ORIGIN

Kera was excited as she left the tunnel and stepped into Polaris once more. Although it was a place of many mixed emotions and an assortment of different memories, Kera liked it all the same. Hell, that might be what she liked about it in the first place.

As thunder clapped above, Kera grimaced and looked up, briefly. "The storm's been here for a while," she explained. "I don't know what the deal with it is." She did not have many concerns about the storm, really-- it would likely fade in time.

... probably.

As Rift moved on and started making lights, Kera decided to follow his lead. That's what they were here to do, after all. That was what Giggle said she'd be doing. She moved off towards a medium-sized boulder and touched her nose against it, focusing.

It took a moment, and Kera quickly realised that she preferred growing mushrooms to wreathing things in yellow-gold light, but that's what the rock did. It shimmered and turned from a solid grey into a glittering gold. Satisfied, Kera stepped away and looked towards Rift with her tail wagging.

"It looks good!" She said, minding the volume of her voice. "Does it help a lot?" The puppy eyed Rift curiously for a moment before moving on, nails clicking against the cave floor as she started walking through Polaris.

Oliver was, himself, moving through Polaris, albeit some distance further on. The crashing storm made him hesitate, made him stick to the sides, but he had to bring light here.

Other Gembounds couldn't see, and that wasn't nice. He could make light, so it was his job to help. He'd assumed this responsibility in a natural way, perhaps his dog-like nature from his mastiff father: there was a task to be done, he was able, and so he would help.

He huffed as he spread his arms, the wing-like spread of long feathers rustling as he flapped a bit. This, he'd inherited from his mother. He rarely flew--especially in the dark--as it was hard to control with his body shape, and very taxing. But there was a boulder, up ahead--a tall one--and he had to do what he could. He just hoped that the storm wouldn't kill him while he tried.

He glanced up, then leapt, wing-arms weakly catching the air; he flapped crookedly, grabbing claws onto the boulder and scrabbling up. He panted, for a moment, as he caught his balance, and then slowly lowered his wings.

Right--now like Mom had taught him. Mom, and Pippy. Focus. Breathe. Think of your stone. Calm. Focus...

The huge boulder was a great task: a bit beyond his skills, in truth. The light that flared up was only faint, but it was a glowing golden-white. The light it gave off was not extreme, but it was enough to light a small area in all directions, and it would just be another in a long line of evenly-spaced lights that he'd left as high as he could.

Quietly, he looked back, seeing the last few lights glowing softly in the distance. He didn't feel pride, exactly--just a reassurance that they were still there, glowing in the dark, beacons for others who couldn't do what he could do. He then looked forward, again, and--

Wait, why were there lights there? He didn't remember doing that.

After a moment's hesitation he took to the air again, slowly gliding down, landing with a rustle of black feathers near the glow. There were two beings, there: a big, tan cat of some kind, and what he at first mistook for his sister. A brief flare of joy was quickly replaced by confusion as he saw that this thing was smaller, fluffier, and nowhere near as feathered.

Huh.

That said, they were making lights--like he was. There was glowing moss, and another golden-white glow like his own. His pale blue eyes widened, and he turned his soft, gentle voice hesitantly toward the pair.

"Hi," he said gently, then added--"Are you both making lights for everyone, too?"

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

Observing her work for another moment, Kera listened to Rift with a soft nod. She didn't want to question why his hearing was so sensitive-- perhaps it was a cat-thing, that Kera was unaware of --or perhaps it was just a Rift-thing. Shrugging it off, Kera moved on towards another dark corner that the light from her rock couldn't reach and quietly concentrated.

With her gemstone glowing pink under thick, white fur, Kera placed her face against the cave floor. She could taste dirt and dust and other floor-things before she felt a carpet of mushroom caps pressing against her face, sprouting up from the ground as if for air.

Lifting her face again, she gazed upon the bioluminescent mushrooms with fondness, tail swaying contentedly behind her. The blue-green glow emitting from them was dim, but bright enough that it illuminated her paws so that it looked like her fur was the same colour. Halfway through examining her work, she heard a thump.

She looked up, half-alarmed, towards Oliver. She did not question his less-than-normal appearance, nor did she question where he had come from-- instead, she turned, tail wagging. "Hi!" She said a little too loudly, then offered an apologetic grimace in Rift's direction as she moved closer.

"I'm Kera," she said-- quieter, now. "I'm going to turn the lights back on, but first I'm helping to make lights for everyone else so they can see until I figure out how to do that."

Her gaze then flicked towards Alan. "Hello," she grinned quietly. "We're helping make lights for everyone until I can turn the lights back on. You make lights, you can help us if you wanted."

