Tuck hadn’t really done much of anything since that crazy Magic Spider thing had happened in Polaris. He’d been laying low, recovering from wounds, though now he felt a bit better. It was still dark in the cave, though, which pissed him off. He needed light back so he wouldn’t have to keep casting Light spells just to see where he was going all the time. Sure, there were glowing crystals growing out of the ground in Orion, and Eridanus had glowing mushrooms, but the tunnels, especially, were very dark. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, either. It was just that he was so small that running into things was a bigger problem for him than others. A particularly large rock on the ground could look like a boulder to him.

Sighing, he conjured the glowing yellow ball of Light he’d had floating around with him for weeks. He prayed for the day he wouldn’t need it anymore. It appeared somewhere in the corner of his vision, where he could see it enough to keep it going, but he could still look to see where he was hopping on the ground. He wasn’t sure why he’d returned to Orion. Maybe staying in Eridanus recovering had simply been too boring after a while. He wondered who he might come across in the dark today as he went along the streets of the city.

@Envy

Envy slid through the streets of Orion like a shadow, their paws softly pitter-pattering against stone. Whilst their body was thin, they had managed to absorb enough nourishment from soils and mosses to just barely stave off starvation, and in their lifetime had eaten so little that no food now remained in their systems at all. They were a thin and scrawny little thing, especially for one so young. But, at least the nausea had finally left.

The young one raised their head and paused as they thought they heard a distant sound, and the long, slim creature halted in its tracks, momentarily blinded by the sudden appearance of a light in the dark. It was further up the street from them, and they knew that there was little they could do to avoid being seen, whether or not they wanted to. Envy writhed in annoyance, pawing at their face to soothe their stinging vision. They slunk back from the hopping little animal. The marmoset had immediately made a bad impression.

"Too bright!" they yelled in their whining, demanding voice. "Make it stop!"

---

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Tukluk
notes: here

As Tuck hopped along, he was suddenly encountered by a noise in the darkness that the sphere of light could not penetrate. ’Too bright! Make it stop!’

“Huh?” was Tuck’s reply, and he looked around quickly for the source of the voice. A shadow slunk around the edge of the light. “Oh, sorry,” he added, and severed the spell, bringing his world into darkness again. He knew he could potentially be doing something stupid by turning off the light. What if whoever was talking wasn’t a good guy? But… Tuck’s life in the caves so far had been relatively safe and he found that not many Gembounds were looking for a fight on first meeting. He didn’t feel too unsafe temporarily blinding himself.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark again, he kept them trained on the shadow. “I’m Tuck,” he said, by way of greeting. “Who’re you?”

@Envy

Envy grunted in satisfaction with their response, but as the caves fell into darkness, found that the blinding light had stripped them of their familiarity with the dark, leaving them just as blind as before. The young one's fur puffed out in a disgruntled manner as they focused on bringing their sight back to optimum using magic, with a small mutter under their breath.

The young one felt again the gleeful shudder of magic rippling through their bones, accumulating in a tingling behind their eyes. But within a few moments, Envy could see the other one clearly- larger than themselves but not nearly as big as anyone else they'd met, with fluffy fur and wise eyes, a long tail too. The small weasel sat down, feeling safe enough to draw close to the other one in the dark. They'd been born into this, and had experienced nothing else; so it may well be their own element. Envy assumed that the marmoset was as blind as they had been a moment ago, and that not only brought them a feeling of confidence and security, but one of triumph as well. The little one huffed a pleased sound. They could be anything, or anyone in this darkness, for all they knew.

The little one sat down in front of the marmoset, eyes flashing in the dark as they tilted their head to one side. "I'm Envy," they said, sounding pleased with themselves, lifting a paw to their chest and grinning with sharp teeth bared, even though they knew the stranger wouldn't see.

