Lamia had fallen down the waterfall many times before - she once did it for sport when she was a child, so the graceful dive she performed into the lagoon was wholly natural to her. Once she was within the crystal clear waters, she immediately made for the cavern she called home. It was completely bare - she didn't really require anything - save for a few clots of Mother's fungus. She deposited the crystal shards on the stone and scooped up the clots instead, holding them close as she made for the surface.

She knew of other places in Pisces that she could make a home for Mother. She considered the original hive place, but...no, the Masters knew of that one. They could easily find it again.

So, instead, she made for the far side of the lagoon skirting far around the place she knew Tenzin rested, and began searching along the inside of the lagoon for a possible cave to take Mother to. There was a crevice in the wall...perhaps...that might work! She squeezed in carefully, but the second she was inside, she realized that it was a dead end. The tunnel led to nowhere.

Turning, she tried to get her way out, but she found herself unable to squeeze through the crack from the inside. She struggled and pushed, some of the rocks tearing at her scales, before she finally got herself free. She grumbled with frustration into the water. Why did this have to be so hard?

She continued swimming through the lagoon, searching along the wall for an exit to another tunnel. But she had no such luck.

Swimming along the side of the lagoon, the edges didn't hold anything good that she could swim into to plant Mother. So she abandoned her search of beneath the waves and, instead, poked her head above water, looking around for a sheltered area. It didn't have to be grand or as hidden as Pallas's den - just a place that wasn't obvious to the wandering eye.

She eventually came across this place - a small, shallow stream that branched from the pain lagoon into a sheltered cove. Curious, Lamia swam forward , having to take to pulling herself across the stream, as it was too shallow to swim across, until it ended and the small cove opened up to her. There was a bit of plant life - not much, but it was something. And as she explored the edges, she found a break in the wall, just above the surface of the water that led to a small cave.

Ah, this was good.

She swam up to the shore and pulled herself so that she was just on shore and deposited Mother's fungus on the dry stone. Is this better, Mother?

Roll was for finding a tunnel along the inside of the lagoon's walls.

There was a quiet, somewhat weary murmur of appreciation. Feeling a portion of oneself die was likely not easy, or perhaps Mother had other reasons for tiredness; whatever the case, there was approval for Pisces. Lamia could, for a moment, feel the prickle in her mind of the nest peering through her eyes, sensing through her skin, before retreating.

"It is good... it is hidden. You are a good daughter," her voice crooned.

Slowly, the white began to spread, but the knowledge that Mother would indeed need feeding was there.

@Lamia

Lamia echoed with pride as Mother shared her approval. She didn't mind her using her eyes and senses to see the place she had brought her - after all, they were one. They would always be one. And through this oneness, she could sense the hunger. Mother needed food.

Lamia turned away and dove into the water, passing beneath the overhanging rock and emerging back in the cove. There were fish swimming around here - small ones, not big enough for Lamia to catch. So she crawled across the shallow stream and back into the main lagoon.

There were much bigger fish to catch here and she had an idea for catching them without chasing them around. She held out a hand and pointed as a nearby fish, focusing magic and willing the water of the lagoon to freeze and impale the fish.

It worked - in a second, a spear of ice solidified and stabbed directly through the fish's body. It gave a few feeble flaps of its fins before falling still and sinking. Quickly, Lamia dove down to catch it, pulling it up to the shore and tossing it on the rocks. Hopefully, nobody would come and steal it while she hunted for more.

She didn't have to go too far, although some of the nearby fish had fled at the blood that had leaked out from the first fish she'd caught - she might have to change her strategy. The second one she laid her eyes on, instead of spearing it through, she focused instead on stopping it - freezing the water around its fins so it couldn't move.

It worked again - the fish, suddenly finding that it was stuck in place, began to thrash, but it couldn't do much with all of its swimming tools frozen solid. Lamia quickly swam up, place her hands on either side of its neck, and snapped its spine quickly. No blood.

