All those years of teaching herself to become detached and distant, to never show weaknesses to strangers, was second by second being chiseled away. It was a lot of build up to remove and destroy but Ember was learning. Re-learning what it meant to actually have someone even if she was still deathly afraid that once she got close, they would leave. A dark thought in her mind that cloaked every word and every image in there, doubt crossing those tendrils of memory that were being created with each moment. Every part of her fought to be here yet there was one part that did not yield to its fight.

So with @igor instructing her to follow, she moves off from their border patrol and follows at his side closely. Keeping an inch or two distance between them but on certain tunnels there was no choice but to brush up against him. Burnished orange and dark obsidian melding together for just a few seconds before the tunnel would open and space took shape again.

As soon as the opening in front of them got lighter, Ember's footsteps grew quieter and slower. The tunnelway opening up into a more expansive room that she had not seen in this prideland before. A place where every color imaginable was on display. Poking from the wall in several places, from the floor, the ceiling and some that had fallen from the ceiling and broken into pieces. There are so many colors, she murmured quietly to herself and not having realized that she had said this out loud. In a voice that most certainly didn't sound like herself -- almost as though forgetting that she even had company at all.

Eventually she took a breath inward and a step forward, her head lowering ever so slightly to a pale green crystal upon the ground. It was broken into three distinct pieces. One was the largest piece, straight but pointed where it had chipped; while the other two were segments that had split off one another and would've formed the tip of the crystal itself. For a moment she simply stared until she tried to grab at it and pull it upwards with her paw. Staring at the large portion of it in her paw and beginning to feel like she was this crystal. Broken, but still good.

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There are so many colours.

Her words were what brought him back from his thoughts. From the moment they entered and his eyes met the stones, he had no idea where his words went. Her silence, before those words she spoke that were like bells in his ears was so comforting when his own silence mixed with it. His red eyes were dimmed as all the other colours shined and danced around the room. He doesn't remember if he ever saw something this beautiful before. Not back at their land or when he was alone. Then again when he was on his own he couldn't think about anything else, but finding the Savante. Ears twirled on top of his head as she "played" with some of the stones, focusing on a green one and finding much interest in it.

He watched her silently as she looked and searched for something that he even thought she doesn't know what it is. His head tilted to the side and he couldn't understand what he found so interesting in her. Sure her appearance was nice. She looked beautiful and her ears were so fascinating he wanted to touch them... As weird as that sounded in his mind.

Shoulders rolled to release the built up pressure and he moved toward her, on the way there, his teeth gently pulled off a small vine that he saw growing out of a crack. Quite unusual. Slow confident steps carried his dark body and he halted beside her. His eyes aimed to meet hers- "You seem to like it." He mused quietly and attempted to take the small crystal from her and put it on the ground. He would twist the vine around it with precision and care, before tightening the loop and making sure it's connected on the other end too. He inspected it for a moment before his teeth gently picked up the makeshift necklace and held it up. "This way you will never be left in the dark." He explained as the crystal emitted a soft glow, surely to be her guide when needed, all she needed to do was put her head through the loop if she wanted to.

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In all her time wandering this particular land that she had been left in, not once had she ever found anywhere that could hold a candle to this place. To think that all this time there was something with as much sparkle and pizazz just hiding away in the darkest place possible. So enchanted by the crystal that she stared at as though it were her very own reflection that she hardly remembered that @Igor was present at all. Enraptured by this newfound discovery and forgetting everything that was past, present or future.

That was until he moved beside her and she startled for a minuet second before realizing who it was and what he was moving to do. I do. She murmured quietly as her gaze snapped to the vine within his teeth and let him take the crystal. Not without furrowing her brows in tight confusion as it did something to it with the piece of vine. Still not following his movements with his claws and paw until he held it back out to her.

Even still she was confused about what it was or what it was meant for, but the words alone resonated deep within her body. That fight or flight nonsense coming in to play as she opened her mouth in surprise before taking a solid step back. Did Alexander put you up to this? she asked, accusingly for she had told their very leader not long ago that she had been alone since she was just a tiny child. That she had been left behind by every sibling, and every parent she had.

It made sense that she would be duped and spoken about behind her back. A strange coincidence that Igor should say these specific words to her and give her a gift to go with it. Ember thought her secret safe, her most vulnerable moment caught in the crystal-light of somewhere else with someone else that seemed to know what she and Alexander had spoken about. Defensive and prepared to lash out, angry like a feral kitten as she looked between each of his eyes and sought his likely foolish answer.

With a roll of her eyes, she decided that it wasn't worth getting angry about. It wasn't his fault that Alexander had potentially given away information about her without consent but still, her own paranoid was doing her in. So Ember turned away (but she took the crystal with her because it was hers now regardless). exit ember

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