ORIGIN

Khloros stood silent in the darkness, tail hanging and ears unmoving, eyes unblinking. He was a statue of a horse, barely breathing noticeably, even, his ghostlight eyes illuminating a few shards of long-forgotten jade stone coated in dust.

His mind was wandering; he had come here, as he sometimes did, to again view the place which had hatched him--the pustule that had pushed him from the cave's wall like an abcess, a cyst, to be rejected.

He didn't mind.

He stepped forward, the first motion in long minutes, and lowered his thin neck and long head to gently nudge a bit of rock. Then he stared at this, in long silence, once more.

All things told, to a normal Gembound, it might have seemed pretty weird.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Where was it now? A place of blackness and stale air, long and winding. Veil's eyes stared at the walls and the ground and the ceiling but not much could penetrate the darkness, not even the creature's own, faintly-glowing pelt.

He wandered, nails tapping the cave floor and his tail dragging behind him, until he saw a distinct something in the dark. An orb, of sorts-- green-white and glowing, just... there. In the dark.

It was a curious thing, the creature promptly decided, and curious things had to be observed, watched, and privately documented. There was no gentle glow of Veil's gem as he focused silently on the green-glow-orb in front of him. There was a pause, and then immediate blackness.

His eyes and stars and limbs were shrouded in deep, void-like darkness in mere seconds, and Veil was moving up towards the diseased, stinking horse with wide eyes-- yes, all twelve of them --staring up at it.

It was dark. It was thin. It was observing. It was beautiful.

Awed, a clawed hand extended out-- as it always did --but stopped merely an inch short as the plague-carrier moved and stared even closer at something in the darkness. He crept forward, near its head, and stared too, for a time.

He didn't know what it was. Two eyes on his left side flicked upwards to watch the horse for a moment, while the rest looked elsewhere. "What is it?" He murmured reverently. "What does it see?"

Khloros was still quietly lost in thought, when the voice came.

He'd been thinking about his youth. Thinking about his birth; his hatching. About the one who had found him and helped him. About those who had harmed that one, and how much he, himself, had been changed by all of this. It was something he thought about frequently, and it was something he came here to think about frequently, to reflect upon. But never once, in his meditations in this tunnel, had a voice whispered into his ear from the darkness.

Khloros was many things; but he was, beneath it all, a horse. And like any horse suddenly startled by a potential predator that had somehow crept up beside it, he reacted with startled violence.

A sharp snort, loud as gunfire in the silence, cracked from him--and he turned sharply, leaping away and lashing out behind with a strong kick of both rear hooves straight for the voice's origin.

WHAT WAS THAT--

The horse didn't wait--he bolted a few yards and turned snorting, shrieking a high-pitched, unearthly banshee challenge at whoever--or whatever--had snuck up on him in the darkness.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Veil couldn't tell you why or how he got the inclination that sneaking up on people having a private moment in the complete darkness was a good idea. He was probably about to learn that in reality, it was a terrible idea, but he had indeed been watching the horse with child-like wonder, and was able to make the attempt to avoid.

He was lucky to dodge, scrambling and skittering out of the way like an oversized lizard. Unable to keep the focus on his spell, it lifted immediately and a carpet of white-glowing eyes stared wide in shock at the horse. Instinct took over for a split second as the creature's mouth opened-- opened far too wide, and let loose an unholy shriek.

Veil lay on the ground for a moment or two, wheezing and croaking with heavy, labouring breaths, before he scrambled onto his fours again, alert and tense. "What is it?" he asked, all pupils staring directly at Khloros. "What did it see? What did it hear? Did it startle it, did it harm it? Does it fear the Void?"

The creature kept a distance, now, pacing restlessly. Its head limply tossed around as its body moved, making sure that all eyes on both sides of its body got a good look at the diseased horse, cautious, waiting for another attack.

Khloros--still driven by instinct--charged toward the strange creature. He drew up somewhat short in a clatter of hooves-loud in the darkness--and with another shrill and spectral, shrieking neigh--also very loud. It was a challenge, a warning, a scream at the foreign-... thing, and he reared up on his hind legs and lashed his fore-hooves out to emphasize his willingness to fight.

What is it?

Whatever it was, despite its own shriek, it was laying on the floor--and now lifting up again, scrambling back.

Khloros did not yet speak. Instead, sides heaving and head held high, prancing rapidly forward with his ears pinned in warning and his tail thrashing, in what was very much a living horse's actions as opposed to his prior unnatural stillness, the stallion danced just out of reach.

Or, at least, he hoped he was.

The thing had too many eyes; that alone might not be worrisome. But it was clearly a predator, clearly trying to ambush him--right? It was speaking--what was it saying? Khloros thought it was muttering to itself, but he wasn't certain.

Instinctively he sent out a rush of magic, trying to sense just what the hell this thing was. If it was alive. If it held myriad tiny life within it, as most living creatures did.

It is--alive, at least. It is--normal, bacteria-wise...

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

What was it doing? Veil wasn't sure. It had previously been still and observant like a silent guardian-- it was still silent, perhaps that accounted for something --but now it was moving and not staying still.

He scrambled out of the way, claws scratching the stone below, whenever the horse got closer with a loud hiss, his white tongue slinking out of his maw briefly. He stood with his head low, spines raised, should he be bitten.

He was not aware that horses usually kicked, rather than bite. But you never know.