She grabbed it and swam back to the surface, tossing the fish onto shore to join the first.

The third fishing was not so lucky - as she approached a nearby school, she decided to get greedy, opening both palms to focus herself on expanding the ice - freezing multiple small areas at once to catch more then a single fish at a time. In theory, it was a good idea - she could easily rack up a large number of fish with this skill. However, as she tried to put it into action, she found the mental strain of trying to focus on multiple places at once way too difficult.

Instead of freezing the fins of the fish, she suddenly felt a weight and looked down. Oops. She'd frozen the end of her tail.

She let out a chittering sound of laughter as she flipped on her back, bringing up her fin, and breaking away the ice that had collected. She fell back and turned, righting herself in the water.

Okay, back to the original plan of freezing one fish at a time, since that was probably the best she could do. Plus, she realized that she might not be able to bring back so many fish at once - they were all fairly big fish.

So as she swam back to where she'd left the other two, she caught sight of another one and quickly froze its fins together, dispatching it as she'd done the last. Three should be enough for now, she hoped. Mother's new hive was small, after all. It might not need too much at the start.

She poked her head above water and grabbed the fish she'd left on shore, holding them by their tail fins as she swam back to the cove. She was right - she probably wouldn't be able to carry back more then this. They dragged behind her and slowed her down and she had to use two hands to carry them with their weight.

Getting over the miniscule stream wasn't easy. Without enough water, she had to drag both them and herself across the naked ground, achieving this by throwing them forward one at a time, dragging herself, then tossing them again until they splashed into the cove. Once she'd gathered them, she arrived at Mother's cave, slipping beneath the overhang, and pulling them onto shore.

Food, Mother. Fish. She pushed the offerings forward so that they were resting on the growing clots. She barely heard the faint rumbling of her own stomach - that wasn't important compared to feeding Mother. She sat there for a moment before she dared to ask - Why did you die back there, Mother? Are you okay?

@Game Master Dark

Gratitude swept through Lamia's mind with each fish she laid at the new nest. Lamia was a good child. A special daughter. Among the rest, she stood out for this effort.

And yet, an unsettling sense of ravening hunger briefly whispered past, a quiet roar, as Mother fed: the fungus visibly crawling over the fish, swelling and sweating, the scales of the creatures falling away as their bodies shrivelled and dried.

Pleasure washed it all away. Joy. Contentment. This was good. This was all good...

"That place... holds other magic. Magic that may... in time, be ours, my good daughter. But for now, we must all grow stronger. Tell me, my child: can you join some of the fish of this place to our minds?" A brief image flashed through their shared link: a thousand pinpoints of stars in the dark, perfectly ordered in columns and rows. Where some winked out, others blazed up, and the concept was clear: with enough family members, with enough of them spread around, it did not matter what Astraea and the others did. As long as even a single scrap of Mother remained, she could spread, again, as she'd done from here, as she'd done from Fornax. So long as her children shared her warmth, the Hive could never truly be destroyed.

@Lamia

Lamia watched the fish as they shriveled in Mother's embrace but too far gone in her connection with the fungus, she didn't find this strange at all. She was not revolted - Mother was simply feeding on them. After all, it wasn't much different from her own messy way of eating, tearing into flesh with razor-sharp teeth. Just different.

She felt a surge of pride as Mother's approval washed over her. She was special, amongst the others. She loved them, still, as she loved all her family, but she had grown a new hive all by herself. Mother was proud of her. She was useful. Yes, Mother, was all she said in response to her new mission. She gathered a few clots of white from the growing mass and dove back into the water with them.

Once back in the main lagoon, she began pinpointing different fish that were swimming around the area. It would be most useful to freeze all of them at once, but once she released her magic, she realized that she'd need to practice. Ah, well, this was as good a time as any. The first that she stopped, she shoved the clot against its gills for a moment, so that some of the spores would invade its system before moving on.