Karyo was not ready for the world, but their chrysalis decided to spit them out into it anyway.

And make no mistake, spit was an appropriate verb for it. The vladimirivanovite shell cracked and fell apart, spilling a black and white puppy onto the stone floor. Karyo's fur was covered in a thin layer of fluid, and they shivered immediately. "COLD," they whined, although it wasn't clear to whom. It was slimy and clinging and cold and DISGUSTING!

Hesitantly, they tried to groom it off themselves, but immediately pulled their face into an exaggerated grimace. Ugh, what is this stuff? Did they have to lick it off? They didn't wanna lick it off!? It would probably, like, give them botulism or something, it was so nasty-looking. "GROSS," Karyo barked, their face a mask of displeasure.

There was the sound of rushing water in the distance, and they wondered - would that help? Karyo staggered to their feet and wobbled toward the river, unused to walking and shivering all the while.

Upon wandering into Polaris, the kitten almost immediately gravitated towards the river. Specifically, the generator churning in the middle of the river. They sat just before the riverbank began to steeply slope into the water, trying to decipher what this great big thing in the middle of the river was.

It was, well, big. It rumbled with the force of the water running through it. The lights here seemed extra bright, but they weren't sure whether that was actually the case or just because of all the glowy crystals and moss and fungi, and what any of that had to do with the thing in the middle of the river.

Cries of "COLD!" and "GROSS!" quickly caught their attention. Quickly turning towards the source of the noise, they spotted a slimy-looking black and white.. creature. "Puppy" their mind supplied, ever helpfully.

As the puppy wobbled towards the river, the kitten zipped over to their side, curiously peering at the puppy with eerie yellow eyes. "Hello!" They chirped. A brief pause, and then with somewhat narrowed eyes "What's wrong with your face?" Because obviously something was wrong. Everyone else they had met (a grand total of one other gembound) had a face with a rock on it. So why didn't this puppy?

@Karyo

A black blur zipped beside them, and Karyo turned to stare at it. Oh! It spoke! That was exciting! "Hello!" they repeated back, narrowing their eyes just like the kitten did. That was a gesture of friendliness, right? The cat looked so nice and fluffy and friendly! But why was their voice so muffled, and - "What's wrong with your face?" Karyo asked, tilting their head. "I'm slimy. You're clean. But you have a rock on your face. Where's the rest of it?" They could only see the kitten's forehead. Were they missing half their face? That would certainly be tragic.

Then Karyo shivered again, wondering if they could snuggle with Rockface for warmth. Ah, no! They were still slimy; they couldn't get the kitten dirty too! The puppy tottered toward the water determinedly. It didn't look warm (although they weren't sure how something warm was supposed to look), but they were sure it would make them clean. And that solved one of their problems! Fifty percent was pretty good, eh. Never mind the steep shores. Never mind the swift current. Thinking before one acted was overrated.

But after a short distance, they stopped, seeming to remember something suddenly. The kitten had to follow them! They didn't want to leave their friend behind. "I am going to make myself clean in the river!" they declared. "Don't leave me!" And with that, Karyo resumed their wobbling steps.

@Assistant

Their initial scrutiny of the puppy gave way to happiness- the puppy's excitement was quite infectious, as was the delight of making a new friend. "All faces are supposed to have rocks on them!" A bold claim for someone a few days old at most "I have one on my face, and so does my twin! Yours is.. weird."

Karyo shivered, and Assistant's immediately knew what that meant, "Oh! You're cold!" They mewed, though they offered no solution to the problem. They just trotted a couple paces behind the puppy, curious to see where they were going.

Which, apparently, ended up being the river they had just been observing.

"In the river?" In typical cat-like fashion they gave the river a suspicious, distasteful look. Both because of the presence of water and the mysterious contraption they had been eyeing. They didn't stop the puppy, though they paused at the bank if Karyo decided to enter the river. "Im not leaving!" They assured their new friend, "But the river is.. Gross. And there's a big weird thing in the middle!"

@Karyo

Karyo froze by the bank almost comically, one paw still lifted in the air above the rushing water. "...Gross?" they repeated uncertainly, then: "GROSS!" They scrambled backward, giving themselves a shake. It did nothing to help their current state, save send a few thin strings of chrysalis fluid flying. Ugh! "You and your twin? How did you get rid of the gross stuff?" Of course, they were assuming that the two Rockfaces had both hatched with fluid in their rock eggs. But if their rocks were different, maybe their egg soups could be different too?