---

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Tukluk
notes: here

Tuck nodded at this little noodle-y creature. “Envy,” he repeated, and then stopped. “Wait… your name is Envy? That’s… oh.” Tuck had sort of grown out of being a straight-up asshole unless someone pissed him off, but he really wanted to tell this Envy that their name was terrible and “why would they pick it?” But he figured that was probably kind of mean. Unfortunately, he’d already sort of fucked up the not-mean bit by saying “that’s… oh.” Surely, Envy would have something to say about that implied insult. Tuck cringed. When would he learn to shut his big mouth?

@Envy -- here, have a shitty post. sorry.

The little weasel watched the marmoset nod, and then stop abruptly when a strange look crossed their face. Envy blinked several times, their eyes bright and reflective in the dark. "Yes, that's my name!" they said with a tinge of impatience creeping into their voice. "That's what?"

The little one's tail flicked against the ground, little paws pattering as they raised and fell in a nervous fidget, a sound which soon faded into silence. Envy should perhaps stop doing that. Would it make them any less great to be so twitchy all the time? they wondered quietly to themselves, before concluding that it couldn't matter too much.

With a small shake of their head Envy returned to the matter at hand. This wasn't the first time someone had questioned their name, so they felt the need to explain it.

"I chose Envy because that's the biggest thing inside of me, everyone else has what I need and it hurt when I came out. But it won't be my name forever! I'm gonna be great one day! I could be a king if I wanted to! Or a god! When that happens and I'm happy, that's when I'll find my real name," the little one puffed out their chest, trying to look as bold and strong as they could.

---

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags:
notes: here

[/quote]

Tuck stared at Envy, feeling a little horrified if he was honest with himself. This Envy… reminded him of himself so much that it almost felt like he was looking into a mirror. He had no idea what to say because he felt like any word out of his mouth would be repeated back to him by this strange version of himself. Feeling at a bit of a loss, he sat there, wondering if he’d always sounded like this weasel. He thought back to his younger days, realizing that he had been kind of a jerk for his entire life. “Wow,” he breathed, not realizing he’d said it out loud. “I suck.”

OOC: have a super fucking late post lmao. @Envy

Envy narrowed their lilac eyes at Tuck's words. They didn't understand why he was saying that, but they quickly decided that it offended them. "Heeeyyy," they whined, taking the words as an insult to their very face. They puffed out their chest and stood as tall and impressive as they could, a lowly four inches on their hindpaws, and even shorter than tuck. But Envy seemed to think that they were intimidating enough. "That's not very nice!"

A few moments passed, and Envy seemed to reconsider, sniffing angrily and folding their paws against their chest, tail flickering wildly. "It's because of my name, isn't it?"

---

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Tukluk
notes: here

Tuck snapped out of his reverie almost immediately when Envy decided to be offended at his words for some reason. The marmoset stared at the weasel like they were stupid. “How could me saying that I suck be not very nice to you?” he demanded, burnt orange eyes narrowing in both confusion and irritation. “Not everything’s about you, you know.” And once again, Tuck had the oddest sensation that he was having a conversation with a younger version of himself. “Listen, kid,” he said, a phrase he didn’t think he’d ever used before. “You’re kinda young still, so you’re attitude’s fine now, but you’re gonna get your ass kicked later in life if you don’t become nicer to people. I would know.” He opened his mouth to continue speaking but realized he didn’t know what else to say. Awkwardly, he fell silent.

@Envy

"If you didn't mean it about me why did you say it to me?" the little weasel bristled, not liking the tone the monkey was taking with them. First he'd nearly blinded them, and now he was trying to lecture them? how dare he! "I do whatever I want! I'm Envy. And I'll be nice to people when they start being nicer to me, and stop rubbing things in my face!" It seemed reasonable enough to them; ignoring the fact that 'rubbing things in their face' included things as simple as simply enjoying a good meal or being pretty tall. But it seemed like their mind was made up, their stubbornness adamantine.

They'd started to twitch, their paws pattering wildly and body coiling in on itself. The weasel's patience appeared to be spent; their attention span was short enough as it was without the added bore of constructive criticism. With a defiant look in their eye, the weasel bounded off and was lost in the darkness.

-exit Envy-

---

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Tukluk
notes: here