After she'd told Manna about Hume for the first time, Manna had told her about the water cycle. It was something the jaguar had observed from living and wandering through so many water-filled caves. The rains started, dropping fresh water onto Fornax's oceanic basin. The basin overflowed for a time, before all the new water drained down into the rest of the caves below. But rain, as Maw likely knew, had to come from somewhere. Water in the air, Maw had told her, and she'd given her a particular smile. Exactly. Water in the air, which came from the basin, condensed, and fell back down upon itself.

The comet, and the cyclical remaking of Hume, could be just like that. A cycle, after cycle, after cycle. Going nowhere, sustaining itself. And was that not how life was produced? Bodies made for passing water and air in and out and through. Life was the box of noise between two flat lines of entropy. The reason it didn't go anywhere was because it couldn't. Circles have no ends.

Since then, Maw had created a routine for herself in Fornax. She'd visit Manna, check the neonates, pet and scratch Manna's various itches and favorite spots. Maw had taken it upon herself to learn to read, as well. Since she had that book from one of her wishes. Maw had come to enjoy it, far more than speaking, or brooding, or anything else really. She had learned, so far, about the butterflies and the bees. Literally! They were pollinators! And a little about the plants they liked on Earth.

Earth was so far away from this place, in mind, body, and spirit. Did those little Humans even know? Did they ever learn about the things beyond that fateful little rock of theirs, adrift in space? Did they ever wonder about her, in turn?

Maw's mind felt so compressed by all the knowledge it now held within. She had to get it out—she had to. And with every passing day, the Coil bound itself tighter around her chest and throat, and Manna had to physically stop her from running out the den and never coming back. She just had to tell them, to tell them all. And maybe, once everyone knew, she could finally be at peace and return to her normal life, of wallowing in melancholy, and missing the children she never had.

She hadn't been to Pegasus in a while. She hadn't gone to the secret refuge in—maybe ever. The creatures of Chaos had been her constant companion, ever since her kittenhood. Ever since... Doug. And she'd never wanted to abandon him, even after leaving Pegasus. Leaving him behind.

Maw walked until she saw something so gripping, it ripped her straight out of her thoughts. The cathedral that shined with the same pink-gold as the nebula caught in her chrysoberyl hand. She had to enter—she wanted to. Desperately.

She wandered its halls, reverent with awe, jaw ever so slightly agape. She wandered until she found the series of pagodas. She wandered through them, taking in that ever-present scent of flowers and greenery (attempting to feed their life and passing on unfazed when nothing came of it), until she came to the biggest one. She wandered in, and within moments of seeing it felt so overwhelmed, her soul might rip itself to pieces. Her life, her God; depicted here, in stone. She'd never been here before. How had she never been here?

@Wilder (big post, but essentially Wilder can find Maw in front of the giant owl statue lol)

She'd retreated deep into the cathedral after returning from Polaris, the scar on her cheek deepened, refreshed. It stung for a while, then scabbed, then healed. Scarred. The fur around her gemstone wasn't growing as well anymore. Too many claws had dug into the flesh around it, it seemed her body didn't see the point in growing more to cover it anymore.

She'd existed in a state of blank nothingness, trying to accept, come to terms, with everything that had happened. Her failures and her inability to change things the way she'd wanted. To really change anything at all. What had she accomplished? What had she done? Nothing, she'd done nothing but get herself horribly hurt once again and putting more weight on her shoulders! And all she had was a little more information about an old, old question.

The Tower, indeed, she thought, bitterly.

Eventually, after multiple days of barely dragging herself up to even eat, the now unkempt, bleary-eyed cat flopped over on the floor of her tower and looked at the tarot deck stashed against the wall. She didn't know what compelled her to do it, but she wearily dragged herself over, barely with the energy to stand, and reached a paw to take a card from the pile.

It wasn't the top one, it was random. Whichever called to her in the moment. She flipped it over to see a beautiful illustration of a human knight upon a horse, a golden staff held high above his head as the light of the rising sun illuminated his joyful face.

Her whiskers twitched. Really? Another new adventure? She didn't want one. She wanted to wither away. But the more she stared at the golden-edged card, the more she felt herself curious for this journey she apparently was about to go on. What clear sense and instructions she had that would take her easily onto it?

