ORIGIN

When no one else was around, the ghost of Cetus was content. The darkness did not bother her, and even being away from her Mother, the Divine, did not terrify her as much as it had before. She had learned to stay in the same place, drinking from the muddy water at her hooves, and using her Magic to absorb nutrients from her surroundings when needed. But recently, she had felt the power of new Magic in her system, something she had not felt before, and she was curious to know what would happen when she called upon it. She closed her eyes in the darkness, and somewhere in Cetus, a snowflake-shaped gem glowed with a glacier-blue light. It was a faint glow, a weak cast, but it worked…

The ghost had the oddest sensation of the cold and wet seeping into her fur, but more than that. She could feel… water… flowing into her body, somehow. She felt as though she would not have to drink more water for a while. She opened her eyes as the last of the glow left her, her eyes returning to their usual darkness, and her gem losing its eerie color. Now that she knew what this new Magic did, she was once again content. She curled up in the mud and closed her eyes to rest. Since the lights had gone out, there wasn’t much else to do. The cold seeped into her body, her fur dripping from the spell she had cast, her breath escaping in puffs, although you couldn’t see it in the dark. Once again, she was simply an ice wraith in her natural habitat, letting the cold numb her mind into a strange, almost comatose state…

She had woken from her shell many, many hours ago. So many hours, though she could not yet tell time by the ebb and flow of the caves as elder gembound could. She could still feel its infinite passage and over the last week or so since she'd emerged the mist had shrouded her from prying eyes or guidance. She had learned about her seemingly suffocatingly small world by trial and error, words coming to mind without need to be spoken, but there as she explored her new world.

She had decided to name herself Poppy, after the tiny red flowers that came to mind in her dreams. Riverborn, for she'd emerged into a stream of sorts that, even now, seemed more like a river to the toddler than the babbling brook it truly was. She'd wandered away from that spot, with the tiny red flowers and the warbling waters, in hopes of finding something to calm the ache in her stomach.

Her world was dark but her eyes didn't bother to strain to see. Her nose and ears did all the seeing she needed to be doing and her claws had dug away the roots and tangles that revealed tasty grubs and bugs for her to eat.

She'd gotten very good at digging for grubs. In fact, this was just what the toddler was doing now. As Poppy rooted around in the dirt, she gradually made her way closer to the hidden resting spot of the white doe.

Of course, nose-deep in swamp mud, the scruffy looking bearcat took no real notice of any changes in her scenery. In the end, she stopped to dig at a smelly patch of earth before she could unearth the doe's resting place. After some scuffle and snorting about, she brought her muddied face up looking quite disappointed and very much lacking any prizes between her parted teeth. It'd gotten away.

The ghost was slowly calming down around others since her encounter with the Monster, so when this strange, snuffling creature came towards her, she managed not to bolt immediately. Her heart raced in her chest, but she held still as they approached, watching to see what would happen now. She was disappointed that her nap had been interrupted, once again wondering why anyone would want to interact with other creatures when being alone was so much better, but she was almost two cycles old now and her mind was slowly shifting to allow her to think thoughts she might not have before. Maybe… interacting was not so bad — as long as no one wanted to attack her. Still, she didn’t wish to speak, so she just sat and watched, trying to calm her heart.

Alaska

Poppy

Alaska