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How long has it been?

An etherial air fills the entrance to Tunnel I, as ever it did. Here, Polaris' light filters into the dim lit tunnels, offering some semblance of visible blue light to those wishing to cross into Orion. The glass orbs had been flickering again. All along the walls leading far down and back, like glow flies they blinked. On. Off. And no sooner would they go dark for ten.. fifteen minutes at a time.

Too long.

An inconspicuous growth shifts in its home, nestled against the crevice of the wall at the tunnel's mouth. How long had that speck been sitting there? For a month at least. Here, a splinter of labradorite had been infused with magicks from Polaris itself and given leave to grow into life anew. And how beautiful it would be, in a chrysalis so small. A chrysalis so... dull.

Muted blues and teals mix with a tawny bronze to form a smooth stone construct around its diminutive charge. The stone could have been the size of a horse hoof. Or smaller. Much smaller. In fact, it couldn't have been a neonate.. could it? Perhaps it was a stone, left discarded by someone who had once let it catch their fancy. Or maybe it was... it was...

It was taking matters into its own hands. Once flush against the wall, the chrysalis shifts hard enough to break off from its adhesion to the stone wall and roll into the very center of the tunnel. No.. That couldn't have been safe. The stone settles into a large pawprint of one who had passed by recently. Or maybe not. The print could have been ancient for all it knew, if it was capable of knowing anything at all.

And here it lay. Still. Tired. Waiting.

The being within had heard sounds all this time during its growth. Sounds of idle conversation. Of feet shuffling to and fro. Wings. Mighty, terrible wings it didn't even know it had. Wings. They twitch. Delicate and dark. Were they the reason it was beginning to feel so cramped in here? The inconspicuous chrysalis shifts.. and just then, the lights go out. Again.

Discontented chatter could be heard in the distance, further into the tunnel. Yet the light poured in from Polaris. The distantly glowing mosses and fungi gave the room an eerie, yet beautiful atmosphere. Would that she could see it.

The sound of hoofsteps come closer. Many hooves. And many voices. It didn't even know it was in danger. No. Few travellers make their way past in the darkness, doing their best to reach the sanctity of the luminous room beyond...

Invitation(s): @Kin-Kin, @Toon, Anyone (Open RP)

spread your wings earth element - lituus - vesper bat

THANKSMERC ♠ ART BY SAMFRET (ME) COPYRIGHT © 2016

(( Note: Feel free to have your character having been the one to kick the chrysalis aside! See my failed roll above. Otherwise:))

There is an unceremonious clinking sound as the coloured stone skitters across dirt and dust and debris. Perhaps the sound grabs your attention, or you feel its warm, smoothness twitching against your toes. The lighting here offers a better glimpse of the thing. Though not much could be distinguished, it is evident that it now has a nice, thin crack travelling from its narrower side down to its wider, middle, where a nasty chip lay. It twitches more. Disturbed. Upset. Was someone using a spell on this thing, or.. was it alive?

It was no surprise that Ghanyarah would find himself passing through the tunnel between the core and the jungle rooms again. Given how much time he had spent in Polaris lately - trying to curb his loneliness, realizing that this was where all the Gembounds were gathering - the tunnel had fallen under regular use of his clawed feet. It was after one such excursion to Polaris, one of many similar ventures, that Ghanyarah was now returning to Cetus. He hadn’t ran into anyone this time. But that didn’t make the excursion a failure - just another means for him to carry his errands elsewhere. Maybe he’d find something tasty to eat in Eridanus.

He hadn’t been watching where he was walking. When he was searching, yes, but even so the flick of his tongue betrayed the heat signatures of those nearby. It was that heat he sensed, uncertain of where it was coming from, his eyes lifted and scanned the tunnel. He wouldn’t have realized that it was emanating from the tiny glimmering chrysalis dislodged from the ground until his foot had grazed its surface, sending it tumbling ahead a few paces. The sound, loud and clattering against the rock, startled him into a defensive freeze as he sought the source. When he found it, he stooped in for a closer look.

The labradorite was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. It was an amalgamate of colours, blue and brown and green and gold, like a late evening sky he’d never seen before. It was here that he could taste the warmth the strongest and he knew that this was not just a stone that had once been attached to a creature - this was a bed within which life was hosted. Something was living inside. And likely, something was trying to get out.

Ghanyarah had seen young Gembounds emerge before. He’d staked his claim on them, like the little wolf that glimmered with light, and his own Netil, for whom he felt a terrible aching wistfulness. This chrysalis was small, and Ghanyarah wondered if it was even ready. Maybe it wasn’t. If he were to crack it open now, would it only reveal a half-grown fetus of a creature? His stomach rumbled. He supposed he could take advantage of the situation either way.

