Cayenne was just so tired. Her hands felt stained with the things she'd done now, her eyes red and raw from the things she'd seen. She hadn't seen Tenn in so long, and she needed him so badly, but every time she went back to their tree, he wasn't there. She kept the hope that they just kept missing each other, that he wasn't....deliberately avoiding her for some reason she couldn't fathom. He wouldn't do that, he loved her, he said so. He was her one happiness in the caves, her home she returned to, and if she just had to wait to see him, she would wait.

So she went exploring instead. She remembered how she gained pleasure from doing so when she was only a cycle old, already a wise, old soul from the very start. And as she saw the magnificent waterfall and felt the cold spray, she rubbed her arms and smiled, very slightly.

She walked into the room slowly, and she walked to the edge of the main lake, peering into its depths, watching the fish swim peacefully underneath. They didn't know what went on up here, they just lived their lives in this little lake, oblivious to everything else, ignorant to the very concept of pain.

She envied them, and her gem-laden hand dipped into the water, her fingers moving the current around delicately. Some of the fish with their glittering scales came up to her and started to nibble on her fingers.

Hawthorne hummed to himself softly, curled up in a fluffy lump at the entrance to his den, watching tiny rats skitter past. No matter how much he purred to beckon them closer, they always fled at the sight of him, and so the little buck pouted, flopping onto his side, incredibly bored without his father, his sister or Valentine to keep him company. Thankfully, something black caught his eye, hunched over the lake, and he perked up, ears still too floppy to hold themselves straight, flicking forward to fall directly into his eyesight. With an annoyed grumble, he raised a hoof to pat them back, slowly slinking out of the den and closer to the stranger.

He followed the coast, finally peering at what exactly they were doing - and thankfully it wasn't hunting fish, unlike his friend. Hawthorne grimaced at the memory, skittering just a bit closer, stopping a good five feet away and clearing his throat, still sunk low to the ground in an attempt to not scare the - relatively - small Gembound away. Words, greetings, questions crowded in his throat, danced against his teeth, but all he could offer was a strangled bleat, blinking a honey-gold eye at the lemur expectantly.

She looked over to the small gemling that came up to her with tired eyes, haunted. She brought her hand out of the water silently, her mouth set in a soft line. She had no energy to smile. She had nothing to smile about, right now.

She offered a hand to the gem, beckoning them closer silently. With her other hand, her gem hand, she focused on something she hoped would offer her comfort. Her golden finger glinted softly, and she felt a prick in the web between her fingers, and a small little flower ring grew around the stone.

He loved her. She just had to remind herself of that.

Fluffy chest brushing the ground in a strange half-bow of maximum stealth, Hawthorne blinked in surprise when the little black monkey-cat simply stared at him, slowly raising a strange appendage to... beckon. Hands. They had hands. The tiny buck stared in awe at the range of motion, the dexterity, slowly inching forward, gaze flickering from the stranger's face to her hands with a stilted, rumbling purr, wanting to ease the utterly defeated look that seemed even to effect her posture.

The closer he got, the louder the purr became, until he finally flopped down into a vaguely loaf-shaped lump next to Cayenne, chin thumping down on the ground, mesmerized. He let out a tiny, squeaky gasp when one of her fingers seemed to glow for a split-second, a flower blooming from nothingness to play between black fur. Golden eye as wide as it could go, Hawthorne opened his mouth to speak, trying to stutter past the claustrophobic feeling in his chest. "H-h-how d-did y-you do t-that? That w-was amazin'!"

Just as quickly, he flinched back, jaw clamping shut, blushing hot under poofed-up fur. "I-I mean, s-sorry, I-I mean, uh. I'm H-hawthorne?"

She gave a bitter half-smile, admiring his young eyes at the world that grew amazed at seeing a new magic for the first time. She was like that once, for what seemed to her like ages and ages ago. Everything was new and wonderful and a mystery she had yet to solve. Now, now she was just tired. Her smile faded.

"Hawthorne," She said, nodding. "I'm Cayenne. I'm a healer...who can ask plants to grow."

