It was a quiet, simple, direct existence. It was the beating of a heart against the neonatal fluids within the womb of the stone, the absorption of nutrients, a silent and peaceful persistence against the elements raging outside. It was no more than living--

And then, all too soon, he was aware of himself. And he never would stop being aware of himself.

Eyes peeled open against the darkness of the stone, but he knew there was more to it than just this. They stung against the moisture inside of his womb, and he suddenly felt like he was cramped, like the space that held him was just too small for this existence - no longer satisfactory, he needed more, he wanted more. He began to feel the warmth of the stone, only it was suffocating, and he began to realize that the fluid in his lungs was uncomfortable, almost like it was unnatural. Where the chrysalis wore thin, he could see the outboast of warm light - he wanted to see the light, he wanted to feel it. He didn't want to be in here anymore.

Reeling his hind leg back, he suddenly shot it out with as much force as his juvenile muscles could muster. It only took one such impact for the heavy cloven hoof to burst through the gleaming purple gemstone, breaking free through one point. The prenatal fluids that had hosted him came seeping out, where light and cold, fresh air suddenly choked him. Startled by the strange influx of new sensations, he kicked again, and again, breaking more and more chunks of the chrysalis apart until he slid out of his womb and lay free on the ground. He was met with the blinding glow of the room, crisp air and a smell of fresh vegetation, sensations that overpowered and invigorated him all the same. The cow's wide eyes flickered about, seeing only the large silver mushroom in a clearing through the bushes nearby - he fixated on it as he struggled to control his breathing, confused and overwhelmed.

Cayenne had been traveling with her young giant for a while now, and she was satisfied with how the giant's cuts were healing, all of them covered in leaves, with her varied concoctions sticking to both the fur and the leaves. Some were a little further on than others, and she kept mental notes on which mixture had which results, and she was surprised at some of the 'just throw anything in there just to see what it would do' mixtures. The giant was a learning experience that was slowly becoming a friend, she thought...because the giant didn't care what she looked like.

Drawn to a familiar sound, the sound of cracking and shattering stone, she hurried her and the giant to find it, just in time to see an even bigger giant, one who was strong and brave looking, even as a newborn, who breathlessly looked about the room, and at the All Mother.

Cayenne bit down the now old feeling of hurt when she thought of the All Mother and what had happened when she woke up under her, since that was (or what seemed to her,) a long time ago. It wasn't important right now.

With a look at her....now smaller giant, she moved towards the newest member of the jungle. "Hello," She said, in her cobwebby voice. "Are...you okay?"

@Amalthea
@Khloros

The black creature watching from the shadows of the ferns could hardly be called a "horse." Still, he'd been acting like one, at least; grazing, moving along with quiet swishes of his tail, when he'd heard the crack of stone.

He couldn't recall seeing another birth, before; he'd been nearby after Delphine's, but only after. He watched with a sort of detached curiosity as the large, pale bovine broke free from his rock cocoon, tumbling out slicked with fluids. It had gazed about, and Khloros had been about to wander closer when he saw the black... bat-squirrel, approaching it.

He watched in silence for a moment, the greenish pus-slicked wounds on his dull and skeletal coat camouflaging him rather well in the dappled green shadows of the jungle cave. On impulse, as the lemur drew close to the cow, he himself stepped forth, hooves picking delicately over the dirt as he approached.

Khloros moved close, very quiet; he was bony and thin and barely a sliver of a horse, a knife in the dark as he came closer. He extended out his long neck, his pale lamplike eye blinking long lashes as he exhaled an equine greeting toward first Caravaggio, and then Cayenne.

"Hello," he offered, softly.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

The air was chilling, permeating the layer of fluid that slicked his short, coarse fur. His eyes were still adjusting to the light, squinting, brows furrowing, and then slowly blinking, drinking in all that he could see. He peered around the room in all its novelty, as for the first time he witnessed the trees that loomed overhead, the roots that had cradled the shattered remains of his chrysalis, the ceiling rigid with stone and lamps, and ahead - the great silver mushroom, gleaming in the lights. Some part of him wanted to go to it, but he didn't know how. For a moment, he was immobile on the ground, his long legs splayed out awkwardly at his sides.

