Barely bigger than a German Shepherd dog, it lurked in the shadow of a giant fern frond on a moss-covered trunk. Its belly was pressed to the damp bark, and its face and tail carefully darkened to better camouflage itself. There was no real need: it had eaten barely half an hour earlier, and even it did not get hungry again this quickly. Nor had it found any predators to fear yet, but it still felt nervous for some reason.

For the entire short duration of its life, all it had known was the moss-covered bark and towering ferns of the Maw of Mosses. Now, abruptly, there was a transition: from small trees to mosses, and then to nothing but rock and ice. It was almost afraid of this new barren landscape, though it had seen no predators yet. Had something come and killed all the green things? And what was that strange feeling it got when a wind would blow in from the tunnel? Its snake-tail flicked anxiously. Cold? It had never been cold before.

But despite its misgivings about this new place, it felt a tugging curiosity in its gut. It wanted to investigate, explore, and see what the ice-tunnel led to. Should it take that risk? ... yes, it decided, scurrying down from its perch on the tree trunk and pausing at the bottom to take another scan of its surroundings. Hmm. It didn't see any threats, so it raised itself up onto two legs and took its first cautious step into Tunnel H proper--

"Ah!" it gasped as it slipped on the ice, one leg shooting out from underneath it as it went crashing to the tunnel floor. It lay there for a moment, blinking in shock. Its bottom hurt awfully.

@Ananke

Ananke

follow the white rabbit

The white rabbit was not too certain of her route. She wasn't too certain of anything, really--only that she'd been meandering, aimless but with the constant fearful tension of a prey beast, through the foliage of Eridanus. Foliage that--with its constant rustling and shifting, and the sounds of unknown creatures overhead--only amplified the sensation of constantly needing to be on edge.

However, when the plants cleared and the sudden mouth of an icy tunnel loomed ahead, fear gave way (for once) to curiosity. Why was this place empty? She crouched beneath a bush, her tiny white puff of a body only barely hidden by its shadow, and stared into the ice. It was... quieter, which was nice; but it was open, and she hesitated to step out into it. Open felt exposed. Dangerous. (Wasn't everything-?) Quiet was good--it meant she'd hear things coming, and she could be very quiet, herself...

She was only a few tentative hops in, whiskers quivering along the rock wall that she kept pressed to, when there was a thump, a gasp and a sliding sound up ahead.

Ananke froze, paused in her inventory of the tunnel. She'd been taking note of the cold, the faintly metallic scent of ice (she liked it, she decided), the cold air sweeping into her face and brushing along her fur. Now she caught an odd scent--something past the last of the trees and ferns, something that had passed the same way she was going now. Something... close.

Ananke held still for a long moment, but she'd heard a word in there, she thought--maybe? Or had it only been a gasp..? She settled back on all four paws, back into a crouch--white against the white of the ice tunnel, now--and tensed to run, if needed.

"...Hello?" she called out. Her voice was soft, quavering, and hesitant--a quiet and nervous tone. And as soon as she'd spoke, she regretted it: what if the thing just around the bend was... hunting her? What if it were dangerous-?

A moment's thought, and her single bit of actual life experience came into play: a wisp flickered outward, bobbing softly out ahead. A light, and perhaps a distraction, if the thing did turn out to be dangerous.

She steeled herself--reminding herself, what if it's hurt? She was too young to really grasp true empathy, but the faint instinct of a social thing did sow the possibility into her mind, and she followed up with a deep breath and an "...Is someone hurt?" But she was at a loss; if someone was hurt, what could Ananke even do-?

@Faceless

After a moment, it cautiously righted itself, nearly slipping again as it clambered onto four limbs. The ground here was (obviously) slipperier than it had expected; even the muddy areas of Eridanus it could handle better. It advanced slowly, one mantis-like forelimb reaching out after another as it crawled along the icy rock.

Suddenly, a sound came whispering through the air. The hatchling froze, its eternally smiling face tilting slightly as it tried to pinpoint the source. It would almost think that it had been birdsong, except the vowels and consonants had sounded just a bit too defined for a bird.

Then a phosphorescent wisp came bobbing out of nowhere, and that was definitely not a bird if it had ever seen one! Faceless scrambled back, heart hammering as its hind limbs struggled for purchase on the slippery rock. It hissed fearfully, the bristles around its head fanning out in a halo as its face split vertically and it gave a warning snap at the wisp.

