ORIGIN

It was warmer here, Indigo noticed, as she swam through the tunnels connecting underneath the caves. This one was twisted, slightly inclined-- not entirely unlike the tunnel to Fornax.

And Fornax was nice. Therefore, this one would be, too.

The tunnel opened into a deep mass, laced with rocks. The bottom was hotter, almost uncomfortably so. When she rose herself upwards she broke the surface of the water and found the air salty, and a little drier than she remembered Fornax being.

She craned her head back to look at the ceiling, and then towards the bay, with soft sand and rocky structures. And then a geyser exploded not too far away from her, and as the hot water sprayed her face, she vanished underneath the surface again.

Two minutes later, the naga resurfaced closer to the bay, half-alarmedly propelling herself to the smooth beach. When the waves tumbled into the shoreline she came scrambling with them, half-coiled up to herself and half-scrambling at the floor under her, crawling up onto dry land.

Okay. So not a great start.

It took a moment for Indigo to settle again. Her muscles untangled and she unravelled herself from-- herself, sprawling more comfortably out. It was nice on the land, at least-- warm, but a little dry. It seemed mostly ideal for warming herself up, though.

She could stay here for a while-- but not without some precautions. Indigo took a breath and focused, though as unfocused as she was, casting seemed like a challenge. And, also, she felt like she was drying out, especially with the sand.

Nope. Nope.

Nope. Back into the water for her.

Just as quickly as she scrambled onto land she was scrambling back out, pausing only when she was up to her belly (the one nearest her head) in salty water, head twisted to stare at the beach.

Maybe just a few more minutes, then she could try again.

An odd whistle-- not like anything Indigo had heard before --caught her attention as she settled in the warm water, glancing around to spot Haven fall out the sky and crash into the sand. The naga recoiled and went slithering further into the water, watching with huge eyes.

Her first thought-- when Haven picked herself back up and started talking --was that she had no idea what a God was.

The second was she had no idea what made someone food or not, either. Indigo cast a glance over herself, "I could probably be food for something," she pointed out much more mildly than any child had reason to be. Curiously, she started snaking closer.

And then she was tumbling unceremoniously back to shore, eyes on the laceration. Blood. She knew this. "Oh, uhh," she began, half-distracted. "I'm Indigo Eyes." This name likely came from the fact that, as Indigo was fairly certain, her eyes were a bluish-purple.

She barely acknowledged Haven's apologies, however-- perhaps not noticing or understanding, or perhaps just not caring. Instead, the little naga pointed down towards Haven's leg. "Is that meant to be doing that?" She asked, half-certain that no one was meant to be leaking.

And so, Indigo Eyes learned a very important lesson. Everything was food for something.

At least, it was probably important. Indigo was filing this information away for later as her eyes kept going between Haven and the wound on their leg, her lips pulling back into a little frown. She didn't exactly know what to say to this second part (being able to just ask about it hadn't crossed her mind in the slightest), but she supposed that if Haven was certain it'd be fine, then it'd probably be fine.

She was still staring at the wound when Haven bumped into her. With muted surprise, she flinched before turning to look at the dragon. She watched them as they lifted one of her hands-- as damp and sort-of-sticky as it was --and waited for all of twelve seconds before deciding she appreciated her own space remaining her own.

"I don't know," said Indigo, who had no concept of what beauty was like. Her mouth opened and then shut afterwards, as she promptly realised she had no idea how to actually respond to this declaration. Pinprick discomfort touched her fingers as she flexed three of them out, one thumb curling into her palm.

There was a long pause. "Okay," came the reply at last, before she moved quickly on. "How do you see without eyes?"

'Not very well,' she guessed the answer-- surely, Haven had been aware of her presence somehow, though, and as Indigo went shifting back onto the sand, inspecting it, she shuddered a little. Magic, maybe? Speaking of-- she tried to cast again without speaking.

There was a slight sheen of bluish light that glittered against her chest before the very moisture from the air was sucked into her skin. The tacky, sort-of-dampness became a slicker, watery mucus, and Indigo felt some kind of relief.

The naga settled herself down, comfortably. Her long tail went coiling around her and her arms rested on her own spine as she watched Haven, waiting for their answer.

Indigo glanced off into the water. It made sense enough, she supposed-- though it was hard to spot exactly where certain things were in the water just by their movement alone. Air wasn't the same as water, though-- maybe it was just easier for creatures sensitive to that sort of thing.

Still, it seemed... inconvenient. What if something were to eat Haven while she was touching them to look at them?

"Can't you use magic?" Indigo asked. Her tone-- unintentionally --was cold, bordering on a lot more demanding than a child had any right being. "It's what I do. You can see them... move, and beat. It helps with hunting." With this, she managed to balance it out a bit. Gradually, subtly, slowly.

A long pause. "It makes sense," the naga murmured, looking between the dragon and the shoreline. "But it seems like a lot of trouble."

And then back again, studying Haven's face, specifically where the eyes should have been. They didn't seem particularly injured, just-- well, not there. Why? "Why does everyone look so different?"

What she really meant was 'why does nobody look like me?' but that type of specificness hadn't quite crossed her mind yet-- just that she hadn't met two people that were capable of speech and also looked the same.

Indigo Eyes considered this for a moment, only humming in response to the use of magic. That much made sense to her-- she was unsure why it hadn't been mentioned before, but such were the hyperfixations of tiny details when it came to children.

In a moment of unintentional mirroring, a fish-hooked finger went to her bottom lip and began tapping on it, too. She mulled over this explaination and/or theory for a long while as her nail raked along the thin skin of her mouth.

There was a feeling of disssatisfaction with this answer. Of lonlieness that weighed down her heart to her gut. She'd never seen anything other than nameless, mute fish in the water, never anyone else. "Why?"

"Shouldn't we all be made the same, so we can all survive every room? Why can only one other person go in the water, even just for a little bit, when the water is all around us?"

Magic aside-- it seemed... wrong. But if this were a critique on how the creatures in the caves were designed or a child subtly crying about being ultimately alone was vastly unclear, made only more foggy by the fact that she didn't voice these concerns at all, that having interesting friends was all well and good but she could scarcely talk to them without drying out.

... speaking of. Another failed cast and Indigo began to feel a lot more drier than she was. She took to slithering along the sand, closer to where the waves tumbled over onto the cave floor. She sprawled herself out like a prissy 90s teenager on the phone, laying on her belly to let the water wash over her back and keeping her torso and head propped up with her forearms laying flat on the bank.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to me," she murmured, with the implication that literally anything made sense in her head. It did not.