It hadn't taken long for the sound of his eruption to attract others, and his head turned slightly as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Something dark began to move towards him. The babe observed quietly, too fresh to know any better. Behind it, something else came along, following the first thing - the second thing was brown, with stilt legs. And behind them was something third immersed in the shadows of the jungle, indistinguishable for now. His focus remained on the first two, swiveling his head ever so slightly with their approach before he realized how heavy his head was. Two nubile stubs where his horns would grow protruded from his temples, but even in their youth they gave weight to his thick skull and made his head wobble as he attempted to control the powerful neck muscles his form had been blessed with.

The black thing suddenly spoke and her voice, a flowery lilt, warmed up the cool atmosphere. He liked that sound. His ears twitched and instinctively cupped towards her, seeking to take in more of it. He was ignorant to her question for now, searching for her voice again when the third thing was suddenly visible, having moved when the cow wasn't paying attention. Amethyst gaze wandered to the horse, but he immediately found himself repulsed by the image. It wasn't like the small black thing that came to greet him nor the gangly brown thing behind. Something about it seemed wrong - he couldn't place what it was. Not yet. It greeted, and its voice wasn't that same gentle chime against the silence, and maybe that was the thing that was wrong.

The bovine suddenly bleated his displeasure towards the plague horse, deciding that there was something unsavory about the thing that he didn't like. He hadn't the capacity to form words, not yet - and maybe that was for the better.

@Cayenne

Since emerging from her own chrysalis, Amalthea had kept close to her tiny black friend. And if she understood what the word friend meant, she most decidedly would have labeled Cayenne with it. Not only had the lemur tried to help her emerge, but she'd also placed all sorts of plant matter on Amalthea's shoulders. Some of it felt nice, others had little effect, but so far nothing had happened that would make her question Cayenne's judgement. With exaggerated care - these long limbs were still unwieldy and awkward to move - she followed along behind. She had stopped to itch just as the crack sounded, and as such, was a bit behind everyone when she clumsily trotted up to the group. Her amethyst eyes went for Cayenne first, glad her friend was okay, before drifting over the sickly horse. He made her uncomfortable, as though he was in pain and needed help. A little overwhelmed by his adult size, however, she remains quiet, looking instead over the pale white calf sprawled on the floor. He was the first creature Amal had met that even vaguely resembled herself and she all but squealed in excitement. She pushed her wide ears forward and toddled a few steps closer, extending her muzzle toward the other calf. "Helloh!" Being patient was not one of her strong points. Still, perhaps a bit belatedly, she looks back towards Cayenne, who was the closest thing that Amalthea had to a caretaker.

@Caravaggio
@Cayenne
@Khloros

Cayenne watched the tall black legged creature come out of the dark, like a thing straight from a nightmare, and her big brown eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. That open, pustulent skin, the stench of sickness, the boils, the rot. She'd never seen something so bodily and horribly wrong beyond a cut before, but this-!

This was a beautiful puzzle to admire, a beautifully horrifying reminder of how short her knowledge fell, and how far she had yet to come. How would she settle the boils, empty the pus, heal the skin? What was even causing the disease? Was it all related, even, or was each eruption a separate issue?

She shivered, excited. She had a lot to learn, a lot to investigate. She wondered if she could create boils on her own skin to experiment on it...

Her small giant moving towards the newborn snapped her out of it, and she watched both the both of them interact, smiling encouragingly when her giant looked back at her.

While they did so, she moved a ways toward the- the horse? Yes, that seemed right. "You," She said, looking up and up and up at them. For the love of the All Mother, the horse was as tall as a sky-reaching tree. "Does all that hurt?"

@Khloros

Khloros swung his long and slender head toward Amalthea as she approached. He was still young, half-grown and lanky, but he was still larger than the others, and this felt distinctly odd. He was used to being small, like when he stood beside the giant that was Nemesis. Sure, Booker was tiny, but the calves were not, and he was still larger.

He found that he felt oddly... protective of them, in a faint, detached sort of way.

The brown calf came to the newborn and greeted him, and Khloros looked on in silence. Thus far the white cow had only cried out at him, and he wasn't sure if it was pleading for something, or frightened at his approach. He was about to try and speak to it when the lemur spoke to him first. He listened, and then answered softly, eyeing her over.

