ORIGIN - A Friend Perhaps?

EELA

Near a small stream in Eridanus, amongst the dense foliage, a vigorous rustling of the undergrowth could be heard. Something was rapidly moving from one place to another, perhaps searching for something or maybe just running for the fun of it, but one thing was for sure; the gembound in question was tiny. For a few short moments it kept hidden among the ferns and mosses, then suddenly bouncing out and into the stream. It, or she, was an otter pup called Eela!

She blopped her behind down on a slippery rock in the middle of the stream, sitting up straight and looking around rather curiously, clearly thinking where to go next. She had been exploring the whole morning, having already travelled quite the distance for such a small creature, but she was far from tired. If anything, she had gained even more energy from all the new things she had seen, even though it had been only a few bugs and a tiny fish. For her though, those were the most amazing things as she hadn't seen gembounds much bigger than herself yet.

In a moment's notice, she was off again, jumping down from the rock and into the clear waters of the stream. She effortlessly floated in the shallow water and let the slow current carry her downstream, sometimes putting her head underwater to check if there would be anything there, and sometimes diving in the deeper parts to playfully chase fish around - to the fish it was not that much fun. After a while of playing in the water, something caught her attention and she dove down to examine; it was a rock, but a really pretty one with dark grey base and reddish stripes. Eela picked it up with her tiny, webbed hands and excitedly got out of the water. She turned and rolled the small rock in her hands, deep blue eyes fixated on the object as she had never seen such a pretty rock. "Treasure!" She chimed in a high-pitched voice and lifted it above her head, grinning widely as she did so. This was her lucky day!

@Kera

Kera found herself returning to Eridanus often, without really thinking about it. Although she told herself she'd patrol all of the caves, looking for people to protect and guard, and geese to brutally murder in cold blood, but everytime she turned her mind off her let her paws guide her, she ended up here.

It's not that it bothered her. Kera liked Eridanus, and all the plants and things. It made for good hunting, too-- lesser gembounds like to flock here for food. Kera enjoyed stalking among the ferns, slow but careful, feeling the moss under the pads of her paws and the leaves brushing through shaggy fur.

The ruffling of foliage and low splashing of a nearby stream didn't immediately catch the wolf's attention. They were common noises and, at this exact moment, Kera found herself nose-to-nose with a red and yellow fruit. She sniffed it cautiously and began to open her maw to take a bite when she heard a voice.

Which would take anyone's attention, really.

Her head spun around, ears high and rotating. She slipped onto the ground, pacing forward through the trees until she caught sight of the rolling, brown shape clutching-- ahh, something. It seemed shiny. Kera wondered if it was some sort of bird or dragon, but it didn't exactly have wings or scales.

Slowly, the massive wolf stepped out near the river, dipping her broad head down. "Hey there, kiddo," she said-- presuming, of course, the otter's age. It seemed small enough to be freshly-hatched, at least. "What'd you find there? Not somebody's stone, is it?"

@Eela

EELA

As Eela was busy admiring the smooth rock she had decided was a treasure, she didn't notice the faint steps approaching her from between the trees. Only when the other gembound spoke, was the otter alerted to her presence, twirling around in a whim of brown and white and ending up face to face with a huge thing. It was another gembound, Eela knew that much, but her blue eyes had never seen someone like it, someone so white and big and enormous and...

Suddenly she heard a splash and a muted but sharp clack below her; the rock she had been holding had slipped out of her hands and fallen back into the water. She looked at it in utter confusion, and dove in headfirst after a short "Oh no!" exclaimed in a tone far too distressed for the situation.

The water wasn't deep there, so Eela retrieved her treasure in a heartbeat, then bouncing out of the stream closer to the big white gembound. It was as she had already forgotten about the other as she sat down in amazement and looked up at the creature with her mouth open and eyes widened.

Then, a rather happy grin grew on her face as she waved at the thing despite being right in its face. "Hello!"She took a moment to think about the words of the other, her expression brightening even more as she rapidly shook her head as an answer to the question if the stone was stolen. "It's treasure! Look!" She shoved the stone into the other's face "I found there." She explained, pointing back at the stream while looking at the rock proudly. It had to be treasure, right? Why would it be so pretty otherwise? The otter pup was confident that the rock must have been an important item and clutched it against her chest after showing it to the wolf, hoping the other wouldn't want to steal it from her.

@kera

The wolf blinked once before she craned her head forward, beginning to sniff. And then the wiggly brown-and-white thing vanished into the water.

Kera remembered-- when she was freshly-hatched --nearly drowning alongside Aka in the river in Polaris. Though, the river there had been fast-running, and angry. Regardless it sent alarm down the wolf's spine and she barged towards the surface of the stream, eyes searching the rippling water.

She couldn't see where the otter had gone, and was quickly beginning to panick when the mustelid resurfaced, wriggling back out and onto the shore, plonking down and holding the stone.

Kera squinted. "Hello," she repeated, bending her head down to sniff the stone from a distance. It didn't hold that death-smell to it, at least. Kera knew that there'd been a lot of death here but, at least, this was a regular rock.

Not something you should have to be relieved about, Kera thought spitefully, slowly sitting herself down to sit on her haunches.

"It's a good treasure," the massive wolf said, drawing herself up a bit with haughty pride. "But I can make it better. I can make it glow and shine, and make it light when it's dark. You wanna see?"