This was good, Kera decided. Giggle was going to see how many people wanted to help make lights and keep the Eyes at bay. It might cheer her up-- assuming the hyena can be cheered up, but maybe it would make her feel a little better regardless. She had come across as afraid or anxious or maybe both.

Kera felt bad for her.

Sitting down with her tail sweeping across the cave floor, Kera looked between all three of her-- newly decided --friends. "We're going to Canis," she said. "And we're making lights on the way there, if you want to come with us."

Oliver looked over those present again, at first reticent--as he always was, having lived alone for so long. But after a moment his warmly impulsive nature had him talking, gently.

"I'll come with you. Who's Canis? Are you going now? I was making lights because-..." he hesitated, long-taloned black forepaw hanging in the air for a beat. "Well, because there's a lot of people who can't see and I wanted to help. If you're making lights too I'll--come with you? I've been through the cave with all the buildings and the big rock-chair. And some of the tunnels. But if we work together maybe it'll be easier."

He hesitated again. He had no idea what or where this Canis was. But maybe if they all went together, they could share the burden of making lights. It'd be a lot easier this way, at least--and faster, too.

The lights would be back in no time.

"Why did they go out? Do you know?" he asked.

As he spoke, he edged away into the darkness, lifting a paw over a smaller rock, focusing for a moment to imbue it with light--to add to the work they had already done, and spread the glow just a little more. Nothing happened, this time; surely he was just distracted.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

Aztec had been in Polaris awhile, despite Aries' warnings about the storm. This time he opted to stay away from the river, almost getting sucked into a lake had made him wary about water, unusual for jaguar. It wasn't long before he saw specks lights in the distance, glowing steadfast in the storm like a beacon. Curious, the cub drew closer to investigate.

He soon discovered the origin of the lights, other gembounds, ones he have not see before. There was tawny feline cub that looked kind of like him, growing plants, a little bird, and strange black feathered thing, and a she-wolf pup. She seemed to be the leader. They were all making things glow.

Aztec did not announce himself, instead he crouched, flicking his tail with interest, and just observed. He felt them craft with light, the element he was tied to, and wondered if he could do the same.

He spotted a small rock by his side and held and paw over it. he could feel his gem stir the photons, but nothing happened. He furrowed his brow in disappointment and continued to watch the group. Maybe there was something he had missed.

"Speech"

For a moment, Kera's attention was taken away from the group and instead towards a moving shape in the dark. Impulse told her to walk to it, to find out what it was, and bathe it in light. Today, Kera decided, was not a day to follow it.

She nodded towards Alan. "There's lots of rooms," she explained. "We've talked about this, Alan, I think. There's a room with glowing crystals and another room that's green and full of plants. There's one that's dark and wet and there's a lot of mist and trees, and there's a room that's almost all water. I don't know if I've seen every room yet, but there are lots! They're all connected by long tunnels that have to be lit up as well."

"Canis isn't a who," she said towards Oliver next. "It's a room someplace else, and it's dark and it's small, and there's a lot of bones. It was a little scary, at first, but it's better with the lights."

Truthfully, it wasn't. What Giggle had told her of Canis-- between the bones of slaves and the Eyes and the blackness, and the long towers built from bone to hide from something that might have been the Eyes, or something entirely different and terrifying-- it wasn't just a little scary, it was something that regularly plagued Kera's dreams.

The nightmares she had received after meeting Giggle and helping her light up Canis had twisted her regular dreams-- of swimming peacefully into large, open water --into her drowning and being dragged back into inky-black depths, where she couldn't breathe.

Visibly bristling, Kera tried not to think about the nightmares. "Giggle says a lot of people will need to help with the lights," she said. "She can make lights, too, and I think she'd like the company so we should go there and try to make her come with us, I think. She's very nice."

She thought of the Eyes, again, without meaning to. She hoped the light in Canis was enough to keep Giggle safe until she got back. For now, however-- Oliver was speaking further. "I think it was a thing called Nemean," she explained. "She's a flying-cat-thing, I think, and she's called The Betrayer because she betrays people. I think."

Kera didn't actually know.

"One of my friends said she did it before, and she almost got people killed before, too. She's bad, I think." She did not think this-- she knew this. She knew Nemean was bad and that she had to be stopped. Or killed. Same thing, really.

Regardless, she nodded. "With four of us-- five, if Giggle comes with --the caves will be light and pretty in no time," she grinned, good-naturedly, fur flattening again with the thought. She pushed herself onwards, briefly looking back towards the black-moving-thing-in-the-dark before pushing her face against the ground again.

With her gem glowing, more bioluminescent mushrooms sprouted from the ground, caressing her cheeks. For a moment, Kera nuzzled them with faint affection, blue-green illuminating her face. She lifted her head afterwards, towards Oliver. "What was your name?"