ORIGIN

The foal peered, ears flicking forward as he watched Booker do his thing. He started to tell him that yes, his stone had flashed--but now there were succulent-looking mushrooms again dotting the area around the little fellow.

Khloros slowly staggered up, tottering over on his spindly foal's legs, to nibble on them. He whuffled contently and swished his little bush of a tail as he tasted the things--they were good, he had no words for them, but they were good. After he had eaten a few he stopped, raising his head and standing unsteadily for a few moments, eyes closed in contentment. Then he gave a little burp, and turned to look down at the numbat.

"Yes. You glowed." He looked around, then, taking in all the sights again--the shining ceiling, the throne, the tower. He wanted to know what it was. What it all was. With a lurch he began to stumble off toward the throne, letting out a soft and gentle nicker as he went. "What are these? ...What are they for?" Perhaps he'd forgotten that he'd already asked these things, or maybe he wasn't yet satisfied with the lack of answers. Either way, it was clear that his curiosity was driving him, and he trudged on doggedly, hooves clicking over the rock.

He kept his gaze on his goal, and soon enough he had reached the throne. He snorted softly again, glancing curiously to Booker before raising one foot to scrape at the rock. Fibrous hoof material beneath his foot left streaks of grey behind.

It felt like... Well, like stone.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Booker chirped happily up at the foal, glad to be able to help. After all, for something as small as himself, it was rather difficult to provide any sort of service to a world full of gigantic beasts. At Khloros' words, he squeaked in excitement, patting the edges of where his gem punctured through skin and bone happily. "Ah, that's so cool! Maybe that's why the mush-rooms are all glowy - maybe it's 'cause I'm glowy too!" Ecstatic to have found this link between him and his fungal friends, tenuous logic as it may have been, the numbat eagerly hopped after the foal, darting in and out of cracks in ruined walls, over and under boulders and half-carved rubble.

The question made Booker pause, and he pretended to give it some thought, but in reality, he, frankly, had no idea what any of the structures in Orion had been for. "Maybe this used to be somebody's home?" The answer was tentative at best, and, determined to find out more for his traveling companion, the young Gembound scurried up the side of the throne in question, coming to a stop on one of its arms. "I bet you can see a bunch of stuff from way up here," he offered as another possibility, trying to climb up to the top. Almost falling a few (dozen) times, Booker finally hauled himself up to the throne's crest, collapsing against the cool stone with a triumphant squeak.

The sights around him, blurry and out of focus as they were, made him gasp. "Khol, Khol, you gotta see this! From up here you can see the whole room, almost!"

The foal blinked dully at Booker, and finally--after staring blankly for a time--seemed to realize that he was being beckoned. Like a shuffling zombie he made his way up into the seat of the throne, where he did his best to stand on his hind legs. This lasted only a brief moment before his young muscles gave out and he dropped back to all fours, staggering a bit.

He turned in circles, gazing up at the roof, and out at the room as a whole, his ghostglow eyes wide.

"Who knows... what it is?" he nearly whispered, awed. Were there scholars who could tell him its history? What it all meant? Where there historians who'd catalogued it all? Or maybe it only looked old and dusty and crumbling. Maybe--

"Do... others... live here? Use--this?" he asked hesitantly, turning to peer down at the throne beneath him.

He wasn't stepping on somebody else's stuff, was he?

He peered worriedly at his half-blind numbat guide.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Booker, just as caught up in the sights of the ruined city as Khloros was, took a moment to answer - and when he did, it was with a muted tone of awe. "I dunno! I've never met any-body who knew what all this stuff used to be for," he admitted, blushing a bit at, for once, not even being able to come up with a mostly-made-up answer. He couldn't come up with much for the second question, either, only offering a quiet "Well, we're not doin' anything, we're just lookin'!" and a quick wash of his whiskers.

Truthfully, his gut churned a bit at the idea of anything living in such a desolate, almost depressing place. Sure, the ceiling seemed to be alive with these "stars," but everything else was in disarray and disrepair. Still, he chirped at Khloros when the foal looked up at him, and made a show of rooting around on the top of the throne. "If somebody did live here, dontcha think they'da come out by now?" Satisfied with his own argument, Booker continued his search...

post roll:
And a small glint on the far end of the throne's top caught his eye. Immediately he scurried forward, a packrat by nature, and reverently picked up the item. It was miniscule, edges rounded and secured by a strip of silver to a tiny length of chain. The center of the circular shiny was transparent, and Booker looked through it with his working eye curiously. Eye dilating and contracting to correct itself, he gasped, hopping up and down in place and looking down at his companion, bit of glass still clutched in his hands and held up to his eye. "I-I can see you, Khol! Everything's all sharp!" Dazzled, the tiny numbat collapsed back onto his rump, gazing through the object, utterly fascinated.

[ Booker has found a monocle! ]

The foal lifted his head, peering and sniffing. He was uncertain if the numbat simply could not pronounce "Khloros," or if "Khol" was some sort of other title--but it was similar, wasn't it? He pondered this, briefly, unfamiliar with the concept of a nickname.

"What is. Khol?" he asked in his gently hoarse horse voice. Then he curled up, dropping onto spindly knees on the seat of the throne, watching while Booker sat and eyed... everything.

Wait, why was his eye shining? Why was he saying everything was sharp? He tilted his head, blinking up with concern. "Sharp? Are you... hurt?"

