Hiding in a swamp for many cycles had secured his survival.

But it hadn't done much more to further the task he'd been given by the White Creature he had seen after death. He'd preached his story to all the Children of Rot who would listen, to the few Bonebound and Seven he'd come across, but now-?

It was time, he'd decided, to stop hiding--to go out and offer his words to the world.

The black horse had made his way to Orion: to the room of stars in which he'd seen so many momentous events. And there he stood, and began to call out, to all of those who would listen.

"We are trapped here by our stones," he began, his voice a wavering one, threading out into Orion with soft echoes. The scent of burnt rock rose in flared nostrils. "Trapped in these caves by the Spire's magic, to rise again, and again, and again. Our souls can't escape this place. The Masters believe that they own us... that we're nothing more than accidents, accidents they can wipe out on a whim..."

His words continued, reaching out: though he didn't know if anyone would hear them.

horse stock by venomxbaby on deviantart

Khloros' speech did not go unheard. It caught the interest of the renegade champion, who happened to wrestling with his own rebellious thoughts. Opal slunk from the shadows, his yellow gaze fixed the horse. It has been over a thousand years since the Masters' iron grip on the caves, but hearing "blasphemous" talk was still enough to but him on edge; even if he agreed with it.

Opal sat quietly, listening. His eyestalk flicked around, perhaps more out of habit than wariness. It was true, the Masters cared very little for the lives of individuals. Everyone was either a slave or a pet- a cog in the machine.

After all the Masters' owned them, body and gem.

But, wouldn't it be nice to seize fate for ourselves?

The Opal spoke up. "How do you know this? As old as he was, not even he knew the true nature of the Spire. Then again, he barely had time to study the damn thing. However, he had noticed one new thing about it since reawakening.

It was blue now.

@Khloros

Khloros fell briefly quiet, his soft gaze turning to regard the eel that slipped from the shadows of the ruined buildings.

This one, he remembered; he had spoken, briefly, of all of this before it, before. But not at length.

"You were in Cetus," he observed. Had Opal been one of the Hive-? Khloros thought he'd been the one caught, cleansed, the very first--but he wasn't sure.

It did not matter to him, really, so long as no one tried to press that on him. "I remember... I told you I have met Astraea. The stag. I don't know if you heard the rest." His voice was soft, and he thought, for a moment, of how to phrase it. How to relive what had happened to him, yet again, in a way that told the story briefly, coherently. It was too mangled in half-myth and confusion, for him, too close to him to seem objective, but... he tried.

"I spoke out. He told me these things." He had told Opal this part before, but perhaps it bore repeating; an introductoin to the rest: "He has himself claimed us nothing but byproducts, unwanted, belonging to the Masters... to be discarded as they see fit." And was Opal even one of them, or was he something other-? Khloros didn't know. But again: it didn't matter. "I do not know if you heard the rest of it: that he forced me into the Spire. It killed me. I was reborn as this--this is not who I was, before. What I was. And I existed, beyond this place. A creature: white, gentle. It told me to spread my beliefs, and so I am: we are trapped here, trapped by stone, by magic. It is unnatural, and it is wrong."

The black horse paused, and then spoke further: "We do not belong to them."

horse stock by venomxbaby on deviantart

@Opal Three-Seven-Six (and literally anyone else)

Oh, now I remember this one. This was Khloros, that horse from the Children of Rot. Opal was a hive-slave when they last spoke. However, the details of his story were a bit spotty. Opal blamed the fungus that tried to scramble his brain meats.

He closed his eyes and nodded along. "Mm, yes, Astraea speaks the truth, sadly." He opened them and blinked. "You were brave, and stupid, to talk to him like that- I'm glad he failed to make an example out of you." The Opal sniffed. More proof of the Masters' waning power.

Suddenly, Khloros mentioned something that threw him through a looped. "What?" His frills perked. Did he say he saw a.. figure? Opal stood up. He could feel his fins stand on in. "What did you say? You saw someone?" And it spoke to him. Opal wanted to dismiss it as a fever dream, but the figure and Khloros' miraculous survival could not be mere consequence.

Could it?

Opal fell silent for a while, pondering his tale. Finally, the eel looked backed up at him. "No, we don't." Opal agreed. The horse's words had new meaning behind them now.

