Marrow
flowers growing in my lungs

Marrow awakens slowly, as if drifting out of a dream. She is aware, in her first few moments, of a comforting warmth, of being immersed in a fluid of some sort—then, as she opens her eyes ever-so-slowly and languidly, she is aware of a pattern of clearness and black in front of her, letting vague light stream in through the liquid she’s immersed in.

Then, she is aware of a sort of… pressure, coming from all sides, confining her, restricting her to this little formation of gem and magic.

She decides that she doesn’t like that very much.

Little hooves begin to push against the walls of her chrysalis, scrabbling against the stone as she attempts to force her way out. There is a crackling noise, more light flooding into her chrysalis as the gemstone begins to give beneath her efforts, and then—

Crack!

The stone gives way completely, crumbling, and Marrow falls backwards into the light. She feels her side impact cool stone gently, the fluid flooding the immediate area with a thin puddle of the stuff, and coughs, letting what’s left of it exit her lungs.

Then, she takes her first breath.

This does not register as very important to her, being instinct; in fact, as she shifts to a more comfortable sitting position, glancing around, she’s more occupied with her surroundings than anything. The gemstone shell she was in but a few minutes before now lies shattered, she notes, the shards scattered among… bones.

Piles and piles of bones, arranged like walls; she stares for a few moments, captivated by the sight. Sehe stands, eventually, eyes still fixed firmly upon them, head tilting gradually in curiosity.

The sight gives her a sense of quiet comfort; a part of her has already accepted this place as where she belongs. There are bones, and then there is her, among them; she does not see any reason why she should not belong here.

This is… ‘home’, she decides.

After another few moments of staring aimlessly at the bones with unblinking eyes, she wanders up to one of the makeshift shelters, walls standing tall, (taller than little Marrow, anyways) noses it, gives it a little sniff, a particular, dry smell of calcium making itself evident to her, and decides to call this shelter ‘hers.’

She wanders inside, glances around, and decides, with the mind of a child who doesn’t need very much, really, but something to keep her happy and entertained, to sit down and go back to staring at the bones.

This plan is foiled by Marrow’s abrupt realization that, with a rumble of her stomach, she’s hungry. She wants—food. Something to eat; and although she rather does like the bones surrounding her, she doubts that they make good food.

So she stands up on her little legs, wanders out of her shelter, and decides—after locating a shard of her chrysalis and dragging it into the entrance of the shelter to mark it as hers—to pick a direction and wander that way in search of something to eat.

And so she does, the faint tapping of her hooves against stone echoing a little as she walks.

Marrow is being watched, but not in a stalkerish sort-of way. The two Initiates had gone far past that, whispering haughtily to one another as both peered with senses focused only on the tiny heartbeat scuffling around shortly after suddenly manifesting.

From where it lay, essentially covered in bones and having its head set just perfectly beneath some massive skull, it groaned, "very little."

From one of the skull's empty eye sockets, Gamma quietly barked out, "itsh food for me!"

Acidic eyes winked out of sight for a moment and a hefty sigh echoed from it. The motion disturbed the bones quite a bit, but Alpha seemed not to care. Noise didn't really get in the way of its grumbled explanation, "too little. Waste of food. We wait for it to grow." Quills rattled slightly, thinking, "is alone and moving to same place. It thinks."

Right in that moment, the tiny blot of red started to move away, in a straight line - like it was in pursuit of something. Alpha was too invested to give up on this spying nonsense, and just rocked up to its feet with absolutely no preamble or attempt at being quiet. Seeing as there wasn't any hunting going on, the monstrous child had no reason to try stealth out. It simply sniffed loudly, trailing at an uncomfortably close distance like some sort of feral cat that had no innate fear of other things.

@Selenite-Gamma

While Gamma and Alpha typically played a game of cat and giant-alien, today the two were watching. Head high, the little drake's senses were on high alert as it peeped over bones, eyes wide as though it were a sentry within the giant skeleton laid over its sibling.

Little, but it was good for Gamma! "Small is good!" It had cried (as quiet as it could be) after proclaiming the fact that it was food, pulsing out its magic once more to watch. It was fading- and it looked to Alpha when it sighed.

"Wait for it for you, but easy for me," it interjected as it peered down at the orthoclase. But- if it was thinking, then that'd be a problem, wouldn't it? Ah, conflicting orders on killing creatures came into its head- only kill sapients if provoked, but what if it was hungry? This was a frustrating quandary that it didn't have time to think over as Alpha stood, bones falling away from it.

