ORIGIN - with some luck

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The air in Eridanus was thick with humidity, just as most days were in this portion of the world. Gracie had not traveled far since her hatching, if she wandered long enough she could still find her shattered pink diamond chrysalis surrounded by birds' gifts, pebbles. Finding food the first two days of her life was difficult, the cave was dark and everything smelled like dirt. Since the orbs of light returned, the purple eyes nestled in her head became that much more useful. No more would she bump into shadows that were actually trees and walls. And no more would she accidentally eat the nasty twigs she mistook for sugar cane. Gracie was becoming wary of eating anything at all, it was a gamble every time she put something in her mouth. Her black nose was still developing, getting better every day.

On her search for sugar cane, the sweet, sweet plant had her salivating for hours, Gracie discovered something peculiar about herself. Nestled against the skin of her chest there was a piece of gem that wouldn't come off! She thought it might have been stuck there inside her when she first tumbled out of her chrysalis, but it was secure. The more she clawed at it, the more she only hurt herself. The panda cub would just have to accept the stone wasn't going to come off. A few days later she found she was rather fond of the pink diamond. With certain moods, mainly excitement, there was a soft pink light omitted from within. A tingling sensation filled her chest cavity as she played with the dancing lights that were cast onto the dirt before her.

Then something curious happened! Her paw came down on a patch of dirt, and when she lifted it back up to take another step a sprout sprung up! Eyeballing it, Gracie saw it wasn't bent. It wasn't a plant she'd stepped on. Where did it come from? She giggled.

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Tamelyn We'll reel away til the break of day
and dance together til morning!

While she may have roamed all over the Caves, Tamelyn often liked to visit Eriandus. It was her birthplace, and one of the best places to find food, particularly if you were a browser like her. She ambled down one of the game trails, pausing intermittently to nibble leaves off a branch or strip a fern frond. Despite her run-in with a golem shortly after hatching, she hadn't had any more problems with them in Eriandus. For the most part, the area was safe as could be.

As she walked, her ears suddenly perked up, catching the sound of a girl's laughter. Intrigued, she quickened her pace, turning a bend to come upon a cub of some sort sitting in the middle of the trail. She looked like Leon, but with a shorter muzzle. And where Leon was a dun brown, this cub was black-and-white. She seemed to be engrossed in a small sprout growing before her, which was evidently what was causing her to laugh.

The cub was facing away from her, and Tam approached, careful not to startle her. "Hi!" she said, always open to make a new friend. "Whatcha got there?" She stepped around the cub to take a closer look at the plant, though she found nothing strange about it. However, the pinkish gemstone on the girl's chest seemed to be flickering with the last vestiges of a spell. She was reminded of Imogen, who had been able to make plants grow, and it did seem odd for a plant to be growing in the middle of the path. Did this girl have plant magic too?

"Listen to me."

table by lisa

Gracie had heard the soft pattering of hooves hitting the dirt and for a second she thought it might have been her friend Vazi, also a deer. So it didn't phase her much to be too concerned about who was coming closer until the voice of a stranger made her heart drop momentarily with fright. Turning around she saw a pretty deer fawn and a sigh of relief escaped her maw. Smiling brightly, the panda cub waved the other inwards towards the plant that she was investigating. "I don't know wha' happened," she mused, "walking down here and bop! There it was!"

Wandering her eyes curiously up and down the stranger, Gracie admired her piebald markings without envy. What sparked her interest the most, however, was the gem latched onto the girl's leg. "Oh! OH!" Gracie gasped, patting at her chest where the pink diamond resided. They were similar, just like Vazi who's gem was on his chest just like the cub. Her gem began to glow with the magic excitement that pounded through her veins.

Something tickled at the bottom of her paw, lifting it up, Gracie's purple eyes went wide with awe. "Did you... did you SEE THAT?" she shrieked, voice escalating to a whole new level of loud. A new sprout had emerged right next to the one she had been studying. Positively, that was not there before.

table and code © chelsea of ORIGIN

Tamelyn We'll reel away til the break of day
and dance together til morning!

