Origin may have been only one cave system, with a limited number of tunnels and rooms, but Lei was young yet and inclined to be pleased and fascinated by everything she saw. This was a time of discovery, and discovering was exactly what the little lioness was aiming to do. Only recently had she discovered the tunnels, and had immediately set about wandering through them, loosing herself in the warren-like maze that was Origin cave. Thoughts of danger or being unable to find her way home did not occur to her.

Besides, she probably remembered how to get back to Pisces. Look for the water, right? As simple as that?

Regardless, such thoughts were for a vague future, and right now a very not-vague now was occupying her thoughts. She'd just discovered Orion, and two things about it fascinated her equally: the crumbling ruins of probably-buildings that stood abandoned and crumbling, and the glittering crystal-scape above her head. Lei ambled through the decaying buildings, occasionally climbing some rubble pile or the ruins of a wall so that she might be taller, might stretch her head higher to get a better look at the glittering sky above.

What was it up there, looking so beautiful and glittery? What did it mean? Could she have it, could she wear it behind her ear where currently was tucked a small flower?

@Ranzor

Image by Banshee/xx-Starry@DA; Table by me; Pattern from Dinpattern.com

For what seemed like the longest of time a young newly born gemling lay on the cold ground. His body continued to shiver as the once warm liquid that he had hibernated in since he could remember inside of his Chyrsalis eventually began to cool and dry onto his brown painted fur. Pieces of shattered smoky quartz surrounded him and scattered along the area. Wide garnet eyes blinked and looked around in disdain. It was far too cold for his liking. Especially as the liquid that clung to his pelt began to annoy him with how cold it was getting.

He snorted and bleated for a moment, flicking his long ears every which way as he began to shift. He needed to get up and move. There was no more desire to lay upon the cold ground as he shivered like a quivering baby. He just needed to actuate himself a little bit....

...Slowly, but surely, Ranzor began to pull his legs out from beneath him. Shakily moving the long, awkward limbs to a position that would help pull him from the ground. With a snort and another huff ranzor shakily pulled himself up. There he would stand for what seemed like an eternity to him as he wobbled and shook, but it was soon enough he managed the courage to actually try to move. One step after another Ranzor began to walk away from where he had rolled out of his gem. With only a few trip ups along the way Ranzor was finally on his way to who knows where.

As his confidence grew in his walking Ranzor found himself trying to prance. Picking up his hooves in a quicker pace as he hurried on. Though, there would come consequences for not paying attention to where he was going. With his eyes focused on the ground he was walking on Ranzor was very unaware of the small body of something new in front of him. It wasn't until he suddenly collided into the creature did a surprised bleat escape the calf as he went tumbled over the creature.

Nostril's flared angrily as he scrambled around on the ground trying to get back up on his hooves all the while his head swung around to see what had tripped him. He bleated again, almost angrily, as his ears pinned back against his head. Words came to mind and he opened his mouth as if he were going to try to say something, but only another annoyed bleat escaped the elk who was now struggling to get his legs untangled.

"Speech" 'Thoughts'

Tags: @Lei
OoC: Oop. sorry there was no speech from him XD.

As fascinated as she was with the glittery sky above her and the ruins all around her, Lei did not notice the presence of another young creature; the mild bleating he made as he rose to his feet and hobbled forward a first few steps. She'd done that days ago, and it was old hat to her-- her own childishly focused attention was fixed everywhere but the living things directly around her.

And as a result, she was surprised as he was when the little creature bowled directly into her. She was not so practiced with young legs that she could keep her own footing; she went tumbling right over.

What Lei had attempted to do was a thing most felines could do automatically, and which she tried to do on instinct-- she tried to turn the fall into a suave roll, so that she ended up back on her feet in one fluid feline motion. Unfortunately, fluid feline motions were something developed with practice that Lei lacked, and often helped by a natural awareness of one's surrounding which Lei also had yet to develop. She carried her roll forward, but took it a little too far, right into an unstable rubble pile at the base of one of the ruined walls all around them. Jostled by the impact of her body-weight, the unstable pile reshuffled itself, creating a minor landslide that pinned Lei beneath some heavy stones.

She was mostly uninjured-- a little bruising, which was lucky, all things considered-- but she had yet to realize that, shocked as she was with the fact that the skypart of a building had just toppled onto her. With enough strategic squirming over the course of an hour, she might free herself from her accidental prison-- but strategic squirming was beyond her child's panic response, at the moment.

"Why did you do that?" she asked Ranzor, as if it was intentional, her voice full of panic. "Help me out of here? Please?"

There was a wobble to her voice, the sort that preceded a full-on tantrum with baby tears and flailing limbs-- or as close to flailing limbs as a panicked kitten trapped under a small rockpile could manage.

((Not how i'd planned this thread to go-- yay critical failures!!))