"Where you go? What if danger?" Its stilted speech stuttered out as it hopped from its perch, landing with the grace of its mother right behind the giant's tail. There were a few practiced weaves through the forest of legs before it was walking right beside it, using Alpha as a meat shield between it and whatever the creature was.

"What is it?" It whispered low, as though Marrow couldn't hear it from the already close distance.

@Marrow

Marrow
flowers growing in my lungs

She ignores the distant sounds of voices and the clattering of bone, completely unaware for the moment that she’s being watched. It doesn’t come to Marrow’s mind that there might be other gembounds in the area; in fact, she hasn’t given a millisecond of thought to the fact that there might be other gembounds at all. There’s just her and her hunt for some sort of food to quell her stomach’s protests.

The footsteps, however, are another story. Her ears swivel backwards to catch the sounds of feet thumping against stone and kicking bones aside with a rattle—and, when she notes that he footsteps are coming closer, she turns right around, stopping in her tracks.

What she sees before her is so out-of-the-blue and strange, especially to a gembound who was curled up in her chrysalis but a few minutes ago, that she decides to process it in chunks.

First: there are two beings in front of her. That much was obvious; she had caught a whisper of words while listening to them.

Second: they are big. Especially the green one—who she creatively nicknames ‘Green’ in her mind for the moment—he towers above her, such that she has to crane her head all the way back to see his head, vivid green eyes like little beacons at the very top of what is essentially an unscalable tower. The second one—’Stripe’, she decides, for its yellow, patterned fur—is much, much smaller than it, but still very much bigger than her.

All in all, her worldview seems to have shrunk considerably, in that even though she previously considered herself average-size, she now considers herself very small.

This doesn’t bother her too much, though; it’s merely a simple fact she files away for later as she watches the two of them right back, glassy eyes staring at them just like she had stared at the bones next to her hatching-place.

“What—are you?” she asks. Somewhere inside her tells her she is a deer, but that information is unimportant to her, so she doesn’t see why she should share it.

She’s much more curious about them. Especially, since—this train of thought elicits another searching glance from her as she looks over the two—one of them doesn’t seem to have any bones. Green has a big skull on its head, and she can tell that she has a skull on her head (totally unaware that her gemstone is not a bone), but…?

She turns her attention towards Stripe and takes a few steps forward, intending to nudge it with her head. “Where are—your bones?”

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Alpha had a deal to offer its little hatchmate, rumbling snidely, "wait until it get big - I give you big leg." That seemed fair enough. The orthoclase would take the rest, of course, and any scraps Gamma left behind the moment it was done eating. A fair bit of bullying and food-stealing was undertaken, but all in good fun. More food was always offered (by Alpha, obviously) to its hatchmates later as compensation.

Its steps didn't falter once as the selenite wove between them. "If dangererous, I'll kill it," Alpha grunted with an air of finality, "simple." It hummed - clearly within earshot of the subject of their stalking - "you eat it, then." Maybe then Gamma would hope for danger. The orthoclase had a peculiar craving for fun and danger, but it had its doubts that either would be found in this puny thing. It was staring blindly up at potential predators with seemingly no care in the world. A sniff echoed loudly from its muzzle, before it tilted its head nearly upside-down to regale Gamma with the greatest response this side of the world could offer: "it is little."

In the process, the massive skull came loose from back-curved horns and Alpha blinked mutely as the rest of its eyes saw the light. All four greens disappeared for a moment, scrunching up tightly as its depth of field grew just a bit more defined and focused. It looked back down at the skull, absently whapping it with a meaty paw before finally also providing the little deer with a very informative response, "We're initiates to the Sentinels. Orthoclase-Alpha." The creature in question (to itself) dipped its head, indicating.

A sidelong glance was cast towards its own flank - "my bones are in me." Alpha hoped so, anyways.

Now that those answers were out of the way, the orthoclase could finally produce the statement it was dying to give to yet another one of these New Gembound. It was the same assessment it gave to many of the others, but needed to be announced anyways: "you are scruffy. How do you run on little legs?" Alpha swung its head just a bit towards the drake by its feet, as if looking for a second opinion before even waiting for an answer.

@Selenite-Gamma

Gamma only had one response, and that was to stick out its tongue in defiance. Wait? Who had time for that! Its nose scrunched as it shook itself out, mane puffing up and back arching as though it was trying to make itself bigger in preparation for a coming attack.

