[Hungry? Yes. || Thirsty? No. || Tired? Yes. || Dirty? No. || Mood: Unfriendly.]

Aura was floating very low to the ground when he entered Polaris. He was completely exhausted and also hungry, and he was in no mood to interact with anything except food. He made his way slowly over to the Crystal River, ignoring everything around him. Instinctively, he knew that the water was where he needed to be to find food. Fish made up most of his diet, and he attracted them to the surface of the water with the bioluminescent skin of his underside. It glowed all manner of blue and green, as did the fins on either side of his mouth, meant to attract insects to his maw, as well.

With a loud groaning noise, like the sound of a ship creaking in the ocean, he sort of crash-landed into the river, using his tail to push himself forward so that the current wouldn’t drag him away. The fish scattered for a while, afraid of the sudden disturbance of their home, but they came back in a few minutes, and were immediately drawn towards the surface, staring up in stupidity at the glowing belly of the Mantawhale. Aura waited until they seemed to be in a complete stupor, and then he dipped his mouth under the water and scooped up as many fish as he could. He only got a few of them, as he was too tired to move quickly enough, and many of them got away in time. Still, it was enough to at least be a little less starving.

He swallowed the mouthful of fish, as well as the water, and a few crustaceans, and some plant matter that had been swirling around in it, all of which he could digest completely. It traveled down his gullet past the gas chambers, and into his stomach, where the very strong stomach acid began to immediately dissolve his small meal and convert it into helium. The helium, being lighter than air, flowed naturally up the tubes connecting his stomach to the four gas chambers in his body. He would need a lot more food, however, to stop being so hungry, and then he’d need to find somewhere to rest where he would be undisturbed. Woe be to any Gembound who decided to try and interact with him in this moment.

Words: 383

Alone the lioness traversed the tunnels and caverns, deftly avoiding the places that caused her too much heartache. Nowadays simply living caused a lot of heartache so she instead tried to shut it off by purely following her instincts. How? By simply lifting her nose and allowed her senses to fully take over. It was easy to let the lion part of her brain take the driver's seat while she followed the scent of a cave deer. No emotions. No thoughts. Just raw instincts.

Paws flitted silently over the ground while she stalked, the herd of deer were leading her straight towards Polaris which she didn't take a conscious note of. The only thing she bothered to note was her proximity to the deer, the way their ears moved when they thought the heard her, and how her body responded to this information. Clear-blue eyes watched with predatory intent, tail twitched with the anticipation of the kill while the deer lowered their heads to drink at the river. Muscles tensed and finally she leaped but her pounce was off and instead of landing directly on the back of a large male she landed on his hip. Claws unsheathed in an attempt to latch on but it was already ruined. The buck threw her savagely to the ground and sped away in a cloud of dust.

Winded the lioness lay there for a moment before she was able to stand and let out an angry roar at the retreating forms of the deer. She supposed she would have better luck next time... but luck wouldn't stop the rumbling in her gut. With a huff she turned to take a drink to soothe her blazing throat... but stopped when she saw a strange thing swimming on top of the water. What on earth was that? Thoughts returned as she tried to decipher what weird thing she was staring at. Was it a lesser gembound, a greater, or something else altogether?


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words: 328
tagged: @Aura
ooc: ---
muse: 5/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

Aura could not begin to fish again right after his first attempt because he had disturbed the fish. It would take a few minutes before they were once again settled and ready to stare up at his glowing blue-green stomach. In the meantime he held himself relatively still, and took note of a land creature who just chased another land creature into this part of the Cave. Actually, she’d chased multiple creatures in here, but had only attacked one of them, who had promptly attacked her in return and left her on the ground. By this time, the fish in the river had once again calmed down, and Aura ignored the land creature and returned to his fishing attempt.

He was about to snatch a rather large fish, his mouth closing in on it, when the land creature he’d forgotten about let out a loud roar, breaking his concentration. Had he been asleep, he may have been able to ignore the sound, but since he was awake, he didn’t have that luxury. The fish turned away from him, slapping one of his cephalic fins hard with its tail fin and then quickly disappearing back underwater. It took Aura a moment or two to even realize what had just happened, but when it all finally registered, he slowly, menacingly turned towards the yellow land creature and let out an angry rumble.

