Eridanus had been her place. That fraction of the caves that they could return to when things got confusing and messy, when sleep tugged at their eyes and their roots twisted in the soil, always soft and wet and full of the only food that she could truly eat and the only sleep that could give her peace. The trees had been her walls and the canopy her ceiling. It was safer here, more than any palace or perfectly maintained lawn.

Adenium stared at its home, the place it had been born. It watched as it lay dying.

Its lip quivered as it saw how the strings of sickness crept their way through leaves and bark, ate away at the fruits and branches that were not theirs to take. Emotion rose in her throat - or was it bile? She felt sick.

Maybe it had been naive to assume it would remain as it had been forever. Maybe the liquid stinging its eyes was selfishness manifest. No, No, No. This wasn't right, something was wrong, something was sick. The fear that bubbled when the glass-eyed birds flew past was not of her own mind, it couldn't be. It was stronger, visceral. Something had infected Eridanus. Something had taken their home from them.

They ripped at some of the fungus that curled on the bark of the tree, movement strained with the feeling of helpless, hopeless fury. They couldn't fix this - not alone.

Sprig's home had always been Eridanus. He had been born here, raised here, and eventually grown up and established his own garden here. At first it had been gradual, but soon he was unable to ignore the white growths creeping through the trees, taking root in the plants he had worked so hard to grow from small seedlings, covering all the fruit trees he used to craft his dishes. His home no longer felt safe. Perhaps he should move to Pegasus, which had none of this strange white fungus, but he knew that was only a last resort. Eridanus was too dear to him for Sprig to consider the possibility of leaving that easily. He needed to at least try and save his home.

Oh- who was this? "Hello?" Sprig called out to Adenium, noticing the fellow gembound as he walked through the forest. He watched as she tore off some of the fungus off of a tree. He should help! The lion attempted to copy this, but was unable to remove the stubborn whiteness off of a bush. "This is hard- I wonder where all this came from?"

@Adenium

Something approached as she tore at the infection, letting the threads flutter down like snow. They were spongy, damp with life. The feeling of the fungus breaking in her grasp brought a satisfaction - one that didn't soothe the buzzing in their ears, but something that promised to once this was over. If that was true - well, Adenium would have to finish the job to see, and that was difficult enough.

It hardly gave Sprig a glance. "Hi." It tried loosen its voice, to seem relaxed and welcoming, as if its grief and anger didn't billow from it like pollution. It wanted to suffocate this place.

She grasped for another clump, grief warring with anger. She wanted to blame something. Could something be blamed? She didn't know enough, she wished she did, but maybe she didn't know what she was wishing for. "Yeah, I wonder."

@Sprig

He was amazed at how efficient Adenium was at destroying the fungus. Perhaps it was the hands that made it easier to do so. Sprig felt that they didn't want to talk that much, and decided to settle for working alongside them in their shared mission to rid the area of as much white pollutants as possible. The forest was so big, and they were just two gembounds. At the pace they were working, it would take weeks to clear it all out. Perhaps even several cycles. Sprig hoped that there were others out there who were also helping out. But even that didn't seem like it would be enough.

He reached out and tore out a white chunk off of a nearby sapling, but in the process some branches were torn off with it. "Ah, I'm sorry." Sprig said to the tree, even though it couldn't talk back. "You'll be alright soon. We're here to help." It was unclear whether this was directed towards this sapling in particular or plants surrounding them in general.

@Adenium

They were focused on the task at hand, freeing one tree from the fungus in a forest full of it. They tried to ignore the hopelessness, the feeling of grief that pulled at their limbs. They wanted to collapse, to cry, to take root in cold dead soil, search for any of that warmth they had known. The paradox - they wanted to search for recovery in a place that drained them.

The other gembound muttered apologies to things that could not hear them, smothered in the blanket of mold as they were. Not that the meek attempts at cleansing it where any better - no, she couldn't think like that, not now, not yet.

"So - what brought you here?" A limp attempt at distraction. They moved to remove more of the fungus as she spoke.

@Sprig

He had continued on his work, this time trying to be more careful with how he removed the fungus so as to avoid damaging the plants. The mood seemed to be rather somber and ominous, and Sprig didn't expect her to speak up, lights flashing for a moment as he was startled by the sound. "I live here." Saying these words made it all the more painful. This was his home, but it bore only a slight resemblance to the flourishing forest he knew from his youth. It was taken over by whatever this infection was, and he was sick of it. Angry. But anger was not an emotion he knew well, and it quickly faded away to sadness.

