The little chickling had wandered, thoughts entirely on the meeting she'd just had. Her whole world, as of this particular moment, consisted of Seven, Zeno, the ground under her feet, the rubble pile she'd emerged from, this eerie, seemingly neverending blackness --

Which was, as of this moment, proven to be not so neverending when she ran beakfirst into a hard wall. She tumbled onto her back with her feet scrambling in the air, tiny little nub wings unable to set herself to rights. She made a very loud (to her ears, at any rate) complaint at this, chirruping in a flustered way until she learned to, very simply, calm down.

While lying in her back, the blackness seemed to yawn to her light-less eyes. Surely she wasn't confined to this blackness? She saw things when she was in her shell, there simply must be things to see! The little hatchling began to feel a rising indignance at this whole charade. And she was getting hungry, to top it all off. This was getting silly.

@Tukluk

This darkness, which had quite suddenly pervaded the Cave and slowed Tuck’s return to his home in Eridanus, was quite perplexing and more than a little frightening. At least here in Orion, there were a few glowing crystals sprouting from the rubble here and there, like plants, which allowed himself and his Bonded kyte Garmer to… pick their way through. It was slow-going, and Garmer was growing restless and hungry as their journey continued. Actually, Tuck had no idea what he was even doing in this part of the Cave in the first place. It had been quite some time since he’d been home (and he was not yet aware of the destruction which had taken place there while he’d been away). He missed his tree greatly, and the kunzite orb that lay nestled in the roots weighed on his mind —

— A screech rent the air and Tuck let out an audible gasp in surprise. Garmer’s head snapped up from where he’d been watching the ground closely so that he didn’t step on his Bonded. He smelled the air, tail whipping back and forth in alarm, but then he relaxed a bit. It is a Bird of some kind, he said, speaking directly into the marmoset’s mind. It’s nearby, which should be obvious from the screech. But I cannot find it in this darkness. It must be small.

Tuck nodded at the words even though he knew Garmer couldn’t see him, and then called out a tentative, “Um… Hello? Are — are you okay?”

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."
This is Garmer.

tags: @Hellebore
notes:
words: 254

(decided to set this after her meeting with Zeno where she uses her plant spell)
She jolted a little bit when she heard someone speak in the dark, and she looked (futilely) in its direction. The voice asked if she was okay, and she replied honestly, "'M upset," in a low-spirited fashion. She rolled over onto her wing, and, with much flailing and scrabbling the ground, she managed to get back up to her feet. She took just a second to groom a few jutting feathers (more out of personal comfort this time than of hygiene) and finally huffed.

"Was hungry an' wanted a seed an' I tingled an' I ruined it." She scratched at the dusty floor. "And it happened again. And I can't see anything." Helle would've thought she was blind had not Seven mentioned the same set of circumstances. It made her wish to grumble and kick the ground.

@Tukluk

Tuck nodded sadly, as if he understood what the bird was saying. Something about being hungry, a seed, and… tingling?

“Whaaaat?” Tuck said, not realizing at first that he’d said it out loud. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he amended, “I mean… What do you mean you tingled and ruined it?” He should have gotten right away that she was talking about Magic but it’s not like he could read her mind, so…

But when she mentioned not being able to see, he didn’t have to read her mind to know what she was feeling. “I know!” he exclaimed with a huff. “What happened to the lights, anyways?” And just as he asked this question, a flickering, weak light seemed to shine over his head. His eyes jerked upwards and he stared at the light in awe. “W-what…?”

Words: 138 shit post is shit @Hellebore

She hopped a little bit more towards the voice - it sounded different than Seven's, more so towards what Zeno sounded like. Somewhat deeper? Helle didn't really know the difference between genders as of yet, but she knew without a doubt that she was a she. Maybe there was something other than a she, if she had to make the distinction.

In any case, she cleared her throat in order to answer the other's question. "Zeno said...it grew? I tingled at the seed, and it grew? Don't know why. You know why?" She really hoped they did. She was tired of not having answers to her many questions.

Then the stranger made something happen, and all of a sudden she had to blink and hide her head under her little wing at the sudden theft of darkness. She blinked a few more times, peeking from between her feathers, then lifted her head and looked up. It was the - the - the thing! Light! The thing that made you see! She gasped with wonder and then looked at the stranger, who was revealed utterly by the new light. They had legs and arms and warm fur and this really really long tail! She uttered amazed sounds, then looked down at herself. She saw her little wings, her taloned feet, her feathered chest with tiny little hints of red, and the end of her beak. How very different she was from this stranger!

