ORIGIN

The world was new to the tiny kitten; life was new, trees were new, the collection of sounds that constantly littered the marsh was new. So the child would do as was done to all new things: investigate, explore, and use them until they were all worn out. And then someone else could come along and look at the old things as though they were new again.

Tiny paws trundled through the marsh, in a groggy sort of dance that could only narrowly avoid slipping into somewhere too wet. She didn't particularly like it here; too wet, too dark. The only thing good about it were the noises that rocked her to sleep at night. Where did they come from? The question popped into her mind all the sudden, like it had been transported there from some other dimension. Suddenly this became the question that would dictate the kitten's decisions in life for the next hour, perhaps the next day, or even the next week! She had to know. Who were the creators of these strange and ambient sounds?

Thus, a search would begin.

((Madhukar's just lookin' for some bugs, feel free to join in! You can interrupt her project here but be warned, she hisses and gives tiny lil' shocks!! Oh no!))

She'd gone searching for a bit-- in reality, not too long, but to her forming mind it seemed like hours. Bravely (and narrowly) scooching through some rather thrilling situations (almost falling in a rather deep-looking puddle of water), the kitten managed to find her way to a safe spot of relatively dry dirt to overlook a dark pool. On the surface of said pool resided not one, not two, but groups of perhaps five or ten bugs interspersed unevenly. They didn't look like much from afar, but closer to the shore, where the bitty kitty was, their wings were phenomenal. Transparent, and faintly iridescent! The girl's green eyes stood affixed in wonder, she'd never seen anything like this before!

They buzzed, these critters did. They weren't the only bugs around. There was lots of buzzing happening around this pond. It was like a mindless song, and the child herself began to want to sing along... so she did. Something inside her began to buzz as well, soothing and thrumming. She didn't know it, but she was purring softly with the water flies and whatever else was around this pond.

For a while, she'd stay there, feeling calm (a rare occurrence). The dark depths of the water started to look less scary, less like a swirling pool of wickedness and tar. These beautiful bugs, dainty and light, could sit on the still waters. The kitten felt like she was floating with them, though she would never dare sticking her paw down there. Just... not her thing. Especially not with the faint silhouettes of fish swimming below. The kitten rarely ever found something that looked or felt so happy in this place, like a will o' wisp in the gloom.

Eventually, she'd be off still, seeking another entry to her mental journal of all the things creating the buzz. Were there things away from the water? Perhaps...

Rainstorm was not new to living, though they were however not used to the marshes of Cetus and how the mud clinged to their feathers in a way they disliked. If Rainstorm liked flying, the mud that was stuck to their brightly colored feathers would hinder it, though the bird did not usually fly. Staying on the ground was their thing, and that's what they did.

The sound of buzzing around them told the bird that there would be many the things to eat there, as they ate insects. They would find something to munch on and then leave later, perhaps, to get the nasty mud from their feathers off, and become clean and beautiful once again. Cleaning their feathers would take time.

As they moved the sound of another pulsed through the bird's ears. To which they were curious, wondering what the feline was doing in the marshes. Surely the small thing would like somewhere more dry? Rainstorm began to follow. Alas, the sounds of their feet hitting the nasty mud wasn't muffled from the spell cast. A pity.

"What'r you doing?" They called out, before the small thing would get to notice.

@Madhukar

Something was coming towards her, making strange plomping sounds in the mud. The kitten herself was belly-deep in the icky mud, but she couldn't really go anywhere without accidentally collecting a healthy coating of it. Yes, it was deeply unpleasant, but it was either suffer or don't move, and suffering was the lesser of those two evils.

Speaking of lessers, the next one she found was actually a whole swarm, which she certainly would not have been able to see without the fortunate gift of a cat's eyesight. Loitering in the darkness of the marsh, a hoard of at least twenty blackflies would startle at the approach of the newcomers. And their startle would in turn startle the kitten. She'd let out a panicked squeak as she watched the tiny iridescent figurines scatter like bullets in the air, whizzing past her and away from her all at once. Once the air cleared of the oily, buzzing silhouettes, the kitty would turn to look at the mud-slosher.

"Look'n for buzzies," she'd say simply, almost like a command to the other creature to do the same. She was rather impressed by this creature's penchant for complete speech. She hadn't met any creature who could do that so far, mainly because the only creature she'd met by this point was a goopy stink fiend, who was not very gifted in that department.

With that, the kitten would pad off again, in another direction this time. If the newcomer wasn't going to be helpful in this excursion, she'd just classify it as an "intruder" instead and give it enough heck to run it off (something she had complete confidence that she could do, somehow). Until it made its decision, she'd keep looking around.

Little would she know that the next buzzy she'd run into wouldn't be quite so small, or even buzzy for that matter.*

@Rainstorm ((*Next find is cued up to be a Marsh Strider! You can post them finding that or I can edit this one OR that can be next Madhukar post, just let me know!))

