Kitty had been hunting high up in the trees of Pegasus, peering down from above, when she'd noticed something
white moving laboriously through the grass. She had watched it, for a while, even jumping to another nearby tree to follow it a while longer.
She liked to watch things below her. The trees gave her a safe place -- she was black underneath, so she was hard to spot up high, especially if she stayed still. If not, she would have just looked like some kind of tree squirrel or something, especially now -- coming out of a hunt (which had been successful, thank you), she was entirely undecorated.
The white thing had something with it. A weapon, it looked like, and something pink and shiny caught the light. Curiosity sufficiently piqued, Kitty began to make her way down the nearest tree. She stopped a few feet up it -- close enough to talk, but far enough that she was out of Forgraves's physical reach.
"Hello," she said, standing upside down on the side of a tree. If Forgaves looked closely, he might have noticed that her back feet were facing the wrong way.
"What's that?"
@forgraves
She blinked down at Forgaves, examining the belt. It was more than just that, clearly! But in Leo...?
"There's pretty things in Leo?" she clarified, still eyeing the stones. The gemstones in particular... well, they were small enough to be easily transported, were a pretty pink, and with there being so many of them, Kitty was... jealous.
She imagined what it might have looked like to have that many stones strung up in her new den, baubled to keep the shadows away and make her space look warm and inviting. If she were a worse panda, she might have tried to steal it from him. As it were, though, she didn't think that would go over well (and besides, it looked heavy).
"I'm Kitty," she explained.
"I'm a fortune teller, you know? I can see things that most Gembound can't. I can see where something came from, and if it's magic or not." Okay, that last part was a blatant lie. She wasn't a
saint. She could try, though. Kitty smiled sweetly.
"I could help you see what it is, if you want. But you'd have to give me something in return." She nodded at the belt.
"One of those stones would do, or something similar."
She wanted more than one. But she wouldn't push her luck.
@forgraves
Kitty's eyes lit up.
"Deal." Two was better than one, especially since she was definitely going to
try to see if it was magic. Whether she would be able to or not... remained to be seen. Her main power was sort of reflexive, not really something she did consciously. She sort of just put her paw on a thing and if she asked, sometimes it would show her its history.
For now, she climbed down the tree and sat in front of the belt.
"I do need to touch it," she warned, and sat up on her hind legs. Kitty placed her paws on either side of the main stone, closing her eyes for a moment. Maybe if she just... asked if it was magic? Like she asked if it had a history. Kitty focused on that for a while, letting her breathing grow even.
She drew in a breath and opened her eyes to find a sudden, powerful pulse of magic. The thulite in the center was almost blinding in its intensity -- almost like it wanted to
escape, like it was desperate. Not that a stone could be sentient, but still... it concerned her, somewhat. She recoiled slightly, blinking the light from her eyes as the spell faded.
Kitty nearly wanted to lie. She nearly wanted to
keep it. But she knew what the Voidmother would have said -- this was a life-stone, and it was precious. Kitty looked to Forgraves, suddenly deadly serious.
"This stone in the center is a life stone. A very powerful one. That is precious beyond belief, the potential for life -- and the amount of magic inside of it. Don't take it lightly, Forgraves." She paused and looked him over appraisingly, before her eyes softened.
"If that's not a responsibility you want or are prepared for, my Mother might be willing to keep it safe for you, and make sure it found love and life when she could."
Who was she kidding? Sunny would jump at the chance. Still, she didn't want to seem like she was coming on
too strong.
@forgraves
The pulse of magic in return was so strong that it seemed almost trapped.
The Thulite at the belt's center, the largest of the gemstones dotting its length, undoubtedly held Master-level magic within it. It pulsed with it, brushing over Kitty's senses almost overwhelmingly. Oh, yes; this stone's magic was alive, and it had once been powerful.
@Kitty
Kitty flinched when Forgraves shouted, her paws withdrawing slightly, but she recovered quickly enough. He'd just startled her, mostly. When he shot down her offer to give it to Sunny, she nodded and left it at that. She wasn't going to try and
force him -- she certainly didn't want to give the Voidcrawlers a bad reputation or anything. They were a loving family, not people who stole things!
Her eyes snapped to Forgraves, suddenly... greedy, like she was looking at something she was about to hunt. She wanted those rocks, damnit, and she'd do whatever she had to in order to get them.
"Deal. I might even be able to tell you who put it in the belt, if I get lucky." She stretched and settled down to place both of her paws on the thulite this time.
As far as she knew, she was always accurate with this -- nobody had, as of yet, proven her wrong.
"This takes a random memory from the stone's history," she explained.
"So it should show me who used to be inside it." Unless she got famously unlucky, but. In that case, she could very well just lie.
She was pulled abruptly into the heat, sights, and sounds of the forge. She looked around, wide-eyed, and stared at the Thulite. Not quite, apparently. Then, she was snapped back to reality.
"The one who took the life stone was... gray, and big. With claws." She paused.
"The one who made the belt was... tall, with black clothes and a mask on. Big horns, too."
Kitty looked back to Forgraves.
"It didn't show me the creature, yet. I'll try again. I seriously doubt I'll get the same message twice."
@forgraves
A twitch, a spasm of reality, and Pegasus was abruptly replaced.
Heat blasted her. The rock walls shimmered with it, mirage upon mirage, and acrid smoke curled through the air. Somewhere, in the background, hammers clanged on iron. Across an anvil, a fat Thulite gem still clattered to a halt from where the thick-fingered, clawed grey hand had tossed it. "AN' MAKE SURE THEY MATCH," came the growl, followed by unpleasant belly-laughter.
The mask-faced, black-cloaked creature--the Blacksmith, had Kitty before seen him--stared at the stone for a moment, with a slight sag of his shoulders; and a hand reached out to take the gem, folding it into his own, slender digits and out of sight.
The image flickered and faded, and Kitty was dropped with abrupt dizzying clarity back into Pegasus, its air cool and clean.
@Kitty