ORIGIN

Garnet-Delta's nose wrinkled at the smell, scrambling awkwardly to stay on top of the big dolt as it rolled helplessly on the floor. It picked its way up carefully through the mane of dangerous needles to crawl up Orthoclase-Alpha's face and wave a paw at its frantically searching eyes.

"Here," it reported soundly, only of residual nausea wobbling their voice. It took a deep breath, tail flicking as it did not whatsoever admit that it had just puked on its sibling. In fact, it acted tough, and began to berate Alpha. "Why did you fall? Could've squashed me!" Its fur bristled, and it snorted as it flopped over its much larger hatchmate's snout.

"Are you hurt?" It asked, glancing around with sharp red eyes and spotting the pool of vomit slowly dripping down on to the floor off of Alpha's side. It wasn't going to address that. "What--" And then it saw the injury to Alpha's carapace, and with a hiss of alarm, it scrambled on to the ground and over to the broken spike, spitting with anxiety. "Are you OKAY?" It squealed, reaching up to paw at the oozing crack.

Tripped? How clumsy could you be? Of course, coming from the baby that couldn't even land without falling on its face half the time, the insulting thought held little weight behind it. Delta's tail tip twitched and it scuffled backward a bit as Alpha raised its limb toward the light. Little droplets of blue blood splattered on the floor, and its nose wrinkled.

"Okay," it huffed as its hatchmate insisted it would live. "No more poking in holes right now." It didn't want to admit that it felt sick, much less that it had barfed, but hopefully Alpha was on the same page as it. It eyed the much larger baby for a few moments, as though gears were slowly churning in its little peanut head.

The little gremlin turned its head back down the tunnel, tail whisking back and forth. "Maybe go wash?" It suggested, bouncing on its paws and spreading its wings a little. "You stink." Which was entirely its fault, but Delta didn't have to admit that.

"Come on!" It squeaked, bouncing off down to where there would be some water to clean Alpha off in.

Garnet-Delta's ear swiveled back at the sounding of grunting. It slowed its pace, glancing back as Alpha remained floundering on the floor like a beached whale. It opened its mouth, and then shut its mouth, and then finally called back, "Do you need help?"

Its tail was swishing back and forth with impatience, but it did not get to so much as blink before suddenly Orthoclase-Alpha was lunging up on to all fours-- fives? The cat-alien nodded with approval, whiskers twitching. "Slow-paws," it scoffed playfully, trotting down the tunnel into Canis.

It knew where there was a big enough pool of water for Alpha to wash its wounds. (And the barf.) The sooner they cleaned up Alpha, the sooner they could pretend that none of that had ever happened.