ORIGIN

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This thread takes place in the current cycle. It does not take place directly after the events of the leaves are stirred thread, but rather a couple of cycles later.

Not everyone stayed in their chrysalis for so long. But his failure, his despair for the forest, his want to avoid the consequences of these things...they're what kept him in a cycle or two longer then he should have. But now, in his deepest dreams, he came to the finality that there was no avoiding this. He could not be in this crystal forever. There was still much to be done. There was a forest to protect, family to protect, too many things to be wasting away in a crystal forever.

So he finally made the decision. Time to leave. He had finished healing long ago.

His eyes slowly slid open, although there was now a strange ring of black around his field of vision. Barely visible, even when he moved his eyes around, but it was still there. Perhaps it was some illusion of the crystal...no, it didn't matter now. Leaving was what was important.

He shuffled himself until his paws were braced against the crystal walls and pushed. He pushed as hard as he could until cracks began to appear along the side of the shell. One last thrust and the side of it shattered, sending him sprawling onto the ground with a wave of pale green fluid. He took a gasping breath of air, his first in cycles and raised his head. He wasn't where he had been before. He was in his home, under the roots of the trees. Had someone moved him?

He stumbled to his feet, pulling the rest of his body out of the chrysalis, but the way he walked felt different from before. It took more effort to raise a paw. It was only a little, but he noticed it. He raised a paw and looked at it. It didn't look any different but...

The weight on his head cut through his thoughts. He raised his paw to feel for whatever was causing the weight and froze when it connected with something far from the base of his skull. The fuck?

He sat himself down and used his other paw to feel as well and, sure enough, he felt the same branch things on the other side as well. Antlers? Why did he have antlers? What else had changed?

He looked back to his body and saw the brown patches with widening eyes. His tail...it was longer as well. He whipped it around as he watched and was beset by tremendous confusion. What had happened? What in the fuck had happened to him?!

Rift was starting to freak out a little now and he got to his feet, stumbling unsteadily out of his little cave. He tripped and collapsed over a root, still not used to this new way of walking and looked out at his garden with a sinking heart. It was ruined. What plants had not been torn apart by the fighting had become overgrown or wilted in his long absence. He could still see the area of the clearing where Pride had released his supernova. The powerful spell had burnt a large hold in the earth and grass was only now starting to peek its way up. The bloodstains had been covered but as he breathed in, he still thought that he could taste the scent of blood on the air.

He panted heavily, still unsure of what had happened. He was different now, the chrysalis were gone, everyone was gone, at least as far as he could see, and his garden was ruined. What a great first day to his new life.

Oliver had lingered.

He'd grown flowers around Rift's chrysalis, and done his best to repair the damage all around--but it was slow in coming. He'd grown plants, blossomed them, propogated them, mended them--all with the singlemindedness of someone who would not... who could not... focus on anything else.

Whenever he looked away from the plants, he still heard screaming, still saw flashes of light and trails of blood, senseless slaughter that had haunted his nightmares.

Oliver had cowered through Eridanus, slipping along the darkest of the jungle paths, avoiding everyone. His demeanor had become more shy, more frightened. There had been no reason for the attack--meaning another could come at any time. Though the fears had lessened over the last couple cycles, they were still present, and he was still a jumpier, quieter being than he had been.

Now he slipped from the shadow of the trees to find that his charge was... gone. The chrysalis was broken, and in its place was shattered stone--and a familiar green cat... with antlers..? Oliver studied him for a moment--no. It wasn't Rift--was it? It had brown patches, and spines, and antlers.

Oliver hesitated. Was it some other being? Was it something that had taken over Rift?

Uncertain, he spoke--from a safe distance, and with a softly-wavering voice.

"Is that--you, Rift?" and then, blurted quietly--"Are you a deer now?"

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

A large stone of milky green sat in the clearing long after many of the stone eggs had hatched. Inside rested a poor, broken creature. The magic of her moss agate had made small work of her terrible injuries. Her mind, however, was a more difficult thing to heal. Flashes of visions she had seen during the terrible fight crept across her vision. She could not forget how she had failed in protecting for the forest from the last massive fire. She remembered how Rift and Sebastian, her dear family, were hurt while she stood by helpless. If it were possible, her stone chamber would have been a pool of tears. No, Enka did not want to hatch and face that failure.

How long she had stayed there in silent despair was unknown. The concept of time was distant to her while in her stasis. Only the thoughts she had while falling remained with her. Her regrets at her inability and her despair at her great loss.

Slowly, though, a soft voice came to her mind. It reminded her of a lesson Rift had taught her long ago when she was still but a calf and the world was still a beautiful and magical place. He had taught her about how some plants will fall during terrible times. Yet others, he said, would hide away not dead, but not fully alive either. Then, when the time was right, they would come forth again stronger and more beautiful than ever.

