When Tema entered Eridanus, it was like her paws were on fire. Something screamed inside her, a cacophony of feelings and voices converging at the edge of her memory. She couldn't even be sure they were her own memories, a jumbled collection of her time with the Voidcrawlers and... something else. Something rotting.
This place had long been forsaken by those who once called it home, herself included. Something else lurked here now, infecting everything it touched. It hid in the corners of her vision, a white net of fungus that covered seemingly every inch of plant life, waiting.

Visions swirled in her mind, memories that made her dizzy, overpowering her with emotion. She missed it, missed them. But they LIED! The accusation was a scream in her mind, pressure in her skull and all she wanted was to release it. She wanted it gone. She wanted them gone.
All the bear could think was destroy.
Destroy the fungus, destroy what little remained of their camp, destroy the memories, the voices, the earth... Destroy!
Sunny had no hold on her now.

"speaking" and corruption

When all was said and done, it was like waking up.
Tema looked down at the remnants of their camp beneath her paws, what little had been left was now nothing more than a muddy mess. They had always said they'd do this one day, tear it all down and move to a new cave with less mud. Where would they have chosen? It didn't matter now. Where did she want to go?
Eridanus had been perfect for her element, her magic responding effortlessly to the surrounding plant life. She had even taken to growing some of the cave's many mosses on her back for a time before they began to eat at her skin. It had all fallen off by now.
Could she still grow things? Could she still give instead of take, fighting against the voice like she had once believed? Did she want to?
"I have shown you what you are." She could almost hear the Void again, whispering as it always did, worming its way into her head.
But WHO was she? Was she still capable of it? Love, in any form? She did not love the Void. She did not feel for it like she did her friends. She followed it because it was true, because it was honest and because it was there. There was nothing left... but herself.
Who was she?
Tema stared down the nearest plant, a small seedling of a flower she couldn't remember the name of. She'd once had a garden with a spot for them. What were they? Why couldn't she remember? Where did they go?
Tema called for her magic with a growl, frustration building as loneliness took root in her heart once more. She would have waited a hundred cycles to see Sunny again, to see any of them. They were going to raise children together! Wasn't family supposed to be forever? "Why did they leave you?"
She took no note of the fact that it was her who disappeared, sleeping peacefully in her chrysalis for many cycles while the others lived on, Sunny trapped in some hole and never found. The bear had been raised with only one thought in her mind, and that thought left no room for others. Sunny had been everything to her until recently; the all-seer, the mother of the void, the chosen one, her kin. She was never meant to be alone.

The flower blossomed, revealing the pale blue petals of a forget-me-not.

"speaking" and corruption

Tema laughed, hollow and joyless. She laughed until her throat burned, and then bared her teeth at her work.

Sunny hadn't lied, not that Tema knew this. The little snail had every intention of ignoring the violent urges, merely drawn towards the oil of the altar due to its likeness to slime. She was following a calling of her own, a calling Tema now followed in her absence. It wasn't the snail's fault that it corrupted.

"Chaos isn't kind." She spoke to the flower, still unsure how she felt about the idea. "You were a fool, and I'm ashamed it has taken me so long to see it." She tore the flower out by its roots with a quick flick of a claw, sending a chunk of dirt flying along with it. This was what a bear was; Powerful. The Void had shown her this, shown her truth.

"I was never meant to be anything more."

Another flurry of blows was turned on the fungus around her, whatever greenery it had latched on to becoming ribbons in the crossfire.

"speaking" and corruption

The Void's whispers hummed praise in the back of her mind, encouraging her onslaught against the enemy. Tema had no real knowledge of Mother yet, but the Void's encouragement was all she needed to continue, at least for the moment.
An urge had been building inside of her since the moment she pressed her nose against the altar; She needed more. More oil, a stronger connection... it was hard to hear the whispers, and how could she follow a master whose orders she couldn't comprehend?

There was much to be done.

Tema's claws struck out again, once more trying to take down as much of the putrid-smelling webbing as she could before she departed, hunger suddenly becoming a very pressing issue in her mind. She wouldn't find what she needed here, not with this stuff taking over.

Fuelled by an all-consuming hunger, Tema's haste to leave lent her a strength she had never seen before.
As if she was in a trance, she tore apart cluster after cluster of foul fungus, uprooting a rather large growth of them from the side of a tree. The tree's condition afterwards was not a pretty sight, deep gouges of claws raked down a considerable height of it. Tema would be surprised if it survived.

This is your power. Let me fuel it.

She found herself grinning at the idea, admiring the marks her claws left on the cave floor as she made her way to a more welcoming cave.

"speaking" and corruption

- Exit Tema -