The chrysalis was a sickly shade of green, faintly glowing, and almost seemingly hot to the touch. The creature inside somehow was protected from the radiated shell, suspended in the fluid that it had grown in, its spiked tail curled against its body. It was this fluid that would save their life - or, at least, give them some life. Perhaps if they had grown in fluid that was no accustomed to the radioactivity of its crystal, then it might not have lived long, if at all. However, its body had gained some resistance. It would be okay, for now.

But now the time for growing was over. It consciousness slowly flooded its body and its eyes blinked open. It was warm in here. Probably unnaturally warm, but it did not notice. But it was time to leave. That was an instinct that awakened deep in its body.

With a sudden movement, its tail uncurled and it smashed it against the shell. It was a weak hit, slowed by the fluid, and didn't even crack the gem. Even with the hard, bone-like points, the gem seemed too thick, or she was too weak, to get herself out. She tried to move herself over, but she had no idea how to move through the fluid. She had always been suspended, not touching the walls of her green shell. She reached forward and made to claw at the gem, but she was too far away. She couldn't reach.

The little lizard wanted to see the world outside. She swung more and more before her legs suddenly kicked out, propelling her up to the side of the crystal where her sharp claws dug into the shell. With one strong swipe, a huge crack appeared that began to spill the fluid from her crystal. She felt a flash of fear. Hadn't the liquid been sustaining her life? Hadn't she been relying on it to live?

With a terrified scratching, she continued to pound against the shell until the crack widened and the entire half of the crystal collapsed, sending her falling to the ground.

For a moment, she sat there, stunned, before a chill set in. The crystal had been warm, radioactive warm but still warm. This world was cold. But the air, it was so fresh and free and new. Shivering, she sniffed the air, trying to distinguish scents, but it was all so unfamiliar, so strange. She looked around, but everything was overloading her senses and it was like she was completely blind. She had gone from a world of glowing and green to dark and light and cold. She didn't know what to think. She felt exposed, naked, defenseless.

She huddled in, wanting to run and explore and find each scent and sound and sight, but she was scared. Perhaps it was an instinctual thing that kept her rooted to the spot. But she couldn't get herself to move.

@Ghanyarah

Ghanyarah could not say what had driven him to Polaris that day. Perhaps it was merely the fact that he hadn't gone to visit the massive room in a long time; the static-charged air, the massive spire with its soft blue glow, reassuring, comforting, a reminder of home. And yet, similarly, foreboding. After everything Dragon told him, Ghanyarah had come to distrust the cavern and its ancient inhabitants. Ones that knew every secret of the cave, ones that promised some kind of safety in union, should you put your trust in them. Like the spire. Ghanyarah wondered how many of those entities wandering the cave sought to secretly harm them.

Entering the room, he felt the magical charge of the air almost immediately prickling on his skin. He kept close to the river, eying the waters for the telltale flash of fish scales that might spark his hunger. Hunting in Cetus was relatively lacklustre. The water was stagnant, murky and difficult to see through, yes, but otherwise safe. Meanwhile, the river in Polaris had a perilous current that outboasted the water features in every other room. In the same way that it could be dangerous to him, it gave him the advantage of extra speed, too.

But it wasn't a fish that caught his attention in the end. A loud cracking, a scratching had bled into the silence. Ghanyarah raised his head and searched, and there he saw a chrysalis with a mild glow. A glow - like the spire. His eyes narrowed as he briefly wondered if he should retrieve Dragon and show him. Then the chrysalis began to fracture, and Ghanyarah was on his feet, scuttling toward the chrysalis as the creature within finally broke free.

Surprisingly, the animal it held was one not unlike himself. A scaly creature wet with amniotic fluid, huddled into itself, afraid of the world already. Ghanyarah paused, tongue flicking as he tested the balmy scent of the newly hatched Gembound. Then he stepped nearer again. "Young one," he spoke, "far too long of stillness will make you a lucrative target for hungry Gembounds."

He would know. He had once been her size, too. Small, skittish, too easy to come between the teeth of predators.

She didn't notice the other lizard coming up to her. How could she? There was so much to take in, so much to get used to. Her senses were so overloaded that only general sights, sounds, and scent registered to her brain. So it was quite a surprise when a voice started speaking nearby. She jumped - quite literally, before whipping around to face the other lizard, slipping on a shard of glowing gem as she did so.

Embaressed, she got to her feet and looked up. The thing was huge! She didn't know things could be that big! Curious, she took a tentative step forward and reached her neck to sniff a clawed foot. It smelled like...well, she didn't really know what it smelled like! She had nothing to compare it to.

