ORIGIN - diamond dust

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Elysium peered between Ananke's feet and their own. It seemed to them that their feet were already very big; especially since the rabbit's entire body was likely just a bit smaller than the Drone's foot. Though, in perspective, her feet were half as long as her body. "Okay," they said quietly, mostly just content to listen and watch, for now.

The mention that their mistakes were the Hive's mistakes too made them briefly uneasy: it seemed like... pressure, in a way-- but, Ananke was right. They were not alone, and with a good network of support behind them, mistakes would be few and far between. That was a comfort.

Their gaze drifted off. "No," it agreed softly. "I am happy to be... a crusher. It feels... special. I want to do the best that I can." It looked down again, and delicately lifted one of the plasticky snowshoes, though its mind had not quite caught up with this section of the conversation, yet. "What is... the best way to learn to fight? How can I... be prepared, for any situation...?"

They touched the hole of the shoe, before balancing themselves onto one foot to pull it on like a sock. It was... strange-- tight, a little restricting. It couldn't stretch very well in them, and it felt like their toes were being smushed together, but it gave it a try anyway. It pulled on the second rabbit-foot, and then stood up to test it on the snow.

Hm. They sunk a little, yes-- they left little markings in the snow behind, but it was very little compared to the decimation Elysium had left behind already. It was not perfect, no-- but it was better. This way, it seemed... fixable. "This is good," it said, eyes flicking to Ananke. "Thank you."

It offered its heavy hands towards Ananke again for her to step back on, if she wished.

@Ananke

She waited, before responding, for Elysium to try the shoes. "With bated breath" seemed a cliche but it was true; she hitched in and waited, eyes shining as she watched.

And-... it worked. She didn't have to doubt that Elysium was just being polite, either; she could feel that it was 'better' this way. Brimming with pride--no, with joy at being able to be helpful--she indeed scrambled up for the offered hands.

As for the rest-?

Ananke settled her white fluff back into the palms, thinking. "I'm not much of a fighter," she admitted. "But what I've learned of my magic, I've done through Mother. She'll teach, if you reach out to her. I don't know enough about fighting to really say how that would work?" She considered. Maybe Mother could show Elysium old battles, or known techniques for them to learn.

Or maybe you can ask the Praetors for practice? she suggested, though this was far more tentative. The Praetors were... enormous; not compared to Elysium, maybe, but Ananke wasn't sure how they could 'practice' without accidentally shearing off someone's head.

She fell back on her faith, as bright and empty as a diamond: "Mother will know best."

@Elysium

Empty faith brought a sense of comfort to Elysium nonetheless-- Mother knew everything, yes, and if it was ever uncertain of something She would know what to do. The Drone's facial muscles just barely twitched into a smile as it uprighted itself with Ananke in its hands.

They were not as steady, however; Elysium could not move their feet the same way with the snowshoes equipped. Its first few steps were more of a test as it tried to find the way to best walk without disturbing the snow again; it found that it had to lift one foot without tilting it and set it back down flat so that the shoes could distribute the weight of its body.

Still, it was a quick learner, and it was making good pace for the tunnel.

What is the tunnel like? It asked, glancing briefly down to Ananke. They, too, quite seamlessly drifted between non-verbal and verbal communication; they were born into it, after all. "Is it... the only tunnel leading out of Ursa?"

@Ananke

"There are three," she answered, starting with Elysium's second question. "One goes to Leo, and one goes to the cave that's... another magic?" She didn't really understand Polaris. "Mother cannot live there, so I don't go there." Simple enough. "One goes through Leo. You can use either of those to get to the cave with purple crystals, which-..."

Ananke trailed off, opting for imagery instead. She focused on her memories of she and Halcyon as they maneuvered around the geode-encrusted walls of Gemini, settling new Hive nodes carefully into the cracks. It will belong to Mother, soon--to Order.

The last one goes to Cepheus. It's a pretty tunnel, but I don't go there now--there's Chaos there. You can see it in the light, and past her silence, the rabbit shuddered. It was a shame she couldn't come and go from Pegasus--well, she probably could but she'd be running a risk each time she passed that palace. Pegasus had been beautiful, though.

"Leo's tunnel is hot. It's like the flat, hot place?" (That Elysium had been thinking of, to clarify.) It wasn't somewhere Ananke had travelled all that much, though she was pretty sure you could use that one to get to Gemini, too. But she tried to summon up what she'd seen of it for Elysium, again: snow and lava, steam billowing from the rock and through the air. "We'll have to be careful going through it," she concluded.

All the while she lay content in the arms of the near-automaton creature cradling her. Her ears flicked this way and that, from time to time, but in Elysium's hands she felt a strange, unfamiliar sense of safety. She wasn't going to get snatched up by a hawk, or snared by a snake--not in these marble-like fingers.

