((This is just Oka lookin for plants, solo but anyone can hop in))

Oka awoke with a jolt. They were in their chrysalis. They couldn't remember when they had gotten in, but it sure was a fact. Just the sound of fluid surrounded them. It was calming...but they couldn't put their finger on why. Oka tucked their eyes in, and pushed against the edge of their shell. The pale opal resisted at first. More pushing. A crack formed, and the whole thing gave way. The shards dropped to the dirt with barely a thud. Light streamed in from between the roots. It was cramped. Moreso than they remembered, they could barely turn their head. But it was still calm. The only noise bird twitters. Then it hit them. There were no whispers. No visions. It was calm. They didn't know why. Did they simply...outlast it? Oka was okay with this.

Oka began to crawl from their hollow. They turned their eyes to the dirt beneath them, and paused. There were scratch marks in the dirt, like taloned feet had been there, crawling around.

"Qisziux?" Oka called, their voice scratchy from disuse. Oka stretched out their neck, searching the land above for their lizard friend. Even that was a trial, their neck bumped into the roots. And a portion of it felt...hard to move. They couldn't move their neck all the way to the left. This wasn't even mentioning their shell. The roots seemed perfectly formed to trap the snail gembound. They couldnt imagine spending their life trapped beneath these aeonian roots. Oka put their body-weight into pulling forward--getting out.

The roots snagged on the hooks and spikes of it's shell. They too strained with Oka's movement. But Oka felt the tension lessen. The roots began to break away one by one. Some pulled out of the dirt entirely. But Oka had escaped the tree. Oka turned back, swinging their head back to the tree. It was smaller than they remembered. And their grass as well. Had they...gotten larger? How long had they been in that hollow, within a chrysalis?

Was Qisziux worried? They were nowhere to be seen. Maybe... Qisziux was within their own chrysalis. Sleeping off the infection that place had given them. Yeah, that made sense. Oka couldn't sleep in their hollow to wait for them. Not anymore. But they would stick around. Maybe Qisziux would come back once they felt better. Oka could sleep outside the hollow.

They turned their head back, distinctly aware of that strange feeling in their neck. The fact they couldnt move it. They hated it. They couldn't rub the stiffness off their neck. Their shell would block any attempt. They needed to find a puddle or something. If they could see it, they could remove it. Or at least find another gembound, and ask them to remove it.

They slithered along, silent, a slime trail forming behind them. Oka didn't so much see the puddle as much as run into it. Surrounded by dirt and leaflitter, the water a muddied brown. But they could see the reflection of the trees. It would work. Oka leaned in, tilting their neck. Their skin was missing. At first Oka thought it was a dimple in the side of their neck. Oka leaned in closer. And the more they tilted their neck, the worse it looked.

It was like a crater within their neck. The skin stopped abruptly at a point, dipping deeply and all that was left was a deep filled with opal. Their gemstone. Oka felt this wasn't natural. It didn't feel right. But...it looked kind of pretty. They could make it pretty. Like Oka carried a pretty plant, but it was within their neck. They could adapt to this. All Oka needed to do was make themselves look prettier. That'd fix it. Oka slinked past the puddle, grabbing at clumps of grass, gathering them on the parts of the shell they could reach.

"Make me prettier." They said.

Oka felt the roots of the plants take hold. Their eyestalks drooped, and they fought off the desire to curl up and nap. But Oka's work was not done yet. It was just one plant on them. Another bit of work done. Oka wanted more. Needed more plants. They must continue.

Oka slithered off from the patch of bare dirt. Silently crawling over branches and tree trunks, until they reached a clearing. Oka raised their head, scanning for more plants. The work was boring to some. But to Oka, the work was enthralling. Every plant added to them was a part of them. A new bit of beauty for them to enjoy. The closer they could come to being the quiet, calming landscape of Eridanus itself.

It was a flowering plant that Oka encountered: slender green stem reaching high, with hanging, alternating flowers of pure white dangling like bells from it. Leaves encased the flowers on all sides like broad blades.

It was similar, perhaps, to a white lily of the valley, though far too large and too many-leaved to be quite the same.

@Oka

Oka spotted the plant from not too far off. The specks of white swaying gently caught her eyes. She approached, gathering the flowers in her tentacles. It was perfect. She started the process of pulling the flower from the dirt, taking special care to not damage its' roots and leaves.

At least, as careful as one could be with only two fingers. She felt some roots snap, but the majority of the plant was unharmed. Had she lips, she would have smiled. As it were, she stared at it for another second, before tucking the root into a spot on her shell.

Oka adjusted the plant, feeling her magic take root as the plant did the same. Oka felt the telltale exhaustion of another spell gone right, and the twinging pain of roots cracking her shell. She waited until she felt the flower was stuck tight, unlikely to fall, that she turned her attention away. A good deal of her shell was covered, at least the portion Oka could see. She would continue the search. She slithered off of the spot she'd found the flower at. New goal. Find some food.

What she found was fascinating: a vine, twisted up around the trunk of a tree, with branching extensions reaching out through the foliage. From this hung clusters of large, black berries: sweet, rich and tangy. Perhaps they were not called black currants, but they were certainly a close thing.

@Oka

Oka's tentacles grasped at the bunches of berries lightly. She eyed them, curiously. Then, tentatively, pulled it within her mouth. They tasted fine. Tart and sweet, and she soon found herself halfway up the tree. Pulling branch after branch down. Oka paused, with the knowledge that perhaphs any more, and she would strip the tree completely. One more branch she broke off, with a crack. Perhaps she would find use for this one. Oka crawled from its spot on the tree, and wandered off, to fulfil other plots and plans.

;Exit oka from this thread ive forgotten abt like 12 times lmao