Maevmora came into consciousness slowly… so very slowly… Her thoughts were like flickers at the very edges of her mind. She was barely aware of them… An image here, a feeling there, but other than that, her mind was a vast emptiness upon awakening. She lay at the base of the Spire, its towering blue form acting almost like a protective mother over her chrysalis. But she had yet no knowledge of the Spire, or of anything else within the Origin Cave. She still lay curled up inside her lodestone shell. As she came farther and farther out to the world of the waking, her eyes eventually opened. But it was pitch dark inside her chrysalis, so she closed them again and slept for a time…
When she opened them again, it was still dark, but she felt a bit more awake. She thought that, perhaps, she had dreamed, but she couldn’t remember. Fleeting memories of her dream came and went, interspersing with the waking world. How was she yet to know that dreams were not a part of waking life? She would learn this, in time…
Maevmora decided that now was the time to emerge. She could have awoken hours before, or perhaps only a few minutes ago. Time was irrelevant to her. She had no concept of it. She existed solely in the present moment. And Now was telling her to break free. She pushed a paw against her chrysalis, and met resistance, so she pushed a little harder. Her paw broke through the barrier, and felt the air of Polaris for the first time. She let the paw hang there, outside of its shell, for some time, allowing that small part of her body to get used to the change…
Then she pushed her other paw out, and again let it rest for a time. For her, everything was a slow, patient process. Some new Gembound were eager and quick to leave their chrysalis far behind. For Maevmora, there was no such thing as “quick.” Everything was paced. And slow. And steady. Steady like the Earth, like stone, like rocks. After a long, long time, she was finally completely out of her lodestone chrysalis. It had split down the middle at some point as she had pushed herself onto her back paws to get out. Now, her home lay in four pieces – two small, two big. The two small pieces had been created by pushing her paws through the rock. The two larger pieces had happened when the whole thing had split in half.
Maevmora now stood, blinking, in the light of Polaris. She swung her head slowly around herself to look at the remains of her chrysalis. She blinked heavily. Then, she lay down, and slept…
This was the longest and the farthest she had wandered from her home in Eridanus since having first met Vazi, but her deer friend had promptly returned the confused, dazed bear back to her origin after an adventure to find more friends. Gracie pounced along the winding tunnels, directionless and mindless. Not a care in the world. Two cycles old now and nearly full grown, the panda was a big girl now. Growing into her previously oversized paws and head.
Purple eyes gleaming, reflecting the bright lights here in this room. This room was by far the strangest she had been to, as it's air made her feel... invincible? She giggled, the feeling was well welcomed. It wasn't everyday one felt this good, Gracie considered living here permanently. The vegetation didn't look as vast as it did back home, she would have to dismiss the idea.
Stepping down on the ground with meaning, the black and white bear tried her luck at bringing a little more life into the core of the caves. But once her paw made contact with the dirt floor, her magic failed. The gem at her chest sent a shock through her ribcage, uncomfortable but not too painful. She frowned, if only briefly. Her eyes flashed back up to the path before her to see a stranger snoozing. It was another like her! The bear was brown, and little. Judging by the broken crystal next to them, Gracie assumed they were new like she was once. That or they just couldn't break away from what felt like home. The panda, herself, had been really reluctant to leave the safety of her pink diamond chrysalis when she first emerged. "Hello?" she greeted, her voice sweet as honey. She didn't want to scare the gembound too bad.
Booker had never ventured this far from his hatching site before - Polaris stretched out before him, enormous and indescribable. His single eye trying to focus as he wandered, the tiny Gembound trotted along, weaving in and out of cracks in the cave walls, hopping over small stones and sniffing at the fungi that lived everywhere within the darkness. They seemed to greet him, raising up a bit on their stalks as he passed, and he grinned as he traveled. As engrossed as he was in his little excursion, he completely missed the giant - well, to him, anyway - crack in the ground, and his paw stuck in it, tripping the numbat up and sending him tumbling down a slight decline in the cave.
Skidding to a stop, left eye socket aching from the fall, Booker shook his head dizzily, vision blurring in and out randomly. That... was not good, he thought, hoping he hadn't caught the attention of anything nearby. Trying to regain his focus, he closed his eye tight, reaching out to the tiny pinpricks of light he knew were all around him.
post roll please and thank you:
Immediately, a network of shining friends spread out before him, carpeting the floors, walls and ceilings of Polaris, most too small to be seen with the naked eye. There were two spots that were dim ahead, however, and Booker focused on them, flinching back when he realized they must be two very, very large creatures. Hoping they wouldn't decide to eat him, the numbat inched closer, weaving between small stones and crevices before stopping a few feet from the pair, eyes widening in wonder. They were as big as Baratheon - the black and white one was, maybe, even bigger! Ears flicking back, Booker watched as the larger one spoke, and he turned his attention to the smaller. It must have just hatched, judging from the shards of chrysalis scattered around, and Book calmed a bit, scooting forward once more. A newborn like him couldn't be that dangerous, could it?
