TEMA,the Voidkin There can be love in Chaos; just follow the Void
Tema made her way into camp slowly, a woolly deer hanging from her jaws with its legs dragging through the mud. She was trying to hold her head as high as she could to keep it clean, but the weight of it was becoming a strain as she took her final steps towards what was roughly the center of their encampment. A gentle thump was heard as the bear opened her mouth, dropping the meal on what little foliage she could find to try and keep it as clean as she could. Clearly her plans to do so were more than a little ruined seeing the mud caked onto the lessers wool.
Tema threw herself up on her hind legs, swaying a bit before she found her balance. It wasn't often she stood at her full height, but she wanted to make her presence known incase anyone had wandered away from camp before she had arrived. Throwing her head back, Tema let out a roar that sent birds flying from the trees and probably scared at least a couple of the Voidcrawlers that tended to sleep in.
"Rise and shine!" She called out, setting back on all fours.
She didn't expect too many happy greetings after such an obnoxious awakening, but she had a feeling that it was the only way she was getting anyone out of bed with the Voidmother missing. Hopefully her gifts of food and trinkets would help brighten their moods a little.
The water hears and understands The ice does not forgive
A single blue eye slid open, peering at Tema. The roar hadn't startled her, mostly because she hadn't slept a wink and had heard Tema's approach.
Carja pushed herself out of the mud and shook herself off, brushing at some especially stubborn pieces of mud that stuck to her scales. She lumbered forward, wing-claws on the ground, pushing her along. She was tired, lethargic, and scared for Sunny, but something else weighed on her mind.
"Hi," she said softly, brushing up against Tema and flopping down, pressing her head into the bear's flank.
She used to be able to snuggle into her fur and be wrapped in the bear's warm embrace, but now that she was so big, it was nearly impossible. She missed being small, sometimes.
"What's this?", she asked, peering at the trinkets and the deer, wondering what they were for.
There was a chill in Cetus that day, and Kitty had been laying perfectly still on a high branch for a while as she watched a Hallowed Caller preen its feathers a couple yards away. Periodically, it would throw its head back and cackle at a bird in a nearby tree. She was lying still enough that it had not noticed her -- or at least was under the assumption that she was still asleep -- and Kitty had been thinking enviously about its wings and freedom.
Her eyes had slid closed in the early morning light, relaxed and somewhat drowsy, as she imagined it -- color and light spreading out in front of her as she soared over Pegasus, but not as the armed featherbeast -- as herself, and then as a Caller, and then as a creature like Carja. She tore between the trees of Pegasus, dipped low to touch tall wildflowers that waved at her and--
With a screech, Kitty was startled awake (and the bird was startled away). She slipped off her branch and clawed madly at it as she started to drop, dangling for a moment and then falling onto the one below it and gripping it tightly as her heart hammered in her throat. After she'd stopped shaking like a leaf, she slowly began to make her descent down the tree. She walked across a bottom-most branch and threw a small stone half-heartedly at Tema before draping herself back over it.
"That's not enough for all of us," she said grumpily, gesturing towards the lone deer. Carja herself could easily eat two of them, and Tema could probably eat the whole thing by herself. Binh could do it justice as well, though Kitty was more than satisfied with picking up scraps from a larger sibling's meal -- though she was capable of catching birds and mice herself.
TEMA,the Voidkin There can be love in Chaos; just follow the Void
Greeting the pair with apologies for both the rude awakening and her disappearance through the night and early morning, Tema stepped aside to make the view of the trinkets on the ground more clear.
"We're all tired and worried, so I thought I'd ease the burden a little since I couldn't sleep anyway." Her voice was quieter now, almost sheepish, like a child who had tried to make their mother pancakes but burnt them. "I planned to gather more, but I didn't want you to wake and worry where I was. I'll go out again soon." She added before gesturing towards the trinkets set to lean against the deer. Kitty was right of course, there were some rather large gembounds in the group. Tema wasn't even sure when she'd hit her full height.
"I have these, too. A pretty stone for decorating and a strange gem for story-finding." She had kept the gemstone in her satchel, a present for the Voidmother's return, but she offered forth the amazonite helm and grey stone with silver-shining lines marbled through it. They might have been gathered only as a small distraction and pick-me-up for the group, but Tema couldn't help but be curious about the origins of the strange helm. It looked like it was designed for the faun she had met some time ago, a flat-muzzled creature who walked on her hindlegs alone.
Tema found herself hiding a soft yawn as her long night finally began to hit her now that she was home with her friends. Perhaps she could have slept after all if she hadn't wandered, but now she would hold herself awake for a while longer to feed her sleepless friends. Besides, the adventure had kept her mind off of things for the most part. Hopefully the other Voidcrawlers would be just as grateful for the small distraction; she'd rather them be upset at her than some unknown adversary for the moment.
OOC Notes: Other Voidcrawlers are still welcome to join in and chat, it's just a busy-body thread for those in a posting mood
The water hears and understands The ice does not forgive
The dragon wasn't hungry, having caught two marsh striders the day before and gobbled them down ravenously, which would tide her over for a few days, her metabolism breaking it down so thoroughly that almost nothing was wasted.
"Shinies?", she said immediately, peering at the helmet and the stone, her eyes growing big.
