ORIGIN

Crystal clear waters and the cool feeling of moisture on her thin, velvety fur. Destiny could never have asked for more; she loved water, it made her feel so free. As much as the ability to waddle on land came in handy and the places she found were pleasant, water was her home and it was where she felt most at ease. Far from being lumbering and clumsy the chubby, wrinkled little creature used her large, flat flippers to pull herself through the water with quite the speed and grace. There were no pebbles to dig into her belly and no ice to slip on.

Ah! Though, inversely, swimming could be rather tiring. Especially when she swam with such vigour, cutting as powerfully as she could through the currents, moving fairly fast for such a little chubby thing. Perhaps she just needed to improve, and get bigger, and lose all these funny wrinkles.

Destiny slowly rose to the surface, breathing out small puffs of air through her bill. She'd had enough for now, she decided, swimming towards the shore. With some difficulty she pulled herself out of the water and onto dry land. She breathed heavily as she did so, opening her bill. Curling up on the shore, Destiny focused hard and tried to figure out whether there was anyone nearby to keep her company.

@Fira

Fira had already developed the habit of slipping away from Ra’Ma and Ra’Riot already. Being but a cub, her curiosity often got the better of her. And besides, while she felt loyalty to them for taking her in, it was in her blood to explore. She was always on some kind of adventure, like Fate dragged her along by the snout and carried her off to faraway places all the time. Her attitude towards this was one of nonchalance, which is an odd sort of attitude to have when it comes to adventure. Her thoughts on the matter was that if it was in her destiny to be dragged off to who-knows-where all the time, then so be it. She had no qualms about this — or about anything, really.

And now here she was in Polaris, having taken the twisting, turning tunnels for endless minutes until she had discovered this place of bright light and blue Spire and winding river. Off towards one part of the river were many big, lumbering things roaming slowly around, as if without purpose. Curiously, she reached out to them with her Magic, not realizing that they were Golems, and that Golems are dangerously attracted to Magic.

Her Heartbeat Sensing Spell didn’t seem to want to work for a while, but she could feel it well up slowly within her body. The feeling was concentrated in her gem mostly, an interesting note to tuck away for later. Then it spread outwards across the room and towards the river. It was very faint. She could not pick up the smaller, rapid heartbeats of mice and voles and such. But her Magic did stumble across, presumably, another Gembound over by the water. Ignoring the presence of the Golems for now, she instead made her way to the river, to see who was there, and maybe strike up a conversation.

@Destiny

Destiny didn't so much hear as sense someone else on the horizon, a feeling that caused her fuzzy fur to prickle with excitement. Tiredly she stretched and readied herself to go after them; but it seemed as though they were coming her way anyway. Destiny instead turned towards where they were coming from and waited expectantly. She could see a little figure approaching on the horizon, wandering towards her.

The platypus felt confident that was the one she'd sensed.

Destiny considered for a moment before shrugging slightly. Resting wasn't that much fun anyway. She sank her claws into the damp riverbank and began to pull herself up the slope almost painfully slow. It was slippery and quite muddy but luckily, she was quite prepared for this sort of thing. Progress was slow but she eventually popped her head over the side of the bank and looked around expectantly, knowing that if anything, the stranger would be either gone or right on top of her.

Destiny focused again, breathing deeply through her bill, trying to make sure. Aha! They were there, and somewhere close. She let out a tiny purring growl of greeting and excitement.

@Fira

Fira made her way over to the riverbank, her eyes scanning around, looking for the other Gembound she had felt before. But… there wasn’t anyone there. Being still a cub, she didn’t even think to look down at the ground, assuming most Gembounds to be bigger like her. Ra’Ma was rather small, but still noticeable. She didn’t know there were creatures like platypuses that could be so tiny. “Hello?” she called out, thinking maybe they were just hiding or something. Maybe they were scared? And somewhere down near her paws, there was the Gembound she was trying to find.

Later, she’d feel like a fool for not noticing Destiny. But it was a lesson to be learned early on — to be ever-vigilant, and look everywhere. The best hunters and spies knew that sometimes the answer wasn’t directly in front of one’s nose.

@Destiny

The newcomer approached and approached, standing tall and proud. Destiny beamed, opening her bill wide, assuming she'd been noticed. But... The cat didn't even look her way. Destiny blinked, confused beyond belief. She didn't want to disturb them, but she wanted them to see her and talk to her. The little platypus at first timidly flailed one enormous webbed paw out to her side, as high as she could reach. And then they called out.

A happy shiver passed over Destiny. They were looking for her! "Hello! Hello! I'm here, I'm here! Are you looking for me?" she warbled frantically, flailing her webbed foot all the more. Compared to her, the strange cub was enormous! "Or... Were you? ...Doesn't matter. I'm here, I'm here! Who're you?"

She waddled a little closer, all her wrinkles and fat getting in the way, placing herself right between those big paws.

@Fira

Due to the outcome of the roll the fact that Fira was yet still a cub and it was difficult for her to pick up on different smells when entering a big room like this, even this sense failed her when she tried to locate the source of the tiny sounds entering her ears. All she got was the smell of water. Which is to say, not much of anything. No matter. Eventually she realized she needed to stop being an idiot and just follow the direction of the sound. She looked down at her orange-and-black paws, and somewhere near them was the tiny little Gembound she’d been looking for.

