ORIGIN - After so long

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It was nestled among the stones, barely visible beneath the cover of snow and ice, for it so perfectly blended in. The chrysalis was a perfect shard of ice-like gem, the creature within an icy silver. Time was infinite, a minute was forever. The creature within felt every second like it was a lifetime. It could not speak, it could not move, nor could it hear the voices of other around it. It craved everything that it didn't have.

Just as its long-standing patience began to tremble, it felt feeling flood into its body. It's mind began to stir and its eyes, sticky and weary, softly blinked open. At first, it didn't know what it was seeing. The world before had been black and now it was white. All white. Was this just another stage in the waiting? Or was the world just white?

Curious, it stretched out a claw to touch the white, but it was halted in its tracks by an invisible wall. Curious, it tapped, making a soft rapping noise. It had no idea what it was, but it was keeping her here. Frowning, she tapped some more, hoping that if she kept doing it, the wall would disappear. She didn't know that she was in a gem. She just kept tapping, wondering what was going to happen.

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: here
notes: here

A massive, deep blue chrysalis grew on the wall beside the narrow tunnel entrance that lead to Orion. It had stood, undisturbed and as a passing curiosity to travelers, for more than a dozen cycles. Any attempt to peer inside was made futile by the shadows of the gem. It did not gleam and glisten like most chrysalis, but rather seemed to drink up the light around it. Drifts of snow blanketed its dark, jagged edges, and ice encrusted the floor all around it as a testament to how long it had been there.

The first stirrings of the creature inside disturbed the thin layer of snow as the chrysalis shuddered once, then twice. A short spell of stillness followed before a faint crack in the ice could be heard. It was almost immediately swallowed up by a much louder, resounding crash though as the chrysalis suddenly seemed to explode.

Within the mini-maelstrom of blue gem shards, ice and snow, a large male lion slowly rose to a standing position. He didn't remember having so much body to move around. In fact, he didn't remember much more than his name, and being born before. He knew with certainty, even though his eyes roamed over unfamiliar surroundings, that this was not his first time outside of a chrysalis.

The cold set in as soon as his conscious did, stealing up through his already numbing paws. Faelan decidedly quickly, and definitively, that he did not like it. So, more by instinct than conscious thought, he started walking. Not toward the very obvious tunnel by his hip, but rather deeper into Tunnel M.

No more than a few strides forward though, and the faint sound of tapping reached his ears. Since his mind seemed about as numb as his paws right now, he latched on to the sound and followed it through the tunnel. The floor sloped downward, and near the bottom, a group of rocks jutted along the walls with the "path" leading through them. Faelan paused at where the floor leveled out, tilting his head slowly as he stared at the rocks. The tapping sound was very clearly coming from within them.

Without meaning to, Faelan opened up his mind to detect other Gembounds. An orb of pale white light suddenly appeared before him, to signal the life within the chrysalis. Not knowing what the light was, or where it had come from though, he leaped back in surprise. It faded as quickly as it appeared, unable to sustain itself now that Faelan had withdrawn his magick.
Curious about where it could have gone, the lion hurried forward and then poked his nose into the snow where it had been before. He scooted the snow aside with his nose as he sniffed along the rocks'. Within seconds, he finally moved enough snow around to see that he wasn't actually sniffing rocks at all, but a chrysalis nestled among them.

The little creature kept tapping, but was disappointed by the absence of anything happening. But she kept tapping, regardless. Besides, there wasn't anything else to do. But it was boring and infuriating after such a long wait to be alive.

But then the white in front of her shifted. She stopped, curious. She had thought that the world was white. Then again, wouldn't it be silly? A white world? What would she do? If she was meant to just sit here, why wouldn't it just be black? So, apparently, the world was more then white. And suddenly the world was gold. Well, there was something gold there. She didn't at first realize that it was a face, but she figured it out pretty quickly. So if that thing was there, did that mean that she could break the wall? Was she supposed to?

She decided to try. Carefully, she reached forward and noticed that her claws were rather big. Perfect. They would help her get out. With a careful thrust, she slammed her paw against the wall. Nothing happened. She tried turning it over, but it didn't do much more. How did she use these claws?

And then she turned it so that her claws were pointing directly at the wall and threw her arm forward. Her claws embedded themselves into the wall and cracks appeared across the world. Surprised, she pulled them back and observed the holes she had made. Maybe if she hit them again...

She aimed for the small holes and swiped strongly with her claws. Instantly, the wall gave way under her strength. There was a loud shattering sound and she yelped in surprise as breath poured into her lungs. She coughed at the sudden intrusion of air, but there were more interesting things to worry about. The world. The world was more then white, more then the gold thing.

As she crawled out of the rocks were her chrysalis had sat, the little creature's eyes widened with awe. The world was so big. She didn't know how she was going to see it all. But she had to start somewhere, right?

She turned to the gold thing. Was it another living thing, like her? It looked like it did. It's eyes were active and moving and she caught the whiff of breath.

