Tucked into a hidden alcove between the trees, a tiny chrysalis shivered and cracked. The little creature inside stretched and strained, beak tapping blindly at the walls, before they finally gave way and it tumbled out.

Larkspur was given a gentle welcome into the world: the soil soft underfoot cradling her oh-so-carefully, the warm glow of labradorite waystones illuminating the gnarled roots that tangled along either side. To one direction lay Pegasus, where--though she didn't know it--endless meadows and a clear river would invite her to make herself at home, if she wished.

But what's this? To the other direction, there came all sorts of sounds. Shouting, music, laughing, the bustling of games and machines and the scent of animals and food. The baby tree swallow's head turned, her eyes fixed on the Carnival tents a short distance away. People! She would like people, she thought. Where other people were would surely be where she belonged as well.

She responded to the noise with her own series of rapid, high chirps and scrambled to join them. Little feet pushed off on the soft soil and she shot into the air in a flurry of brown wings.

Carnival, here she comes!

Worm had decided he hated the carnival. He'd been lured towards it with the promise of games and fun, but all these games and fun were too loud. The music was nice, he had to admit, but there as an unsettling feeling as he'd looked back the way he came and found that he'd seemingly gotten lost. Because surely paths didn't move and disappear, that'd be silly.

Surely...

Yet, it was the colours and brightness that had drawn him; after the void light of Cepheus had become somewhat monotonous, this was a feast for his eyes. Gembound in bright costumes, lights, and the mist, it was all captivating; so much so that how barren the plant life was here seemed lost on the kitten.

It was the sound of fluttering that broke his trance, gazing up at the coloured lights. He blinked and then turned his head to and fro as if to find the source of the noise, the thing that sounded nothing like the music and stands.

"Hello?" Worm called uncertainly towards the skies, unable to see what was causing that fluttering noise.

@Zephyr

The path to the carnival wound and twisted, and before long Larkspur would find that if she looked back, she would no longer be able to find the way out. But why would she look back? She was just following the music and the laughter, the cheery jingle with just a few odd notes sprinkled in.

Finally the path opened up to a sprawling expanse of stalls and games, tents and rides. The multicolored lights were overwhelming. Larkspur twisted, flitted back and forth, trying to take in everything. Where to go? Then a voice called out beneath him. He folded his wings and dove, pulling up at the last second to land beside the one who had spoken.

"Hello." she repeated Worm's own words back to him, staring up unabashedly. So big! And so featherless. She looked down and ran his bill quickly through her own wing feathers before looking back up. What was it like to not have any? And did the whole world seem smaller from his point of view?

@Worm

It took far too much willpower not to scold the newcomer for copying him. Worm said nothing for a beat as he looked down at Zephyr, then eventually puffed a sigh from his nose.

"What is this place?" Worm practically shouted to be heard over the music. Perhaps this small gembound would know, or at least know if there was something dangerous lurking here; all the liars seemed to be brightly coloured or brightly-coloured adjacent, and he had no interest in someone lying about him today.

So caught up in his thoughts, Worm forgot to take a good look at his avian gembound. With a blink, he turned his head down to take stock of them. "You're really small." Worm sneered, perhaps he hadn't meant the upset to show on his face, but it had anyway.

"Aren't you worried someone will gobble you up?"

@Zephyr

What was this place? Hell if Larkspur knew. She had known the world for all of five minutes, after all. But Larkspur was a quick learner. At Worm's question, she took another look around, first from the ground and then flitting up to land carefully on the thorny stem of a nearby bush. Tiny claws carefully grasped perfectly in-between vicious-looking thorns to give the swallow fledgling a secure hold.

"I don't know!" she answered finally. "But I think there's lots of food." Though the sugary and fried treats available weren't a tree swallow's usual diet, some instinct told her that they were edible. And might even be delicious. "And things that spin and move with people perched on them. They look fun," she added, watching a train of connected carts go careening off its tracks, do a flip mid-air, and somehow land safely back down again. How thrilling!

Having had no previous experience with mammal (or any animal) facial expressions, it completely flew over Larkspur's head that Worm was sneering at her. She thought his wrinkly twisted visage was just the way he was born (which it partially was). "And you're really big," she returned, "and featherless. And you have four legs." She didn't really mean anything by it. She thought that if Worm was making observations about her, perhaps it was the thing to do to reciprocate? "Huh. I never really worried about that before. I think I'd just fly away." Besides: "There's a lot of food here. Why would they want to eat me?" It seemed a lot easier and quite possibly more enjoyable to eat something all battered up, seasoned, and fried to a crisp than a little bird covered in feathers, raw.

@Worm surprise gaslight name change lol

Worm had tried not to look disappointed, but truthfully, he hadn't tried that hard. Why didn't anyone know what this place was? Admittedly, he'd only asked one person, but that didn't matter. He watched the small bird perch between the thorns, instead of getting pricked by them; that seemed to be a useful reason to be small.

