There was something waiting underneath the Monarch, the Mother, the giant mushroom that ruled over all of Eridanus. Half-buried underneath the loamy soil and shadowing ferns, it waited and pulsed with quiet, growing life.

Inside was a small black furred form, with tiny, twitching fingers and a long bushy tail that curled around it all, the tail almost as big as the rest of it combined. Inside, the child dreamed, and waited to awaken. It was safe, so there was no hurry, but still, somehow, the life knew there was something outside these comfortable walls. It could hear the hush and quiet chatter of the jungle outside....and it wanted to be there.

Sooner rather than later, the walls crept in, telling the child that is was time to wake up. The life struggled, eager to leave its warm, safe haven, and see the world. It shoulder pressed against the crystal wall, its small hands banged against its prison(for that's what it felt like now that it was suffocating the child - as heretical as it felt to think so), and so did its feet kick and scrape. Its eyes flared open, and with one last shove, its walls shattered open, and it was blinded, shielding its eyes from the light that was comparatively so much harsher than its prison.

The child slowly climbed out of its shell, its fur ragged and unkempt and slightly damp, its big brown eyes that were much too big for its head taking in all that surrounded it. What was this? What is above me? What am I smelling? What's going on? They thought.

From an outsider's perspective, this child was a sight to behold - its baby canines peeked out over its lips, its eyes were overly wide and disproportionate, its fur was all over the place, and it had the look of a half-drowned cat. It held none of the easy charm and adorable mannerisms that other normal cubs and puppies and kittens had. This was a child hesitant and questioning, skittish and wild.

(( Think: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/106/368344301_8f26682f6c_z.jpg?zz=1 ))

@Dovefeather

DOVEFEATHER

i've got my sights on, my sights on a brand new beginning

Nearby, a kitten sat under the shade of the All Mother, her tail twitching as she seemed almost sleeping while upright. A gentle hum came from her body, a soft, almost inaudible hum.

The cat's demeanor had changed wildly since her hatching. Ever since the Eyes had grown clouded, she spent more and more time away from them, closer to the monarch and her sisters. Currently, the other cats were elsewhere. Perhaps hunting for their useless, sight-seeing sister.

Regardless, the noise seemed to startled the kitten. She jumped to her paws at the sound of the cracking, her curly fur not so much bristling as puffing up as a bird's plumage would.

"All Mother, what is that?"

The mewl escaped from her jaws before she could help herself. Her pale, dandelion eyes stared at the drenched cat, staring with horror at something that could have been her sister, drowned in the Eyes and then buried under the Monarch. She suppressed what she Saw in the "feline", her teeth clenched as she tried to stay rational. She was not insane. She would do better than pass such quick judgement.

"Hello, little one. I am Dovefeather... Are you a sister of ours-- a daughter of the All Mother?"

Her words seemed to be innocent enough, but her tone was downright distrustful. The creature spooked her, the way it hatched from the soil, they way it stared. It frightened her, and she had a hard time not showing it.

words:......... nyah
tagged:....... @Cayenne
ooc:............ nope
muse:......... 6/10

"Talking looks like this."
Thinking looks like this...

The child's attention swung around and locked straight onto the thing, the creature that came towards them and started asking a question. Wha-what were they saying? Name? Dovefeather? All Mother? Daughter? Sister? What were any of these things?

The child thought over these things, grabbed ahold of their long ragged tail, staring unblinkingly at the speaking thing, processing everything. This....this creature...was named Dovefeather. What were they? A...the words were coming to her like bubbles rising from the deep, slowly, popping as soon as they reached open air. They-she, she was a cat. A cat named Dovefeather. The child very much thought themselves a she as well. Were they? It seemed right.

The girl-child thought and thought, and she could see Dovefeather's unease. Why was she upset? She was just trying to understand. But nothing really told her what the All Mother was. Was the All Mother her actual mother? Was she this cat's sister? Did that make her a cat too?

