ORIGIN - [003: On Eridanus, Origin's Prettiest Plague]

The trip did not last quite as long as the pangolin expected it to, given how keen she was on staying in that awfully-eerie tunnel, but to what he understood, it was a proper choice. He’s just about gotten over his spiel in Orion—”Oh, now, see, this is what all caves should be like! Look how many nooks there are! And the little sparkles, yes, those are quite lovely, I say—but it could do without all this rock. Don’t you think so?---and is just ending his little ramble on the connecting tunnel—”More rocks! Who needs for so many of them?! Think of the dust, Anala, really! We should go! Hop to!”---and was more than happy to part ways with it, even happier to come upon the overgrowth and see the spilling flood of verdure unwind its aching arms, beckoning, calling. Their being is a litany itself, and he is needlessly swept in by the need to answer.
“Why couldn’t I have been born in a place like this?” Waffles laments, taking sweet time standing at the edge and prodding a foot, then two, forward. “Instead of a desert of wind and rock and dust, oh, I’m in a fit over it.”
Perhaps his first day alive did have some frazzlings to become of it. But that was after him, and after him, everything seemed to hang askew. Waffles did not think he was bad luck, but the pangolin did not have the best understanding of luck, anyway. So the grief is spared when he steps into the vastness and sees, for perhaps the first time, true, bursting colour.
And, most blessedly—no dust to speak of.

@Anala

ANALA
From a spark to a flame
[Image: ioaINSW.gif]

Contrary to the pangolin's expectations, the trip had taken longer than Anala's usual travels back and forth. It was in part due to the pangolin's size, as they simply were not as fast as her yet, and partly due to the non-stop rambles and pauses to look at things. She could not blame Waffles, and she had been more than happy to indulge in their curiosity. It was good, she decided, that she had taken him here and not to Cetus. She wondered if his poor heart would have survived all the mud.

"This is it! Green as far as the eye can see!" She did a little circle, as if to prove her point. "Isn't the moss so soft? And the flowers! They smell so-" As suddenly as her smile had bloomed it died, and she fell into a fit of gags and coughs. "Oh not that one! I didn't see the white!" She managed to heave out the warning between frantic breaths. The flower had been infested with Order fungus, another thing she had learned from rumours and passersby. It smelled like rot and decay, something Waffles would not yet recognize as death but would be repulsed by nonetheless. It was not the kind of smell you could get used to.

When she caught her breath and was sure she wouldn't spew bile over her new friend, if they could be called friends at this point given how easily she claimed them, she looked back towards Waffles. "Sorry about that. I am alright!" Her voice was a little raspy, but she attempted to reassure him nonetheless. "Do you see this? The white strands that smell like-" She cut herself off. "That smell bad? If you see or smell that, do not eat it okay?" She nudged the bloom towards him to allow him to get familiar with it before she called upon her magic to clear it away. Her magic responded effortlessly this time, burning the flower into nothing more than ash in seconds. It was a shame to kill such a beautiful flower, but a necessary evil. It would regrow, but one might never recover from eating mould.

OOC Notes:

@Waffles

It is a delightful surprise to find that moss and lichen were much easier on the old paws, and Waffles indulges in it greedily. He is unused to this sort of luxury, but yet again, that was largely attributed to the fact that he was unused to everything! Every colour was his first, and every strange plant, lasso-shaped or tong-shaped or perhaps even fan-shaped was his first, and every loud—friend?---was his first. A first day full of firsts, which makes quite a lot of sense, now that he’s thinking about it.
And, ah, his first big bout of confusion.
“Again with such rules! How is one supposed to be a gentleman if he does not know which rules are good and which are bad? Why are these things so horrible? What kind of judgement must I have to understand this?” he sticks his snout towards the crystalline mesh of the white lattices, critical. “Looks just about as strange as the other plants do! And I am unbiased, see, because I have just gotten here! I say, the feelings that burden you are of no importance to me, yet! Fear is bad for the body, I say! Makes us all shaky, and that won’t do. No, it won’t do, at all! If you fear, I shan’t! Let me at them!”
With a hop and a skip, the pangolin begins to bound toward the curious little webs, cowardly still, even in his bravery. He would not get far, not with a body or likeness such as his, but his dedication was admirable, if not a bit concerning, for it was certain that he was perfectly serious in his endeavour! It would look noble from anybody else.
From him, though, it just looked foolish. But that is not for his ears, so it shall not be said.
What will be said, however, is the fact that he is headed straight for the rot, and with a vengeance. Because while chrysalises were not particularly known for their procrastination, pangolins, specifically ones named Waffles, were not particularly known for their wisdom.