It was then that he turned his eyes back to his surroundings; there was a lot of food. At least, that's what he thought he could smell. It's with a pang of something at the back of his throat that he offered, "we can find you something to eat." Then he eyed the machines with people strapped to them, "I don't know if they're having fun, some of them are screaming..."

Apparently finished being a killjoy, Worm looks down at himself as if to take stock of himself. He certainly did still have four legs and no feathers. Maybe he should; flying away from being eaten sounds like a good skill to have.

"Oh. I don't know. Maybe they don't like the other food." Worm admitted. "What do you eat? So you don't gobble me up!" Worm had tried to frame it as a joke, but the humour didn't quite reach his words. Perhaps he was afraid that something so small could get hungry enough to eat him.

@Larkspur

Larkspur blinked innocently. "Does screaming mean they're not having fun?"

That important question out of the way, she could turn her attention to the matter of food. "Hm... I don't know what I eat! I've never eaten anything before. But I don't think I could gobble you up. I don't think you'd fit in my mouth." Somehow, instinctively, Larkspur knew that a mouth was for eating. "Maybe we should try some of this other food. That way if it's good, we won't have to worry about someone gobbling us up. And if it's bad, we know that we should watch out." She scanned the food stalls from the vantage point of the thorny stem she was perched on and decided on one that was selling a crunchy-looking, brown-colored fried food in paper bags: churros, though Larkspur didn't know what the name was. Somehow, instinctively, again, Larkspur thought that brown-colored crunchy-looking things would taste good. At least, it seemed more appealing than the other closest stall, which was selling some kind of multicolored fluffy cloud on sticks.

"I'm gonna try that one!" Larkspur announced, and launched herself from her perch to flit over to the churro stall. The carnie behind it grinned down at her. "Aw, aren't you tiny," it said, tossing her several pieces of churro torn just small enough for Larkspur to eat, which she promptly did.

Hm. Crunchy. Sweet. A taste that promised disproportionately plentiful calories. Larkspur's eyes widened. "It's good!" she called to Worm. "No one's gonna eat us with this stuff around! Come try it."

@Worm

This little gembound was utterly perplexing. It hadn't eaten before; it didn't take a genius to figure out this must be a fresh gembound; after all, Worm felt like he had to eat several times a day. There's no way a gembound couldn't not eat several times a day. But, it'd also flown over to a stranger and just taken food as if it were no big deal.

It wasn't scared or worried, it just went on over and did those things without any hesitation. Bizarre.

Eventually, Worm moved, skittishly weaving through legs and stalls to reach the crumbs; reeling at anyone who looked at him a little too long and spitting at anyone who dared try to acknowledge he was there. "I think screaming means it's scary. I've only screamed when I've been scared."

Then the cat craned his head downwards to give the crumbs a tentative lick. Which he immediately regretted as he hacked, spluttering the crumbs back onto the floor. His face scrunched in its displeasure as he announced, "that's nasty. Yuck!"

"Are you trying to trick me?" Worm may have looked a bit more menacing at the accusation if he wasn't scraping his tongue over his paws, trying to get rid of any lingering churro crumbs.

@Larkspur

Scary! Being scared! What did that feel like? Larkspur had never experienced the emotion before. "Maybe I'll try it anyway," she mused. "It might be interesting."

More perplexing than the feeling of fear was Worm's reaction to the churros. They were good! Larkspur had tried them herself! "I wasn't," she answered, bewildered. "I thought they were good. They were sweet! And crunchy!" She looked around the carnival. There were multiple other food stalls with very different food selections. Maybe differently-shaped Gembound had different tastes, and that's why they were there--to cater to all the different possibilities?

"Maybe it's because your mouth is wide and soft?" Larkspur suggested. Hers was small and pointy and hard. "Maybe you should try a food that's wide and soft, too. I'm sure we can find something!"

@Worm

Worm pulled a face. Why would anyone want to try it anyway? Well, he didn't want a newly emerged to get hurt, so he supposed he'd go with this gembound. Perhaps if he didn't bring it up again, it would forget about wanting to go on the scream-zoomers.

"It was icky! Nasty!" Worm protested with a huff before looking around the carnival. Maybe the gembound had a point, maybe he would prefer something wide and soft. The banana Imp had given him was delicious, and it was also both wide and soft too.

Then, he caught something that seemed wide, soft, and it smelled good too. Meaty. "What about those.." Worm squinted at the sign, as his brain worked its cursory reading knowledge. "Not dogs!" He exclaimed, apparently mistaking the 'H' on the sign for an 'N'.

He scampered through the crowd to hound someone until he was given the blessed hot dog. He could barely fit his mouth around it all as he brought it back towards the avian gembound, dropping it between them.

Worm took a single bite of the bun before grimacing, and it was spat out just the same as the churro crumbs. Yet, the middle part, when he took a bite of the sausage, he barely chewed before he was urgently scarfing up another bite. "This one is good!" Worm spoke through his mouthful.

@Larkspur