ORIGIN

The quiet whisper of feathers trailing over stone approached. Hecate--alone in her green-tinted dark for several cycles, now--had heard the cracking of the gemstone. It was one of the many sounds she'd come to recognize in the caves, though one that came far more rarely than most. Though she wasn't exactly a mothering type, she still felt curiosity draw her close. It wasn't warmth--desire for friendship, or to aid another; it was, rather, a sort of idle boredom that drove her. The idea that something new and strange might be plummeting out of its chrysalis intrigued and excited her.

One white-feathered foot carefully settled on the rock, then the next swept slowly past it, black talons helping her to feel her way forward. She called on what little magicka she knew, too, to try and draw up a little light to guide her by. It was difficult to see past the gemstone shells over her eyes, but a bright light often helped, a little. Orion's glow was dimly-glittering--beautiful, when she saw it in her magic, but ultimately useless for her to navigate by.

The magicka didn't want to cooperate, though; the wisp didn't come. She was left stumbling along in the darkness, navigating by ear alone, and by feeling her way in shuffling steps across the stone.

At last, she saw something move; or she thought she did, at least. She could hear a movement ahead, a shuffle, and breathing. Something was newly-hatched.

"Hello?" she called out, and her voice was like a bell, tinkling and melodic. "Is there a newly-hatched, there? My name is Hecate," she offered, slowly, and her voice sounded kind.

Ahh, his voice, she thought, at once, pleased by its melody. He sounded innocent, young, and there was something beautiful in that. And Hecate--of all the things she loved, she loved beauty the most.

She savored it but for a moment, this brief interaction with a stranger--where she so rarely found another Gembound at all--and then, when she spoke, her voice was all the warmer for her being pleased. "Ahhh, there you are." She drew a little closer, the soft warmth of her feathers likely close enough to brush against, tilting her head this way and that. She could make out but the faintest shimmer of darker shape in Orion's dim light, all tinted green by her gemstone, and she peered at the newborn.

I would like a better look, she thought to herself again, struggling briefly with her magicka once more. This time, it glimmered, and in a soft flash, a wisp of phosphorescent blue-green light shone into being. It cast a soft glow over the area, illuminating Aran clearly enough for her to see, now--at least to make out his shape, his size. To her surprise, he had the beginnings of antlers--not unlike her own; she could not see that they were made of gemstone, but it pleased her, somehow, nonetheless.

"There we are; some light to see by," she went on, in the same soft and kindly tone. "Now: a newly-hatched is a child, like you. One only just fallen from their gemstone," she explained. Her hooked black beak clicked quietly, thoughtfully, as she looked him over. "I think you will be a big, fine Gembound, some day," she added. "Do you have a name?"

There Hecate settled, ruffling out her feathers until she looked more like a ball of soft, brown-and-cream-fluff than a graceful hybrid. She was making herself comfortable, clearly intending to keep this child company, for a time.

"Aran," she repeated, trying the name out--and then, reiterating: "I am Hecate." She then sat quiet, for a moment, inspecting him with little clicks of her beak. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of him, really; and now she felt herself at a loss as to what to do next.

She was no parent--she was barely out of childhood herself, with little experience in interacting with others. Had children--even other Gembound--been common in her life, she might have grown bored with Aran then and there, and left him. But she was (though wholly unsure as to what should come next) more than reluctant to leave such a novelty just yet. I could... tell him what I know of the caves? This thought, though, she pushed away impatiently. She knew little of them. She knew she was hardly-sighted, and the idea of having to admit to that--to impotently sputtering "ahh, well, there's the slightly damp and more noisy cave" rather than describing it--galled her.

Were Hecate a more responsible being, or one more experienced with young ones, she might have thought to teach him of the dangers he might face, or of prey (in case he was a hunter), or of magicka. But she was not. Instead, drawing one foot's talons thoughtfully over the rock, she decided to talk about herself.

"You're very lucky to have met me," she decided--believing this with all her heart. "I'm very beautiful, and one day I will be very powerful, too." She gave a little nodding bob of her head--up, then down--to emphasize it. "Perhaps you can be beautiful, too." Her head turned, twisting at an impossible owl's angle to peer half-blind around behind her. "Can you see the lights above--the crystals?" she asked him. She couldn't see it herself, of course--but she had done, in the past; had seen it with her magic, with the touch of that power that she was sure, one day, would carry her to greatness. "Those are beautiful," she informed the child, as if her opinion were simple fact. But with this statement, at least, her tone held warmth: she admired the ceiling of Orion, though she couldn't see it now, and there was perhaps at least a glint of kindness in her trying to call Aran's attention to it.

"No, no," Hecate pressed, her beak clicking a little impatiently. "The glittering lights, up above us. They are crystals," she explained. She ruffled her feathers out, then smoothed them, tilting her head and blinking blind eyes upward. Careful, she sent her wisp up: its shifting shimmer raising higher and higher, until its glow glinted off the quartz like phosphorescent starlight.

"Do you see, now? Look at the light," she instructed him, her demeanor just a little haughty. Let it never be said that Hecate was either a mature or a patient individual.

"It's beautiful," she declared, again rather matter-of-factly, as if trying to convince him. Her blind emerald eyes closed. "There's a place they call the Spire, too. A great turquoise-colored crystal a hundred feet high," and her wondering tone was likely exaggerating; she had no idea how tall it really was. "It casts its whole cave into rainbow splendor."

Hecate paused. She was trying out more poetic language; she wasn't sure she'd done it right, and grew a little impatient with herself. "There are places where the moss clings to the stone in green-..." And here she might have said 'carpet,' except she didn't know what a carpet was and found herself floundering for a suitably poetic word.

She couldn't find one.

"...Clumps," she sighed at last, sourly. "It's all very pretty, anyway."

Self-absorbed as she was, Hecate didn't think to ask him how he felt; if he were hungry, or cold, or if he was curious about any of the things she was saying. She just prattled on, then fell silent, mourning her own failure at creating fancy language.

It was an innocent enough question from a newly-hatched child, but Hecate still felt a surge of resentment at being called out on her terrible conversational skills. Or at least, that's how she perceived it. It pierced her insecurities--made her feel weak with her words, foolish--and she snapped a little in her response.

"Because I don't know what else to say." It was huffy, to say the least; but at least the slightly-upset answer was an honest one. "I haven't spoken to many others and-... Well, you talk," she suggested, and it was a more open suggestion rather than a challenge. An invitation, really.

Owlish brow furrowed as she stared half-blind toward the fawn. She felt awkward, trying to imagine what else she could talk about--and still coming up completely empty.