It hadn't taken very long for curiosity to grip the opossum's heart like ivy upon stone. Upon realizing how vast the world outside the chrysalis was, how vast this one cave she had hatched within was, and then to realize that there were more caves, even bigger caves...that had set an adventurous flame alight in her heart. Even with her stubby legs and baby feet, she was off to explore, not minding at all the mud and dirt she was dragging herself through. She'd give herself a bath eventually, and groom the rest of the amniotic fluid out of her hair, but she was too excited to stop for now. She had to see outside this one cave.

Not that it was easy. She was a very small opossum and while Cetus wasn't the largest in the cave system, it was, to her, absolutely massive and she didn't know which way the exit was, leading her to wander around the perimeter for a while before eventually finding the tunnel exit. By the time she had wandered into the tunnel away, she was tired and hungry and absolutely filthy, so completely covered in Cetus's mud and grime, that there were only flecks of her original colors showing through under all the layers of muck.

She didn't seem to notice any of these things, however, as she made her way through the tunnel leading away, beady eyes wide with wonder at the ice that covered the walls and how different it was from the cave she'd hatched in. Where there had been high arching trees and pools of water and mud, here there was only stone and ice as far as she could see. For a moment, fear traced across her mind. She'd just stepped into what was almost a different world, where there were no living things, at least from this first glance. Cetus had been cold and murky, and dark, but it was at least alive. There was life everywhere, at every step, but there wasn't any here.

But the fear trying to push its way to the front was quickly drowned by the excitement of discovery and she immediately trotted forward, intent on seeing what else this tunnel connected to.

@Thalia

Thalia, meanwhile, was humming. Her voice came from the direction of the Eridanus entrance, and she was reflecting on how damn cold it was, here. She should've brought one of the furs, but even so she didn't plan to be here long. It was an idle wander, a desire to see if there might be anything here she could use as a musical instrument. It was with a sort of mental facepalm that she remembered that this tunnel held mostly ice, and that ice would, in fact, melt. Useless, then, but still she wandered along. She'd hang out until the cold got to be too much, she figured, then go wherever her hooves had taken her.

Her voice was sweet today, not drunkenly off-key at least. Its notes were high, a cheerful, quiet tune, wordless and serene. The song was, however, quite abruptly interrupted when the baby opossum came into view.

It looked, she reflected, rather like a cute baby cave rat: mud-slicked, fur matted wet, so dirty that Thalia couldn't quite make out what color it was meant to be. She hesitated, smiling quizzically, and then spoke; her demeanor was friendly, body language wholly nonthreatening.

"...Hey, little guy," (which was a term of endearment and an entirely wrong guess)--"You okay, there? Are you, uh... You can't speak, can you?"

Surely something so tiny, so rodent-looking, was a Lesser--right?

@Liliana

Lily continued shambling unsteadily on atop stubby baby legs, head swinging back and forth as she looked all around the caves, at each trail of water, each rivulet of ice, each and every crack and detail of the stone walls, wondering if they meant anything, if any of those crevices held creatures (or bugs, mmm tasty food), or if someone had scratched those markings long ago. The possibilities were so endless that she almost missed the sound of humming from up ahead. Keyword: almost.

As soon as she heard it, she froze. And only an instant later, the owner of the voice appeared from around the corner and the humming stopped. Beady eyes bulged with terror at the sheer height of the creature in front of her and as the stranger took a step forward, she flinched back, jaw opening slightly as a hiss escaped her throat.

The hissing stopped quite quickly though, because this creature was making noises too, just like the other weird four legged thing had. And...oh! She noticed, as the creature came closer, that they had similar hooved feet as well, the same feet she'd once thought as scary. Maybe that meant that this one was a friend too.

She hadn't quite worked out everything about speech just yet, but she figured that the stranger was trying to say something to her. She lifted herself up a bit and tilted her head, wondering how she should respond. She wanted to accept its offering of peace - she figured that that was what speech was, since a predator wouldn't speak to its prey, would it? - so she did what she could to shout out a response. She sucked in a breath and yowled in a shrill voice, "THERE YOU ME TRY GOOD CAN HELLO ARE FIRST WELL!!" Hopefully that was enough.

@Thalia

Thalia watched the creature with a sort of bemused good nature. Liliana's logic was accurate, in Thalia's case; if she were hunting she'd not speak to prey. But she wasn't really a hunter, anyway. She stuck to fruits and leaves, because first of all she felt bad eating other animals and second, uh, her father's carvings? Freaky. Anyway, this one spoke, rather unexpectedly, breaking her brief thoughts:

'THERE YOU ME TRY GOOD CAN HELLO ARE FIRST WELL!'

Thalia stared, for a moment, the bemusement swelling, puzzled and bizarrely hilarious. What-? she thought, and then her smile split into a grin. She pointed a couple finger-guns at Liliana, leaning back with a swish of her tail and making a sort of "tsck" sound: "Hell yeah!" was her loud, agreeable answer.

'There you me try good,' absolutely!

"Anyway, uh, nice to meet you. I'm Thalia." Her nose scrunched up, her grin twitching impishly across her face as she looked the poor, muddy creature over. "You need a bath, kiddo," she laughed. Then she remembered how damn cold it was, and lifted her hands to cover opposite arms, rubbing her biceps briefly. "You got a name?" she asked, and scooted a little to one side, so as not to appear to be blocking Liliana's way.

She wasn't sure if the stranger would want to stop and chat, or move on alone, or maybe come with her someplace a little less chilly--but she was well aware of how she probably appeared, a giant looming in the poor rat-thing's path.

...Rat or not, it was kinda cute, she had to admit to herself; she couldn't keep another Gembound as a pet, but it sure was tempting to try.