She sighed and batted the card back into the pile and sat up, beginning to groom her very messy, tangled fur. It took her a while to bath herself properly, but when she was done, she was as sleek and groomed as she could be considering the circumstances. She turned and headed off down the stairs to the main body of the church.

She had intended to go towards the shrine, to sit there and maybe meditate for a little while to clear her head, but as she turned into the garden and stepped towards the pagodas, she realized someone was already there. She stopped, a little behind the cat-figure, blinking. Didn't she recognize them? She just couldn't place from where, though.

"Hello," she began, hesitantly, "Is it your first time in Noctua?"

@Maw

Maw was startled from her trance by the presence of another behind her. She had been living and reliving that first vision of Hume for cycles. Maw had thought herself an old cat, or an oldening one; three quarters of 100 cycles. She hadn't been counting. Hume did as Hume does: breathed new life into her. Into Maw's very stone. The magnolet dust sparkled at various angles beneath the false light.

The words at the back of her head had been so far away, she might've missed them. But it had been ages since she had shared anyone's company beside Manna's.

Wilder would find Maw spinning on her heel, green eyes wide and pupils narrowed, fur puffed up all over. Somehow even the moss growing from various portions of Maw's body looked "fluffed".

Truthfully, this was not the first time Wilder and Maw had ever been in the same room together. Hadn't even been the second or third, if I recall correctly. But it was the first time Maw had ever actually seen and registered the other magical cat as more than part of a crowd. Upon this discovery of Wilder's shape and form, Maw's fur relaxed, but her chrysoberyl eyes were still focused with blazing intensity.

She looked from the other cat to the owl statue, then back. "Hume-" Maw started, pointing an almost accusatory finger at the statue beyond her. Failing to adequately respond to a single word Wilder had said. "Hume- She's been here-" 'How have I not been here before?' "She came"—cough—"came down to Earth, ove-r and over again," Maw couldn't stop herself. The Coil bound tight against her chest, forcing all her words up and out of her gullet. "The Comet! It doesn't ju-st kill the-m, it-it destroy-s them." It didn't take much for Maw's voice to start rasping. She stumbled towards Wilder like a zombie, like a rabid beast. "The humans, wi- wi-th paws—ha-nds like—" Maw thrust her paw-hands out so Wilder could see them. "L-ike mine, and sh-e co-mes, agai-n and agai-n—she wa-s here, an..." Maw's voice felt like a busted accordian buried in somebody's garbage can, but she still had to force it through. Hume compelled her.

She looked around her body and feet, pawing for something "I- I can pro-ve i-t I just ne-ed—where..." Maw fell to her knees, slumping. Where had it gone? She'd left it. Back at home, with Manna. Where it was safe. Home, Manna, safe. Maw hadn't realized how hard breathing had become, until she thought of that familiar face which evoked so many more faces from the past. It grounded Maw, to remember and realize that she had a body, and a voice, and a life here on this not Earth. That the visions of cosmic wonder she had witnessed out there had been so big, too big—that they had no bearing on her life at all. What was she to do, wondering about a rock who-knows-how-far from her own? She had yet to see that surface she had dreamt about, ever since that vision first came. The vision holding the sun, the sky, the meteor.

Maw blinked herself awake. The fit of passion hadn't entirely cleared, but it was beginning to dim. In the thinning mists of that magnolet vapor, Maw's eyes wandered to Wilder's, and that ever-focused glare caught the sight of the scar on Wilder's cheek. Maw reached out a paw-hand, without a trace of hesitation, to cup that cheek. To—with a touch as delicate as a feather—caress the pink gemstone with her thumb. Her outstretched madness suddenly turned to sympathy. Still not quite herself, but getting there. "D-Does it hu-rt?" Maw would ask through her hoarsening voice, even if Wilder had shied away from the touch.

@Wilder

At first she didn't quite comprehend that Maw had said Her name, taken aback suddenly by her onslaught of talk. But then understanding set in, understanding of what she'd said. The meaning. What this meant.

"You are Enlightened..." she could not help but utter the words aloud, because somebody else had seen Her, not simply in the comet but seen her close enough to know her. To feel the touch, the blessing, of her radiation. The curse of it as well, and she could see the madness in her because she had felt that madness too. "What do you suffer? Can I help?" Her own madness gleamed in the back of her mind, yearning forward for Maw to tell her how to help, as if she could salve a wound.

