The Oilstone streak that had been blooming along the seafloor, spreading like a blight, broke open with a splintering crack. Oily fluids billowed out like black smoke into the water, but more importantly, Fornax's seawater poured back in. The monstrous beast within, near frantically trying to claw its way out, realized it was breathing water and at once redoubled its efforts.

Panic rose. Claws gripped at the edges of the Oilstone, held--and slipped away.

It took Manticore a moment to realize that he was... okay. He wasn't drowning, at least. He was... it was as though he were out of breath, weakening, but he could breathe. He struggled to steady himself, that fear riding the edges of his mind, and--blinking glowing eyes against the darkness--examined the ragged hole bleeding his chrysalis away.

Several minutes of more careful efforts freed him. Then he was out--in the water, ascending, his finned tail propelling him upward, his wings a drag downward so that he had to wrap them to his flanks. Light danced down into the darkness from above, rays casting like searchlights, and he made for that: leaving his place of birth behind, below, in favor of the sun and sky.

What he emerged into was nothing of the sort--the vast open cave of Fornax, its "sun" and "sky" mere pinpricks of light high in a cave roof. Manticore didn't know any better; he came up to the surface and lay floating there, wheezing as his gills expelled the last of the water in streams along his neck. He bobbed there like a duck, looking around, before starting a clumsy doggy-paddle for the only thing that he could see: the pebbly shore.

@Spinnaker @Mossie

How funny it is that the shore Manticore sees is home to another chrysalis - many times smaller, and a shining red rather than slick oily stone - but one nonetheless.

Fate would have it that just as Manticore turns toward this beach, it too, starts trembling. There's a thump, thump, thump, oh so quiet against the sound of the seashore. Then the ruby walls fracture spectacularly, red shards thrown aside as the little bird tumbles out onto the gravel beach.

Spinnaker looks up, at the gentle tide pushing and pulling, and the Valkhound's dark shape riding on the waves.

He lets out a raucous call, "Is someone there?

@Mossie

Mossie didn't know how she'd ended up here, in all honesty.

She'd hatched. ...Something, she forgot what, had happened next. And now...

She'd followed the scent of salt that captivated her so, traveling on the cave winds. Her stance still wobbled, not used to supporting her weight, but she was determined. And she'd reached here, the pebbles under her pawpads strangely soothing texture-wise.

Mossie had showed up just in time to hear the seabird's call, and yowled back, "Yeah!" Then she glanced over, ears pricking, as she noticed a strange black shape. "Two someones, I think!"
@Manticore

The flash of red and the distant, tiny bit of movement on shore drew him. It was the only thing to really break up the monotony of the horizon, so maybe it was something worth investigating?

He spotted the second flash of movement--something small, pale--farther along a moment later, and a faint sense of urgency struck him. What if there was... something he needed, over at the red thing, and this other thing was coming to take it? Or what if he needed to eat the pale thing?

That faint, instinctive prod sent him paddling harder for the shore, the first taste of Chaos on his tongue. A low and guttural growl escaped his chest as he struck for shore, as claws finally found the gravel beneath his feet. The strangers' voices were distant, not easy to hear over the rush of surf, but they only added to his desire to get closer, faster.

Manticore might have surged from the sea, intimidating and looming, except the sudden extra weight on land took him by surprise. The Valkhound went down face-first, a stumble into the beach, and struggled to right himself.

@Spinnaker

Hobbling to his feet, Spinnaker turned, seeing the small cat. He hops once, twice, towards her, scattering stones on the shore. "You? You and who else?" he asks.

He is of course answered, by Manticore face planting into the shore down the beach. "Oh, you mean that. A few hops closer, and he calls out to the Valkhound. "Are you okay?"

@Mossie

Mossie toddled over, nearly face-planting into the surf several times. She squeaked with alarm as she saw the creature fall and rushed towards them, ignoring the way that something about the creature made the fur along her spine spike.

"Walking sure is hard," she said sagely, shaking her head. "Very annoying, considering we have to do so much of it to get places. You alright?"

@Manticore

The innate urge for destruction as he'd surged for the moving targets was both intensified and totally thrown off by the faceful of gravel. He was frustrated--and anger boiled white-hot in him, for a moment--but then the perfectly calm, friendly voices jarred him from his initial instinct.

