ORIGIN

She wandered again. She loved this place, this warm, green place, her home. It was nto exactly the nicest place, full of tripfalls and holes and eerie noises, but also full of life and mystery in every nook and cranny. What was that little crawling thing? What was that flying thing up in the trees? What did this long fern-like leaf do? What did this berry taste like?

She tried every single thing she could reach and taste, and some of it tasted nice, some of it she knew she shouldn't be eating and just tasted like it would hurt her very badly, but nothing stopped her from trying everything. The more knowledge she could collect in her child mind, the better, she thought.

She tilted her head at this round reddish pink berry and brought it to her mouth. What would this do?

As she crunched past its thin little shell, it was incredibly sweet on the inside, and slowly, as she ate one, then another, she became energized and hyper, feeling the desire to run around and shout and climb! Haha! She ran all the way up the nearest tree and back down again, feeling like the wind itself!

@Iqniq

When that burned off, all too quickly in her opinion, she wondered what would happen if she mixed it with that warm root she found earlier, the one she was warned against not eating. Maybe the sweetness of the berry would overcome the bitterness of the root? And how would they react together?

Taking a few of the berries in her small hands, she ran to one of the trees nearby, the same kind of tree where she found the root that made her warm up. She placed some of the berries to the side, growing excited, a manic smile on her face, showing her sharp little teeth. Her first experiment! She dug up and broke off a piece of the root, then looked at the two substances, and frowned. She could just take one bite of one, then the other, but that seemed like a flimsy way to have them both react together. They would be better if they were mixed somehow.

Dumping the root near the berries, she scurried around, searching for something to mix the two with, and found an acorn whose cap she ripped from the nut. She ran it back to the root and the berries, her little mixing area, she deemed, but this wasn't enough. The only thing she ended up with were two things in a bowl. Useless!

With a scoff, she ran around, finding a tough little stone and bringing it back to the mixing area. With this, she mashed the piece of root till it became this weird mush, helping it to become softer with a berry and its juices mixed in here and there. What she was left with was this...somewhat drinkable red-brown slush that smelled damp, dirty, and bittersweet.

Well, bottoms up.

She tipped the little bowl up to her lips, helping it down her throat and licking it down, tasting the sweet berries juices run faster than the sludge. It felt wonderfully warm all the way down her throat, sweet and mature tasting, and she felt like there was a flame inside of her stomach, burning hot without hurting her, telling her to run and run and run. She took a deep breath and shuddered, grinning as widely as she could, making a shrill child howl to the trees, throwing down the bowl and climbing all the way up the nearest tree, all the way to tips of the highest branches, staring out over [/i]everything.[/i] She howled again, as loud as she could.

@Iqniq

Iqniq drew in a big breath of air as she stepped out of the tunnel that had led her away from home. The mostly grown king cheetah had grown a bit bored of her home and wanted to get out and explore a bit, and this part of the cave was definitely worth a trip away from what she knew was safe. The plants that grew all over this huge room were so different from the smooth stone structures and twinkling ceiling that filled Orion.

She quietly stepped close to a sweet smelling flower near the edge of the worn path and was bending to sniff at it when she heard a loud howling start up neaby. "What in the world?" She wondered out loud and looked up into the trees where the howling was currently coming from. She saw leaves falling all around, but couldn't pick out the creature causing all the commotion.

"Hello?" She asked, walking up to the last tree she had seen leaves fall from. She put her paws up on its trunk and listened for a reply. I wonder if they can even hear me over their own howling... She thought to herself. "Hellooo?" She said again, a bit louder.

She heard something below, a sound, so she climbed just as swiftly down the tree, her tiny hands proving themselves useful to her, even if they were wrong. Peeking down below on one of the many branches, she saw that a very elegant, almost adult feline stood below, its paws on the tree trunk, expecting an answer.

She felt a flash of....something. Something made her very irritated all of a sudden, looking at the older, bigger, prettier cat, but she couldn't place what. Then she looked down at her hands and knew, and frowned. Being jealous when the way either of them looked when it was was neither of their faults was stupid, a flimsy notion from the start. They looked the way they looked, and that was that. No point in being stupid.

Lowering herself down with her hands, she plopped down to the ground, a black stain against the lush green backdrop with very wide, unblinking brown eyes that were too big for her head, with leaves stuck to her wild, half-groomed fur, and tiny little fangs peeking out from her mouth as she smiled a hello.

"Hello, cat-sister," She said, her raspy voice like cobwebs against the ears. "What brings you here?"

