Kin-Kin wandered through rows of crumbled buildings and skittered hastily past dark alleyways, her gaze flickering. Right, left, right, left... She glanced around. The golden pup had no idea where she was going, and it showed. She swore she'd passed by this building before. That stone. That formation was familiar too. But at the same time... it wasn't! Everything felt new!

The pup picked up the pace, tripping briefly on the fabric that clung to her back.

Forced to a halt for a few brief moments, the child finally got a good look at her surroundings. Crumbled buildings and darkness as far as the eye could see. Only... that wasn't all. High above, the little one finally noticed the false stars sparkling. It struck her that she'd always been too scared to look anywhere but forward. But there was beauty up there, beauty that she hadn't known existed in this world. Kin-Kin reached out with a paw, but those stars were far, far out of reach.

For the first time in her life though, she wasn't scared.

She wondered if she'd ever be able to reach them; or if, perhaps, they'd ever come nearer.

The young one looked around, at the world just off the beaten path. Crystal spires loomed over her, glittering and sparkling only metres away. Shyly the little one moved over to one, reaching out to touch that shining surface.

As if in response to her wonder, its surface lit up. The little one jumped back immediately, but the light came with her. All around her, the world was bathed in a soft golden glow. Looking down at herself, the pup saw her paws alight.

And it was then she realized it was her light. She'd brought down the twinkle of those false stars and made it real. Kin-Kin approached the crystal cluster once more, her magic making it sparkle and glow. On a shining surface of that crystal, finally the little one saw her own face; and it wasn't grotesque as she'd expected it to be.

In fact, she found it quite beautiful.

As Mango reached the end of the tunnel she sped up, wondering what was ahead. She skidded out onto a sort of outcropping, narrowly missing falling off the edge with a squeak and looked around.

It was very dark, but over her head thousands of tiny lights sparkled, illumiating the room enough that Mango could see the many crumbling structures decending in levels. From her high vantage point she could see that the levels formed a kind of valley or pit. A light down below caught her attention.

Calling out "Hello? Anyone there?" she scrambled down from her perch with some diffculty, still being rather small and uncoordinated and raced towards the light. Tumbling around a corner she came almost nose to tail with a bright, glowing furry something.

With a startled "Oh!" she backtracked quickly and stared at the glowing Gembound before her.

"Wow! So pretty!" she gasped.

As far as Kin-Kin had known, she was alone here; so when a voice suddenly met her ears, Kin-Kin stumbled away from the crystal in which she'd been admiring herself, her fur standing on end and her blanket getting under her paws. She slipped over, falling down onto her side, and once more was subjected to the cruelty of this world as her delicate, pleasing glow flickered out. But the voice... wasn't so bad.

It was her own fault this time rather than, really, the fault of the caves.

"Uhm.... y-you think so?" she stammered bashfully, even if now the glow had flickered out. Sucking in her breath, she focused deeply for a few moments. Trying to bring the beauty back. First her gem glowed, bright as the moon; and then her fur lit up in pure gold. Slowly the young pup stood up, trying not to show her surprise as she looked around at the light she'd cast upon the world.

@Mango

For a moment Mango simply stared, compleately in awe of this shining creature.

"How do you do that?" she cried, positivly dancing around the other gembound, but then she tripped, ploughing head and chest first into a wall. Stunned she lay there fo,r a moment, watching the shadow of her ears on the wall.

@kin-kin

(sorry its so short, don't really know what to say)

Kin-Kin's chest stayed puffed out, pride and excitement thrilling her from her gem right down to the tips of her toes and twitching ears. "Ah- um... I just..." Kin-Kin didn't really know herself. She just thought about what she wanted to do, and sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn't.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, she was saved from answering the question as the newcomer suddenly collided with a wall. Stunned, Kin-Kin bounded over, her glow dying out in an instant. "A-a-are you okay? What happened?" she asked, uncertainly struggling for words.

Why did it seem like everything that went her way was bound to go wrong somehow?

@Mango
((Don't worry about it! You don't need to reply immediately, if you need a break to get over a block feel free! :D))

"ooowww." Mango shook her head slightly. Her nose was stinging, so she placed her paws over it.

The bright light from the other gembound had faded, so she couldn't see much in the sudden darkness, but she heard the others anxious voice.
"I'm ok, i think." Her voice was slightly muffled by her paws. "I-I don't know what happened..." She carefully pushed herself into a sitting position, wagging her tail slightly to check everything was still working.

She looked around at the other gembound, a pale shape in the gloom. She noticed that the other looked vaguely like she did, only a bit bigger and yellow.
"Do you think I could light up like that?" The idea frightened her a little, but she was willing to try.

@Kin-Kin

Kin-Kin looked nervous, eyeing the stranger carefully as they said they were okay to make sure they were telling the truth. Darkness had fallen over them, but the little pup felt somewhat drained after such a bright light... Although maybe it was just that she glowed at every chance she got.

"If you, uh, say so," the wolf said hesitantly, and with a small nod. She narrowed her eyes and squinted slightly in response to the stranger's other words. "Looked to me like you ran into a wall... I uh, dunno though," she ventured cautiously, only to immediately correct herself.

At the mention of the fox glowing, Kin-Kin tipped her head to one side and looked at them. "I'm not sure!" she said honestly. "I uh, dunno if just anyone can glow though. Someone told me only some can but, maybe you can! Or maybe you can do something else! Maybe something cooler!" Kin-Kin inwardly hoped it wasn't something cooler. Because that'd be just something the world would do...

@Mango

Mango got back to her feet, looking around. "There was something on the floor..." she tried to explain, but couldn't see anything there. But why had she fallen over then? Deciding to ignore the fall, she concentrated on the much more interesting prospect of being able to glow like the pretty gembound.

"You think I could?" Her ears perked up happily at the idea. The idea of something else happening was rather frightening, but glowing looked like fun! But then she remembered that she had no idea how to glow or do anything else.
Tail and ears drooping slightly, she looked around for inspiration. The sparkling of the lights above them caught her eye. Watching them she wished she knew how to glow.


@Kin-Kin

Ok new try. The spell attempt didn't work for some reason. sorry, still new to this))

A crackling rushed over Mangos fur, making it sparkle much like the lights far above. She crept over to the stone the other gembound had been looking at earlier and gazed at ther reflection. She wasn't glowing, but it looked pretty too.

Getting so close that her nose touched the cold stone, Mango gasped and jumped backwards as the sparkling rushed off her into the stone, making the surface dance with rippling blue white lights.

((Maybe you didn't tick the attempt box? :O
Don't worry though, that happens to me quite a bit as well. XD))

Kin-Kin blinked nervously, watching the other and then tilting her head to one side. "Aha, uh... I'm sure there was! Maybe it ran away," she shuffled her paws and tried nervously to make sense of this. the last thing she wanted was to humiliate them, or worse, hurt them. And then Kin-Kin gave a vigorous nod. "I'm sure you could! maybe take a bit of practice but I think it would be sweet!"

Kin-Kin's ears perked at that, and she was about to reply when she heard a soft crackling sound, like stepping on a beetle, or kicking a stone, or... something. she looked around, and saw that Mango was lit up with crackling energy and moving towards the stone to admire herself.

Kin-Kin curiously moved forward, and as she drew close almost immediately her fur began to stand on end with the electricity. She felt a sharp, prickling feeling running over her fur and retreated after a moment, not amused. "S-s-see!" she sputtered. "Told ya you could do something cool!"

((Also sorry for horribly late reply! >.< ))