Back in her den, Kaimana surveyed her collection. She had invited Comet over to come paint some of these objects with her. Not the stones, of course -- these were living creatures, in a sense, and you just don't paint living creatures without their consent! The toy painting wasn't happening today, but soon. The day of the serandite's hatching appeared to be fast approaching, judging by its size. Kaimana had to pull herself away from staring at it.

She took a deep breath and looked at the array of stones. Two were... very large. Difficult to move. She wondered what kind of creature could've possibly held them? And the jaw bone -- Kaimana knew fish, and that was no ordinary fish! All of these stones were so beautiful... the thought that they possessed intelligence within them made them even more so. Kaimana felt the need to revive them with her magic as she had done the serandite, but just the thought of that felt exhausting right now. Impossible. So she'd likely have to enlist others -- perhaps she could give them stones of their choice for... various goods in return? It might seem like selling living souls from a certain perspective, but Kaimana had built the ocean a castle for giving her the serandite. From her perspective, it just seemed fair. Continuing the cycle of life.

There had to be some other requirements set for taking a stone, of course. Anyone who wanted one had to be trusted to be able to stay and take care of it! Kaimana didn't want to endorse child abandonment! And perhaps, to encourage that air of respect for the stones -- to make it feel more like an adoption than a trade -- Kaimana could... get them checked out? For what they had once been. Except... that would be very difficult. Gah! If only--

She thought about Pride. That stag of the Seven, he'd been able to check the serandite for more than just whether or not it had life in it. How had he done that...? What kind of magic was that? Kaimana padded over to one of those stones -- the Petoskey stone, the first of the two large ones (and therefore one that she was doubtful she could travel very far with) -- and put her paws on either side of it. How had he done it? Put his nose to the stone... she mirrored the picture of the memory in her mind and closed her eyes...

Kaimana gained a brief glimpse into a past moment of this gemstone. Of course, whether this was the stone's most recent bearer, or not, was entirely unknown; but what she did see was interesting enough.

It was something in the thick of a jungle: prowling, silken black skin almost slithering, yet scaleless. Whatever it was it was difficult to get a clear glimpse: particularly when the creature burst into violent motion, charging for a nearby Red Rat. Hooked claws, spines, a lashing tail; it was almost like a large cat, but with frightening, alien features.

@Kaimana

Darkness condensed into... memory. Not her own. Was this..?

Jungle. Prowling. Oh, was this a hunt? The sensation felt a little foreign to the jaguar, which might've been surprising since, being a jaguar, this kind of thing was what she was supposedly built to do. But Kaimana was a fisher. It utilized that same instinctual ambush predator's patience, and combined that with new tactics, new muscle memories. Similar, but different.

Almost like a snake, but ultimately feline. Lethal all the way. She wondered how big it had had to be to carry around such a large stone. What it had to face in order to have been... ended, in a sense. When the memory ended, Kaimana withdrew. She looked around at her collection. 'So many more...' She wondered if she would be able to remember them all. Was there a way to make a list of some sort...

Actually, perhaps there was! Kaimana would go outside for a brief moment. Blink her eyes to adjust to going from memory-sight to regular sight, then from dark to light. She would emulate the movements of the memory she'd seen. Slinking, stalking, hunting...

She would bring back a red rat in her jaws, freshly killed, and place it beside the Petoskey stone. A marker.

So she had two new kinds of special sight. Very peculiar. And delightful!

Now, which to do next?

Kaimana couldn't lie, the jaw bone... was intriguing. And so was the other big stone she had. And so were they all, actually! AGH, how to choose! She pondered, for a moment, and in the end just couldn't keep her eyes off that jaw bone. It was just so weird. Fish don't have jaws like that, do they? Do they?

With her new magical (it was definitely magical) gift, she could see for sure. A body's bones made up the structure of that one body and that body alone. They were certain. Kaimana hadn't yet put together that stones could be uncertain. This was all very new to her, after all.

The jaguar's wet nose pressed up against the jawbone. She closed her eyes. Was she gaining things from these memories...? Not the time to ask. Focus.