@Iqniq

Not long after the second call, she hard something skittering down the tree toward her and. Sat back, letting her paws rest on the ground. The gembound that emerged from the tree was an interesting creature with big brown eyes and a long tail. She hasn't seen one of these before, but could tell just by get build that this gembound was made for the trees. She had a home that fit her body type perfectly.

Cat sister? Is she and type of cat I've never seen?? It's possible, but she doesn't look it... She thought as a slightly confused look crossed her face for just a moment. It didn't really matter what she was as long as she was friendly though.

"I'm just out exploring and this room in the cave is the first I've come across aside from my own. Just couldn't sit in Orion any longer. " Iqniq said matter of factly, picking up a paw and grabbing a stuck bit if most from one of her claws. "This room is very pretty. It's so different from what I'm used to" she said, looking around again. The plants went on so far that she couldn't really tell how but the place was.

@Cayenne

She raised her brows, making her eyes even wider, the surprised look almost comical on such an already exaggerated child face.

"There are...other rooms?" She asked, skittering down to tree to come right in front of the cat-sister.

She had spent her entire waking life enveloped in mystery, wondering if she would ever come to know it all in her jungle home, and there...there was more?

"What- what does Orion look like?" She said, her tail curling around her, and she gripped it tight, trying to keep her excitement and not-quite-completely-burned-up energy inside. "Why couldn't you stay there?"

If this other room was called Orion...she wondered what her home was called. She hoped it had a mysterious, dignified name to fit it, like this other room had. She got to wondering, hoping it would be better, that it could outboast such a good name as Orion.

@Iqniq

The cat-sister stayed silent, looking around at the plants, and she felt a little bit awkward. She wanted to know about Orion and what lay beyond her green home. It wasn't as if she wanted to leave, per se, but...she was curious.

In waiting for a reply, she looked around and spied a little flower with curling leaves, and without a second thought, she picked one of the leaves and ate it, wondering what it would taste like as an adscript to her actions.

She sneered at it, as it tasted horribly bitter, even more bitter than the root, if that was even possible. But as it traveled down her stomach, she felt calm. The left-over effects from the berry-root mixture quickly ebbed away, and she sighed. She didn't much like feeling so crazy.

"Cat-sister?" She asked, trying to get their attention.

@Iqniq

Iqniq had zoned out just a bit and had to shake herself out of it. The small black creature seemed to be waiting for a response, abd she didn't want to seem rude by asking what she had said, so she searched get memory. Quickly remembering what she had been asked.

She shook her head and purred, happy to share her own experiences in Orion. "Yes, I've heard there are many, but I've always been nervous to leave my own home. It's not so much that I couldn't stay, but that I wanted to see what else is out here." The young cheetah said, glancing stove the room again.

"Orion is pretty in a much different way than this place. Its big and open with some old ruins." She said, pausing and leaving out get favorite part of her home for just a moment. She closed her eyes, seeing the sparkling ceiling in hey mind. "And the ceiling sparkles and shines with a really pretty soft light."

Bringing her mind back to this room, She watched the creature eat a leaf and dramatically calm down from her previously excited self. "What is that you're eating?" She asked, wondering if the plants here were magical like the creatures that inhabited the caves.

Big and open with ruins....she pondered this while the cat-sister paused to speak. What were ruins? And what did it mean to be open? She thought her leafy green home was [i]very[i] open, but perhaps that was just her perspective. She knew she was small, and from her standpoint, everything seemed huge to her. Then the cat said that the ceiling sparkled and shined, and that made her mouth drop open and look towards her home's ceiling. But hers was simply cavernous, with familiar stalactites hanging down and saying hello. Nothing shining about it.

She suddenly really wanted to see the Orion room, tucking away the desire for later.

"Oh, this?" She looked down from the ceiling to the leaf in her hand. "All the plants here seem to, I guess, do something, something special. Every plant and root and mushroom does something different, and I want to know what everything does. This leaf calms down my stomach, apparently." She held it out to the cat-sister. "Want to try it?"

@Iqniq

She saw the cat-sister twist their mouth in disgust and laughed, tucking it away and out of sight. "Each to their own, I suppose. I think it tastes interestingly bitter, but I guess not everyone thinks the same."

She paused, looking up at them, then suddenly broke out into a wide grin. "I think I'll see this Orion. It sound really pretty, the way you've described it, so I'll go and see it."

She started to move away, her tail swishing back and forth, imagining how it would look. "It was nice meeting you, and thank you for telling me about it. I hope to see you again, perhaps." She said over her shoulder, getting excited about exploring more.

[exit Cayenne]