Currents

[sunblind]

The cavern was dark, but one would have no difficulty detecting the sound of flowing water. It sounded deep, but not particularly wide nor swift. If one were to settle down a bit and allow one's eyes to get used to the near darkness, one might be able to make out a faint glow coming from the under the water. Approaching the river, one would be able to determine that there was not one, but two points of diffuse light. And if one listened carefully one might hear a disgruntled voice grumbling, "I knew I shouldn't have listened to that idiot Yaweh, he needs direction to find his own tail!"

Cyrill was lost, and not in the least amused.

[Thalron]

Lacere had been hiding in the cave for awhile, some of the other tsumes in the area had spotted her as a sin not too long ago and decided to try and do something about it... Her eyes could see almost perfectly in the darkness, although at the moment she simply had her eyes closed... one hand idly dangling in the water. It felt good on the slash that had been cut into her forearm.

After a couple moments she got the feeling someone was nearby, her ears twitched as she heard the disgruntled noises coming from... well, she wasn't sure where it was coming from, it sounded like the water... but you couldn't talk underwater, it must be echoing or something. "Hello?" she asked rather quietly as she looked around the cave, she still didn't see anyone.

[sunblind]

Cyrill paused to look around, not that it helped much. It was a small river after all, you can either go upstream or you can go downstream. Not exactly a plethora of choices there. She flicked her tail in annoyance, trying to decide if she should continue on the way she was going, or to go back the way she came. If she went back she'd have wasted all this effort thus far. If she continued she could just end up in a dead end anyway, resulting in her going back and wasting even more time. The blue Ocean Tsume snarled and thought of nasty things she could do to the other Ocean when she got her teeth into him.

"Hello?"

Cyrill jerked at the sound of the voice. She hadn't expected that. Who else would be in this god-forsaken place she had no idea. The voice came from the surface, maybe it knew where the river led. The flow of water was rather small, so she doubted any tributaries fed it upstream, but she could always hope...

Breaking the surface, her "glowy-bits" as they were embarrassingly described gave a faint glow to parts of the cavern, though it took her a few moments to located the two points of reflecting light...a pair of eyes...

[Thalron]

She could feel something growing closer it was still frustrated, but now was also curious or surprised... Wait, was it getting lighter? her head twirled around to look at the luminescent globes of light rising from beneath the water next to her. She scrambled away from the edge and stared as it grew higher and broke the surface of the water. It took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the newfound light, staring mesmerized and somewhat afraid of what might be the source...

As her eyes adjusted she saw that it was another tsume, which was not as comforting as one might think... considering the reason she was hiding in the dank cave was because of them, Cyrill could likely smell and taste the blood from the cut she had cleaned in the water.

"I didn't mean to go in your cave, please don't make me leave." She said in a pleading tone, her head bowed to the other tsume, eyes still squinted from the seemingly intense light in the darkness... Wow, it was beautiful...

[sunblind]

Cyrill raised one of her "glowy-bits" higher into the air to help her see better, her eyes narrowing as the eyes turned out to belong to another Tsume. She looked young, and quite frightened...and hurt? Yes, she could smell the scent of blood.

The ocean tsume moved closer, illuminating the sin even more and scanned over the other one's form. Ah, there, on her leg, a wound of some sort, still bleeding.

Cyrill sighed as the other one pleaded, that one was indeed still very young. "This is no more my cave than it is yours. In truth, I'm just looking for a way out...." Though she wanted to ask if the sin knew a way, she first felt she needed to make sure the young thing was alright. What was this, maternal instincts, in grumpy old Cyrill? The others must not find out. "Why are you hiding here? And how did you get hurt?"

Cyrill forgot to introduce herself, but then she was never big on the social niceties that everyone else seemed to follow. A conversation is usually best to the point and as brief as possible.

[Thalron]

Lacere cringed away as the light fell over her body, covering the wound on her forearm with a hand... She wasn't nearly as frightened as it appeared but, well... she really did hope that the strange looking tsume wasn't intent on maiming her, or perhaps did not know how to identify a young sin.

when the ocean tsume spoke she was a bit relieved, it didn't seem hostile, not yet anyways. She was about to answer it's question when she heard something move near the entrance of the cave and jumped forward, sliding to a stop just infront of the ocean tsume and tried to hide in the shadow cast beneath its head by the light, barely avoiding falling into the water. "Some people are after me." she said in a near whisper, trying to appear as small as possible as she crouched near to the odd tsume.

As far as niceties of conversation went, Lacere was usually rather polite... however when the possibility of getting eaten or maimed entered into the scene introductions tended to take a back seat, which was rather understandable.