It was... a good feeling, and Ananke let that contented gratitude filter through the link.

This was nice, really.

@Elysium

Its head tilted one way, slowly, and then the other. The creak of their marbled skin was very nearly audible. "We should... go there," it said of Polaris-- if Mother could not live there, then it was foolish for her children to avoid it completely: they should study it, get to know it, be prepared for anything. Cepheus, too, but-- it could feel the lingering dread that Ananke seemed to carry about the place. Elysium was not sure if it was much worth the risk-- especially since there was no way that Elysium could walk in there unspotted. Smaller creatures like Ananke had the advantage.

"I think that... it might be fun to be small," it mused quietly. It could see what it was like to be small, sure, but that was different. It wasn't that they explicitly wished they were Ananke's size, either-- they were happy with how Mother had created them. It just seemed fun to burrow, to drift across snow, to have feet so big. They looked down again, briefly, and then up. "Is it... nice, to be lifted?" It seemed nice.

They could see the snow and lava in their mind-- and they knew that they were approaching the right cave from the steam hissing out of it like cold breath. They studied it for a moment, drifting between both images, and then half-cautiously tilted their head towards the tunnel.

It was... warm? Elysium had not experienced such a thing before: their short life had been spent entirely in Ursa. They were unsure if they had ever felt particularly hot or cold (perhaps Mother had created them not to be sorely affected by temperature) but this was definitely. A Feeling.

Blink. "Okay," it said. "How... careful?" It knew, innately, that lava and fire were Not Good things to walk through, so at least that was covered. Still, it felt somewhat at a loss as it felt hot air on its cheeks for the first time-- it was very little like what it had initially imagined.

... were most places like this? Surely not.

@Ananke

Go there? There was surprise in the thought, quickly followed by worry. Ananke wasn't sure how her magic would work in Polaris, if at all. If her stone could even survive there. It was almost a scary thought. No--it was a scary thought.

But Elysium was right; they should know, at least. Just in case. "We could try, but... we'll need to be careful," was her eventual reasoning.

"It is nice to be lifted." She paused, thinking about this. Initially she'd been almost ashamed by it--by her physical smallness, her weakness. But she'd fought hard to contribute to the Hive; she didn't feel useless anymore. Not... often, anyway. And she'd learned that cooperating with others meant covering one anothers' strengths and weaknesses. "Being small isn't great. It's--frightening, sometimes." Not that it was awful, but she'd have given a great deal to be large enough to fear nothing. "Knowing that most things that run into you might want to eat you? That--even the Lessers can? It's scary. Even from the rats, I have to run," and it was true. Well--one rat she could try to fight with magic; but the caves' rats rarely came alone.

But being carried is nice. It's... like being high up, I can see farther. And I don't have to move as much. Halcyon had carried her a great deal in recent cycles, and she'd rather gotten used to it. It was likely why she'd scrambled down from Elysium's hands without warning: she had jumped down from Halcyon often enough that she'd forgotten Elysium might not expect it where Halcyon would. And--it's safer. If I'm up here and you've got ahold of me, nothing else is going to attack me. Well--not successfully. Not likely, anyway.

As for being careful-?

Ananke peered down the tunnel ahead. "I'd take off the foot-things," she suggested, peering down. "And don't step on anything that's... glowing." Whiskers trembled as she sniffed the air, taking in the odors of thick steam and melted rock. "Maybe stick to the rock that's by the snow? So you don't fall through deep snow into a hole."

That'd be awful--falling through a hole they couldn't see, ending up in lava. Ananke had never touched lava in her life, but she knew it was damn hot, and she didn't particularly want to burn alive.

@Elysium

You can see a lot, Elysium observed, partially to itself. Their front-facing eyes only really saw what was directly in front of them, but Ananke seemed capable of seeing everything around her-- besides her, and behind her. At least, that's what it felt like, when the Drone glanced through her eyes.

It had to take a moment to think about everything else the rabbit had said, however. They had been created without any real capabilities of fear (there was no need for it, as a guardian: it would just be a hindrance), but it certainly understood the concept. It was, perhaps, even a little fascinated by it-- even if it was saddening.

The concept that things wanted to eat Ananke seemed... barbaric. It was not entirely fond of the idea of eating in the first place: but eating friends, family? "I will not let anything eat you," it said softly. "Even if I am not holding you." A gentle promise: but certainly a genuine one. Even if Elysium was not quite sure how it would accomplish this one task, it was more than determined to find out.

Carefully, it shuffled Ananke to one palm so that it could use one of its hands to carefully remove the shoes and set them aside near the cave wall. It did not much bother hiding them further than that; it had no concept of thievery. The idea that someone would take something that did not belong to them was fairly out of its understanding.