Mind made up, he climbed up onto the largest rock he could find - one that put him at shoulder-level with the larger of the creatures - and waved, chittering. "Wel-come, new friend! And... less new friend," he added, blinking at the older of the... what were they? They were furry like Magdalena, but they didn't look like her, so he had no idea. Maybe they were related to the mushrooms?
A very sleepy Maevmora came back into consciousness at the panda’s soft, ”Hello?” Her mind collected itself, brushing up the scattered remnants of her dream and piling them in the back of her mind to be thought about later. It had been a dream about… a really big rock. A big, tall, brown rock, as tall as the Spire she was lying beneath. The rock had been… speaking to her… or something. She slowly shook her large-ish head, and blinked at the two Gembound who were standing before her. She said nothing to them. She did not yet know how to speak, and was not compelled to try.
Instead, she stood very slowly on her steady, heavy legs, gave a great big yawn, and then leaned forward to gently sniff at the black-and-white creature, and then at the very-small creature. She did nothing but sniff, and did not touch them. When she was done with her sniffing, she sat down and swung her head between the two of them, wondering what would happen next. She was not one to start adventure. In fact, if they weren’t here, she would be sleeping still. Not that she minded that they had woken her up. But it had been a curious dream… The black-and-white creature sort of looked like her… but the very-small creature did not… She did not know either of them… They seemed friendly… Perhaps they could be friends.
Maev gave another huge yawn, then blinked silently at the two of them some more.
Gracie didn't notice the little creature perch up onto a boulder to her side until he spoke. She yipped quietly, with a small stir, but calmed when she saw how... unthreatening he was. The position of his gemstone was a troubling matter, the panda couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy towards the little guy. She saw her own purple eyes reflected in the puddles she drank from, and admired them very much. She liked being able to see, how would anyone manage without sight? When the panda closed her eyes and tried to walk, it was a game she played one day, she could only march yards before running face first into a wall. She didn't play those games anymore. It was a silly thing, and silly pain followed.
She resisted asking him questions about his gem, all relating to how he could see with only one eye. Gracie blinked. She wanted to close one of hers and see how it was, but she didn't want to seem rude. The curiosity was killing her slowly. "Oh! I didn't see you there," she giggled, then realized it could be seen as a pun towards his challenged sight. If she could blush, she would have been red with embarrassment.
The new gembound was stirred, but brown cub remained quiet. Gracie eagerly awaited a speech... nothing happened. The air was tested, but nothing else. Even a yawn procured from the youth. The panda shifted her weight nervously, was there something wrong with her?
The big-walking-mushrooms were even bigger up close, and Booker cocked his head as he watched the newborn struggle to stand, movements slow and liquid, like it was in no rush to go anywhere at all. In fact, it seemed to want to go back to sleep, so Booker grinned, hopping down from his rock and skittering closer. From this vantage point, the tiny numbat was smaller than even the talking-mushrooms' paws, and he glanced up at the more active of the two with a dry, nervous swallow. Her reply made him relax a bit, and he grinned.
"Book-er is small and sneaky, like his mushroom friends," he provided, taking pride in how he'd been able to sneak up on something as intimidating as the black and white talk-shroom. He turned to face the smaller of the two, inching closer and ending up just centimeters away from it's gigantic nose. Book sniffed at the dark brown talk-shroom and chittered. Why won't this one talk? He mentally amended his earlier thoughts on the two beasts. Big, but not always talking. But Baratheon's big, so they can't be big-shrooms, 'cause they don't look like him... Confused, his ears perked up and he smiled encouragingly. "Maybe you speak different, yes? Like Book sees the lights out of the left, instead of you and Po-lare-is!" He nodded to himself, quite sure of his analysis.
The not-talking-shroom didn't have anything on its throat, and it didn't seem to be choking, so it must just be talking in some other way - or so Booker assumed. After all, he could only see the mushrooms with his left eye, so maybe the not-talking-shroom could only speak without... speaking? Having confused himself, Booker sat back on his haunches, tilting his head up, up, and up to look at the talking-shroom. "I'm Booker. Who're you?"
