Aware. Awake. Alone.

A mesh of white spikes, pointing outwards, slowly growing over the lip of Pisces` entrance for a whole cycle. A young Gembound, eyes finally opening, shying away from the pulsing blue light, far away. Much more comforting was the darkness, the dripping he had heard for so long. His home.

But was it? There had to be more than this, the blue light and this cocoon, this cage...

With a strangled, ravening cry, the waterbuck calf butted the thin rock with his forehead. It yielded much more easily than the newborn had thought, and he flopped out of his chrysalis and onto the damp, mossy floor. The ground was cool against his cheek, but he had to figure out what had made it so easy.

When he stood up (albeit shakily) he found the answer. Reflected in the wet stone was his wet newborn face - far from antlers - with something amazing...

The same white shards that had constructed his chrysalis were...growing out of his head!

The calf sat down with an audible thump. "What am I?!" he sobbed. "Where am I?!" The talking just came to him, stretching his new vocal cords into miserable croaks.

He was completely awake. He was very aware. And he was utterly alone.

BAROQUE SONGCAT

Baroque wanted some alone time. He almost never wanted alone time-- or when he did, he sought it out at home............... But as it was, he found himself wanting to be alone and not at home. Part of him wanted to see if he could find some good soil to bring home, but he didn't have any idea how he was going to get it home. It seemed almost impossible. Maybe while he was out he could find some seeds to try and grow. That garden wasn't going to get made by itself.

The awkward teen had grown to be nearly-- but not quite-- his father height. With it came some painful growing pains, but his baby fat seemed to only get thicker. He felt chubbier by the day, so maybe a walk would do him good. It wasn't long, anyway, before he came across a baby crying out to him, and the bear hybrid crept forward with big blue eyes, staring with baited breath at the herbivore just ahead.

It was a child, just like how he had first met Thistle. A smile graced his face, and he felt his stone try to reach out. It ached when he pulled at his magic, a headache blazing into his mind, but he couldn't help but try, could he? The magic failed to make the connection, something he was used to be now, but the boy took a deep breath and then spoke calm and quietly.

"Hey, it's alright," Baroque called to the child. "You're safe, don't worry too much, okay? I'm Baroque, and this is Tunnel O, right outside of Pisces." He sat down a few paces away from the newborn, his tail curling up around his paws, hunched down in a way to make himself seem smaller and less threatening.

The little Gembound hiccuped and blinked. A big scary animal, that he instinctively knew was a natural eater of antelopes, sat in front of him. But the child was past caring, and anyway the...animal...wasn't very angry looking.

But when the predator spoke in a soft voice that didn't match his physicality but somehow fit perfectly with his demeanor, the little waterbuck felt less alone. There was at least one other talking, walking being on this dark, dark cave.

"Baroque?" he giggled in spite of himself. But in all seriousness, he cocked his head and his chocolate brown eyes were lost in thought.

"What's tunnelo? Or pieseas? " The calf's moist black nose twitched, and his muzzle wrinkled in confusion. On the bright side, the aftertaste of his barstowite prison was gone in light of the distraction.

There really was no reason for him to be out here. Bartos should have been staying in Pisces. With his gimp leg, it was hard to really move and he knew that the farther he walked from Pisces. The farther he'd have to walk back, but that thought alone didn't really deter him. He would brave the long journey and rest as he needed, and the subtle burning pain of his limb would just serve to remind him why he shouldn't have gone in the first place. And then there was Clover, and the children, and he knew that he was just tempting fate by failing to be there. They were old enough now that he couldn't keep them locked up in Pisces. It was inevitable that they go and explore the world on their own. He couldn't stop them from doing that, and yet... He still felt like he could protect them, in a way, if he was there.

He had to accept that wasn't the case. Maybe that was why he was here: distance. Then there was the issue of the festering shadow that haunted the depth of his den, ever since she had appeared he'd been paranoid of her. Fearful that she was always there, watching. He could barely sleep - as a result, he wandered dreams that weren't his own. Searching for answers and stories, searching for the stars he missed so deeply.

Bartos was content to stay in his thoughts when he heard the wailing voice, shortly after followed by a familiar one, Baroque. What was the child doing here? Bartos limped awkwardly around the corner to see the hybrid tending to a freshly hatched herbivore, twisting his ears slightly. "Baroque." Bartos greeted quietly, delivering a small smile, before his blue gaze landed on the newborn. "Hello," He added, drawing forward a few more steps.

The child kneaded the damp soil with his paws. There were two cat things now, and despite the aftertaste left by loneliness he was beginning to feel scared. That was until the cat greeted him with a voice like honey. Strange golden lenses seems to cover his eyes. Looking back at the crouched big cat, the calf snorted happily and decided he liked them both.

"Hello, Baroque. Hello, Mr. Cat," he smiled sweetly, happier now he'd decided to trust his new companions. "Mr. Cat, is there any water around here? I think I need to be wet. I don`t know why..." he tailed off, fringed eyelashes blinking in young puzzlement.