She beckoned to her magic now, asking it to grow to make the little gemling smile. Even if she didn't feel like doing so herself.

Right where he was sitting, right between his long legs, she asked just one little shoot to grow from the stony ground, and it was difficult. The roots had to reach rather far down till they hit the soft dirt, and they had to shift stone to emerge, but it did, growing from her sheer determination. The small little shoot blossomed into a bright yellow flower with golden tips that brushed up against the cat's chin with a delicate kiss.

"What magic do you have, Hawthorne?" She asked, her raspy voice soft.

Boy, she sure seems sad. It was a problem he'd only come across once - and so far, he hadn't been able to make his dad any happier. But Hawthorne was nothing if not persistently interested in making other people happy, so he blinked, sitting up a bit to listen, gaze darting towards the flower and the hand it was attached to every few seconds. Cayenne's words made him grin - the grin of success. "So t-they are alive! I-I k-knew it! Man, Val i-is gonna h-have to h-help me now..."

After a moment, he seemed to come back to himself, blushing harder, ears pinning back from embarrassment. "S-sorry - my friend a-and I, well, I t-thought that m-maybe, somehow, we could s-survive without h-having to hurt a-anything. Like plants o-or fish." His tone was jittery as ever, but enthusiastic, bubbly with scientific curiosity and remembered fairytales. The healer part he almost wanted to ask about, unsure, but then something brushed against the fluff of his chin.

Moving his head down, his nose dipped into a bright yellow flower, and he grinned, eye widening as he tilted his head to one side, staring at the creation with wonder. "That's s-so neat!" Her voice, tired and worn, made his head bob up to face her, expression lighting up in recognition. "Oh! I m-make stuff s-shiny!" Tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration, he moved to focus on the flower, blue gemstone eye flickering.

The benitoite flashed once, twice, and with a soft sizzle, pure tendrils of light seemed to envelop the freshly summoned bloom, lighting its petals with a bright blue glow that slowly faded into pale gold. Grinning, he nosed at it, making it shimmer and dance, light sparkling off of it. "S-see?"

"Well, they're not....really alive," She said softly, frowning a little. "They don't register the outside world at all. They don't have pain receptors like we do, they can't feel pain, they don't understand it. It doesn't exist to them. They only understand what's around their own body...like being blind and deaf at the same time. They don't have eyes or ears, you see. So when you eat them, all they understand is that the light they normally get is gone. They don't understand the concept of death either, just...the dark. Plants are strange that way."

She remembered when she used her sensing spell on a plant she was eating at the time, feeling its soft, wordless voice slowly disappear as it went down her gullet and into her stomach, and it made her feel very strange for days afterward. Cayenne briefly worried that what she said would make the young child starve himself, and she reached out to touch his forehead.

"So you shouldn't worry about the plants you eat, alright Hawthorne? You don't want to go hungry; the plants wouldn't like you to go hungry on their account."

He was saying that he could make things glow, and when he did, she quite genuinely grinned as she watched Hawthorne make the flower glow with his delicate magic, his blue eye glinting, and she realized for the first time that his eye was his gem.

She petted his head, scritching behind his ears, and said, "My congratulations to you, little Thorne. You're very strong for someone so young."

And while she did so, she looked at the softly glowing flower, and she smiled at it, and her own magic flared in her golden stone finger once more, and for the first time, a light of her own flowed from her gem to the flower, a golden light that, when it touched the flower, turned a soft and brilliant blue, the same color as his eye-gem, and it seeped into the flower. It seemed to sigh, almost, and the blue glow danced with the golden, swirling together.

"Now it'll be here forever." She said, grinning at Thorne.

The not alive part sounded reassuring, but Hawthorne wasn't so clear on the really caveat. Eyelids slowly covering both his golden eye and the blue gem, the tiny hybrid peered up at Cayenne quizzically, tilting his head to one side, ears flopping with the motion."B-but how c-can they b-be alive a-and not a-at the same t-time?" It probably sounded like more of a philosophical question that it was meant, considering the lemur was talking to a toddler, but the dilemma ping-ponged around his mind without end. Was it okay to eat something that wasn't quite alive? What met the standard for "alive," anyway? Were rocks alive?