"Khloros, did you know the Spire used to be black?"

@Khloros

Condoling at my loom

She had hatched, quickly. Too many legs pressing on a fragile chrysalis, striking blue giving way to something small, very small, all long legs and a dull glow. And she'd been scared, something buzzing loudly in the air, power thrumming through her, and fled.

And fleeing had been hard, grass taller than trees and rocks that may as well have been mountains, but she had been able to clutch to a fleeing... well, she didn't know what it was, but she'd lost her grip not far into the room of stars, so big, too big, and she was overwhelmed. There was a voice, words that slowly came into focus, and she found herself slowly understanding them, some but not all, so she approached, kept carefully out of sight, fearful, her markings flashing dull, faint, wanting to stay hidden, but the colors, the colors, if the one, they were beautiful and she adored, and she was frightened and wanted to understand.

♥

Brave, and stupid-...? Was it stupid, to say those things? Is it stupid, or for that matter brave, to speak the truth? To seek the truth?

"I did not know who he was, nor did he enlighten me... but he approached as nothing more than a monster. He feared--I know that. I don't know what he was afraid of, but there was fear in him." Khloros' take on it may not have been accurate, but he believed it, at least, fairly firmly. "But is it stupidity--or bravery--to say what's right, or to seek the truth? I don't think so," he went on, and it was in a thoughtful manner; he was giving his opinion, and certainly not stating fact. His tone reflected as much as he went on. "I think those who would stop you speaking--or seeking--truth are the stupid ones, or at least... that is not how the world should be." Khloros looked around again, his mind briefly wandering--the voices of the past, memories of this cave, knowledge granted, perhaps through madness, perhaps not knowledge at all, of the unnatural nature of this place.

Opal questioned him and he turned back, peering. "I saw someone, yes. I was torn apart by the Spire," he confirmed; "It was agony. I am certain that I died, and the being lay beyond. It was... white, gentle; it had a flatter face than mine, and more limbs. It was smooth, and shining-sleek, bone-white-..." Repeating myself. "It told me I would be reborn, and to tell others how I thought. If Astraea finds me again, I don't want that knowledge to be lost. I think the Spire must be destroyed." He looked himself over. "I was reborn. I did not look like I do now. And my magic is gone, now. Completely." He could heal himself, yes; but plague-? That was beyond him, now, as was any touch whatsoever to prokaryote life. It had been severed from him, though perhaps that was a small price to pay for the gift he had been given. Plague hadn't been working, anyway. Perhaps enlightenment of the rest of them would.

...Black? "It was black-?" the horse asked, puzzled. He did not remember a time it had been black; it had been blue, since his birth, and he blinked. "How long ago was this? You must be older than I am, if you saw it-? What happened to it, to make it blue?"

horse stock by venomxbaby on deviantart

@Opal Three-Seven-Six @Soumak

"But is it stupidity--or bravery--to say what's right, or to seek the truth?"

His response was a snort of amusement. "Depends on the situation." Survival came pretty high on Opal's list, so morality was a luxury he could not always afford. "I think they're smart." He said, begrudgingly."What better why to control your army than to control what they think?" Opal shrugged, sighing as if dismissing the tyranny of it. "Ingenious tactic, really." The eel squinted at the horse and cocked his head. "What makes you say that? He asked."How the world should be?

Opal asked this because he truly did not understand where is own morality came from. He was raised to be an unthinking solider, a remorseless killing machine. Nothing was supposed to matter to him other than his own survival and pleasing the masters. Yet, here was, wishing for their destruction and caring about the fate of these gembounds. Opal thought it was the influence of Mother, but this had stirred deep inside him long before she-it touched him. It could be that the fungus merely set it free.

How should the world be?

Opal's eyes lit up when Khloros described the being he met. These were strange times, and there were definitely stranger forces at play. For a moment, cold fear shot through his body. Could they be-? He thought. "Could.. could you have met the ..Creator? He asked Khloros, his voice hushed. Opal felt crazy for even saying that. No one had seen the Creator, no one he knew personally, anyway. But this being he described... they don't sound very.. Creatory. Not once, in any of the stories he was told, was the Creator described as "gentle". Opal tapped the ground, thinking. Perhaps they've changed with the cycles...