He paced a little more when at an adequate distance away from Khloros-- safe enough that he wouldn't be kicked, but not far enough that all twelve eyes couldn't get a look at him as he shifted, showing them off.

This primal, instinctive fear was an odd feeling for him. It took him a solid few moments before he spoke again-- louder, this time, enough for Khloros to hear, but still soft. "What is it? What did it see?"

More heavy breathing. Veil's tail lashed briefly, the white end waving in the darkness like a glowstick. A glowstick attacked to a crooked, hunched, hissing creature. "What does it fear?" He asked after a time, still alert, though his head resumed swaying to and fro blindly as his eyes stared intently and unblinking forward at the horse.

Khloros stared as the stranger paced back and forth, his ears pricked up and nostrils flared, trembling with adrenaline.

"If you are speaking to me, creature," he rasped in his empty, hollow voice, "then you are meant to address me, as 'you' and not 'it.' Otherwise, I assume you are speaking to yourself."

He took a stiff step forward. Unlike other gembound he had no magical threat; he could not flare fire or glow or turn black as a warning, or pop dramatic, bloodied spikes from his back. His magic was invisible; it was peace, with him, or illness and death.

"Are you planning to attack me? If you are, you will die; if you are not, then it is unwise to sneak up on others in the dark." It was hard to tell if Khloros was frightened by his voice alone; its rasp was the same as it always was, though his tone was loud. The shake of adrenaline in his limbs, however, was clear.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

The seconds ticked by and for a long moment Veil did nothing but pace back and forth with the only sound coming from him being the rapid clicking of hos long black nails against the cave floor. He stared with twelve unblinking eyes forward at the diseased horse, mouth slightly agape as he breathed heavily.

Was he afraid? He did not know. He thought he was intrigued but he did not know. He knew he ran the risk of getting himself hurt again should the horse decide to attack. He knew he was probably much too small to try to fight back.

Eventually, with the flick of his tail, he stopped pacing. "You," the creature croaked, as though testing the word. "What did... you see?" Two glowing eyes flicked towards the thing that had been stared at in the dark, watching while the rest of his far-too-many eyes stared at Khloros.

A long pause, then a gentle rasping breath. "No," he said simply, knowing it was unwise to attack now, while was exposed and visible without a cloak of darkness covering his hide. It was not his intention to begin with, either-- he would have done so while in the dark, while Khloros' attention had been anywhere else but on him.

"It was watching," he croaked gently. "Watching. Learning listening. It wanted to see what it--"

A pause. Another long, rasping breath. "What you," he tested the word, though it felt foriegn and incorrect in his mouth. "What you see. What was it?"

Khloros began to calm, though the creature pacing to and fro, regardless of all else, still kept his nerves somewhat on edge.

Like a predator, pacing. It likely is a predator, pacing, he thought to himself. Still, he waited, staring unblinking at Veil and listening to it speak. To it attempting to adapt.

It is unlike any creature I have met here before. It is-... alien. Perhaps it will be useful. The last thought came sudden, unbidden, and Khloros found himself watching the creature closely.

"You are asking what I was looking at, in the dark. Come." The black horse turned with a faint swish of his otherwise-limp tail, and trod back over with quietly-clopping hooves to the few shattered remains of his chrysalis. The stone was old and worn, but it was still his.

He looked over his shoulder at Veil; perhaps he could learn something about it.

"This," Khloros slowly explained, snorting briefly through still-flared nostrils, "is where I emerged. The fragments of stone are where I fell from the cave walls, long ago. Do you see? Did you come from stone, as well?"

He let his gaze travel over Veil, though given his glowing eyes, that might not have been immediately obvious to the creature itself. He was, in fact, looking at Veil's own eyes.

It has so many. I wonder why.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

As Khloros turned away and moved back to where he had been staring previously, Veil briefly considered attacking him from behind. Although he near-immediately decided against it, he did not move for a long time. A part of him told him that this was some sort of a trap-- that should he go near the horse again, he would probably get kicked at again.

Regardless of this, the creature slowly began crawling along the ground, belly low to the floor, at a fair distance from Khloros. As he got closer he could see the faint outline of the chrysalis through the corner of his eyes. One of his eyes, at least.

Three eyes flicked towards it; nine watching Khloros, unblinking. Although he feared-- though that might not be the appropriate term for what he was feeling --getting closer, he felt a nagging urge to touch.

He stared, watching, wary, as he got closer to the chrysalis. One claw extended out, white glimmering onto the very surface of the broken stone. He hesitated for a moment before learning one very important lesson: rocks do not move.

He pressed his hand flat against it, knobbly finger-like claws extended out. It was cold, but... comforting, almost. It reminded him of the warm darkness he had been a part of not-so-long-ago, where he longed to return to.

The creature was silent, for a moment, but the gentle chuff coming from Khloros reminded him that the horse was indeed still there, and Veil had gotten closer to him to touch the chrysalis. His tail flicked quietly.

"It came from a stone amongst howling winds," he croaked, unaware that this might not make a lick of sense. "Pure. White. Smooth. Cold. Pure. I wonder why? This one is different. It is not white."

Watching both Khloros and the shards, Veil rasped quietly, curiously. "Why does it-- does you, return to it?" He asked, correcting himself mid-sentence, albeit... wrongly. "Does you wish to return to the dark, miss it, want to be a part of it again?"