[sunblind]

Cyrill jerked her head back with a start when the younger Tsume metaphorically jumped into her lap. Nervous little thing. But Cyrill did not like children, or at least refused to admit to it. Who in their right mind would want to have a little whiny critter begging you to play, or for food. You have to clean up after it, and heaven forbid you loose your patience and yell at it. Chances are you'd start a waterfall of tears. And Cyrill had a short temper.

At the same time, she felt sorry for Lacere, she was so...vulnerable. And Cyrill had never met a Sin Tsume before. No others of that sort lived in her mistress' Realm and as Sin's were newly discovered, Cyrill was too old to have met them here before.

The blue Tsume shifted her light to examine what appeared to be the entrance to the cave. What had startled the child? She couldn't see anything, nor had she heard the sound. After a few moments where nothing happened she looked back down. "Why do you have people after you. Did you do something bad?"

Figures, kids always get into trouble. More trouble than they're worth. And considering what the "people" had already done to her, she must have been *really* naughty. But how naughty could a youngling be before one would rip open its arm? Usually a spanking sufficed, no?

Something was amiss here...

[Thalron]

The little tsume watched the entrance as the light illuminated it a bit more, she apparently had much better night vision than the water tsume.... However, she couldn't see anyone either which was rather reassuring. She had no idea what this strange tsume would do if something came in here and attacked her, or yelled about it being a sin. Lacere could feel the blatant dislike for younglings that Cyrill had, but she did feel a hint of hidden longing. "They don't like my type..." she said with a small sigh and licked the wound on her arm.

Prejudices in tsumes were well, very common. Being a different type around some tsumes was enough to warrant getting attacked, usually things were a bit more lenient to children... Usually. Apparently this was not such a case.

She didn't like being under the light of the ocean tsume, even if it had the effect of making her appear to be in the spotlight... it meant if anyone were to look in the cave they would see her right away. "I didn't do anything." she said as she paused from licking her arm to examine the cut again, it wasn't /too/ bad, and it looked like it might have been caused by her trying to get out of somethings grasp... something with big claws.

[sunblind]

Cyrill turned her gaze away from the entrance and focused on the young Tsume who proclaimed she didn't do anything. Sure, right. All kids say that, never taking responsibility, always lying. Cyrill watched her lick the wound and decided that the young tsume would live, it was more oozing now than really bleeding. It would probably stop completely soon enough. Besides, this wasn't her offspring, so it wasn't any of her business to play nurse anyway. Which brought her to her next question,

"Where are your parents? Why didn't they protect you?"

Cyrill lowered her light, not because it appeared to her that it made the young Tsume nervous, but rather she was getting tired of holding it up so high. Usually she just let it float in the water, but in the air she had to do all the work herself.

A little niggle in the back of her mind required another question. "And what is your type, the type that *they* don't like very much?" The ocean tsume fully expected an "I'm a naughty, misbehaving child type" answer, though she certainly wasn't expecting the kind of naughty associated with a Sin!

[Thalron]

Lacere could tell that she was losing more and more ground with this tsume, and she wasn't sure what to do about it... Most creatures really wanted to help kits and such, even if they'd never admit it. She was getting tired of playing the pathetic youngling act, and decided maybe she should give it up. "My parents left me when I was old enough to walk." she said with a small huff, before letting out a long sigh.

Ok, maybe it wasn't entirely an act, she was rather helpless at this age... nothing to her name other than some empathic abilities, she was more or less at the mercy of whatever was around. But now she wasn't acting so weak, a strange confidence for her age showing through the child like voice.

When the question about her type came she looked up at Cyrill, then back down at herself. "I'm a ground type, my mom was part snow so I came out kind of fluffy.." she said as she tugged on a bit of the fur coming from her chest. She sounded utterly sincere with this statement, despite the fact she had made it up on the spot, although a pang of guilt prodded her in the gut for lying, Geil had always said that lying was bad.

there was a small moment of silence before she looked up again, and managed to smile lightly. "Umm... I'm Lacere by the way." she said a little awkwardly, she wasn't sure where in their conversation would be a good time to introduce hreself, so she just chose then.

[sunblind]

Essentially an orphan then. No wonder the kid was getting into trouble, being abandoned at such a young age. Fine, Cyrill had to admit it, she felt sorry for her. But however she looked at it, she couldn't figure out why someone wouldn't like a Ground Tsume. So there was something more to it than that. Not that she didn't believe Lacere, but rather figured the kid still must have done something delinquent. Maybe stole something that belonged to someone, or just played a stupid prank.

"Lacere, huh?" the Ocean Tsume grumbled, "I'm Cyrill then."

Sighing, and knowing she would regret this later. "How about we find a way out of here. I assume you came through that entrance over there," she gestured with her lights. "Do you know anything about what's upstream? Downstream is just the way I came. Hate to say this but I'm lost."

