No sooner had the ground stilled beneath his large paws, and then there was no ground. Or paws. Or...him? Faelan couldn't feel the weight of his mane anymore, or the air entering and exiting him. He didn't see the eyes, or the plateau anymore. He couldn't hear anything.... It was total nothingness.

Unlike the others, he didn't immediately freak out. The silent void stretched on for an unmeasurable amount of time before Faelan finally wondered about its end. Had he reentered his chrysalis somehow? Had whoever made the eyes somehow managed to make him revert? He wondered over that for as long as he could, before finally admitting that that couldn't be it.
Surely, if he was within something, he'd feel the press of it against him. He'd feel him, his paws and mane and claws. Right now, and for however long it had been, there was truly and utterly nothing. Except for his thoughts...

Just as Faelan wondered after speaking, he heard a faint voice in the distance. He didn't recognize it, but it was something other than his thoughts. "Hello!" He called out, or at least he thought he did. He hadn't heard his voice, but he imagined that he was yelling. He focused on that thought, willing it so as if it would come true like his magic as he thought,"I'm here! Where are you? Are you okay?"

Those in the void would hear mocking responses, echoes of laughter and flashes of multiple silver eyes opening and closing around them; but still there was the emptiness, the nothingness of the shadowed realm which kept them all apart and alone.

@Giggle @Kavish @Llamrei @Faelan

- - - - -

The orb was dim in the void, but effective as long as the others could successfully remain close to it. Omen would try and lead them to the base of the plateau, calling out to them every so often; tucked into a hidden alcove was the saber-fang shaped cymophane, Vahi's gem. This is what Senka wanted to return here for and attempt to house her sister's energy within it. Senka's body was also hidden nearby, just at the edge of the shadows—just as Vahi's gem would act as a vessel for her energy, so too did Senka's diamond and body.

@Kera @Black and @Zeno — the choice is yours...
> Restore Vahi
> Attack Senka

The filly was scared.

There was darkness around her, so dark that, when she lowered her head, she couldn't make out the dull dark grey of her fur against the shadows. It was like being blind, and it frightened her. But she refused to stop moving, fearing that something would find her if she stood still. Her ears twitched every which way, and the filly flinched, shying every time there was a noise.


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

Black charged in behind the bird, following it closely, illuminated by the orb. What he saw, to say the least, confused him.

Senka lay silent at the shadows' edge--and, nearby, near-hidden from his sight at first, was a gem of some kind. Black skidded to a halt, snuffling loudly, entirely at a loss. He liked the cats--he had known the storm was sentient, he had spoken to it, tried to aid. He knew that one was void, and this did not frighten him, for was he not void as well? (Probably not.) Quiet, he paced forward, flicking his pale blue gaze briefly to Kera.

"We must help," he rumbled, "but I do not know how. I do not know what has happened." Matter-of-fact, he plodded over to Senka, and after a brief moment of hesitation in which he sniffed her over, he attempted to press his nose into the big furless cat's flank, nudging her.

"Has it broken? Has it failed? Is it," Black asked, tilting his head, "depleted?"

________________

Giggle growled, and chittered; she screamed. This time, rather than pure terror, it was horrified fear mixed with rage. She would find that Cat. She would make it suffer. Turning in the darkness, the faint glow of fungus along her coat the only light--and even that illuminated nothing--she focused.

Her many teeth bared, and she knew suddenly that when she had foreseen darkness closing around her again, the last time she had been trapped within the empty void, she had seen this. She called upon that magic again, thick-fanged jaws impossibly wide as she threatened the darkness, the fur along her back bristling as she eyed the silver eyes. She was hoping that the fungus, or the bones, or the spirits of the cave--that someone, anyone--would show her what to do. How to survive. Whether she would.

"I'll kill you," she growled hoarsely to them all. "I should have KNOWN you were just a CAT!" She spat this with venom--she'd always had an instinctive dislike for felines, particularly lions, and they'd never shown themselves anything other than traitors, except perhaps for the lioness Giggle had dubbed Songcat. But this one?! THIS one...

"SHOW YOURSELF," she chittered, the words a threat, but the sound lost and small in the darkness. "I will RIP OUT YOUR BONES AND EAT ALL OF YOUR EYES!"

Giggle snapped at the darkness, and bit at the silver eyes, but they were always out of reach.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

Laughter replied to the lion's calls, echoing all around him. It was everywhere, everything, and in between the mocking chuckles and giggles, there was nothing else. Faelan finally felt fear begin to creep into his thoughts. What was answering him, he wondered. Was it something else or was it...him? Was he imagining something, anything, in response to his thoughts so that the void didn't swallow him?

The implications of that thought dawned on the Gembound just as the first eye peeled open before him. He had no true form, and yet, there were eyes all around. They were all he could "see", all he could think about, and they seemed to stare right through him. They saw everything, his every thought and feeling, and didn't care about any of it. Perhaps because they already knew all of it, if this was all just his imagination anyway.

Faelan's thoughts looped round and round, always drawing back to the same conclusion. None of this was real. He was just making it all up because he was dreaming. It was an awful, empty dream, but it was the only thing that made any kind of sense. Because nothing else sure as hell did.