"No, it doesn't hurt. It is just how I am. My... magic, a thousand little friends in me. ...What are you?" he added, looking over the lemur. She was fascinating-looking, to be honest, with her thick, healthy black coat and large dark eyes. She looked like a cave-bat had grown long and furry arms.

He shifted his gaze back to the two calves, after speaking. The white cow had a purity about it, an almost sacred air, he thought; the brown calf, a precious innocence. He decided that he liked them both, but the brown one in particular interested him, and he decided to simply watch as the two interacted.

He was still standing rather close to Caravaggio, however, not yet realizing that his appearance was disturbing to the bovine, oblivious to its disgust.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Amalthea ; @Caravaggio

Laying prone on the ground, there wasn't much else the calf could do besides stare at the plague horse and hope that he got the message across. However, it would seem that his endeavor was in vain - the black thing instead turned her attention to the horse, rather than paying attention to him, and started to speak words that the cow strained to understand. Deep amethyst eyes flickered between the two of them, delighting in the sound of her voice against the air, but the plague horse would soon sour that melody with its own voice and the cow produced an intrinsic frown without so much as realizing that that was what it should be doing to convey displeasure in the first place.

Thankfully, he'd been distracted by the lanky brown thing that came bumbling towards him, speaking with a light and feminine voice of her own. The cow's paddle-like ears rotated towards her as he hovered his head in her direction, then decided that it was too much effort to hold his head up and let his nose dip down while those big baby eyes of him continued to stare. Then he pensively glanced down at the ground, rolling her voice over in his head. That was a noise that all three of them had made when they first approached him. Was that the noise you make when you approach someone? They were three for three, and while the cow wasn't very smart, he was at least capable of making basic connections.

With a huff, he raised his head back up to look at the brown thing. He parted his lips and tried to make the sound, but for a moment he couldn't figure out how. Nothing came out when he opened his mouth. He breathed, but that still wasn't the right sound. Frustrated, he sucked in a breath then forcefully exhaled - "HEH!" The calf bleated loudly, then subsequently startled himself, jolting at the sudden noise. Wide-eyed, he looked back at the brown thing as though he was confused and grappling for some kind of explanation.

@Amalthea

The brown calf remains largely fixated on the prone baby, eagerly awaiting some sort of reaction from him. At first there was nothing, just a lowering of his head and she matches his frown, although for different reasons. Still, he hadn't moved those beguiling amethyst eyes off her so she didn't lose hope, and was rather quickly rewarded, much to her delight. For a long moment the white calf made no sound, and she began to mouth it with him, and was nearly on the verge of saying hello again when the rush of air signaled his first spoken word. "Yes! Hey!" She bleated, utterly oblivious to his startled state. The lanky caribou calf ducked down into a play bow and leapt up again, dancing in a clumsy circle, throwing her oversized feet out in the epitome of joy. She stops for a brief second, but loves this feeling far too much, having not had much reason yet to run about. Rearing up like a small billy goat she hops, hops, and nearly trips. Slightly chagrined with energy suitably dampened, she ambles back to the prone calf, a little closer this time, and attempts to encourage him onto his feet for play with little short jerks of her head.

@Caravaggio

Cayenne blinked, frowning in a pouting way, her bottom lip protruding a bit in confusion. "I am an ugly cat." She said, matter-of-factly. "What do you mean, magic? Your disease is your friend? I don't get it."

She watched the interaction between the giants, and smiled, eyes half-lidded and happy. They were both adorable and sweet, especially her smaller giant. She was glad to have found her, glad she decided to follow her. It was a little bit cumbersome, to be honest, since she couldn't run helter-skelter after the plants she decided on a whim to try and find and experiment with, and she had to be slow and watch out for her happy-go-lucky friend, but, she thought it was a fair trade thus far.

Remembering her work, she glanced back at the horse, eyeing those pus-filled boils with a distrusting feeling. Friends. That...seemed like a far stretch. Friends were sweet and kind and cared for you, they didn't rip open your skin and seep ooze. That felt like a hoax, like a lie the horse told itself. "What is magic?"

@Khloros