@Eela

EELA

The otter looked up at the proudly sitting gembound with beaming eyes. She couldn't get over the fact that a living thing could be of that size; today sure was full of surprises for her. While the other examined the stone and spoke, Eela wondered if there would be gembounds even bigger than this one, and how they would look and where they would live. After all, Eela hadn't really gone into the tunnels yet - she preferred to be near water where she felt a bit less clumsy. Not that clumsiness even slowed her down though.

"Really?" She asked in disbelief "You can make stone glow?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing, could the other really light up a stone? To her it didn't seem like a thing that'd be possible for anyone to do, but then again, she knew very little about the caves and their inhabitants.

She gave the thing a thought or two, but her curiosity took over and she very carefully planted the stone on the soft green moss with her both hands, then took a few quick, wiggly steps backwards - After all, if the giant could really make it glow, she had to see it. "Can you show?" She pleaded excitedly, pointing at the rock and glancing between it and the white animal, impatiently tapping her right hind leg on the ground. She wanted to see the trick so she could continue her adventure downstream, she was certain she'd eventually find something at least as interesting as that rock.

@kera

Slowly, Kera tilted her head, ears waggling. Sure, this was a newborn, and therefore likely wouldn't have heard of her, but she seemed damn near skeptical that Kera was capable. And, oh boy, was Kera capable.

"Well, yeah," she replied. "I'm Kera, the Lightbringer. You see-- a long time ago, when I'd just hatched, all these caves were in darkness." The wolf gestured around her, widely, to indicate all the caves.

Then, she pushed up to her paws again as the stone was settled down between both gembounds, bowing her head towards it as she spoke. "No one could really see, but I learned that I could make lights. All different kind of lights. I could touch things and make them glow, or I could spawn plants and mushrooms that would glow, too. Then, I found out what was keeping the lights off, and turned them back on again." To demonstrate, a black nose leaned out and touched delicately against the patterned stone.

The spell was weak-- still out of practice --but Kera's touch flooded the rock with dim light. The pattern under it was still visible and some of the colour shone through, but otherwise it was radiating with warm, yellow light. Kera sat back. Hibernation had been rough, but at least she could still make lights.

"Sometimes they still switch off," Kera continued, in reference to the lighting in the caves. "But it hasn't been that dark ever again, and not for as long. I think when they switch off, it's time for sleeping."

She nodded downwards at the baubled stone. "And sometimes magic doesn't always work. I don't think they have anything in relation to each other, but magic is sort of fickle like that. Even mine, and I'm pretty strong when it comes to making lights."

Casually, the wolf lay herself down onto her belly, watching the otter with pink eyes and a flicking ear. "You figure out what your magic is yet?"

@Eela

EELA

Eela listened to the other's story quietly, completely fixated on trying to grasp every part of information she was given. She didn't know all the words, but she got the general idea, and stared up at Kera in disbelief while she stood up and bent down to touch the stone - Her stone - with her nose. Eela looked at it curiously, stretching her body to take a closer look when suddenly it started glowing faintly which caused the otter to fall down on her nose in surprise.

She didn't bother getting up, instead just fixing her position so that she was laying on her stomach in front of the stone, with her head on the moss. She had tucked her front legs under her body like a cat and looked now more like a very big slug. "Wow.." Was all she managed to say as the warm yellow light emitting from the stone illuminated her face. "Now stone is even prettier.." She dreamily mumbled more to herself than to Kera.

She was woken up from the trance when Kera laid down on the other side of the stone and asked her about her own magic, and she bounced up into a sit and nodded proudly. "Yes" she reinforced, overly glad that Kera had asked her a question like that. "It's water. And look!" She whirled around and pointed at the back of her head at the rough amethyst sitting there, imbedded into her skull. "I have pretty stone too!" She seemed to be very proud of her 'pretty stone' as she sat back down with her other hand still touching the gem stone.

She then thought for a moment and her expression fell for a split second; "I'm not good with water magic.. yet. But I practice a lot!" By the end of the sentence she was back to her over energetic self, getting up to her tiny feet in a whim and hurrying back towards the stream, then turning around suddenly to face the wolf again as if she forgot to say something. She had to think for a bit to remind herself of the important thing she had forgotten to tell, until it finally came to her: She hadn't even introduced herself yet! "I'm Eela!" Then she just as hurriedly ran back to the stone, grabbing it in her hands and staring at it for a quick second or two, then moving her gaze at Kera. "Wanna go explore?"

@kera

Kera hadn't heard of water magic before, but she supposed it wasn't too far out of the realm of possibility. She couldn't imagine a use for it, but that didn't entirely matter. "Practice makes perfect," she said, wisely. "I used to be bad at magic, too, and now I'm great at it."

Kera craned her head forward again to sniff the amethyst affixed to Eela's skull, then lifted a paw of her own to draw back the thick mane of fur along her own neck. Under the white fur was a neat rose quartz fused into the skin. "Yeah, your gem," she said. "Everybody's got one, even if you can't see it-- some people've got it inside 'em somewhere."

"You can cleave a bit off, with magic," she said. "Or, if someone dies, you can breathe life into their stone, but it doesn't make-- them. Just makes another child, a new gembound. I've got two kids growing, you know."

Kera pushed herself up at the notion of exploring, stretching her lanky body out with a massive yawn. "Yeah, sure," she said. "I know this place pretty well. I can show you around."

She tossed her massive, broad head, gesturing Eela closer. "Come on. You wanna ride my back?"

@Eela