It was quiet.

Nestled near the wall in a shadowy nook was a chrysalis. It was hard to notice- a tiny dark gleam in a fairly untraveled cave. But it had been steadily growing, and now it was just about time.

Time for the creature inside to awaken. It blinked into sleepy awareness. Cramped It thought as it stretched, finding both it's paws and back halted by some strange barrier. Out It thought, determinedly pushing against it's prison.

With a seemingly earsplitting crack compared to the quiet before it, a kitten broke free of their little prison, landing unceremoniously on the ground. They were now awake, now aware of everything around them. And oh wow, Everything was so new! The stone beneath their paws. The lonely drips of moisture from the ceiling. The ever-present mist.

But most of all they felt..

"Cold!" They shouted. Oh wow, words! Those were fun! "Cold! Cold! Cold!" They shouted some more, their voice echoing through the empty tunnel. Words were new. Words were fun. Words meant something, but there were so many meanings and so many words, too many for such a small, young thing to know. So for now, this was enough.

"COOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!" They gave a final shout, before pausing to catch their breath.

@Researcher

Conception:

A translucent spike of crystals hidden in the soil of a frosty tunnel, miles beneath the surface. A prime sample of cerussite glistening beneath its dusty coat. The chrysalis hibernated here, tucked away from the prying eyes of travelers, for exactly a month now. Growing. Waiting. Hiding a little child form within, blissfully unaware of all the pain it'll be dealt upon its birth.

She opened her eyes.

Dark. Dark. Fluid encompassing the whole world aside from herself. She shifted a bit, the first pricks of intelligence lighting up her brain as she felt her fur swish through the fluid. Against her back: cold, hard. Rigid, unlike the rest of her enclosure. She felt the same cold-hard around her muzzle, too. This was her world, her brain said. This was her universe.

She put her hand against it's end and pushed.

Birth.

A few moments later, a slim, leggy, nearly naked baby crawled her way out of the ground. Ghostly white eyes squinted against the light, sparse blonde hairs dripping with amniotic fluid. She stumbled around blindly for a few moments before she processed that 'I am alive.' There were so many things around her-- rocks, water puddles, the air against her fur-- that it was breathtaking. She flexed her fingers, noticed the loamy soil beneath her toes, all in all feeling a sense of childish joy. She was alive!

But what she didn't notice was the unnaturally metallic tang in the air she breathed. And she never would.

A cry from far away grabbed her attention. Cold. A word. She knew words, the little gibbon realized. Words were descriptors for objects and experiences. She felt cold too. Perhaps the source of the voice will have more words?

And so she followed it. Hopping along on her oversized limbs until she found the speaker: a little black thing! A fuzzy little black thing! She liked this speaker-of-words. She opened her mouth and-- "Co-"

Realization.

The same crystal she hatched out of, the same hard feeling she felt in her womb- it was locked around her jaw like a gilded cage. It still had a good amount of space given she was just a child, but her mouth still banged on its floor and put a stop to her words. She whimpered a little, slouching down until she was seated firmly on the tunnel, and tried again. "C-cold. Cold." Softer, wheezier. She blinked at the smaller kitten. "Are... you cold?"

And thus began the countdown to Cycle 80.

@Assistant

An answer- and a friend!

"Yeah! Cold!" They nodded eagerly, glad to have another to share the concept of 'cold' with. "Are you cold?" They echoed the question back, inquisitively. They stared at the gibbon in the almost unblinking way cats tend to do. Probably would've been creepy, if that stare hadn't belonged to a tiny handful of black fluff.

Oh! Their face! Their stone! It was like theirs, wasn't it? Jaws opened and closed experimentally within the confines of their hematite. They found that their cage didn't have a bottom. The space on the bottom was just big enough for their bottom jaw to slip through- though as they grew this was unlikely to always be the case.

"We're... twins!" They beamed- though hidden by their stone. Wiggling with verve, they advanced forward a couple of paces, leaning forward on their toes to get a better look at their new companion. "That meeansss... We're... friends!" They decided, with another equally big, equally hidden grin.

But they didn't realize their key difference. That the glitter, crystalline cage around the other's jaw was deadly. A slow, creeping kind of deadly. A drop a poison a day.

And chances were, they never would. They would know the sickness, but not the cause.