".....mo-mother..." She murmured, coming towards the cat. "...sister...?" Her voice sounded harsh and raspy, and she coughed a few times.

@Dovefeather

DOVEFEATHER

i've got my sights on, my sights on a brand new beginning

The feline watched as the other grabbed at her tail, eyes as wide as the All Mother's Eyes.

"Is this another Seer, O All Mother..."

The words came as an unfiltered murmur through her maw, her fur bristling as she felt a challenge to her position, staring at this foreign, disturbing almost-cat. The creature coughed as it spoke, approaching the grey, curly furred feline.

Though Dovefeather did not step back, she paused where she stood, holding her ground as the drowned beast approached. She cautiously looked up at the frilled, towering mushroom above them. Her curled tail straightened, pointing straight up at the Monarch above.

"Yes, the All Mother. She watches us, even now."

"A sickness has come over the All Mother. It blinds her eyes. Perhaps that is why she brings you here, to help. Yet... There is something wrong."

She didn't say anything else, instead shutting her jaw tight. Her pale eyes stared harshly at the strange, disfigured and drowned cat, trying to understand what she was seeing. Despite everything, the feline was still purring, just as soft and ever present as before.

words:......... nyah
tagged:....... @Cayenne
ooc:............ nope
muse:......... 6/10

"Talking looks like this."
Thinking looks like this...

The she-child paused in her stumbling movement towards the cat to look up and up, at the silver ceiling up above. Was this presence, this silver, her mother, that watched her, as the cat-sister said?

She paused. Processed. So the silver sky had made her, and watched her. That was...huh.
She wondered vaguely what a seer was. Was she a seer? It sounded nice.A seer....saw things.
As her eyes lowered down from the silver sky, they focused back again on the cat-sister. Their mother was blinded and sick, concepts that took a while for her to understand, and the child frowned at this, her tail lashing back and forth nervously. Why was the sister making this pleased, percussive sound, that quiet rumbling, if their mother was sick?

Something in her sparked - she felt this surge, this passion, for the first time - and she needed to help this sickness. She opened her mouth, little fangs glistening in the dim light underneath the All Mother, and said, "...how......h...help...?"

Her wide eyes took in the cat sister, and her tail curled around her again, and she gripped it tight. She wanted to help.

The dampness was starting to get to her, and she finally took a note of how different the air felt versus the comforting warmth of her prison. A shiver went through her, and she murmured, "....cold..." still staring straight at the sister.

@Dovefeather

DOVEFEATHER

i've got my sights on, my sights on a brand new beginning

The older kitten blinked softly, observing the reaction of the kitten, and decided that she should, perhaps, not pass judgement so quickly. Yes, there was something wrong with the feline before her... But, she was still a sister.

"It is dangerous. I do not yet know."

The answer came simply as she drew closer to the fake-cat, giving the primate a cursory sniff before reaching out with her muzzle to lick the wet looking for the opposite way. It would warm her up to have a bath after all...

"Here, I'll warm you up. I don't know why you look like you're... wet. And weird. But I'm sure it is because the All Mother is sick."

"Your path will be difficult, I fear. There will be many who judge you, and you may begin to doubt yourself. This doubt may become all consuming, a blackness that blinds not only those around you but even yourself. Have faith, little one."

Dovefeather knew she shouldn't make predictions here, under the All Mother, away from the Eyes... Not while She was sick, poisoned... But she couldn't help herself. She had to speak her mind to the child, to get it off her chest. She had a hard time keeping her opinions to herself.

Regardless, between words, she did her best to groom the strange black "drowned" kitten.

words:......... nyah
tagged:....... @Cayenne
ooc:............ nope
muse:......... 6/10

"Talking looks like this."
Thinking looks like this...

Her eyes squinted as the cat sister leaned in and started licking her, and she just had this openly blank look on her face as this happened. What? What? What is this rough sensation? What's going on? But it felt nice, this different wetness, this warm tongue on her wild fur. But what was her sister saying? Blackness? Doubt? Was this part of the mother's sickness? Did affect her too?