"Fine. You kill; we eat," it said with a huff. "Or- I eat. You swallow in one inhale." Its paw found the front of its muzzle and batted at it before letting out childish laughter. This thing was tiny, that was for sure. Smaller than even it. The laughter only turned to whatever she was instead, soft huffs of amusement coming out for the deer. "Is just cave deer. We eat? Or bring back to Doctor?"

The weird bird always had his weird mice- maybe he'd like something bigger. But this deer was.. Odd, looking up and- Giving a direct response to its question. Its chuckles died down and its claws returned to the ground as ears shoved forward, eyes squinting. "Is Selenite-Gamma." Aka, someone who desperately needed to learn how to speak. "Am initiate; important!" A deep, fast nod was given to the last word.

It hesitated at the second question, however. Its... Bones? "Bones inside, like Alpha. Like... You? Where are your bones?" Growing confident, the little drake stretched out at the nudge, sniffing at her pelt and her gem. "Why have hole in head?" A claw rose to point above the skull as though she could see the white visible through the clear. "Gem clear, not-"

It wheeled on Alpha as it continued to spoke. "I scruffy!" it hissed out, back arching again. "I have little leg! Bad question!" Like it had any precedence over which questions were good or bad. A light slap was given to the forelimb closest to it, knowing full well what may be in store.

@Marrow

Marrow
flowers growing in my lungs

She listens to the two talk with a slightly-inclined head, watching their movements with a calm sort of patience. Green’s head turns, tilting like hers, and out of an instinct to copy it, she meets its green-glowing eyes and tilts her head, too, watching as its bone falls off its head. Hers doesn’t seem to fall off her head—it must be a different kind of bone. But maybe hers just takes a little more effort to take off?

She doesn’t get to wonder further—although the weight of her quartz gemstone is balanced enough when she’s holding her head normally, as she tilts, it begins to throw her little body off-balance. She ends up on three hooves, then two, then—

—her tiny body teeters over completely, and she hits the stone floor with a soft whump, kicking up a vague cloud of dust from where she falls. Marrow blinks, having not expected this, too little to have worked out the laws of physics on her body by trial-and-error.

The fall doesn’t seem to disturb her much, at least; she simply moves to a more comfortable laying position and continues to watch the two of them with a tilted head, this time her head being slightly less inclined to avoid another fall. At Green’s comment of her being ‘little’, she bobs her head ever-so-slightly, agreeing with the statement completely—after all, she is smaller than anyone else here. That makes sense; what else could she be but a little one?

‘Little one’, she thinks to herself, the idea of a title forming in her head, but she quickly drops it. She is little, yes, but it doesn’t fit.

Green—”Orthoclase-Alpha”, she notes, a very long name that she likes—proclaims that its bones are in it, and this piece of information seems to break her calm, invoking instead a vague sense of confusion, causing her eyes to narrow ever-so-slightly. All the bones around them are outside anyone’s body; how did theirs end up inside their bodies? It doesn’t make sense to her. Her bone is outside her body.

“What is—Sentinels?” she asks, distractedly, still mulling over the topic of bones and their locations as she does so. It’s more important to her than what a ‘Sentinels’ is.

She lets the little drake sniff over her, head tilting the other way this time as she meets its eyes. “My bone—on head,” she states, complete certainty in her tone. Where else could it be?

She raises her hoof slightly to gesture to said “bone” as Stripe—who is “Selenite-Gamma”, also a very long and interesting name—asks about it, her confusion only growing. “This is bone. What is—gem? Is gem bone?”

This logic makes perfect sense to her; if they are referring to her bone as a ‘gem’, then a ‘gem’ must be a type of bone. She sees no other reason why they would be calling something by a name it wasn’t.

She tilts her head as she watches Selenite (or Gamma, she hasn’t decided on its new nickname yet) hiss and not-attack Orthoclase/Alpha’s much, much bigger leg, wondering what made it so angry. “Just a question?” she comments and asks at the same time, confused once more. These two are weird to her, with their inside-bones and all.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

Were its face even a little more flexible, Alpha wouldn't have stifled the grin that came - it knew that the little drake was in no position to argue with it purely due to the size difference. It wasn't worried one bit that Gamma would suddenly become a prodigy of magic and start slinging some at it. No, it'd know by now if there was any sudden shift in power, because Gamma would've shown that off at the first opportunity. None of them were the type to gloat and boast, but any signifier of worth was... worth showing to the Overseer.

