ORIGIN

Kalama's returned to consciousness slowly, as if she were drifting in a sea of tar. She would open her eyes, the world just as dark as before, and she'd be lost in her unconsciousness once more. The cycle kept going for many days longer than Kalama had thought to process. Until she finally managed to grip onto her awareness. She would not let it go. She erupted into an abrupt frenzy of movement. her claws tapping against the hard stone, and her flight feathers hitting the flint walls with a barely audible pat. Something else she didn't recognize knocked against the walls, clumsy. Kalama was too confused and exhausted to entertain the thought of what it was.

She paused in her assault against the rock walls surrounding her, heart beating hard, and chest pounding with the strain of exercising muscles days away from atrophy. Wait. She realized something, there were walls. Her ledge wasn't this small. Walls? Where was she? What had happened to her? She tried to reflect on what had happened, but her thoughts were at best were murky, flashes of washed out color and sudden pain, or simply not there. Her breathing got heavier, the thin, stale air within the claustrophobic stone walls doing nothing to calm her growing panic.

She wanted out. She thrashed against the chrysalis repeatedly. The stone seemed more resilient than Kalama's muscles could handle. But her will was more powerful than her body. Her legs must have made a crack at some point, for at some point one of her claws struck air. Fresh air. And with it came blinding light. Bright sparkling light. She squinted her eyes, and moved her foot in an attempt to cover the hole, only crumbling her chrysalis further. And the light flooded in. Light in a myriad of colors flooded in, but all blazing with the same headache inducing intensity. Why was it so bright?
Before long, Kalama was left by herself, exposed to freezing air and blinding light. But she could breathe now. At least she could breath. She sat upon a crumble of flint and... . She looked down. Shiny gold stones. She twitched a foot, a raptorial claw on her innermost toe tapped the shiny stones. Kalama didn't think much on it, but that claw had always been there, she was pretty sure of it.

"What?" She croaked, her voice a hoarse whine. Even her beak felt different. It didnt align as good. It felt like she'd gotten a bunch of seeds stuck in her gums again. She wasn't even sure how she was managing to close it. She tucked her wings in close, noting the uncomfortable growths poking her in the feathers, and picked up the closest stone with her beak. She bit down on it, hoping to force the seeds from her gums.


Speech. Thought

Kalama paused in the midst the hard stone she was chewing on, and spat it to the side. "Why should I be careful? I've chewed rocks before." She said, annoyed. memories of the past events came flooding back. She rocketed up, swaying unsteadily for a moment on her feet and flapping for balance. "It's you!" She shouted. "Rock!" Her feathers lashed behind her like the tail of an angry cat. She wasn't sure when her feathers "You didn't win! I won! I let you win!" She tilted her head for a moment. Dread brought up some strange nonsense about her turning into a rock. That didn't make sense, unless the egg fairy had turned her into a giant egg.

"I didn't turn into a rock, thats dumb." She looked down at the shards of brown stone at her feet. Eggshell. Even more proof the egg fairy was alive and out there. "The egg fairy just helped me take a nap, ro--." She froze in her thoughts. The gears in her head were turning once more. She had taken a nap after being mean to Dread. Maybe, this time she was not mean, and was nice instead. Like Eythan had taught her. "Dread." She said. The word ended with a half-hidden annoyed hiss. What did Dread mean she looked different? She stared at her legs. "My claws are bigger and I've got weird seeds stuck in my gums and wings, but everything else is the same. There's nothing different about me, Dread." She bit down the desire to call Dread dumb once more. Within each sentence the chicken spoke, thinly veiled annoyance lurked.

She squinted at him, shielding her vision with a wing. "You look the same, not rock. Why do you have so many bright things in here?" She looked around, and pointed a wing at a carving of something she couldn't quite make out. "Get more dull things, like this thing."

