The problem was, Sunny didn't know what chrysalis was. She didn't know that a dead Gembound could come back. All she knew was that Binh, a top-heavy serpent who'd fallen face-first into water before, had disappeared in Fornax and she couldn't find him. Madhukar had said she'd been hurt -- not that she'd died.

Sunny only knew death from her familiar's perspective; scary and finite and something to be avoided. But now Binh was gone, and Sunny had no way of knowing if he'd ever return.

It was the kooru who decided that the passage of time had become too uncomfortable. In her life, there was little time for mourning. She picked Sunny up by the shell and rose to her feet, making her way carefully towards the exit and holding her friend a little tighter. Today, she'd learned a strong lesson about mortality, and it was not one she would soon be forgetting.


@binh for visibility

/exit kooru (and sunny)