Garnet-Delta's nose wrinkled at the smell, scrambling awkwardly to stay on top of the big dolt as it rolled helplessly on the floor. It picked its way up carefully through the mane of dangerous needles to crawl up Orthoclase-Alpha's face and wave a paw at its frantically searching eyes.

"Here," it reported soundly, only of residual nausea wobbling their voice. It took a deep breath, tail flicking as it did not whatsoever admit that it had just puked on its sibling. In fact, it acted tough, and began to berate Alpha. "Why did you fall? Could've squashed me!" Its fur bristled, and it snorted as it flopped over its much larger hatchmate's snout.

"Are you hurt?" It asked, glancing around with sharp red eyes and spotting the pool of vomit slowly dripping down on to the floor off of Alpha's side. It wasn't going to address that. "What--" And then it saw the injury to Alpha's carapace, and with a hiss of alarm, it scrambled on to the ground and over to the broken spike, spitting with anxiety. "Are you OKAY?" It squealed, reaching up to paw at the oozing crack.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Alpha crossed its eyes to stare at Delta's waving paw, heaving a whistling sigh of relief that it hadn't crushed the little thing. Imagine having to explain that to the brass? Uh oh, I tripped on a rock and killed one of your Initiates. What a waste. It sniffed, eyes narrowing with distaste at the smell, but assumed it was coming from its blood or something (or that it'd just disturbed some foul-smelling thing on the floor by falling on it. Alpha had yet to see vomit.)

"Tripped," it grunted, kicking out a hind leg to gesture at the offender. Stupid little pebble, wedged into the ground. Who's bright idea was it to gorilla-glue that thing to the ground?

The orthoclase tilted its snout down, but Delta was already scuffling around and checking it over for injury. It zeroed in, of course, on the broken bits of carapace and started squealing. Alpha growled roughly, mostly for itself, "I'm fine." Wasn't the first time it'd busted up its forearms, and probably wouldn't be the last. It tried again to roll onto its stomach, mindful of its left arm and grunting as it went.

Apparently, being very torso-heavy made it difficult to roll up. Alpha just flopped onto its other side, craning its neck with a groaning sigh and holding its arm up to the light - ah, that was quite a bit of blue blood sputtering out from between the cracks. "I live," it grunted, with a tone like it was bemoaning that fact. It twisted the appendage at the elbow, and surely enough: the longest of the spikes was broken at the tip (and fortunately only the keratin) and a few of the lower ones had hairline fractures in them.

Note to self: don't fall on your arms while standing up.

@Garnet-Delta

Tripped? How clumsy could you be? Of course, coming from the baby that couldn't even land without falling on its face half the time, the insulting thought held little weight behind it. Delta's tail tip twitched and it scuffled backward a bit as Alpha raised its limb toward the light. Little droplets of blue blood splattered on the floor, and its nose wrinkled.

"Okay," it huffed as its hatchmate insisted it would live. "No more poking in holes right now." It didn't want to admit that it felt sick, much less that it had barfed, but hopefully Alpha was on the same page as it. It eyed the much larger baby for a few moments, as though gears were slowly churning in its little peanut head.

The little gremlin turned its head back down the tunnel, tail whisking back and forth. "Maybe go wash?" It suggested, bouncing on its paws and spreading its wings a little. "You stink." Which was entirely its fault, but Delta didn't have to admit that.

"Come on!" It squeaked, bouncing off down to where there would be some water to clean Alpha off in.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Alpha probably would've just spent the next few years just staring at its forearm and waiting for the blood to stop flowing and subsequently die of something stupid - like an infection - if it's less pea-brained sibling (at least a peanut had two parts!) hadn't given some suggestions.

Washing off would be probably a good idea.

If it could actually get itself up. The orthoclase rolled forward, tilting slightly and starting to feel a weird wetness on its side. It was sliding off to the slightly softer underbelly, and it felt too chunky to be blood.

It grunted in annoyance, planting its injured arm against the ground and tucking its limbs underneath itself. Alpha was trying its damndest to get the momentum required to get off of its broad back, but fate was a cruel mistress that kept it down.

Except for when she finally didn't.

In an altogether too smooth motion, the monster baby finally gathered up just the right amount of momentum. It toppled onto its stomach, and almost continued on the path until it squared off and stood up. Alpha was clearly favoring its right forearm, but seemed pretty unhindered otherwise as it trundled after Garnet-Delta.

@Garnet-Delta

Garnet-Delta's ear swiveled back at the sounding of grunting. It slowed its pace, glancing back as Alpha remained floundering on the floor like a beached whale. It opened its mouth, and then shut its mouth, and then finally called back, "Do you need help?"

Its tail was swishing back and forth with impatience, but it did not get to so much as blink before suddenly Orthoclase-Alpha was lunging up on to all fours-- fives? The cat-alien nodded with approval, whiskers twitching. "Slow-paws," it scoffed playfully, trotting down the tunnel into Canis.

It knew where there was a big enough pool of water for Alpha to wash its wounds. (And the barf.) The sooner they cleaned up Alpha, the sooner they could pretend that none of that had ever happened.

@Orthoclase-Alpha ;; delta exit to the watering hole tm

"No," Alpha grunted, because it was Alpha and it didn't need anything, as evidenced by its sudden appearance in the Comeback Kid (the John Mulaney special, not whatever it originally was.)

And it picked up the pace, giving a playful cub-growl as Delta 'insulted' it and trotted off. The alien-cat was, of course, faster, but that didn't matter. As long as its strides were wide and steady enough, the orthoclase would catch it.

the watering hole?! who wants to go to the watering hole?
;exit alpha