Maevmora simply continued to sit, quietly and without interrupting, as the two older Gembound spoke. She did not quite understand their words yet, and even if she had, she still would have remained silent. The bear did not see a reason to speak. The act of speaking seemed only to be needed when one wanted to impose one’s words or ideas onto others. Maevmora was as far removed from wanting to do such a thing as one could be. She was a passive observer – nothing more. She wanted, more than anything, to simply watch. And maybe sleep a little more…
The little Gembound was speaking to her, asking her things that she did not comprehend yet. To her, his words were nothing but noise. She gave a chuff, which was meant only to be a sound of acknowledgement. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t ignoring him. Quickly enough, though, he turned his attention to the almost-like-her creature and asked her a question. His thoughts seemed to move quickly… Mm… That was the opposite of how her own thoughts moved. Inside her mind, her thoughts were like molasses, thick and slow. That is not to say she was unintelligent. But it took her longer to process her feelings and opinions about most everything around her, and that was part of the reason she did not feel the need to speak. Why speak one’s thoughts when they could change so soon? One just sounded a fool, speaking when it wasn’t necessary. At least, she thought so.
Not that she thought of these two as fools. They seemed friendly enough. Only… well, she had nothing to say to them. If all they had come for was conversation, then she felt a little sorry for them, for they would get no words from her today. Or any day, really. If they didn’t mind silent companionship, then she was all for it, though!
Gracie leaned down and grinned at the little friend who moved to her paws. He was so tiny, the panda made extra sure not to step on him every time she shifted her weight. One false move and the little guy would be squished. But what he had said about mushroom friends threw her off, "Mushroom friends?" She asked, puzzled. The panda looked around, trying to find these friends he had spoke about. But no mushroom was in sight. Furrowing her brow, she sniffed around the ground for a second before her eyes took a new shine. The gem hidden by her thick, curling fur illuminated for a brief second before a tiny sprout inched to life from a buried seed next to Booker. "I have sprout friends!" she boasted, patting the petite life form with gentle care.
Turning her attention back to the new bear cub, she considered Bookers words about the cub speaking a different language. The body language she demonstrated seemed to dictate she understood what was being said. But still, no response was made verbally. Maybe the bear just didn't like to talk. "I'm Gracie! Do you think she'll give a name? What will we call her!" The panda distractedly spoke to numbat, unintentionally rude like the cub wasn't there listening to their banter. She was too lost now in her own thoughts, trying to decide a good name for the new gembound if she didn't open up and speak.
Booker grinned at the silent-mushroom's gentle huff. Feeling validated in his previous ponderings over the creature's lack of response. It was definitely listening, just not talking the way they did. Turning back to Gracie, he watched with a shy smile as her gem glowed - and a sprout emerged from the ground! He gasped, eye sparking with curiosity, and clapped his hands. "You help your friends grow too!" The exclamation was soft enough and from far enough away from the bear's ears that she was likely not to have heard, so Book just sat, watching as the 'talking-shroom,' as he'd referred to her in his mind, introduced herself.
"Grace-eee," he tried out, nose wiggling at the pronunciation. "Gray-cee? Gracie!" Ears perking up at his success, he took a moment to respond to the older Gembound's query. She? What to call her? Puzzled, the numbat hummed, tapping his tiny paws on the ground when a thought struck him.
post roll:
With a shut of his eye and a stomp of his feet, a few scrawny mushrooms pushed up from the ground in front of Booker, joining Gracie's sprout. Opening his eye, the numbat chirped, pointing to them in explanation. "These 're my mush-friends! So we can call her... uh... a fluffy-shroom? Or, wait," he mumbled, trying to remember what he'd heard animals that looked like Gracie and the silent beast called. "Ah! She's a bear-shroom!" He clapped in triumph, nodding to himself.
Gracie grinned like mad at the little numbat's excitement, he had said something and she strained her ears to hear but... nothing. Just soft, distant noise. "That's right! Gracie!" She encouraged, body wiggling with enthusiasm. Her purple gaze kept dropping down to the new gembound who remained silent as ever throughout the two's conversation. Perhaps she was a shy bear? A shy bear-shroom! She giggled, a light and innocent sound. "Bear-shroom!" The assimilation this bear would have to go through to be... less socially awkward would be an adventure for her. Here, Gracie was assuming that the girl was shy and not just a mute.
Perking her ears up and listening to the becking calls of the birds here in Polaris, Gracie remembered that she wanted to see if there were any cool new birds here that weren't the same as back home in Eridanus. Popping up to her paws after mindlessly sitting down only moments before, "Ah! I forgot something!" she stated, mostly to herself. "Goodbye, Bear-shroom! Booker! It was nice meeting you!"
-exit-