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CAVE STATUS
QUESTS/EVENTS
Torrential downpours cause localized flooding and many upset cats. Along with these frequent rain, from gentle drizzles to heavy rainfall, there seems to be a flux of Magicka drawn in particular to water sources. Occasional jet streams of warm air make narrower tunnels harder to navigate. On occasion, the rain intensifies, becoming howling storms with sleet or large hail. However, the temperatures overall are a little warmer, with snow and ice in temperate caves somewhat receding.
Mar 31 2021, 08:59 PM (This post was last modified: Mar 31 2021, 09:00 PM by Charon.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 100% RESTORED TO 100%
CHARON The very mountains whisper your name...
He'd felt lost for so long. Without a purpose, without a family. With his mother gone and his family split into pieces he had no one to care for or to care for him. He had no drive.
Charon trudged through the wasteland, head low and tail dragging behind him, his wings, big and useless, dragging behind him. Finally he stopped before the mountain and stared at it, the fields where the bloodbath had occurred only a month or so earlier not too far away.
He collapsed in the snow, curling up into a tight ball around his skinny body. Life hadn't been kind to him. His ribs stretched against his skin as he breathed, his natural insulation gone with his body fat. His days of pride and strutting seemed so far behind him in that moment.
GM tagging for Mother, any mothered gembound are welcome to join uwu!
Mar 31 2021, 09:39 PM (This post was last modified: Mar 31 2021, 09:40 PM by Bone.)
MAGICKA LEVEL 91% RESTORED TO 100%
She was out hunting, when she spotted him.
Her hunts were never a bloodbath--they were a quiet, silent soar of white-in-white, a glide up through the snow-flecked fog until she spotted prey. The kills were as quick as she could make them. For a moment, she thought Charon was an ice worm--he looked like one. But the wings--spotted an instant later--corrected that assumption, and she peered more closely. Curiosity sparked in her, and she turned, banking back with a flap of wings.
The creature was collapsed--dead, perhaps? It definitely looked like a Gembound, at least. Something sentient, almost draconic, in fact. "A sibling, perhaps," and Mother's murmur was unwittingly accurate.
After a moment, flapping lower (but not daring to drop down entirely--Mother's enemies were still lingering, and wariness was the rule for now), Bone inspected the creature more closely.
Nothing. Silence.
She conjured up a single banana, and lobbed it down at the stranger; it didn't hit, but it chunked into the snow nearish the head.
"Hello?" she called down. "Are you all right, down there?"
There was warm concern in it, but the pressure of potential throbbed behind it, a push from Mother to grant it their shared gift. To welcome it into their family--if yet it lived.
It would be a valuable ally: a good friend to have.
Charon pried open an ice-crusted eye and rolled an eyeball towards the banana. He remembered these... Asimona used to make them for him when he got fussy about food. His head lifted shakily and he looked up at Bone, her shadow cast over him.
He saw white similar to the bone plating his mother had, spikes running down the dragon's tail. His own horns were curled like Asimona's were, his scales the same blue and his nose lined with the same bony plates. Slowly he lurched to his front legs, his tail dragging on the ground due to a lack of hind ones.
"Who are you?", he called out, voice barely audible over the winds that blew around the massive mountain, "What is your name?"
Bone was familiar, but not enough for him to trust her. Not yet.
When Charon uncurled and looked up, Bone was hit with a startling shock. Her thought process wasn't at all unlike his own: she was noting the curled horns, the pupilless blue eyes, the face-plating. It was with a strangely dizzying sensation that she recognized her own mother in this stranger.
"Mom-?" she blurted, before she could think--and then blinked. There was a sort of mental question mark from Mother along the link, before the Queen recognized what Bone was thinking of and withdrew.
"Um--are you Asimona's kid? Related, somehow?" she asked, and then turned. She couldn't hover well, and a moment later she'd elected to thud down into a snowdrift maybe twenty feet away. The thump of her wings sent snowflakes scattering until she'd fully landed, and then she waded closer through the snow, peering at Charon.
"I'm Bone," she said, looking Charon over. With a distant sense of wonder, she added: "I think we might be related."