She looked back up at Dread's head, and noticed something fuzzy moving. At first Kalama thought her vision was going bad, too after the Egg Nap, and that's when she noticed the cat upon its head. Since when were Dread and that cat friends? She remembered it from a while ago. There was a Bonebound meeting or something, and the cat had touched her nose. The furball called itself Wouder, or Wielder, perhaps. Wielder sounded right, she thought.

She wasn't sure when Wielder had grown wings, but maybe staying around Dread gave you free wings. Would she get two pairs of wings? And then the cat spoke. It didn't sound much like Wielder, perhaphs there was a legion of Wielders? The thought annoyed her. "What do you wa--"She stopped herself. Kalama was nice today. She did not like getting bit by Dread, she reminded herself. She started over again. "Hi, furball. I am Kalama, conqueror of caves and the immortal guardian of the Bonebound." She stretched up taller on her feet, attempting to look Impressive. The cat clearly thought she was cool--Kalama herself was well aware she was cool--so she would, atleast, attempt to look cool.

Speech. Thought

Kalama backed up a few steps, composure gone, suprised that the little kitten . She hadn't expected the little kitten to take to her boasting so easily, but it boosted her already oversized ego. She darted her eyes up to Dread, making sure the much more intimidating dragon wouldn't try anything. She didn't like the dragon so close, and backed up a few more steps before speaking. "What caves have I conquered?" Kalama clacked her claws, wagging her tail in thought. "Well, I've been to most of them. It's hard to remember so many, when you've seen as much as me." She puffed up her ruff of feathers, clearly pleased with herself.

"The Bonebound are uh," She was quiet for a moment, tapping her beak with a wing. She'd never given much thought to what they did. She just did the protecting. "They're a group of gembound that like sniffing bones, and I protect the bone sniffers. No ones ever been harmed under my watch."


"Oh, the egg fairy?" Kalama's voice became hushed and excited. "You haven't heard of them? Y'know how you go to sleep sometimes and you wake up with a free snack? The egg fairy does that! Its usually kinda round and brown looking. They only do it while you're sleeping for some reason, but I know ill catch 'em someday. I'm not sure why the egg fairy hasn't visited you, though."

She flicked a wary eye up back up towards Dread, and then back down to Bug. She didn't like his silence, but threatening Bug's... mentor? Dad? Babysitter? Whatever they were, snapping at them would probably lose Kalama her small, fuzzy audience for her rapidly snowballing ego. "Oh! Maybe you're not strong enough. I think you gotta be stronger to have the egg fairy visit you." She nodded to herself. Yeah, that seemed about right to Kalama.

Speech. Thought

Kalama was taken aback by the sheer amount of questions. She could count on one foot the amount of times she'd felt true fear, and this was another tally to add. She had to wonder how the kitten had enough breath in her to say all that without a pause. "I-I cant answer all of your questions. Conquerors like me are pretty busy." She sniffed. "Ill answer some though."

The ones she could remember well enough, anyways. She tapped a toe. "Well, I've seen a cave with glowy mushrooms, I don't know about white caves though. Oh, theres one filled with mist!" She hummed in thought, trying her best to remember what else the Kitten said. "The bone sniffers live in a bone cave. I don't know why people wanna hurt bone sniffers, but I'm just there to stop all that. Maybe they get jealous of them. I haven't found out why the egg fairy keeps leaving me free snacks either, but that's why I'm gonna find them." She said. "The egg fairy thinks they're so crafty--well they can only give me the slip so many times. I'll lasso them in one way or another."

To be strong.Kalama barked a laugh at Bug's show of magicka. "Magicka isn't strength, obviously. True strength is physical. You have to train and fight. Like me! I've fought a buncha things." She hadn't won most--if any of them, but she sure had been in them."I could teach you!" She said and then immediately regretted. It'd mean spending more time around the giant smelly rock called Dread. "But... I'm pretty busy most of the time. Like right now."

She began to back off the weird pile of treasure. The Bug cat monster was okay, but Kalama was very busy. She had a tunnel to go check, and training to do. She was tired of her body being so ungainly after her egg nap.
Speech. Thought