Across the temperate waves rested a variety of small islands in an array of sizes and shapes. Most of these islands were simple, one no different from that of its neighbors. Each of the isles were simply structures of sand and short beach grass sprinkling the miniature landscapes with occasional rocks. They were small things and when the tides came up too high and covered up some of the islands, not much was truly missed.
One of these isles, though, was special. It was a bit larger than the others which afforded it some protection from the water’s tides. This was not what made it special though. What made it special was a large stone of dusty lavender that rested on the shore. It had simply appeared one day and slowly grown over time. The sand had crept up around it and formed a grainy nest around it. There it simply sat for a time.
All things come to and end, though, and so it was for the peace of the isle. The egg one day gave a bit of a shake as something inside shifted. Then again. It was not a desperate fervor but one of simply happenstance. It did not appear to be an attempt of the creature to escape its stony cocoon but merely the result of the movement of a creature that had become too large for its abode.
A thin crack appeared on the side. It was only a matter of moments after that that a gap formed large enough for a strange creature to tumble through. The beast toppled over at the sudden loss of support and flipped head over heels a small distance away from the egg.
After a moment of hesitation, the creature reoriented themselves and regained their footing. He stood up and attempted to shake the sand that clung to his still wet skin from the stone’s embryonic like fluid. Oversized ears flapped as he shook his head but it was little use until he cleaned himself either by tongue or by the nearby water.
The kitten took a look around the isle, noting the water and lands beyond it. “Oh,” he said quietly, simply, blinking his large lavender eyes. Neither a statement of fear or disappointment. Just a statement as he acknowledged that he was suddenly in a different world than he had been just moments before. “This is new.”
This room was different from all the other ones Mosaic had visited so far. It was warm, and there was a bunch of water. Like, the room was literally filled with water. So she swam, because the water was warm and swimming was fun, and she liked flicking her soaked tail to make droplets fly everywhere. She was still small, though, and needed to rest often. So here she was now, laying on a small island, half-submerged.
A series of cracks and a voice caught Mosaic's attention and she jumped up. It was a cat! She immediately decided that she didn't like cats. It was ugly and hairless and its ears were too big.
"Hey jerk!" she yelled at it.
"What are you doing here?!" It looked wet, like she had been back in Monoceros.
"Don't eat the colorful rock pieces." The ones near her first moments were orange and they'd been rough and tasted absolutely horrible.
@Ejder
For a moment, the kitten simply took in the surroundings. Their world had previously been a strange sort of sameness; same pressure against their skin, same darkness, same temperature and lack of sound. Now he suddenly found himself in an alien world. The most noticeable change was the ability of sight. His eyes scanned the glistening waters, the lights lining the far-off walls as tiny specks, the sands with its mixture of materials dotted with tiny flecks of lavender stone. There were also many new tactile sensations; the grains of sand against his paw pads, the embryonic fluid that slowly dripped off of him, the warmth of the air. It was a lot to take in.
Then another sensation
coerce his attention away from the waters; a sound. His ears flicked to the side and was soon followed by the rest of his head. There was another creature padding along the beach’s watery edge. She was similar to him in some ways with large ears and long ears. She was clearly a different sort of creature, though, and that was a very curious thing.
The kitten cocked his head slightly with another ear flick before walking a few steps closer. “
I don’t know,” he replied honestly at her abluent inquiry. He was still new to life and didn’t really have much of a grasp on things beyond trying to establish where he was and what was going on. At her mention of the stones, he glanced back at the shards curiously. “
Thank you for the warning,” he replied. Not that they looked particularly appealing but the information was useful even if he didn’t know why he shouldn’t eat them. He found that he liked getting more information. It was a pleasant feeling in a way.
He decided to follow this trend of learning new things. And what better way than by talking to this other creature who had already appeared helpful. “
Who are you?” His words were blunt, neither pleasant nor accusatory. He was intrigued but only mildly. While listening, instinct took over him. The feline sat down and slowly began to groom himself clean. Luckily his fur was nearly gone and it made the process much easier as the fluid had nothing to cling to.
@Mosaic
He didn't know? How could he not know what he was doing?
"That's stupid," she decided, flicking her tail.
"Everyone knows what they're doing. How can you not know?" This cat, it appeared, had the brains of a rock, if rocks even had brains. She could see the
resemblance. Both cat and rock were hideous, furless, and unbelievably unintelligent.
Oh wait, it had thanked her for something. Which was most certainly not something an idiot would do. Mosaic's opinion of the cat rose slightly and she puffed out her chest in pride.