"My home, my garden- it's all infected." The lion gritted his teeth, wanting to push away the memory of returning back to his residence only to realize that everything he had worked so hard on was covered in the fungus. The rush of emotion caused him to lose his focus and fail to clear away a chunk of the white stuff that had situated itself on a bush. His perpetually calm face showed a flicker of frustration. "And you? Do you also live here?"

@Adenium

She was finding a rhythm now, which helped. The company did too, made things the odds feel a little less stacked - even though the both of them were at a severe disadvantage. She found fragile respite in the darkness of the bark underneath, a marker of some semblance of progress.

His answer disrupted that beat.

"I'm... I'm sorry." Maybe it had liked the feeling more when it was lonely. The fact that the loss was shared - it made the burden heavier on their shoulders. Of course it was. Eridanus had been home to others, and she felt selfish and stupid for ever believing otherwise. She pushed it down again.

"I did. I- I left for a while, after I woke up again. I got tired, and I came back again to sleep and, well, you know. I never had anything here to care for though. I'm sorry about your garden." Too close to home, they needed to refocus- "Hey, do wanna try tearing it from the tree? We might be able to cover more ground if we switch places."

@Sprig

"It's- it's alright. It's not your fault." Sprig paused in his work to glance at Adenium for a moment as he said this. If anything, it should be the one who had infected this entire cave with fungus that should be apologizing. Though he was pretty sure that they wouldn't. So an apology from a fellow victim was as close as he was going to get. It was not what he wanted. No words could soothe the turmoil in his heart from seeing Eridanus in such a state. "I'm sorry too." The cave was not only his home, it was also theirs.

"I was also asleep for a while." the lion remembered waking up and realizing that although he had gone into hibernation as a cub, he had woken as a full grown adult. It had certainly been a strange experience. "You can come to my garden if you would like. When this is all over." it was an offer, and he meant it. He believed that the best way to connect with nature was to nurture it. Only then, could one truly understand how it felt like to be part of the forest. And he could always use some company. It definitely got lonely living alone in his abode, with no friends, no family, only his plants. That's why he had developed a habit of speaking to them. They became his family after a while. Sprig flinched as he thought about how his garden was probably unsalvageable. It would need to be regrown from the beginning.

He nodded as they mentioned switching places. That was a good idea. Sprig shifted his attention to the tree, immediately tearing off a chunk of the white fungus. It felt good. Satisfying. "And, what is your name? I'm Sprig."

@Adenium

The apology was appreciated, as much as it felt like a band-aid dropped in a gaping hole in her chest. But, everything felt like that - maybe lamenting over it so much was a waste of energy. Gods knew it needed as much as it could get. It's not your fault. Yeah, that was part of the problem.

"Adenium- Elenya." They took a long step, squatting to face the saplings, choked mercilessly by the sickness. That felt especially cruel - they had barely gotten a chance to live. She picked at them with gentle hands.

"I'd like that a lot." She wanted, needed some place to return to, once it was over and there was nothing left to say or do. When the weight would crush the both of them. It couldn't picture what that'd look like - and maybe it never would. The bile rose in its throat again. It tried to fill dead air. "What did you grow, in your garden?"

@Sprig

"Adenium." Sprig murmured, in acknowledgement of the name. It sounded nice. "Elenya." He did not know many gembounds who introduced themselves by two names. The assumption was that many, like him, only had one. But since Adenium was the first spoken, that was what he would call them.

He looked at her in surprise as she responded to his offer. It wasn't that he thought she would decline- he just. Didn't expect it. His somber face broke into a smile, though a sad one at that. There would be someone to show his garden to. The thing he prized most. It was his livelihood, his passion, his- everything. But it was gone. When will you get that into your head, Sprig? Can't you just accept that it's never going to return to how it was? Ever? You'll have to start over, and though it may grow back, it'll never be the same.

"I grew-" Sprig's voice cracked, why bother reminiscing about it? It would only twist the knife, make the wound in his heart more painful than it already was. But he spoke. "Plants. Trees." his claws dug into the ground, "Peaches, apples, plums, oranges-" And now that he was going he couldn't stop- "and blueberries and mint and aloe and honeysuckle and lavender and-" he ripped off a chunk of fungus from the tree, claw catching on the bark for a moment and causing him to wince in pain. But he kept going. "I had lillies! And violets! And- and rosemary!" Sprig stopped himself, taking deep breaths to try and calm down. His lights were flickering rapidly now, and he sat down, staring at his claw which was bleeding a bit. "I'm sorry- I didn't mean to yell. I'm sorry."

@Adenium