She had stopped keeping track of the time long ago.

The air was quiet. It had been quiet for many cycles, but she preferred the silence. There were so many things to listen to when the swamp was still. The insects never did stop their chanting, and the water never did stop bubbling up against the mud, and the trees never did stop creaking as they continued to grow from the fertile soil that layered the cave. But it was a different kind of quiet that had consumed this place. A lonely kind of quiet. A quiet that promised nobody else was there.

The swamp had always been a place she wanted to exist. Monoceros was home, with all its dusty, dry ridges, and the gentle breeze that reminded her of Nemesis. But it wasn't where she wanted to be. She had come to hate most everything. The borzoi had once been too cavalier to sink to the level of hating things - even if she felt it in her heart, she chose to call it resentment. She would not let her goals be soiled by hate. Yet it had happened; every member of her family crumbled or went away or ate themselves alive in part of their own grand schemes. They loved others and not her. And she was petty. And she hated them.

Odyssey left her.

After they had taken down the bear and the lizard - she was certain that that was when Odyssey had stopped loving her, if they had ever loved her at all. And when she went back home, she was empty. She didn't know what to tell anyone when they asked where the hybrid had gone. She hated herself for not knowing. She hated them for asking. She hated Odyssey for leaving. Before long, her home had become a place of hate. So she detached herself from it.

She preferred not to know anyone, anyways. The swamp had some allure to it that Magdalena couldn't explain. She had gone there and only observed, listening to its inhabitants. Over time, she heard them less and less. Their voices would eventually wear away into just the whisper of a memory, and then she was alone.

Magdalena was able to make a den out of the roughage. Where some of the trees came closely together, and the decaying swamp grass and reeds had formed a hummock among them, she burrowed into the roots. It was damp and cold, but out of sight. A collection of bitter-smelling herbs adorned the hummock, aromas she found preferable to flowers. Trinkets, too. Objects that had once belonged to others. Mostly gem shards, or baubled leaves, anything that held the stale smell of its previous owner. They served as a reminder of her solitude. Perhaps, her tenacity - her ability to outlast most others. They were morbid trophies that once belonged to other gembounds that had loved and been loved. And now they were gone.

In the humid late evening, the borzoi ventured from her den out into the trees beyond, where the murk lifted a foot or so up the trunks of the trees. She waded, listening, like she always did. The silence had become her only friend.

She was beginning to feel hate brewing for it, too.

Tuck liked Cetus. Not as much as Eridanus, his home, but he did like it fairly well, because of all the trees. He realized that because he spent so much time away from home, he was often stuck wandering around Origin on the ground, awkwardly run-hopping along like an idiot. He’d actually become fairly good at this, and could scamper at a fast pace, but it would always feel not quite right. He was meant to leap from tree to tree, instead of using his hands and feet for walking. But what he really wanted to do was fly. Ever since his ride on the back of Baratheon, he’d been enamored, even more so than he’d been before.

In fact, right at this moment, he was leaping as far as he could (which was about fifteen feet) between one tree and the next, and the next, pretending he was flying. It was rather dangerous, since he wasn’t paying much attention to where he would land, and just assumed there would always be another tree in front of him when he jumped. Finally, he had a close call, barely grasping the bark of a branch with his outstretched claws, and decided, with a hammering heart, to call it quits on the tree-jumping.

When he plopped with a small splash to the swampy floor, he noticed a white dog nearby, who was just standing there, in the water, and seemed frozen to the spot. He hopped a bit closer, each landing sending splashes of water into the air, and asked the dog, “Are you okay?”

Words: 265 @Magdalena

In the way of the world, I didn’t know much. I could feel my body bumping against a hard, stone-like structure as I became aware of, well, everything. My eyes refused to open, but my ears were listening well. A paw jerked out, an involuntary antic as it smashed against the brace. Fluid sloshed around me, bubbling in my ears. Then suddenly, a large cracking noise caused for my closed eyes to wince, and my body to shudder. The cracking continued in short circuits, until finally it all released, and I was ushered onto a cold mire. Fluid spilled around me, and suddenly my eyes begged to be open. As if unable to even control my actions, my lids peeled wide, and there I saw...darkness. Things could be made out, obviously, but it was all so dark. I squinted, unable to really feel my paws beneath me as I struggled to stand. To no avail, so I remained curled up on the ground.

Confusion set it, creating a hard, cement casing about my mind and heart. I heard things, smelled things, but I wasn’t sure what or where they were coming from. Small jaws parted in an attempt to do, well, anything, and all that came from me was a sound. A small yip exerted, but it was all I could muster. I curled even tighter into myself, my muzzle finding solace in the warmth of my own hind limbs, tucking away into my soft belly. My ears lowered and laid flat upon a tiny cerebrum, and my tail tucked underneath. I began to shiver slightly, ebony fibers spiked and frizzed from the fluid which had encased me. I relied on pure instincts for the time, ears twitched at any sounds made, but my eyes soon closed once again, shutting out the dark place that I was tossed into.

One of her creased ears twitched. Something swept through the trees above her, in a direction she could barely discern - but she twisted her head towards it, corn coloured eyes lifting sightlessly towards the canopy. As the creature approached, she adjusted her head, angling one ear towards the sounds of a tiny body's impact against branches and wood until the being dropped down into the water with a notably louder splash. Her pace had stopped to listen closer to the sounds, but she found herself wishing she had never stopped at all. Maybe she could just keep going.