But nevermind such dark things. For now, they were children, reveling in ideas, concepts, and words.

@Researcher

Ah, so this was the speaker. Unlike them, with their fuzzy black bod and wide, unblinking eyes, the little gibbon was not nearly as cute. Her sparse fur barely covered her skin, her gangly arms hung limply by her side, and those ghostly white eyes were more unnerving than adorable. Still, she was a child, one that was just born and curious to what this other being was.

"Cold," She echoed, watching the kitten's lower jaw peep from under their stone. She wished she could do that. It looked fun. Their next squee confused her, and she cocked her simian head in return. "What is... a twin?" As soon as she said it, her brain answered: 'Twins. Two similar organisms born at the same time.' Another word. She was learning a lot of those today. Were the two of them twins? She looked down at her hand, then to the kittens squishy toe beans. Not really. Though that gem did look a lot like her own. Maybe half-twins. "No-- nevermind, I got it. Twins. Friends."

The ape clambered onto one of the numerous grooves along the walls, feeling the chilly limestone under her fingers. It felt natural like this. Climbing onto structures, instead of dragging her limbs awkwardly across the ground. It was around this time she realized how much there was around her-- the dripping of water, the tinkling of crystals, even the faraway shuffling of some trapdoor ray or bat. Don't even tell her this is one of the barer tunnels. All the while she kept her eyes on the cat, curious, though her translucent cage didn't let much emotion through.

"Where are we?" Jumping straight to the big questions, are we? She grabbed a pebble and squeezed it between her fingers. "I am alive. You are alive. This place is cold. Is it all cold? Or are there more places we cannot see?"

The stone was tossed down to the savannah cat's paws, moving the conversation from one to another.

@Assistant

Being a child- and a child just excited to see another, at that. They are more inclined to focus on the similarities, so of course they are twins! They had nearly the exact same stone after all! Never mind the fact that the other has hands instead of paws, and weird, flat ears, and sparse, golden-colored fur- they are twins now! Or at the very least, definitely friends.

Whilst the gibbon climbed, the kitten stayed on the ground. Their gaze remained on the gibbon as they climbed, but their ears twitched and rotated like satellites. Tracking every little sound- and there were many, MANY sounds. The constant dripping of water, and other, more irregular sounds. The flutter of wings and shuffling of dirt that suggested life further down the tunnel. Even their friend made sounds as they climbed higher and higher up the wall.

Childish instincts made the kitten bat at the stone, sending it skittering across the floor. It was only after a moment of staring at the pebble, tail twitching with playful intent that they realized Oh! She had asked a question! I should probably respond! They straighten up, looking up at the tiny ape perched on the tunnel wall.

"We are... Here?" Those were certainly big questions for such a small kitten to answer. They'd certainly try, though! "And... we're alive. Are there others, here, alive?" They trailed off briefly, pondering. "If there are other places, there are places that aren't cold." It couldn't ALL be cold, could it? Even if most places were cold, there had be to somewhere that WASN'T, right?

"Maybe we can find other places?" They looked both ways- one side of the tunnel was shrouded in mist, the other letting out a faint blue glow. Both were certainly intriguing. "Oh! Then we'll be like..." A pause, as they grasped for a word, "Explorers! Yeah! Explorers!"

@Researcher

The gibbon watched the kitten bat at the stone, a lot more cool and collected than their carnivorous counterpart. They gave a sufficient response, though. They were Here. Here, in the cold place where they are alive-ing. A good reassurance to have, especially when you were just born and still figuring things out.

"We are here." her soft, childish voice echoed again. She paced slowly around the nook in the wall. "I think this is a... tube. Rock. Rock tube... tunnel." The word clicked into place like a missing puzzle piece. Her eyes followed where the feline looked-- to one end, cloaked in glow, and to the other, cloaked in frost. Both of them incredibly far away for tiny hatchlings like them. But not unreachable. "I think," she scratched at the opening of her gem thoughtfully, "We should find out what's... at the ends of this place. Explorers, like you said. You and I are explorers."

She pointed her pudgy fingers between herself and them, a barely visible smile on her face. Explorer. She could live with a title like that. The Explorer then pointed her finger towards the Polaris end, almost declaratively, like she was a pirate on a grand quest. Something about that end seemed... not cold-y. "Let's go this way, twin. It seems... not cold-y."