It seemed to be staring up at him, and he continued to rumble — a warning sound. It was very low-pitched, sounding almost like an elephant noise. Tired and hungry as he was, this… whatever this creature was… had picked a bad time to roar near him.

Words: 278 @Makyna

The thing which she'd been staring at seemed to turn towards her in a sort of threatening way. Whatever this was it didn't seem to be very friendly, especially not when it emitted that low rumbling noise. Nope. Definitely not something she wanted to be a part of... Or did she? This thing was strangely shaped but it certainly looked like it had meat on it. The thing lived in the water, communicated with strange sound, and seemed overtly aggressive to outsiders. In her eyes that added up to lesser gembound and if not that... well...

Had she not said before that it was kill or be killed? While she didn't want to go around murdering greater gembounds for food, if they weren't going to behave like greater gembounds then why bother otherwise? No one had bothered to show mercy to Leon and in the heat of the moment she hadn't bothered to show any to Arkrael. Yes, that had been a different situation but now staring at this fish-thing, she couldn't feel anything but curiosity and hunger with the former being washed away by the latter.

It was still in the water, a place that she had to admit was weaker in. Even though she'd spent time in Maji Walezi and had learned from Eeya how to swim she couldn't take a water-critter in its own element. A low growl rumbled in her throat as if she were answering his threat with one of her own. It was an animalistic thing to do but in that moment Makyna didn't care, if felt good to actually be doing what her instincts dictated.

While still letting the growl rumble out, even pitching it up to a snarl the lioness tapped into her magic. She could feel bubbling up, reaching towards the fish-thing as she attempted to grab it and pull it towards her. Perhaps she could even get a better look at it... or did she even want one? What if this was a greater gembound? The lioness didn't want to think about that... no thinking. Just acting. Wasn't that what monsters did?


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words: 352
tagged: @Aura
ooc: ---
muse: 6/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

It was a very strange feeling, being pulled in a direction against one’s will. In his annoyance, it took him a moment to even realize that he was moving towards the lion, but the strange feeling — as if someone had grabbed onto him and was dragging him towards the bank — became quickly apparent. He had no idea that she was the cause of his sudden forward movement, but he didn’t like it all the same. With an annoyed rumble, he instinctively called upon his own Magic. In his head, he told nothing in particular that he wanted to stop moving while he wasn’t the one causing the movement. It didn’t take any time from the thought occurring to the Magic manifesting itself, and a sudden gust of wind blew him backwards across the surface of the water. It wasn’t a strong wind, per se, and didn’t blow him back very far, but he did feel the phantom grip on his body loosen.

At this point, he was completely unconcerned with the lion, and was much more concerned with what the fuck had just somehow grabbed ahold of his body and moved it. It had felt like whatever had grabbed him had… also not grabbed him. He felt weird tendrils tickling his mind, and became increasingly agitated by the whole affair. This was very strange and he needed to know what sort of creature could move him around without his permission like that.

Words: 242 @Makyna

The creature moved in a steady line straight towards her, claws unsheathed and fangs started to bear in anticipation of the kill. However, she didn't get to sink her teeth into the flesh of the strange thing as all of a sudden a gust of wind blew from behind her and towards the creature. The wind took her by surprise and coupled with the gust helped her to loosen her telekinetic hold even more. The thing's perilous position was lessened even more as the lion began to think, to wonder how on earth a lesser gembound would summon magic. That wasn't a thing was it?

Part of her wanted to ignore that little fact but she couldn't, not like this. Even if it made her feel even more like dirt she had to see if it was truly lesser or not. Her mind reached out to the thing but this time it wasn't a force around its body, it was a force straight to its mind. No words grasped at the creature at first, there was just a feeling of question. A silent asking of "who are you?" and a fervent hope --that she didn't let slip through the contact-- that this was not a greater gembound.


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words: 207
tagged: @Aura
ooc: ---
muse: 5/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...