"SPEAKING" and THOUGHTS


A chrysalis laid alone and unbothered, resting nearby one of the smallest wisteria trees inside the grove. The chrysalis, small, and bright purple in color, protecting and sustaining the life of something... or someone unaware.
One cycle had passed since enough magic found its way into a rogue amethyst, which caused the gemstone to turn into life.
The magic took the form of a Tiger Quoll. Dainty, but deadly by her own accord. The body had kept growing consistently as days and moons passed. The chrysalis, her home and protection had reached a point in which it was no longer capable of holding the body developing inside of it. A soft crack could be heard. Then another, and another, till a soft thud interrupted the cracking, drowned by the sound of water, and the soft caress the wind offers the leaves.
However, the critter, now exposed to the world and no longer held safely by the rock that birthed her came to existence as a being, an individual. The small, dark chocolate body remained immobile over the bed of petals, covered in the fluid that used to surround her body. Still unaware, still oblivious to the change. Peacefully resting, not yet completely here.
Then, her body suddenly felt a slight disturbance. A breeze playfully petted her wet fur consistently, accompanied by some petals that fell over her body, bringing into her attention that, somehow, she was... feeling something.
Her eyes opened slowly, the light greeting her pupils with mild irritation, and her ears perked at the sudden realization of every new sound surrounding her. Everything she had never experienced was happening around her, all at once.
The colors surrounding her overwhelmed her senses slightly. There was no understanding of what was going on, or what everything meant. The smell of the ground, the petals and the air itself was something she did not understand yet, but she was not afraid, she was dazed.
A sound could be heard escaping her throat softly, a grunt of confusion, something that could be interpreted as a "Huh?" but more animalistic, akin to a Tiger Quoll's calling. Her purple eyes glanced around. She noticed her chrysalis, well, what was left of it, and its shards surrounding her, and the trunk of the tree that held her safely for so long. Her eyes traced the tree until they reached the roof. Immense. After a few minutes staring in awe, she looked back down, and noticed something very interesting.

She has paws. She can move them. She can use them.
More importantly, she will try.

"SPEAKING" and THOUGHTS


Dionysus placed one paw under her body. Then the other, then pushed against the ground. Half her body was technically standing up, but she had not noticed her back legs yet. She looked around, now, from a slightly higher point of view, then looked back at the rest of her body, which appeared darker and glossy thanks to still being wet from the fluids of her chrysalis.
She decided to continue. She readied her left back leg and placed it under herself, then the other one, and pushed against the soft ground again, however, she used more strength than necessary, and ended up falling over her chin with a soft thud, causing some petals to fly up, falling nearby, her front paws landing under her body again while her back legs still stood, holding the back of her body still.
A slight sharp sensation filled her chin and neck. Slight pain. Not enough to cause a reaction, but enough to understand that such feeling was something a creature, or at least her, wishes to avoid.
She tried again, one paw, then the other, and pushed upwards. Dionysus was finally standing. Very awkwardly, but standing. She decided to advance, using one leg at a time. Stumbling towards the tree, slipping slightly on the petals but not falling. She approached her chrysalis and touched it slightly with the tip of her nose. Sticky. Wet. Somehow heavy? She filed the information away then surveyed her surroundings again.
Waiting quietly, without knowing what is supposed to happen, or what one is supposed to do with a body in a place.
She stood completely still for a few minutes, only closing her eyes sometimes. She noticed that it would feel weird, and annoying, and closing them was the only way to make that feeling go away. Then, slowly things started to change again and she noticed another new feeling, which came with a new sound and sensation. Her stomach grumbled slightly, making noise and creating movement inside herself. She did not like it.
The Tiger Quoll felt the sudden urge to make the feeling go away. But was not completely sure on how, or why it happened.

"SPEAKING" and THOUGHTS


The dark Tiger Quoll started rocking, side to side slowly trying to "Think", something that was still foreign, in a sense, to her. She approached a shard of her chrysalis again, something inside her urged her to place whatever she could inside her snout, and she did.
She bit into the shard softly. Nothing. Then she bit again, still, nothing. It was hard and uncomfortable, which made her immediately reject the option. She was not sure on what to do. She quickly lost interest in the shard, and then noticed again something interesting and with potential. The petals! They are small, soft, colorful and the urge to consume something still filled her brain. She opened her mouth and bit into the bed of petals on the ground. She started chewing, the texture was... Interesting, soft and skin-like. The flavor was... not the worst. It tasted somewhat sweet, the liquid had a strong taste of green somehow. Regardless, her body started to reject it.
Something inside her yelled for her to spit it. She did not listen to this, however, and decided to gulp it down.
Shortly after her stomach grumbled again, but with a different feeling more akin to annoyance than pain. It was constant and did not stop. It was discomfort.
She backed away from eating the petals, actually, she now disliked the petals overall, and her hunger was temporarily replaced by a new feeling, but it was still in the back of her mind.

