Topic: Reset (Mature Audiences 18+)

Blep

Date: 2015-11-12 22:08 EST
Highway InterReality 3x10^28

What no one had mentioned about inter-universal travel were the smells. Although they remained simple translations of the ineffable, focused through the lens of Zofie's Charge, they were still a heady, distracting affair. Palm oil, burnt wire and peony combined with mustard, mildew and latex, keeping time with the pulsing, hallucinogenic corridor walls and the cloying warble in the generated atmosphere around the Cavalier.

Zofie had decided early on to stick her glasses into her jacket's interior pocket, relieving herself of the vertigo-inducing sights as she strode through the passage. The "ground" of whirling energy patterns alternated between a cloying, muddy substance that rolled off of her skin and near-frictionless sheets that sent electrical charges through her bare soles, clamping her in place with each step as if walking on iron in magnet boots.

Every so often a large object floated by, either breaching through the passage or bumbling along the bass-thump 'jet-stream'. Sometimes a brain-crushing megafauna, sometimes a clumsy vehicle, sometimes a stray bubble of ecosystem wandered through, ambling around each other in an orbital dance before flagella-wriggling or jetting off on their old course once again. Travel in certain spots meant leaping between gravitational pulls, bounding from enormous fins to sprint across an observation deck window, and praying that at no point in the process would she have gotten turned around. When hunger gnawed, these gargantuan intruders provided the bulk of Zofie's food, skimming bolts from a ship's exterior while taking a bite from a country-sized Space Mole, not enough to register as an itch on the creature, and just enough damage to register as incidental.

To move between universes was to understand the life of a flea, or Tardigrade; a small, resilient speck bounced between titanic forces, surviving as little more than an incident or an irritant. Eventually, when the colors stopped whirling, when the noise kicked in, and when the ground chose a consistent texture, that tiny speck rejoiced, at least for a moment, on reaching anything that resembled the jurisdiction of her home's Laws of Physics.

Blep

Date: 2015-11-20 01:21 EST
Pandemonium, Outskirts of the Florenian Habitable Zone

Zofie's reverie of solid ground and a clear idea of 'up' lasted until the breeze of a faraway shockwave rolled past her in the strange, ruin-covered landscape. The front of a spacefaring vessel roughly the size of the Burj Khalifa crumbled under the sea of tendrils whipping up through the ground. Phosphorescent clusters of biomechanical creatures made fake landing strip lights, while wobbling crab-things set with radio-antenna growths on their backs teetered toward the wreckage; an angler's lure for space travelers mocked up by a hodgepodge of disparate creatures. Escape pods rained from the yet-to-land back half, and the thunderous stampede set the ground to ripple like stone-skimmed water. While she had no sense of North or South, Zofie had a clear sense of As Far As ****ing Possible From Here once she started flea-jumping away.

As the wave of meat, metal, bone and crystal hurdled toward the crashing ship beneath Zofie, all around her bird-like abominations with faces built for shredding and grinding circled, waiting for the stampede and feeding frenzy to calm before feasting on the carnage. One bird the size of an SUV jetted toward her in a dive, seeking a quick snack to tide it over. "****!" Tucking in her knees, Zofie floated in position, letting the gravitational forces around her come to nil before rolling away and into the bird-monster's slipstream and higher than the drafts might permit their pursuit. However, she had her own problem now hurdling toward her back at break-neck speed.

The escape pod smacked into Zofie's back, leaving her sprawled across its front as they started their hurdle downward, into the crazed morass of creatures below. "Ohhh nonononono **** why does that thing have chainsaw tusks!? Oh maaaan!" Wincing as hard as she could manage, the Cavalier stuck out her legs, taking the impact by landing on the backs of a few of the larger animals and knocking them over as she took her next leap. Bangs, flashes, and groans of metal joined the cacophony of beasts as both halves of the ship finally met the ground, overwhelmed by the planet's terrible ecosystem.

