ORIGIN

Booker nodded, the movement a little stunted by his position. "Ex-act-lee. Night-mares are about stuff that hasn't happened, but you're scared could, I think." He giggled at the foal's gesture, fur sticking straight up in a ridiculous display after the fact.

The numbat quieted at his friend's next words, thinking it over. "Maybe they made everything," he wondered, eyeing Khloros' wounds. "Do you remember gettin' in a fight, or did you just... have all those?" At this, he gestured to a nearby patch of raw skin.

At the mention of a 'peryton,' Booker perked up a bit, lifting his head from its resting spot and peering up at his friend's softly glowing eyes, worried. "This... pery-ton. Raf-eye-ell. How does he know what's normal and what's not?" Somewhat of a scientist at heart, the numbat didn't like this 'Rafael' simply based on this second-hand statement. It was disheartening, to know a Gembound was out there who thought there were differences so great between them.

Booker huffed, shaking his head and meeting the foal's eyes. "Did he say why he thought he was better?" He skirted around the fact that the peryton had also said Khloros himself was better - that didn't bother him much, to be honest. After all, all of Booker's friends were better than him. That was just, in his mind, a given.

Khloros thought about Booker's words, and then after awhile, shook his head.

"He said creators made us that way," he replied, quoting words if not meaning. He wasn't sure what the meaning had been, anyway. He still wasn't sure about anything. Especially whether any of it even mattered.

He eyed Booker. "I don't... think I am better. Than you," he said at length, with the quiet confidence of a youngster who's just come to a logical conclusion at last. Then he turned, inspecting the wounds along his flank, pondering the rest of what the numbat had said. Bar the nightmare-stuff, that was.

No, he was wondering about the gross patches on his hide. Truth be told, it didn't bother him. It felt right, somehow; it felt like him. He supposed it was something like Booker's affinity with mushrooms, and as he turned back to his friend, he wondered how best to phrase this.

"I think... it's how my friends live," he tried, quietly. Yes, this sounded right. "I don't think they... they can live in rock and. And things. Like your mushrooms do. I think I'm home," he said. He was their home. Yes. That was right.

Then he eyed Booker, uncertainly. If he was their home, then... what should they do about it?

I still want to be their home...

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Creator? The term didn't ring a bell for Booker, but he shrugged it off - the peryton could've used any term he liked; it had all become meaningless when the creature had tried to put himself on a pedestal. Shaking out of his thoughts, the numbat peered up at his friend, worrying his tail between his front paws. "I never thought you did," he assured, patting at the foal's flank. After all, Khloros had been nothing but kind to him, and in Booker's world, that surmounted to a strong bond of trust. The foal had never said or done anything to imply that he agreed with the peryton he'd met, and Book chirruped, wanting very much to go find the older Gembound and teach him a lesson.

Khloros' words brought him out of the daydream, and Booker hummed, scientific curiosity making his ears perk up and his back straighten. "That makes sense," he agreed, studying the foal's wounds. After all, the numbat stored his mushroom friends' spores in his fur - he couldn't imagine how much more effective his connection could be if they lived inside of him. Noticing his friend's worried gaze, he grinned, shaking his tail to release a small cloud of spores. "So they are like my friends, just in a diff'rent place! Then... may-be the wounds aren't bad," he wondered. After all, the foal had said they didn't hurt. "Maybe it's a way for your friends to gather, like mush-rooms in dark spots!"

Khloros tossed his head lightly up and down, the way a playful horse does, except it seemed to be a sort of exuberant nod of agreement.

"I think... so. Think you are right." Then he stared at Booker for a moment before launching himself sideways out of the little home-cave. There was a clatter of hooves and then he was back--and gone again, voicing a shrill but soft whinny. He seemed to be inviting Booker to play, filled with one of those sudden floods of energy that very young creatures get now and again; he danced away, tossing his legs about and half-leaping into the air before rushing back, bolting around and away again.

Suddenly, nostrils flaring and breath huffing, he paused to stare at Booker. His legs were splayed, glowing eyes wide.

"Play with me?" he asked, hopefully.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Booker jumped when the foal first started to gallop, but at his words he grinned, whiskers twitching. "Ab-so-loot-ley!" The numbat darted under his friend's outstretched legs, giggling all the way, and scurried to just outside of his home's entrance, using his speed to start the game. "Let's play... ah! Hide and seek! I hide," he explained, "and you find me! Then you hide, and I find you!" He didn't seem to know that a horse would generally have a harder time hiding than a numbat, and tried to kick up a bit of cover with the spores coating his fur.

post roll:
Instead of covering his position, however, the movement sent a flurry of spores in his nose, evening out the playing field. After all, a sneezing numbat was quite easy to follow! Scurrying in lazy figure-eights, Booker laughed between sneezes, oblivious to the failure of the spell. "Come'n get me!"