“It is now time,” the voice spoke to her. “Time to bloom and blossom stronger and more beautiful than before.”

Enka found she could not resist the soothing voice. Cloven hooves pushed against the snug borders of her miniature world until light was able to filter in through tiny cracks. Another push and the stone gave way to allow the creature to tumble out.

She stood up shakily and looked about the clearing that, at one time, had been welcomed to her as home. A cry was stifled in her throat at the changes that had been made by the fight and the attempts at healing it. It was no longer the place that she had embraced so long ago but a scar on the land. Tears welled up in her eyes at the very thought.

Then she turned and saw the two figures nearby. Both were strangely familiar. After a moment she was able to recognize the black wolf like creature with wings from the fight, though she had never met him prior. The other creature though … he was both strangely familiar and yet out of place, much like the clearing was. Yet some part of him compelled her to move closer. With a shakey step, she moved a step closer to see him better, not even noticing that for some reason her balance was off and more effort was needed to carry her heavier body.

With a gasp, she saw his eyes. Those familiar eyes of the first person she had ever met. “Ri-Rift? Yo-you’re alive?” She gasped out through a shaky breath. She could barely believe it. Last she had seen him, he was on the verge of life’s last breath. Tears began to flow down her cheek, collecting in the strange new fur that encircled her face. So startled was she by her surroundings and by the appearance of her still living father that she had not yet taken note that the clearing and Rift were not the only things that had changed.

Speech
Thoughts

Tags: @Rift and @Oliver
Notes: Thread of surprises it seems. ^_^ Per suggestion, here's a link to the quick sketch of her new look: Link

As the others had suffered, Huckleberry had suffered, but his body did not adapt to the changes. It did not change. It took all of his energy to just heal the wounds that Pride's plasma had created, it had taken cycles for the skin to recover and the fur and feathers to grow back. Even then, though, the fur and skin were darkened in places, ugly scars littered his stomach, near the older ones that Blackberry had inflicted long ago, and patches where nothing had come back. Or perhaps it had only just managed to recover. He was a mess.

He slept through the cycles and when his mind threatened to wake him and break his shell, he refused, crawling deeper into himself. He didn't know what had happened. He didn't know where he was. All he knew was that he had failed his mother. His flight hadn't carried him far enough. She had probably burned as he had burned, but he could imagine so many worse fates because of his inability to save her, and each one made the tears flow faster from his eyes, only to dissolve in the amniotic fluids.

But beyond the thinning shell there were the sounds of cracking and he was forced from his sleep. He did not want to wake, he did not want to leave. He wanted to stay in here forever and never go back, never go home and face his mother and her wrath. He wanted to die in here, or for her to at least think he was dead.

But as he shifted to cover his ears, his leg kicked out, striking the shell. It was thin and weak from such a long time under that it shattered instantly and the gem broke around him.

As he breathed in, he despaired. He did not want to return. He did not want to be here. After all he'd killed his own daughter.

That knowledge was far too painful for him.

As he fell to the ground, he sobbed and prepared to flee, but as he took his first step he found his body halted and he smashed into the thick, sturdy body of a crystal. Surprised, he looked up and horror filled his heart. He was surrounded by crystals, molded to what had been the shape of his gem, giving him so little room to move that he remembered...long ago, when the cage had sprung around him, pushing smaller and smaller and smaller until he could barely breathe and he screamed out for help.

He screamed now as he realized that he was trapped in another cage with no room to move. He screamed because he did not like being trapped, because the walls around him pushed too close and freaked him out and he screamed because he could not run away. His guilt was here and he could not escape it.

He struggled and clawed at the pillars, reaching through them with his talons, but they were crystal and strong and he could not even scratch them. His screams died into sobs and moans as he curled into himself, covering his head and shivering uncontrollably. He wanted to die. He wished he had died.

After the war, after everything had settled and Pride had encased each bloodily-aligned chrysalis in further stone bindings — it was the closest thing to... well, mercy, that Mercurius could convince the stag to give ("Death doesn't make the right, here. These children are lost and don't know any better. Trust me.") — the old lion set to doing what felt right: restoring the bloody battlefield to its former state. Of course, there would be scars that should take immeasurably long to heal, such as the arcs of earth torn asunder and the rather large pit where the battle had met its end. The least he could do was encourage the growth of new life; any others that had worked on that seemed to have been caught up in the bloodshed.

