Kai had a vague-- but not exactly realistic --hope that she would somehow find her mother here. She'd been wandering between the ferns for days on end now, only taking brief breaks to eat or sleep, but to no avail yet. In fact, there didn't seem to be... anything here. Just ferns, and trees, and lesser gembound, and things to eat.

As she came around towards a pair of open, pale grey pools, she huffed.

This seemed like a fruitless endeavour. No one was here, nevermind Isi. What was she supposed to do now? She could try to find Azizos, but she had no idea where he was. They had some nice conversations together, at least, about ceilings and the Outside and reproduction.

... which, Kai still had no idea how either of those things worked.

As she wandered the outskirt of the Eyes, she thought to herself many things. If there was an outside, perhaps Isi had somehow found it? And she was outside right now? Azizos didn't seem to think there were any exits out the caves as it were, but perhaps somehow her mother-of-few-words had managed to find it and had no way of telling others about it.

Perhaps Isi was dead, too-- and perhaps Kai could find her stone and revive it? But where would it be? How would she know it was even a death stone, nevermind her mother's death stone?

How did that sort of thing even work?

Kai came to a stop between the pools and shut her eyes tightly, concentrating. If there were something-- anything --perhaps she'd be able to feel it. Magic, perhaps? Kai didn't know, but she sure as hell was determined to find out.

It didn't take very long before something crunched and crumpled off her beak. Alarmed, she opened her eyes and looked down. There were not one, but two shards of her own stone laying in the thin, muddy grass between the Eyes.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

She clicked her beak a few times-- but it didn't seem like anything was wrong. It hadn't even hurt.

Kai ruffled her shoulders a little, thinking-- but if no harm was done, maybe it was just best to leave the two bits of stone where they were. She stared down for a few moments longer, before the hybrid turned to leave.

Aster awoke with a start. Another nightmare, of the things that the ferns had shown her. The dark, recently, had begun to scare her. The trees and the plants often showed her things that were shrouded in complete darkness, but she could still hear muffled screams and the crunching of bones behind them.

The dog shook herself quietly. Her leg hurt, but not as much as it used to, at least. She pushed herself up and began to pad towards her favourite spot.

Except, her favourite spot was different today.

There was a new smell-- the smell of someone she didn't know, but it didn't match any of the -berries that she had caught a whiff of before. They didn't seem to be around, either.

Cautiously, the borzoi padded forward to the patch of grass between the Eyes. She briefly glanced inside one pool, then the other. A scenario played out in her head, then and there.

Some idiot had gone for a swim.

She had no proof, but with the things that the Eyes had shown her, and the fact that the gembound in question was long gone, this was the most likely outcome, in Aster's mind. Quietly, she moved to sit and noticed that her paw was brushing up against something barely-hidden in the grass.

Instinctively, Aster brought her head down and snuffled. There was something cold there-- horribly cold --and she nudged at it gently. It was hard, and shiny, and green. Aster hadn't quite seen anything like it, and for a moment, she did nothing.

Gears were working in her slender little head, trying to figure out and understand. Naturally, she couldn't quite get there. When she shut her eyes and focused on casting up magic to ask it instead-- to look back and try to see --something else happened.

The wrong spell, maybe? Either way, the magicka flooding out of Aster and into the shard filled it, and the tiny emerald took root and began to grow, right under Aster's nose. Alarmed, the borzoi recoiled and got some distance. It grew only until it was about half a foot tall, and then stopped.

Maybe... just maybe... this wasn't a good time for the Eyes.

Aster would rather go back to sleep. Quietly, the borzoi brought herself up and paced back to her makeshift den to go back to sleep, leaving the growing chrysalis to do it's own thing.

exit

Unlike Kai, who had a purpose and was actively seeking him out, the lion-stag was simply perusing feline instinct: lounging in a patch of particularly warm orb-light and living his best life. This patch of light happened to be right by the silvery Eyes. Azizos used his own silvery eyes to keep an eye on those pools and anyone who came and went. Somehow, he managed to miss his friend and her ministrations between the Eyes, but he could, at least, catch a glimpse of the... stick figure.

Was that a stick figure?

It had four legs... and caused a green thing to grow out of the ground?

Alright, that was odd.

Untucking his limbs from his general self, Azizos quietly waited until the stick figure was long-gone before standing and trotting to the hot spot of the day. Sniffing around, he definitely found stick figure smell (in a cloyingly strong distribution, if he was honest) and... Kai? Lowering his nose to the ground, he snuffed against an odd green thing. As soon as he drew his face away, an apparent static charge lit through his stone.

Stumbling back, there was suddenly another green thing growing. Inspection time. A trap, of sorts? Oversized ears flicked, and he sniffed again, catching just a hint of Kai's trail. Fearing there may be more of these traps (totally not chrysalises, or anything) planted about, Azizos cantered off toward the scent.

exit