And with barely a look back, that's what she did. Climbing along the steep overhangs, feeling her cold breath against her stone mirror the chilling rock beneath her hands. It was pretty here. The way the lights dangled overhead, the gentle glisten of crystals, it all gave her a very welcome introduction to life.

It was around this time she spotted some weird fuzzy shapes along the shadows. "Red," if they could be classified as a color at all. The ape paused. "What are... those things? Twin?" Her ghostly eyes peered curiously at the Red Rats, though she didn't risk getting down to meet them. "Are you alive like us? Hello?"

@Assistant

The kitten gave the stone another couple swipes, until it went rolling out of reach. They didn't really know why, but it was fun! Their attention returned from the pebble to their hatch-mate, their tail-tip twitching with barely-contained energy and enthusiasm.

"Tunnel!" They echoed, seemingly latching onto the word, "Lets find more rock tunnels! Or even.. Big- Big uh- Caves!! Big rock caves!" They smiled proudly, happy to also 'discover' a useful word. They nodded in agreement with their friend's statement. Explorers! That's nice! I'm an explorer!

The newly-named explorer looked over at the softly-glowing side of the tunnel. "Yeah! Not cold-y is good!" With that chirp of agreement, they followed their fellow explorer- albeit on the ground rather than climbing along the walls. At the ape's observation, they paused. "I don't know." They replied But I'm gonna find out!

The shadows were alive with reddish, squeaking shapes. A couple scattered at the approach of the newly hatched gembound, but most didn't seem to see the two as a threat, and simply watched from the darkness. There were certainly more than enough nooks and crevices for the rats to take shelter in should there actually be a threat.

"HELLO!" The kitten yowled, loud enough to send a few more rats scrambling away in fright. The rest watched warily, though luckily feeling confident enough in the amount of escape options to not turn violent. "Are you alive? Do you- um- talk?" The lack of response other than chattering and squeaking made them sigh with rather dramatic frustration. "I don't think they wanna talk..." They called up to their twin, disappointment rather evident in their voice.

@Researcher

Researcher watched the rats scurry away into the darkness, fascinated by the pitter patters of their minuscule feet. How intricate those things were, beneath their ragged coats. She wanted to study them. Find out how they and the rest of this world worked. The fact they didn't speak was even more interesting.

"Maybe they don't wanna talk because they can't." the ape leapt off the wall and knuckle-walked towards Assistant. A finger rubbed her stone. "Look- me and you are twins. We have mouth-stones, and we talk. But they didn't have mouth stones. Therefore, that must be why they can't speak." A smile crossed her muzzle, proud of her "theory," and then it was gone. "We're almost to the end. Maybe there'll be more things in the... the... caa-vuh."

Researcher trotted down the winding tunnel once more, using her soft arms to propel herself forward. Slowly, but surely, the air began to warm, and the walls became tinted with a light blue. "I have an idea," she mused out of the blue, holding out a hand to pet the cat. "When we reach the not-cold place, we sp... spl-... split up. Not too far, so we still find each other. But we both look around, see what the world looks like, and then we come back and share! Explorers!"

She lept atop a shelfstone, her pale fur illuminated by the glow. "What do you think, twin?"

@Assistant

"They can't speak?" A paw reached up, almost subconsciously, to touch the inky black gemstone locked around their jaw. Their gaze lifted to study their twin's own gemstone, and the smile hidden behind it, before chirping "Oh! That makes sense! Wonder if the mouth-stones do other things..." They fell into a brief, thoughtful silence, that was quickly broken as they realized how close to the end they were.

"There will be! It can't just be the same things over and over!" Ever hopeful, they bounded a few steps closer to the tunnel, looking over their shoulder at the gibbon. Her proposal made their eyes light up, if only at the thought of discovery, of exploration.
They jolted when Researcher pat them, out of surprise more than anything else. They returned the pat with one of their own- though much more clumsy, considering they had paws rather than hands."Yeah! Yeah!!! We'll both see more things that way! And then, a somewhat more timid afterthought "Not TOO far. I don't want to lose you.

"Where do we meet? Back over here?" with a slight frown they glanced back into the tunnel they'd came from. They didn't like this tunnel all that much, though the cold was more bearable this close to the exit. But they simply just didn't know where else to meet. They hadn't been anywhere else, after all.