Charon winced at the thud of the larger dragon as she landed, reaching for the banana and sniffing it before taking a bite and scarfing the rest down. Nourishing...
"I'm her son,", he said, eyeing Bone, noting their similarities. Slowly he shook snow off of himself, tail swishing through the snow and clearing some away as he moved closer, nostrils flaring as he scented the air.
”Are you... her daughter?”, he guessed, quills raising in interest, ”Either way, nice to meet you, I guess.”
His voice was gruff, though it didn't seem to be on purpose. From his overall health it would seem his exhausted, grumpy tone would be from that, or perhaps it was natural and just how he spoke. He coughed all of a sudden, chest aching with the violent motion, making him gasp and clutch his ribs.
”I hate to intrude,” he rasped, ”But you don't happen to have some kind of cave or shelter around, do you?”
"She never told me-" she started to blurt--but maybe this one was much younger? Bone hadn't seen her mother in some time; she'd assumed her to be hibernating or something. "I'm--yes! I'm her daughter. We're--siblings. I'm your sister," Bone said, all in a wide-eyed rush. Her gait picked up, so that she stumbled as she shambled down through the snow to Charon.
Mother whispered in the back of her mind. This one would be a mighty ally, and a wonderful sibling for her new family, too. Bone didn't need to acknowledge the thought--it twined in through her own, as if it had been her own concept. But she didn't mention it yet. She shouldn't. Not yet. The idea lingered there, and it would wait--like a snake in the grass--for an opportunity.
There was no pause, or delay, to indicate her inner thoughts. It had been a split second, here-and-gone (filed away) without needing much notice. Her own pupilless eyes travelled over her--brother..? What a strange idea-! "How is Asimona? How's Mom? Do you know--have you met Svartis?"SIBLINGS! The thought was so exciting!
She didn't think to be suspicious; Mother was doing that for her, a cautious wariness that kept her limbs a little more tense than she'd have on her own. She didn't notice it. But--oh, he was injured..? "Are you hurt?" she asked, coming to a halt before Charon, chest-deep in snow. She looked him over again, this time with more concern. "Yes, I have--a few places we can go. I can try to get you warm, ahh--do you need warmth..? I know Mom always liked the ice," she joked, but it was only half-humor; worry flickered in her eyes and tone. "Let's see, uhh--can you fly?"
She glanced back, serpentine but armored neck craning over her shoulder with a little difficulty. Could they make the caves she used, at times, on Ursa Major-? She wasn't sure if someone wounded would make it that far.
"-Trying to figure out where I can take you. It depends on how much you can move, I guess. But once we get somewhere safe, I can heal you, if you're hurt; it's just I'll need to rest after, so out in the open isn't the best place," she explained.
She looked back to Charon, her concern evident on her face, and waited.
Charon blinked as he watched his sister light up, and though he felt some joy at finding family at long last, it was muted. Dulled by tiredness.
”She never told me either,” he whuffed, ”I haven't met... anybody. No one but Carja really, though she's off wherever now.”
Flitting around like a bird rather than a dragon.
His wings snapped shut against his sides at the question directed to them, his head turning away as he scowled at the snow, ”... No, can't fly.”
His legs weren't meant for running, his tail was too heavy to lift up and his top half was too unwieldy to attempt to sit back and slither like a naga. And his wings were big but not big enough. He couldn't fly, not even as a whelp trying to jump off cliffs to see if today was the day he'd join his mother in the sky. What was a dragon if they couldn't fly?
”I can dig and burrow, that's it,” he grumbled, shoulders sagging, ”I'll make it wherever we're going, don't worry.”
Charon had some semblance of a purpose now with Bone having revealed herself as his sister, as someone to live for. So he lurched himself as up as he could get, pushing his arms under him, tail inching him forward.
”It isn't a wound, per say,” he added, ”My chest hurts and I got a nasty cough. Pretty sure I broke a rib.”
But either way, he'd follow Bone up the mountain if it killed him.
"Right, well--this way," she offered, half cheerful and half desperately concerned. He didn't look well, and it was worrying, really.