At the crest of her next jump, Zofie once more kept herself hovering just long enough to fish her glasses from her jacket and peek out across the horizon. A wall of stone, of steel, of force and of sorcery stretched high and wide, disappearing into a forest at one end, and lowering into the sea at the other, the evening sun glinting off of faraway buildings made of glass and crystal. The field between bore bits of much older wreckage, from tricked-out Road Warrior cars to chunks of old space cruiser, to mystic carriages made of opal and kyanite all smashed and eroded. A few black hominid blurs zipped between the derelict vehicles, any distinction between their home species or culture blown into a collective of desperation, held together by caution. They remained still and hidden as Zofie bounded toward the Wall, silent and watchful, before returning to their scrambles between their flimsy sanctuaries.

"Hey!!! HEY!!!" The Cavalier cupped her hands around her mouth as she bounded toward the wall, the escape pod still swinging around her in an awkward, elliptical orbit, along with a few bits of shrapnel, rock and bone picked up from her surroundings. "Incomin'! Plllease open up, y'all!"

With two jumps to go, and the sound of chrome talons scraping against the tops of the wrecked vessels, a small corridor unfolded from the wall. The pod swung around, just in front of Zofie as she tapped it with her fingertips, sending it sliding inside as she sprinted behind it. The gunfire bang! of giant mandibles encroached closer to her back, closing in from the sides at a stagger that implied strategy. Still without daring to look too long on her assailants, she swept her hand around, collecting the detritus she'd picked up in a dense ball, then scrambled into the corridor, leaving the ball to rocket back into the Whatevermonster immediately behind her and to explode like a fragmentation grenade, sending enough shrapnel flying around and into her pursuers to bid them to retreat.

Zofie didn't stop running until the corridor spilled open into a much larger, much warmer lobby. A few people in blue and white uniforms that mixed ancient armor and futuristic efficiency, hailing from all sorts of species and cultures, closed in on the pair, wrenching open the pod and catching Zofie, supporting her weight as her legs crumbled. A flurry of languages chirped, chattered and grunted around her; once they began to approach Terran in sound, she released a happy sigh, nose scrunching to keep her glasses from sliding off. "I'm okay... jus' tired and hungry..." Her stomach growled, something more akin to a panther's protest than an internal gurgle. "... Make that incredibly hungry..."

A smallish, wiry older man, sporting a gray handlebar mustache and wearing a dusty bowler hat in lieu of a more official helmet, approached from a far hallway sporting a pair of small fruit trees at either side. He approached with his hands behind his back, though the warmth in his murky brown eyes spoke to comfort as much as they did despair. "Welp..." His pinched, smoky tenor voice began. "Bad news, is that youse are the only two t'get outta that crash. Good news..." He swung out both hands, each wrapped around a bottle of fine, amber liquor in cobalt blue glass. "Y'get a free bottle o' booze fer alla yez troubles. Welcome to Florenia, folks."

Blep

Date: 2015-11-27 15:20 EST
The Bum Smuggler Tavern, Ambertown, Florenia

Most days, the spillover clouds from Pandemonium made Ambertown appear to stay in perpetual twilight, all gold, indigo and bright, bright pinks until finally succumbing to night. The constant Golden Hour lighting seemed delightful, at first, especially when interspersed with the warm rains that set the occasional sun-dog or rainbow to grace the horizon, yet the inability to crest into true noon left most of the daytime inhabitants a cross between overstimulated and groggy.

Zofie, for all of her efforts to fight this, took to the fire escape's railing that ran next to her rented room at the Bum Smuggler for some fresh air and hard rain. In turns, she let herself move between saturated and merely damp, sloughing off water intermittently until the steady drizzle turned into a curtain-thick downpour. Her eyes brightened behind her glasses, as the honeycomb lattice of blue shone through her skin in increasing splashes of color down her bare legs and arms. She watched and felt the colorful passers by below, sharing a wave and smile with those who managed to look up.