Alpha lifted a meaty paw, giving the absolute gentlest of shoves to its smaller sibling as it batted away at the massive snout before it. Huffing softly, it plodded forwards a few steps and continued to sniff ominously. "No, no eat, yet!" Another whap, but somewhat harder, was delivered. "But... Doctor-" Alpha's voice faded into a low rumble, some bassy theremin noises made as it thought to itself, Doctor likes subjects - for learning or what else he say.

The newborn then turns herself up and tips over, recovering by just lying down in the face of - would-be predators! Acidic eyes widened, balking with a rattling of quills. "No running? Not scared?" Pearly whites snapped with each word, more a confused gesture than anything properly aggressive, "I'm big hunter - we have sharp teeth, to eat you! You... little. Flat teeth!" Alpha was still bewildered by the very concept of these talking hoofed creatures. What was the point of giving cave deer a voice? They were all going to be eaten anyways!

Gamma's assault was its own undoing - the monstrous baby's meaty foreleg shot out with a clearly practiced ease. It grabbed the drake by the entire body and essentially just tossed it straight at a pile of bones. "Use little leg to come back!" Alpha barked after, huffing amusedly before staring back down in plain-as-day bewilderment.

"Sentinels are right. We are in Tunnel P, training to prove our strength and worth to Overseer Vargas! Grow strong and live. Be weak and die. Run away and be hunted," and it enunciated the last word like it was trying to drill a point into little Marrow's head. "Initiates are for testing, real worthy and not imperfect. Designed..." Alpha was clearly running out of things about the Sentinels to regurgitate, and decided that that was that.

@Selenite-Gamma

The drake chuffed with a laugh as the deer toppled over. Maybe Doctor would like this thing, like Alpha suggested? She didn't seem very afraid as the two came close, not even flinching when its (Gamma thought only of itself really) predatory teeth were bared in speech.

Its head turned to match alongside this being's as it had slapped Alpha- only to be flung for what felt like half a century. Ooh, it'd get that beast for this! Raring in tiny-dog-syndrome, Gamma cracked through bones and struggled to push back up. "Alpha! Is cheat- not time for fight!" Clearly, cheating just meant fighting before it was time to fight. And any time to fight was when it decided it was time.

Anyways. The Alpha was ignoring it, and it huffed as it trotted back over, its nose crinkling in discomfort. Why should Alpha be the one able to push everyone around? Ugh.

Well, here was something smaller than it, and stupider than it, too. (Granted- it was only stupid to the more objectively dim-witted Gamma, but it wouldn't be able to recognize that if it slapped it in the face.) "Designed to be best! We good! You... Not made by anyone- you not taught, so you alone." It gave a breathy laugh through whitened teeth. "Gem not bone! Gem is sparkly! Is... Something everyone has. Nobody has gem as bone." Gamma, your gem is literally a spinal piece. Well- not like it'd know...

"Maybe gem is bone, though..." It sat back, mulling quietly. It took brainpower to decide that, "No. Bone easy to break. Gem much different, different for everyone. And gem can be bad, like bad question- no bone bad. If bone break, that not bad. Bone fix. Gem don't fix. Gem kill if broke." It chuffed with a nod, its speech done.

"And is bad question because it obvious how I run. With legs. Duh."

@Marrow

Marrow
flowers growing in my lungs

“Don’t want run. What is… scared?”

Sc-ared. The word is foreign to her; she has no idea what meaning it might hold. The questions are senseless to her; wouldn’t moving away make it harder for her to hear their voices?

“Gamma little too. You don-’t hunt it.” Teeth are—bone, too, she thinks, running her tongue around in her mouth as Alpha brings the subject up. And their shape is important, apparently; sharp teeth are for ‘hunters’, while flat teeth are for… little?

But Gamma is little, and its teeth are visibly sharp, so it can’t be that. Hm.

Ge-m. The concept is new; Gamma explains it well enough. Bone and gem are two different things, one much more important to keep intact than the other.

She thinks both are important, but keeps that thought to herself. She sees no reason why gem and bone shouldn’t be the same thing, after all; maybe Gamma is just wrong.

A pause, while she mulls all this new information over; the concepts and words from both of them. Alpha had been speaking of the Sentinels, of a lot of things she disregarded as unimportant to her, (is she supposed to know what a ‘Tunnel P’ is?) but she does remember something that is important to her.

She had been looking for food before they showed up, and her stomach still rolls and tosses in a sensation she decides is unpleasant.

“Sentinels have food?” she asks, head inclining with her question.

Food is important to her.

@Orthoclase-Alpha