It sunk back into the snow, and shuffled carefully forward to the lip of the tunnel, staring down. It could see the flourescent orange of the glowing things the Priestess mentioned, as well as the rocks that lined snow. It stank-- the steam burned its eyes, and it spent a moment flapping the little wings by its face to try to clear the air. It found, quite quickly, that the steam was difficult to breathe in.

Steadily, it tested the snow before stepping over onto the rock, head turning stiffly to look down the tunnel again. "It is fire?" It asked of the lava-- or more accurately, the ominous yellow glow muted by fog. It took some more careful steps, eyes now mostly on the ground where it was stepping to make sure it didn't step anywhere... Bad.

@Ananke

Ananke felt warmth at the assurance--whether or not Elysium could manage such a thing, it was still a kind sentiment. And she had no doubt the angelic being would do their best. "Thank you," she answered.

It was only when Elysium moved her to one hand that she really realized the size of them--yes, they towered over her but so did everyone. Elysium wasn't as large as Bone; but Bone had never picked Ananke up and carried her around, before. It was a strange thought, to know that she could now trust creatures large enough to easily kill her to protect her instead. Before--before Mother--she'd always have held an edge of fearful caution. That tiny little what if. But now, with their mind link, she could truly trust.

That was a gift worth loyalty to Mother a thousand times over--that alone.

Ananke eyed the snowshoes where Elysium set them down. The idea of theft also didn't occur to her--she didn't think it likely that any other nine-foot-tall bipedal creatures requiring snowshoes would happen past here in the next few hours, and didn't imagine anyone else would know what they were for or want them. But it did occur to her that they could be tracked by them--maybe a slight tinge of warning from along Mother's link. They'd left clear tracks through the snow; now the shoes were left in plain sight. You may want to hide those. Somewhere we can find them again, Ananke suggested, her thought quiet along the link. It wasn't paranoia, really, but it wasn't far off either. She'd been hunted, prey, so she was far more aware of such things--and leaving clear tracks just didn't seem a worthwhile risk. Maybe cover them in snow?
As for the lava--she turned, peering at the glowing beyond the billowing steam. "It's not fire," she answered, but paused there, wondering what it was. "I know it's--liquid, but thick. It's something that will catch you on fire, if you touch it." It was something melted, she knew that--something red-hot--but what?

That, she didn't know. "Maybe rock?" she hazarded, drawing on Mother's link, but it was a tenuous guess at best. Melted rock seemed... unlikely, despite the knowledge of the Hive.

@Elysium

Elysium slowly blinked at the snowshoes. It knelt in the snow and used its free hand to carve a divot in the snow to place them into. It understood, after a beat, via the Hivemind, the purpose of hiding them. It even spent a moment dusting over the divots of footprints in the snow, then paused. Perhaps that is too obvious, it wondered.

It spent some time carefully retracing some of its steps to lead the footsteps away from the shoe-mound instead. It took some minutes of gentle determination, but when it was over, the landscape looked pristine: as though they had barely passed by at all. The only strange thing was that the tracks of oversized rabbit feet abruptly turned to deep, barefoot humanoid tracks midway through. Still; there was no indication that anything was hidden anywhere.

Zero-One-Two hesitated, studying their work, then felt a flicker of pride. "It is hidden," it half-asked, half-informed Ananke, not unlike a child seeking praise.

With this task complete, Elysium returned to the mouth of the tunnel, extending a hand back to their chest so that the rabbit had more space to lounge. It thought of thick water; perhaps that's all lava was. Thick water so hot it could set fires. Was it possible?

A flick of one absurdly heavy wing and all limbs, aside from their legs carefully stepping from rock-to-rock, fell perfectly still. "Rock?" it echoed softly. It could not quite imagine rock being so hot that it turned to liquid, but it supposed such a thing was possible. Just as likely as Hot Thick Water.

@Ananke

Her ears pricked up as she heard the half-question. It was... almost a request for praise? Or--no, a checking that Elysium had done well. For a moment, Ananke practically channeled Mother as she beamed up at her angelic sibling, warm approval radiating from her. "Very good. No one will find it there," she assured her.

It was the best job of snowshoe-hiding she had quite literally ever seen.

"And I don't think anyone will be able to follow our tracks, now." Not easily, at least.

As to 'rock,' she gave a little white-furred shrug. "It seems... unlikely," she agreed, in a quiet murmur. She had seen snow melt and turn to water, but--rock? She'd seen it get hot out, before--in other caves than Ursa, of course--and nothing else had ever melted. Only ice and snow.

Ananke tucked the thought away for later; maybe they'd--eventually--find someone who knew more about lava. In the meantime, their self-appointed task awaited: tourism, dead ahead.

@Elysium

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