ORIGIN - With Eyes Like Starlight

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Pushing through the overgrown ferns and leaves brought the fawn and pup to a rather wonderful sight: a perfect collection and showcase of life.

It was a sizable clearing in the trees and canopy, ending some nine feet across from where the Gembound were standing. Flowers of all kinds flourished without the choking shadows the immense trees cast. Delicate, violet bells were interspersed with frilly, almost dress-like white blooms. Faintly bioluminescent cyan spikes soaked in the orb-light.

Dancing between each bloom was every variety of Lesser you could name. A colony of bumblebugs buzzed here and there, bumping into every leaf they could find. Fairyflies and greenwings fluttered about or basked in the warmth, glimmering wings and reflective eyes on full display. A kiss of death milled about, clinging to the less extravagant flowers and flaring - like a challenge to test out that toxic-looking coloration. Pixie bats loitered towards the fringes, sipping nectar from each bell-flower.

@Thalia @Comet

Thalia pushed through the foliage alongside the wolf cub, a strange and magical echo of a cave-man child and a primitive dog on the hunt--but with violet skin, with gemstone ear. When the ferns parted to reveal the grove ahead, her silver eyes sprang wide.

She froze in place, afraid to frighten away the Lessers but already in awe. Her voice came hushed as she crouched down.

"Whoaaaa. Do you think... this place's magic?" she asked, turning that astonished gaze on the wolf pup by her side. The spear clutched in her hand was nearly forgotten, her other little fingers holding aside a spray of leaves; she lowered herself to her knees to stare out into the flowers.

"It's so pretty," the child murmured then, blinking, overcome by the beauty.

@Comet

Comet

Arctic Wolf

Comet heard Thalia's gasp, and watched as she pushed away a branch of leaves. Her eyes followed the path of the fawn's and the sight was truly fascinating. She had never seen this place in Eridanus. Although the small clearing was not big, it was bustling with more life than she had ever seen in one place before. Comet held back her natural instincts that told her to hunt down the rabbits. There was something about the place that shouldn't be disturbed. A calm, magical, beauty. "I think it is. Let's go see." she took a few tentative steps into meadow, hoping not to disturb the surrounding animals.
Her silent paw steps carried her into the meadow, quiet, and she felt herself become immersed. Like she was not only watching the scene, she was in the scene.

@Thalia

Thalia followed suit, hesitating. The wolf moved with a predator's silence, one that Thalia sought to emulate; she studied Comet's movements and then placed her own steps slowly, carefully, behind them.

Her body, though, was taller--not large, by any means, but easily visible above the spikes of violet flowers and the clusters of gleaming leaves. The birds took flight, rustling away, and Thalia pouted at them.

"Oh, well-... At least the bugs stayed," she muttered, and--shifting the spear under one arm--leaned in to inspect a Bumblebug. "...They're pretty, too. Why do you think it's all here?" she asked--her childlike phrasing perhaps unclear. She was wondering at it, though: why was this place so... so pretty? Why wasn't the whole cave like this; why weren't there trees, here? But her vocabulary wasn't quite up to the task, so she just wandered farther into the meadow, wide-eyed as she looked around.

A pleasant, floral scent drew her to another flower, which she sniffed--"Ooh! This smells really good--come see! -Smell," she corrected herself. Pollen laced her nose, and Thalia drew back, with a quiet giggle. "-Tickled my nose," she told the wolf cub, itching messily at her own face.

@Comet

Comet

Arctic Wolf

Comet looked back to watch if Thalia would follow just as silently, so as not to scare off the lessers. Unfortunately, it seemed her body was not quite built for that kind of stealth, and they were scared away. Thalia was also taller than the grass, making her seen easily.
She abandoned her stealth, and inspected the bugs along with the fawn. "I don't know." Comet wrinkled her nose in concentration, "Maybe someone with powerful plant magic made this place." she had seen some gembounds do wonderful things with their magic. Maybe this meadow was made as a garden, it was not very big, but clearing trees and making everything grow takes a lot of power.
Comet followed Thalia to another flower, where she watched her laugh and scratch her nose. The wolf pup didn't have to put her own nose too close, the sweet smelling scent flowed through her nose, a wonderful smell. Too bad the flower was full of pollen. Comet sneezed three times in succession, and by then the flower petals were completely obliterated from the force of her sneeze. "Whoops."
She wondered what else there was to explore in this meadow, but at the same time was drawn to do some more physical stuff. Like hunting monsters. "Do you want to stay here or move on?" asked Comet. It was important that her adventuring partner wanted to do the same thing.