@Liliana

It seemed to Lily that her babbling attempt at speaking had actually worked, as the stranger made more agreeable-sounding noises right back at her, with a gesture of their arms that didn't make much sense to the possum, but she hoped they were friendly. "H..Hellllll...yee....yee....yeah!!!" She went through each sound and syllable slowly, testing it before parroting back, "HELL YEAH!" She didn't know what that meant but from the sound of the other ones' voice, and the friendly gesture, it was good. She'd have to save that for later.

She continued looking up at the two-legged creature as it moved to the side, but she made no move to leave. She'd affirmed this creature as friendly for now and was relaxed, even curious about them. They looked quite different from other creatures she'd seen, with two legs instead of four and purple, furless skin on their top half. How strange. Isn't she cold? After all, she was quite cold herself even with her (albeit muddy and soaked) fur, but she supposed the fur on her lower half would help. Or maybe that's why she was rubbing her arms?

She was really trying hard to understand this whole "language" thing, but she was saying too much too quickly and the possum found herself quite confused. She was obviously expecting some kind of response, based on the way she was looking at her, but what she was asking was lost on the child. She was quite for a moment, struggling to figure out how to respond when she just gave up and went with plan B: babble. "Name! Name need nice you got yeah bath!" At the very least, she was picking out individual words instead of utter jibberish.

@Thalia

Ahh, the word soups of youth. Thalia laughed good-naturedly. "Okay, uh--well, I know where you can get a bath. And, food, too," she said, slowly, with absolutely no illusions about Liliana actually understanding her. Her arms remained wrapped around one another as she went on. "Do you wanna come with me, maybe? Follow me?"

One hand came loose, to gesture at her own chest; "Want to come with me?" Then she gestured down the tunnel, back toward Eridanus, with a few tentative steps and a questioning expression.

Would the opossum understand? She had her doubts, but it seemed the right thing to try, at least. The Elenya camp held plenty of food and water, and damned if it wasn't warmer at least.

@Liliana

The creature continued to make noise, so she assumed she was doing something right. Maybe she was really getting the hang of this speech thing! But now the two-legged creature was making gestures - at herself, down the tunnel, and then took a few steps, looking at the possum quizzically. This she understood - she wanted to take Lily somewhere. Instincts told her absolutely not. Even if she was being friendly now, this was still a potential predator. She was bigger then her, definitely stranger, and those claws on her head could probably be deadly. But she pushed the instincts down out of excitement for her newfound communication skills. And because she was hungry and cold and maybe she knew where to find food and warmth.

The opossum took a couple of steps after her and then remembered the confirmation words she'd just learned in their conversation. What a perfect opportunity to show off her new skills! "Hell yeah!" she squeaked as she stumbled after her. Stubby child legs wouldn't exactly keep up well with Thalia, but she wasn't exactly a quitter.

@Thalia

Thalia glanced back at the tiny child waddling after her. It seemed... inefficient, like she'd have to struggle the whole way there. But how to communicate "hey, I can carry you" to someone who barely knew how to speak just yet-?

Her face squinted up a little as she thought about it, and after a moment's hesitation she paused in her stride.

"Hey, uh, want me to carry you-?" she asked, then lifted up her arms and demonstrated carrying an invisible object, rocking it gently. Fingers came out to imitate walking feet: "So you don't have to walk?" She turned, gesturing down the tunnel with an expansive, overdone sweep of one arm; "It's still really far." Which--it wasn't that far, but that was for Thalia, and not a thing with legs only a few inches long.

She looked around, and tried to mime her intentions with a rock: picking it up, carrying it a few hoof-clicking steps, then peering back at Liliana. She set the rock down, crouched and offered out her arms.

"Want me to carry?" she repeated, trying to seem as friendly as she could, posture and tone as innocent as possible. Which--she was totally friendly, but she figured it was probably easy to seem suspicious to something so comparatively small.

@Liliana (would you want to continue in Eridanus after another round or two, assuming Liliana does accompany, maybe?)

The opossum was fully prepared to waddle all the way to wherever Thalia was taking her so when her new friend paused and looked down, she also stopped, confused. Was something wrong? She leaned back to look up at the saytr's face and tilted her head quizzically. She watched her mime strangely, not quite getting it this time. What was with the finger walking? And why was she gesturing towards the cave? Didn't she know she was already following her there?

But then she picked up the rock and it clicked. She wanted to carry her there. The thought put her on edge and when she held out her arms, the joey instinctively took a step back, fur beginning to rise and glaring suspiciously at her open arms. If she let her carry her, that would be putting herself completely at her mercy. If she had any bad intent, it would be all too easy to do it with the possum child clutched in her arms. What if this had all been a trick to get her to drop her guard, just so she could kill her and eat her without any trouble?

No, that didn't make a lot of sense. If she wanted to kill her, she would have done so already. She was huge, compared to Lily, and could overpower her without any trouble at all. And besides, they'd already exchanged words of peace. And she didn't have the experience needed to be suspicious of breaking trust. So, a moment later, she carefully, cautiously, stepped forward into her arms, allowing her to pick her up.

@Thalia (Yeah, I'm good with that)

She was gentle in offering out her arms, in trying to scoop up the baby hatchling--and oh boy, she hadn't realized just how covered the poor kid was in Cetus's grime! She did her best to hoist the baby up to her collarbones, right up to her neck, her long hair providing a sort of pillow where it cascaded down over her shoulders. An instinctive few pats were offered to the opossum's back, and Thalia smirked.

"Bath, food... any idea what you eat? Or, uh. Y'know. What your name is?" she tried, though she fully expected to get, in return, another barrage of happy nonsense.

Hoof-clicks carried her forward, down the tunnel, toward home--and toward someplace a little warmer.

@Liliana

exit Thalia - do you want to start the new thread or should I? (I'm fine with either!)