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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:31:57 GMT -6
‘You will find him, and you will bring him back to me.’The voice rang as loudly in Tenebris’ head as it had when she first heard it. It was as if she was allowed no other thoughts until she accomplished her goal. Find him, and bring him back. How difficult could that be? Information was sparse in the city. Even if someone did know something worth knowing, they would hardly share it without incentive. Especially not with someone like her. Tenebris was all on her own, and if she was honest, she preferred it that way. Relying on others just made things more complicated. There was only one being that she could completely trust to do things right - herself. Nonetheless, she managed to pick up on a promising lead. A cute little house within the gardens, hidden away from the city. It was said to be home to some Harachiu, and some other unusual sapient creatures as well. One of the other experiments, perhaps?
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:36:43 GMT -6
Tenebris wondered if she might come across a familiar face while she was investigating. It would make sense that whoever captured him had a habit of picking up strays, and that meant that she might even encounter someone she recognized. Another reason to be especially cautious, she thought. Normally she was quite confident, but everything about this situation was strange.
Despite her species’ origins, Tenebris didn’t feel very comfortable in the gardens. The life surrounding her felt utterly foreign compared to that in the facility or even the city. There were plenty of places to hide, sure, but it didn’t feel right. Prickly and poisonous plants were all around, and there could be magical monsters lurking under any leaf or twig. The overwhelming cacophony of life was deafening. She would really rather get this over with quickly and return to the relative sanity of civilization. How did anyone live out here?
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:36:51 GMT -6
There it was. Just as the hint had promised, she could see a quaint little home tucked away in a shady glade deep in the gardens. If she hadn’t spent the entire day looking for it, she might have passed it by without another thought. Clever. If someone wanted to hide a stolen experiment, this would be a very good place to do it.
Tenebris flew up into the branches of a nearby tree to get a better view of the clearing. It was time for a stakeout, which was somehow both the most boring and most exciting part of a mission like this one. She certainly hoped something interesting would happen given how much effort it had taken to get to this point, but there was no guaranteeing anything would happen at all. There wasn’t even a very good reason to believe she was in the right place. All she had going for her was a hunch and some unsubstantiated rumors.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:37:20 GMT -6
With her new height advantage, Tenebris was able to take a better survey of the surrounding area. The first thing she noticed was so unusual that she doubted her own perception for a moment. In the center of the garden glade was a sizable tree, which could have been expected, but what she was struggling to understand was its apparent purpose. Numerous twisting branches hid many nooks, niches, and pathways of varying sizes. She instinctively looked down at herself, comparing her own small stature to that of the doors obscured by the tree itself. For some reason, the realization of what she was seeing sat heavily in her chest. Harachiu lived here.
From what she could tell, there was likely to be a lot of them, and some other creatures as well given the size variation. The whispers within the city must be true after all. Her reaction to hearing the news was completely different than seeing it with her own eyes.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:37:47 GMT -6
For a moment, she almost forgot why she was there. Her mind raced with thoughts, none of which she wished to entertain. Tenebris closed her eyes, lowered her ears, and took a deep breath to reset her thoughts. As strange as this all might be, she really needed to focus on the objective. She didn’t have a choice. If she went back empty handed… well, she would really rather not try to guess what would happen. Everything they had worked so hard on depended on her success. She simply couldn’t let a silly thing like sentiment get in the way of her plans.
With a weary sigh, she slumped down onto the tree and used a wayward branch as a back rest. She carefully adjusted her wings so that they didn’t catch on anything, letting them fall gently to either side of the branch she was braced against. She was sure to make her new perch comfortable since she was pretty sure she would be there for a while.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:38:05 GMT -6
Objectively, she knew that keeping watch was one of the most boring things to do, but in a way she found it oddly… peaceful. Until it suddenly wasn’t.
In this case, her interest was stirred not by the unfolding of a dramatic scene, but by an understated visitor entering the frame. A male Harachiu floated up to the tree at the heart of the clearing, his hands full of something she couldn’t quite make out. He was a pale brown color with light green wings. A Terrain. One of the common variants of her species. Just as quickly as he had arrived, he ducked into the leaves and disappeared from sight.
Tenebris had correctly concluded that the strange tree belonged to someone of her size, but seeing another Harachiu stirred up a strange feeling in her guts. She couldn’t figure out why it made her feel so weird, so she did her best to ignore it. It was probably just anticipation building as she got ever closer to the truth of what happened to the experiment. She couldn’t wait to find him and finally return home.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:38:19 GMT -6
The following few hours were incredibly boring. Tenebris idly picked at the bark on the tree while she waited for something, anything, to happen. It was getting hard to focus, and pieces of the background began to blend together into a squishy green blob in her mind. Just as she was starting to ponder about how long she would be here, something new arrived to catch her attention.
A long white creature with a serpentine body landed gently in front of the tree. At first, Tenebris thought it might be a Tat-lung, but the longer she looked, the more she doubted that hypothesis. It had a colorful, fluffy tail and long flowing ears. It must be one of the experiments. She perked up with this realization, watching the creature with intense scrutiny.
The experiment was carrying a rather flat box in her front paws, which she shifted around awkwardly a bit before finally heading inside. Tenebris scowled as she disappeared from sight. A tat-cross was the closest she had gotten to confirming the theory that experimental creatures lived here.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:38:36 GMT -6
She studied the home with renewed vigor. It was looking like she might have to find a way inside. She leaped out of the tree and darted toward the ground, sure to keep some foliage between herself and the clearing the entire time. Tenebris moved quickly but with purpose toward a window near the front door of the home. She flattened her ears down and peeked up over the windowsill to ensure nobody inside was watching.
