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+--- Thread: Baubles. [solo] (/showthread.php?tid=9613)
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 18 2021
Kitty glanced over at the pile of thulites. She knew that there wasn't any chance of her expending more magic than usual -- she was pretty much exhausted at the moment. But she was pretty sure that she had another one like this one in her, if she was lucky. Better than nothing, she decided, rolling the other one over to her. "It'll be fine," Kitty decided. "I'll just rest for a while after I do this, and it'll all be good."
Here goes nothing, she thought, placing her paw on the stone. Magic flared up to meet her, and she felt downright dizzy. The glow of her newly baubled stone seemed to grow far away, and the birdsong and general ambiance of Pegasus grew tinny and high. Kitty swayed slightly, and then passed out.
She wouldn't be out for long, but when she came to again, she'd definitely stay where she was for a while. Being completely drained of one's magicka was not exactly pleasant -- surely, she would not repeat this.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 19 2021
Kitty huffed, finally pulling herself to her paws. It was fine, she could do this. "Humph. Maybe this is a little more tiring than I thought it was." She sighed and selected her next stone -- she'd almost gotten to ten, which was nearly half way through, if her understanding of numbers was correct. She took a thulite from the pile and pulled it over. "Work with me here," she asked it, and pushed her magic into it. It lit up proudly, and she rolled it back into the pile with the others. She was, in short, exhausted.
"I'll just... sit here for a minute," Kitty decided, hunched over slightly as she looked at the difference in size between her glowing pile and her not glowing pile. "Wish I'd had luck like this when I was setting up the Festival."
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
Finally, Kitty stretched and grabbed the tenth stone. "Lucky number ten!" she said, not quite sure why ten was a lucky number. "I've been doing really well thus far -- let's hope I don't jinx it now, huh?" she mused, rolling it over to settle beneath her paw. The thulites were certainly pretty -- she gave thought again to what she'd do with them when she was done. Stringing them up seemed the obvious choice, but finding something that was strong enough to support all that weight would be a chore in and of itself.
Pink light flared up to meet her, and she rolled the stone over to join its compatriots. Each thulite's glow was perfectly matched to the color of the stone itself -- she was quite proud of herself with it, honestly, as it looked sort of like someone had stuck a light inside the stones, or was shining one through them (even though they were opaque). "I'm so good at this," Kitty declared. "I should sell this kind of thing!"
But not these. Never these. These were far too precious for that -- regardless of the price she'd paid to get them.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
And on the topic of price -- Kitty had, in fact, noticed a strange phenomenon in her ability to look into the past. It seemed that she kept seeing horrible things -- the spiders devouring that poor humanoid, the gray-feathered Thulite being killed in the arena, and so on. Was it just that gore was intrinsic to the past of these caves, or was it instead that she was being punished for her lies? Or perhaps she was just unlucky?
Her ear flicked as she grabbed the eleventh stone. "What do you think?" The light that flared up to meet her was dimmer than the others she'd been making, much like one of the earliest ones. She frowned. "... Damn, I forgot to set the parameters beforehand. I don't know what that means." She sighed and tossed it into the glowing pile with its ten siblings. "I guess I'll just ask the next one."
This, she reminded herself, is silly. But Kitty shook her head slightly -- it was... whatever. She'd be fine.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
Laughing a little at herself, Kitty selected the twelfth stone. This was a little less than halfway -- thirteen would be a little more than half. It was strange how some numbers had a half, and some numbers had a middle -- but that wasn't what she was supposed to be concentrating on this time. She set her paw over it and took a deep breath. "If it doesn't glow at all, the horrible stuff is 'cause I keep lying. If it glows a little bit, it's just 'cause the caves are like that. If it glows fine, I'm just unlucky, and if it super glows, then..." She frowned. "Uhh, I can't think of a parameter for that one, but it's still good."
Light blinded her for a moment, and the stone felt hot as she jerked her paw back. When she'd blinked the stars from her vision, she looked down and saw that the thulite was unchanged -- and neither was her paw burned. The magic had snapped back at her, violently. Kitty shrunk in on herself slightly. "... Well. I guess there's my answer, huh?"
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
Kitty stared at the angry thulite, her fur still fluffed out from the upset of it all. "... So I'm a horrible liar and I need to stop and the magic is punishing me for it," she decided, rolling it under her paw again. "The problem is..." She sighed, half tilting it to look at it. "The thing is, I can't stop. I've dug myself so deep into this hole already. What happens if I stop now?" Her ears laid flat. "Will people stop liking me? Will Sunny kick me out? Will I be able to get what I want anymore?"