These bones had, indeed, once been surrounded by flesh. It swam amid many strange fish, each faintly familiar to Kaimana. They were lively and sleek, here, single eyes peering at every passing object.

Here, it was pitch-black save for where the shoal of fish swam by; their bioluminescence only faintly outlined the rock formations they moved by. Eerie silence filled the jaguar's ears and remained even as the vision faded.

@Kaimana

The next vision was... something felt familiar about it. Well, not it, but the fish inside of it. Oh my. What were these? Glowing, in pitch darkness. Rock formations all around them. Nothing else, no scent, no sound... it was jarring. How much silence had happened in the past? She supposed just as much silence as what occurred in the present. So much silence, all around, everywhere, all the time, and yet nobody... realized it. Wasn't that strange? It was a mild, brief, and altogether meek revelation. And yet somehow it startled her. Broadened, it felt like, the scope of her mind's awareness. Now she could be aware of... the silence.

It was really just another component of loneliness. And another component of life. It was something that could eat you alive, but only if you were looking right at it. She wouldn't look then. She would move on.

Onto this cut ruby. The memories were starting to mess with her head, she ought to take a break. She would try to see if there was magic or life in this strangely cut ruby instead.

Nothing would come of it though. Perhaps her eyes needed a break. Perhaps her mind did as well. She didn't want to keep thinking about it... silence, silence, silence.

Maybe she could turn to the living stones for one last memory? In case there was something to interrupt the quiet. Then, maybe she would take a nap, and her dreams could accompany her. She could start again when she woke up, if she didn't get too distracted with trying to feed herself.

Kaimana figured she could recall what had happened in the memory of the jawbone, so she didn't see it fit to make a keepsake for it. Silence, silence, silence. No, she wouldn't have trouble remembering it if it kept on haunting her. Instead, she'd look at her other large stone. The one that looked like a fruit of some kind. She would touch her nose to it, and close her eyes. Seeking a memory...

It was as though her mind faded, and she found herself on an alien plane. The cave around her was dark, and meeting her eyes--staring, in fact--was a... creature.

There was no promise that this creature was the one who had last possessed this stone--indeed, this might have been its killer, judging by its appearance. It was bipedal, hunched, yet nine feet or so at the shoulder; despite the horse-like hind legs, its two forelimbs were tipped with wickedly-taloned hands. A pair of enormous, branching antlers rose from its snake-like face, orange eyes unblinking, matching the orange-red feathers that coated its body in slick waterproofing. The face, hands, and hooves were a charcoal-grey black; there was no tail.

As Kaimana stared--as it stared back--it abruptly launched into motion: a spring, a flipping of massive insectoid wings that snapped out from its back, and it was coming toward her-...

The vision faded.

@Kaimana

RUN!

Kaimana stumbled back, the shift from past to present so jarring and astounding she could barely breathe. Silent fear, wordless fear, easily drifting back into the stream of fantasy as Kaimana slowly began to realize her surroundings. She was not one to be thrown out of control easily. Calm, cool-headed. 'I am safe, I am safe, I am completely safe.' What had that been? The killer, or the creature latent in the stone? She couldn't tell. She almost didn't want to.

'A nap would be FABULOUS right about now.'

And yet, she was... curious. She looked to the stones in which she had sensed more magical prowess. Would they be less horrifying? Or more...? 'One more touch. One more try.' This kind of curiosity couldn't kill, after all. Maybe it had, once upon a time, but no longer. Kaimana would remember that.

She turned to the bright and sweet-looking stone. It and the brightly colored beauty beside it held more magic than the rest, it had appeared. She put her nose to it. Hopefully, its past would be as sweet as its appearance.

She was grazing. The grass was sweet beneath her tongue. One cloven hoof pressed before another, the foliage crumpling gently beneath her enormous weight. Her legs were pale--no, not her; his. His legs were pale, thick and strong, sparsely-furred. The quadrupedal body was massive, muscled, like a bull's but even larger; curved, thick horns rose up as he blinked, gently, into the mist ahead.

One ear flicked, a huge tongue sweeping out to clean one nostril. The gaur bull found nothing dangerous around it--it would take something huge to be a threat, or something powerful--and went back to its slow grazing.

The vision faded...

@Kaimana