By all rights, life should have been good. Aethereal had a home, a family who loved her and taught her to sing and dance and do anything she might ever need, and a Mother who cared for her and watched over them all. But for some inexplicable, mildly infuriating reason, she just felt bad and Aethereal was so tired of it.

Tired, as in both metaphorically and literally. Last night, for example, she'd gotten, what, maybe one or two hours of actual good sleep in total? Whatever the numbers were, they weren't good. She had been plagued with nightmarish visions (if you could call them that, when she hadn't really seen anything) of chaos and violent creatures even more monstrous than herself, tearing each other apart in their savagery. There had been lots of screaming, and the wind in her dreams howled as though the air itself was in pain. As if that wasn't enough, Aethereal had woken multiple times to a crushing grip on her shoulder, or leg, or wing, as if the monsters in her dreams had somehow manifested themselves to attack her in real life. And recently, she'd found herself dripping an odd liquid from the opening in her neck. It wasn't blood, because it didn't hurt - at least Aethereal thought it wasn't blood - but what other explanation was there? Drooling in her sleep? Drooling even when she was awake? She liked to think she was better than that.

By now, she had more or less figured out that whatever was hurting her didn't really exist, so to speak. She was safe inside the ice tunnels; her siblings would doubtless stop any enemy before it could ambush her. And of course it couldn't be one of them, because they were her family and they loved her. Also, she'd tried to grab or tackle the thing-that-did-harm several times, but there had been nothing to fight but thin air. Or thick air. Crushing air. She was maybe 80% sure that was what it was.

Still, it was infuriating, not being able to fight the thing that was hurting her. Some fresh air might help, though. Aethereal liked flying. Most of the time. When the wind wasn't blowing droplets of oil back onto her fur. Maybe it was time to land, anyway. With a long sigh, Aethereal landed on the mountainside, sending pebbles skittering down the slope. Maybe she should seek chaos and inflict it on everything around her go hunting or something.

@V-Chaos-Two

V-Chaos-Two trudged through the snow, snuffling at the ground and using their tusks to dig into the ice below to get at the grass and vegetation below, grazing idly. It was crunchy and sweet, they'd found, and rather enjoyed it.

They shook out their fur as snow gathered on top of them, quills rattling against each other noisily. Their head raised and they looked out across the snowy mountain side, coniferous trees rising up from the powder like green claw-tipped fingers, curved with the winds that blew constantly.

Above were the aurora, bright and colorful, and they often stopped to just stare at them with awe, amazed at what sight truly brought them. It was a level of beauty they couldn't appreciate before, but they still found themselves closing their eyes as they became strained from overuse.

They looked up with alarm as something large landed nearby, ready to bolt at a moment's notice before staring at the massive beast of a creature before them. Headless, with white fur and massive, beautiful wings meant to keep the creature aloft in the brutal cold winds.

Chaos-Two hoped it hadn't sensed them yet, for those claws looked wicked.

@Aethereal

The rattle of quills. The rasp of fur and shifting snow. Something was around, and something wasn't running away from her as fast as it could go, which tended to be the reaction of Mountain or Woolly Deer. Her landing had hardly been subtle, after all. Also, it wasn't chirping or attempting to land on her, which meant not a Mountain Sparrow, either. Distractedly, Aethereal wondered if she could convince one to follow her into the tunnels one day so she could show her siblings. Mother had said to tell no one, but a sparrow was harmless, right? She could ask. Later.

Focus, she told herself, which seemed to be becoming more difficult the less she slept. She should do something about that. What, though? INFLICT CHAOTIC DESTRUCTION - no. Where was that coming from? Focus.

Who are you? she thought at it, which didn't garner many answers. In fact, it did not respond to her question at all. She must have seemed quite silly - or creepy, just standing there, facing whatever it was and waiting until she realized no answer was coming. Not one of her family, then. Did Mother know?

"Who are you?" she tried again. She could do this. Be secretive, let no one know about the tunnels, maybe make a new friend in the process. Mother would like a new friend! Probably. Would we? Aethereal asked through the link, hoping it was strong enough to connect them this far. If not, well, she could still try! Just be a little less friendly, and not invite it over or anything.

@V-Chaos-Two and I'll also gm-tag in case Mother has an opinion about it

The link's power wasn't yet solidified, but Mother's reaction through Aethereal's few senses was strong enough. She could not see Chaos-Two, given Aethereal's blindness, but there was... something there.

"Bring it... to play," Mother's whisper urged. A faint voice, a mere touch. And the powerful sense that Aethereal should keep this secret.

Mother was always secret. Family should never be revealed. But this one... This one should be invited back into the tunnels, so that the family could meet it on their own terms.

Perhaps it would be a new friend.

@Aethereal

Chaos-Two blinked and peered up at the creature, taking a slow step back, "Um... I'm V-Chaos-Two."

Their ear flicked and they stared at the other for a moment before swallowing and reaching for their spear, standing up and holding it, rather than leaning on it like they used to.

"Who are you?", they asked, a bit more relaxed now that they knew that the mysterious creature wasn't intent on eating them.

