The gemstones and lights twinkled in Orion, the floor untouched and dusty. Nestled against a ruined wall, a greyblack chrysalis stirred, cracking open with a loud noise. It's prior cargo, a small canine, is dumped unceremoniously onto ground.

It stretches, opening its eyes to look up at the star-like roof. How pretty, it thinks, the first of many thoughts. But as much as it loves to watch their soft glow, it wants to see more. There has to be more.

Wolf-Rayet staggers to its feet, uneasy, but eager. Yipping, it looks around, deciding on a way to go. Left? Right? Somewhere else? So many options.

image credit: oskenund

A loud buzzing encroached upon the hatching, and a few moments later a tiny pink-and-gold fairy with a catlike face swept into view. She cleared her throat, adjusted a tiny bowtie, and pointed a wand down from where she was hovering some ten feet up.

Just in case.

Kids could be hungry little idiots, after all.

She took a moment to breathe--man, zipping around the caves trying to arrive at all these hatchings in time was exhausting. Fuck.

"OKAY. Okay." (Breathe, gasp, pant.) "AHEM. CONGRATULATIONS! You've hatched in the ONE HUNDREDTH CYCLE of all you things being awake, and stuff!" She waved a tiny hand, and the abrupt blaring of trumpets provided a fanfare. Then there was a rolling of drums, and an explosion of violent, loud fireworks that shot high (out of nowhere) before bursting in deafening cascades of color. "RIGHT. So--have a present on me!"

She paused.

Ahh, shit. She knew she'd forgotten something.

"Fuck it," she muttered. Safety regulations were for suckers anyway. She lobbed down a handful of fireworks--the real kind, the functional kind, the kind that'd blow a culpeo's paws off if he lit them on fire while pointing them the wrong way or getting too close. Valuable lessons, and all that.

Then she lifted a blower to her lips, and gave a little blast of unrolling paper and air. "Right. Have fun, kiddo."

On to the next one; she left the hapless pup in the smoldering embers of fireworks and a silent empty space.

@Wolf-rayet

Ears pricking to follow the buzzing of Nemean's wings, Wolf-Rayet looks up to see her. An inquisitive tilt of its head would tell her it was listening.

It's more than happy to yip back at the cat-thing, sharing in the celebration she was announcing, not that it knew what was so important quite yet. And while the fireworks startle it into leaping clear of the chrysalis shards, shaking, it quickly recovers, excited by all the bright colors.

"Thank you! Thank you!" it chitters, running in circles after its tail as the fireworks are dumped unceremoniously in front of it. What would Rayet do with them? No idea. But a gift was a gift!

image credit: oskenund

After spinning for a while, it gets dizzy, and lands on its front in the dust. Whoopsies.

It doesn't let that get to it, though, and gets up, shaking itself clean. It's only been a few minutes and it already looks haggard - not that Rayet even realizes. "Gifts? Gifts," it mutters to itself, looking down at the pile of fireworks. It doesn't even know what they're called, just that they belong to it now. Gifts should be kept, right?

It looks around, not sure what to do now. Maybe stash these somewhere for later? But where? It picks one up in its mouth, before padding off in a random direction. Somewhere to put gifts!

image credit: oskenund

It sets the first firework up on a rock. The culpeo puffs out its chest in pride, before it realizes, This isn't very sneaky. Someone could just take it.

Well, off onto the search again, picking its trophy up again and padding onward. There has to be somewhere to tuck these!

image credit: oskenund

Now this is better. A large slab of rock, leaning against another boulder, making a nice short but wide cubbyhole. Laughing and yipping, it wriggles inside, setting the first firework in its new den.

"Gifts safe here!" it declares, before slipping back out. There's several more where that one came from. Better carry as many of them in here as possible.

It spends the next hour or two stashing its prizes away, thankful for Nemean's offering. Not that Wolf-Rayet knows what any of these do. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

image credit: oskenund

Exit Wolf-Rayet