Since becoming friends with the blooru, Sunny had taken to exploring. It was a thrilling adventure, running around the caves and finding new ones, and now she'd discovered Polaris. Magic thrummed in her veins, and it made the blooru nervous -- Sunny could relate. She didn't even know what element she carried -- just that all of her magic was very... neutral. Felt almost exactly like the kind in this cave, making the blooru's fur stand on end.

She'd approached the Spire, drawn by its strange and shimmery glow. The blooru, to her credit, hated it. She danced around the black cracks and wouldn't go within three meters of the structure, but Sunny was curious, now. Would her magic-finding spell even work in Polaris? Or would it just overwhelm her senses? Sunny wasn't sure.

Ought we try it? she thought, excitement rearing up. The blooru brayed nervously. Then again, everything made her nervous.

She paused. The Spire gave her a migraine. It was like looking into the sun, blotting everything else out... no, wait. There was something else! Beyond that, she noticed... a cluster of stones?! She directed the blooru towards them, and the pair trotted a short distance away until Sunny had identified a little hole in the ground. "Putting me in," she said, and the blooru picked her up carefully, pushing Sunny's form inside the tunnel.

She looked the stones over. Several were gathered here, and her eyes lit up (as much as they could for only being a couple of cells). "Stones!" she called, selecting one nearest the entrance at random (a pretty alexandrite). She wasn't having much luck moving it, though. It was... pretty big, generally, and she was not. "Helping!" Sunny demanded, shoving as hard as she could against the rock.

The blooru took mercy on her and knelt down, shuffling awkwardly forward to strain her tail closer. Finally, the pair managed to meet in the middle, and the blooru moved the alexandrite back out (and somewhere safe). Sunny huffed as the blooru stood up again awkwardly, not comfortable with being so... exposed.

Sunny looked back towards the stones. "You can carrying one, and I can hold onto one..." She strained towards the rest of them, conflicted. "We can making many trips, maybe?" But she wasn't sure. Sunny sighed, attempting another cast to make sure the next stone she selected was actually magical and not just a pretty rock.

The force of the Spire's influence screamed at her. Detecting magic did not frequently go painfully wrong, but she was suddenly feeling like an overexposed photograph as all of her senses whited out. Sunny was totally helpless for the next few seconds, and her familiar wasn't faring all that well, either. Needless to say, a supremely unpleasant and borderline painful situation to be in simply because of overstimulation alone.

When her vision returned, every nerve in her body was going haywire. Sunny felt a little nauseous as she looked at the stones. Deciding quite suddenly that it wasn't really worth the effort but not willing to leave without at least one more, she selected another at random -- a pretty sardonyx, with creamy and reddish banding.

Sunny tried to jam her head up under the stone, aiming to roll it onto the crook between her head and stone to carry it out that way. She was stronger that way than one might have expected. Just barely managing not to drop it, she got it far enough to the entrance that Kooru could move it next to the other one. Then, in a steady and systematic sort of flow, she began a process.

First, she picked up Sunny and placed the snail between her shoulder blades -- usually Sunny sat higher, but Kooru knew the way home and this was important. Then, she placed the smaller of the two stones up where Sunny could grip onto it and push it down into the gap between the shoulders (uncomfortable for the kooru, but safer for the stone). Finally, the kooru picked up the larger stone in her tail and raised her head.

"Home-going," Sunny grumbled. "And we will not be returning."



/exit blooru (and sunny)
+ permission from silverwinter to take these two from wilder's old den