Welcome to Gaia! ::

Morning rose slow over the mountains of the Terra Expanse, spilling a soft, lazy yellow glow onto the lowest portions of the otherwise dark sky. Ysalda stirred among her nestmates. It wasn’t always her habit to rise early, but rather her habit to rise whenever her eyes and mind seemed to see fit. In this case, pre-dawn it was, her bright, keen yellow eyes blinking open before the sun even dared make its appearance over the mountains’ edges. Purring softly to herself, she wriggled again, stretching out slightly from where she had fallen asleep ‘attached at the hip’ to her perpetual playmate and brother, Kuasu.

Free from the stack of warm, sleeping bodies that made up her clutch, Ysalda stretched, small talons digging into the earth of her mother’s nesting cave before she lifted her snout. One sniff. Two. Three. Yes, this would be a good morning, she decided. The air smelled alive and wriggling, cool with dew but crisp and fresh. Giving a small sway with her butt to get her muscles moving, she trotted over to the edge of the cave mouth, peering around to take in the activity of the rest of the clan at this hour.

Being that they were a diverse group of khehora, not everyone kept the same schedule, some preferring to sleep all day and become predominantly active after the sun left the sky. While this still seemed a touch peculiar to Ysa, at least as compared to her own instincts, she didn’t suppose it mattered. That was just how they were.

And not how she was.

Her tail flicked, swishing from side to side curiously as she inspected the nearby area for anything worthy of interest. A good bug, perhaps. A new plant, or an interesting smell. After digging a small hole for herself, nesting down in it, and sniffing around without success in finding anything especially intriguing that moved of its own regard, she glanced back into the cave.

Perhaps Kua could be convinced it was time to wake.

Ysalda studied her brother’s movements intensely: his shift and roll, his tail swish and then, at length, the opening of one eye. At that, and his subsequent gesture to immediately squeeze it back shut again, Ysalda purred loudly. He was awake — which surely meant he wouldn’t mind joining her in proper wakeful activities.

She slunk forward several inches, bided her time until he had reached a position of full stillness and restfulness but for his soft breathing. Then, she bounded. One, two, three, four—pounce! As she landed atop him, paws pinning him back to the earth and snout nosing in to chew at his horns, she gave a low, playful growl.

“Kukukuaaaa…” She nosed one of his head fins, licking enthusiastically. “Up.” Puuurrrrr. “Come play.”

“More sleep later,” she insisted. Moving to his side, she nosed there, prying her snout half under him as though to forklift him up before scurrying with her hind legs and attempting to shove him forward. “When bedtime. Now play. Orrrrr…”

She bounded over him and out towards the mouth of the cave, peeking out again and purring with anticipation. Dew sprinkled the flat surfaces. The air smelled crisp and alive. The sky was still groggy and yawning but rapidly warming with the new day. There was so much to be done in it. Perhaps she could go investigate the animal stock pens and engage the future-dinner trapped there. That was always fun.

“Go without you. Leave you boring, boring, here. Like lazy. Lazy rock.”

Ysalda rumbled, watching Kua’s progression and moving as soon as he made it beside her. “Are lazy. Lazy Kukuku.” She trotted forward, sniffing the air as she went. “Wanna…wanna…” Glancing around, she gave an intrigued trill as she spotted the source of her earlier idea: their uncle’s penned leklans, just up the way from the outside of Mama’s nesting tunnel. “Wanna wanna play with noisy future-dinner.”

She climbed the slope, hop-trotting up over the rock and leaf tail swishing and rippling with anticipation. When she came close enough, she could smell the future-dinners, all puffy and large and strange, waddling about in their enclosure. She stuffed her nose up against the wood of their pen. Peering between the bars of it, she wondered at the best way to get in. There was a gate in one — though that was more for the leklan than the tender, given that all the grown khehora for the most part could fly. Ysalda, though, was too young yet for that. After a moment, she leapt, scrabbling and attempting to simply wriggle and squirm her way in through the fence.

If this proved to be an exercise in futility, she could simply dig under.

Ysalda was stuck.

She squinted, snout wrinkling up and tail swishing uncertainly once she’d gotten herself securely wedged between the wooden fence pieces. But no, surely that couldn’t be right. If she just wriggled a little more, this way, or that way. Or this way. Or that other way. Or—

She scrabbled at the air. She struck all four legs out once. She kicked with her hind legs and scurried with her front. She swished her nose from side to side and barked at the air and lashed her tail all about. Then, exhausted, she flopped, yellow eyes narrowing with dejected frustration and antennae twitching with displeasure as a single back leg pawed the air uselessly.

“Bad wood,” she grumbled. “Tight, tight.”

Ysalda stilled, squinting.

“No,” she grunted, huff-snorting and attempting — rather unsuccessfully — to shoot a glower back at him. “Like this spot.” After a grumble and another useless four-leg stretch and scramble, she let out a long, airy snort. “Push, push. Puuuussh.”

Ysalda squeaked, yelping when she finally dropped through before quickly pushing to a stand and shaking herself. She kneaded the earth, rumbled happily, and then glanced to Kua. “Dirty, dirty to dig…” A pause. “Like dirty.” She puurrrred. “Next time, dig.”

Nodding at this ‘sagely’ wisdom she had just taught herself, her attention turned immediately after to the others in their company. Future-dinners here and future-dinners over there. Everywhere, future-dinners lumbering about. She wriggled low to the earth, tail sweeping from one side to the other and hind legs digging their talons in to brace herself.

“Gonna, gonna—”

Leaping forward, she barked, immediately taking joyous chase after the startled and disgruntled leklan. If it didn’t seem absolutely terrified of her ferocity, well — that was it’s own mistake. They were fairly stupid creatures, after all.

Ysalda groaned, huffing and scrambling beneath her brother. She had almost caught one, too.

“No, no, nooooo…fat, Kukuku—busy hunting!” She stood, rolling him off of her, started out a step as though to chase more leklan, and then, at the last moment, turned and tackled him instead, rolling them together. Around them, leklans honked their objections, pawing the earth and snorting as they moved to avoid the wildly scrambling lizard children. It seemed, from Ysalda’s perspective, to be a great game: like playing with her brother normally except with the added excitement of a wildly honking future-dinner audience.

Then, she froze. In a moment, halfway into gnawing on part of her brother’s tail, her body stilled as sure as fallen snow and her yellow eyes pinned a new companion. It was one of the future-dinners. But smaller by a great bit, with overly large eyes and curiously flaring nostrils. Much like she and her brother were disproportionately small compared to their elders.

Was this, possibly, a future-dinner version of herself and Kua? She narrowed her eyes, releasing her grip on her brother and slithering off to wriggle low to the earth as she eyed it.

The young future-dinner gave a soft honk, but otherwise seemed stupidly unfrightened by her ferocious presence. “Kukukuuu…” Ysalda rumbled softly. “Look.”