Two hours of this passed, until the groggy Imp with black, gray-streaked hair and red panda ears and tail rolled out of their shared bed, slung on a robe, and peeked out onto the wrought-iron balcony, ears pinned gently back. "Hey, are you okay out there?"

"Oh! Uh..." Zofie swung her legs around as she spun on the railing, wrapping up a chunk of hair around her palm to wring it out amidst her bashful smile. "Yeah. Just havin' that moment where a bunch of ****'s hittin' me at once." She stuck out her leg, pressing her toes to the Imp's knee and squeezing gently as her chin dropped. "Kinda nervous about headin' home, I guess." She wrung out more of her hair in sections as she peeked up to her companion, lips pursing curiously as the rain parted around them. "You uhm.. ever git homesick, Sasha?"

"Naaah." Sasha scrunched her nose as she shook her head, pulling her robe tighter around herself before tucking her arms into its sleeves. Her ringed tail snuck around, gently wrapping around Zofie's outstretched leg as she leaned against the doorframe. "You can't ever really go home once you've left. They don't call us Strangers for nothing, you know?" The vague LED-like eyeshine behind acid green irises flickered as she looked to the Cavalier's face, a fang peeking out between her lips during her forlorn smirk. "It's great for closure, I can tell you that much!"

Zofie's cheeks puffed as she sighed, turning her heel to scrunch her toes in the tail's warm fur before moving to stand. "I figured as much." She teetered to her feet and drew in, squirming playfully against the older Imp on her way inside, which earned her a squeak-inducing smack on the rear. She snorted out her snicker as she frolicked toward the sizable metal tea decanter, pouring herself a mug and leaning against the dressers whilst watching the Imp slink back inside and begin plucking her disparate clothes from the floor. "So uh... whatcha know about Revenants? Like... the really old ones?"

Sasha wriggled her way back into her panties, only to pause, ears back, tail fur on end, and eyes wide. "... What?"

"Uh..." Zofie winced, crossing her free hand over her middle as one ankle crossed over the other. "Uhm... like, there're two of 'em where I just left. They seem okay. Stupid pretty to look at, and they've been really nice to me, but... I can't help but feel like they set up this trip for somethin' that's... Not benign." She set her teacup down on the dresser to let her finger curl thoughtfully under her chin.

Sasha ran her finger along the little smile lines next to her eye before covering her mouth, nodding as her tail flicked back and forth. She took a deep breath, sighed, then dropped her head, slowly going back to re-clothing herself. "From what I've learned while being abroad, it's that if a Revenant isn't going back to the Brink on their own, then they were probably kicked out, and probably for a good reason." She zipped up her jeans and stepped into her boots on her way over to Zofie, brows pitched with concern as she shrugged out of the robe and nestled her bared torso against the younger Cavalier with a stroke to her long, hot pink hair. "I also learned that doing what they ask will keep you alive and well a lot longer than if you don't."

Zofie hooked her thumbs into the back of Sasha's waistband to keep her close just long enough to steal a little kiss to the space where jaw, neck and ear met, ending with a tender nuzzle. "That sounds about right..." She let one hand wander from the dip in Sasha's throat, zig-zagging over her curves before flicking her fingertip against her navel, and dropping her gaze back to the carpet beneath them. "Thank you, Sasha. I really needed this."

Sasha squirmed with a throaty croon under the wandering touch before bursting into a cackle, lifting Zofie's hand to press a kiss to her middle two knuckles. "Trrrust me, Zofie, the feeling's mutual. I didn't know how much I needed someone to... see me, I guess." She managed a glance to a clock in the midst of her reverie, prompting her to scramble into her shirt, throw on her jacket, and stuff her bra into the right hand pocket. "****, I gotta get going. Just, promise me you'll come see me play drums at the Mayweather before you leave, okay? It'd mean a lot."