"Do...." She spoke hesitantly in her childish raspy voice in between the cat licking her to a modest cleanliness. "...you....ju-judge? Am....am I....weird?"

At least she wasn't shivering. She watched the cat expectantly, letting one strange word sink in. ".....faith..."

She looked down then, and looked at her sisters paws and her own paws. Her sisters were nice and small and petite, and her own were....wrong. Elongated, veiny, ugly, one of them made of this weird bright stone. She was....different. Sick. She made this upset sound in the back of her throat, and hiccupped, suddenly feeling very down.

@Dovefeather

DOVEFEATHER

i've got my sights on, my sights on a brand new beginning

At the first question, Dovefeather's purring seemed to skip a few buzzes, but it seemed to resume at twice the previous volume. Compensating.

"... Sister, I do my best to See what I can, and interpret that which I See. It is always possible for me to be wrong, as no one in infallible."

But there was a lingering doubt, in her voice, one that said all to clearly. She did her best to comfort the child, but in reality, she was much to worried about her own immediate problems to be truly selfless, truly kind and sincere, in that moment.

"Every creature is born different, Sister. You will find this as you travel. Perhaps you are weird, but it is... The differences that will set you apart from the others."

She seemed to be struggling to find words, grasping at straws more obviously than usual. Her tail twitched, and with one final lick to the strange not-quite kitten's forehead, she took a few steps back.

"Have faith, Sister. The All Mother needs you. Your strangeness will prove to hold its own value, give you your own unique strength, one day. For now, you must learn to cherish what you have been given."

words:......... nyah
tagged:....... @Cayenne
ooc:............ dove: lowkey racist A+
muse:......... 6/10

"Talking looks like this."
Thinking looks like this...

She looked up at the sister-cat, that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach growing as her sister continued to speak, and her eyes looked at anything else. She was weird. She was different. A sick cat. It took her a second to realize her breath was loud to her tiny ears, coming harshly out of her own nose as the cat continued talking. The tongue that made her warm was too rough on her thin fur, and she pushed away from the cat sister, eyes locking onto the paw- the hand- that did so.

She didn't have weird paws, she had hands, with long, long fingers. She realized this now, a little fact that bloomed in her mind as thousands of others were, unnoticed, the longer she was awake. The sister stepped back a ways, and kept talking, saying that her strangeness might turn to be a strength, one that she should be grateful for. But all she could pay attention to was the echoing, booming, invasively loud thought in her mind that she was so obviously different. She wanted to know what she looked like, if there were other things that were obvious wrong.

"What....do...do I look like?" She asked, her wispy voice quiet and dim, her eyes unfocused upon the ground. She felt like running away, absconding from the area, from her sister, from this.

@Dovefeather

DOVEFEATHER

i've got my sights on, my sights on a brand new beginning

There was an ache in the kitten's chest as her sister asked what she looked like, her wide eyes lost in the strangeness of her black, long toes. The feline promptly straightened her back, holding her head high.

Sometimes telling the truth was the hardest thing to do. Still, the Sister had asked, and she could not keep those truths from her.

"You look like my sister, Blackfeather, the one who speaks to the All Mother through plants. At first, I thought you were her-- but drowned. I think it is a sign from the All Mother, a warning, but..."

The feline shook her head, realizing she was deviating from the question.

"Your fur is jet black, sticking up all sorts of ways. Your ears are short, as if torn. Your paws, long, flexible. They remind me of Booker's-- our Brother. You are shaped like a cat, but not quite, in a lot of ways."

"But the most striking, Sister, is your eyes. They are deep, filled with colors, bright vibrant oranges and yellows, like the most succulent of fruit here. They remind me of the All Mother's Eyes, in truth, wide and watchful."

She finished there, licking at her white chest for a moment. She hoped, somehow, that her sister would find peace in those words, somewhere.

words:......... nyah
tagged:....... @Cayenne
ooc:............ 8)
muse:......... 6/10

"Talking looks like this."
Thinking looks like this...