GRAY SOUL AND STATIC IN MY EYES

It had taken him a little bit to meet up with Shiny, but when he had it was with tears of joy and a lot of aggressive hugging and almost completely squashing the poor gilded catsquirrel, but she was a real champ about it and allowed him his very long overdue reunion. A quick transferrence of memories while he had been a sleep revealed something pretty crazy. Not only was Cassiopeia a newly opened cave, but there were a whole string of caves that had opened! One with an icy mountain, one with mirrors, one with open fields and forests, one with a palace, and that last one had led to the one called Cassiopeia.

Huckleberry did his best to follow Shiny's mental directions, but he did still have to stop here and there and ask someone for the way. Eventually, he found himself soaring through this strange broken city of stone and rubble, with Shiny perched on her usual spot between his shoulders, holding tight to his bristly mane of feathers. The cave reminded him a lot of Orion, but much...more. Strange contraptions and objects scattered about, gleams of crystals here and there, and buildings of much more detailed construction, although their use seemed to be in the far past. It made him almost sad, but not enough to properly mourn.

He searched around for a few hours, eyeing the many fallen buildings and towers, resting here and there for a moment before taking off again, until at last he spotted the V-shaped ruin he'd seen in the vision. He landed just before it and Shiny hopped off and to the ground.

He swallowed heavily. "W-well, this is it." Why was he nervous? There wasn't anyone guarding this spot, right? It was like he was about to take a giant plunge off the edge of a cliff. He knew he could survive it by opening his wings, but there was always a chance something could go wrong and he could never get back up.

He strode forward towards the ruin, to look for what the vision had pointed him towards.

TRY TO SEE THE FUTURE,
BUT I'M NOT SURE IF IT APPLIES

It might have been jarring, seeing the scene in memory and then seeing it now. Greyish vines had overrun the place, and it was thick with thorns and dust. The rock nearby had mostly crumbled and never had the passage of time, and the amount of it, been so clear: sections of what had been a building at one end of the vision were now ancient rubble and dust.

It would take some searching; there was no sign of the large creature that had been in the battle. Perhaps it had died and been dragged off; more likely, the bones had simply decayed and been consumed by lessers and time, and the stone taken at one point or another.

It was farther back, buried under almost two feet of dirt, loose rock, and foliage, that Huckleberry would find the three gemstones. They were clustered together, as though someone had struck all three of the little Gembounds at once.

One was a small, marbled piece of reddish Agate; it would take some searching to find. The second was a larger chunk of a softer gemstone, Astrophyllite, one likewise streaked and marbled but with white, black and gold; and the third was in the shape of a small femur: a Sardonyx, not unlike the Agate with its lines of lighter and darker orange-red.

Huckleberry had seen the creatures these stones had belonged to, though it was impossible to know which was which. One had been more slender, almost deer-like but with an alienness to it that was difficult to deny. Another had been small, pudgier and almost canine in appearance and the third, somewhere between the two. What they might've been as adults was hard to judge. But they'd been murdered, here. Slaughtered without a second glance by agents of Chaos.

Huckleberry could give them a second chance... and, perhaps, a family.

@Huckleberry

GRAY SOUL AND STATIC IN MY EYES

Thankfully, there wasn't any immediate danger as far as he could tell. He really hadn't seen much danger at all, to be honest. Which was a relief and it gave him peace of mind while he dug through the ruins, although Shiny still posted up a watch at a spot high above. If she spotted anything, she would call. And all the while, she was silent, save for a couple of yawns and the shifting of positions.

Eventually, he came upon the stones, one at a time until he'd counted three. He hadn't seen the stones on their bodies in the brief glimpse he'd gotten, but he was sure as he pulled them out that these were them. As he unearthed each, he set it down safely away from his digsite before returning to work, finding another, and setting it alongside the previous, until the pile had all three.

Panting from the effort, legs burning, but feeling satisfied, he returned to the three crystals. Glancing around the ruin, he decided that this wasn't the best spot to set them in - half collapsed as it was, and there was some morbidity about giving them new life in the place where they'd previously been slaughtered. Calling Shiny back down to him, he had her hold onto one as she climbed on his back while he carried the other two in his mouth.

He didn't fly, but rather strode a little farther into the cave, until he found an old building that looked safe and sturdy enough to make for a decent shelter.

Setting the stones against the wall (spaced far enough apart), he stepped back and took a deep breath. "Here we go." He spoke to nobody in particular but he felt Shiny give a small affirmative nudge. He then proceeded to step towards each, pressing his nose against each in turn and letting his life flow into each of them. It felt natural, easy, guided, but by the time he was done, it was gone and he felt quite drained.

With the last of his effort, he curled a talon and a small banana appeared in front of him. He plopped down right there on the cold stone floor, tired from the journey, the dig, and the life giving, but feeling fulfilled and content as he slowly ate his way through the banana and eventually drifted off to sleep, Shiny crawling over his shoulders to take her spot curled up next to his neck.

*Exit

TRY TO SEE THE FUTURE,
BUT I'M NOT SURE IF IT APPLIES