Backdated to April 5th.

He is alone.

He is cold.

He is hungry.

Though he has spent so much time calling, calling into the empty cave; calling and searching, sniffing as best he can with his little nose, he still has not found his mother again.

He has spent so much time waiting, curled up in a cranny waiting patiently for his mother to come back. She will come back, he knows; she has to, right? If he moves much from the little space he found crammed against the rock, she might not be able to find him again. He might not be able to find her.

But through the days, the dimming and glowing of the lights above, the facts remain.

He is alone. He is cold. He is hungry.

He's been trying to be brave for mother, brave and good, but the chill is starting to get to him and he is so, so hungry. His tummy rumbles and his head is starting to get a little dizzy; his mouth is watering and he just needs something to eat.

But what will happen if he leaves? Will mommy lose him? Will he never see her again?

Maybe—maybe if he's quick. Maybe if he just leaves for a little to find something to eat.

The tunnel is just as cold as the cave. It's damp, and the air feels heavy. His hooves sink a little into the dirt with every step and he doesn't like it.

He considers maybe going back and finding a different tunnel, but it would take too long to find another one. And maybe if he takes too long, momma won't be able to find him.

No: he will be very brave, and a good kid, and momma will find him sitting right there when she comes back. (Because she has to.)

He puts his nose to the ground, sniffing; sharp ears twitching, twitching, listening for the sound of... something. He doesn't really know what he's listening for, honestly. It's mostly instinct that guides him at this point, looking for food.

Little paws scratching on the stone. Distant squeaks—for a moment, his heart leaps, then immediately sinks in his chest. Mother doesn't sound like that.

But maybe food sounds like that? He sits back on his haunches, ears forward, alert.

He waits.

He continues to wait.

...he doesn't know what to do. The food isn't coming to him. He doesn't think it's supposed to, but—what is he supposed to do?

He wants his mother.

His mother doesn't come. (His mother will never come.)

What does come is a soft surge of power; a warm buzzing of his magic, a gentle hum through the soil. He startles to his hooves at the sensation, fur fluffing up in alarm—what is that? He doesn't know what is happening!

What happens, he finds, is the gentle bloom of fungi; a tiny patch of glowing mushrooms, golden in their light.

He looks at the mushrooms. The mushrooms stay silent, unwavering in their light. The mushrooms do not look back.

Still, he continues to stare at them, unfamiliar and uncertain—until his belly rumbles, and he remembers.

...is this food? Are they good to eat? A tentative few clicks of his hooves brings him within muzzle's-length of the fungi, and carefully, he leans down to sniff at them. They don't smell bad; they don't smell like anything at all, except, perhaps, faintly dusty.

He takes a bite.

He sticks his tongue out. He doesn't like the taste of them very much, they taste... icky. And kind of plant-y.

But food is food, and he is hungry, so with an internal gag he leans forward and begins to chew at these summoned mushrooms.

Too soon, too quickly, the patch is gone, and the tunnel is dim once more. The tunnel didn't seem this dark before... their light made everything feel so much brighter. He regrets eating them.

Especially since he doesn't even feel full. Eating the mushrooms helped a little, but his stomach still feels so empty.

His ears prick up. Again, he hears that distant sound; the scritching, scratching of something hiding in the stone. His instincts tell him food and his instincts tell him find it but he doesn't know how, is the thing! Nobody ever told him how. He wishes momma was here, that he didn't have to figure it out for himself.

But she'll be proud of him when he does, right? That and the persistent ache in his belly is what drives him to straighten up, pacing anxiously down the tunnel with ears pricked, searching for the source of the sound.

He doesn't find it. Not the source, exactly; he finds that some spots the sound of scrabbling, scratching is closer and in some spots it's farther, but he doesn't find where it's coming from. He thinks it's in the rocks, but how is he supposed to get in there? He's too big to stick himself into some of those crevices.

Frustrated, he paces in a circle and then sits, thinking to himself as hard as he can about food. It worked last time, with the magic. Maybe it'll work now.

The magic is like breathing, in a way. He inhales, and there's that prickle of power at his chest, something buzzing like a trapped insect; he exhales, and the buzzing intensifies, traveling all the way from his lungs, up his throat, and suddenly the tunnel is alive with light.

It's nearly blinding. He blinks, once, twice, again, clearing the spots from his eyes. When he can see, he gasps; he can't help it. The tunnel is alive with a mat of glowing mycelium, fungal caps sprouting from the floor, shelves sprouting from the walls. They've rooted deep in the soil and he realizes, suddenly, that the fungi must really like it here, in the wetness, in the damp.

He still doesn't like the cold. It pierces through the wetness of his coat so easily. But maybe, maybe if he finds some place that's warm and wet, then he won't mind it as much, and the little glowing things here will...

...no. He can't leave. Having come this far out at all makes him feel sick. He has to come back, soon, before his mother loses him. He has to wait there for her to find him.

He lowers his head, watching one of the glowing mushrooms idly with a soft sniffle. He misses her so much.

Something moves out of the corner of his eye. His head snaps up.

There, on the edge of the mat of glowing fungus, is a mouse.

There are several of them, actually: tiny red bodies, sniff-sniffing at the gleaming mushrooms. As he watches, one of them takes the base of a mushroom in its paws and begins to gnaw, tilting the mushroom towards it like it wants to take it with it.

Instinct takes over. Slowly, slowly, he moves into position, front hooves digging carefully in the dirt, back arching as dark eyes stare intently at the little mouse.

Slowly, slowly... now. Strike.

Pounce.

There is a brief, startled squeak as his teeth clamp shut around the mouse; then something breaks, and he tastes blood.

Sweet relief. He settles down in the mycelium with his prize clutched tight in his jaws. It's amazing how soft the mushrooms are. Not as soft as... as his mother, as her touch, as her warmth before she left. But it is a sparse comfort, all alone in the wetness.

He takes his meal in gentle, glowing light, picking his way around the bones, which he finds he doesn't like the sensation of very much.

It aches terribly when he realizes he has to leave the pretty mushrooms behind. They like it here. What if they don't grow as well in the waterfall cave? What if he's going to be even more alone back there, with no friends to keep him company?

But it's either leave the mushrooms or leave his mother, and the thought of his mother coming back when he's not there and deciding he must have left her behind after all fills him with such a panic it's a miracle that he doesn't sprint back to the cave right there and then.

He does have to leave, though. And leave he does, though watching the glowing yellow light fade to the blue, icy hues of the cave he was born in makes him sadder than he has any right to be.

At least he's not hungry any more.

;;exit Isaac