ORIGIN

Kimera wandered aimlessly, her eyes down and her paws taking her wherever. She was so... bored. But she was also too shy to really speak to anyone without her father introducing them, so...

The chimera bunched up her legs and jumped up, latching onto a tree branch and pulling herself up, recalling her tiger instincts as she stretched out to nap, her tail hanging down. Eridanus was nice, at least, and she herself was small and quick enough to get away from anything that frightened her.

But again, she was bored. Being chased down by an angry mother deer sounded like fun at this point. Sigh.

@Aran

Aran was wandering where the group called home. He found it nice, that the group ended up settling where he spended most of his time anyway. Really that was great. Even while he couldn't see, Aran could generally make his way through the place relatively easy due to living there for so long. it didn't mean he didn't trip over himself sometimes. But soon, he would be able to see again. At least for the most part. The Collector said there might be some things wrong with it but Aran didn't care. As long as he could see things it didn't matter.

He was searching, for a gembound that lived in the group. Being asked to share his information... it didn't matter much. It just meant that he would be doing what the Collector asked for the trade. Which was good, at least. The Edenfolk were more important for this, though, since he resided with them and they were trying to make things. A town, as the butterfly had called it.

So he was walking.

@Kimera

Kimera lifted her head at the sound of hoofsteps, her long ears flicking up. Someone was here.

"Hello?", she asked, standing up on her branch to face the deer trail beneath her.

Oh, it was just a lesser- wait, no. It wasn't. It was Aran, judging by his green-tipped antlers, the ones SHeng had described to her.

"... Aran?", she asked, jumping down, her tail falling onto the ground behind her.

Goodness- she wished Sheng was here to provide somewhere to hide behind... she was so nervous all of a sudden, so unexplainably exposed without her father.

@Aran

A voice he vaguely knew made Aran turn his head up at what appeared to be a tree branch, though it did hold someone on top of it. If the voice was anything to go by, it must have been Sheng's kid. He was pretty sure that's who it was, anyway. it was hard to tell on voice alone since they'd only hardly talked in passing. At least with most of the others he knew their voices well enough. Taking his first guess at the name, he replied a somewhat greeting.

"Kimera, hello." he had no reason to be rude to any of those in the group, even if it was a shy child.

Aran wondered if she would gain anything from knowing this information, but maybe she would share it with the rest of the group. A child wouldn't have been his first pick to share information with, but it didn't matter anyway.

@Kimera

Kimera waved gently with her little rat peets, the kit-pup-calf-hatchling daring to move forward just a bit, before regretting it immediately. If she backed away, she'd just seem rude, now!

"Um... are you out here alone?", she finally asked, "I can walk with you if you feel lonely."

She shuffled her paws and looked up at Aran, her eyes big and wide and innocent. She finally moved forward to stand beside him, nearly half his size still.

"Um... how has your day been?", she asked softly.

@Aran

"Yes." He replied to the question of being alone. Though was he lonely? Not really. Aran was used to being alone, he was alone as a child, being alone now was... Nothing compared to that. Besides, if he really wanted, he could find someone to hang out with. He had reasons to be wandering around, though, and that was to share his information with other gembounds at the command of the Collector. So he could fix his sight, somehwhat. However the strange guy planned to do that with a lesser.

"It's been fine." He replied, glazed eyes not really catching much of Kimera's movements.

"Yours?" He questioned.

How was Aran supposed to bring it up anyway?

@Kimera

Kimera nodded gently and nudged his leg, having been told of Aran's... predicament. She lead the way forward, pressing her tail against his legs so he knew where she was.

"I'm okay. Dad's doing weird leader stuff and told me to go outside and entertain myself... though I haven't been successful," she said unhappily, "I don't know... I just... There aren't any other kids, and we're all going to be moving everything soon, so it's been busy but I haven't even been able to help or anything."

She looked up at Aran, ears perked up, "Hey... since you aren't doing anything, could we do something?"

@Aran

Aran wasn't going to admit that he knew why Kimera was doing the thing with her tail - leading him around as if he were a sheep being brought to a hunt. He wasn't though. The kid was just trying to help with his sight issues, and even if he could see the muddled shapes of everything in front of him, he could not see the details that would give him the knowledge he needed to actually know what he was doing. It didn't stop the deer from moving through the caves, though.

"You could always ask one of the gembounds to explore with you." He replied to that. Most kids he'd met had exploring streaks, and always went out of their way to get into danger. Kimera was kind of shy, though, so he wondered if she even wanted to go like that.

"Do you want to see something cool?" The deer responded to the last question. Answering a question with another question. How nice.

@Kimera

Kimera, ironically, was the one to trip and fall over a tree root, landing on her front with a startled 'honk!' Just like her father.

She picked herself up and flushed, embarrassed, "... I'm fine here. I don't want to leave."

She wasn't very fond with that idea. If she took another child, they'd try to wrestle or get them into trouble, and an adult would worry over her. She was better off alone.

"Cool? Like what?" she asked, peering up at Aran.

@Aran

Aran couldn't tell that the kid fell until the plants around them made a crunching noise and the kid made her own sound of distaste for falling right onto her face. He didn't mention it, or ask if she was okay. The kid seemed just fine, getting right back up and continuing their conversation.

"I suppose." Though the group would be moving soon anyway, wouldn't they? Kimera would be forced to leave unless she stayed behind.

Aran supposed the shy kid was bored anyway, and sharing his information with anyone from the Edenfolk would be a good idea regardless of who it was. Even if he wasn't sure if Kimera would even use this information in the slightest. With the bag that swung from one of his antlers, Aran lowered his head to set it to the ground.

"Why don't you take a look at the scrolls and tell me what you think."

@Kimera