone the harder it'd gotten to traverse. But the harder it got, the more stubborn she'd become, until at last she'd surpassed the last of the icy cliffs and chasms and found herself here.

This place was warm, bright, humid; it seemed almost a paradise, maybe a reward for having made it so far.

She'd caught only the faintest whiff of strangers heading through, but she wasn't a tracker by any means; as an inexperienced pup she had no idea how old the trail was, or what it might belong to. Even so, she half-followed it now, half instead distracted by the sight of the Lesser seabirds and the frothing surf. And that surf-! She'd never seen anything like it, like the water surging here. Waves! An endless, sparkling expanse!

"Whoa..." she breathed, unaware that she'd drawn quite close to the other pup quite close by, blending (all but the head) with the water. Acheron saw Lorelei out of the corner of her eye, but--her mind registered it as just another rock.

She stood on the sandy shore, staring out over Fornax's sea in awe.

Acheron jumped--a flinching back at the sudden barking voice rushing toward her. For a split second--as she tumbled back onto her rump in the wet sand--she thought wildly that the nearby rock had spoken. Then she registered, blinking, that a face had now appeared! And behind it, a body, waddle-running straight for her.

After staring for a second, her brain caught up with Lorelei's words. A name, a friend. "-Hey!" she answered, swallowing against the sudden dry throat. The short shock of adrenaline left her a little uneasy, but she shook it away. "You were... in the water." It was a dumb observation, sure, but Acheron hadn't ever known an aquatic Gembound before. She wondered why on earth anyone would just be in the water like that; surely there had to be a reason, right? Her curiosity was piqued, but she remembered the whole "introductions" thing. Time to be polite!

"My name's Acheron. Sorry, I--I've never met anyone who... is in the water? Uh--we can be friends, sure." Now that her mind had settled, some, she took a moment to look the stranger over. A big fluffy bundle of grey, with no real legs that Acheron could see--which was baffling in and of itself. Her body was shaped unlike anyone she'd ever met, too; long and almost tubular, as opposed to something slender with a distinct tail. There was a gemstone poking out of her eye, too, and Acheron blinked at that. "Whoa... your stone's in your face?" she asked, surprised and even impressed. "It's pretty," she added, and the comment was genuine. It was a shining blue, and she thought it quite striking as it glistened with the water.

Lorelei's "thank you" garnered a somewhat awkward, silent nod; Acheron wasn't really sure how to respond. "Mine's on my back. It kinda makes it weird to move, sometimes!" But the seal's comments about the water had caught Acheron's interest.

It's cool?
Acheron scrutinized the sea. To her, 'cool' usually meant something fun and interesting. It didn't occur to her that the seal pup might mean the temperature, and almost at once she'd decided that if the water felt "cool," she wanted to feel it too.

"I've never tried to swim, before," she informed Lorelei, and paused to paw at the water with one wet hoof. It splashed, which--Acheron didn't know what she'd expected. A moment later she was wading into the seafoam, peering at the seal. "I'm gonna try! Do you live here?" she went on. "I've never been here before, but it's pretty." She glanced around. The way the light danced on the water was beautiful.

Lorelei was lucky if she lived here!

Acheron waded a little deeper, and then struck out--and sank almost at once. She came up coughing (and sneezing), her eyes squinted as she tried to scramble back for the sand. I don't think I'm doing this right, she thought, but it was a little panicked.

A choked yelp escaped her, but then she felt bouyancy underneath, velvet-soft. A moment later she managed to scramble back onto land, drenched, hooves sinking in the sand.

The spike of panicked fear gave way to an intense flood of relief. Safe--I'm safe.

She coughed for a moment, water dripping from her jaws, and turned to stare wide-eyed at Lorelei. "Thank you," she said, and then--after staring for another moment--blurted, "How do you do that?! Is that magic?!" Acheron had sunk; Lorelei floated.

Surely that was magic... right?

"How'd you learn to do that?! Where did you come from? Was there more water there?" The flood of questions--interspersed with a few coughs--was poured out with clear awe in the pup-fawn. Lorelei was a traveller, a master magician, an adventurer--all of those things, obviously. Acheron was amazed.

Acheron gaped in amazement. It wasn't even magic-!? Still, it sort of made sense; she looked Lorelei over again, thinking. She looked... floaty. Is floaty a word? Probably not, but still--she looked warm, fluffy, like something you could drop in the water and it'd just sort of bob there. Not like Acheron, who--as she glanced at her reflection--noted how stick-skinny and ungainly she looked.

Interesting.

Down there? "Oh, me too! I hatched--down there," she said, realizing she didn't really know how to describe the route. "In Orion, the dark room with all the bright spots." At least, that's what she'd been told it was called. Acheron glanced at Lorelei and considered inviting her to Orion, then realized truly what the seal had meant by "made for swim." She wouldn't be able to get around so easily in a rocky room with little water, would she?

Well--magic was interesting, distracting, and a moment later Acheron was grinning, tongue lolling. She flopped down on her rump in the light surf, her haunches sinking an inch or two into the sand; she found that she liked the sensation of cool water lapping around her legs. As long as she wasn't drowning in it. "Sure, show me?" she asked, eyes bright. "What kind of magic?" Fascination glimmered in her. Everyone she'd met had different kinds of magic; she wondered what Lorelei's would look like.

Acheron then waited patiently, little fawn's tail wagging on the sand.