"I know of Her. You've come to her temple. She has not been...here, really, but her power created it. I think." She glanced towards the entrance leading to Pegasus. Meissa had mentioned there had been a cloaked figure when Noctua appeared - The Visitor? Here on her behalf?

It had heralded her appearance in the comet before, and she knew of it.

"It's okay," she soothed, calming, pushing magic forward to help help help. The Martyr's Serpent wrapped around her neck twisted and bit into her flesh, a stinging pain that brought with it a sense of hysteria - Maw's madness, as she took on the emotional weight of it. Some, at least. It was so so familiar, and even though she could feel its spark like a fire beneath her feet, it was exhilirating.

"You are not alone," she murmured, and it was so warm. So happy. To have found another that knew Hume as intimately as her, that loved her...?

Her ears flattened as Maw reached to touch her cheek, but she didn't shy away. She remained in place, uncomfortable with someone reaching to caress to spot upon her that was like an eternally open wound she could not heal or cover. "No," she said truthfully - it didn't hurt anymore, well and scarred over, but then she thought for a second longer. "...A little." Just not physically.

@Maw

You are Enlightened... Maw's eyes widened, and while she remained physically stable, her soul reeled from the meteoric impact of knowing that someone else understood. That there was a word for this. Someone else—Maw wasn't alone. It was like realizing you're gay but with a little more nausea and a lot more supernatural hysteria.

What did she suffer? Were there... multiple options...? Maw asked only to know Hume—knowing others was more of a challenge for her, one she rarely took interest in. The madness others faced, she knew nothing about. Still, she answered: "Sp—Speak-... I ha- ha-ve to te-ll other-s b-ut..." Maw put a hand to her throat, hoping it would send enough of a message. Even without its tendency to rapidly grow hoarse and painful, the internal experience—the texture—of her own talking tended to displease her. It hadn't been this bad as a kitten with a speech impediment, talking to her best friend for hours at a time. Even then, she had mostly done the listening. The mutation had made everything feel especially strange. Telepathy, she knew, was an alternative method, but not one she cared much to learn. She didn't like the idea of anyone being in her head, it felt weird. But then, what else did that leave? "N-ot t-o Va-r-gas." Maw's expression bittered. "H-e..." She drifted away.

Wilder's suggestion that Hume hadn't been here made Maw's eyes jump to Wilder's, pupils turning to slits. "Sh-e has." Maw was frighteningly firm in this. "A vers-ion. V-arga-s mmm... made i-t. H-er. B-ut h-e's no-t sa-fe." Maw recalled with such sudden clarity, those visions of that child, whom Vargas had made from a human and something else. The snow that blanketed the Earth. And the cutting contrast of the tone she had detected, the edge in Vargas's voice, when she had come close to asking him about all of this. What a terrifying glimpse of fate had floated down into the caves at that time. None of them were wise to any of it. It would seem, not even Wilder.

And what would happen, if they began to put their stories together...?

Cutting now to the moment with Maw's hand on Wilder's cheek, thumb on her gemstone. Maw felt some of the madness alleviate, though she knew not where it had gone. Usually it was her constant, buzzing companion. She was in no position to question the shift right now, though.

Maw did not understand Wilder's acceptance of the pain to be metaphorical, and so, in a trade of magical olive branches, Maw would attempt to pour her own energy into healing Wilder. She would close her eyes, hand still gently cupping Wilder's cheek, and let the energy flow.

Wilder's body language had not escaped Maw's notice, however. As asocial as Maw tended to be, felines were still social creatures, especially with each other. It was rare for her to encounter a body language she could understand so instinctively. Of course, the entirety of the caves was learning experience after learning experience with all the different creatures and their languages. Maw had spent cycles learning the quirks of equines, cervidae, wolves, puppies, jaguars, valkhounds—and so many more.

She brought another steady but cautious hand to Wilder's head and stroked across the top of it, between those flattened ears, as one might stroke their own hair back into position on their head. Her padded fingers bore down a soft and hopefully comforting pressure into Wilder's pressure points and nerve endings. Maw knew it was improper to start from an aerial angle, but she hoped that in quickly showcasing a brief stroke, Wilder might see what it was she was trying to do. Maw would put her hand down right after, but hover it nearby in case Wilder wanted more. "P-etti-ng," Maw would rasp, as if to answer a question Wilder hadn't asked yet. Thanks to Manna's incessant demands, Maw was practically a master at it now.

@Wilder