@Ranzor

Image by Banshee/xx-Starry@DA; Table by me; Pattern from Dinpattern.com

Wide garnet eyes stared as the strange creature seemed to go rolling into a wall. A flinch caught the newly born elk calf off guard and he scrambled up to his unsteady hooves. Pointed ears flicked about with unease as he stared at where the rocks had crumbled. Her voice came out from beneath, blaming him for what had happened and he snorted loudly as he stamped his two front hooves down heavily to display his discontent with her words. "Nnn....noooo....nooot m..my faaa... fault!" He huffed and snorted, grumbling and he fumbled with his words. When she had asked him to help her he was just about to turn and leave, but then she had said another word. Please.

His eyes narrowed for a moment before he shakily began to walk towards the pile of rubble. He lowered his neck, snuffling his nose at the broken pieces of rubble that entrapped the feline beneath it. How was he suppose to move rocks? He had no hands! He paced back and forth in front of it for a moment before trying to nudge a few pieces with his head, but it didn't seem to budge much.

Deciding that trying that wasn't doing much good he finally got annoyed and began to turn around. Maybe if he kicked them. With that thought the calf made to balance on his front legs as he quickly lifted his hind legs and made to strike the rubble with his hooves. Hopefully he would not hurt her while he tried to kick the rocks loose.

"Speech" 'Thoughts'

Tags: @Lei
OoC: I'm so sorry it's short and lame .-.

Lei's terrified flailing was now mixed with little scared mewl-cries; she was hopeless on her own. For a second, she worried that the elk would abandon her here-- that she would be trapped here forever-- and so when he approached the rock pile and began to nudge it with his face, she felt an overwhelming rush of gratefulness that almost made her forget that it was his fault she was in this mess (it wasn't, not really, but a scared child was not the most logical of creatures).

Nevertheless, she had enough sense to know that being rude would probably make him run off, and then she'd be trapped here forever and probably die under these rocks, and that prospect seemed very imminently real and very terrifying. It was her first run-in with the concept of mortality and that was not a comfortable sensation, and made her mewl-cry all the harder. She watched the elk turn around and strike out with her back paws, felt his success, minor though it was, in the shifting of the rocks. "Ohmygodthankyou!" she squealed, at that shifting of stone, and began to wriggle in a more determined, more strategic way-- towards "out" rather than "in all directions in a terrified flail."

Her attempts were successful, and not a moment too-soon-- lost of their structural leonine component, the rock-pile fell further forward as soon as Lei had skittered free, spraying them both in dust and gravel. Lei had lost some tail-hairs to the collapse, but-- despite the pinched and painful sensation in her tail, and the bruises along all of her-- she considered that a victory.

She was still crying, but less fiercely now that the danger was done, and now she was shaking like a leaf. This was a fear that would linger with her, this first unpleasant interaction with the world at large and rocks in particular. Water was okay, but rocks were not. "Thank you for helping me." she mewled, voice shaky. "I'm Lei."

AS she said this, she edged away from the edges of the decaying edges of building on either side, not keen to be trapped under the rocks oncemore.

((No worries! there's never a need to apologize when playing with me. :D I dun care how long replies are or how long it took to make them, so long as you had fun with it! ♥ ))
@Ranzor
((Sorry if anyone gets tagged twice-- i realized i'd been using the tagging system wrong, so i went through all my threads and redid the tag so it would notify people if it hadn't the first time.))

Image by Banshee/xx-Starry@DA; Table by me; Pattern from Dinpattern.com

It was soon that the rocks finally began to give way to his kicking. The feline shifted in her own way before she finally pulled free from the rubble and Ranzor snorted as he trotted away from the rocks, prancing around before he was once again facing the feline. Long ears flicked about before pinned back at the feline's constant crying. He wasn't quite sure he even liked that sound! Of course when she repeated her appreciation to him, Ranzor felt a swell of pride in his chest begin to rise. Of course, it was probably just his ego just as well. His tail twitched and wiggled behind him as he looked on at the feline with renewed interest. "Lei....?" He spoke the word, his voice a bit scratchy as he tested out the sound.

"I....aaam.." He paused for a moment, a frown beginning to spread across his features. Did he even have a name? He lowered his head a moment as he thought to himself, going through sounds that seemed foreign, yet familiar to him. Finally his ears jumped up and he jerked his head back up into a more proper position. "I. Am Ranzor," He declared, his front hoof clacking against the ground as he nodded his own head in approval of the name.

"What are you doing here? It's kinda bland..." He grunted, glancing around his surroundings. The rubble on the ground, the dilapidated buildings, all of it was just so...ugh to him. He sneered at it for a moment before turning his focus back to the feline. "Did you wake up here too?"

"Speech" 'Thoughts'

Tags: @lei
OoC: boop

Freed now from the vile rock-pile, Lei's crying lessened in intensity, dying down to the occasional sniffle and whimper. Her eyes remained big and watery, though, and she carefully got as far away from the rock as she could be and still be polite; she wanted nothing to do with the decaying ruins now, not once they'd fallen on her. "N-nice to meet you, Ranzor. T-thanks again for helping me." she said, words punctuated by sniffles.