She went on foot, instead of by wing, out of consideration for his ability. It was a long, slow slog, a trudging one, but she did her best to bulldoze snow out of the way. "I'll get you somewhere safe." Her mind was reaching forward to the caves (but really, back through memory), combing over those she'd used and their suitability. She'd have to find one big enough for the both of them, yet close enough that Charon could reasonably make the journey. None of them were close.
"Once we're there I should be able to fix your rib, but it has its drawbacks and neither of us will be up for a walk through Ursa for at least a few hours after. But that reminds me; do you like snow, like Mom does?" Bone glanced back, blinking. It was really only slowly dawning that she had another sibling; and this was hard to concentrate on, for at the back of her mind there was another litany rising, a slow chant of urge and of assurance. A sort of he has no one, now, though she didn't assume that, herself; he will be happy here, and he fits in so well. More and more along those lines, and she took note of them, sort of mostly believed them without thinking them over. But half her mind was too excited for it, for now. Family-! "We have a brother, too, you know-? Svartis? I, uh, don't know if you met our father--Dread. I don't think he's your dad, by looks? But Svartis is usually around here, somewhere, too." Bone had resisted the idea that she bring Svartis to their side, but why she couldn't say. It felt wrong, but she loved Mother, didn't she-? The fungus had, for whatever reason, never really pushed her on it. "Svartis is... Sleek, black, lighter than I am, but he likes ice and snow more than I do. If you like the cold, maybe you'll get along? Oh--do you have Mom's magic, or her stone?" The stone--a spike or fin she'd only briefly spotted and assumed it was the stone--certainly looked like Asimona's.
Bone clung to this sort of getting-to-know-you chat, while pushing gently against Mother's intrusions (she'd get to it-! She would!), while forging the path up to the caves.
Charon trudged forward, tail slithering behind him to push as his legs pulled his heavy body forward. Maybe if he was lucky he'd be able to gain back his muscle mass to make his way around like he used to, but that would come after he was healed.
”I like it,” he said, ”Like I said, I like to burrow, specifically in this stuff. Everywhere else in these caves was too damn hot for me so I ended up coming here after a while and holing up in a corner by myself.”
He half-listened to Bone as they walked, the cold snow on his chest numbing his nerves and the constant ache that came with every breath. He was more focused on trying to keep going than the conversation, though it was in no way an attempt to be offensive.
”I don't know,” he said truthfully, "Both, I think. Well, we share magic and a gemstone but I don't know where she got my stone from. They just happened to both be the same.”
Charon lurched up a small snow drift and staggered for a moment, snorting in frustration before just diving underneath, letting his arms fold along his sides instead as he carved through the snowbank like a worm. Once on the other side he emerged, shaking powder off himself with a pained grunt, his mandibles peeling back from where they rested along his jaws to pick ice shards off his muzzle.
”What about you?”, he finally asked, ”Do you like snow?”
Bone radiated heat more than he did. Where he was efficient and had layers of fat and thick scales to trap the heat in him, the other seemed to be more lizard-like, as if she had a bonfire in her chest with heat leaking out.
Both? She hadn't known that was possible--but on reflection, didn't see why it couldn't be. Although if Charon's idea of it being a coincidence were true, it might explain the difference in shape and color between himself and their shared mother.
"Me? Uhh..." Her mind seemed a little thick, for a moment, like wading through cotton as she gathered her thoughts. She couldn't figure out why, but it didn't matter! "I like warm, dry places, yes. I used to live in Monoceros. But the snow's grown on me, really. I keep my dens warm, and the lights in the sky are beautiful, don't you think?" She cast an affectionate glance "sky"ward.
She visited Leo now and then, anyway, and that was pretty warm--if not entirely dry.
After a long trek, Bone came to one of the caves. The mouth was a little wide--it was more a broad overhang in the mountain than a real tunnel or closed-off cave. It was a hard one to keep warm, very open to the elements, but it went deep enough that at least they could avoid the snow. "Here," she called back, peering into the shadowed stone. Even the dim aurora-light reached most of the way in. "You should be able to rest here, safely, at least. Are you hungry?"
Mother was roiling in her brain again, thoughts, urges, as if somehow Bone were running out of time.
"What do you eat?" she asked, trying to push the thought away. But it was still there--still lurking, and waiting; but pensive now, as if Mother were considering another way.
