ORIGIN

About halfway up the Divine, among the twisted branches and murky fog, a small glittering sapphire crystal was perched, nestled in the crook between branch and trunk. It gleamed, despite the misty cave, and the creature inside was stirring, ready to break its way out of its shell.

At first, it was confused, because everything was dark and blue. It had been dark for what seemed like forever, and now that things had changed, it had expected them to be different. However, there was nothing new in the world. Besides the blue. Maybe there was something beyond the blue?

Carefully and slightly painfully, it unrolled itself and moved so that its head was facing what it thought was up. Its body was still weak and its muscles creaked painfully. However, it managed to find the strength to strike out with its sharp beak, creating a small crack in the jewel. Happy that it had done something, it pecked again, and again, until there were many web-like cracks in the surface of the shell. One more peck and it broke and the little beak was out in the open.

It pulled its head back, wanting to see what was beyond. Its tiny little eye could barely see, but there wasn't much to see. So it kept attacking the new hole in the shell until, after much work and toil, it pecked itself a hole wide enough to crawl out.

As it carefully hopped from its shell, it looked around. But there was almost nothing to see. All there was was mist and leaves and tree. It blinked, trying to figure out what was going on when, all of a sudden, a strange feeling poured into its chest. It was alive. It was breathing, it was seeing, it was feeling the world.

And that was awesome! That was so cool. But what was living? This? It had to be a joke, right? It it was, it was quite a funny one. The little, fluffy, black and white bird couldn't help itself. It burst out laughing, which, at this stage in their life, was barely more then a squeak. It laughed and laughed and cried for the joy of its life and it clutched the branch for fear of falling.

The bird was laughing so loud and was so wrapped up in its joy that it didn't notice the snake climbing the tree until it was right in front of it. With a surprised chirp, its laughing stopped and it fluttered back. It looked at the snake with its deep blue eyes, wondering what it could be. It looked funny. It was very funny. But hadn't it asked it a question? Why was she laughing? Well, that was funny too!

Why was everything so funny? She didn't know! She didn't care! She had a voice so why not laugh? "Why not?" she giggled. "I'm alive and in a tree and I can't see anything. And you look so strange!" She couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing again, her whole body shaking with uncontrolled amusement.

Once the fit had somewhat passed, she looked back up at the snake, breathing heavily as she tried to get her breath back. "Who are you, anyways? And where are we?"

The bird giggled. "Haha, that's okay. It's nice to know what its like to be startled. Now I can prepare for it, right?" She was going to start laughing again, but then she noticed that the other one seemed a bit hurt by her words. She quieted immediately, feeling bad. She had thought they looked funny, but she guessed that it was rude to point it out. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I just haven't met anyone yet and you look very different from me!"

She looked at herself, as if to make sure that she in fact did look different and confirmed that she was. The snake was all sorts of colorful while she was simply black and white. Not that she minded, she thought that she was pretty! She liked her black and white feathers. She shook them, proudly reveling in her own confidence.

"You can call me Apple! It's nice to meet you, Sizzle." She loooked around. Or, at least, tried to look around, but the whole area was covered in the whiteness. "Ah, so this must be mist. A well-named room, then. Why would it need another name? Mist-room describes it perfectly!" She let loose a couple more laughs - the name was both perfect and quite funny to her, for whatever strange reason. She liked laughing, it was fun. And she wished that the snake would see the humor in it as well. She wondered what it would sound like when it laughed.

Apple felt her chest warm up greatly as the snake chuckled along with her. Her laugh was so funny and cute! It made her delighted to hear and she let out a loud caw. "I love your laugh! It makes me very happy to hear!"

It was true - she was so happy right now, just to hear this snake laugh with her, even if it sounded so different from hers. She wanted to keep hearing the laugh. Her mind whirled quickly, trying to think up of something that would make her laugh. It came to her in a second, but she wasn't sure how they would react. However, it wasn't going to stay in her long.

She leaned closer to the snake, looking at its scaly, colorful hide. "You look like a tree branch! If I hatched on you, I don't think I'd be laughing, though."

This was hilarious to her and the thought that she could have hatched on top of a snake, which would have stabbed her with its spiky scales was both relieving and extremely funny. She laughed, loudly, hoping that she would hear Sizzle's laugh joining hers.