No, she could not give up now. If anything, it only made her more determined to see. Focus your attention now, and gaze into the coral. Become it. Just like you did before. But what if she didn't want to- no, she did. Don't think of anything else except what is in front of you. Sakhira narrowed her eyes, thinking of nothing except her task. The stone in front of her. Her eyes seemed to cut a burning stare into the rock as she pulled on her magic. And it came.

The vibrations now that flitted through her mind were... strange.

It began with a scratching, rhythmic--like claws or talons on stone, perhaps. And the swift thud of a small heart calmly beating. Then there was... silence; the heart beat, yes, and faster, yet the talons made no sound. Then they came again--a thud and a scrabble as if the creature were landing on the rock. But there'd been no wingbeat-sound, no ripple of water around the stone in these echoes. This cycle repeated--silence, like weightlessness, paired with a swiftly beating heart. And then a scratching as it walked. How strange.

@Sakhira

Now that she had been through it once, Sakhira expected the sudden blocking out of all her senses except for the sensing of vibrations. But what she felt in this one was not the same frantic fear that the austinite had. She wasn't quite sure what was happening at all. Something sharp on stone... a bird? Sea creature? Thud. Scratch. Thud. Scratch. But there was no sound of wingbeats, nor that of waves. Something without wings, and also didn't live in water. What could it be? Something... she did not have enough experience with animals to guess what it could be, but perhaps she would figure it out after more thinking on it. She was glad, at least, that whoever had once held this stone hadn't died a brutal death. Or perhaps they did, and she just didn't know.

Either way, now it was time for the last stone. The turquoise. The prettiest of them all.

The 'wrong' magic rippled out, and Sakhira became aware of something else: a soft, deep blue Carletonite gemstone of Fledgling magic level embedded in the ground a little ways below. It could easily be dug out, though the question of how it got there was an odd one.

@Sakhira

As she reached out to see into the turquoise, Sakhira was hit by a different sensation. Instead of losing her senses, she gained one. She quickly realized that she had cast the wrong spell on accident. But that wasn't exactly a bad thing. This time, it came from below the ground. It never occurred to her that it was possible for a stone to be underground, but as she thought about it, it did make some sense.
The cub paused for a moment to set the stones she had already collected to the side, before turning her attention to digging. She didn't like this work, getting her paws dirty, but if it was for a stone it would be worth it. Sakhira unsheathed her claws, and fell into a rhythm. The dirt eventually gave way to a careletonite, one that flickered with weak magic. She picked it out of the other rocks that had been dug up, and placed it next to the gemstones. This one was pretty. Similar to the turquoise, it was shiny. But it was a less vibrant blue, this gemstone was more modest in tone, but just as beautiful.

She wondered what it was that had caused her to cast the wrong spell. Was she focusing on the wrong thing? Distracted? Sakhira was definitely confused at what could have caused such a thing to happen. Though she did not regret it in the slightest, the carletonite was something to be admired despite its lack of strong magic. She speculated on what could have caused it to get buried underground. Or perhaps she didn't want to- it was scary to imagine how a gembound could have died in such a fashion.

But there was only one way to find out. Okay, don't cast the wrong spell this time. Focus on the stone. Remember what you did the first two times. Sakhira took a few deep breaths, allowing her body to relax. Then, she rested her eyes upon the turquoise. Imagine you are the stone. You can sense what it had sensed. Be one with the turquoise. She was determined this time not to fail, and her energy was waning. Even if she found another stone on accident, she wasn't sure if she would have the strength to look into that one.

Footsteps.

Travel, perhaps.

Two pairs, yet both seemed equally close, threaded through with a softly beating heart. The first set of footsteps sent soft, scratching reverberations up through the gemstone. The second, sharp staccato cracks against the rock below resonated with the stone above.

This went on for some time: scratch, clack, scratch, click, until the 'vision' faded.

@Sakhira

This one was vaguer than the previous ones had been. Or at least, it wasn't any clearer. It didn't remind her of anything she knew, though it was in a way similar to the coral. Just barely. But this had a steady beat to it. Scratch, clack, scratch, clack. Sakhira thought about this for so long that the two noises were ingrained into her head, and she could not be sure what she was hearing and what she was imagining. Exhaustion was getting to her. It would, perhaps, be a good idea to take a break before thinking on this issue, though it wasn't really an issue she supposed. It was like a mystery. A riddle one could say. One told through vibrations rather than words. Very interesting.

But although she was tired, she had only just recently awoken from her rest. It was not the tiredness that came from a long day of hard work. It was the kind that came from being drained of magic. She had too little energy to continue, and decided that the best way to resolve this issue would be to find some water and quench her thirst. Her memory drifted back to the puddle, but that water was not fitting for her standards. Sakhira would need to go and find one. Luckily this wasn't a task that required magic, and Polaris wasn't a particularly dry cave, so it shouldn't take too long to find one.