The cub didn't know where the sprout had come from, but Tamelyn had a few guesses. "I think you did magic," she said. "Some of us can make fire, or make the ground shake, or grow plants, or lots of other stuff." She laughed at the girl's amazement at her scheelite gemstone, similar to the pink jewel on her chest."Yeah, I got one too! I can't grow things, but I can do sparky magic." She lifted her hoof and focused, mentally reaching for the crackling, buzzing sensation that always lurked just beneath her skin. Rather than be annoying, it was almost reassuring. It gave her energy, in a way, surging whenever she ran about or jumped high.

The sparks came, dancing above her gemstone, though they were rather paltry. It was a bit disappointing, but she hadn't really intended to do more than demonstrate her type of magic to the girl. "Normally it's a bit more impressive than that," she said with a sheepish grin, setting her hoof back on the ground. It seemed that the panda would have more luck with magic today than her, for as her gemstone flickered and flashed, something green crept out from between her toes. Tamelyn took a startled step backwards at the cub's excited shouts, though surprise quickly gave way to happiness. She pranced in place for a second or so, sharing the panda's joy. "See, it's magic! You're like my friend Imogen--she grows plants too."

She blinked, suddenly realizing she had forgotten a fundamental step when meeting someone new. "My name is Tamelyn, by the way," she said, "but jus' Tam is fine, if it's easier to say." Some Gembound, particularly younger ones, seemed to have trouble with her name. She herself had needed two or three attempts to get it right. She cocked her head at the cub curiously. "What's your name? Wanna be friends?"

"Listen to me."

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Her jaw dropped open when the deer friend listed examples of other's magic. She had no idea such a thing existed in this cave's world. Quite befuddled by the things listed that the panda had never witnessed before, such as fire. What was fire? Gracie was meaning to ask before she was sidetracked by the spotted deer's magic display. The sparks were equally new to her, never before coming in contract with electricity in her short lifetime. "Ooooo!" she cooed, though the display wasn't flashy and big, the sparking light was beautiful and she loved it.

"There's more like me!" it wasn't so much a question as an excitable statement to confirm the panda wasn't alone in her magic. One day she might be able to meet the deer's friend, Imogen, perhaps they can practice magic together.

A very important question had been answered, the pink diamond stone lodged into her fleshy chest was what enabled her plant magic. She felt overwhelmed with excitement. Gracie wanted to grow some more sprouts but the second one was a bit exhaustive already, she decided to not bring on a third just yet.

"We're friends already, Tam!" she giggled in delight, "My name is Gracie. I don't have another name just yet." The panda pondered having others call her... Gra.... but that just didn't make sense. She preferred her whole name. Tam was just as darling of a name as Tamelyn.

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As paltry as her light show had been, it seemed it had still impressed the panda cub. She nodded, grinning at the girl's excitement that there were others with magic like hers. "Lots, I'm sure." She hadn't seen Imogen in some time, but she hoped the little tree kangaroo was doing well, as well as the dog she had met shortly after Imogen's hatching.

The panda finally gave her name, and Tam committed it to memory, giggling. Already friends, huh? It seems they thought alike. To Tamelyn, every stranger was a potential friend. She folded her legs and lay down, assuming a more comfortable position and putting herself on eye level with Grace. Having to crane her neck down made her sore after a while. "So did you just hatch?" she asked the panda curiously. "Or have you been out for a while?" She couldn't see any gem shards lying about, but her youth was unmistakable. Tamelyn herself was only a couple cycles old, but Gembound grew quickly. She was halfway between her infant and adult sizes, legs gawkier than ever but now starting to put on a little more muscle, and her spots were beginning to fade. Due to her piebald coloring, however, she'd still have some spots for the rest of her life. That was little bother to her, though. Vazi, Clover, and Nyx were deer as well, though she got the feeling that they weren't exactly like her. For all she knew, all whitetail deer were splotched white. Maybe Gracie was a piebald version of whatever Leon was.

(Sorry, tiny post...)