"Did you do that?" She asked them. "Did you tingle and make a light?"



@Tukluk

Tuck had heard her words, but he was barely paying any attention to her at this point. The moment the warm-yellow orb of light had turned on over his head, illuminating himself, Garmer, and the baby bird, he’d completely shut everything else out. How in the Cave had he made a light? He couldn’t do that! His Magic was all about plants, not lights. He tried to think back and remember if he’d ever met anyone who could use Light Magic. He couldn’t remember. He was too stunned to think properly. How long had he been able to do this? And if he could do this, could he also do things with other types of Magic? Could he lift things into the air with his mind like Albeon? Could he control the wind or the water? This light above his head was the beginning of something great, he knew. He could tell — he could feel it in his bones…

And all at once, the bird came back into his world, and he looked at her, just barely catching the end of her question. ’… tingle and make a light?’

“Tingle,” he repeated, thinking back to what she’d said earlier about tingling and the seed changing. He could still feel his own Stone tingling in his collarbone from using Magic. “Oh!” he said, and he could have facepalmed for being so slow to understand. “You were using Magic. And from the sound of it, you were using Plant Magic, like I can do. The tingling is from the Magic, from the Stone you have around the back of your neck. It’s what keeps you alive, and what gives you Magic.”

He paused then, looking back up at the light. “I have no idea how I made this. It must be some kind of new Spell I learned somehow. Maybe the lights in the Cave being off forced me to learn this by instinct? I… I don’t know. I didn’t used to be able to make lights appear.”

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."
This is Garmer.

tags: @Hellebore
notes:
words: 336

She was flush with surprise and amazement, and in this certain mood, what the stranger said afterwards to explain and answer her question stunned her even further. It was a lot to take in, and for a long moment, Helle was silent while she processed it all.

She was....a creature of magic? With a magic stone? the placement of such a thing was where she couldn't deny or prove, which flustered her - why couldn't she see it? And without it, she would die?

Helle blinked rapidly, chewing this information about the state of their world and nodding after a while. The stranger had continued, musing about how they made a light appear. She sympathized; if all she knew was making things grow, she wouldn't have the faintest on making a light appear. But she did glean another thing from what they said: that one could learn many new things over the course of time. She wasn't restricted to only making seeds grow. That made her beam in a foolish, young manner.

"What else can y' do?" She asked tentatively. "With plants." They said that they had the same....kind of magic? Surely they would know what she would be able to learn.

"Speech."

@Tukluk

The bird had barely even asked her question before Tuck accessed his Magic and began growing a tiny flower from the back of his hand. It was red and pretty, but the act of casting another spell caused his light spell to flicker and go out, like a candle in the wind. “I made a — flower,” he stuttered, blinking when the light disappeared. “Well… You can’t see it now, but…” He sighed in irritation. “Maybe I can try to bring the light back. I can do lots of stuff with Magic, though. I can grow stuff out of my own body, I can put seeds in the ground and make them grow into big plants, I can control the way plants move and weave them if I need to. I can grow plants that make sick Gembounds feel better…” He paused then, trying to think. “Yeah, I think that’s about it. And now I can apparently make light. Somehow.”

"Speech looks like this."
"Thoughts looks like this."
This is Garmer.

tags: @Hellebore
notes:
words: 159

She watched with fascination as a tiny little bloom began on the back of the stranger's hand, and she was able to see a small pinprick of red before the light failed and winked out. "Wha-" She stammered, scrunching her eyes tight and blinking rapidly in the fresh new darkness, feeling as if the introduction to light and its quick removal left a physical film over her eyes that left her blind.

But in the meantime, the stranger left another plate of information for her to swallow. They had the same magic as she did, and they could already do so much! Making plants bloom, weave them, heal with them....

"You're so strong already!" She piped up, fluttering in their direction. "I want to be strong, too!" She reached for her own magic, that tingling, feeling more hopeful than she could remember. The feeling thrummed in her chest and ran down her toes down to the earth. She felt it rather than saw a tiny little seed to her left spring into life, and she moved over to it, feeling it with the tips of her wing feathers. "I did it! I....I can do it. All those things you said...I want to do them too."

"Speech."

@Tukluk