What could be done? It had been, and still was, a long sleep. A titanic dream cruise. The iceberg was about to hit, but for now, there was no cold, there was no sound. Just Ampelio, amidst their delusions. Upside-down, belly-up; an alarming display. Capsized. At the same time, walking upright through an eternally expansive grove. Floating.

They could not keep their eyes on one place. There were golden, glittering fruits in the autumnal leaves of withering trees, there were silver strings and pearl beads of other kinds of vegetation strewn across gnarled roots. There was a scarecrow in a field of fur, soft and light like Tobias's. There was a scarecrow prowling, armed with the ambrosia it would spit at passersby, changing their fates forever. But Ampelio had nothing to fear from that, or that, or that, or anything.

Pelly was asleep.

The course of their destiny was already on the fritz. You could tell from the tangling of the grape vines — some twisted into a void, then twisted back out as if in a completely different place, in a completely different time. They were small enough to fit in a pocket dimension or a dimension pocket, they were alarmingly purple with an almost metallic luster, but they mattered to someone. Someone who loves grapes. They were a silent disorder, vibrating slowly in the graceless dance of life to the silent rat-tat-tat of silent men in fields. Silent as the world within a geode. Silent as a grave. Ampelio was not once for graves.

A clinochlore mound begins to rattle and crack, losing its shape, and also regaining it.

Or silence. "YOU, child." Swiftly broken. 'It's been a while since anyone called me that.' "I can call ya that! I can do what I want." 'You can.' He could. Banana Beard had been here ever since square one. He was a master of dreams! Ampelio had only been an apprentice for seven long cycles. And counting. "About time ya sprouted, young sap." 'Sure.' Seven long cycles of words that didn't make sense. Seven long cycles of counting sheep and being a star less in the world of astronomy, which I assure you exists, and more in the world of athleticism. Words always failed Ampelio here. How could a young sap grow without them? "Ought be ABANDONED!! T'the weeds. They like your stench." Contact felt brief, then weightless, like drifting through space. "But that one won't let me." Gestures felt grandiose, cartoonish, like Tobias. But unlike Tobias, they weren't real, they didn't feel real, and you couldn't pat a gesture's face to show it that you cared. It was more like watching a movie, or looking at a neat painting. If you liked it? You watched. If you disliked it? ....You watched. This painting's perspective shifted, the camera tilted, and suddenly our focal point became: ....a carrot?

A... carrot? Not agai-

But there was no exit. Every other time, there were doors, traps, deaths, voids — anything that would keep Ampelio away. But not this time. "YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE," the entire world boomed. The roots of the carrot, like a pipe organ, filled the ground and the trees and the sky, all behind the scenes. Ampelio's fantastic wizard of Oz. It was all the machination of.... the carrot. "TODAY YOU WILL HEED MY WORDS. AT LAST. YOU WILL LISTEN. THERE WILL BE NO ESCAPE." The boundary between fear, comfort, and excitement grew thinner in a place like this. The stage of the mind was an experience like no other, vivid and shifting like some uninhabitable, foreign terrain. Imagination without much limit. Ampelio turned orange, and could not move.

The clinochore relented further, releasing light, impending doom.

"YOU WILL LISTEN. YOU WILL LISTEN. YOU WILL LISTEN." Ampelio could not refuse, and yet it was also impossible to comply. What good were elvish ears in a land where sound was fictional? "YOU HAVE ALWAYS POSSESSED IT." Ampelio could not smell anything, they were acutely aware.

They could smell just fine.

They could smell gourds and flowers and fall but nothing else. Not the dirt rising high into the shape of a beast that might swallow them, nor the oncoming chill. "YOU WILL BECOME MY APPRENTICE. UNDERSTUDY. STUDY UNDER ME." Like a tidal wave when it builds, the level of the dirt went down and made a hole. Ampelio was swallowed by the roots, not the sky. "YOU WILL ROOT YOURSELF." Ampelio was flung into a wall of dirt. The mouth collapsed and they moved into the digestive tract. "YOU WILL BE ROOTED INTO." Ampelio was shaken clean like some kind of toy, or a precious stone. They tried, but they could not fight back — they could not move. "YOU WILL BE MY ROOT." Ampelio was plunged into more and more dirt, but felt no pain, no constriction, no loss of breath. "I WILL BE YOURS." Ampelio was freed into a dark cave, even darker than the last. The hole they had made closed above them, and their impact crater closed around their limbs, leaving them motionless. The only spotlight, dim and dusty, shone unyielding on a little orange carrot.

