Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was chilly in the morning, cool and damp; the sun hadn't reached down through the leaves yet. Amara rustled in her pile of leaves, her fungi the only thing visible above the dead foliage. They kept her warm and moist, even in the early morning. She shivered. Her stomach was rumbling. "Mmm... some honey would be nice now." She rustled again, thinking of the honeyed forest child she had met before, and then shook off her leaves.

Amara yawned and stretched, making sure her mask was secure. She wasn't ready to show the world her true face, yet. For all anyone knew, maybe it was her real face. She giggled to herself when she thought of what one might picture underneath, if not a face. What, could she have a void there? Her stomach rumbled again, mid-giggle. She would have to forage, again. Which was pleasant, all the same.

She made her way from her home, a small pool surrounded by heavy growth, to the place where she normally found breakfast. It was a little closer to the edge of the forest than some of her other gathering spots, but it had a particular kind of mushroom: The moral, which Amara found restorative, if not particularly delicious.

As she was plucking a few mushrooms to make a sort of salad, she thought she heard a rustling in the trees. She stood still as she could, looking into the woods. Who, or what, was there?

It wasn't that she didn't like people, just that Minerva was shy. She was shy, and she was unused to being exposed to so many new individuals, so she'd taken a few days to center herself. As usual, though, she took to watching the others mill about, and she got a little lonely.

It was a terrible thing to be a shy and lonely creature. She wanted to go out and make friends, but something held her back, kept her lingering just behind the safety of the line of trees. It was why she knew so few other creatures, and those she did know, tended to be other forest children. One day, she wanted to be able to dance and play music with a lot of others, but she thought that day was far off.

Huffing, she brought a hand up to her mouth, licking away the honey that immediately coated her fingertips. Though it seemed to constantly reproduce itself, she had control over when and how she chose to excrete it. Often, her hair dissolved into honey at the ends, and if she was nervous, it would leave little honeyed footprints behind her when she walked. Still, the older she got, the better she was at controlling it.

Leaves crunched under her feet, and as she rounded the corner, she saw someone she didn't recognize. Eyes going wide, she stilled, hands slowly tucking against her chest as she peered over. It was... it was a phyri, wasn't it? She'd met a phyri before, she was sure. They'd even talked a little! But the phyri had been frightened by something, and had told Minerva that she wasn't real. It was discouraging.

She wondered if all phryi were like that.

Edging toward a tree, she examined the phyri, tiny hands inching up to press against the trunk. Despite her careful steps, she pressed down on a branch, and the crack was deafening across the forest. Her stomach pitched, and her face flushed as she froze, a near beacon with her amber colored skin pressed against a dark brown trunk.

Oops.

Empyrius jumped, his entire body going rigid as the loud crack assailed his senses in the quiet forest. Green eyes as wide as tea saucers, he quickly turned left and right in an effort to survey his surroudings. His family definitely did not make loud noises. That meant he had company, an idea that Empyrius didn't like at all. Which meant... Empyrius had to hide. Quickly.

Slowly, in hopes that whatever had broken the branch wouldn't notice, he attempted to walk backwards out of the clearing. Only to have the living daylights scared out of him again by Amara's voice and the sudden ping of a mushroom hitting his dark head.

Whirling on the intruder, he gasped and stumbled backwards. Not only were there there other creatures around, he had all but let them sneak up on him. Gaze darting between Amara and Minerva in a paranoid fashion, he stood there like a deer in headlights.

"Mmmm, me neither," Amara added, dropping down from the tree and landing neatly on her feet. She rustled around in the undergrowth for her discarded mushroom but, finding nothing, took a handful of them out of her pocket instead. Straightening up with a little bit of a white mushroom sticking out of her mouth, she finally noticed that both the phyri and Minerva looked uncomfortable. "Mmm... sorry. I thought you were threats." Amara mumbled around her mushroom, turning to look at the phyri again. It was really a fluke she'd been able to see this phyri in the forest, she could tell that now; it was so dark it was almost invisible.

"You don't look, mmm, very scary. Mushroom?" Amara took a couple steps forward, both her hands held out with one of her prized mushrooms cradled in her palms. It might not seem like a lot, and it might look weird to the phyri and Minerva... but to Amara, that was the best apology she could offer. She didn't mean to scare them; they hadn't done her any harm. "I'm Amaranth. Amara," she said, "I won't hurt you. Mmm, promise." Amara edged forward again, offering the mushroom still. She stole a glance at Minerva, to see how the honeyed Forest child was doing as well. She certainly hadn't wanted to make her friend upset.

"Mmm, Minerva? There's one here for you, too, if you'd like?..."