Okay.

Cool cool cool cool.


She has a fucking plan. Mossie knows what she's doing. She's very intelligent.

What the actual fuck is wrong with her that she dreamed up a whole plan about infanticide to please some prissy asshole with a penchant for making people do horrible things for literally no reason, chickened out literally last minute, but not chicken-y enough to actually stay and raise the child?


What is she doing? Why is she like this? Why is she alive?

When Mossie catches sight of a dust moth, she doesn't think twice before bunching her hindquarters and pouncing, licking all the dust off its wings before tearing its body into tiny bits. Even on the micro-level, she is relentlessly destructive.

She doesn't notice anything different, at first, till she remembers Isaac.

She left his corpse, she forgot his stone, fuck.

She has to find the damn stone.

Hazy memories swim in her clouded mind. Licking his neck. Snapping his neck. Him drifting off to a gentle eternal sleep. His throat torn open, hazy in twos as blood cooled on her muzzle.

Which is real?

She doesn't know, but she has to find the damn stone.

Her magic calls towards some stone that might be her son, but--

She turns the dim gray stone over in her paws.

It can't be.

She shoves it into her fluff anyway.

The caves were full of two things: An endless eternal rhythmn, and very shiny things. Luna liked both in equal amounts, so imagine her delight when wandering in the endless voidlight of Cepheus she found a pretty rock with a heartbeat of its own. It had thrummed with energy so strong it'd been impossible to ignore and heresy to leave behind, a curious shock of lime green gemstone filled to the brim with potential, that she had stashed it immediately in a little corner she was certain only she could reach.

Time had been long and lackadaisical, and while the cycles had been pleasant she couldn't help but wish for more. There was change on the horizon, a stirring within her tissue - so she knew she must make haste. She had taken a stick for her travels, purely a defensive measure. Strife had yet to find her, but she knew that she was small and delicate compared to other residents.

It had taken travel through two other caves to get here, and Luna found this one to be her least favourite. There was something about the wet that made everything feel heavy, even the air. She shifted uncomfortably under the weight.

She found two things in her idle search - the soft thrum of magic somewhere on the wet ground, and the shape of a gembound, greater, stumbling her way through the cave. Her heart lifted in anticipation - what is she? What is she doing? Is she a friend? "Hell - oh?" she called from her distance, little body wiggling. She rose to stand on two feet, peering at the cat. She seemed... strange.

@Mossie

Mossie abruptly jumps to her paws as she realized she is being Perceived. Noticed, even. Incredibly fucked up.

The creature doing the Perceiving is quite interesting, reminding her of the Dust Moth larvae she'd observed during her travels. Only like, big. And holding Stones.

"Hello!" She called back, loping a couple paces closer. "Have you seen my son?"

She takes a closer look at the stone, which is very green.

Fuck.

Despite herself, her tail droops. "Oh. That's...not my son."

With a frown, she focuses once more, trying to locate the remnants of Isaac once more.

@Luna

She paws aside some loose moss clumped to the slick stone, revealing a blue-green gem.

"Oh, that's not him either..."

"Your son?" She blinked. The concept remained alien to her despite its indisputable presence. Gembound had to come from somewhere, if not the walls of the cave. But a gemstone was not a gembound - how could she have mistaken it as such? "Is your son... Very green?"

The object Mossie moved too seemed to support the hypothesis. "I have magic. What does your son look like? What kind of rhythm does he contain?" as she spoke, Luna scurried swiftly to the stone she had sensed before, a shock of crimson. not green. "Is this your son?" She held up the gem for the cat to see. Preparing for disappointment, her magic stretched out again.

@Mossie

Mossie purred shakily. She wasn't quite sure what or who she was looking at, but there was a kindness to them...

"My son is no more," she says. "All he is now is a magic rock. A yellow magic rock..."

She frowns as she looks at the carnelian. "Too red," she sighed.

Her own magic probes half-heartedly, though to her addled mind the pulses don't register all the way.

@Luna

Her gaze softened. "Oh. I see. I am... Sorry for your loss." She offered, unsure how to appropriately respond. She deposits the stone on the ground again, gently, for someone else to find. Yellow. Her mind repeats.

She skitters to the second she had sensed, disappointed to find that this one was also not the right shade. Another drew her attention, but it appeared to be the same story - wrong colour, weak pulse. "Oh dear." This search had not been very fruitful so far, had it? "Do you have any clue where to look for him?" She called to the cat.

@Mossie

"Maybe it's no use," she said with a dramatic sigh as she flopped over. The room was spinning violently, too many colors. "Maybe someone's snatched his stone already."

"I know he was here, in this cave, by the waterfall. Maybe it's." Mossie's brain takes a moment to catch up with the rest of her thoughts. "In? The water?"

She feels a pulse, but its Not In The Water so to her addled mind it's not relevant.

@Luna

The cat collapsed suddenly - was she hurt? Dying? She scuttled back to her side quietly, eyeing her with some concern. Death would not be a good outcome for either, she decided. Luna, still on her belly, took a moment to stare at the gembound eye-to-eye. Whatever she was looking for didn't seem to present itself immediately - she tilted her head with a blink. "Are you ok? Do you need food? Water?"

At Mossie's suggestion, she shifts her gaze to the water. She would not be incorrect - there probably are some gemstones down there. But it would be appropriate to say that she was not fond of the idea of getting soaked. Wet meant cold, and cold meant a miserable walk back to Pegasus.

But there were, indeed, gemstones down there. Perhaps even yellow ones... Switching to a bipedal waddle, she approached the edge of one of the ponds, brow furrowing as she considered her next course of action. "In here? Are you sure?"

@Mossie

"I'm not sure about Anything," she wails, rolling over. "My son is gone and I don't know what I'm doing with my life! You don't have to go in, I'm sure all that fluff will get wet."

She hobbled forlornly over to the water. "I have stayed submerged in this very pool for like 3 minutes before, I'll be fine," she announces, before leaping in.

she doesn't sense anything that looks Isaac flavored at first glance, tragically.

@Luna

"I am sure it might come as a shock, but you also possess a... surplus of fluff." She clarified, regarding the little mane around the cat's neck and chest. Stirred a sense of kinship, perhaps? Small fluffy sisters. Sisterhood might be a stretch to describe the muted feelings she felt towards this strange animal.

Responsibility is one of them at least, as she keeps her focus on the cat. Her freezing would also be a bad outcome, so she kept careful watch for any shivering. Still, searching tendrils still stretched - the quicker they found a viable stone the sooner they could both move away from the wet.

Nothing. "By the way - what is your name? What should I call you?" All this 'cat' and 'gembound' and 'peculiar creature' was beginning to feel inappropriate to the grub.

@Mossie