Another war that could have been prevented, I believe, he had lamented at first, as he soothed his frightened sons, still new and young to the world. While his ears remained peeled for any intruders into the garden, Mercurius was busy caring for Azizos and Arsu, telling them stories of stars shooting across the dark ceiling so, so far away and keeping their attention off of the distant chaos. It worries me, though, that there seem to be many parallels in these battles. Hasira — Vazi, whatever his name had been, in the end — had been wronged, and sought revenge by cruel indoctrination. Mercurius wondered if, perhaps, the same had occurred for this Blackberry.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to dissuade Pride's idea of nipping the problem in the bud. The bloody trail had met its end, anyways, disappearing.

Eridanus was still and silent for what was quite possibly the first time. The leaves hushed, and the birds did not dare return until the next cycle. In the meantime, Mercurius did what he could, as mentioned before. He worked on the plants, on bringing life back to this cave.

Now, he lumbered through the underbrush in Eridanus, large paws sweeping ferns aside and pushing vines out of his path. Spiralling moonstone horns glinted in the air as he came upon the clearing — the stench of blood and ozone still lay heavy, here, despite the lightly-perfumed flowers he had been beckoning forth from the dirt. Moonlit eyes flicked towards the sound of voices and chrysalises cracking, creatures pushing out into life. Voices. They sounded older... not newborn.

His pace quickened and he found a number of sights. The green cat — Rift, he assumed — was wet with new, Oliver having already approached and begun speaking. Another creature, unfamiliar to him and most certainly not natural — almost like his sons, he noticed — was approaching as well, slick. And, alone and sobbing, a third: Huckleberry. Not that Mercurius knew who the hybrid was, but he was not about to leave a child to suffer.

The storyteller moved carefully toward the Gembound prison, wondering if he would be able to break through. Pride, following his goosehunt, had returned to Eridanus, carefully summoning gemstone to reinforce the cages. Mercurius lifted a heavy paw, resting it against shiny rock. It's futile, but at least I can... the lion thought, already conjuring up magic. Regardless of his soothing light's manifestation, Mercy rumbled, softly, "it's okay, it's okay. Nothing that happened — that battle, any deaths, any bloodshed — was your fault. I made sure that Pride knew and realized that. Your siblings, I assume, are safely in these cages, too."

@Huckleberry

She lay quiet inside the cage. On the outside, she looked calm--pensive, even.

Inside, she was panicking.

She'd awoken only a short time ago, and found great black bars, with narrow gaps between them (narrow for her smaller size) surrounding her. She'd called out, but heard nothing--and when the stone nearby cracked, she'd heard only Huckleberry screaming.

Where is Mother? Where is everyone else? I don't remember... the last thing I remember was--fighting, and it hurt, and... then nothing. Are they--gone? Dead? What happened? Fear boiled in her, near-panic, a desperation to know what had happened to her family. But she was caged. She didn't know why she was caged, but she hunkered down, now--pressed to the ground and silent, hoping that whatever had imprisoned them here wouldn't notice that she'd awakened.

Maybe she'd be overlooked.

Maybe, somehow, she'd be accidentally freed, and she could rush off to find her family.

What was going on..?

"Huckleberry," she started, hissing the words fearfully--about to urge him to be still. But here was a white lion, speaking, and Cloudberry tucked herself down in among the foliage within her cage again--praying she'd not be noticed.

@Yewberry

Rift was breathing hard, trying to take all of this in at once when a voice sounded in his ear. It rang into the gem, which had heard nothing but silence for many cycles. He cringed at the noise, feeling as if he were a cub again, unable to handle loud noises, thanks to the volume of the sound in his ear. But he turned and looked upon an old friend. "Oliver?"

He didn't notice any difference in Oliver, didn't see the haunted look in his eyes. At least, not yet. Perhaps he would later but the sudden burst from his chrysalis had startled him. The revelation of his antlers had startled him. And then the other cracking sound startled him, just as he was about to reply "I don't know" to Oliver and his eyes widened with surprise. Was that...Enka?

His jaw nearly dropped to the floor as he turned around. His daughter was there, so different, so changed. Had the wolf really don that much damage that he body had changed as well? It brought tears to his eyes but beneath the plate, they couldn't be seen. He advanced towards her until he was running, still stumbling a bit over his strangely sticky paws until he reached her. He didn't hesitate, pushing his head against her neck and breathing in. It was her, alright. "Enka...I thought you were dead! I though the wolf had killed you!"

Deep in his throat he started to purr. He was happy...he was so happy that she was alive. That he was alive. That Oliver was alive as well. "It's me. I'm alive. And so are you." He almost laughed when an awful thought struck his thoughts. Where was Sebastian?

But the screaming interrupted his thoughts and his head whipped up, looking straight at where Huckleberry was imprisoned. He hadn't noticed the pillars of crystal before but now, through the trees, he saw them. There were three of them, three for the Bloodberries that had fallen in the battle.