Now they matched.

Light broke in and stole many memories away, but uniquely from many other instances, it chose to leave the keys behind.

A thunderous ripple unleashed the "child" from their clinochlore constraints.

Pelly sneezed. Then sat. Then shook a little. They felt unbelievably cold, despite their thick coat. Their gaze drifted off to one side, and where it landed, a magic attempted to surge from the tip of their nose.

Captain Banana Beard, trying to break out. Failing. Scratching at Pelly's muzzle instead, irritating them. Running away. It was so cold.

Ampelio yelled: "DAD!!"

@Mercy

Mercurius, ever-dutiful, padded the long corridors of a dilapidated city; not to chase ghosts of the past or head off threats (all his intimidation ended as soon as one took note of the lack of leonine confidence and flair in his stance) but to simply watch. Pale eyes, glassy with plain aged weariness, scanned the brick and crumbling mortar as he walked. Each day, more and more chrysalises seemed to line the corners and cul-de-sacs of Orion. Each day, more and more fell into the peculiar lull of activity.

He had wondered, for a time, if the uproar in the coliseum had anything to do with it. The cries and stink of death had lasted for hours, and he was quite near to grateful that his family had stayed away from the gladiatorial combat — not for lack of faith in their relative maturity levels, but to spare them the rotten underbelly of authority for just a little while longer.

But, eventually, the pale beast would decide against such a hypothesis. The lull of before had come without cause, so why should this one require exigence?

The first time he came to the garden and found one of his children encased in a chrysalis, he still fretted. Worried over the clinochlore as if it were Ampelio themself; lingered by the bedside and brought a great many flowers, comforts for reawakening, murmured his newest stories to the unmoving, unemotive. Visits slotted easily into his routine — and they were never that of a mourner. All it took to stave off grief was the knowledge that there it was.

A chrysalis was life itself.

And here, life themself was calling.

There was hardly a beat's hesitation as the pale beast spun on a heel, trotting not-quite-fast-enough to the gentle reverie of the family's garden, and even less of a hesitation for his soft cry of "Ampelio…" Little but warmth bloomed in his chest as he looked over his child — so grown… — and felt his wellspring of magic fizzle and pop. A flare of grasses and shrubbery abruptly sprung into full bloom (too soon! Too soon!)

Oh, and they were shaking and wet.

Mercy crossed what little distance was separating them, a soft hum in his throat. "Come here, not-so-little one," he offered with a soft laugh and a raised forepaw beckoning, "let's get you warmed up." Already he reached to rasp his tongue over shaggy black hair and murmur sweet nothings until they were warm and dry.

@Ampelio

Without a hint of resistance, Ampelio melted into their father's embrace. Honeyed water was the blood of this lineage, sweet and light with little defenses. And it never rotted. "Hi, pa.. thank you.." Pelly spoke softly, relieved by the presence, enjoying the bath. None of them could purr, not even the mysterious anatomy of the Tobias allowed it, but they all had their own ways of expressing joy. Pelly first pressed their colorful nose to their father's cheek, and then, despite themself, smiled and closed their eyes. Such an expression might read as pain to another, but a truly grimacing Ampelio looked even more frightful. Normally, they would have looked away and hid it, but they weren't fully in their right mind right now.

Leaning into the touch and the rich mane of the gardening master, Pelly let their guard down to smile and clear their head. That guy, that carrot.... practically had a screaming match with itself. "do you..? Do you know what a, uh.. a Carrot is?" Pelly's voice was somewhat muffled by Mercy's fur and the will of the air. "oh- and: How are you?" It must have been a while. Something could have changed.

@Mercy