The small thing was looking for buzzies? What on earth did that mean? Did she mean bugs? Surely that was the case right? The bugs here, they made a lot of noise. Buzzing and buzzing their lives away. Rainstorm, assumed it was bugs. Why was the feline looking for bugs? Did she eat them?

"Do you eat bugs?" they questioned.

Rainstorm ate bugs themselves! The bird liked how they crunched beneath their beak. Crunchy, tasty. Sometimes slimy if they ate grubs. Yummy Yummy. The feline didn't seem bothered by the bird there, so they followed. Rainstorm followed the small thing to look for crunchy bugs. But oh! Something else was making noise! Prodding around.

"What's that noise?" the questioned, moving towards it.

@Madhukar [Mad can find it! Rainy hears it tho <3]

The next thing that came from the newcomer's mouth seemed, to child, almost entirely unrelated. What was a bug? Was that what the buzzy things were called? Did she eat the bugs? Wait, what, no! Bugs, if that's what the buzzies were called, didn't look appetizing at all! "No, red mousey mouse," the girl corrected. She wouldn't want to put anything so small and weird and pretty in her mouth... would she?

Would she?

Before she could begin to consider eating the bugs, as all cats eventually do, the newcomer (who might've been able to tell her what eating bugs was like, if she'd known that was a thing it did) was referring to a noise it heard. What? What noise? Where? The kitten zoned into her ears for a moment, flicking around the discs as she tried to pick up a sound besides the low hum-buzzing of the "bugs".

The newcomer was moving somewhere, and the kitten thought she might as well follow. It was a good thing she did, because what she saw was... incredible.

Elegant, tall, with giant ears and dark, shiny skin of grey and blue, sniffing at something in the water. The kitten's eyes would transfix upon the specimen, hypnotized by its appearance mainly out of the shock she felt seeing it here. It was uncommon to turn a corner and see something outside the ordinary gloom of the marsh. The two of them were at enough of a distance that it seemed as though whatever it was hadn't spotted them yet, but the four eyes of an alert herbivore were always on the lookout.

Soon enough, it would spot them, and its body would flash a vibrant light before it darted away and disappeared, leaving the small kitten starstruck.

Believing this creature she'd followed knew names for things, she'd look up at it and cock her head slightly to the side, saying "Whuzzat?"

@Rainstorm

Rainstorm had no idea what the feline was talking about when she mentioned a mouse? That was red? Did the thing eat mice? It seemed to be the only connection the bird could make to those specific words. So the sharp toothed thing didn't eat bugs like Rainstorm. That really was too bad - they were crunchy and good! Depending on the type they could also be squishy.

But before Rainstorm could open their beak to correct the small cat, something else came into view. A tall, skinny thing though Rainstorm was about the same size. Just a bit shorter. The skin of the thing was almost blue looking, though not as vibrant as Rainstorm's own feathers that stood out significantly in the swamp. Or in any situation, really. Their feathers would stand out in almost every location one could imagine, even against the greens of Eridanus.

Rainstorm could only shrug in reply at what the thing was.

"Why don't you find out?" They offered, though it could be dangerous the bird didn't care.

@Madhukar

This other creature apparently did not want to give information. Well, that was upsetting. The kitten pouted at it a little. Behind that pout was a rationalization process: would it be better for her to "find out"? How could she possibly do that? Wasn't this detracting from her previous mission, to figure out what caused the buzzing? Well... she'd discovered two buzzing things so far. Maybe... maybe this was a third?

But she hadn't heard it buzzing? Maybe not from this distance...

Well alright then! After the tall thing the kitten would go!

Except that, um... she'd forgotten where it went. She ran off a little, but very quickly realized she had no idea of finding where it had gone off to. No scent trail to follow (she'd been too far to pick up its scent), no memory of direction, it was too dark to really go investigate... UGH stupid marsh! How would she ever know if it buzzed or not now?!

Oh well, she supposed. She waddled back to where she figured the other creature would be, prepared to bully it into answering her questions instead of sending her off to useless dead-ends.

@Rainstorm ((Rainstorm can just yeet out while Mad's distracted if you want them to exit the thread haH))

The kitten tried to get back to where she thought the other creature would be, but it seemed as though she might've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Or the creature had just dipped on her, wanting her to endanger herself or something like that. That seemed pointless though. What would it have had to gain from setting her up like that? She was probably just lost. Again. Everywhere in this gosh darn room was 'lost'.

The kitten figured she might as well get more lost, in that case. Make a commitment. She was done finding buzzy bugs. Maybe she'd find new ones on her way... 'back'. Hah. There was nowhere to get back to.

- exit -

@Rainstorm (for visibility)