ORIGIN

Macawi had been “hibernating” a bit lately. Sometimes she liked to disappear, to get away from all the creatures in the Caves. Don’t get her wrong, she loved meeting and talking to others. But even her excited, insane mind could get tired after so much activity. Besides, it was in her DNA to randomly disappear for no reason sometimes. You know, to keep people on their toes and whatnot. You had to give others surprises or what was the fun in life? At least, that’s how this little Coyote viewed the world. Ignoring the fact that she was insane, her opinions about things weren’t bad, generally.

Speaking of views about the world, Macawi looked up at the faraway sky (which was actually the ceiling of the cave, but no one was supposed to know that). Recently it had begun to snow, which was a pleasant surprise. Macawi loved snow. She sort of loved everything but that’s not the point. She was a creature of the desert, not that she knew that either, of course, but the change in the weather was nice. She was quite enthralled by the white, cold specks that fell on her nose and tickled it. She padded lightly through Polaris, nose to the ground, looking for rocks and leaves and twigs and things, to fill her satchel. This was a part of her routine now. In fact, it was probably one of the only constants in her life, considering she did most things on a whim.

She was very good at avoiding the Golems, and ran very quickly if one of them happened to notice her. She wasn’t stupid. She did silly things sometimes, but her survival instinct was just as strong as any other Gembound’s. Only… she was better at ignoring it than some others. Still, she tended to stay away from the Generator and the River. Today, she was somewhere in the middle of the room, and she was content to stay there, sniffing the ground for treasures that others might miss…

"Speech"

Eugh, snow?! What was this? It seemed like a relatively new phenomenon, one that Caravaggio found himself disliking quite immensely. It was cold when it touched his skin, stinging when the wind picked up and blew it into his eyes, and when it landed on his short hair it melted into a damp little wet spot, marring his coat. Albeit it was a temporary flaw, but a flaw all the same. And it was slippery. When it gathered in divots in the ground or near the edge of the river, it made the ground slick and his hooves had a difficult time finding purchase on the ice. A few times he had slipped, embarrassing himself where he had previously tried to come off as graceful and elegant. This snow seemed to be the bane of his existence, and he was hell bent on finding out why it was happening and making it stop.

Rather, he was hell bent on finding somebody to do that for him, since Caravaggio himself wasn't particularly smart. He had tried a few times, oh yes. He had spent a good long few minutes staring up at the ceiling of the cave, trying to figure out how the little flakes manifested from nothingness and drifted down to the ground. There was a thin layer of mist near the ceiling that seemed to forge makeshift clouds, but he couldn't make sense of it. He asked a few others and even they hadn't answers for him. Somehow... then again, he didn't know how White felt about the snow. He had gotten ahead of himself in his disdain. Maybe he needed to wait and see before he did anything drastic.

These thoughts were a tumble of mixed emotions inside his head, distracting him as he made his way through Polaris. In fact, he was considering heading over to the winged white dog now so that he could ask her opinion of it. His best friend's opinion was probably the only one he really cared about, so he may as well take the time to ask her, but the cow was so terribly, so easily thrown off course. When he spotted the coyote with the satchel over her side, he stopped, gazing at her for a few long seconds with an expression that read curiosity and disgust. What is that ugly thing? The satchel. Or maybe the coyote. Either way, he wanted to know. Actually, she looked a lot like Creedence. Maybe he didn't want to know. In that split second, Caravaggio was suspended by indecision, resulting in the cow only staring dumbly at the coyote while he tried to figure out if the creature he was watching was, in fact, Creedence.

Macawi sniffed out a pebble here, a twig there, and pushed them into her satchel by lying down and settling the opening of the bag against the ground and then shoving the items into it with her paw. It had been quite a struggle at first, as she had attempted to get used to these odd movements, but with time, it had become second nature. She hummed a tune as she trotted along, singing words in a made-up language that flowed from her tongue like water in a stream. Her singing voice wasn’t very pretty, but it’s not as if anyone minded. Normally, she was alone — well, she had Tangak, but he never said anything about her singing. In fact, she was pretty sure he enjoyed it, because he would chirp along with her half the time.

A new scent entered her nose — one that was not wind or water or plant. Another Gembound! She lifted her eyes from the ground to see a big… thing… standing in front of her, staring at her. She could not read his expression. Confusion? Disgust? Or maybe he didn’t even see her. Maybe he was blind, or maybe he wasn’t paying any attention to what was in front of him. Only one way to find out. “Hello, friend!” she said cheerily, sitting down and letting her tail wag to show she was friendly. “Who might This One be?”

Shy Tangakwunu hid his eyes under a wing and then flitted away to a nearby rock. He wasn’t one to attempt conversing with others. To this day, the Coyote had no idea what had made him choose her of all Gembounds to Bond to. Maybe he knew she wasn’t one to judge? She couldn’t be sure. Anytime she queried him on it, he just chirruped happily and said nothing. She’d learned to stop asking.

"Speech"

Macawi’s brows scrunched in confusion, and she cocked her head to the side after the cow’s outburst. She opened her mouth to speak, and then let out a laugh and fell over onto her side. “This One does not know his own name?” she asked in between guffaws. After a few more seconds, she quickly realized that if that were the case, laughing about it was probably about the worst thing she could be doing. She remembered Baratheon, her Big Dragon Friend, and how, up until recently, he hadn’t remembered who he was. She looked askance at the cow. “Forgive this crazy coyote her laughter. Coyote’s name is Macawi.”

Afterwards, she said nothing, waiting to see whether the cow would reply with his own name. Or perhaps he would just be angry at her for laughing. Or maybe he’d break down in tears for not knowing his own name. It never occurred to her that he’d said he didn’t know because she had confused him with her speech patterns. She knew in the back of her mind that she spoke differently than others, but such knowledge had never really… mattered before. Everyone before this bovine had understood her words — either that, or Macawi was just entirely oblivious… Hmm…

"Speech"