“Heh,” she chuckled, half-grinning. She lowered herself to her belly, not caring about the wet seeping into her fur. “Sorry about that. I don’t know why I didn’t just, you know, look down. I’ve never seen a Gembound so small.” Immediately, she felt bad. “I mean — sorry. But you are pretty small.” Fira wasn’t one to care much if she accidentally offended someone. I mean, she did care, but as long as they knew she hadn’t meant it, then that was that, right? “So, who’re you?” she asked, to get the conversation rolling.

@Destiny -- sorry Fira is so dumb. XD I am blaming it on the rolls her being a cub. Shh. XDDD

Destiny might have called out again, but she distracted herself and had begun to waddle towards one of those big paws. She'd reached out to give it a pat with a flipper when she heard a voice and looked up, realizing with glee that they'd finally noticed her. The platypus gave a tiny chirrup which turned into a little chuckle.

The larger creature then lowered themselves down, and Destiny scooted out of the way so that they could properly settle down. "G'day! 'Salright, mate!" she laughed goodnaturedly, words slightly lisped around her bill. "I'm used to it. Sorta. Really?" Come to think of it, everyone in this cave did seem to be a lot bigger than her. Was she the smallest in the cave? That didn't seem right. But Destiny laughed anyway. "Aha, don' worry, I'm t-t-taking it as a compliment!" She didn't see how being small was a bad thing. It meant she could more easily see those bigger than her, and she didn't stumble upon problems like what the cat had had finding her.

"D-D-Destiny," the strange little creature said. She paused for a second, opening and closing her bill again, before she shook her head and continued. "Name's Destiny. And yours?"

@Fira -- It's okay, it's adorable! XD

Fira placed her head on her paws and looked at the little creature in front of her. What even… was it? A duck… with fur? She was tempted to sniff at it, but didn’t want to give the impression that she wanted to eat it. Talking Gembounds were off-limits, completely. Besides, she hadn’t met enough Gembounds to tell the difference between them all. A cat, she would definitely recognize. And anything snake- or chicken-like, because of her adoptive parents. But other than that, she had met no one.

“Name’s Fira,” she said, after listening to Destiny’s introduction. “Or Ra’Spots, but only Ra’Riot and Ra’Ma call me that.” She shook her head. “Sorry. My parents,” she explained. “They call me Ra’Spots. Because, you know, I have spots. But I was born with the name Fira. You can call me whatever. I don’t care.”

There was a pause in the conversation at that point, as Fira struggled to come up with something to say. She wasn’t much for conversation, in all honesty, and probably never would be. She was all about getting information. She made a much better listener than a talker. “Uhh…” she said, which was her go-to ‘I’m thinking’ sound. “Do you have parents?”

Words: ~210 @Destiny

Destiny watched as the other creature placed her head on her paws and Destiny was finally able to be eye to eye. Curiously, Destiny scurried closer, looking them over, and it didn't seem she was one bit frightened of the larger creature. Far from the worry of being eaten, she reached close and gently booped the tip of her bill against the leopard's nose, a contented look in her sparkling eyes.

"Fira, Destiny nodded understandingly. And then she chuckled, a tiny purring noise. "Ra'Spots is p-pretty funny," she giggled. "B-b-but fitting, but fitting! I like it! Fira is a very pretty name, though." She gave a small nod. "I wasn't b-b-born with ma noime, but I chose it. 'Cause I looked out of ma chrys'lis and I k-knew wanted ta get out there, and do big things in this big world!"

She seemed quite proud of that.

Fira seemed to struggle at that point. Destiny felt a little bad and gave a little burbling purr, just to fill the silence. In response to the eventual question, she shook her head. "A lil' lady helped me hatch, b-b-b-but..." She suddenly burst into chittering laughter. She could hardly call White a lil' lady! eventually she calmed and continued. "...no parents. What do they do? How do ya get 'em?"

@Fira

The left corner of Fira’s mouth lifted in a grin when the little platypus booped her on the nose. The leopard wasn’t much for physical contact, but it didn’t bother her. Besides, this Gembound was adorable. The fact that they were the same age didn’t really register — or maybe it just didn’t matter. Fira decided right then and there that this creature was her friend and it was her job to protect her friends — thus, to protect Destiny. Little did she know that Destiny was doomed to die. It would be a sad day for her when that happened… But for now, she was just glad to have a friend.

Fira’s ear twitched when Destiny started laughing for some reason, after mentioning a ‘lil lady.’ Her eyebrow raised in confusion at the laughter, though she didn’t mind it. Actually, she didn’t mind most things. You would be hard-pressed to annoy this leopard. She was pretty chill most of the time.

What did parents do? How did one get parents? Fira shrugged. “I’unno. Maybe I just got lucky. I woke up in my chrysalis and then five seconds later my mom broke my chrysalis open and literally fell on top of me.” She stopped and chuckled. “Actually, it was pretty funny. Anyways, later Ra’Riot came around, and then they decided to keep me. Ra’Riot named me Ra’Spots. You can see the pattern, right? Ra’Ma, Ra’Riot, Ra’Spots. I still don’t know what Ra means.”

Huh. Apparently talking wasn’t so hard, after all.

Words: 251 @Destiny