Time to eat again.

Cocytus swished her tail gently, propelling herself through the water. She liked this cave. It was nice and warm, a perfect temperature for basking on the river's surface. And the current was relatively slow moving, just the way she liked it. When she drew close to the river's shore, where the water was shallow enough for her claws to touch the bottom, she lowered her head to nose through the mud and silt. In a room as fertile and filled with life as this, it should be no trouble to find some food.

Sure enough, there was an abundance of little snails and other invertebrates living in the ground. Maybe they weren't very big, but there was enough here for a small meal. Cocytus cracked open her jaw, crunching down on a mouthful of snails. You will not go to waste, she reassured them mentally as she swallowed and dug through the silt for another mouthful.

Pegasus was pleasant, even if it wasn't the stagnant waters Cocytus' species might be best suited toward. The gentle current was kind to her, at least; it meant that a variety of Lesser snails had made their home in the rich muck. Their mouths fed easily on the algae and plant life, and they had little to worry about...

... usually.

The alligator's jaws easily smashed through the calcium-rich shells, totally exposing the mollusks. Goo slicked her teeth, and nothing else. They were simply a food item, with nothing special or sinister about them. All Cocytus could say about the experience was that her throat felt particularly slimy.

@Cocytus

Cocytus poked her snout through the mud, revealing another handful of disappointingly small snails. Their shells were light in color and hadn't been very crunchy, meaning they were probably young. She eyed them, contemplating…

… then sighed, feeling a pang of pity, and drew back into the water. They hadn't had a chance to live their life yet. Besides, adult snails were more satisfying anyways, so there would be less death required if she stuck to eating those. It would be better for everyone involved. Her mind made up, she made her way further downstream. She would try for bigger snails in a different spot.

Following the river's current had led to good things for her so far. When she'd followed Polaris's river outside of the Core, she'd avoided going too far east because the water had grown cold. Cocytus hated the sluggish feeing it had given her. Instead, she'd followed the river to an oddly lit room, which she hadn't thought much of. It seemed too clean, too well-kept, with none of the shrubs and tall grasses that she tended to enjoy. So she'd kept swimming, and here she was in Pegasus. But perhaps she should give the previous room another chance.

There was a third option, if neither room satisfied her. To the east, a branch of the river came from above, and its current had been pleasantly warm. Perhaps the room it came from would suit her better. But getting there would require swimming upward and against the current, possibly for quite a while. She would try that option last, Cocytus decided.

She swam further downriver, looking for another spot to search for snails. There was another place up ahead, where the water was shallow and there were not too many rocks. Cocytus drew near, and browsed through the thick mud. There were several larger snails here, all grown up, and she crunched her way through them before digging for more with her claws.

Suddenly, she felt a strong ping of magic against her awareness. Was there someone using a spell? But no, it was coming from within the mud. It… it wasn't a sentient snail trying to use magic against her, was it? The alligator dug carefully, carving away mud and brushing off sediment until the source of the magic was revealed: the glint of a gemstone peeked out from the soil. When she touched it, she could feel the magic radiating off of it. It was powerful.

Who were you? Cocytus wondered, digging up the rest of the gemstone. Why did you fall into this [coma, when you were so powerful? Who wept for you, when your body died? Who were you?

The stone found was small--no chrysalis, no creature in a coma; just a leftover remnant of a long-lost life.

Its magic was powerful, Master-level, and the stone was a lustrous and brilliant green if fully excavated from the sediment. The name might not be well-known, for it wasn't a common stone: it was a Bayldonite, special in at least its rarity.

@Cocytus

The gem, when she moved it through the water to rinse off the clinging sediment, revealed itself to be a small crystal no bigger than Cocytus's eye. Its size belied the power its last life had held, but its color was just as intense as the magic she had felt within it. It seemed strange that a Gembound who had developed such mastery over their element would fall, and Cocytus wondered why its gemstone had lain beneath the silt, seemingly forgotten.

You should be remembered, she thought, nudging the gem with the tip of her snout. No soul should lie as you have, with only snails to keep you company. She was curious, too, about its past, so she attempted to sense with her awareness the way she had when she'd felt the magic for the first time. If she was lucky, maybe she could catch a memory: a vestige of the life of the creature who had lived before.

A stone might have many users over its life. There was no telling if the imagery that now flickered up, consuming Cocytus's vision, was that of its latest inhabitant--leaving its pattern residing in the stone--or of another, forgotten creature that had held the gem long ago.

The world seemed to sink away, Pegasus fading. Instead there was a place of thick greenery, a jungle, almost: a dark shifting of forest shadows. Ferns parted, glowing yellow eyes with their vertical black slits illuminated brightly by orb-light.

The shape that followed was muscled, low to the ground but strong: horse-like in body, neck and head but six-legged, massive claws protruding from soft paws. A tail like a cat's, but split halfway down, trailed thick hair behind it. Black stripes slashed the creature's orange pelt, tiger-like, but light flashed and glowed around these stripes with camouflaging bioluminescence.

A paw crushed down on a twig; it snapped. The creature froze. The vision faded.

Gradually, Pegasus returned.

@Cocytus

Cocytus watched the strange creature move with fascination. She had never seen anything like it before - but then, she had kept to herself for most of her life. It had fur, and seemed to be some kind of mammal, but it glowed like the plants and fungi in Polaris. What was more, it seemed to be a hunter: its claws were wicked, and she thought it might be stalking something. If that was the case, then Cocytus wondered at its orangeness and bioluminescence. It did not seem particularly camouflaged among the emerald greens of the surrounding ferns.

Her surroundings started to fade back to Pegasus' meadows and gentle river, but Cocytus wasn't yet willing to let it go. Her curiosity had only been piqued more by the brief vision. What would be the point of remembering this creature, if she knew next to nothing about it? She called for the same kind of magic again, seeking out more remnants of the Bayldonite's past.

It seemed, for a moment, that Pegasus shifted dizzyingly.

In its place, a rocky slope: mosses growing down one side. A waterfall roared far off, muffled into quiet by distance, though the droplets of water that it threw up sparked in the orb-light.

A creature clattered up the slope, something agouti brown and stocky but graceful, something surefooted and short-tailed. Dark, cloven hooves gripped the rock, and a proud, shaggy-throated neck lifted and turned about. THis creature was muscled, its goat-like face and eyes studying its surroundings.

It opened its mouth, words lost to time and magic, the long, curving pair of horns atop its head nearly touching its back.

Another leap upward, a few pebbles scattering down at its touch-...

And the rocks faded into mountain, the moss into gently-swaying grass, the vision gone.

@Cocytus

Another vision came, this one of an entirely different creature. It had hooves, not claws, and its coloring was rather ordinary compared to the flashing bioluminescent stripes of the creature before it. But for Cocytus, it too was awe-inspiring. There was something beautiful and majestic about the confident grace in its movements, the way it surveyed its surroundings. It opened its mouth to speak, but no sound came out -

And then the vision faded, much to the alligator's dismay. What had it said? And to whom? She had not seen the animal, or animals, it was speaking to. She stared at the small green crystal for a moment. Not too much time had passed - the orb-light in Pegasus still shone with the brightness of day. There could be no harm in trying again, and hoping she got lucky enough to catch the creature's words this time. Magic could only get better with repeated use, right?