I heard there were some cool birds around here

Karyo had heard that there were BIRDS. Who looked like STARS. And gave out WINGS!!!

How could they hear about something as cool as THAT, and not come investigate? If they didn't, they would hardly be able to call themselves a Researcher anymore. They might as well renounce their membership in the Laboratory (oops—they'd forgotten to inform the rest of the Lab in their haste! Well, they'd tell their friends someday.) and live out the rest of their days as a slobbering Lesser Gembound content to munch on bugs and nap all day long. Well, that was nice SOMETIMES, but they'd get bored eventually!

Anyway, getting back to the point. The fact that the caves were so BIG should be a crime; it'd taken them way too long to get here! At least it wasn't as far as it COULD have been. Also, big caves meant lots of room for cool things, which was a win in their books.

Back on the topic of the birds! "Elnetak, Alneellan, Mintakuh!" they barked, sprinting through Orion at full speed. They figured if the birds heard them, then they would call back, and Karyo could hear that and stop running. "Three kings! I heard you were really cool! Can I talk to you? Mintakuh! Elnutak! Alneellan!!!"

Beyond a gap in the wall--in a tiny cave all their own--the Three Kings rested. Their swirling gemstones had not claimed them, though; they were simply... thinking, as they hovered there.

The call of their names--albeit rather badly-mutilated--came to them on a breath of Orion's wind, and they listened.

"Is that for us..?" they wondered, as one.

A sweep of wings took them into the cave proper, and they flew toward the voice. They had located its source soon enough, and descended, the stars of unknown galaxies and the ribbons of violet aurora streaming through their form. Golden eyes, bright in Orion's dim light, picked Karyo from the shadows-...

Ahh. The hound was running. Finding that it had already outpaced them, the Three Kings lifted off again, calling a fluting, wordless cry that sent trills of musical echoes through the cave. Then they swept down a second time, coming in to land before the Gembound, this time.

"Hello, little one. I am Alnilam," the first voice began--"and I am Mintaka," came the second. If it wasn't clear why they were introducing themselves one by one, the third voice then snarled, "It's pronounced ALNITAK."

With that out of the way: proper introductions were in order. "We are the Three Kings," they said, as one. "You were looking for us?"

Karyo skidded to a halt at the sound of birdsong, spinning around to face the Three Kings. "Ooh," they gasped immediately, jaw dropping as they beheld their beautiful plumage--or maybe that was its natural state, hanging open and tongue lolling slightly in an ever-present grin?

They were so pretty, Karyo thought. They could stare at those starry feathers all day and all night, forty hours a day, ten days straight for thirty years for exactly fifteen minutes before they probably moved on to something else. "Al-ni-tak," they repeated dutifully, still half-distracted by the Kings' mesmerizing plumage. At least they paid more attention to the vowels this time--they'd been a little too focused on the MAGICAL BIRDS GIVING OUT MAGICAL WINGS last time.

"I'm Karyo!" they introduced, "And yeah! I heard you were pretty cool, and now I know you are, so I was wondering could I ask you some questions? I'm from the Lab, and talking to cool people is kind of our thing! Investigating the caves!" Karyo puffed out their chest proudly, tail wagging at near-supersonic speeds.

"Oh! Also! In return... hmm... I've got magic! It makes you feel... good, in kind of a vague way. It makes the little white friends--I call them prokaryotes!--living in your belly grow faster and be friendlier! Or- we've got bugs! They're real good to eat, but I left them back in Monoceros." Their ears flicked mournfully. Actually--did the Three Kings even eat, or have guts to store their little white friends in? Wondering, Karyo sent out a wave of magic to investigate.

The Three Kings listened quietly. At Karyo's first full question, they paused, and pondered.

"What do you mean by, 'cool?'" they asked as one voice, softly, grasping via context that the word did not, at least, mean cooler temperatures. "I'M NOT COOL," spat a single voice from the three-fold throng, bristling with indignance.

"Enough of that, please; they seek knowledge," offered a softer voice.

The Kings waited, patient, as Karyo cast their magic: the flicker of it passed through them. There was nothing here to detect; the birds were stardust and aurora, magic and power, but none of it truly corporeal or alive. Not in the traditional sense, at least.

"The pursuit of knowledge is an admirable goal," said the kindest of the voices, at last. "While we do not need bugs," (how gracious of them) "we would be happy to answer your questions."

karyo

Karyo tilted their head, expression half-amused and half-bemused. "Cool's when- uh, when you're... interesting, I guess! And good, and sometimes nice or awesome! That's the first time someone's been that insistent about being uncool!" they added with a cheerful sort of levity. Alnitak was so funny! "You do you, I guess! Can I still talk to you, though?"

Their magic showed plenty of white signatures in Orion: a pale layer painted all over the walls and ground, of course; and the brighter white shapes of prokaryotes living in the guts of various life-forms. Strangely, though, they picked up nothing living on or inside the Three Kings.

"Thank you!" they beamed at Alnilam's generosity. Oh, and no bugs? That's nice of them--but what do they eat? I should remember to ask that. Whether they would was another matter altogether, but the thought was there. "Well, let's start with the basic stuff? Who are you? Have you really been around for a super long time? What were things like, super long ago? Why can I hear three of you but only see one, and why don't you have any li-" Karyo remembered, just in time, to use the professional word. "-prokaryotes living on you? Usually all the living things have them."

the energy of youth fills our fuel tanks
full speed ahead to our dreams' terminus

Alnitak was left to ponder, to stew, in regards to "cool" and all its potential definitions. But Karyo's questions caught the interest of the Kings as a whole, and they considered.