@Anala

ANALA
From a spark to a flame
[Image: ioaINSW.gif]

Perhaps Anala, in the end, was not cut out for child-rearing. That was truly the only thing she could think as the other waddled off, so slow in comparison to her stride, and yet so determinedly fast, heading straight for the very thing she had just warned him not to consume. Had she said something wrong? She had done so before, and it would not surprise her if her vagueness had led to some kind of miscommunication. She was trying so hard not to scare the young one further, and yet in doing so she had led him directly into the path of danger. Well, what she could only assume was danger if the rumours were true.

"I know, there are so many rules! Too many! We should simplify them, don't you think? Maybe we could do that together?" She offered as she hurried after the bounding bundle of keratin scales. "Fear feels awful, and sometimes yes! You are right, we should fight through it!" She continued, calling for the little magic she knew. Magic designed to destroy, magic that hurt even its caster, and yet magic that would be Waffles' only protection at the moment. "But sometimes fear is what keeps us safe!" Her voice grew more strained as her magic refused to respond, leaving the pangolin in control of his own fate.

Surely the smell of it would be enough to keep him from eating it, would it not? And there had to be some way to de-hive a gembound? She wished she had asked more questions about the stuff. "You know what is nice, though?" She attempted to redirect them again. "The food! The thing we came here for! The good stuff, not the rot-smelling gross white fungus! What do you like best? Mice? Oh, maybe rabbits? I love a good rabbit!" She rambled on, or waffled on as was fitting to say given her companion, praying to whatever powers may be in the caves that the pangolin would just stop a moment.

OOC Notes:

@Waffles

Just before the great, trembling limbs of rot began to creep towards, he stopped stock-still, pausing his short strides and blinking like he is, somehow, even more confused than before. The compass of his balance leaned south, and he gives into it, slumping against the shuddering tendrils of flourishing green, gloriously unmoving and horrifically curious. It is something that is quickly becoming a vex of his, that undying befuddlement that would not let up for anything. And it stole the stead upon which rested his eagerness, overtaking and oversold. He turns slowly, his small, narrow face poking out from the full togetherness of tail and scale. “...Anala.”
It is not posed as a question, but more of an expression. Perhaps he should use that. Make ‘Anala’ an expression of disbelief, a hard line in the sands of uncertainty that promises such: that above all else, you will always be confused. Because she was surely confusion incarnate. Strange words and the like. How dreadful. “...What is a mice? And what is a rabbit? Oh, there you go again! What is it with you and revealing all of these little words? I just got here!”
In his discouragement he plops down, quietly and politely mortified, as all good pangolins are wont to do. “All this nonsense. Names, and caves, and fire, and magic, and gems, and—” Waffles huffs. “Oh, how I die. What a dreadful thing it is to be new. There is so much and I know none of it.” He goes to paw at the grassy mote between him and the pulsing, white sickness. “What is next? When does it end? Are you going tell me these things are part of an evil hearth of forbidden information, or some such thing? How much more absurd will you get before I stop believing you?” He gives a half-hearted look over his shoulder, showing watery, beady little eyes inlaid against a stark, and rather funny-looking, browbone. “Oh, crumbs, this life.”

@Anala

ANALA
From a spark to a flame
[Image: ioaINSW.gif]

"You only learn by doing, I'm afraid. By seeing and hearing..." She slowed to a stop beside the other, spacing her words to allow them to be better absorbed. "It is a lot, but we are lucky that very little is important. How about we slow it down a bit?" Maybe she had given the hatchling too much to handle, or maybe this particular hatchling needed a simpler approach. It was a good thing that she got the chance to interact with children, given all that she had already learned about their needs. Short and sweet would be best. Only the necessities.