BAROQUE SONGCAT

Baroque nearly jumped out of his fur when he spotted Bartos just in the corner of his vision, blinking at the gentle .......voice. He smoothed down his own fur, licking his chest fluff down with an awkward rumble of a purr. He couldn't help it-- when a fellow Pisces' cat was around, he wanted to purr. Bartos' own son had instilled the habit in him.

"Hiya, Bartos..." He mumbled back, smiling with a polite, near-shiness of admiration. He looked up to the tiny cat a lot, even as he grew to be many times bigger than the fluffy tom cat. His attention turned back to the herbivore quickly, smiling in a way that didn't show off his teeth just in case.

"Well... This is Tunnel O. It's a tunnel, and we gave it the letter O, so gembounds know one tunnel from another and stuff... Uh, Pisces is where we live, it's the big room with the waterfall, you really can't miss it. It's got lots of nice, soft moss, and is a good place if you like to swim--" Baroque chomped down on his own tongue, realizing he was frankly rambling his big furry butt off. The poor child was likely confused enough without him going on and on and on.

"Well, um, anyway-- what's your name, little one?" The fluffy hybrid asked, inching down until he was laying down in front of the baby, making sure he was as nonthreatening as possible. He was just so aware of how big he was, and he hated scaring other gembounds. Especially since he was still such a huge baby who cried literally all the time-- he'd probably cry if he made any other gembound cry.

The little calf sat down with a thump whilst the bigger cat - Baroque - talked.

"A Gembound? What's one of those?" he enquired excitedly as Baroque tailed off. "Is there rearly lots and lots of water in that cave?"

But when his emotional benefactor asked his name, the boy had nothing to give. Suddenly, and old memory - that he could not possibly have had himself - gave him words. "Perseus, the son of Poseidon. God of the sea..."

Perr-see-uss. And the sea is water, right? How he knew this, he didn't know. Outside of his control but somehow comfortingly, this cave was enigmatic and mystifying.

He flicked his tail. "I don't know what that means, but I like it. Perseus. Percy!"

Though he kept a pretty safe distance, Bartos didn't hesitate to make himself comfortable in the presence of the hybrid and the babe. Both of them were pretty harmless, and so the cat slowly, carefully reclined, extending his broken leg out to the side. There was a small wince as he did so, but once he settled, he found himself satisfied. The youth turned to him and referred to him as 'Mr. Cat', and Bartos' smile wavered slightly. He was uncertain - unable to derive an opinion of the nickname. But Baroque was quick to take the helm, mentioning his name and then explaining the tunnels and Pisces, which prompted Bartos to nod. "Yes, there is a lot of water in Pisces." He added, looking between the two. The babe was probably thirsty, and as far as he knew Pisces would be a lot safer than this tunnel, but... wouldn't that defeat the purpose of him coming out here in the first place? He kept quiet as Baroque questioned the boy for a name, pensive.

Untrained as he was in the ways of the living, Perseus didn't notice the flicker in the smaller cat's smile.

Oblivious, he grinned at the mention of water. Percy didn't know very much at this point in his life, unsurprisingly, and basic exaggerated emotions were the only outlet for his feelings. This would be frankly creepy, was Percy not a newborn child. Alas, he was.

"Water! Yay! Thank you Baroque - thank you, Mr...erm..."

As with all newborn Gembounds, Percy`s mental development was to the second, and luckily the moment he realised calling a fellow animal Mr. Cat is not socially acceptable had just passed.

He bowed his unadorned, unantlered head and stretched his gangly legs in embarrassment. "Sorry..."

BAROQUE SONGCAT

Baroque listened to the child, a smile breaking across his face. Everything felt frankly comfortable and natural, in the presence of someone he practically considered a mentor, and a newborn-- as someone who had spend his entire life learning and teaching newborns just like himself, practically going out of his way to meet babies who had only just hatched. It was like it was his life's purpose, or something.

Unfortunately, the grizzly lion cub mostly just wanted to grow a garden, not like, run a daycare. More fortunately, Leon didn't seem to mind when he dragged home child after child. Apparently it was good for the group to get new members, and Maji Walezi was the safest, bestest group he knew of... Or something like that.

"Percy's a good name!" He congratulated with a smile, pushing past the awkward moment of the antelope realizing his mistake. There was no need to really worry about things like that; it wasn't like Bartos was going to invent the guillotine just to send the herbivore off to the slaughter for something as innocent and small as that. As far as Barry knew, Bartos was one of the more laid back adults he had ever had the pleasure to meet.

"And you're a gembound-- I'm a gembound too, even Bartos--" He repeated the name with a gentle nod towards "Mr. Cat" for the sake of Perseus, "is a gembound! We're called that because of the gems we have, see... I have mine on my tail, and your gem is on your forehead." The young boy reached up his oversized mitt to tap on his own forehead, ruffling the fringe of a mohawk that had grown in lieu of a mane. "Anyway, I'd be happy to show you the way to Pisces, if you want."

Yeah, he had been on a mission, but the newborn would be a lot safer in Pisces. Something about this cold, damp cave whispered to him about danger-- though he didn't dare try to reach out and find what it was with his magic. He didn't want another black out episode, not in front of the kid who was only just coming to grips with being alive and talking. Magic could wait a day or two, honestly.