[ORP] The Hole

[Baneful]

The Treel let out a final sound of indignation and then fell to the ground defeated, no longer dangerous to the gathered kin.
One of its sides had broken open from the combat, and chewy candies now spilt out from its entirely hollow interior.

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Ah dang, what were her own dogs doing? A quick glance around showed Simple Gifts that her own pack of ghosts (and solid wolves) were reasonably far from the hole. Good dogs.

"Woah there, you got it!" she hollered to the little Acha. "And I think it's... dead?" she said, moving a little closer to sniff at the thing they'd been kicking. It reeked of tar, but it wasn't moving, and there were... things fallen out of it. They smelled nice, under the tar smell, but she was going to be cautious about this. She quickly took a step back, in case there was lingering lightning in the corpse. "It's not moving anymore. We should kick it back into the hole where it belongs. Although who knows, if there's something else in the hole it might be mad that we hurt this thing. Like you know how in stories, heroes will defeat a monster, and then the monster's mama shows up and brings a world of hurt? This thing's kind of like a tadpole halfway to frog, what with the tail and all. I'd hate to see a bigger version come out."

She was very aware she was not making things better. "When you were down in the hole- was that like when you've traveled with the obelisks? What does it feel like?" he said to the Acha. She was not going in there herself, but it would be an interesting thing to hear.

[Muffinsbaby]

Unlife shrugged, not bothering to wipe the earlier gore from her mouth, "My eyes will see until they don't." At the reminder of eyes, she nervously glanced back at the hole to see if she was still being watched.

"It certainly looks dead to me...but the insides don't look the way they should..." she trailed off, turning thoughtful.

She'd had run-ins - and outs - of the obelisks before, and when made to recall them, she could definitely feel the similarities. So, she couldn't call the mare a liar, a thought that conjured up frustration, though she honestly couldn't think why. Instead, she looked at the mare, frowning, "You're feel like Swarm, but you don't look like Swarm." It wasn't poor No Escape's fault that Swarm was the only legendary she'd interacted with until now, nor the bitter feelings toward their creator that had developed between.

Her mind suddenly pivoted, and now that she could see, she turned to the impossibly light acha that glowed weirdly, "Now it's a nice froggy." This sent her into a fit of giggles.

[AMItotic]

So many things seemed to happen all at once, as the crowd grew. More murmurs of theories, frightened and curious, more items tossed into the hole. The acha returned, changed into something...squishy? Until wanted to touch it, but didn't quite want to eat someone that could speak, it felt strange. But she was really intrigued by the two glowing kin at the edge, talking about something to do with the...Other? Now that was curious.

She started to move that way, questions on her tongue, when a creature rose from the hole and started trying to eat people. Until Next Time was not a fighter at heart, staggering back and out of the way of those who were more willing to send the thing back into its hole. It seemed like only a moment later the creature was defeated, spewing out strange rocks, or maybe fruit. Was this frog made of fruit?

"...Are these the types of gifts the Other gives?" Until asked of I Always Come Back, her ears perked forward, curious.

[phoe]

"No," said Beetleshell, "wait."

The bright green doe approached tentatively, ready to leap back in case the treel decided it was faking its own death. Then, with great delicacy and care, she picked out a few of the candies from the gaping hole in its side and pushed them onto a broad, flat leaf. She was shaking from the adrenaline of the situation and glad that she hadn't gotten tangled up in the fight, but the candy was irresistible. She wanted to know more. Would the insects like it? They generally liked sugary, sweet things.

"--there," she breathed, backing carefully away from it, as if the hole was going to spit something back out.

"Shes' right," No Escape said, casting a weather eye on the green doe as she gathered up some of the candies. "It is like the space between the obelisks. But it changes things, warps them. Nothing makes sense inside. Some say it means freedom from the swamp, but at what cost? And these are the gifts. Not exactly something you'd want."

[Baneful]

Will didn't help fight the Treel; he just stood by with mild amusement, close enough to the hole that he could practically hear its whispers.

"Most of what she is telling you is lies," he said, regarding the overheard conversation with No Escape. "Those who weren't strong enough to receive the Other's blessing spend the rest of their lives trying to twist minds against him, forever living in regret at their commitment to the lesser of two powers."

"I know the Other. She does not."

Until Next Time had a more reasonable question for him, and he smiled warmly at her.

"The Other can give any kind of gift you can imagine, I think," he said. "There is no limit to his generosity for those unafraid to accept it. All of this is merely a game, teasing the MotherFather by giving her prisoners a taste of the things they can never experience, showing them that the world can be so much more."

[LOLLI qAq]

"It did and didn't feel like the obelisks," Totem answered. "Like, the obelisks never smelled like cake. But they're always different ... But also I've never been talked to from inside the obelisk. So, that was new."

