ORIGIN

It is hard to describe the feeling inside of himself, especially when he's never had it before. It isn't a bad feeling. An ache, almost. It hurts a little bit like when he cut his ear just not as strongly, but it is getting worse the longer he focuses on it.

As he shuffles along Lithos nibbles at the snow. Sometimes he gets a chunk that's more ice than anything, and as it sits on his tongue to melt away, he plays with it between his teeth. A little bit too much pressure causes an edge to flake. If he swallows this, the feeling inside of him flares to a greater urgency. He munches on the ice a bit longer and inevitably swallows the lot of it, feeling it slide down his throat and nest in his belly.

Briefly, the ache there abates. He moves without any direction in mind and is drawn across the heart of Polaris, to where the snow is thinner in the south; there is a light trail behind him where his belly has left a small trench, but now the snow is so light he barely sinks in to it with his toes.

As his path deviates to follow the terrain (he flows across it, somehow, as if he knows the easiest route at all times), and he finds himself in what can only be described is a field. The stones of the cave form an uneven series of monoliths which are all much, much larger than himself. They look impressive to him. They are also crowded with fungi, and the dull glow of their magic is the most intriguing thing.

He approaches the smallest scattering of them and with a few sniffs, takes a tentative bite.

The mushroom falls apart on his tongue. Its fleshy exterior disintegrates and almost fizzes as it contacts his saliva, resulting in a peculiar combination of sour-sweet, but it isn't unpleasant. He moves to take another nibble of an adjacent growth (the first cluster being a dull navy blue, this next one a vibrant magenta) and before Lithos can do much more than inhale a few spores, a voice calls out to him.

"Who're you?" questioned the voice.

Lithos' ears flapped as if to ward off a fly. He tried to turn his head and effectively couldn't; he had to move his entire head-and-shoulders instead, and in the moment of surprise he did not think to question this change in his biology.

"Leddos," he answers. His tongue feels thicker than it should. He cannot enunciate properly and so the fricative loses its place within his name. His expression goes from bright and inquisitive to a doubt-filled frown, a passing confusion.

The creature is small and patterned with colors. They are shorter than him but only a little, and they look too long-shaped to be right. He only notices these things as passing vanity, as his tongue continues to swell. "Oh nod! My mouf!"

He was asking for help but the stranger wasn't doing anything! That wasn't fair. At the very least he expected them to show concern; however they seemed more interested in keeping their distance and really Lithos couldn't blame them for that.

Here he was struggling to close his mouth over a swelling tongue and he's trying to demand aid from a passerby - it wasn't a good situation. Thankfully the swelling began to go down while he stood there, flush with panic. After a few minutes his tongue had reduced by about half its initial swelling and he could breathe a little bit better. It was still an off-color though; whatever he had eaten had left pumpkin-orange splotches all over his tongue and they did not look like they were going to recede. Another few minutes and his tongue would be back to its normal shape. Note to self: do not eat random funghi just because it looks like candy.

"I themk its gedding bedder," he slurs.

Lithos tested the strength of his tongue by raising the tip, flexing the muscle with a run across his teeth, and while it was a bit sore (especially if he tried to wiggle it) the appendage was still attached and working. He let out a long sigh and sank backwards against the dirt, his little round rump finding a spot to rest (albeit not very comfortably) while the tension melted from his shoulders.

"Thad was scary!" Lithos adds, looking upon the stranger with a vaguely apologetic expression on his face; he had probably alienated them, or at least unnerved them in his time of need. He cast a glance towards the mushroom stalks that were missing their caps and saw they had withered as soon as he'd munched on their flat heads, but glared all the same. "Those things are not very tasty."

The creature was right, they didn't look good at all. Different shapes, different colors, all smelling musty and some occasionally fluorescing different colors. Not a single part of them looked edible - but he'd tried anyway, being a hungry juvenile that needed food to grow. He would know for next time to avoid strange mushrooms.

"You're right," he murmurs pathetically, frowning. "They look funny! They don't taste very good either. But I'm hungry!"

He pouted for a moment, huffing and puffing softly to himself. The irritation had faded from his tongue by now so Lithos' speech wasn't slurred any longer. He did wonder if it had been a bad mushroom, singular. Maybe if he tried a different cluster of them he'd feel better...? No, bad idea. It wasn't like he could prophesize the end result but after that terrible introduction to the local flora, he should be more cautious.

"Do you know where to find yummy things?" He asks the cat, rather insistent.