Zofie had her glasses lifted, ready to make a joke at the expense of her terrible eyesight right when Sasha burst into a flurry of activity. She set them back down with a forlorn quirk of her lips, pushing off from the dresser to stand with fingers laced behind her back and legs still crossed at the calf. She snap-banged with a nod at the invitation, her smile tender, but still enough to set dimples into her cheeks. "I'll be there t'morrow night. I still need t'figure out clothing and luggage while I'm here."

"Oo! Right. There're some Nommo in the Gray Market who can probably hook you up with some hammerspace capsules. I wouldn't bring up the Revenants around them, though." Sasha leaned against the doorframe as she zipped up her jacket, letting her red-ringed tail casually list back and forth in the hallway. "Let 'em know I sent you, and they'll probably be a lot friendlier."

Zofie nodded as she rose on tiptoe, stretching momentarily before dropping back down. Her shoulders slumped forward as the rain came to a stop, and the brightly colored sky dipped into darkness. "Uh... jus' one last thing; what's hammerspace?"

"It's uh..." Sasha twirled her wrist as she bit half of her lower lip, turning her eyes upward. "It's like... where Bugs Bunny keeps his hammer behind his back, y'know?" She pressed her lips to the tips of her fingers before outstretching her hand, fluttering a wave and casting a wink to Zofie before starting a hurried sashay down the hall. "See ya, sweetie!"

"Ohhh... yeah. I got it." Zofie brought one hand from behind her back for a splay-fingered wave, drawing up a closed-mouth smile for Sasha before the Imp disappeared. "See ya." As her door swung closed, she picked up her tea from the dresser and dropped to sit on the floor, staring into the mug in the long moments between sips.

Blep

Date: 2015-12-07 18:38 EST
Gray Market, Florenia

The Gray Market spread like a spider web across Amrita Valley, claiming its succor from the larders of incoming spaceships, flying beasts and mystic skyboats alike. The skulking vendors, aromatic smokes of mind-altering substances and furtive, yet savage brutalizing of thieves by hired muscle and the salespeople themselves revealed that the 'gray' had to do with the general morality of the market, as its demeanor still remained stark and neon bright.

Zofie didn't have too hard a time keeping a low profile. She had tucked her hair into space buns to keep it from getting tangled in the bustle around her, and her chin into the high, black collar of her jacket, her nose resting on the slightly cooled zipper. She dipped through the crowd casually, quietly, all while peering through red-rimmed glasses in the hopes of spotting something that at least resembled the trappings of the sea-slug-colored, antennae-sporting Nommo through the Market's tangle. That changed with the sound of bubbling sludge behind her and a long, dark shadow over her shoulder.

"Don't freak out, but we gotta keep walking." The voice came from about two feet above Zofie, frighteningly low in register, but consciously softened and smoothed to quell panic. Gradually, the looming figure strolled to Zofie's side, letting his long, wiry purple arm drift into her peripheral vision while dense green curls bounced around bared shoulders. While slim, the Nommo stood over seven feet tall, clad simply in a loose vest, faux-leather pants and a pair of Converse All-Stars painted with purple glitter and accented with small brassy spikes next to the laces. "I'm Ziggy. Love the Leia buns, by the way."

Zofie blew out a tense sigh from pursed lips as she kept pace with Ziggy, her fingers wriggling in her jacket pockets to bridle her impulse to look behind her. Nevertheless, she peeked kindly up toward the Nommo, offering up a dimpled smile and a dipping curtsey that meshed with her stride. "Why thank you! Shall I extend a similar compliment t'your fanciful Botticelli curls?"

Ziggy set the fingertips of his right hand on his chest, lifting his solid chin and shaking his middle-shoulder-length ringlets. "Ughf! Yas! It takes a lot of conditioning to get that Giant Space Cupid Look. But..." He unfolded his arm to point carefully around a bend in the intersection, steering them left onto a humming, solid-light walkway. "... I heard that Sasha sent you to us about a hammerspace capsule."

