Small tippy-tappy furry legs stretched one by one from the odd room. The scents of fire and bees had immediately driven the little hatchling off and now here he was, emerging into Orion proper, a foot in length of mostly legs.

Ghostly white eyes stared wide around at the world, and one especially tippy-tappy foot clicked, its gemstone tip occasionally offbalancing the child.

The spider paused, lifting himself and peering with those pale eyes. He could see the ruined buildings, and the distant tower--and they were interesting; but he saw, too, the glittering quartz stars high overhead, and he wondered at them. Beautiful, he thought; though perhaps not for him.

This place was dark, which was good for hiding. But it was dry, and the rock here, even (as he slipped eight-legged over it) tasted of fire. Fire was bad.

After a few moments of wandering exploration, the spiderling began to feel exposed; and so he pulled himself into a crevice in the buildings, to sit and observe the world for awhile.

Nothing passed. Nothing came; and so, after awhile, the spiderling emerged again, hesitantly crawling into the ruins of the buildings nearby.

There were crumbled rocks, here, dirt, bits of things the spider did not recognize--and how could he, being so young? He crawled over it all, cautious, and scurried up the side of one of the buildings, feet clinging carefully.

Once at the top, he turned his ghost-white gaze out over Orion itself.

It was-... large.

"...Oooh," the little spider murmured, and then--startled and enamored at the sound of his own voice, crooned it again: "...Ooooh!" He'd nearly fallen back off the building the first time, but now he liked that voice--and it was his!

"Oh, ooooh, ooo-oooh-ahhh, oooh!" he said, in a sing-song voice, as he turned and scurried back down the wall. Fun! Sound was fun!

Spiders shouldn't be able to talk, should they-..? Legba didn't know. All he knew was that Orion looked big; and he wanted to learn it. To learn his new home.

He made his way back out, feeling his way out into the open center of Orion, and then off toward the air blowing through the tunnels.

Fairy!

It hadn't hatched at the same time as the spider- a little while had passed before the bright violet gemstone cracked and a grub the color of a gray morning's sky wormed its way out. Two antenna twitched and whirled as she carefully grew used to her new surroundings and, oblivious to whatever had chased Legba out of the cave, crawled her way on out to Orion.

She paused as she exited the strange cave-where-things-were-larger because everything just seemed...a little smaller here. At the same time, it was massive - the cave expanded farther off then she could see and she let out a tiny skree of delight. A new world, how exciting!

And a figure, racing off in front of her caught her attention away from what was around her and she zeroed in, curiosity driving her (slowly) forward, in an attempt to catch up. "Heyyy!" she called after the spider. "Heeeeyyyyy!!" Maybe they knew where this was - how big it was, what fun there was to do, and what they were supposed to be doing. Colorless light began shining a bit from her body as she tried to catch their attention.

@Legba

Legba turned sharply at the sound of another voice.

In another world, the young spider might have seen the caterpillar and thought, "food." Indeed there was a slight tinge of hunger, but it didn't really stir into his full consciousness for two reasons: first, he'd heard her before he'd seen her, and so he was thinking "friend" instead (or, at least, "person"); and second, she was so much bigger than him. They were both oversized, to be sure--but he was, what, a foot long? And she was four times that.

Six white-glow eyes regarded the caterpillar curiously.

"Hello," he answered, turning to face her, taking a step or two toward her. Pedipalps briefly raised, stroking down his fangs, then settling again. "Who are you?" A little guarded, perhaps--she was big, after all--but friendly enough; a child's curiosity, laced with distant wisdom beyond his years.

...Minutes, really.

@Fairy

Fairy!

She was already starting to feel pretty hungry as all the exertion in pulling herself towards the stranger used up the energy she had and she looked around, antennae twitching as she tried to search for food somewhere, momentarily forgetting about the spider until he actually spoke to her and she looked back down. "Oh! Hey!" she chirped happily.

"I'm uh...uh..." Who was she? She was...a caterpillar...no, not right...a fairyfly? That word sounded correct, but it wasn't her enough. "Fairy!" she said a moment later and, uh, it sure wasn't exactly a fit description for the pale purple noodle of fuzz that was waving antennae excitedly at this giant spider."I'm Fairy! And what about you? Do you know about this place? I just got here."

@Legba

The spider again passed pedipalps over chelicerae, a nervous gesture perhaps, or a thoughtful one. He turned away, keeping his distance some, to look out here and there over Orion. He then looked back, and for whatever reason, there was humor dancing in his eyes.

If one could read "spider" eyes, at least.

