ORIGIN

Of all the rooms, Kera liked this one the least. It was cold, and it was wet, and it was horrible. And icky. Like a rat. Kera hated rats.

Stepping along unevenly through the darkness, Kera lifted her head and sniffed the air. Among the water and the cold, there were two new smells. Something with fur, and something with plants. They were close.

As Kera started to follow it, she came to the faint silhouette of a cat laying among the grass. Strange. It would need light, surely?

She pressed her nose close to the burst of grass around the big-cat-cub, and focused. It took a good while, and the results weren't.. wholly there. One or two eerily-glowing green mushrooms had sprouted among the grass, supplying very dim light. Nothing that would illuminate anything around, but only a few inches around them.

It was good enough, at least-- but now there was another thing. A crack and a voice from somewhere else. Kera turned her head, quizzically, and shifted away from the sleeping creature to carefully call out. "Hello? Who's there?"

It smelled. She could smell it-- wet, and cold, something with fur as well. Did it just hatch? Gross.

She glanced back towards the cat and her new mushrooms and decided to sit down here, quietly, keeping the weight off her injured leg as she kept her ears perked high for a response. She could hear, somewhere, water. Which meant fish.

Maybe she'd catch this new thing a fish and they could be friends.

Kera's eyes flicked towards the cougar with some alarm as he yelped and scrambled back. She stood up herself, wide-eyed and ears perked high. What was it doing? Why was it doing that to its head? Perhaps it was blind, like Kielo, but instead of smelling better than people, this one heard better? Kera did not know.

"I'm sorry," Kera said with a soft voice-- as soft and quiet as she could muster, even. "I didn't want to wake you, I thought you were--"

Interrupted by the other newly-hatched creature, Kera turned a quizzical stare across to the fox. "I didn't sneak up on anyone," she said simply. "I can't sneak if I am bringing light. That defeats the purpose of sneaking, which means to stay hidden."

What was that word that Kin-Kin had used to describe the clouds? Asshole? It was a fitting word for this fox, at least. Bristled with frustration, Kera carefully sat herself back down and turned her gaze back to the cat.

"You're not feeling well?" She asked softly, quizzically. Had it eaten something bad, something that smelled bad and was full of rot? "How do you feel better? Do you need fish, or water, or sleep? Do you need all of them?"

Kera dipped her head gently towards the cougar. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, nearly a whisper. "Is there anything I can do to help? Does anything help it at all?" She ignored the fox for a time, not wanting another fight to break out should she lose dwindling patience, keeping her eyes on Rift for now.

When the glowing moss sprouted, Kera almost leapt to her paws, wide-eyed, tail wagging. Her mouth opened to shout, but she quickly managed to stop herself-- speaking in a gentle, excited whisper instead. "You can grow things too. You can grow and make light."

This was good news. This was very good news-- that there were more than she and Giggle out there. The things this one grew were different, however-- they were leafy and green, and they smelled better. She moved over to carefully sniff the moss, eyes glimmering faintly with awe. She recoiled as they promptly burst into flame and she grimaced, idly patting out the smouldering herbs before concentrating quietly.

She tried to grow more mushrooms in their place, but she couldn't find any spores-- or perhaps they were unwilling to grow where a fire had been so shortly before. "That was rude," she said quietly, eyes flicking to the fox briefly.

She looked back to Rift, ear flicking. "Can you teach me how to grow those?" she asked in an admiring whisper. "I can teach you how to grow light-mushrooms, or mushrooms you can eat, or mushrooms that will protect your fur."