This time she had come to the burned out place in the hopes of finding those ghostly, ethereal cubs that were so like her. They were the only ones she could properly play with, for one thing, and for another it was just good to be surrounded by those close to her own age. Granted, she had plenty of youthful friends in the lands by now, but more were always appreciated. Such was the nature of a cub's life. Unlife? Whatever.

Friends? Where are you friends? she called out, scanning the terrain as her paws danced over the soot with excitement. She wondered what they would play that day. Tag? Hide and seek? Maybe something else she hadn't heard of before! And maybe this time she could convince them to come back to the Brook with her to meet Bahati, because she figured it couldn't hurt for him to have more friends too.

@Zaahir ♔

Rolling wildsevent 1d13: 12
A sudden downpour of ash begins. Visibility drops to near zero and the air becomes even heavier with the sooty material. Will you make it out alive? It begins to smother and bury any of the young plants around that are struggling to grow green.

"Speech."

code by scorpixia♡︎

Now, it was curiosity more than anything that kept him coming back to the place. He'd never encountered a plant that grew as quickly as those that seemed to be trying to re-take the burned expanse. Or that acted the way they did. So, he'd been trotting briskly through the area, on alert for glimpses of green. Where he found them, he gently cleared the ash from around them to give more space to grow.

After a while spent working on that project, a young voice reached his ears, calling out for friends. His head popped up from where he'd been watching a patch of vegetation spread, searching for the source. It sounded really young to be out here all alone. "Hello?"

He moved to follow and find the source, but after only a few steps he came to an abrupt halt as the air seemed to fill with ash. "Oh what?" he coughed, squinting against the substance. This place got weirder every time he visited.

@Yona

code by daanyen || art by seffiron

Excitement went through her as she heard a response, only to be immediately disappointed when she didn't recognize the voice and it sounded older. Too old to be her friends. Then she felt bad that she'd been disappointed because they sounded nice (from the very, very little she'd heard) and it wasn't their fault they weren't who she was looking for.

Hello! she called out in response, padding closer to him. She didn't get very far before more soot started to dump from the sky and she heard him cough, which did help her in finding him since she'd lost most of her visibility. Oh, more new plants, she commented as she passed by some, struggling under the weight of the soot. She was tempted to stop and knock some of it off, but she also had a weird feeling that it was supposed to be happening? And also also she wanted to find the lion she was talking to.

Hello again, she repeated as she found him, approaching to plop her butt down and look up at him, because that was easier.

@Zaahir ♔
"Speech."

code by scorpixia♡︎

Raining ash was not normal. Zaahir may not have been too familiar with just how weird Amaryllis could get yet, but he knew this was definitely weird. Was this why the area was still covered in soot rather than a sprinkling of fresh, green, shoots trying to reclaim the space? He shook the accumulating ash off and ducked his head to try and keep it out of his eyes.

Almost reflexively, he reached toward the nearest bit of green to gently brush the ash away before the young voice came again. Seemed the kid was coming to him, which was great since he could barely see to navigate the area anyway.

Of course, when she finally found him, he found himself squinting for an entirely different reason. Last he checked, cubs weren't transparent. And the ash seemed to be going right through her. "Uh. Hi?" vague confusion - was he hallucinating? He hadn't eaten anything strange recently, so that would be very concerning. Head cocked slightly to the side, "You're real, right?" Were hallucinations obligated to tell the truth?

@Yona

code by daanyen || art by seffiron

With all the random things that happened in Amaryllis, raining ash might not rate very high up on the list of oddities, but it still made the list. Even in this place that was covered in soot and ash. It definitely made things harder to see and breathe in, though Yona didn’t have to worry about that latter part so much.

Yona noticed the man swiping some ash off of one of the nearby plants and attempted to use the fluff of her tail to do the same, but it didn’t particularly work for perhaps obvious reasons. Her head tilted to the side as his did and he questioned her, slight confusion in her eyes. Yeah, I think so, she replied. Wait, was she not? That… might explain a lot of things.