They did not spend long pondering the question. Their mind had already zoomed onto the next thing, which was: "YES THERE IS!" they barked, jumping up and down and straining to get a better look at the rumbling generator. "It is weird! Poke it and see what happens!" Karyo was about to leap forward and do exactly that, when they remembered: "NO! CAN'T! THE RIVER IS GROSS!"

They looked around wildly, looking for something, anything that would help. There! A pebble! The Saluki seized it in their mouth, bounded closer, and flung it at the contraption. It glanced off, bouncing into the rushing water below. "It's not like us! Not alive. But it makes noise!"

@Assistant

"Yeah! Gross! But wait.." They'd look to Karyo, then at the water, and back again. "Maybe the two grosses will cancel out, and you won't be gross anymore?" Their head tilted, pondering the dilemma."Or you can use your tongue! That's what I do!" As an example the kitten gave their chest a few quick licks.

"Oh uh! I don't know.." The kitten paused once again, something they seemed to do often when thinking. "My chrysalis didn't have a lot of goop! But the tunnel was cold, and wet.." They stuck out their tongue, their expression looking like how they did when Karyo had mentioned the river.

Assistant seemed somewhat overwhelmed by their new friend's excitement. Their twin was far more calm and collected. And not nearly as big, either. Assistant scooched a couple inches away from the jumping, overexcited pup, waiting for their enthusiasm to calm down into something more manageable.

"It's not alive! But I think it does something." They told Karyo, "The lights around here are extra bright! I'm not sure why, though."

@Karyo

Karyo wrinkled their nose. "You mean touch the gross stuff? With my tongue? That also seemed gross to them. But if that was also gross, maybe it'd be another way of canceling it out! They groomed their chest experimentally, like Rockface had shown them. At least it seemed to work pretty well, though they shuddered with disgust when they were done. Don't get me sick! they thought at the goop fiercely. Very fiercely. Enough to make some magic happen? Probably.

"Well," they began. "If it does something, and we don't know what, I think we should break it!" What a brilliant idea. Really, they were proud of themselves for thinking of it. "That way, we can see whatever changes when it's broken, and then we'll know that's what it does! Wanna help?"

@Assistant

"How else are you supposed to clean?" this was said like a legitimate question, as if the literal newborn puppy would have more of an idea than themself. Admittedly, they were only barely older than Karyo. "My twin uses her paws to pick off gross stuff, but she has weird looking paws. All the toes are too long and wiggly!" Evidently, for how smart Assistant liked to think they were, they did not know what the word 'hand' was.

"Break it?" They echoed, eyeing the thing ahead. What the puppy said did make sense- they'd be able to note the changes and go from there. The one problem, though, was "How? I mean it's so big.." At that, their magic sparked, reaching for a pebble they idly fidgeted with in their paws. The magic lept into the pebble, imbuing it with a zap that they were the unlucky first recipient of. They squeaked, backing off to stare at the stone they'd enchanted. Already, they were getting ideas.

"I did something to that stone! I made it.. zappier." Bright eyes looked to Karyo, exciting rising as the idea began to fully form, "If I do this to the big thing in the river, it might break! or do something! But.. I have to get there." They gave the water a distasteful look. They did not want to get anywhere near that, but... anything for science, right?

@Karyo

"I wish I had wiggly toes," Karyo sighed wistfully, looking at their front paws. "I bet I could do a lot of stuff with them!" They had no idea what kinds of stuff, yet, but they knew there was potential for something.

Karyo yelped as Rockface backed away from a seemingly harmless pebble. Was it about to do something weird? They had a horrible vision of the thing leaping up and attaching itself to their face, but their friend quickly reassured them that it was only a little zappiness. And they'd made it happen.

"Yeah!" they barked enthusiastically. "Let's zap the spinny thing!" The question of how to get there, though... they did not have an answer for that either. Maybe they could jump! But it was a fairly far distance from the shore, and they didn't want to slip and land in the gross liquid.

An idea struck them. "Is your twin big?" they asked. "Maybe your twin could throw us on there! Or carry us!"

@Assistant

They'd nod, looking down at their own paws. "She's super good at climbing! And grabbing things! It's cool!" They'd grin, hidden by their stone 'mask.'

The domino effect of panic caused by their little zappy stone would likely be absolutely hilarious to any outsider observer. To Assistant, though, they only felt bad for accidentally scaring this new friend. They smiled apologetically (again, hidden by their stone), tail lightly tapping against Karyo's back in a comforting gesture.

"My twin is small! Smaller than me!" They'd frown, scrutinizing the spinny thing in the river. "I think we'll have to jump. Or get in the gross stuff." They'd grimace, ears flicking back. "Unless we can find a way around it."

@Karyo