"Woop!" Zofie lifted up one knee as she spun on the ball of her foot, teetering around the corner and stumbling purposefully alongsize Ziggy as they took to the walkway. She shivered with a high squawk as bare feet met with the solid light, shimmying her shoulders as she blew out an exhale. "Ho man, it's like walkin' on Jell-O made of sunshine. This is weeeeird." From there on out, she walked with her knees popping up just a tad more, a gait taken on by other denizens sharing her lack of footwear on the walkway. "Yes. Yes she did tell me y'all could help me with a Hammerpants Capsule. She also told me not t'tell y'all that my trip back to Earth is partially at the behest of some old-head Revenants." She winced as she peeked up, shrugging once shoulder. "Figured full disclosure's only fair."

Ziggy's laugh started low, seeming to make his entire frame rumble while maintaining his languid, near-catwalk stride. "I'm sure she did." He dared to take a glance over his shoulder, squinting around his hard, all-black eyes while his antennae bobbed up and down before relaxing into his walk and wiping his hands on his vest. "To make a long story short, the Revenants make a lot of big, long plans and kinda forget about how things go on the ground level. My team ends up doing damage control for when those plans **** up too badly. It's like working under old, incompetent shareholders in a job you can't quit."

Zofie's nose crinkled through her grimace as she eased her prance to match Ziggy's pace, taking up a minor frolic to meet the long-legged stride. "Eck. Definitely sounds like there's a lot of suck goin' on. So... are you n' me gonna have a problem if I head back with 'em on my tail, or is it just between y'all?"

Ziggy held out his hand as he shook his head, slowing to a stop and turning on his heel to settle himself a few feet in front of, and facing, Zofie. "Ohhh, nonono. The worst they can do is try to talk to your Charge to spy, and--" He shrugged and stuck out his chin. "--I want them to see how things are. I want to close that gap." He dropped his hands and his head, letting his hair drape like a veil in front of his face before slowly looking up to let his curls part around his sleepily smiling expression. "Now, look the **** to your left at what we managed to score out here."

"Yeah, okay, I'll play Remote Control Undercover Boss." Zofie squinted at Ziggy, at first, then gradually looked over her shoulder, hopefully to catch a glimpse of whatever they had hurried away from, only to find a few straggling shoppers at the corners and no one of any undue interest or Excessive Disinterest nearby. With a disappointed smirk, she complied, looking over her left shoulder, only for the dissatisfaction to melt into open-mouthed glee. "Waaagh, that's awesome!"

While a few shelves contained biomechanical weaponry and futuristic gewgaws, the display shelf resembling the results of Lisa Frank taking a heroic dose of shrooms had Zofie's full, frantic attention. At its top, the label TRASHTASTIC! pulsed in a neon teal glow.

"Pick whatever capsule you want; it's on the house. Anything else, you're gonna need to shill out." As the Cavalier rummaged through the strange array of goods, Ziggy took a glance back into the store, nodding to one of his fellow Nommo behind the counter. The substance that oozed around him took the color and the light from around him, taking him from visibility as he slid away to handle their mysterious pursuers.

Blep

Date: 2015-12-23 15:24 EST
Gold Root Village, Patala, The Brink

Zofie took a deep, slow breath as the one familiar thing to her in the Brink peeled into view. The enormous crystalline structure, branching both high above and deep into the strange, dark loam seemed to stretch and warble as the Cavalier stepped through the membrane between the Occult and the staging ground between the weirdness and Earth. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she felt its roaring pulse through the ground, timed with the flutter of lights traversing from root to branch and back. Just for a moment, she squinted up towards its boughs, in the vain hope of seeing if any other Strangers fell there to be tossed into the wilds of the multiverse. Soon, however, a few noisy clanks and rumbles brought her attention back down, towards the tree's "roots". A choked scream prompted her to hop-run forward, skidding to a halt once the house-sized metal wing of the thing smacked to the ground before her.