"Who are you?"

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Faelan
notes: here

The tapping sound suddenly ceased, making Faelan wonder if he had been wrong about the chrysalis theory. In the moment of silence that followed, his golden gaze drifted down from the rocks in front of him, to the large paws that held him up. A deep blue stone seemed to be embedded in the top of one of them. The hue resembled the shards he had walked over a few minutes earlier, he recalled, meaning he must have come from his own chrysalis.

Frustration set in as the lion fought to understand words he obviously knew, but didn't actually know the true breadth of. As he glanced back up from his gem, to the pale white one nestled among the rocks, a single word came to mind. Gembound. Faelen didn't have time to wonder over the thought though, because a crack resounded through the tunnel, drawing his attention back to the chrysalis.

The broad-chested lion watched in awe as the gem shattered, and a scaled form crawled its way on to the rocks. As it turned its head and eyes on to him, Faelan couldn't help but stare. He would have kept on staring too, if it hadn't suddenly spoken. The fact that it, and he, could speak, suddenly dawned on him. Words could be made into sound, the lion suddenly recalled, and his name was what he was called. He already knew that too, so it made it easy to reply.

"I'm Faelan!" He said excitedly before the sound of his own voice made him snap his maw close. The deep rumble wasn't familiar, and it put him off a bit that it sounded kind of...scary. In an attempt to distract himself, and the newly emerged Gembound, he hurried to ask,"Who are you?"
Hopefully, learning more about the other Gembound would take his mind off of how different things seemed. Although some things seemed familiar to the lion, others made him feel completely lost in his own skin.

@Asimona

Asimona looked in awe at the gold creature. It was huge! Well, in honesty, the lion wasn't much bigger then her, but he was certainly the biggest creature that she had so far encountered. It was a beautiful thing that gave her much joy to look at. For a moment, she simply stared at the lion before a smile cracked across her face. "Hi, Faelan, I'm Asimona!"

She looked around, realizing the kind of place she had hatched in. It was wet and icy and very white and jagged. She poked carefully at the ice with a claw and giggled when it cracked. She poked harder and felt the ice give way beneath her. She couldn't help herself. With a cry of delight, she hurled herself forward, throwing up a cloud of glimmering snowflakes. With laughter, she jumped through the snow, kicking and beating her wings, admiring how pretty the little crystals were and satisfied by the cracking of breaking of the ice under her strong claws.

She didn't even realize, being surrounded by snow and so well insulated, but a cold aura was beginning to develop around her, the chill on her skin developing further as she took more breaths in the world. She didn't notice at all, however, as she rolled in the snow. She stopped for a moment and looked at Faelan before waving a playful paw. "Come on! This is so fun!"

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Faelan
notes: notes here

In the moment of silence that followed Faelan's introduction, while dragon and lion stared at each other, the latter got a rather strange sense of familiarity. He had emerged from his chrysalis only moments before, and the Gemling before him just mere seconds ago, and yet...he knew her? The possibility of that seemed too far-fetched, especially when the newborn finally spoke and introduced herself as Asimona. She would not need to do that if they knew each other, right?
A whirlwind of confusion, deja vu, uneasiness and joy made Faelan's stomach toss and turn. He latched on to the happiness, to the moment of getting to meet Asimona, and pushed the rest to the back of his mind.

As Faelan blinked away his thoughts and focused on Asimona, he noticed her looking around at the tunnel. His own golden gaze swept over the icy walls again and then fell down to the equally encrusted floor. This place didn't feel any more familiar than it had a few moments ago, just like his cumbersome body. While Asimona began to poke about in the ice and snow with her claws, Faelan rolled his broad shoulders in an attempt to chase away the tension and cold that was building up. It was a futile attempt, but the other Gembound's delighted cry worked rather well.

Faelan watched with a growing smile as Asimona pounced and danced through the tunnel. It looked so fun, and carefree, that he wanted to do it too. He almost did too, but one twitch of his now developed muscles reminded him of how big and heavy he was. Asimona was, thankfully, close to his size, but he still didn't know how to control all of himself, and he doubted she knew how to completely control herself either.
Despite his mental argument though, the moment he was invited to play, Faelan pounced right in. With a toothy grin, he launched into the nearest pile of snow, and buried his hairy head right into it. Whenever he jerked his golden crown up a moment later, the snow flew everywhere, as well as stuck to every single piece of hair it came into contact with. Turning to grin at Asimona again, this time with a face and mane full of snow though, the lion barely even took notice of the cold. He was having far too much fun now to think about anything but playing some more. The pure, unabashed joy of playing was the first thing besides his name that actually felt right or felt like him.

@Asimona

Asimona laughed loudly when Faelan joined her jumping around in the snow. She threw up snowflakes and tossed snowballs into the air. The white glimmered on her silver skin, giving her a beautiful glitter. She felt at home here, the flakes felt natural on her skin. She hummed with content as she burrowed into the cold and wet.