The question 'did you wake up here' made her realize how fresh he must be-- how young. This shook her out of her residual fear that much more, and she focused on Ranzor properly instead of the wayward rock pile. "No, I woke up that way. In Pisces, a room full of waterfalls and water." she said, gesturing vaguely through one of the tunnels from whence she'd come. "It's /really/ pretty there. Not like-- not like here." She frowned slightly, "Very green and lots of water."

She wouldn't exactly call this place bland-- not really-- even now, the mysterious potential promised by the decaying ruins were full of fascination and wonder. They were just now also full of fear. Lei looked at them and shuddered again; if Ranzor hadn't been here. Still, Lei was an honest little creature, especially so young, when no one had introduced the concept of diplomacy to her. "I wouldn't say it's bland. But I don't like it here. You woke up here?"

@Ranzor

Image by Banshee/xx-Starry@DA; Table by me; Pattern from Dinpattern.com

Her sniveling and whimpering would have once been annoying to the freshly emerged elk calf, but with the ego boost the feline had so graciously given him Ranzor all but accepted the noises. His legs shifted, moving as if to make sure they were still there. Hooves clacked against the stone ground and he glanced down, almost curious by the noises they made. "Welcome," He spoke blandly in response to her words. Long ears twitched and swiveled forward, listening to Lei as she spoke of the place she came from. "That sounds like a much better place than this place," He commented with a firm tone.

His head moved around, averting his gaze to search around their surroundings once again. At Lei's next question, garnet eyes shot back towards the feline. "I did. Right over there!" He huffed and snorted again as he turned in his spot and pointed his nose off in the direction he had originally came from. It wasn't far from here and he could still see his shattered gem egg littering the ground from where he emerged. "I am hungry! What's to eat?" He suddenly grunted loudly, stamping his front hooves against the ground once again. His ears twitched as he curiously looked to the feline. He had no idea what was to eat, or what even he could eat. Surely what this feline ate Ranzor could eat as well.

"Speech" 'Thoughts'

Tags: @Lei
OoC: Ever grumpy ranzor :'D

Ranzor's compliment of Pisces drew from Lei a watery smile. "It /is/ a really nice place." she said emphatically, "Really pretty and peaceful" (and not covered in terrifying and gravity-obeying rocks, which were quickly becoming the proprieters of fear to the young lioness). "I can take you to see it if you want. It's not too far from here, only through those tunnels over there..." she trailed off as she looked vaguely in the direction she'd come, waving a paw at the entrance way.

But Ranzor's next question provided a much more pressing problem, and she looked at him in alarm, eyes wide as she considered him. At least focusing on the problem of another gem was a quick way to calm down-- she nearly forgot her fear entirely, as she examined his face, concerned. She'd been hungry too, when she hatched; she remembered that, remembered the clenching in her belly. She'd been lucky enough to meet kind strangers though, who quickly became her family and her support structure-- she felt for Ranzor, who hatched alone. "Oh! Um. It doesn't look like you have the teeth for fish." she said dubiously-- this was why she'd been examining his face. She knew how to fish, sort of, though she didn't like to do it and more often then not drew her own sustenance from wherever she walked, courtesy of magic. She remembered the flesh of the creature, though, remembered that it had needed her pointy teeth to rip it apart. "But I can try to get you a fish if you want. Or, um." she looked around, looking for anything that might be edible-- she'd never really met a herbivore before, and had no idea how to recognize them or what they ate, or even that there were creatures who ate plants. She sighed hopelessly. "I'm no good at hunting. Does.. anything look like it might taste good? Or I can try hunting, if you want?"

She did, desperately, want to be helpful-- caring for things came naturally to the little lion cub. She just didn't always know how.

@Ranzor

Coding: Cecil ♥ Image: Matt ♥ Pattern: Dinpattern.com

An offer was given to him. One that would remove him from this god awful place of just broken rocks and musty smells. His long ears flicked back and forth for a moment as he contemplated the idea of leaving. It left a strange sense to him, almost as if part of him wasn't ready to leave the place he had just emerged in. Perhaps he would just think about it for a little while longer. It wasn't long before Lei was talking again and garnet eyes shifted back towards the feline with interest. "What's a fish?" He huffed with interest, pushing his ears forward as he continued to listen to her. When she asked if he saw anything around that he may find good enough to eat Ranzor turned his gaze away from her.

His eyes narrowed with annoyance. Rocks. Rocks. Rocks and more rocks. "Rocks don't look very good," He grunted and snorted, stomping a hoof against the ground thoughtfully. His nostril's flared, taking in the scents from all around him, but even stilll all he could smell was the dirt of rubble and the feline just a few paces away from him. "What's fish taste like? Surely if you can eat it so can I....right?" His turned his questioning gaze towards the lioness thoughtfully. He had no idea what a fish was, but whatever it was surely he could eat it too if something like this feline could.

"Speech" 'Thoughts'

Tags: @Lei
OoC: Oh dear Ranzor.... xD he's gonna regret asking that one lol