She picked up the helmet and cooed, holding it in her talons as delicately as she could. She turned it this way and that, the tip of her tail starting to wag in excitement. She put it on top of her head, the thing sitting awkwardly, but she grinned, her noodley body wiggling happily.
She bumped her head into Tema's side and purred, "Thank you."
Carja curled up and put the helmet down, admiring it and peering at her reflection in it, blinking each of her eyes independently and giggling, easily entertained.
Kitty slunk forward to inspect the treasures, taking the stone with its pretty webbing after Carta had picked up her helmet. She looked them both over curiously, and then raised her head. "... I can look at their pasts," she said, already hating herself for offering it. "I-If you'd like." She glanced at Carja's helmet, and then back down at her rock. One of them was sure to have a more interesting history -- she just... was really hoping that this would actually work with her. Or, even better, that Carja would say no.
Still, none of this was betrayed in Kitty's features, especially not as she started to turn the stone over under her paw before briefly holding it up to whatever passed for light in the murk of Cetus. It was a miserable place, really -- she couldn't fathom why the Voidmother liked it, but then again, she didn't have fur to keep clean.
TEMA,the Voidkin There can be love in Chaos; just follow the Void
Tema let out a short purr to match Carja's as the dragon nuzzled into her fur. It was times like these that made the bear happiest, purrs pouring from her chest easier each time she saw her friends. Family? The two words seemed to work interchangeably in her mind when it came to the Voidcrawlers. Of course she was closer to some than others, but ultimately she would happily give her life to protect any one of them.
"I am curious of their stories," Tema slid into the conversation, her eagerness to learn overriding everything else. "But they're yours and I did just wake you and you can always investigate them on your own time..." She caught herself, quieting as her tired mind rambled. "I'm glad you like them!" She returned to the main point, really just glad to have their attention for a bit.
A clump of mud fell from her fur, reminding her once more about the grime. It wasn't uncommon to be muddy in their cave, but her encounter had left her with a rather thick coating that reached pretty far up her legs. She'd need to bathe before she slept. And hunt. She hadn't forgotten what Kitty had mentioned.
The water hears and understands The ice does not forgive
Carja peered at her reflection and poked her tongue out, tail wagging. She perked up at Kitty's offer and held her helmet out, chirping happily.
"Can you do mine?", she asked excitedly, setting the helmet down before Kitty.
She bumped Tema gently and cooed, "You should sleep, Tema, I'll bet you're tired after the hunt. I can get us more food."
She smiled kindly as she looked down at the two, tail wagging again. Oh how she loved her friends unconditionally. They could commit murder and she'd still love them.
Kitty shrugged. She'd gotten herself into this mess, no real way to get out of it. Might as well go through with her little offer. She moved over to Carja's helmet and placed a paw gently on top of it, breathing in and out through her nose as her eyes fell closed. She was already coming up with a convincing lie in case this power of hers didn't cooperate -- it had missed a couple times already, not that she'd ever admit to that.
Her entire body went stiff, locking up and immobilizing her as it always did when she had one of her visions. Panic spiked through her, and she could nearly feel it -- stabbing out with the spear as she watched helplessly from above, desperately wanting to surge forward and help but knowing that this was hopeless. When the spiders struck, she nearly screamed, and then she jerked away abruptly, breathing heavily and shaking in every limb.
Nothing she could have come up with would have compared to that.
"S-Spiders killed it," she rasped, shaking her head. "... S-So many spiders..."
Kitty's magic worked perhaps too well. She went completely prone as she looked back in the history of this helm with such clarity that it felt real.
At first, the scenery didn't change. Mist still combed its fingers through the conifers, and the signature scent of musk filled her nostrils with every breath. The frame abruptly smeared and jolted across the cave, though, to a dimly-lit arrangement of stones. It formed a sort of lean-to, albeit a large one. Strands of pale spider's silk stood stark against the blackness of within.
A shadow fell onto the scene, hunching over in the mud. What appeared to be its flanks were already heaving, and the scent of sweat filled the air. It rose to its feet to form an imposingly tall silhouette. Armor gleamed along the humanoid creature's upper body: a chestplate, pauldrons, and the very helm being surveyed. It was pock-marked and worn already.
The frame smeared again, and now there was the sound of metal shearing through carapace; of low panting and numerous deer spiders hissing in their assault. The creature was brandishing a poleaxe, now, catching one of the enormous arachnids upon the end of it. It smeared the twitching lesser along the ground, the Oily-black sputtering from it mixing with the mud. Then, it swung again and again at the waves of assailants, at the thick coating of webs.
Whatever the reason for battle (to get to something... ? someone? Its face had not been glimpsed even once...) the humanoid fought on and on—despite the broken fangs jutting out from between armor plates and soft, uncovered hide.
Its movements slowed, and so did what Kitty witnessed. All sound became muffled, and a vignette drifted in on the edges of her own vision as a bystander to all this. The sucking thump! of the strange warrior's body in the mire was no louder than one of Tema's footfalls. The spiders crowded in, tugging off what they could not eat.
The helm clattered off to its then-final resting place, and Kitty, at last, was thrust back into reality.
![[Image: l87nhNk.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/l87nhNk.gif)