2024-07-19 - 7.2- Play

Ever since the quake, things have been... rough. Mother is a well of tension, as is Shayled, and their exhaustion wafts over the clutch. Under the tents what feels like every fight, every disagreement, is there with them. The excitement of the Touching had been a welcome, but even that had been weighed down with hurt and fears, and since it feels like sometimes there's more talk of bad bonds than good. (Diath can't help, when those topics grow too numerous, but think of the Chariot. Of those parts that had been attractive, if only it was more and him less. Where is the line between good and bad? It has it's favorites, but how does it know for certain?) Near every mind that approaches now seems to have a shadow over it, either born of pain or expectation, by which only Father seeming untainted.

Diath doesn't hear the laughter, but feels the giddy minds first. Like a beacon among those barely recovered, coming in and out of sensing distance. It let's their excitement wash over it, waiting with slow heartbeats for what it is they're going to do. Finally one mind breaks away from the whole, rushes closer and closer.

It's wings flair as much as they can in the confines of the egg- an idle aggravation at how small it's become, Diath swears it couldn't used to find the walls so easily- echoing the excitement as the mind abruptly rushes away with the same speed, as a great cheer and laughter rings out. Mother and Shayled's annoyance is a a vague shadow in the distance as it focuses on the fleeing mass. Happiness, excitement, no thoughts of eggs, the past, the future, but purely of harmless mischief. Like a warm blanket (not that it yet understands the full allure of a warm blanket) Diath wraps itself in the ripples of their emotions.

Hopefully they'll come back.

It thinks it would like to join the game.