"Ah yes! As black and oily as gembound tar! His fins flared as he spoke of it. It made such an impression, Opal could still remember it clearly as if it were last cycle. "I don't know." He shook his head. "The last time I saw it, it was black, then.." He trailed off as his eyes fell over the ruins of Orion. "I woke up after a trial, and many things have changed...

@Khloros

Carefully, so carefully, she approached the bright one, the glowing one, and oh, the colors! the colors! She wished she could remember them forever, put them down and stare at them for the rest of her lifetime, so beautiful were they!

The other one, the one that was speaking the most, was nice enough, of course, rich colors, deep colors that gleamed in the light. But it was the glowing colors of the quieter one that she adored, glowing, glowing, gleaming bright, standing out against itself, and oh but it was the most beautiful thing she had seen in her short, short life!

Though the story the other was telling was fascinating, something so beautiful, white and gentle, shining sleek, and she would love to see it, too. But, it seemed, that had been a time ago, some time before her, a time she could not imagine, so though she mourned she was well content to adore the gleaming bright beautiful Gembound.

@Khloros

"Army...? I am no soldier of the stag's," Khloros answered, peering at Opal quizzically. "No--I came from a stone, in a wall, with purpose of my own." To put an end to these cycles of entrapment.

Creator... Could he have? Khloros considered. He did not know, not for certain. He remained wholly oblivious to the approach of the spider, of Soumak's many eyes locked on Opal, as he answered. "A creator... perhaps? Perhaps it was death," he added, almost indifferently. He had since his hatching carried death. It made sense that death would greet him and return him, beyond actual death, to his task. But he didn't think this death could ride atop his back, as he had imagined it; then again, disease had always been the metaphor, hadn't it?

It was Opal's other question that gave him pause, and one that he addressed last, and only after long moments' thought. Why did he have an idea of what should be..? Was it ingrained in him, or learned? A moral sense? "When I was hatched, I heard voices, chanting. The wall spilled me out like a disease, and disease came with me. I saw..." and here, he paused; for explaining all the horrors he had seen was... well, it would take time. Too much time. "I saw these caves. The world we live in. It is full of horror. Pain, and domination. Slavery and control." Khloros knew little of the Masters, even; it was in other Gembound he had seen these things. Other Gembound who had manipulated, lied and tormented the others. "It is not how I would have it be. I think... it is wrong, that it is this way."

The black horse paused, again, thinking, staring off at nothing for a long moment. "The survivors may shape the world, but I find death is a mercy to those trapped in that cycle. That life--torture--pain--... Do I say it is not worth living? Perhaps; but it is those imposing it who should be destroyed."

He studied Opal, then, watching him intently. "What of you? How do you see it all? How old must you be, that you remember the Spire from another time-?"

horse stock by venomxbaby on deviantart

@Opal Three-Seven-Six @Soumak

The lights on Opal's hide rippled when Khloros mentioned his age. It was so surreal to think about. He was older than most in the caves- he held knowledge that was once common, now lost to time-yet, he did not feel ancient. It did not grant him any wisdom. It was just time stolen from him.

"Don't feel that old." Opal mumbled, looking at the ground. He sat back down. "I woke up to a different world." He paused, considering his question. "Things are... kinder now. You are freer than I once was." Opal almost said that "the fact you weren't killed at birth for your delusions shows it", but bit his tongue. Maybe "delusion" was not the right word. "You can think differently without hiding it, they used to kill those with... deviant minds." He regarded Khloros for a moment, hoping he had not said something offensive.

The horse was strange, but what he said was true. Despite the freedom of the new cycles, they were still trapped. They were still slaves. "Khloros, are you saying that the Spire keeps us here?" He tucked his tail closer. Opal had not desire to part from his stone, but he couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps Khloros was on to something.

He found himself agreeing with the horse. Slavery and domination, he was tired of it. This is not how life should be. Is that what the Spire was, magical bonds keeping them here? He recalled it having great importance to the caves, but Opal's world had been so topsy turvy lately he did not know what to think anymore.

The eel's keen eyes noticed an eight-legged speck crawling towards him, though he brushed it off as just a lesser. He kept his eyestalk on it, just incase it decide to crawl on him. Opal wasn't particularly fond on bugs getting stuck in his slime. Luckily, it stopped in its tracks.

think "speak"

@Khloros @Soumak