The reptile crooked his head and grasped the tiny chrysalis in his jaws, then attempted to smash it against the ground. The first few tries resulted mostly in Ghanyarah smashing his face too, at which point he decided to try and slam it against the wall instead. This proved only slightly more effective at him avoiding smashing his face into the rock, and he continued to savagely smash the chrysalis until it slowly began to fracture. When it could feel shards of it loosening from the whole, Ghanyarah unceremoniously dropped the chrysalis and stepped back, eager to see what prize awaited him within the shattered labradorite shell.

Was it food or friend?

@Lituus

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Such treatment only aggravates the stone's host further. More cracks stretch across the surface of the smooth stone. Like a bolt of lightning, countless lines begin to zig and zag across its surface until the final smack against the wall caused its centre point to shatter and drizzle forth the warm, protective fluid housing the creature within. The small life apparently needed the help getting this far, given how weak and fragile he would soon understand it to be.

Tiny legs push at the inside of the stone cocoon while its fuzzy back brace against the structure from within. Soon enough, the chrysalis pulls apart into two jagged pieces to reveal something that very well would have looked fetal and deformed to one who had not seen such a thing before. The bat was wet. Ugly. And twisted up in a way that just was not... right. Yet this was how bats were. Their legs and wings could bend at odd angles, and twas no wonder it begged release from its home, looking as cramped and twisted up as it did.

A single, black wing stretches outward, pushing the top half of the chrysalis aside. And then another wing joins it. Impossibly thin and elongated structures- that could have been claw tipped fingers much like his own- curl around it's own body, like a thin, membranous blanket. The wings stretch out again. Seems like it was trying to roll onto its front. Clumbsy little thing.

It chirps modestly, calling out for something. Anything. The creature could have been blind for all he knew, given how minuscule its eyes were. How snub and short its tiny little face was. And its ears-- they were large and rolled back against the small tuft that was its head, though as time went on, would slowly pull themselves forward. Thee large, delicate ears were just about as long as it's entire body length, and its entire wingspan could have been no more than seven or so inches.

This newborn gembound is incredibly helpless and at the mercy of the creature who had found it, at least for now. It did not even speak, not yet. It simply shivers. Chirps. Its mouth reveals a row of tiny, pointed teeth, and closer inspection of its snout reveals the existence of its gem- oversized for its body at current. The multicolored structure protrudes for from the base of the bridge of its bulbous nose like some kind of poor excuse for a rhinoceros horn.

The bat continues to twitch violently, shivering and stressed-- it's heartbeat was quick. Quiet and quick. Blood rushes anew into the veins embroidered within the thin webbing 'twixt its fingers, and into the folds of its ears as the beginnings of life began to catch up with it.

Where am I? What is this?

It clumsibly clamors onto its front, crawling on the ground on the hooks of its thumbs, wings folded tightly against its body. Like a hilariously insignificant demon wrought from some deformed beast, it moves towards the closest source of heat and sound. First it would find the sharp, curved talons of its front foot as its nose reaches out. Sniffing. Trying to make sense of this thing it could not yet see. But oh, how it could hear. And hear very well it did.

All of the sounds going on around it would have been maddening if it were not trying to focus all of its being on this singular thing come to greet its arrival. If the lizard did not move away, it would sooner find the little bat clmbing onto its hand and wrapping its tiny, grasping limbs around its foreleg. Clinging. Like a babe to its mother. Still and silent.

Well. Shivering.. and silent.

Either way, it would be content to stay there for now, unless it was disturbed.

spread your wings earth element - lituus - vesper bat tags - @ghanyarah

THANKSMERC ♠ ART BY SAMFRET (ME) COPYRIGHT © 2016

Ghanyarah @ Lituus:

When he first sighted the slick neonate, his heart had quivered at the thought that it had not been ready. He wrenched it from its womb before it had completed development. That must have been the case, because it didn't look like anything Ghanyarah had seen before, tiny and fuzzy and so pathetic, it was but a figment of what it could have been. There was no love lost for witnessing the emergence of a malformed, unprepared little creature. He would eat it instead.

But it started to move, prompting Ghanyarah to fix his focus even more powerfully than before. Maybe it was a trick of his mind, a limb limply falling out of place. But the thing wasn't dead. He watched it keenly, and he knew before long that the babe was very much alive, unfurling itself from a throng of webbing, thin and delicate wings. Tiny pinprick eyes barely visible against its skin and a gleamimg shard of labradorite, an effect of the chrysalis, lodged in the center of its face. It looked almost like Tal'at now as it crawled on its stomach towards him. A creepy little thing, but one that wholly enraptured him all the same.

