It was quiet.
Nestled near the wall in a shadowy nook was a chrysalis. It was hard to notice- a tiny dark gleam in a fairly untraveled cave. But it had been steadily growing, and now it was just about time.
Time for the creature inside to awaken. It blinked into sleepy awareness.
With a seemingly earsplitting crack compared to the quiet before it, a kitten broke free of their little prison, landing unceremoniously on the ground. They were now awake, now aware of everything around them. And oh wow, Everything was so new! The stone beneath their paws. The lonely drips of moisture from the ceiling. The ever-present mist.
But most of all they felt..
Conception:
A translucent spike of crystals hidden in the soil of a frosty tunnel, miles beneath the surface. A prime sample of cerussite glistening beneath its dusty coat. The chrysalis hibernated here, tucked away from the prying eyes of travelers, for exactly a month now. Growing. Waiting. Hiding a little child form within, blissfully unaware of all the pain it'll be dealt upon its birth.
She opened her eyes.
Dark. Dark. Fluid encompassing the whole world aside from herself. She shifted a bit, the first pricks of intelligence lighting up her brain as she felt her fur swish through the fluid. Against her back: cold, hard. Rigid, unlike the rest of her enclosure. She felt the same cold-hard around her muzzle, too. This was her world, her brain said. This was her universe.
She put her hand against it's end and pushed.
Birth.
A few moments later, a slim, leggy, nearly naked baby crawled her way out of the ground. Ghostly white eyes squinted against the light, sparse blonde hairs dripping with amniotic fluid. She stumbled around blindly for a few moments before she processed that
But what she didn't notice was the unnaturally metallic tang in the air she breathed. And she never would.
A cry from far away grabbed her attention. Cold. A word. She knew words, the little gibbon realized. Words were descriptors for objects and experiences. She felt cold too. Perhaps the source of the voice will have more words?
And so she followed it. Hopping along on her oversized limbs until she found the speaker: a little black thing! A fuzzy little black thing! She liked this speaker-of-words. She opened her mouth and--
Realization.
The same crystal she hatched out of, the same hard feeling she felt in her womb- it was locked around her jaw like a gilded cage. It still had a good amount of space given she was just a child, but her mouth still banged on its floor and put a stop to her words. She whimpered a little, slouching down until she was seated firmly on the tunnel, and tried again.
And thus began the countdown to Cycle 80.
@Assistant
An answer- and a friend!
Oh! Their face! Their stone! It was like theirs, wasn't it? Jaws opened and closed experimentally within the confines of their hematite. They found that their cage didn't have a bottom. The space on the bottom was just big enough for their bottom jaw to slip through- though as they grew this was unlikely to always be the case.
But they didn't realize their key difference. That the glitter, crystalline cage around the other's jaw was deadly. A slow, creeping kind of deadly. A drop a poison a day.
And chances were, they never would. They would know the sickness, but not the cause.
But nevermind such dark things. For now, they were children, reveling in ideas, concepts, and words.
Ah, so this was the speaker. Unlike them, with their fuzzy black bod and wide, unblinking eyes, the little gibbon was not nearly as cute. Her sparse fur barely covered her skin, her gangly arms hung limply by her side, and those ghostly white eyes were more unnerving than adorable. Still, she was a child, one that was just born and curious to what this other being was.
The ape clambered onto one of the numerous grooves along the walls, feeling the chilly limestone under her fingers. It felt natural like this. Climbing onto structures, instead of dragging her limbs awkwardly across the ground. It was around this time she realized how much there was around her-- the dripping of water, the tinkling of crystals, even the faraway shuffling of some trapdoor ray or bat. Don't even tell her this is one of the barer tunnels. All the while she kept her eyes on the cat, curious, though her translucent cage didn't let much emotion through.
The stone was tossed down to the savannah cat's paws, moving the conversation from one to another.
@Assistant
Being a child- and a child just excited to see another, at that. They are more inclined to focus on the similarities, so of course they are twins! They had nearly the exact same stone after all! Never mind the fact that the other has hands instead of paws, and weird, flat ears, and sparse, golden-colored fur- they are twins now! Or at the very least, definitely friends.
Whilst the gibbon climbed, the kitten stayed on the ground. Their gaze remained on the gibbon as they climbed, but their ears twitched and rotated like satellites. Tracking every little sound- and there were many, MANY sounds. The constant dripping of water, and other, more irregular sounds. The flutter of wings and shuffling of dirt that suggested life further down the tunnel. Even their friend made sounds as they climbed higher and higher up the wall.
Childish instincts made the kitten bat at the stone, sending it skittering across the floor. It was only after a moment of staring at the pebble, tail twitching with playful intent that they realized
@Researcher
The gibbon watched the kitten bat at the stone, a lot more cool and collected than their carnivorous counterpart. They gave a sufficient response, though. They were Here. Here, in the cold place where they are alive-ing. A good reassurance to have, especially when you were just born and still figuring things out.
She pointed her pudgy fingers between herself and them, a barely visible smile on her face. Explorer. She could live with a title like that. The Explorer then pointed her finger towards the Polaris end, almost declaratively, like she was a pirate on a grand quest. Something about that end seemed... not cold-y.
And with barely a look back, that's what she did. Climbing along the steep overhangs, feeling her cold breath against her stone mirror the chilling rock beneath her hands. It was pretty here. The way the lights dangled overhead, the gentle glisten of crystals, it all gave her a very welcome introduction to life.
It was around this time she spotted some weird fuzzy shapes along the shadows. "Red," if they could be classified as a color at all. The ape paused.
@Assistant
The kitten gave the stone another couple swipes, until it went rolling out of reach. They didn't really know why, but it was fun! Their attention returned from the pebble to their hatch-mate, their tail-tip twitching with barely-contained energy and enthusiasm.
The newly-named explorer looked over at the softly-glowing side of the tunnel.
The shadows were alive with reddish, squeaking shapes. A couple scattered at the approach of the newly hatched gembound, but most didn't seem to see the two as a threat, and simply watched from the darkness. There were certainly more than enough nooks and crevices for the rats to take shelter in should there actually be a threat.
@Researcher
Researcher watched the rats scurry away into the darkness, fascinated by the pitter patters of their minuscule feet. How intricate those things were, beneath their ragged coats. She wanted to study them. Find out how they and the rest of this world worked. The fact they didn't speak was even more interesting.
Researcher trotted down the winding tunnel once more, using her soft arms to propel herself forward. Slowly, but surely, the air began to warm, and the walls became tinted with a light blue.
She lept atop a shelfstone, her pale fur illuminated by the glow.
@Assistant
They jolted when Researcher pat them, out of surprise more than anything else. They returned the pat with one of their own- though much more clumsy, considering they had paws rather than hands.