Silver eyes came to taunt the new;ly hatched gembound. Why? Why did he need to be taunted? Every time the pup snapped at one, they dissapeared. Vanished. He never felt his tiny sharp teeth close around those silver eyes.

Not to mention the laughter. It bounced off the walls Kavish could not see. It angered him beyond what anyone thought possible. So much rage filled the little pomeranian he thought he would explode.

"FIGHT ME LIKE A REAL GEMBOUND, YOU COWARD! FIGHT ME!!!" Kavish screeched, bouncing up and down, his beady black eyes about to pop out of his head. To anyone else, it would've looked hilarious. But to Kavosh, he thought he looked terrifying.


"When I speak."

When I think.

Zeno followed the two canines as closely as he dared, fluttering through the darkness on leathery wings. The void was ceaseless, the prisoners nowhere to be seen. Even the orb that lit their way struggled valiantly against the environment. Unfortunately even if he was a bat Zeno would have found himself in a rough spot if all the light had been completely depleted- he could use rudimentary echolocation but not nearly to the accuracy of his insect-eating cousins.

Upon arrival the bat once more perched himself upon the uneven wall, not trying to actively hide himself but still trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. From here he could see what the canines were doing. From here he could see the comatose cat and strange crystal. What did this all mean? Could one of the two objects save their fellow greater ones?

While Black's attention was occupied with the cat Zeno focused his gaze on the crystal, taking in its shape and texture and looking for anything that might shed some light on its role in this. His mind relaxed in the singular task, his breathing slowed. For just a moment the worry of overwhelming forces and lives potentially lost faded from Zeno's mind. In this state he could think, in this state he could see, in this state he could access the gift granted to him as a greater gembound.

There was no glow, no hum, no indication at all that this magic was originating from him. Only a soft warmth permeating through Zeno's chest as arcane magic formed around the gem like a ripple in space itself. With a single soft clink the gem rolled over, revealing the other side. Its task done the magic dissipated as quickly as it had appeared and Zeno in turn returned to his observations.

---

'Know yourself'
"Before you try to influence others"
Tags:

Giggle hears the fluttering of Omen's wings and a brief view of Canis flashes like an empty dream, but most notably, the feeling of being free...

Everyone was so aggressive! Well, except for the lion—a memory hit her like a solid wall. There was a lion she had met before in the tunnel of cold where she lived, by Orion. When she had fur of white. He was not aggressive either. She chose to observe others rather than approach them, but he had approached her; so she had met him. Hmm, lions.

Senka snapped back to her void present and the others' screaming voices, her own responses simply juvenile in comparison, refusing to acknowledge their requests. It was only when something nudged her body in the real world that she actually panicked and pulled herself away from those whose minds she trapped within her realm.

Her mental state returned to her body in a flood, nearly about the same time Vahi's stone was shifted by magic, calling the storm-body of her sister to manifest in a thunderous flash of lightning near the naked body of the other. Hungry for the gem that was the vessel for her energy, Vahi waited, as if expecting the stone to move and call to her again, blind to the others around her. Senka, meanwhile, was stirring from her otherworldly dealings, opening several eyes around her in the void-shade created earlier to see what had touched her body (but not exactly had attacked her). The dog from earlier, the wolf, but missing the snake.

And ah, her sister had remained? Senka struggled to catch up, eyeing the dog as it was closest.

A whirling mass of shadow had gathered beneath her. She wasn't done with the things she had captured, though she supposed the only true victim she needed to teach a lesson to was the hyena. Her tail lashed behind her, willing to give up the other three if that's why the canine had come to seek her; he had helped Vahi, and so she was not inherently keen to attack him.

But Giggle was her prize. Giggle attacked her and threatened to rip out all her bones. Bones. Why was the hyena so obsessed with bones?! The filly and the lion were not as fun. The puffy small dog was angry and bitter and could be fun... she waited to see what the canine had to say. Did he know she had them? Did he come to barter, fight, or were they simply lost?

Omen called from above and Senka hissed, shadow swirling up from her feet and veiling her body.

She hated that bird.

Black watched as the cat stirred, coming to. He tilted his head and peered at her, and took two steps back, to remain at a polite distance. He was not afraid of her--he was afraid of very little--but it simply seemed... correct.

He raised his wrinkled head to look around, into the darkness, and the dark beneath Senka. He looked, too, at the storm-cat without its body, and at the gem lying on the ground. He did not know what to make of most of this--and his detached, dull mind did not particularly concern itself with any of it, either.

Instead, he addressed his main worry, head tilting and pendulous ears hanging as his rumbling bass voice spoke.

"Do they require aid? You--void-cat; and storm-cat. Are you safe?" he asked. If they needed aid, he would aid; otherwise he was unsure where the others had disappeared to.

He continued to try and draw the shadow to himself, unaware there was an entire other world beyond, unaware that the shadow of the others was not the shadow he himself embraced and was, in turn, embraced by. To his mind, the shadows had consumed the others, and it was his duty as a guardian and a creature of darkness, to retract them to himself, and to keep them safe. This strange other-void did not, however, particularly respond to him, and so he gave up and simply waited, patient attention on the two cats.

________________

@Zeno @Kavish @Kera @Faelan @Llamrei