"You have nothing to worry about except keeping yourself alive, alright Waffles? That means food, water, breathing and avoiding the few dangers of the caves." She started from the beginning, slowly, leaving plenty of room for Waffles to waffle as he does. "The rest can wait. You have a whole life ahead of you to discover things for yourself. Right now the only dangers you have to worry about will be obvious, but not everything will. The white-rot? Don't eat it. Black oil? Don't eat it. Hydra? Keep out." She paused, letting the pangolin absorb her words before she moved to pluck a flower from a nearby patch, one of very few that weren't coated in white.

"But there is so much more to love in the caves than there is to fear." She smiled as she set the flower in front of Waffles, a small orange bloom. "Like food. I love food. All those things I just named? Forget it! Names don't matter when it comes to food. Why don't we find some things and you can decide which ones you like?" Her tail wagged at the idea. She was beginning to waffle more than Waffles did! She was still talking too much, wasn't she? Oh, but she tried so hard to make it simpler!

OOC Notes:

@Waffles

It would be lovely to know, see, if he had the faintest idea of what a Hydra was. It sounded big and frightening and somewhat severe, but a description like that could match anything, as these places often did feel big and frightening and severe. To the credit of the caves, anything would seem as such to a thing so small, but that was less a problem of the caves and certainly more a fault of the pangolin’s physical condition, something that he would never admit out loud but nevertheless feel a shocking adherence to.
“Yes. Yes, because all of these lists and things are certainly easy to keep track of. Why do we insist on so many rules? Why are there so many things we have to do to stay living? Isn’t it easier to stay dead? You ask me to part with my distaste of the gem, and now you tell me all of these little things I must also do, and then you expect me to be any sort of mood to keep discovering?! Oh, I used to love discoveries! Now all they feel is cumbersome.” He kicks at a patch of grass, grumbling when it retains its shape perfectly. “And how cumbersome is the word, ‘cumbersome’?”
Against the canvas of bursting life, the pangolin looks positively drab. “You know all of it. How come it’s so easy for you? What am I missing? Smart boys like me aren’t supposed to be confused, you know! Smart boys are smart to begin with!” And his voice, this meek, accusatory thing, makes a nasty ricochet. "I'm a smart boy, aren't I? Aren't I smart? Aren't I?!"

@Anala

ANALA
From a spark to a flame
[Image: ioaINSW.gif]

Discussing these things with the pangolin was quickly making Anala question if she had the skills to be a mother. She wanted to be the guide that kept a new life safe in the caves, but she seemed to only cause the pangolin more stress the longer they talked. She had a similar affect on Doru, come to think of it, and that was not a good track record to have with not one but two young gembound. Maybe she was not cut out to care for more than petty lessers.

"I am old, Waffles. Not the oldest of all gembound, but old enough that I've grown used to these things. All things take time." She was huffing now, more to herself than to the pangolin, but her frustration with her lack of social skills was no longer hidden. "You are very smart, Waffles. Smart enough to learn and remember these things as you grow. But you must grow! Do you think I was born knowing the things I know? Not one! I barely spoke as a hatchling!" She recalled Sharp-tooth, and her rather unfortunate first encounter. She had almost drowned herself trying to get a drink! "There is so much I still do not know, and maybe you will! Wouldn't that be fun, to learn something that you can teach the one who taught you?" She allowed herself to ramble now, no longer taming the endless stream of thoughts and instead following the pangolin's example. She didn't know how he allowed himself to be so open, so vulnerable. She missed being so young, some days.

"But I am, as usual, getting ahead of myself again." She took a deep breath and sighed, torpid steps dragging her deeper into the cave. She always seemed to be moving these days. "I said I would get you fed." She perked her ears up, listening for the tell-tale scurrying of some mouse or lizard. She could hear little, however, over the constant buzzing of a fly around her muzzle. She bit back a snarl, trying to shake the thing off before ultimately giving up and dipping her head towards the hatchling. "If you wouldn't mind squishing this thing so I could hear," Her tone was softer now, pleading. She hated bugs on her face. "I could find us a meal." She would feed him, she decided, and then take her leave to care for her own business. Maybe he would do better on his own, exploring at his own pace. She hoped he would be alright.

OOC Notes:

@Waffles