He watched how it shivered and listened to its minute chirps, the tiniest of sounds that could have easily become lost in the vast echoing silence of the cave. Ghanyarah settled his hind limbs on the floor and craned his neck to examine her, and when she approached his foot, he almost thought to move it out of her way. But she was crawling to him. This tiny morsel of nutrients he once thought dead, worthy only of a quick snack. He flicked his tongue.

Ghanyarah allowed her to clamber onto his foot, patiently observing her awkward, disjointed approach. She must be cold if she was shivering, but Ghanyarah feared there was nothing he could do for her in that respect. He was a creature of ice - warmth was not his forte. Maybe he should bring her to someone who could make her warm...

But the thought rendered him instantly jealous.

He didn't need magic. His body still had a natural heat to it, did it not? So Ghanyarah flattened himself against the ground, allowing her access to what ever part of his body could be the warmest, and decided that she was his. If not as food, then as a friend. Ghanyarah was always so unfortunately possessive.

@Lituus

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Things were settling down. Her world had become less hectic since emergence from the confines of her cocoon, and this lovely, scaly, lukewarm stump of a leg was all the comfort she needed at the moment.

It's owner shifts, flattening its body. Getting comfortable? About to eat her? She did not know. She did not care, either. How could she? But the reptile remains still. Patient. Were he to lay there for a time, the little bat would gain the courage to climb higher. With the pinpricks of its clawed thumbs and feet finding purchase on the ambit of his scales, she makes her way up the muscled hunk of a leg, over his shoulder, and toward the ridge of his spine where she would be fit to roost this time.

Twas warmer here, as heat did rise, though only slightly. More sound filters into those comically large audits seated atop her skull, and her consciousness awakens evermore. She chirps still, in brief, persistent squeaks to let her caretaker know she was still there. It just felt right.

Either way, tiny, fingered feet, flexible and hooked, cling to that scaled skin covering muscle and wrinkle alike, leaving her hanging from the sinuous ridge of his spine like some fuzzy ornament. In truth, he would hardly feel her presence, if at all. Her claws, too small to cause discomfort, and her weight so absent she might as well not have existed. Except her chirps. They gave her presence.

The bat had no name. No voice. Nothing made sense, and the entire mouth of the cave was far too bright, flushed in that ethereal blue light from the crux of Polaris. Just as the glass orbs are at flickering back to life, the bat shrouds herself in the shade and comfort of her wings, becoming nothing more than a sliver of dark, webby skin around a steadily drying, fuzz-covered body.

She would not move following this, or make much sound thereafter. In fact, if he were not careful, he might even forget that she was even there. Wherever he moved, however he moved, the creature remains diligently hanging from his back, only shifting her wings here and there to get more comfortable and dry her body further.

Could she speak? Was she sleeping? Time would tell.

OOC: This thread can continue, or both may exit the tunnel and we can move to a different location, assuming he would be inclined to go elsewhere. Open to either! I don't believe she will be 'present' for the remainder of this thread. Man. Being born sucks!

spread your wings earth element - lituus - vesper bat tags - @Ghanyarah

THANKSMERC ♠ ART BY SAMFRET (ME) COPYRIGHT © 2016

Ghanyarah had to resist the urge to twist his head and watch her as she ascended his limb. He didn't want to disturb her, having decided that this tiny life was precious and meant to be guarded. Maybe it was because she reminded him more of Tal'at the more he remembered the long lost blind bat, or that her inexplicable need to cling to him had rendered him suddenly responsible for her care. She was like glass, and it stung to think that he could have shattered her along with her chrysalis, more so to think that he might have eaten her had she not moved and proven herself alive.

He could no longer really feel her moving against his scales. She had stopped near his back, a negligible weight quick to be forgotten. Even her subtle chirping ceased after a while. He wanted to look at her and see where she had stopped, but feared so much movement would rouse her, cause her to leave or worse, make her fall. He didn't understand how she clung to him so unmovingly.

Finally, the reptile mustered up the will to rise again. His body slowly lifted up off the ground and he took his first few steps forward, only to turn and examine his path. No evidence of her having detached herself stood in his wake - the only evidence of her very existence were the gleaming shards of her chrysalis, small and barely visible among the dust. Ghanyarah slithered towards the ruin of her chrysalis, pushing the shards with his snout until he determined which one was the biggest and most worthy of taking. Plucking the fair sized chunk of dead labradorite between his teeth, he turned once more to the direction he had initially been walking.

Maybe his excursion wasn't so much a failure after all. He hadn't realized how easy it would be to just find another Gembound to take home. At this point, he would have laughed at the irony - how long he had been alone, how desperately he grappled with solitude only for a friend to be handed so easily to him. But he didn't want to disturb her. So he remained silent, slowly migrating through the tunnel back to where he'd come from.

(Exit yara!)

(Exit Lituus on Yara's back! Continuing here◥.)