"This is a wonderful place," she cooed. "This is a wonderful world. Is there more of it? More caves and snow and ice? More cold places to be warm and places to play and grow big, like you?" She looked at the lion and was impressed by his size. She wanted to be as big as him one day. She definitely would, as she was currently half his size and would definitely grow taller. She raised herself tall and stepped over to him. "I'll grow as big as you! I'll get strong and protect and have so much fun. Is that what everyone does? Play in the snow and protect their friends?"

Of course, though, why would they do anything else? Asimona couldn't think of anything else to do, even if she didn't know what she'd be protecting her friends from. Then a thought occurred to her, something that made her both elated and extremely exciting. "We're friends, right, Faelan?"

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Faelan
notes: notes here

Faelan's grin was sapped by Asimona onslaught of questions. She wasn't demanding, or mean in any fashion, but the mere asking of them blew a cloud of gloom over the lion's once sunny disposition. To give himself time to think, he decided to shake away the layer of snow that he had collected on his mane and face. After a few shakes, and a flurry cloud that hung about for a moment, he was free of the cold, wet blanket.

Unfortunately, he didn't know the answers to any of the dragon's questions. She seemed to assume that he did or should know though. A part of him believed that he actually did know at least some of what the Gemling asked about, but he couldn't recall it at the moment. Returning to his chrysalis had apparently stolen, or hidden, whatever memories he had of his life before. Only the echoes of feelings and memories remained, taunting him and giving him hope at the same time.

If the lion's silence had stretched on for too long, Asimona didn't seem to notice, or care, because she blatantly asked yet another question. This one pulled Faelan out of his brooding, and back to the present so fast he was left reeling for an answer. Was he friends with her, he wondered silently as he stared back at the young Gembound. After another seemingly long moment passed, he snapped his hanging jaw shut before finally composing himself enough to answer.

"If you want to be, then yes we are," Faelan said warmly. The grin from earlier began to creep back, but then he remembered Asimona's other questions. He mulled them over as best he could for a moment, and then finally said,"I don't know what everyone does, but I believe you may do what you wish. That sounds like a..."the lion had to search for the word, "Noble thing to want to do."

@Asimona

Asimona tilted her head with confusion. Why was Faelan sad? Had she said something bad? His smile was gone and he was no longer playing and prancing. Did he not like that he was big? Or old? Or did he not know anything? She didn't know, she didn't know much either. She was new and young and untested in the world.

But the word 'noble' stuck on her like ice. Why had he called her noble? And what did it mean? "Noble? What is that? Am I noble? Are you noble?" She smiled and flared her wings. She liked the sound of that word. Noble. Noble! She wanted to be noble! If she wasn't already, of course.

She gave a little jump. The pleasures and innocence of youth.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Faelan
notes: notes here

In answer to what Faelan had meant as a compliment, Asimona asked him more questions. He didn't mind the asking, it was his lack of answers that bothered him most. Even these questions, which were merely about a word, took him a few minutes to answer.

He didn't know the correct definition of the word noble, but he had a great many thoughts and feelings when he thought about the word. Hopefully, those would be efficient enough answers for the young Gembound.
"Noble is...a goodness that others see in you, and acknowledge. It's wanting to be better, and exemplifying that with your actions," Faelan said, struggling a bit at first but then finding his groove. Even the words he chose didn't perfectly describe how the word made him feel, but they were close.

The lion's golden gaze followed Asimona as she leaped in joy. The smile that her most recent questions had stolen began to creep back, just like before. He wondered if that was his goodness.
Faelan didn't know a lot, and what he did know barely made up enough to get him through this life without losing his mind. But he had hope that he would get to know whatever he had known before. He hoped this body would one day feel like his, and not some bulky stranger's he'd woken up in. He hoped he'd find more Gembounds like Asimona, that wanted good and wanted to better themselves.

Faelan released a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He glanced over his shoulder, back the way he'd come, and then turned to focus on Asimona again. He enjoyed her company a lot, but he had a feeling that they both had other things to do. For now, the lion wanted to return to the remains of his chrysalis. After that, he'd see where ever the tunnel went, and see if whatever was at the end helped him remember anything else.

"I have something I think I need to go do," Faelan said, his tufted tail flicking anxiously behind him. "I am glad that I met you though, Asimona, and I hope that I see you again." He gave the dragon a small smile, soaking in one last look of her happy, joyful facade, before turning around.

Each step that he took away hollowed him out a little. He had been happy with Asimona, and she had reminded him of purity and being carefree. Why did he need to go back now, the lion wondered, and yet his steps didn't slow. He padded up the slope steadily, refusing to look back. Either way, if Asimona was hurt or still happy, he'd want to go back. He wanted life to be simple, and easy, but his gut told him that's not how things are. For some reason, he had the feeling that he had to go back to where his chrysalis was to help him understand.
Whenever the deep blue shards came into sight, Faelan let out a heavy sigh and began to slow his steps.

[EXIT]

@Asimona

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