She turned to the legendary, she wasn't sure, and tilted her head. "Was that the Other talking to me?"
Because I think maybe they chose not to hurt me, she thought, but definitely didn't say.

She sniffed at the other sweet treat newly presented. Their outside smelled like creature, like cake but moldy and wrong, but she could tell there was something truly sweet under there.

So she ate one and then turned her attention, almost defiantly, back to the tall buzzy kimeti. She opened her mouth for more questions, but found her teeth wanted to stick together and Totem ended up laughing instead. After a moment of just laughing at the treat in her mouth she nodded at the tall buck that knew the Other.

"Yeah," she said happily, "rewards like cake!"

[Dizzy_Kat]

He was too late. He couldn't stop them and he couldn't save whatever this thing that smelled like home was. Heartbreak and homesickness coiled inside him much like the serpent that gently squeezed his neck. "You just killed it." He said quietly, then louder. "You just killed it without a second thought! Because why?! Because it was from somewhere else?" Anguish and anger boiled out of the zikwa as his body trembled. "Sure! Kick it back into the hole it came from. Who are you to decide it doesn't belong here?" He bit off the words. He turned from the gathered kin and took a deep breath from the direction of the hole. It still smelled like the caverns he grew up in.

"I was raised to believe the MotherFather cared for everyone and everything in the swamp. Our lives, our existence as zikwa is the final step in our journey to become one with the MotherFather." He shuddered. "If that's true though... why hate The Other? Because they're different? Because they're from somewhere else?" It echoed in his mind what had just happened.

[phoe]

No Escape looked at Will with an expression somewhere between disgust and pity. "And I know the Motherfather, who has given me gifts." She could feel that gift now, pinging inside of her, loud now that she was close to another legendary. She felt them -- their weight, almost. It was hard to explain. "But I'm not going to waste my time explaining anything to someone who wouldn't, or won't, appreciate it."

Instead, she turned to Unlife with an expression that changed to mild amusement. "We are both chosen of the Motherfather. But I've never met Swarm."

"Perhaps it is the Other speaking to us from the hole. But what is the point? Chaos for its own sake?" She shrugged and then turned to address the hysterical little zikwa. "That thing was not of the Motherfather."

[Dizzy_Kat]

"But it was of the earth. Like me." Speed Racer countered. "It smelled like home." He added in a softer voice.

[Muffinsbaby]

Unlife snorted. Loudly. Derisively. The look on her face all a mix of hurt, disgust, confusion, and anger, unaware or not caring who could or could not see.

"The Motherfather doesn't love," she spat, "The Motherfather doesn't care about their creations. The Motherfather creates and leaves, they don't watch or help those that may need them. We are lesser than moss sticking to a stone to them. The Motherfather be damned, and as useful as a caiman with no teeth."

She then looked at Will. Staring. Perhaps with more clarity than she'd ever had in her life, but things still didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. It hurt. The trying. The thinking. She wanted to be wrong, but truly believed in her own irrelevancy.

"It talked to me. I think. Watches me. I think. I feel afraid of it, but it's more than I can say about the Motherfather. Why talk to something that doesn't talk back? Why beg to something that won't help?"

[phoe]

One side of No Escape's mouth twitched up. "It smelled like rot to me. And like cake to the acha."

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Simple Gifts snorted. "We didn't kill it because it was from somewhere else, we killed it because it attacked a kin unprovoked. It could have fled or hopped back into the hole from whence it came- but it didn't. Doesn't matter if it was from the Motherfther or the Other- mad animals are an immediate threat. If it had been a crocodile that had tried to take a chunk out of someone, we'd have done the same thing."

[LOLLI qAq]

Totem reached a suddenly not cake nose over to her friend and pushed it softly into his shoulder. "I'm sorry it smelled like home to you."

Whether it smelled like cake to her, or rot to anyone else, was irrelevant. It's death upset her very dear friend and that wasn't okay. At a loss of what to do Totem did the only thing that would have cheered her up in that moment if their roles were reversed. She nudged a candy over to Speed's feet.

"Try a treat?"

[Dizzy_Kat]

Rot was a core component of the scent of home. Decomposition, the swampy smell of wet greens and loamy mushroom rich earth. The smell of bugs and small creatures that fell into wells they couldn't crawl out of. That a surface kin found it offensive didn't surprise Speed anymore. "That doesn't mean it didn't smell like home... and Totem was cake?" The mares arguments held no weight to him. He turned his head in the direction of the kin who snorted. "Scared animals attack. Coming out of the caves, out of the obelisk? It was terrifying. I couldn't see anything. I still can't. It's too bright. I'm not going to blame anything that lives down there for lashing out. It doesn't mean it deserved to die for it."

He wanted so badly to lean into Totem's touch and accept her comfort. Tension held him still. She was his best friend but she had also struck the killing blow. He didn't know how to feel about that.