"You're welcome," she said, in the tone one would use to declare that world peace had been achieved, global warming was solved, and everyone was a mentally stable genius.
"I am Mosaic. Who are you?"
@Ejder
The kitten looked at the pup curiously, ears flicking just the slightest at the insinuation of being dimwitted. He was finding her emotional responses to be quite interesting. He couldn’t really understand the nature of such passion that seemed to come to her so easily. Was it simply because he was a feline and she was clearly not? Or something else. His
baseline information was rather limited and it made him all the more curious on if others were this way or if she was unique.
She did present a good counterpoint, though. Did he really know what he was doing and just didn’t realize it? That was possible. But wasn’t it also possible to simply act without thinking about it? He shook his head. That seemed like pretty complicated stuff and he was still trying to figure everything out. “
I suppose I was just looking everything over. It’s all so new….”
It all was very new to him, but not in a scary way. In fact, he was already becoming accustomed to the surroundings and growing at ease with them. Having largely cleaned himself, he took another look around at the waters and other small isles before returning his attention to the feline.
The kitten opened his mouth to start to speak before closing it quickly. Something told him that she wouldn’t like the idea of him not knowing his own name. That would likely cause another outburst from her. That would be interesting to see, to see if he could cause such effects …. No, not now anyways. She appeared to know more than him and that was useful.
Instead he thought for a second until a word fuzzily came to mind. “
I’m …. Ejder,” he replied with the slightest hint of a purr at the end for having arrived at a satisfactory answer. “
Do you know where we are?”
@Mosaic
Mosaic brightened at once as the cat finally realized that it was actually doing something. Perhaps he wasn't hopeless after all. He'd thanked her and actually tried to learn something. Which was good, which was very very good.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, delighted.
"It is very new, isn't it?"
Yes, it was all very new; she had experienced that feeling just a little while ago. And now look at her! Experienced and knowledgeable! Defeater of prey and rocks! Traveler of the world! Not everyone could progress as quickly as her, of course. But the cat was doing pretty well.
"So, Hairless Jerk," she began, completely ignoring his actual name.
"I, through my awesome travels, have discovered that we are in a system of really big places with slightly less big places in between. And currently, we're in a warm place with lots of water and islands. Does that answer your question?" There was no reason her answer wouldn't be accurate, of course, but perhaps this cat, like her, was eager to learn and wanted to know even more.
@Ejder
"Mhmmm!" Mosaic agreed enthusiastically, even though she'd really been from a not-so-wet place first. Monoceros. But this warm wet place had been a lot friendlier to her than Monoceros had, so of course she liked it more, and if she liked it there was no reason she couldn't 'adopt' it as her original cave. Who would want to call that horrible windy lump of rock their place of birth?
No one, that's who.
"'Nd I'm new too. Straight from my rock like you just popped out just now. That's how I know they don't taste good. I caught some prey, though. Prey tastes good." Of course, she didn't have to mention that she'd gotten her head stuck in a rock doing it. Maybe this room had better prey, but she wasn't hungry right now so she couldn't be bothered to go look.
She'd been hungry when she'd emerged, though, and this cat had just emerged. If she was lucky, maybe he would be hungry and he could do the looking for her.
"You hungry? You can go look for some prey if you want. But since I told you they taste good you have to give me some." Okay, so she wasn't hungry, so what? Snacks were always nice.
@Ejder
Mosaic gave a little growl of annoyance. Was she supposed to do
everything for this cat? Still, if she could get food without actually getting up from her current position, that would still be pretty good, right? She tried to reproduce what she'd felt when she'd first hatched and found prey in Monoceros. Unfortunately, it didn't work so well this time. Instead of sensing the heartbeats of delicious, juicy prey, what Mosaic got instead was two earfuls of a strange ringing noise drowning out all other sound. Alarmed, she flicked her ears furiously in an attempt to fix whatever was wrong with them.
"I don't know!" she snapped at Ejder. Except she couldn't even hear herself over the ringing in her ears, so she tried repeating it louder this time.
"I DON'T KNOW! GO FIND SOME YOURSELF, YOU USELESS HAIRLESS MORON!" Still the ringing in her ears would not go away and she could not hear herself speak, even though her throat was now sore from yelling. Panicking and near tears, Mosaic did the first new thing she could think of and dove into the water.
It was pleasantly warm, though the water prickled and stung at her eyes. More importantly, the ringing finally disappeared and Mosaic leaped out of the water back onto her little island, shaking water out of her fur. Well, she certainly wouldn't be doing
that again after her hearing had betrayed her like that.
@Ejder