He pulled upright, and hesitated, eyeing these two far smaller creatures as he steadied himself.

The small, partially upright thing--the one that'd come from the red stone, he thought--was hopping closer, unafraid. It asked... if he was okay. Something about the mundane joviality of the creature seemed to demand something other than violence in response, but Manticore had no instinct to tell him what he should be offering.

Gears turning in his mind jarred shut at this puzzle--if not kill, then what?--and were further jolted by the feline's camaraderie. His attention went to Mossie, his voice--a gravelly growl--came forth not with aggression but with utter confusion.

"...Is it?" he rasped, still standing there with trembling forelimbs, dripping Fornax's seawater. "...Walking... I mean. Is it... hard?"

That seemed... like an oversight, somehow. Especially if--as this creature said--they were meant to do a lot of it. Whose oversight, he did not know.

Manticore looked to Spinnaker, then blinked and shook himself, cat-like. He nearly lost his balance again, but at least most of the water went spraying off in all directions. Then he steadied himself again, blinking in ultraviolet confusion at the smaller Gembounds.

"Yes-... I am, all right," he decided, though it was still with confusion in his voice; why did they care to ask that-?

I think I am all right, he amended to himself. Honestly, he wasn't sure.

@Spinnaker

Well, that makes two who don't have sea legs, Spinnaker muses as Mossie also struggles to stay upright. He's not exactly sure what "sea legs" means, but it's what his head supplied him, and it seems to make enough sense.

Either way, he hops and waddles his way after Mossie, closer to Manticore. And wow, is Manticore big. Like some great leviathan.

How funny that comparison is to someone who knows.

"Walking... Walking. Does seem important. I can't really say," is what Spinnaker decides on, looking between the two others sitting on the beach. Scattered water droplets land on his feathers, and he shakes them off like much the Valkhound does, but with less spraying all over.

"Didya spend all your time swimming or something. I can't blame you. It seems nice."

@Mossie

"I have never swum before, but swimming does sound nice. Much easier than walking, which can be a total bitch. If I hatched the earliest here, which I have no evidence to dispute so I will be assuming, walking is indeed quite important," Mossie said, angling her ears towards the surf. It looked so very inviting, and for a moment she is seized with the urge to jump in and splash around until she's all soggy. The water splashed onto her from the creature felt soothing on her fur. Imagine if she was *all water...*

But that's not the point right now. The *point* was obviously befriending the seabird and the fucked-up leviathan so they could be best-friend-buddies-forever-for-life. She had to stop getting off-track!

"I'm sorry you had to find out about the agony that is walking like this," she said. She picked up a piece of gravel from the surf. "Would you like a piece of gravel for your woes?"

@Manticore

Manticore just sort of loomed, standing towering over the other two with limbs part splayed as the water dripped from his hide.

His mind was a confused tangle, all these new sensations and thoughts overwhelming. That innate urge to destroy was a constant, powerful distraction--or maybe the little creatures and chatting was the distraction-? That seemed more right; he should be destroying things. But-... They did keep distracting him; Spinnaker's question had him huffing, tiger-like chuffs escaping him. The sounds weren't friendly, though--they were thoughtful, confused, with a threading through of growling. "...I did not always swim," he settled on, glancing over his shoulder with a catlike twitch of his draconic tail. "I have only just..." What was the word-? Or phrase..? "Come out of a stone," he settled on.

Glowing eyes cut back to the small cat who was now offering him a piece of stone; and in sudden, almost childish anger he tried to take it. It wasn't anger at Mossie, exactly, but at... existing, and falling down, and the constant buzz of Chaos in his mind.

He tried to take the pebble, and destroy it. Except... he couldn't, even if Mossie let him have it, he couldn't--it was too tough, too small. All he did was hurt his fingers.

Maybe there was a lesson in there, somewhere. If there was, he did not immediately learn it; instead he dropped to his haunches, huffing a second time.

Eyes cut to the bird, then the cat. "What are you?" he asked them both, without demand in his voice--mere curiosity, now that his devastation (of a pebble) had been thwarted.

@Spinnaker