Khloros pricked up his little ears, trotting along behind Booker--peering right out behind him as he bolted off, oblivious to the rules of the game. But his little friend was fast, and the blinking black foal soon realized that he had no idea where he'd gone.

"Booker?" he squeaked hoarsely--then remembered the rules. Oh! He had to FIND him!

The foal bolted clumsily forward, rocking to and fro on overly-long legs, thrusting his equine head into a clump of grass, then mushrooms... and then he spotted Booker, sneezing and doing figure-eights.

With a squeal of excitement and a tossing shake of his head he scampered over, leaned down to nip lightly at the spore-coated number, and then he dashed away. "MY TURN!" he cried.

Khloros made his way back up the tunnel a ways, skidding with a clatter of hooves to try hiding in a dark spot between two boulders.

Once in his spot, Khloros fell still.

Oddly still. Eerily still.

He was like a pool of shadow in the dark, and but for one thing, he may as well have become invisible, a shadow of death in the darkness.

Exceeeeeept that his eyes were still glowing. They were bright, they were obvious, and they cast a slight shine over the section of tunnel that he was staring out of--and he was oblivious.

"Come and find me!" he called, nearly giggling.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Booker giggled at the feel of Khloros' muzzle on his back, closing his eye to give the foal a head start. After the sound of hooves on rock faded a bit, he looked around, trying to focus on where his friend had gone. Sneaking along, the numbat sniffed and scurried, ears standing at attention when he heard Khloros' voice. He hurried towards where the echo had started, trotting along happily, and grinned when he saw two light green orbs, half-hidden by two of Polaris' boulders. Booker snuck through the shadows, trying to be quiet - though his laughter probably gave him away.

Finally, he got close enough to tap the horse's front hoof and took off in the opposite direction, heading for one of the miniature tunnels that wound through the walls of the cave, all of them connected and short. He tried to kick off some more spores behind him to hide his route a bit, and reached one of the tunnels quickly, the entrance barely big enough for even him. It would come out near his home, he knew, and giggled, the sound echoing through the passage and coming out both the entrance and the exit.

post roll:
The cloud of spores he kicked up behind him obscured the tunnel for the moment, though they would dissipate soon - and if Khloros happened to stumble through them, Booker might find out another use for them.

Khloros jerked as something tapped his hoof, but a giggle gave Booker away, and a moment later he was charging headlong after him--leaving behind a peal of whinnies.

Head-first he plowed into--and through--the spores, and then paused, prancing in shaky circles and sneezing. After a moment he danced in another circle, peering this way and that.

But... his voice is everywhere?!

Confused by the echoes, Khloros ran here and there for several long moments, until he'd nearly tired himself out. He snuffled at the crack in the tunnel wall where the laughter rang out, then sprang away with a snort and a shake of his mane as he realized that Booker wasn't there.

Finally, with a shrill and hollow neigh, he called out his defeat.

"I give up! Booker! Booker? Where are you?"

He turned, trotting along and tossing his head up and down, eventually folding his way into Booker's normal little home-cave, plopping down on the moss to rest, his sides heaving with the effort of catching his breath from all of the running and laughing.

"Booook-eeeeer!"

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Tumbling out the other side of the tunnel, Booker tried to catch his breath, still laughing between pants. "Comin', Khlor," he called out, getting up with a huff. Before he could take the first step towards his friend, he stopped with a gasp. He'd blinked, but there had been - something. Slowly, the numbat closed his eye, flinching in shock when the something came into focus. It was like when he reached out to his mushroom friends, except the light was in the shape of - "Khlor?" After a moment of wavering, confused, Booker followed the shape, creeping closer to it. When he opened his eye, he blinked, whiskers twitching, as the sight of his home, complete with his friend, came into view.

"Uh, Khlor, I think somethin' weird is goin' on," he mumbled, switching between his open eye, aided by the monocle, and his closed eye, bright with the shining figure of the foal. Stumped, the numbat thought back to their game, and his eye widened. "Oh! The spores - I think they let me see you like I see the mush-rooms!" He grinned, chittering with excitement, and sat down beside his panting friend. "This is so cool! I wonder how far I can see you from?" He didn't particularly want to get far enough to test it, so Booker settled for tapping his toes against the spongy floor of his home.

Khloros peered curiously at Booker, and immediately wondered if he could do the same thing with his friends. Before he could ponder it too deeply, though, he heard a distant sound--he wasn't sure what, but surely something interesting.

With a few blinks of his glowing eyes, he peered down to Booker.

"What was that?" he asked, lifting one little hoof into the air. Then he peered off down the tunnel, again.

He was sickly, there was no doubt about that; after even one little game, he was tired, limbs weary. Yet... he was curious. And with sudden determination, little tail swishing, he trotted unsteadily off toward the noise.

"I'm gonna go see!"

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD