ORIGIN

It was exposed here.

A stain of ink upon a silver-white canvas of ice. It was different here from Cetus and the creature wasn't sure how to respond to this shift; it had been cold before, but colder still within the corridor, and touching the ice made him bare his gritted teeth fiercely.

It did not like the ice - but it did not wish to turn back yet. Where the path bifurcated and became many, the creature stopped. It felt the pull of energy within Polaris (heard the rumbling of it, thought that light played tricks in the periphery) and at once was apprehensive. Ahead but following a different angle the rock face becomes encrusted in salt - the creature scurries close, touches a palm upon this, investigates with a sniff and a lick. The bite of the salt on it's tongue is not inviting and the creature finds nothing of value in it. Rather, it is lured close by the odd smells and sensations that accompany the biome within Eridanus.

It can hear the life there; the mycelium singing. With a soft snort the creature shifts and heads that way instead.

She is on her way out, to Polaris to hunt, though she doubts she'll find much in this stark darkness. At least there, by the light of the spire, she might spot something. Eridanus had never, ever seemed so dark.

Well, perhaps it wasn't so bad. She had Cure there to grant her a little light.

She sent out a share of the warm fuzzies she felt as she lazily soared to the entrance of tunnel H. Already, the lighting was easier on her not-feline eyes. The hybrid sighed in relief and found a patch of rough ice to set her pads on. Not as slippery if she kept her claws up, Remedy had come to learn the tricks to walking on ice. Saved on energy. The winds were tricky in this tunnel thanks to the intersection at its center.

Actually, she broke from her thoughts, something was moving at the center of this tunnel today. Prey?

Not prey. It moved to purposefully. Greater. Familiar, somehow. Why?

The thing that approached from the other end of the tunnel was of an eerily similar color to her. Similar, if not as well preened feathers also decorated some stray parts of this thing. She felt her stomach twist. This creature used to have wings. Used to.

It's wrong. She can't mask the thought, and she's surprised by it.

She was wrong too, wasn't she? Two wrongs didn't make a right, but maybe they could make each others' acquaintance at least. She felt pressure to do both options equally; meet and greet, or fight or flight.

"Hello." She chirped across the ice, aware of how her feathers might hide her in the darkness of Eridanus' entrance. Her magic lit up her stone and eyes just slightly as she willed it to improve her vision and she took in a better look of the thing. It looked... feral. Still familiar. Sickly familiar. What is wrong with this?

_@Teyouma.II

A greeting on the wind - but in the dark, Teyouma turns to meet nothingness. He has lived all his life in the darkness and is not afraid of it, but he is ill-suited to it in equal measure. The stranger is obscured. Not knowing if he has imagined the voice or not, the creature does what comes natural: attempts to use his magicka as a means of self-defense. The last time he tried had been a failure but perhaps this time he will remember how to channel it.

Somehow he knows it worked. There is a warmth that spreads through his blood; his eyes flash with a dull glow as the capillaries there fill with magicka, then fade. A cloud of mycobacterium tuberculosis fills the space around him and dissipates through the air - and while it does this, the creature backs himself against the stone face of the wall adjacent. His eyes squint - he does not speak, having never learned the skill, not properly - and he waits to see if this dissuades a potential enemy.

The little strange thing responded to her appearance with hostility, sort of. Remedy blinked, ears falling back. A cloud of warm, moist air was left in the hybrid's wake as it scurried to the back wall. Keen eyes were still fine in the low-light so his movements were followed, but the cloud wasn't as visible.

She felt the warm air brush against her feathers as she padded forward. She stopped where the little monkey thing had been. There, she lowered herself to the ground and relaxed her posture.

If this little one was scared and not understanding her, she'd appeal to its instinctive side.

A dismissive yawn followed her settling down and she swung her tail idly. Would this new relaxed atmosphere encourage some curiosity in the stranger?

_@Teyouma.II

Nothing happened for a second. He didn't know what to expect, but something... more, for sure. Maybe whatever he'd done would take time to manifest? So he'd have to wait. Teyouma was impatient -- but before anything else could happen, the stranger sank down and sprawled out as if they had no cares at all. Did they not know the danger they were in? Were they trying to ease his mind before making their own retaliation? He watched the creature in the dark as best he could, only knowing it as big and in the way; he had no way of telling it was a hybrid or that it had wings, and that would probably save Remedy in the long run.

"What... doing?" The thing rasped with it's heretical voice; the two-toned discordant mess of what once was and what is. It took concentration and consideration for Teyouma to remember his words - he was older now, mentally acute, but not accustomed to such behavior. She had spoken and then stopped, so it left him wondering. If not an enemy, what was this?

The little hybrid monkey calmed down enough to speak. It clearly wasn't used to doing so, however; the words were choked out in twin voices that sounded alien.

She immediately recognized the trait. She'd heard it before. Bevy.

"I am curious." She replied, simply. "I have met many in these caves, but not you." She settled her chin on her talons, not bothering to move from her spot. "You are new to me, but old like me. Who are you?"

The creature did not know why it lingered, why it listened. Why it sank to the ground and loitered against the wall in the dark rather than making its escape, or crawling close to this new creature in order to pry the shining horns from its skull; yet as the hybrid spoke, teyouma did nothing but stare. he did listen, all the way until the questions were spoken, and he was silent thereafter - maybe thinking, maybe plotting something more.

then, sucking in a breath of the chilled air within the corridor, he murmured with his dual voice: "Tey-oou-mahh," which meant so many things to the creature but, likely, nothing to the hybrid. "Of the ah-wake-ah-neng." That which came before -- he had been one of the first, but everything changed so quickly. This creature, this body, this mind, all was different now.

Teyouma of the Awakening? He must've meant the Great Awakening, when their known history began so many cycles ago, but not so many to the Ancients that came from the times before. She'd heard some of the stories from someone once... someone who adored regaling her with them. Someone she felt was gone now.

"I am Remedy Karkata. My parents were born in the Great Awakening. I'm only a few cycles younger." Perhaps her time would come to be called the First Light, in honor of the generator's first repair since their arrival in the caves.

"Are you cold? Eridanus is warmer. My twin and I live there, but you'd be welcome." She nodded towards where she'd came from, the scent of moist earth and leafy greens drifting from the entrance and her pelt.

The hybrid responded kindly, which was something Teyouma did not know what to do with. Kindness was not part of it's repertoire but the knowledge she provided, well, that was always useful to him. So he remained silent and watching; he listened, and he digested what he heard with a somber expression upon his face.

The beast knew there were others within the cave system; he had watched them, kept a mental record of all that had transpired, even through the Great Sleep that had engulfed them. Teyouma's sleep had not been resful but more so a torment - he had been lucid and trapped in a broken body, healing from his wounds and changing through those long, endless days.

The memory of being catatonic in the darkness made him grimace.

"Air-ee-dan-us, the beast did mimic, then, "Tey-oou-mah... well-come." It was impossible to tell if he understood; if maybe these words were meant as an acceptance to the offer, or just the odd being's way of understanding what had been said. In the darkness there was no way to see the beast's face, but its red eyes were narrow and thoughtful, and his body was hunched like a stooped human with a hand propping his face, a thinker.

Teyouma II

Remedy

Teyouma II

Remedy

Teyouma II

Remedy

Teyouma II

Remedy

Teyouma II