Again came the soft voice, the words so tentative that the child almost didn't notice them. It paused, confused, and stopped backing away. Its jaws abruptly snapped shut. ".... ni shi, like, yi zhi niao ma?*" it wondered, utterly bewildered at this glowing bird without a beak or wings.

@Ananke
* are you, like, a bird?

Ananke

follow the white rabbit

The scrambling sound startled her, for a second--the sound of something much larger scrabbling at the ice. She started, turned to bolt, made it three enormous (for a tiny bunny) bounds before realizing... the sound was moving away.

Not far--but not toward her, either. She froze, glancing back, sitting half-upright with twitching whiskers and her own heart racing in her chest. Ears came up, and caught--words? Strange words, foreign words, with both a harsh and somehow lilting quality to them, like a mixture of a thick, rough language and a soft and fluent one.

Puzzled, she set herself back down again, struggling (and failing) to will away her fear. Tiny paws delicately on the ice, she turned and (hesitantly) hopped back the way she'd come, childish determination fighting with childish terror to drive her to see who had spoken.

Her head poked around the corner. Turned, peered, silver-blue eyes settling on the... the... thing?--she had no name for it, none at all--just down the tunnel. Her wisp bobbed there, inoffensive, phosphorescent blue-green, its light glinting and glimmering across the ice. She glanced at it, and pulled it back, a little, so that it drew closer to her.

"I don't-... um," she started, softly, blinking those over-large eyes at the... thing. The big--face? The black pits that might or might not have also been eyes, the... mouths-? She searched her memory again, for a moment--the inherent knowledge she had hatched with.

Usually, if she thought about it, she could eventually conjure up a word to go with anything--that fruit was an Apple, for example; this tasty stuff was Grass. But this-? Her mind flitted a few suggestions through her consciousness--monster, and scary, and beast, but none were right. The black bristles and the mantis-like forelimbs threw her off most of all, and she half-shrank back a little, until only half her tiny white face (and one perked ear) was visible around the rocky wall.

"Are you--going to try and eat me?" she asked, which seemed the wise question whenever she met somebody new. Not that they'd ever say yes. If they did, she could at least get a head start running, but-... She wasn't even sure that this one spoke her tongue. "Can you speak?" she asked it, her tiny child's voice high-pitched, expressing both concern and curiosity.

Belatedly, she realized she'd heard a single familiar word in there... like. The rest-? The rest, she had no idea.

@Faceless

The not-bird-wisp did nothing but float there and bob harmlessly--and maybe drift toward a... rabbit?

Yes, a rabbit. That was the interesting part, and also the thing that was making the odd sounds. And the speech (?) wasn't even the strangest thing. The rabbit had seen it, and not fled in terror. That was already a big change from what most rabbits did. Suspicious, it thought, focusing an unblinking stare at the rabbit and its... wisp-friend?

That the rabbit was also backing away from Faceless didn't mean much. Just because both of them were being cautious didn't mean either one of them couldn't rip the other apart if they wanted. The horror licked its teeth nervously. Why was... the rabbit making these chittering noises it couldn't understand? It could be a secret language, it thought. They could be plotting something.

It didn't like plots. Plots were mysterious and possibly threatening, and Faceless liked neither being threatened nor not knowing what was going on. Every moment those two stood together, perceiving it, rubbed its fur the wrong way. Threat threat threat-- how did it get rid of those? It couldn't make the rabbit and the wisp unperceive it.

It could... separate them. Get the first strike, and kill one of them so that it would only have to fight one instead of two later on. Or--use one as a hostage. The wisp first. That was the most unfamiliar. It knew rabbits, kind of. It didn't know wisps, so the sooner it got rid of this one the better. Faceless stilled for a moment, its bristled halo folding back inward as it prepared to pounce. Then it lunged, lashing out a mantis-arm to snatch at the phosphorescent wisp.

@Ananke

Ananke

follow the white rabbit

The gesture of sudden violence had her flinching back, jerking away around the corner and into a run as quickly as she could. She wanted out, out of there, away from the monster-thing; her caution had been rewarded with terror and tiny feet scrambled at the ice to propel her back into Eridanus.

She could get there--hopefully?!--and dive in among the leaves, the ferns, the foliage. Run, and run, and never look back, until the thing couldn't find her. Her heart raced in her ears, and it seemed that the world ran too bright with color.

Behind her, the wisp was cool fire, bobbing and popping into nothing when the mantis blades sliced through it.