She looked down at the thulite. She'd lied to get these, hadn't she? She'd lied, and lied, and lied, but it had worked out. Because it always worked out. Kitty never got caught -- she had no idea how, but she just... didn't. She sighed, pushing her magic into the stone. It lit up to greet her, and she rolled it over to join its cousins.
One day, she was going to get caught in a lie. Someone was going to call her out and she wasn't going to be able to squirm her way out of it or scramble to cover her tracks. She dreaded that day -- if even one strand of her web was plucked, she worried that it would all unravel. She'd lose all her credibility, all her friends, all her treasures -- she shuddered at the thought.
Unfortunately, Kitty genuinely believed that the only reason people liked her was because of the things she'd lied about.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
And what of things she'd promised to other people? Her friends thought so highly of her. Comet had even entrusted her with a life stone and asked her outright to revive it, hoping that Kitty would be a good, stable mother and raise it up well. She had no idea how to be a mother, though. She was selfish and a liar and didn't help anyone but herself unless it helped her to maintain her lie.
She shuddered. The worst part was, she'd agreed to revive it, too -- she'd told Comet that she would, that she'd make sure the child inside had a good life. So why haven't I yet? Kitty thought bitterly, grabbing the thirteenth stone and pushing magic into it. A dim glow came to meet her and she pushed it into the pile with the others. That was three dim ones, one bright one, and nine normal ones. A good number, all things considered. She could certainly work with it.
Why haven't I revived that stone yet? Kitty thought. She hadn't even told anyone about it -- she'd stuck it in Slimespace. She wasn't sure why. I'm probably just scared, Kitty decided, and did not even begin to consider what she was scared of, or that if she were truly afraid of the responsibilities of motherhood, it would have made the most sense to simply turn it over to Sunny.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
But one way or another, this wasn't a line of thinking she wanted to dwell on. She noted that she was over halfway finished -- her pile of glowing stones was officially bigger than her pile of mundane ones. Not by much, but it still was. She looked at her pile, and once again considered lies. Kitty wondered if all lies were bad -- the last lie she'd told Forgraves had been a kind one. Had her lies ever actually hurt anyone? She wasn't sure.
Her ear flicked. "The real question is, is the act of lying itself wrong, or is it only wrong if you hurt people? Is misleading someone hurting them? Is telling them something that might make them act a certain way when they wouldn't have otherwise hurting them?" Or could someone only be hurt by her direct actions? Was it her fault if they followed her advice? Kitty sighed as she selected the next thulite. "I wonder if your cousin was a liar. I wonder if that hooded figure is, or the one with the gray hand. I wonder if Forgraves or Voidmother or Comet are liars."
I wonder if it's just me.
Dim light met her once again, and she nudged it over to the rest. Fourteen down, eleven to go. Kitty eyed the past several, which had all been fairly dim -- perhaps it was time for her to lighten up a bit.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
"Alright Kitty,""It's ten after this one, which is a pretty manageable number, and nowhere near as big as twenty-five. So in the spirit of being nice to yourself and making your string lights better, what is something you like?" She mulled it over, rolling the stone under her paw. Whoever had polished them had done a good job, at least.
She thought about what she liked. She liked sleeping in trees, and hunting things, and climbing up to the highest point she could reach and looking out over Pegasus. She liked light, and wind, and flowers. Kitty's eyes closed for a moment. She liked all those things, but none of them were her favorite. Her favorite thing was... flying. She smiled and pushed her magic into the thulite as she thought about how it felt to fly -- wind in her fur and stinging at her eyes while she was totally and completely weightless, and soaring.
Strangely, no light came to greet her at all. She looked under her paw and sighed. "Jeez, don't like the air much, do you? Or maybe you just like it when I'm gloomy." After all, somewhat dimmer light was better than none at all.
RE: Baubles. [solo] - Kitty - Feb 22 2021
She shrugged, eyeing the stone. "I like flying." The first time she'd had a taste of it had been not long after she'd hatched -- seeing the history of the feather and skimming the grasses of Pegasus, soaring above the ground with wind in her wings until the very last moment when the creature she'd been flying with soared straight through solid rock.
Kitty had since then wondered at length about flight. She wondered why she had not been blessed with it -- she could climb and stealth well enough, and was small enough, too. Being able to fly would have surely been beneficial. The Voidmother would have said something like "all of us have our own strengths," but Kitty just wanted wings. "The Three Kings helped me," she admitted, pushing magic into the stone again.
Dim light flared up to meet her and she rolled it aside. "But those wings are inconsistent at best. I can't go too high, 'cause eventually I'll start falling. And I'd rather not die for the sake of some adventure."