The ship, or what wreckage was left of it, resembled a white, winged whale. Joints along its side had been stripped, leaving the armatures bare save for a few ligatures, struts and gleaming feathers that crackled and broke as the wings fell from the main body. Huge holes had been rendered into its side, leaking glittery blue vapor that climbed up the mega-tree's trunk. Only one of its crew remained visible, if alive, three of his eight arms turned to blackened crystal and six of the multiple eyes that hovered around his head rendered bloody and swollen. The one good eye in his skull rolled toward Zofie as he sputtered, staining his grey-streaked, red beard with blood. "Hey... girl... >hk-cough!< listen..."

"Ohhhh Ho-ly ****!" Zofie scampered closer to the wounded Grigori, just out of his arms' reach, but close enough for him not to strain his voice. Her brows pitched as she nodded, crouching down and resting her palms atop her knees. "Take it easy, man. I kin try t'find you help in a li'l bit, oka--"

The Grigori's coughing fit interrupted Zofie, yet it turned to a sad, sardonic laugh, ending in a bloody-toothed grin. "Heh... just stay put... gimme a witness, alright?" He wheezed in a breath as he set one of his still-functioning arms to his side, eyes squinting in pain. "Something... maybe somebody... started ****in' with the control towers. There's dead people floating around Agartha. My wife's a smear in the branches up there." He closed his eyes and sighed, an arm fumbling out for something, weakly. "You gotta tell somebody what's happening."

Zofie obliged the Grigori's hand by taking it into her own, squeezing it as she she winced and fretted. She squeezed his hand as she crept in closer, sliding her free arm around his shoulders and raising him up. "I promise." Though her stomach growled, she scrunched in her mouth, shook her head, and closed her eyes. "How d'you want your body t'be handled?"

"Burn it. My ID's in the ship. See if you can scrape up my wife's, too." His expression went glassy as he leaned back into Zofie's arm, gradually coming to some semblance of peace. "... Thanks for not eatin' me."

"Your ship'll do just fine, sir." She closed her eyes as a low, humbled chuckle shook through the both of them. By the time she opened them, the Grigori had gone slack, still holding the loose vestiges of a grin on his lifeless face.

Blep

Date: 2016-01-07 03:50 EST
Gold Root Village, Patala, The Brink

Zofie burned the Grigori pilot and what was left of his wife in an oven made from overturned pieces of their ship, jammed together with her gravitational mojo while she tended to the flames. The smoke came out thick, rich with the lean, pork-like scent of roasting human flesh, making her stomach growl. She scrunched her nose and swallowed, prodding the flame with a Lightspear found on board and pumping the makeshift bellows to feed the flame until the flesh turned to powder and the bones glowed orange. As the remains within finally rendered to coal and ash, a voice hissed, coming from a direction which had no name.

"What a waste. They would have tasted exquisite with a vinegar marinade."

Zofie's spine went rigid as she gasped, her fingers splayed in surprise. During her exhale, she closed her eyes, hoping to find the weight and shape of whatever, whomever had spoken. It seemed to take shape not from clarity, but from the very energy she exerted to seek it out. Four points of weight settled to the ground, each splaying wide before delineating as something between a gecko's pads and a tiger's paws. A soft drone faded in and out around it. The body was relatively lean, long as a station wagon and wiry. She felt its breath on her face, the air around her cooling further on its every inhale, and its exhale reeking of corroding metal and digesting marrow. Gradually, she opened her eyes to find a pale humanoid face staring right back at her, its nose and brow flat and nimble lips peeling back to show the neat, serrated rows of teeth in a terrifying, if oddly tender, grin.

"We finally meet, face-to-face." Its voice was soft, yet held the resonance of brass behind it. Its eyes were the same electrified blue as Zofie's, and all around its neck, a bright mane of fuchsia faded into the short, dense fur along its body, hiding lime green skin beneath. Its wings were somewhere between those of a bat and a dragonfly's. Its tail curled high, the tip surrounded in a thousand buzzing lights darting in jagged patterns around a spherical tip. "You have heard much on the subject of your Charge. Now, you face it."