"Speak"

By This One

Gracie watched timidly as Tam lowered herself to the ground, no doubt to be on equal height as herself. Pawing at the dirt momentarily, Gracie resisted the urge to uproot her sprouts. And do what with them? Well, that was why she hadn't plucked them up yet. Curiously, she licked at the leaves of one. Could she eat them? Would they taste bad? The panda cub resisted that too... remembering the last time she ate something she wasn't supposed to. Twigs and bugs, maybe eating her sprouts wasn't a good idea just yet.

"Hmmm!" the cub hummed in thought, thinking long and hard about they day she split from her pink diamond womb. She hadn't possessed much insight on the concept of time, every day in the cave seemed to merge into one continuous happening. "I'm not sure! Not too long ago. The pink rock is around here somewhere," twirling around, Gracie tried to get her bearing on the land but only succeeded in dizzying herself.

table and code © chelsea of ORIGIN

(that's okay, mine vary a ton lol)

This is so late I'm so sorry D:

The cub didn't seem to know what to do with the plants she had grown. Tamelyn would have suggested a snack, though she was't quite sure what kind of plants they were. As a child, she had decided what was good to eat and what wasn't by eating it and waiting to see if her stomach hurt or not. She was (a little) older and wiser now, and had learned which plants, nuts, and roots were edible, and which to avoid. Acorns in particular were her favorite. She cocked her head at the cub, wondering what she ate. Come to think of it, she had never seen Leon eat anything, so she had no frame of reference for bear diets. Meat, maybe, given his sharp teeth. But this girl didn't really have the look of a predator. It might have just been because of her youth, but she seemed much softer than Leon.

She was certainly younger than Leon.

Tamelyn couldn't help but laugh as the cub spun around, looking in vain for her chrysalis. "Good luck finding it again, a golem's probably gotten to it by now." She remembered the fate of her own chrysalis, and the amber void she had floated through as a neonate, now lost forever. It made her a bit melancholy, to be honest, but at the same time she was glad she had a whole new world to roam and explore. The thought of golems sobered her up, though, and she fixed the cub with an intent look. "If you ever see a pile of moving rocks, stay away from it, okay? And don't use magic around a golem, either, it attracts their attention." She didn't want to make the cub too fearful of the cave, but she needed to at least have some knowledge about what to avoid.

"Speak"

By This One

Gracie's eyes widened in horror, moving rocks? Rocks could move in the caves? Were they boulders or pebble armies? Her imagination burst into action thinking of the possibilities of stones actually moving around on their own. And it made her sad as well, thinking her pink diamond chrysalis would be scooped up by these beasts. What use was it to them? Would they be able to control her mind with her broken chrysalis? Her pulse jumped and the cub began to feel a little panicky. She wanted to run off and find her stone before some monster did first.

"Golem?" She squeaked the name, it sounded foreign and spooky. Gracie never wanted to meet one, and now she would be forever on the outlook of moving rocks. "What... what do they do?" It was no point getting too worked up when she didn't know any of the details, Tam didn't give her enough information to be as scared as she was over this. Her purple eyes gleamed over as she watched her deer friend's body language, looking for a sign.

Tamelyn We'll reel away til the break of day
and dance together til morning!

"I'm not sure exactly," said Tamelyn, trying to recall what little she had learned about golems in her three cycles of life. "But they're drawn to anything magical. I think they eat magic or something." They surely couldn't eat meat or plants, they didn't even have mouths. Realizing she had spooked the cub, she tried to lighten the mood. "But don't worry. They're really, really slow. They'd only catch you if you stood still. Besides, it doesn't matter if they found your chrysalis or not." She lifted a hoof and tapped it very gently against the pink diamond glittering on Gracie's chest. "This right here is what you need to protect. That's where your magic comes from, that's what keeps you alive." Gracie was sweet, but Tamelyn had no doubt that she was also clever enough to keep herself safe.

It was time for her to keep traveling, though. She wanted to cover some more ground before her next rest. "Take care of yourself now, okay? And welcome to the Caves!" She stepped around Gracie and made to continue down the path, then paused and looked back at the panda. "If you ever need anything, come find me. I'm usually around here." With that, she moved off, heading for her next adventure.

-Exit Tamelyn-

"Listen to me."

table by lisa

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