@Thalia

Thalia laughed, delightedly--a child's giggle--when Comet sneezed not once, but three times. To a young child? Hilarious. She couldn't have explained why it was so funny, but the giggling fit kept her laughing for a little while... When it had passed, she turned and made her way at a leisurely pace through the flowers.

"Plant magic? OH--Da showed me magic! Look," she exclaimed excitedly, toddling over to the wolf pup to show her. She held out one palm, eyes wide. From her hand sprang an arcing rainbow of light: shimmering in all the colors, pouring out and up in an arch before dissipating a few feet away. "That's my magic!" she cried, excitedly, jumping up and down twice with sheer enthusiasm. "Do you have any?!"

Comet's question had her looking around, some, biting her lower lip. She could always come back here--if she could find it again--and excitement sounded fun. Maybe they'd find something else; something even cooler.

But Thalia also sorta wanted to look at the flowers, too.

"I wanna look at the flowers osme more," she decided, determined to inspect all the Lesser bugs, while she was at it. "If you wanna go without me you can but I won't be long!" This was said in a tone of promise, and for a moment it looked as though Thalia might just bound away into the flowers to start looking at each of them in haste, but first she waited: to see if Comet had magic of her own.

Magic was cool, too!

@Comet

Comet

Arctic Wolf

Comet laughed along with Thalia, whose laughter was contagious. Her laughs were more in the form of barks though, but happy ones.
The wolf pup focused her attention on her outstretched palm, wondering what would happen. She expected it to be watery, or something like that, but instead a rainbow shone out of her hand. "Wow that's so cool!" It shone in all the colors of the spectrum, and everything in between, if there were any.
"Okay, I'll stay with you!" Comet wanted not to look at the flowers, but perhaps try the tastes of all the different bugs flitting around. She wondered if they would taste good, as she had always eaten red meat or fish, but never bugs. Comet was about to start doing that just then, when she remembered she had magic to show Thalia. "I can make bubbles!" The bubbles floated up into the air, but there were few, and small. Well, at least it worked.
"Let's go eat bugs-- I mean look at flowers now!" she caught herself, hopefully the fawn wouldn't mind if she ate a few bugs.

@Thalia

A hand reached out, eyes widening in awe; a finger poked a bubble.

"-Is that your magic?" Thalia asked, amazed. And then, as a blinking afterthought, she pushed her palm gently toward the flow of bubbles. She was hoping to shine her rainbow light through them, but she found that nothing came; she pouted a little, dropping her hands, complaining with a quiet "Aww..."

Comet's remark, though, immediately distracted her--and the 'eat a few bugs' definitely didn't go unnoticed. Thalia didn't react with disgust, however; instead, she stared with ever-widening eyes, her mouth hanging open for a moment in amazement.

"You EAT BUGS?!" she asked, her voice a sort of hushed, half-whisper squeal; "-WHICH ONES?! -What do they taste like?!"

Excitement filled her face; she was wondering if she, too, could eat bugs.

@Comet

Comet

Arctic Wolf

Comet got excited when she watched Thalia try and shine her rainbow through one of the bubbles. Unfortunately, it seemed her spell had stopped. She was a bit disappointed too, but she hid that feeling.

She wasn't sure what reaction she had expected from the cover up about trying to eat some bugs. But she was happy that the fawn didn't seem too disgusted by the idea. "I don't know. I will try this one." Comet looked at the bug that happened to be flying close to her. It was rainbow colored, and it buzzed a lot, going from flower to flower. It was a rainbow bumblebug, and they stung, but she didn't know that, so she tried catching one in her mouth.

Comet snapped her jaws outwards, and caught it in her mouth it gave her a sharp sting so she quickly swallowed it. "Dat no tate good." she said, the sting already starting to swell up. "Et's try eatin uder bugs."

@Thalia

Thalia stared in rapt horror, one half of her face squinted up, as Comet's muzzle began to swell.

"Um," she began, and then with the utter lack of conversational grace displayed only by the drunk, careless, and children, she said: "...Your face is getting fatter." She reached out one short finger as if to touch, but pulled up short, just pointing.

Still, Comet's suggestion was interesting to her. She just hoped she didn't get a puffy face.

A moment later, Thalia was racing through the flowers, face lit with utter focus, chasing after a blackfly that had spun and spiralled up from a nearby plant at her passing. So focused was she that she didn't pay attention to where she was going: the fly easily evaded her, zipping up and away, and Thalia appeared to simply vanish.

In truth, she'd just fallen face-first very hard, and after a moment the inevitable sound of a toddler bursting into wailing drifted up from the flowers. Her contorted, darkened, tear-streaked face poked up a moment later, hair messed in all directions and leaves tangled throughout.

It wasn't, all told, a very useful contribution to their testing.

@Comet

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