The thought made him smile. They probably liked the glow he gave them.

The touch to his forehead was a surprise, met with a wide gaze and a hesitant grin. His new friend seemed very... tired. And still sad. Hawthorne was satisfied with neither of these things. "O-okay, C-Cayenne," the little hybrid stuttered out, stumbling over her name. "I-if you s-say so." After all, she was gentle and nice, and she could talk to the plants, so she had to know best, right?

Either way, at least making the flower glow seemed to make her happy, and Hawthorne beamed at the praise, long tail swishing from side to side, a strong purr rumbling from his chest to pour from his throat. "T-t-thank y-you, M-miss Cayenne!" His golden eye seemed to sparkle with quite a ridiculous amount of surprise and awe, and all of his tiny carnivorous teeth were on display.

The kindness of the healer didn't stop there; she reached out to touch the flower and it sparked again, their magics mixing together in a tiny light show, and the buck watched, transfixed and fascinated, until the plant finally settled back to its normal color, giving off a blue-gold glow. Gaze wide and amazed, only her soft words broke him from the fixation, and he grinned, wiggling against the ground in excitement, trying to commit the occasion to memory. "R-really? Forever? That's s-so cool! I gotta s-show my da', he'll l-love it!" Honestly, Hawthorne didn't know how his father felt about plants, but he did seem to like things that glowed.

@Cayenne

"Mm..." She pondered his question. "Well, what would you be if you didn't have a mind, or eyes, or teeth, or legs, or a mouth to speak with, and no magic? No pain or touch receptors, so you couldn't feel anything. You would be....a feeling. Shut away from the world, self-contained, silent, satisfied with what you could collect and what you are given. Plants are...selfish and selfless at the same time, if that makes sense. So when you eat them, as long as you don't pull out the roots, most of them are perfectly fine and can grow back. In fact, from what I hear, they want you to eat their fruits and their seeds. You should just thank them for what they give you, rather than worry, because they don't want you to worry."

She really hoped that helped, and she fretted inside - but he thanked her slowly, so she left it at that.

And she watched him open up and smile as she did, and she found herself becoming relaxed in Thorne's presence. He was thoughtful and whimsical and kind and happy and safe and she could let herself calm down. There was no one to heal, no pain here, just...a friend and a flower.

Just a friend and a flower.
Just a friend and a flower.
She took a deep breath in, and let out her anxieties, repeating it in her head.

She smiled at him earnestly and kept absentmindedly petting his forehead; it was just...addicting? for some reason. "Who's your da', if I may ask? I wonder if I've met him before."

A feeling. The concept made him blink, storing it away in the back of his mind, already weaving it into stories and tales. Self-contained, silent, satisfied. A feeling. Even better, Cayenne seemed, finally, to be relaxing - and the gentle grooming between his stubby horns prompted a rumbling purr, seemingly disproportionately loud to how tiny the little buck truly was. Hawthorne smiled back at the healer, eye sparkling with triumph.

This, the satisfaction that trickled down his spine whenever he could make someone happier - that was his journey. It was enough. Wist could have the big adventure, if he could just keep this. Gaze slipping shut, gemstone eye disappearing under orange eyelids, the fluffy hybrid took a moment to respond, floppy ears perking forward, tail curling contentedly. "M-my da's n-name is Bartos! He's a-a King," he mumbled, working eye opening lazily to peer at Cayenne. "'n my mom's a Queen! A-and my sis i-is the hero," Hawthorne whispered, imparting a secret he held close.

After all, not just anyone was the brother of a hero.

It seemed the lemur had hit one of the buck's favorite subjects, considering both eyelids had peeled back, chest fur fluffing up with pride. "A-and I c-collect stories!" A grin flickered into a frown, and he lifted a coral-pink hoof in explanation, eyeing it with a tiny pool of disappointment. "But... all o-of 'em are in m-my head." The reason why was probably obvious, so the limb dropped back to the stone, and he huffed, perpetually displeased with being unable to physically record his tales.

@Cayenne