"Gh--ghuh!" Zofie's breath quickened as she stared at the creature, shaking as the hunger in her stomach turned to churning queasiness. "Ohhhh ****."

The creature sat back on its haunches, reaching up a back leg to scratch behind its ear. "Can you name the shape of the beast before you? Define it? Does it reflect some piece of you?"

"**** you're a manticore, aren't you?" She held her stomach as her head dropped into her other hand, her whole body trembling. "I--****, I didn't mean to--" Tears splashed on the inside of her glasses before splattering on her ankles and the front of her jacket. "Aw gawd, everyone's gonna know, now."

The Manticore straightened its posture, the lights at the end of its bulbed tail fading as it curled around the monster's feet. "The sin of Fraud took this shape in times long past. What shall you do with both lies and cannibalism as your standard?"

Zofie crossed her arms beneath her bust, gripping the edges of her tank top through her jacket as she wept. "Gh-Ghawwww Nanna n' Baba... I'm so sorry... ah ****..." She sniffled hard, lifting her elbow to wipe her nose before another wave of sobs overtook her.

"You've chosen a lovely manner of handling it so far." The Manticore stuck out its lower lip and weaved its head back and forth in a serpentine manner. "Refuse appears as a kingdom beneath your hand, and within this web of deceit you have even hidden your graver sins. Do you pretend that, on some level, you have not accepted this?"

"Nnguh..." Zofie took off her glasses, wiping her eyes with her sleeve and the lenses with the hem of her shirt. Her stomach spasmed intermittently, bringing her to wretch on occasion as the creature laid her sins bare. "Ulgh ****. It's too much, man. I haven't eaten anyone in months, not since Mona gave me that corpse from the car wreck."

The Charge rolled its eyes skyward, toward the endless sprawling branches of the crystalline tree. "Yeees, yeees, and you have tasted the fruits of wood and steel, wind and rain. They feed your machinery, but frankly..." It flattened its mouth as it stared down at Zofie, eyes half-lidded. "They shall never feed your soul."

"Oh cool!" She tossed her hands wide as she sat up, unfolding her legs and resting her elbows on her knees once she slumped in resignation. "****in' great. I got 'People' as a buildin' block in my food pyramid! That's just ****in'... the best."

The Manticore planted its front paws and backed up its hindquarters, lying down and letting its tail curl upward behind its back. The zipping, droning lights began their spin around the bulb once more. "What sits between your feast of wind and consuming your kin species?" Its eyes went soft as its head tilted, genuinely curious, like a child asking an adult about the sky's color.

"I dunno. Probl--" Zofie splayed her toes as she looked up toward the Manticore, her mouth making an astounded little 'o' while finally sliding her glasses back into place. "Life has lots of movin' parts, right? Uh..." She waved her hand as she shook her head, a few strands of hair flying loose from her bun. "I mean, animal life in particular."

"What happens to a body when feeding on its mobility?" The Manticore started kneading at the black substrate beneath its paws, its own error-screen blue eyes glinting in its porcelain-pale, humanoid face. "Does the heart strain? Does it exhaust the body? What do you take from them? How do you take it?"

Zofie pressed her soles together and took hold of her ankles, lowering her knees to the ground as she winced. "I don't... know..."

The Manticore lowered its head as it inched back, slipping into the Tree's shadow as the faintest glow from its tail's lights flickered in the air behind it. "This feast may prove unpleasant... but no matter. A stilled heart creates food all the same." The creature disappeared after it spoke, only leaving behind the vague impression of its pawprints before the substrate filled them back in.

Zofie sighed as she leaned forward, splatting her forehead to the ground and committing to her butterfly stretch. "Well that was nice. Can't wait t'do this again. Y'really know how to cheer a girl up."

After a few more stretches, the fire in her makeshift oven had gone out. She collected the ashes in a spherical urn, letting it float around her alongside the tarnished-bronze sphere of her hammerspace capsule as she blearily trudged into the cave at the tree's roots.