ORIGIN - Spark of Life

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She followed him over to the crevice, taking her time in making sure that it was properly hidden. Once she was satisfied, she stepped back to allow Shango to do whatever was needed. Sakhira didn't realize that not only was the rock getting eaten as a rock a potential problem, but when it hatched, there was potential for it to get eaten as a hatchling too. She realized that she must've been rather lucky to have met Bug when she hatched. Or else she could've gotten eaten too! Though it was more likely that she would've just been stuck in her stone. Good thing Shango would be around to care for them.

There was a moment of panic as he touched his nose to the stone. All the talk about the rock getting eaten made her worried that Shango might eat it- but she knew that was an irrational thought. Sakhira watched intently as he focused on imbuing the rock with life. "Weak?" She hoped that wouldn't affect anything. What if it didn't work? Though when she started thinking back to the day she had found the gemstones, she recalled this one being the one with the strongest magical pulse. Perhaps the other ones were even weaker. Were they even revivable if this one almost wasn't?

Shango's speech took her out of her thoughts. It had worked. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Thank you." A slight tilt of her head, "It is okay. They will be alive again." That was the most they could do at this point after all. Unless you could somehow travel back in time and stop them from getting themselves killed there really wasn't a better solution. "You will watch it? When it grows?" Sakhira had no idea how long this entire process would take. For all she knew, it was also entirely possible that it could happen in a day. A week. Or a year. Though if Shango said he wouldn't, or he was busy, she was willing to keep it safe. Though she wasn't very strong, she would do all that she could to ensure it wouldn't get eaten.

@Shango

"It's okay," he reassured idly, with one flick of his scorpion's tail. "It will live. I'll watch it. Home's all white," he complained, in a loud meow, by way of explanation.

"Can you stay here for a few minutes? It should have brothers," he decided--and then thought this over. "Or sisters."

If Sakhira was willing, he'd spend a few minutes looking for other gemstones to lay alongside this one--in his mind, kids shouldn't be raised alone.

Even now he could sense a glimmer, when he tried--something over by the Spire. Something still alive.

@Sakhira

She nodded, wondering what was meant by his home being white. Sakhira didn't understand the concept of snow, which would have been a good guess, nor did she know what Order was, so she was just left confused by this. Either way, under Shango's protection, she was sure the stone would be in good hands. Paws. Er, claws? Anyway.

"It should. I will watch it." He would be nearby anyways, so she was sure if anyone tried to eat it in the short time he was gone that she would be able to hold them off for long enough until he returned. Sakhira didn't have any company in the form of brothers and sisters- was that because she hatched from a wall? Either way, she felt siblings would be good to have. The sphynx settled down at the entrance of the crevice to guard for now.

@Shango

"Thank you," he said, in his typical half-yowling tone--thanking Sakhira as though she were doing him some grand favor by watching the stone he'd given life to on her behalf.

But his attention span was... lacking.

Moments later he'd picked up the first stone he'd seen, nosing it out from beneath a rock: a hunk of translucent, red-orange Wulfenite. He carried this straight to Polaris's river, and there he set it down, peering into the water.

A fish, he decided, peering down into the waters for the telltale gleam of scales--searching for something with a gemstone on it.

He sat for a few moments, scaled scorpion-tail twitching, hoping that Sakhira wasn't growing restless. His ghostlight eyes searched the water, peering over every fish that he saw. At length he stood up, shaking himself, and growled; he sought his magic.

He'd do this the other way around--kill some fish, and hope that one of them had a rock inside it. The rest--they could eat, he and Sakhira. A free meal. (He simply assumed that she, being similarly shaped to him, must also have a similar diet.)

The first discharge shot into the water, searing bright--and hitting nothing, only scattering the fish in all directions.

"NO," Shango complained, loudly, his tail lashing behind him now.

Hook claws curled out, frustration taking him. He struggled to regain focus and control. Back the other way, then--he'd try to find a stone, first, before simply lashing out. It wasn't working, the way he was trying this.

There, he thought at last, scooting closer to the edge. He could see one--a glimmer of gem, though he couldn't recognize it, really. It was a riebeckite, its dark blues and mottled blacks near invisible in the water, aside from the periodic reflection.

Shango crept down closer, nearly falling down the slope for a moment--focused on this one, single fish with all his mind.

He squinted, concentrating deeply, then tugged at his magicka again. This time it simply didn't come, a sputter and a hiss, and he had to actually lay there for a long moment to calm himself. Frustration had his tail sweeping the rock behind him--thankfully, something that the school of fish below could not see.

He lowered his head to his paws, crouching there, and watched them.

They were pretty--but then, they were always pretty; there was nothing new in that. The only reason he'd decided on a fish was that the stone would be easy to snatch up. He didn't stop to think that the child might be unable to breathe air at all.

When he'd calmed himself sufficiently, he growled at the river, and braced to try again.

"Come on, fish. I want to have more babies," he informed it, which was wildly questionable, all things considered.

Luckily, the fish could not speak, nor understand what the practically feral Gembound lurking above was saying--one small mercy.

The zap did not penetrate the water. With a huff, the hybrid realized he'd probably need to do this another way.

He heaved himself into the river, struggling not to be swept away--then snagged claws into the riverbank, holding there. Then he watched, waiting for the debris he'd knocked loose to be carried off, so that the water was once more clear.

It took him a few patient (and bitterly cold--he hadn't realized how freezing, icy cold this damned river was!) moments to spot "his" fish again. When he did, he tensed down, then sprang for it, plunging his entire body like a tiger's into the water, bared fangs first.

It was a miracle it hadn't simply fled, and a miracle moreso that--after a moment's thrashing--he caught it in his teeth.

Catlike reflexes, and all that--and the rush of triumph was cathartic. Finally-! After all that! Just for one damned fish?!

He felt the wriggling in his jaws, and--with a scrambling, frantic, flapping clawing struggle--made it back up the bank. There he rolled upright, shook himself out, and shifted the fish beneath his claws to bite the head away.

He picked up the dead fish--and its stone, leaving the head behind him--and carried it over to the other stone he'd left behind, the wulfenite. Then, he carried both of these to Sakhira.

He tore away half the fish, eating it--and removed the stone with careful prying of his claws. The other half, he tossed to the sphinx. "If you're hungry," he offered, though his focus was on the stones.

Shango looked over the remains of the Orion's Scale before pressing a paw down on the stone. He'd laid both beside the one Sakhira had presented to him--a little out of the way, with enough room to grow big children if needed. (He'd seen BIG chrysalises grow, before, and he'd been afraid even then that they might somehow intersect.)

He felt this flicker up, alive, and--satisfied--went to the wulfenite, next. Here he nosed it, gently.

"I miss kids," he said simply.

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