She looked back up at the creature's face, trying to comprehend some of the words it had just said. She had been born with a decent knowledge of communication, but, perhaps, not these strange words. "Lu-cra-tive? Gem-bounds? What are those?"

But she knew the word hungry and, at the sound of it, her stomach rumbled. It didn't really occur to her that the lizard had been talking about something being hungry for her. But it didn't matter, how did she eat? What did she eat? But she had only just met this thing, she wanted to know more! She pushed away the thought of food in favor of questioning the beast. "Hel-lo. Who are you? What are you?" Her voice was barely a squeak, new and fresh with life.

@Ghanyarah

The komodo patiently regarded the tiny reptile, even as he seemed to have startled her. Of course, it wasn't his intention - but he felt no sympathy or guilt for doing so. Had he been a predator, she would have been an easy meal. He only wished to inform her of this, and perhaps advise her of a way to avoid such a fate.

He settled on the ground as she drew closer, sniffing at his foot, and nodded as she repeated his words. Nubile ignorance. If he could smile, he probably would have, though it would have been a mildly patronizing gesture. Humbled by her lack of knowledge, only for his ego to swell knowing how much of that knowledge he possessed. Then again... when had it ever served him well? Such knowledge, such wisdom, such memories - they only seemed to make him miserable, when he considered everything he had experienced and lost. The ghost of a smile that yearned to touch his lips withered back into nonexistence.

"A Gembound is what we are. You and I. Lucrative..." his voice trailed off as he thought of how to explain it, but the conversation moved elsewhere. She greeted him oddly and delivered another wave of questions.

"I am a reptile. You are a reptile as well," he began. "My name is Ghanyarah. Do you know what your name is?"

@Amazon

The beast was so big, how were they similar? Well, they had skin that looked kind of the same and a flicking tongue. And his gem was on his head, just like hers was. She reached up and touched her gem with her claw, but then quickly jerked it away as a weird tingling feeling went through her claws. Were all gems like that? She wanted to reach up and touch Ghanyarah's as well to see, but it was so far up there and she wasn't very big.

But as for her name? She thought about it for a moment before letting her mouth form words on their own. "Hmmmmm, my name is A-mah-zawn. Amazon. That's my name." Yes, her name was all good, but she was distracted. She wanted to touch that gem!

She bravely stepped back so that she was in front of Ghanyarah and then lifted herself up on her little back legs, reaching forward with her front claws, grasping for the big pink gem on his head. "Can I touch it? Please?"

@Ghanyarah

He always found it astounding how some Gembounds could just conjure a name within seconds of emerging from their chrysalis. It had taken Ghanyarah a long time to find his name - a cycle or two, if he could recall. Though, compared to the span of time that had passed since then, he supposed those few days had passed in the blink of an eye. He bobbed his head as she spoke hers, Amazon. Another name to file away in the litany of names he had come to learn, the faces he had come to remember, permanently ingrained in him.

Ghanyarah watched as she stepped back, rearing back in a feat he found most impressive, though it didn't show on his visage. If he could smile, he would, watching her attempt to reach for the pointed gem upon his crown.

"You may," the komodo answered. He lowered his head to the ground, even tipped his head slightly so that it would be close enough for her to reach. She was tiny, after all; she probably wouldn't have even been able to reach without him taking the extra steps to accommodate her small size.

@Amazon

When Ghanyarah lowered himself, Amazon happily reached forward to touch his gem. She was so small and he was so big, though, that she had to climb a little bit onto his nose, just to place her claws again his gem. It was different from hers, though, not as warm and it didn't send that strange feeling through her leg. Although there was certainly a tingling of energy that tickled through her arm. She giggled at the sensation before stepping off, wondering why his gem felt different.

She was certain that he knew, since he was so big and old! He would probably know everything. "Why does it feel not the same? Mine is...what's the word...hot?" She thought that was the word, but she felt like there was a milder word for it. But having not experienced different levels of temperature yet, she could not put a word to what she was experiencing.

It was a small thing. Her gem, in shape, felt the same that Ghanyarah's did, if a little smaller. She didn't know the color so she assumed that it was the same as his. But it was hot and his was not. Why was that? She was curious and, although she knew she didn't need to know, she wanted to know.

"How did you get so big?" She suddenly blurted this out, as if the question had been dancing across her tongue for some time. She looked up at the lizard, wondering if she would ever grow that big and how she would, if she could. She wanted to be big too!

@Ghanyarah