"We are the Three Kings," they began, simply. But their intertwined voice seemed somehow wistful as their words went on. "We did not come from this place. We have been here more days, more cycles, than we can count. We became trapped here, long ago; tricked, and we cannot escape." Their voice held a fluting melody, a sadness to it. "We remember the open sky. A place where there is no rock above. Where stars glimmer, and the sky lights with the energy of the cosmos," the Kings said, and then--for a moment--took flight.

Their wings trailed violet aurora-light behind them: a demonstration, perhaps, of the skies now lost to them; a shimmering glow that danced and then faded.

"We cannot compare what things were like, for inside these caves is not like outside, and outside... we do not know what outside is, any longer." Their tone was mournful, but solemn; they seemed resigned to their shared fate. "But when we came here, these caves... were not as they are now. They were new. Fresh. The stone was newly chipped," and they almost seemed to sing this, in memory. "Shining and... raw. Time has worn this place."

"As for... life, on us; we are not life as you know it. We are pure. Energy, and magic. We do not share a body, as you do. We do not share needs that you do. Ours... was the sky," and for a beat, the Kings were silent.

Perhaps... remembering.

Keen, ancient eyes turned to Karyo, shining soft golden in Orion's dim light. "...Do you have more questions, Karyo?" they asked.

karyo

Karyo sat and stared at the Three Kings as they listened, utterly enraptured by the description of the world beyond. It sounds so beautiful. How can any place exist without rock at the top? The idea was near-unimaginable. "But then- what do you see?" they asked, voice quiet with awe. "How can you see things at the top, if there's just open space forever and ever...?"

Sky. Stars. Cosmos. They these new words over in their mind. One thing was for sure. Karyo wanted to go there so bad. Two things, actually: whoever tricked and trapped the Three Kings was a huge meanie! And, well, three: Researcher and the Lab were going to love this. A whole new world to investigate! Who knew what sorts of things were Beyond--?

"Anyway, who trapped you in here?" The hound's voice turned indignant. "That's so mean! I needa warn my friends about them, too!" Well, all of them were already inside, but what if they wanted to go outside one day? Or what if the trickster did other mean things? "And I dunno how you can come in but not go out the same way--how does that work?--but you should go find that person and make them tell you how to get out again! And if they don't--mm-" Karyo thought for a moment. "-you can beat them up! Until they untrap you!" Karyo grinned, extremely satisfied with this idea. "I'll even beat them up with you! I've got teeth, look!" And they bared their teeth.

"Oh, but also! Why'd they trap you in here? It seems kind of like a random mean thing to do. And you mean someone actually made this place? The whole place?! Who? How?"

the power of friendship lets us keep going;
the road to our dream's end is paved with flowers

The voice that answered was the soft one--kind--and it sounded half-lost in wistful memory. "There is no top... there is only air, and then, nothing. It is beautiful," they explained. "Black, and full of stars--or lit blue by the oceans below. I wish that I could show you. There is nothing like it here."

The Three Kings lapsed into a mournful silence, and then shook aurora-clad feathers to peer again at Karyo. "As for how we were tricked, we were only here--only visiting--when we became trapped in this place. We were told... in recent cycles... to seek the Architect. To ask him to forge us a way free. But those who told us this only used us to find the Architect; he serves the cave, and would not free us." Sad, distant.

At the rest of Karyo's questions, the Kings shook ethereal head. "We are sorry, but we do not have the answers to all of these things. We know that your Creator is Chaos. And yes... that this place was created, carved from stone. We believe the Architect had much to do with this. But why bring us here-? We do not know." This last, solemn answer given, the Kings bowed their head, falling again into saddened silence.

karyo

Karyo blinked up at the Three Kings, trying to imagine what they were describing. It seemed impossible that there could be stars when there was no ceiling for them to stick... but they envisioned an infinite black expanse, shimmering with the light of the ethereal bird's wings, and felt an odd longing for this sky they could never see.

Might never see. Maybe they could finally find a way out. Maybe Karyo's lifetime, of all the lifetimes the Three Kings had spent down here, would be the one where they broke free at last. I like that thought better, Karyo decided. Already they were feeling trapped, despite how vast the Inside had seemed before. They could not control this desire to wander, to venture beyond and witness the beauty of the Outside.

Anyway, they weren't giving up on this idea. So the Architect was a big meanie, too. So what? If there was a way in, there had to be a way out. "Well, we gotta keep looking for other exits!" they insisted, rising to their paws and beginning to pace back and forth. "I just know we'll find something eventually. I'll ask all my friends, too! They're real smart." Even if one of them was a bit sickly, despite Karyo never being able to find the dirty white bast--uh, prokaryotes--causing it. That, too, Karyo was sure would be solved eventually.

"How did you get in?" they asked, coming to a stop and sitting again. Even if there wasn't a way to retrace their steps... maybe this could give them an idea of where to start?

stars shining in an infinite indigo sky
can you hear them speak?

The Three Kings listened silently, patiently, as Karyo spoke. And when they had finished, the Kings thought, for a moment, and then offered a graceful shrug of wings. "We... do not know. We think that we were brought here," and suddenly those final words held a bitterness. "But... we are unsure."

The Kings studied Karyo, expression soft.

"You sought us out... to find truths. And to aid us? You said that this is what... a Lab does. What is--a Lab? Do you aid others?" they asked, their voice a curious trill. Perhaps if there were selfless factions in these caves-... Providing aid, for the sake of only kindness... maybe there was a chance, now.

Maybe.