But before she could think about it too hard, something brightly colored caught her attention and she pointed at it excitedly with a paw. Look! A pumpkin! she exclaimed. Last time she’d found one of those there had been treasures inside, and she hoped that was the case again.

@Zaahir ♔
"Speech."

code by scorpixia♡︎

Okay, well, if she thought she was real, who was he to argue? Either it was true, or he'd end up having some weird existential argument with a figment of his own imagination and that was a road he had no interest in going down. So. Real until proven otherwise. "Okay."

Thankfully, a very sudden distraction came in the form of her excited pointing at some round orange thing. He couldn't squint any further and keep his eyes open, so he settled for furrowing his brows in bewilderment. Another shake to rid himself of ash and he'd pad toward the bright spot against the dark backdrop, "Pumpkin?" Zaahir reached out to wipe the ash from it, "Is that what's growing here?" It felt hard, was it edible? Medicinal? Poison?

@Yona

code by daanyen || art by seffiron

double, double toil and trouble;
fire burn, and cauldron bubble...

Nafasi watches from the bushes, never once letting herself be seen by those huddled around her perfectly-placed pumpkins. They really were a curious bunch, weren't they? But, unfortunately for them, the sprite was feeling extra mischievous today, and had a trick up her sleeve! And so, with a small grin, the being tilted her maw down towards the earth, eyes glowing, before she gave a pointed flicker of her tail and brought her vision to life in the process.

Uh oh...

The pumpkin beneath you beings to vibrate before decaying and collapsing in on itself. Seconds later, what looks to be thousands of spiders begin to crawl out of every crevice of the oozing pumpkin, skittering across the earth in a leg-filled frenzy. By your next breath, the ground is completely covered in those gross, ghastly bugs - and judging by the way that they're moving towards you, you just might be next!

Yeah, that's what I heard they were called. They're a... vegetable! she said, remembering what the lion in the Labyrinth had called it. Not that she knew what that meant because again, she hadn't grown up in a place with much vegetation at all. Such brightly colored plants were something she hadn't even been able to imagine, save for the dark greens of cacti.

She watched as he brushed some of the ash off, about to speak again when the Pumpkin started to wobble on its own. The first stirrings of apprehension began in her chest, and then the pumpkin collapsed on itself and a small army of... somethings escaped it. What are those!? she exclaimed, instinctively skittering backwards even though they milled about her incorporeal paws, passing through them instead of clambering onto her. Thank goodness for that, because she would really have panicked in that case. They looked kind of like the scorpions she'd been warned away from back home, but they didn't have their large tails, and they seemed to have more legs instead.

@Zaahir ♔
"Speech."

code by scorpixia♡︎

A vegetable. Alright. Well, he didn't have much use for vegetables, really. Though he supposed it might be fun to roll around for a while. Or maybe he could use it to lure things that ate stuff like that. He didn't really have a whole lot of time to contemplate options before the thing started moving under his paw and Zaahir scrabbled back a couple steps in surprise.

The strange plant vibrated and collapsed and out poured....oh that was not right. "What the hell?" He made a beeline for the nearest fallen log, hopping atop it to hopefully escape the swarm. "Spiders!? Why the fuck is it full of spiders!?" And, more importantly, how was it full of spiders. Oh- oh no. That's not where they came from was it?? Did all spiders just spawn out of weird fruit and this was just a thing he hadn't been aware of yet?

@Yona

code by daanyen || art by seffiron

She squealed in fear even though the spiders couldn't possibly clamber up on her, following @Zaahir ♔ up onto the log and huddling there, her spectral fur fluffed up as she looked down at the teeming mass of insects below. At least now she knew what they were called: spiders. She decided she didn't like these even less than she liked scorpions, which was impressive considering she really didn't like scorpions.

Can they sting you!? she asked, not seeing anything that suggested they could but since her only experience with anything like this was a scorpion it was a logical question for her mind to produce. Though it really was "you" and not including her in the question as she couldn't be bothered by them, but she wasn't great at realizing that. It was acknowledged in the back of her mind that she couldn't interact with things, or smell, or taste, or be touched, but she hadn't bothered to sit down and try to figure out why that was.
"Speech."

code by scorpixia♡︎