[Thalron]

"no one ever believes me..." she said in a nearly wordless whisper and looked towards the ground... She didn't need her empathic abilities to see what was going through the other tsumes head, she had seen it many times before. although usually it was from humans not tsumes, humans didn't really know what the wild was like, and she could only guess that this tsume was not one that spent much time in chaos hills anymore. It was hard to go anywhere without having something try to kill you, tsume or otherwise.

without looking up at the other tsume again she nodded. She had no idea how a ocean, or maybe it was a water tsume? got lost in a underground river but she did know there was a above ground river not too far upstream. "It comes out of the ground in a mile or so I think..." she paused and glanced up at the other tsume again before quickly averting her eyes.

She felt indignant about how she was being treated, and was thinking of saying something along the lines of how she could take care of herself when her ears twitched again and her eyes darted over to look at the entrance of the cave... This time she knew someone was there, even if she had hardly heard it.

"How fast can you swim?" her question came out with a hint of foreboding as her eyes continued to stare towards the entrance she had come in from... idly she wondered how long she could hold her breath, she'd never really tried to do it very long before.

[sunblind]

So, no one ever believes her? Maybe she was a chronic liar, common among little children. She already knew Lacere was keeping things from her, for all she knew this whole story of being abandoned and attacked where just to make her feel pity so that the kid could get something from her. Though it didn't look like the wound was self-inflicted, the angle wasn't right.

Though Cyrill had no problem with the dark, murky depths of the ocean because of her lights, she didn't much care for this cavernous river. It didn't feel right, and she just couldn't put a fin on the difference. Maybe it was the stronger currents. An above ground river would be less oppressive, and maybe there would be more Tsume's about to ask for directions.

She was about to thank the child and leave when she asked how fast Cyrill could swim. "Uh, how fast?" She hadn't heard the noise at the entrance, too focused on planning where she'd go after she found the main river. "Fast enough!" she said, a little insulted at her aquatic skills being questioned.

Knowing she would REALLY regret this later, "Why don't you climb upon my back and find out?" The ceiling was high enough here that she wouldn't need to submerge completely. Carrying Lacere and breaking the surface would slow her down considerably, but she would still be able to move at an impressive pace, at least compared to a non-aquatic Tsume.

[Thalron]

This person was starting to infuriate her, she jumped to so many conclusions and automatically assumed the worst possible traits and features... It took so much effort for her not to turn and snap back with some of her own 'observations' and even more effort to hide the fact she wanted to bite this person.... Luckily she was very good at hiding these feelings and as she turned back she let out a small sigh...

She didn't actually get to say what she was going to before there was another light in the cave, near the entrance that most visitors took... It looked a little bit like a flame, and in what seemed hardly a second it shot forth with a resounding 'Fwhooosh'. Lacere barely had time to see it before it hit, flames exploded out from where the fireball landed... It was hard to tell whether it hit her directly or not, but the impact flung her forward against the odd water tsume before she splashed down... Apparently she wasn't lying about someone trying to kill her.

the face of the attacker had been momentarily illuminated, and it looked like a tsume of some sort, it was hard to tell what type though because of the lighting... Especially since a lot of dust and smoke had been sent up into the air from the attack, It was easy to hear i t coming closer though...

Lacere floundered in the water, trying to grab on to something, anything with one hand while her other hand futily tried to ward off the pain in her back... Atleast she got put out when she landed in the water.

[sunblind]

Everything happened so fast that later on, when telling the story to the others in SunBlind's Realm, she couldn't really explain it properly. In one moment Lacere was making ungrateful faces for the sacrifice the Ocean Tsume was making in offering her a ride, the next there was fire. And it wasn't fire, you know a nice warm flicker flame. No, this was FIRE. The inferno of hell kind of fire. Kind of reminded her of that one time when someone pissed Halah off...let's just say that was interesting, and best observed while very, very wet.

Instincts took over and Cyrill dived to avoid being burned. She was followed shortly by a splash and some flailing legs. In one part of her mind, she philosophized as to how much more graceful water Tsume's were in their element than those land based ones. Fortunately, the more important part of her mind figured out that the struggling figure was the young Ground Tsume, and Cyrill rose once more to the surface to help her breath.

After permitting her a few gasps, she pulled the little one down with her again. Obviously a surface trip wasn't an option at the moment. Hopefully the cave narrowed up ahead so that their attacker wouldn't be able to follow unless they took to the water. And generally, there wasn't a fire anything, Tsume or otherwise, that did as well in the water.

But Lacere would have to breath soon enough, and Cyrill hoped they wouldn't get toasted when they broke the surface. Though she was still convinced Lacere probably deserved some of her punishments, this was a tad extreme. Flambeing a child was just wrong. Even a naughty one.

So she swam as swiftly as she could, trying to judge out at what point Lacere's struggles would switch from the painful burn on her back, to her pending suffocation.