Filth was picking its way through Orion, exploring the cavern's nooks and crannies, when it heard a faint crunch not unlike the sound of its own hatching. Its ears swiveled towards the sound as it crept closer, red eyes straining to spot the newborn. The shape was indistinct in the murk, but it could swear something was fluttering.

Could this be food? Vivilene had said that biting people was rude, so Filth knew it should check whether this was people before trying to eat it. Bugs were generally not people, it knew, and grass definitely was not people. Fruit wasn't either, or berries. None of those things fluttered except bugs, but this seemed a little too large to be a bug.

Filth paused to listen for it, but the sounds around it were indistinct. The heartbeat of the fluttering thing mixed with too many others, including its own; it could not get a good sense of the flutterer's size or shape. Filth snorted in frustration.

"Hello," it called in its wheezing, high-pitched foal voice, resorting to speech to figure out what this creature could be. "Are you people or food?"

"I'm a child, which I think means I am new," said Filth. "I started existing less than a cycle ago, which doesn't seem like very much. My name is Filth. I'm a horse," it continued, gaze following the other creature to the best of its ability. She was a little easier to see now that she was closer.

The stranger looked like a bat. Bats were normally food, although trying to eat one had given Filth a tummy ache, which it understood to mean that something was awry. This bat spoke, however, so the foal sorted her into the potential 'friend' category.

"You look like a bat," it repeated aloud, nosing at the air in the stranger's general direction. "Bats are good. We can be friends, if you want. Do you have any name?"

Filth trotted along as best it could. Its gait was still unpracticed, stumbling, and nowhere near as nimble as the bat's movement. It wondered, briefly, if Ekko - like most people seemed to - could see better than Filth, or perhaps hear better, to know where she was going so quickly. That would certainly help them explore the gloomier or downright aphotic nooks of the cavern.

"Pride's garden is this way, I think," it said, craning its neck to sniff in the direction Ekko was moving. "He's nice. He gave me food when I was very new, and he's a grandfather." Filth's tone was appreciative; its limited experience of grandfathers so far had been pleasant.

"And this cave is called Orion," it continued in Ekko's general direction, walking a little straighter as it took pride in knowing things. "I don't know everything that's in here yet, but there are a lot of bats. Most of them don't talk, though. Also a lot of them are bigger than you, so they might try to eat you." It understood, vaguely, that being eaten was disagreeable to many creatures, though it had not yet figured out why.

"Pride told me most of it. He's a deer. He's got four legs, like me, and spiky antlers on his head," said Filth, who was enjoying being a knower of things.

At the mention of its eyes, it squinted at the bat, or at least the pale spot that it thought was the bat.

"I don't know. I think other people see more than I do," it admitted as it pawed at some rocks, a little put out. It didn't know exactly how much time had passed since its hatching, nor how much would elapse until it was full-grown, but if its sight was going to improve, it surely would have by now.

"I can see a little better if I get very close, but most things aren't very close, and sometimes things run away when I try to get close enough. I can hear well, though," it added. "Finding our way together sounds nice, anyway. Do you know where you want to go?"