Tenebris immediately tumbled backwards in shock with her wings just barely catching her before she started to fall. She zipped back up into place on the windowsill and peered inside to confirm what she had seen. There he was. He was standing right there on the other side of the window. Kaizen.
Though she had been looking for him this entire time, to actually see him was a shock. More than that, he seemed perfectly fine. Her mind had run through a long list of horrible possibilities for what might have happened to him, but here he was. Just standing there in front of a table.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:39:46 GMT -6
Tenebris’ golden eyes grew wide as she observed the scene unfolding before her. She was stunned into silence, unable to do anything but carefully hold herself in place at the edge of the windowsill and watch with bated breath.
Next to Kaizen was the tat-cross from before, and both of them were distracted by the box she had set on the table. Then, a third creature entered the room. This one was harder for Tenebris to figure out. While the serpentine white creature clearly showed many traits in common with a Pearl Tat-lung, the short, bow-legged thing that walked through the door was a less obvious mix.
Whatever she was, she was carrying something in either paw - a glass of juice in one, and an opaque teacup in the other. She set the glass in front of Kaizen, then went over to greet the tat-cross with the teacup still in her paws.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:45:09 GMT -6
As she moved across the room, Tenebris noted that she had a short tail, patches of fluffy white fur, and floppy ears. She used her paws like hands, but she only had two fingers ending in short black claws. None of those traits did much to betray her genetic makeup, unfortunately. She would have to study her more closely to be sure.
Kaizen eagerly wrapped his hands around the glass of juice and sipped it carefully. Not carefully enough, however, since he managed to knock it over while trying to place it back on the table. Tenebris flinched, sure that he would face the wrath of the other two for covering the table in sticky orange liquid. Without skipping a beat, short-tail grabbed a towel off a nearby chair and blotted it up. She patted him on the shoulder and spoke in a soothing tone, but Tenebris didn’t quite catch what was being said.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:45:15 GMT -6
Kaizen wiped his paws on the outstretched towel and set the empty glass back upright. He looked over to short-tail for reassurance, and she nodded affirmingly. This caused his demeanor to perk right back up including the subtle twitching of his tail along the floor. Looking at the two next to each other, Tenebris was beginning to make some connections. They had similar ears, horns, and fur structure. It made her wonder if short-tail also had some Tat-lung blood in her, and perhaps even something like a Harachiu if she could speak. Despite such a prestigious lineage, her form looked crude. Surely not the work of her beloved Marie.
As curious as she was about their makeup, Tenebris was more interested in figuring out what was going on here. Why the box? Who were the two experiments with him? Where were the Harachiu that infiltrated their facilities? None of it made any sense.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:45:33 GMT -6
She could leave now, form a plan to extract Kaizen, and head home, but she felt compelled to keep watching. Tat-cross tried awkwardly to open the box she brought with her, but her thumbless paws were insufficient for the job. Clearly sensing that she needed some help, Kaizen stepped in to lift the lid from the box. He held it in the air, frozen for a moment while he decided what to do with it. She pointed her nose toward the table and he put it where she indicated.
Short-tail hopped up on a chair and started talking again, indicating various things within the box that Tenebris couldn’t see. It seemed like she was explaining something, but Tenebris struggled to hear it. Kaizen nodded along, indicating that he understood what she meant. After a few moments of discussion, she lifted a board out of the box and unfolded it onto the table. It was printed with many colorful squares and other drawings. Tenebris had never seen anything like it before.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:46:47 GMT -6
Tenebris watched them for a while as they threw little rocks around and moved some colorful figures around on the board in some sort of pattern. She couldn’t see or hear it that well, so she could only guess that they were playing some kind of game with the pieces. What they were doing with the contents of the box was not at all what she was focusing on. She was completely transfixed by the way they interacted, passing pieces of the game around, laughing and smiling, and short-tail patiently explaining things to young Kaizen.
This wasn’t the prison she had imagined at all. He wasn’t afraid and trembling in a corner, desperate to get back ‘home’. He seemed… genuinely happy here. He had other experiments to care for him, to show him how things worked. To bring him treats and help him clean up when he knocked something over.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:46:59 GMT -6
Tears began to sting at her eyes, burning her cheeks as they rolled down her face. All of the emotions she had been shoving down came flooding back all at once. She had been so worried about Kaizen, and about herself if she didn’t manage to find him, that she didn’t leave room for her own feelings on the matter. Now, watching him there with his strange new companions, seeing that he was safe and that she was wrong all along, it was just too much to bear.
Tenebris wiped her face with the palm of her glove, then she looked up to see a pair of blue eyes staring right back at her. The Tat-cross was looking up at the window with her head slightly cocked to one side. Tenebris felt the hairs rise up on the back of her neck a split second before she consciously realized she had been spotted.
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Post by Silver on Sept 5, 2023 5:47:17 GMT -6
“Shit,” she muttered under her breath, ducking down under the windowsill.
Whatever her plans might have been, they had been changed in an instant. She had to run. There was no way she could stand up to something as big as that beast in there, and if she was honest, she really didn’t want to. Her wings were clearly faster than her brain, because she was flying out into the gardens before she could even fully accept what had happened. She nervously checked over her shoulder to be sure she wasn’t followed.
Nothing.
Tenebris breathed a sigh of relief, but that didn’t stop her fretful wings from carrying her out of the gardens as fast as they could. She stayed low amongst the foliage, ducking between branches and brambles as she went. Once she felt certain that nobody followed her and her wings were ready to give out, she tumbled into a patch of soft grass near the edge of the gardens.
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