The thing was getting closer. Magdalena's head shifted, following still. Perhaps it was nothing of interest, a lesser beast passing by. Perhaps it could even be something that she could eat. Her stomach had a habit of forgetting to remind her - she had lost considerable weight since leaving Monoceros. Food was an inconvenience.

She was momentarily distracted thinking about food when the thing actually spoke, proving that it was both an intelligent creature that she couldn't eat based on moral expectations (but would that really stop her?) and something that had indeed intended to interact with her. Magdalena grunted and swung her nose ahead of her again, her head sinking slightly as she took to a lackadaisical lope. She hadn't even cared to acknowledge the creature. It wasn't worth the breath.

Only a few steps away had Magdalena cause to stop again. This time, it was a crack - a familiar sound, a sound that she had heard many times before. A sound that rang out through the trees. She'd known it from the many times it echoed from within caves and under ledges. From how it bounced off the walls of the windy room and carried with the twister, locked in swirling stasis. The sound jarred her, instantly causing a curl of her lip, then the gesture disappeared just as quickly as it had come. She sent forth an instinctive scan for the emerging creature and the one that had approached her.

No longer was she alone - now there were two around. She hated voices. She hated the silence. She hated everything about this place.

There was a surge of activity behind her, off to the right. And another surge ahead of her, where she could feel the microbes ease away from the murk and onto damp land. Both of them were small, nubile; perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, after all.

@Tukluk

Tuck scoffed when the dog merely grunted at him, before turning away and cantering off. He was perfectly willing at this point to simply let her be on her way, since she clearly wanted nothing to do with him, but the sound of a shattering chrysalis nearby piqued his interest. Ignoring the dog, he hopped through the muck towards the sound of new life. Not far ahead of the borzoi, he found it — the shattered remains of a bright yellow gem. And curled up in the muck was… let’s see… not a dog. No, it was a wolf. He’d seen one or two wolves before, and recognized this pup as one instantly. Dogs, like the one who had ignored him just now, were harder to pinpoint, for they were all different and unique. But wolves, while smaller, larger, or different colors, all had about the same bone and body structure. Yes, it was a small black wolf.

Hmm. It lay there, unmoving, having made a small yip before seeming to get scared and burying its face into its fur, its tail tucked. Helping this wolf would be rather difficult, since they ate meat, and the biggest thing Tuck could catch was a beetle or something equally too small for a large carnivore. But maybe the dog could help. He turned and faced her. “Hey, you, dog. Can you hunt? Babies are pretty hungry when they’re born, from what I can tell. Maybe we can help. But I can’t take down a Marsh Strider or anything, so could you maybe help?”

Tuck had certainly come a long way in the short span of time in which he’d been alive. Now he was caring for Gemlings. He laughed at himself in his head. I’m too young for all this.

Words: 296 @Spohn

The movements of the other creatures caused for a vibration in the ground. Small ears swiveled toward the sounds, and as they came closer, the voice of a creature was very apparent. Slowly, I moved. My head lifted and rotated, observing a smaller creature accompanied by something much larger. Gilded lenses shifted from the tiny thing to the tall thing, and I let out an instinctive yelp at the larger beast. I struggled to stand, small limbs collecting beneath me in a wobbly fashion. The already dampened mire was rather slick from the fluid remains, and my paws threatened to give way from out beneath me a couple of times. Finally perfecting the stand, I moved on to walking. One paw in front of the other. After only a few minutes, I was able to master standing and walking enough to be able to get around, but my balance was still on a rather novice level.

Topaz lenses shifted upward, a glint in one of my eyes suggested that the small amount of light in this area caught off of something, and off of something that was on my face. I tried to follow it, my nose turning this way and that as I tried to catch the shiny object in my peripheral. A small growl emitted from me as I soon found myself turning circles, but still to no avail. A paw lifted, batting at the thing, and as it tugged on my skin I realized it was attached. Thankfully, it wasn't to the point of blinding me. Leaving it for now, my attention fell to the creatures before me once again. I simply didn’t know what to do. Do I approach? Do I sit, do I lay, do I run? My small frame began to shake, under toned muscles trembling beneath the ashen carapace. I motioned to sit, my tail curling around my folded hind limbs and my head lowered to far between my shoulder blades. I averted my eyes from theirs, and let out a short, hollow bark/groan. I didn’t know what to do, or where to go, I just knew there was a pang in my stomach and a void in my heart.

SKIPPING MADI TO DO AN EXIT POST WITH HER PERMISSION:

Once again, Tuck found himself in a position in which everyone around him seemed frozen in place. He had watched with amusement while the pup had taught itself how to stand and walk, but now it seemed frightened and lost and Tuck realized he really had no idea what to do to help. He glanced back at the creepy dog who was intent on ignoring him, and she too, seemed blank and unresponsive. Was everyone in the Caves just slowly falling into comas?! Tuck swore this was happening more and more over time and it was really terrifying the more it happened.

Maybe… What if it was contagious, this… disease that caused others to go braindead? What if he caught it by being around those who got it? Oh no! With sudden fear gripping his guts, he quickly hopped away, scrambled up a tree, and leapt from limb to limb until he was nearer to the entrance of Cetus. Without looking back, he scrambled down the tree, and scampered out of the room. He had to get away from all these braindead Gembounds! It was an epidemic! A pandemic! He had to get away!

Words: ~200

Note: I’m exiting all of my old dead threads, so the “pandemic” Tuck is describing is basically… the fact that all these characters he’s interacting with have gone inactive and without powerplaying, I can only say that for some reason they’ve just stopped responding to stuff in the threads. I decided to have some fun with it and make it like Tuck thinks everyone is going braindead.