Had his little friend and guide somehow harmed his eye even further? The foal extended his neck to sniff worriedly upwards, nostrils flaring toward the back of the throne and the tiny creature perched atop it.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Booker, thoroughly entranced by his newfound shiny, took a moment to answer, grinning as he did and waving off the concern with a free back paw. "Book-er is fine! " He giggled at the short burst of warm air that the foal's snuffling created, and craned his neck to look down on Khloros, eye magnified through the monocle's thick glass. "I'm better than fine! See, norm-all-ee every-thing's all... blurry? And when I look through this shiny," he started, tapping the edge of the monocle, "everything looks all clear! I can see your paws from way up here!" Granted, said 'paws' were hooves, but it seemed the numbat didn't know the proper term.

Satisfied with his haul, Booker wrapped the monocle's chain around his midsection, holding the end that held the piece of glass in his mouth. Slowly, he crept his way back down to the throne's arm, releasing the chain to hold out his find for his companion to examine. "You can look through it too," he offered shyly, remembering the foal's earlier question and chirping. "Well, it's a..." What is it called? Oh! "It's a nick-name! I'm not very good with long names like Khol-air-ose," he admitted.

"Khlor-os," the foal corrected absently, peering up and into the monocle. It was a little bit blurry, for him, and indeed he found his eye reflecting in the glass to flash back into his sight, and shied away. After a moment, he spoke quietly.

"Too bright. Yours." With that he staggered to his feet, snuffling quietly and looking around. Everything was rocky, and hard; it was beautiful, but the throne was hardly a comfortable place to sleep. That brought a thought to mind, and he swung his head back to Booker.

"Is bright-place... soft?" he asked hopefully. Maybe this Polaris-place would be a good place to curl up, and rest. He hoped.

"Your eye... isn't good?" he then added, abruptly, stumbling closer to peer. He'd seen that one eye was kind of ruined, but why would the other eye be bad? He sniffed at the numbat again, curiously.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Booker blushed at the correction, fidgeting, but grinned at the foal's words. It felt like an acceptance, and the numbat pushed thoughts of the shiny being, most likely, someone else's, to the back of his young mind. He hurried off of the throne after Khloros, doing a lazy loop around the hooves of his companion, answering as he reached a steady matching pace. "Polaris is super soft! It's got... uh..." Green, spongy, smells good - "Moss! It's got lotsa moss, and if you get a lot of it, it's real nice to lay on," Booker offered, gaze warming at just the thought of his home.

In fact, the thought of his own bed, a thatch of moss tucked away in a quiet nook of Polaris, populated by hundreds of different mushrooms that he'd yet to test, made him even more excited to get on the road. He slowed, then stopped, trying to figure out how, exactly, to take his prize back home. An idea occurred to him, and in a flash, Book had wrapped the monocle's chain around his midsection, resting the glass piece on his back and tieing it off with a satisfied chirp. Preoccupied, he jumped a bit at Khloros' question and accompanying snuffle.

Nodding in answer, the young Gembound tried to think of a way to explain beyond yeah, it's not. "I can't see outta my left at all," though that went without saying, considering a fairly gigantic spike of harsh black opal had speared up and through it, "but my right is always kinda... weird? I think it's 'cause my head hurts," he said, mulling the idea over. "It gets worse when my head hurts worse, so." Shrugging, he started on his way again, still talking in a squeaky voice. "But it don't matter. I don't gotta see with my eyes to see!" At least, not when my mushroom friends actually show up...

His earlier weak attempts to connect with his friends had him worried, but he hid it away for now - nothing for it but to try and get back to Polaris, where he'd known the fungal population his entire (admittedly short) life.

Khloros didn't speak, at first; he simply listened, dully motionless. Then he leaned forward to idly nibble at his new friend's fur with his lips, as if nuzzling him. Then he snuffled Booker, and watched him for a moment. He seemed ready to go, energetic, excited. Impatient, even. Khloros wasn't old enough yet to be able to recognize too much in the way of body language, but the enthusiasm was difficult for even him to miss.

He turned, staggering about to peer around the cavern.

"Moss. Which--way?" He'd wait for Booker to indicate before starting to totter off toward whichever direction was indicated, focused stubbornly on getting there intact--despite his hunger, despite his illness-driven weakness.

"No way to stop pain?" he asked curiously, as they went. "If my friends find a way, do you want?"

The buzzing inside me. The crawling and curling and the rot. Maybe some of it could help.

But this thought was already half-forgotten, the foal grimly forcing himself on toward Booker's home, and the soft moss that he'd promised was waiting within.

Polaris, he'd called it.

Toward Polaris.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Dodging stuttering hooves, Booker pointed to what he hoped was the correct way to Polaris - it certainly had enough moss. The tunnel's entrance, previously hidden from view by Orion's many structures, had caught the numbat's eye when they'd both been at the throne, and he kept pace with his companion towards it, already relaxing at the mere sight of green and the soft glow that accompanied Polaris itself. As they walked - or, well, trotted and scurried, respectively - Booker mulled over his friend's question.

Could Khloros' friends help his sight? They'd seemed fine enough, if a bit overwhelming in number and in smell, but he hesitated. "If... if your friends could find a way, I would want," he confirmed slowly, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the sound of hooves clopping along stone, "but not if it hurts you to make them come out. You coughed before," he added, worried. "Looked like it woulda hurt." Booker glanced up at the foal, eyes glancing over his wounds, and the numbat's whiskers twitched anxiously. "Maybe after some-one in Polaris looks at those," he settled on, gesturing to his friend's ragged coat with a pointed tail.