"Legba is my name. Hello, Fairy--for me, the same. Just out of the cave, right back there. And here-... Well, I don't know where. There's sparks up high, I see those. I think there was fire; I taste it with my toes."

His voice--though young--was silky-smooth, a pleasant mellifluousness to it, and Legba seemed pleased with this.

He turned, and took a few steps toward Orion's center before pausing, peering brightly back at the oversized caterpillar. "Would you like to come with me? Out into the cave? I want to go and see--if you're at all brave.

@Fairy

Fairy!

The caterpillar let out a small squeal of delight, rising up to stand on her mang back legs while the two stubby legs on the top of her body wiggled happily. "You're speaking in rhyme! Oh my gosh, do that again, that's so cool!" She giggled and set herself back down on the ground and looked back at the cave she'd come from, with all the big grass and stuff. "Oh, you came from there too? That's where I came from! Everything was bigger in there but this caves seems bigger. I'm a little confused."

A fire? She did not know what a fire was, but actually paying attention to her senses. And she, too, could feel the burnt tinge in the air, the echoed remains of a fire that had once raged furiously through this place. "Oh...I wonder if fires happen often. I sure hope not!" She didn't sound all that worried about it and she put it in the back of her mind what she would do if there was going to be a fire. It was such a distant concept that she couldn't ever imagine it happening to her.

Her antennae waved expressively and she made another tiny delighted sound. "I would love to go with you to the cave! After all, I think I'm quite...brave!" She seemed proud of herself for rhyming as well, even if it was just...copied from Legba. This didn't seem to occur to her.

@Legba

Oh, she was stroking his ego, and he loved it. The little spider was, it seemed, a prideful little thing; and the more Fairy praised him, enthusiastic, the higher he drew himself up, running legs over one another, his pedipalps over his fangs. Grooming and preening, and feeling terribly proud of himself.

"Aww, aren't you the nicest thing. I didn't mean to speak in rhyme. Maybe I should sing-? Ha! Hm-..."

Foiled.

He was still just a child; what rhymed with... rhyme? Time? Lime? What's a lime?

Ahh, well.

"Say, your rhyme wasn't too bad, yourself." Legba appeared oblivious to the fact that she had, indeed, used one he'd used just before. He could be excused, perhaps, by his age, or maybe he just wasn't as bright as all that. In any case, he started to crawl his way out into Orion, peering up curiously at the sparkling ceiling, and out at the tower. "Everything does seem bigger. What's that big thing over there, d'you think?" The spider paused, turning his body to peer back, making sure the caterpillar was keeping up--and then he looked to the tower, again.

What could it possibly be..?

@Fairy

Fairy!

Fairy giggled at Legba's little response, apparently not realizing that it wasn't exactly literal. "I would love to hear you sing!" She didn't know why he was doing that thing, running his little arm things over his fangs, but she decided to try it too, raising her thorax off the ground and trying to get her legs up to brush against her face, but it ended up looking quite ridiculous as her legs just wiggled futiley, way to short to get anywhere near her head.

She got distracted by Legba's compliment, setting herself back on the ground, antennae standing straight up. "Thank you so much! It seems I got the...touch?" It didn't make a lot of sense but - at least it rhymed!

She followed Legba as best as she could, worming her way forward as fast as a caterpillar could, quickly falling behind, but doing her very very best to keep up. She followed Legba's gaze at the tower and let out a small excited noise. "Ohhh that is so big! I wonder what that is too, maybe a big tree?" She tilted her head, rising off the ground a bit. "We should climb it! I wanna see from the top!"

@Legba

Legba was delighted at that rhyme. Did it make sense? Maybe not. But "the touch" had a fantastic vibe to it, he felt; a sort of mystical and faintly-ominous but oh-so-promising sound.

"The touch... the touch! You have the touch? -That all sounds very magical, and such." Oh, he was proud of that one. He hardly even noticed the poor caterpillar trying, and failing, to groom her face, so full of himself was he!

But he didn't forget her, no; he needed that audience. He turned back a few times, making sure she'd keep up, slowing if she couldn't, as he made his way, too, toward the tower. "The top... yes! A tree, you say? I could see it." No rhyme, there, just consideration, curiosity.

When at last he reached it, he found that his feet were having some trouble clinging. Instinct told him to just smear a li'l fungus on it, so he tried that, not really knowing what that meant, but hey.

He wasn't real sure what was meant to happen, but what did happen was nothing, so he started his way up.

Along the outer wall. Legba had not, in fact, seen the doorway yet.

@Fairy