"SPEAKING" and THOUGHTS


The discomfort of eating the petals, something her body was not really designed to consume, started to increase. Her stomach growled louder than how it did with hunger. She was still very small, her stomach, empty, which caused more rejection of such foreign resource. Her body started to shake, with every passing second her trembling became more and more intense. She started to retch, and she felt the chewed petals returning the same way they came in. Her body forced them out, she retched until they were back on the ground from where they came. An intense feeling of disgust surrounded her body. It felt dirty, it was painful and awful overall. Her disdain of the petals just increased. Her eyes teared up a little, and her breathing was slightly accelerated, she learnt something new today that her body could do. Something she will try to avoid more than pain itself.

Then a loud dry thud interrupted her slightly panicked, and slightly angry, train of thought. She looked back and approached with curiosity. Then she saw something moving over the petals on the ground. Something green and filled with what looked like... hairs? or legs for some reason? It seemed inflated and somehow, rather interesting and alluring. The movement of the thing itself gave an intense feedback loop inside her brain, deeper than the interest of getting something inside her mouth out of curiosity. It was primal and she could not completely understand it. She had to trap that weird moving thing. She had to try to eat it. There was no other way. Everything else just abandoned her mind, every other feeling was ignored. It felt as if nothing had happened for the last half hour. She was locked in with a new goal. Capturing that thing.

"SPEAKING" and THOUGHTS


The Tiger Quoll instinctively crunched and started stalking the insect. It was slow and barely moving away from her, so the chances of it escaping, or even moving far enough, were incredibly slim. Still, something inside asked to lower her body and move slowly towards the critter scurrying in front of her.
She attempted to make every one of her steps silent, which was easy with the soft petals covering the ground and muffling her steps almost automatically.
She gave, in total, like two additional steps to finally reach the creature. It took her longer than what it would have if she walked normally, but her mind was not available to think at the moment. She advanced till her claws almost touched the creature.
It was not a fully grown wallcrawler. It was around one inch, approaching two, but still rather big for a newborn creature weighing around three hundred seventy grams.
She did the only thing she could. She used both paws to hold it against the ground firmly. The thing felt hard, surprisingly. It shook and moved side to side attempting to wriggle away, which was uncomfortable and truly, a slightly disgusting thing to see. However, the Tiger Quoll was still entranced by her prey drive. It was not disgusting or uncomfortable for her, it was calling for her actions.

"SPEAKING" and THOUGHTS


She opened her maw without thinking, guided solely by her prey drive and sunk her teeth into the exoskeletons of the green creature. A Tiger Quoll's bite strength is surprising for the animals' size, adapted to break bones and tough exoskeletons of some hard insects. A crunch could be heard resonating in the quiet and calmness of the Wisteria Grove. The body between her paws started to wriggle more aggressively, and after the bite her mouth started to overflow by a yellowish paste. The taste was more bitter than the petals, which were rather sweet, but it was way more enjoyable to her than the petals really were. She bit with more strength, guided by the positive feedback her brain and mouth gave to the outcome of the first bite.
The creature also had the taste of sodium, earth and somehow reminded her slightly of her chrysalis, filled with minerals that sustain life.
She pulled with the crawler's chitin inside her mouth, and found resistance. The Green Wallcrawler had stopped wriggling at this point. She bit the head without noticing, or knowing, what its head was. She gave up trying to separate pieces of the critter, and started to just chew on it.
She ended up lying down, with the critter still between her paws, chewing on it happily and providing her with her first nourishment after her birth. Her belly finally was quiet. The discomfort of hunger slowly fading away with each bite. Her head and brain still quietly enjoying the meal, no thoughts, no ideas and no other desires. She stopped wanting to eat close to the end of its body. She felt full, still without knowing what full really meant, she just did not want to eat anymore. She stood again slowly and yawned loudly. Her belly was full. She was safe. She was comfortable.

She looked around and felt the need to roam and find a comfortable place to sleep, away from where she ate. She listened quietly, then noticed, with more attention, the sound of moving water, and decided to follow it.