Fuzzy paws scrabbled at the ice as Ananke rounded a curve, and found--more ice. How had she gotten turned around?! Fear left her eyes popping wide as she turned, this way and that, frantic now with fear.

The monster would catch up with her. It would come running around behind her, jump on her, hurt her--kill her--unspeakable things-? Ananke didn't know what death was, logically--didn't know what things claws could do, hadn't seen for herself the effects of crushing jaws and rending teeth. But she knew fear, and it was made perhaps worse by the fact that she didn't know what would happen if the monster caught her.

Just-... very bad things.

@Faceless

Just as it reached the wisp, just as its arm-blades touched it, it simply... disappeared. Winked out. Existn't-ed. Faceless whirled around, hind feet scrabbling for purchase on the ice. "Come back!" it hissed, frantically scanning the tunnel for signs of an ambush. But neither set of eyes found anything; the only noteworthy things around were the heat signatures of a few scurrying mice and a flash of white fur as the rabbit disappeared.

GREAT! Now it had lost track of BOTH the threats! Now it was its snake-tail's turn to hiss with frustration, while the main head made a few garbled panicky noises. When one loses track of a giant spider in one's house, does one flee or make it their new life's mission to burn down everything in order to destroy it?

The former, Faceless decided, scrambling back toward the safety of the rainforest it knew. Exploring the tunnel and whatever lay beyond could wait for another day; it felt too exposed to venture down the unknown tunnel now. There was not enough plant cover or shadows to hide in, and too many twists and turns it didn't know where danger could come leaping out. (It should know: it had used those ambush tactics back in Eridanus.) And so it went dashing back the way it came from, fleeing into the sprawling vines and ferns without a second thought.

@Ananke attempted exit; this thread went excellently

Ananke

follow the white rabbit

She could hear the thing running along behind her, larger than she was and probably faster, despite her head-start. Obviously, the only reason it was running this way was to chase her. ('Obviously' being the poor rabbit's entirely incorrect assumption.)

And it had eaten her wisp! The nerve! The cruelty! -Could wisps feel?

Ananke did not know, but it was scary as hell and she bolted as fast as she could. When her paws hit soft earth, it felt as though she'd been running for hours--terror screamed through her mind and she twisted, bolting for the nearest underbrush. She could hear the stranger almost right on her tail and in her mind's eye, she pictured those many eyes gleaming dark red, its mantis arms swinging for her like scythes-...

She let out a single terrified squeak before plunging into the bushes, scrambling away to hide.

Like Faceless, she had decided that the tunnel could wait for another day. Or-... never.

Never also sounded good.

Exit (?) Ananke
@Faceless (for visibility or... whatever--it went excellently. I don't mind if Faceless catches up or follows her or w/e! or if it goes its own way that's cool too-)

It twitched and jumped at every rustle of leaves and underbrush even as it crashed through ferns and trampled mosses with no regard for stealth itself. It thought it caught a glimpse of white fur once, which sent it skidding in a different direction at once.

When it was well into the depths of Eridanus and far away from Tunnel O's mysterious threats, it considered perhaps that leaving a trail of flattened vegetation and broken sticks behind it wasn't the best thing to do if you were trying to avoid being followed. Although it was fairly certain it had shaken off the rabbit and the wisp, it couldn't be too careful considering the wisp's surprising magical ability. What witchcraft was that disappearing trick, anyway?

Looking around, it backed up a few meters to gain momentum, then dashed up a gnarled tree trunk. It could hide in the branches for a while; it was sure that rabbits could not climb.

@Ananke for vis, exit for real this time

Ananke

follow the white rabbit

The two fools had fled from one another--each terrified of the other's hidden powers. Or well... Faceless had been.

Ananke had been terrified of its eyes. And its teeth. And its fuzzy spiky black bits and the pointy parts. Those seemed... bad. Dangerous, her subconscious whispered.

It was hard for a creature so pristine white to hide in a forest of browns and greens, but she did so--after running off and on until her heart was (rather literally) fit to burst, she at last skidded down into a bare patch of soil nestled in a thorny bush. There she crouched, panting, eyes bulging--and waited.

Terror thrilled through her. Surely, any second, Faceless would come tearing into the bush: a blinding-fast predator, a death there to snap her in half just as her wisp had been torn to nothing in a heartbeat. That fear kept her frozen, trembling...

...unaware that Faceless was somewhere in the distance, hiding up a tree.

From her.

exit Ananke (thanks for this thread it's perfect)