As much as Siren quite liked Dread, he sure was useless when it came to information.

The dragon had told her about a Thing with Yellow Horns, but he'd given her virtually no other information. He said that he found her in the room where he hatched, but didn't tell her which room it was, or where to find it. He didn't even tell her the Thing with Yellow Horns' name, presuming it had one.

This meant that Serendipity had been wandering the caves half-aimlessly, cold and hungry. Her feet hurt, too, but that was likely a complaint for another time. At least she had a tunic and a scarf on her, or she might have lied down and died right then and there.

She came out of Orion-- a dark room with glittery lights on the top of it, and many crumpled buildings that caught her attention --and somewhere else. Another tunnel, like Tunnel J, except this one was brightly lit and the air had a sugary smell to it.

For a moment, the child stood there, tasting the air, before she came to the conclusion that she was hungry.

Hunting, when you had no claws or teeth or... anything, was exceedingly difficult. All Serendipity had was a knife and a dream; but surely that was enough for her to get away with.

As much as she liked the carollers, they did seem pretty stupid. Which was good, if you were a tiny little kid with no claws or teeth or anything, just a rusty little hunting knife. First things first, she'd have to find a caroller, however-- she could hear them, but she couldn't exactly see them.

Magic time, Siren decided quietly, shifting to quietly focus.

She reached out to the familiar sense of casting-- not fire, like she was used to --but another element entirely. Not that it didn't go wrong, but a herd of gemstones were immediately open to her. A flock of carollers lay somewhere overhead in a ledge near the ceiling, but not entirely far enough that she wouldn't be able to do anything.

Serendipity was a very small thing-- there was no chance in hell she was going to be able to clamber up the wall to start blindly stabbing at one-legged peck-machines. Not if she fell off trying to climb Dread for the first time, who was a lot less smoother than the walls were.

No, this likely required more spells. She shifted, uncomfortably in place, before reaching out once more, her eyes locked on the fading shapes of the assortment of gemstones. It was far easier than she anticipated-- all too easily she felt magicka reaching out to the wall, creeping up.

There was a rumble, followed by the crushing of bones. Whatever carollers were closest to the exit managed to flee, but the other inside were likely dead. As a handful of birds flew out one fell over, it's leg and gut crushed by the trembling rock in the ledge.

It fell limply to the ground, with a thump.

For a moment, the child did nothing.

Then, slowly, bit by bit, she inched closer.

She couldn't hear anything else. The alarmed squawking of the blue-and-white survivors had died down, now, as they presumably found a new, safer perch to retreat to. She couldn't hear that the bird on the ground was breathing anymore, and a glance over at it showed that it was goated in a strange, black ichor.

Gross, Serendipity thought.

She didn't entirely want to eat it if it was covered in that, but food was food. She moved over and sat next to it, settling down as she started plucking the feathers off it, least it smell bad when she cooks it.

Serendipity was about halfway through plucking the dead caroller when she came up with an Idea, relating to Dread's "explanation," even if pretty terrible, about dyes. He'd said that whatever colours she mashed together, it would effect what colours she got as a dye.

The child quickly rammed some royal-blue feathers away into a tattered satchel she'd found in tunnel J, and then scraped up the ebony ichor and stuffed that away into her satchel as well. It'd likely be ruined now, but that's a lesson she would come to realise whenever she next stuck her hand in there to get the ingredients out.

She turned the limp bird over quietly, thinking. It had a hunk of an obsidian-coloured gem sticking out it's throat.

... eugh, Serendipity grimaced, but that didn't stop her.

The things Serendipity did for fashion, and good looks. She took the rusted-over carving knife off her belt (which she realised, in that moment, would have been better for plucking the damn thing) and held it to the bird's throat, carefully releasing the hunk of onyx from the flesh and bone.

It was far from fun, and she even felt a little bad for the poor thing-- but at least it was already dead. The humanoid creature frowned as she put the small gemstone away into her satchel and went to work shedding the rest of the feathers off the bird, before putting her knife down and holding it in her hands carefully.

Her hands flared with familiar orange flame; the heat and the burning and the slight pain in her calloused palms was almost a comfort to her by now. She waited until she couldn't bear the pain any longer-- until the bird was charred and smoking --before she put it down and went to work on her newly-acquired meal.

When she was done, she got up, and she continued her search for the Thing with Yellow Horns.

[exit]