"What?!" he shouted, leaping to his feet. Anger didn't come, but confusion and deisbelief instead took its place. He would have thought that they would be gone. That Pride would have destroyed them or the others in their family came back to get them out. The moose, while he had been absent, was big enough to take them out and the hybrid that looked like him would probably be able to as well. "They're still here? All three of them? Why?"

@Oliver @Enka

Oliver watched Rift with a faint sense of relief, and wonder. Stress still ruled him--there were so many here, now, and it was all a bit much. At the sudden screaming and shouting he cowered down, squeezing his eyes shut; he trembled.

The others had changed--he could see that; the world had gone crazy again.

He slunk back inside the treeline, mute, and pressed himself into the cover of the greenery--still there, still present, but hiding. Quiet, and waiting.

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

Pride heard Huckleberry's screams, and like a ghost, came trotting at his floating, graceful pace from Mercurius' garden.

He paused beside the cage only briefly, and then, not too close. He, unlike the others, had not mutated; thin scars still healed along his face, but otherwise he was still Pride, still unchanged. There was, however, a cold severeness to him that had not been there prior.

Stop, he told Huckleberry--mind-to-mind, a simple message. But with it came both authority and calm: as if everything was under control. It was both reassuring and icy cold: the word of, perhaps, an angry father with emotions tightly controlled.

He then trotted onward, not waiting for any response, breaking into Rift's clearing and slowing his steps.

The cat looked-... different. Pride came to a halt, slowly looking him over; some part of him was both surprised and somehow pleased to see the stag's antlers crowning his head.

"Rift," he said, and through his melodic detachment came a faint tone of relief. "You are awake. It is good to see you--and you," he added, inclining his head to the other creature--the now-changed deer, glittering with scales, whom he had never really known.

Pale eyes shifted back to the cat. Or what had once been a cat. "The Bloodberries were routed. One was killed; the goose and the wolf escaped. The three sent into their stones--I was going to kill two of them, but Mercurius talked me out of it. They are enclosed in gemstone cages. You were their target; it is only fair that you decide their fates. I will argue for the moose creature--it is a foolish child manipulated by an evil parent. But I would recommend against releasing them without forcing them to, for example, remove this 'berry' from their names and agree never to perpetrate violence again... at the very least. I do not know the other two," he added.

He paused.

He realized then that if Rift were freshly-emerged, he might not even be able to process this information--not yet. How stunned was a Gembound's mind after transformation within the chrysalis..? He tilted his head, and winced a little. "My apologies for the flood of information. I am glad that you are back, and I hope that you feel well."

@Enka

Huckleberry continued to sob when he heard a voice nearby. A familiar voice, saying his name and he jerked, making a strange groaning noise. Cloudberry was nearby. He wanted to reach for her. He wanted to get to her, go to her, be with her. He turned towards where he had heard the words and began scratching and scrabbling at the black pillars separating them. He tried to call out to her but all that came from his throat was incomprehensible blabber. He was too terrified, too out of his wits to come up with anything decent to say.

But then a single word rang in his head, firm but reassuring, from a voice that was even more familiar then Cloudberry and caused a tremor of fear to run through him. The last time he had seen Pride, he had been dying from a spell that he had cast. And of course, in his fractured mind, he connected this with purpose, that Pride had meant to kill him. That he had done something so bad that Pride, one of the few he trusted, whom he had looked up to, had killed him.

He shrank in his cage, eyes wide and he tensed up until Pride had passed and a gentler, newer voice began to speak to him. Through the cage bars he could see another white creature, this one a lot more hairy. Bigger eyes. Huckleberry stared at him while he spoke, his hears pressing back against his head and tears springing to his eyes. "I...I...I killed her...my own d-...sister. I didn't save my mother..." He didn't know why he was saying this but he couldn't stop himself. The tears were running down his face now. "Pride was my friend and he k-killed me!"

The sound of Pride speaking outside made him shiver, but he couldn't help but listen to what he was saying. Horror crawled up his body as he realized that someone was dead. One of his family was dead. He shot towards the gap between one of the cage bars, trying to stick his head through to see the stag. His fear for him didn't matter anymore. "Who?! Who was killed?!" He forced at the gap more, but all it managed to do was give him a headache. The next words sent him into almost a frenzy, clawing at the pillars, smashing his head against them as he desperately tried to escape. "NO! I won't let you kill them! Please don't! You can't! You can't, they're my family!"

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Rift (Original)

Oliver

Enka

Huckleberry

Mercy

Azure

Rift (Original)

Oliver

Pride

Huckleberry