Well, at least not obviously, but they had magic and ways to escape now that they had their legs and eyes. They were fully functional and at their prime at long last.

@Aethereal

Mother said it was okay to play with the potential-friend! And that maybe she could invite them home later! Wait, that wasn't right. She was keeping their family a secret. Mother said so. But then how was she supposed to invite them over? Sleep-deprived as she was, Aethereal did not manage to decipher the instructions before her focus lapsed and she decided she could worry about that later. Play first, invite later! And hey, that kind of matched with what Mother had done for her. More or less. Or it seemed so to Aethereal's brain at the moment, anyway. Play with her siblings, sing, dance, then in two cycles time meet Mother herself! So this was definitely the right plan.

V-Chaos-Two? What a strange name. The syllables did not sound interconnected, as her own name did, but as if they were separate words, almost. "Two? What are you two of? I'm Aethereal! The first, I think." If there were Aethereals that had come before her, she hadn't heard of any.

"Do you want to play?" she asked, and began listing off the games she knew. "Sing and dance? Fight? Race?"

@V-Chaos-Two

Chaos-Two blinked, "Uh... I'm of a series of creations. I have two siblings, Nidhogg and Khavur, who are V-Chaos-One and V-Chaos-Three respectively. Our designations are named after our gems, and technically Khavur's the only one with an actual name."

They shifted a bit, realizing that they'd been rambling, and stared at the Valkhound weirdly. Play? Sing and dance? They weren't familiar with those things, but the latter two they were.

"We could race but I'm not sure it would be fair," they said, "I'm smaller, and a fight wouldn't be fair either... what is sing and dance?"

They were curious, wanting to learn and wanting to find out new things that could be useful in the future.

@Aethereal

If V-Chaos-Two wasn't their name, what else could it be? Why be so picky between "name" and "designation"? Aethereal pondered upon this for a while. What were her siblings' names? She'd never asked, she realized. She'd always talked to them directly, and they hadn't had much need for names. And Mother was just Mother. But if she was going to invite V-Chaos-Two over, surely she'd need names to introduce her siblings by? Or maybe they were just planning on hiding in the tunnels until their play-date was over, in order to keep the secret?

Aethereal decided it was probably best not to think about that too much.

V-Chaos-Two did not want to race or fight her, which was perfectly fair given that she was bigger than them, but disappointing nonetheless. Someday I'll find someone as big as me, and not just in my nightmares, she thought wistfully. That'll be fun!

"Singing is when you move the pitch of your voice up and down, and it sounds nice!" Aethereal hummed a simple minor chord, as a demonstration. "It works better with others, too!" Wait. Was that secretive enough? Or had she just messed up the whole secrecy thing? Nonononono it was totally fine. V-Chaos-Two was an "other"! She could totally have met "others" other than her siblings. Yup. She worried too much, probably. "And dancing is when you move your feet and spin while you sing!"

@V-Chaos-Two

Chaos-Two sat down and cocked their head, frowning, "Isn't that just... talking? I don't understand. Could you demonstrate?"

Vaguely, they wondered how this creature was talking. It sounded less like talking and more like something else was for them. They looked around just in case, a bit unnerved.

Dancing confused them more.

"Like fighting?", they said, puzzled.

@Aethereal

Demonstrations? She could do demonstrations! Her siblings did even better demonstrations. And Aethereal was supposed to invite V-Chaos-Two over, so they could all meet each other. But it was all so confusing. How were they supposed to meet each other if her family was going to stay secret? She had told herself to cross that bridge when she came to it earlier, and hadn't thought about it too much, but now that it was time to cross that bridge she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Well, first things first, right? V-Chaos-Two asked for a demonstration. She could demonstrate by herself for the time being. One thing at a time. Get to the invitation later. Aethereal sang just one note, at first. It was as pure and crystalline as she could make it, an imitation of what the first Cleaner had demonstrated for her before her other siblings had joined in. The bright, crystalline quality did not shine through as she hoped it might have, and the pitch wavered slightly like a string player's very, very timid attempt at vibrato. But imperfect as it was, Aethereal was determined to continue and share this with her new friend.

Abruptly, she changed to a different note, beginning a gentle melody. It would be better with her siblings, she thought, even just one or two of them. The short phrase tapered to an end, and Aethereal spoke normally again. "Not like fighting. It's less unpredictable, and it follows the shape of the song." She didn't think that was a very good explanation either, but -

Ah, whatever. She'd just invite them on over and hope for the best.

"I should show you. I live in a tunnel, and the sound in there rings beautifully. And it's much nicer to sing with-" Uh. Don't mention her family. "Uhhhh, with, ah, without the wind... Tunnels are very sheltered from the wind."

As if mocking her, a gentle breeze passed over her, ruffling her fur. Apart from it, Ursa was perfectly still.

"... yeah. You know. Underground. Not much wind underground."

Aethereal turned in the direction of the ice tunnels, half-opening her wings. "Want to come see?" She felt a drop of liquid fall from her neck, and would have frowned if she'd had eyebrows. Darn it! She really did not need that right now. Hopefully V-Chaos-Two wasn't judging her. "That wasn't drool," she said hastily. "I never drool."

@V-Chaos-Two