Chapter Text
One day, on an island, in a world, a small white creature sleeps in an open field. Its features are sparse: it has four, indeterminate limbs, a small pair of ears, and two small dot eyes. Currently, those eyes are thinned into small, horizontal lines. A cartoonish string of Zs floats up from its head. A quiet breeze blows through, rustling the grass and disturbing the small animal's fur. It unconsciously shifts away from the wind.
From the sky, something glimmers. A small, round object falls down and bounces a few times before coming to a rest as it collides with the white animal. The object is light brown, and rough. For a moment, it sits there. Patient, unmoving, as if waiting for something.
Then, there is a noise. A noise so quiet, so undetectable, that you'd have needed to put your ear to the ground just to hear it. A faint cracking sound, as if a pebble had been split in two. Another moment of silence.
And then, slowly, but surely, the little brown capsule cracks down the middle. Little fibrous threads slowly make their way out of the shell, reaching down and anchoring into the earth. The fibers wrap around the broken sphere, shielding it from nature. Those threads slowly thicken into vines, and those vines quickly spread across the field. Filling the immediate area with a complex patchwork of plant matter, spiraling around, and forming a distinct circle around the white creature and the now-covered seed.
The vines twist and swirl, climbing into the sky, holding up the seed triumphantly. They convulse, and constrict, and finally converge into a small spiral towards the little seed. They spiral inwards, collapsing into one singularity of nature. And just as suddenly as they appeared, they begin to bloom. First, a series of small blooms covering the surface of the skybound tendrils. Then, bigger blossoms appear at the point where the vines converge. And then, finally, one enormous flower, at the peak of the structure, forming a gigantic tower of colors. At the top sits the humongous blossom in all its glory, and at the bottom lies the still-sleeping creature, peacefully unaware.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, it stops.
The vines melt away into nothingness, falling away.
The many smaller flowers disintegrate into a shower of petals, quickly lost to the breeze.
With nothing holding it up, the giant flower drifts downwards, shrinking as it goes.
As it finally falls towards the small creature, the last of the bloom falls away, leaving a single word.
YOU.
And just like that, as it collides with the creature. it seemingly vanishes into nothingness. At that same moment, the creature snaps awake.
For a moment, its eyes flick around, a newfound sense of sentience showing in them. The small creature's eyes rapidly zip back and forth, taking in the scene. They appear surprisingly overwhelmed by the simple field, as if looking at some kind of invisible creatures running around at the speed of sound. After a few seconds, they stop. They close their eyes, pausing for a second, as if resting from some great act of exertion.
They then open their eyes and look down at their frail, pale white body. They shift a bit, as if scared to move. Gradually, they slide one foot outwards. Then another. Then a third, then a fourth. Slowly, as if testing something. With all four limbs outstretched, they shift their weight, slowly raising themself off the ground. Slowly, shakily, they rise. They stand still for a moment, shivering, as if afraid the ground will fall out below them. Once they are confident, they look around. From the middle of this small field, they can't really see anything. There's a hill nearby. A better vantage point. Testily, they put one foot in front of the other. Then again. They're starting to grow faster, with each skill coming easier than the last. It takes half the time to walk easily that it did to stand. Soon they are confidently striding up the hill. From the top, they take in the landscape. Behind them is a large, empty field, dotted with small flowers, shoots of grass, and a few ruined walls sitting lonely against the green terrain. The emptiness is… comforting, almost. They instinctively want to go there, but they will themself to get a full picture first.
To the left of the field is a dense forest, full of life. Animals, of all strange varieties, flit around. It's too chaotic. Too disorganized. They hate it. They force their gaze further to the left.
On the horizon lies a mountain range, dotted with trees and creatures and a few small things - things made of stone, and wood, with small patches of glass and weird mechanisms. Odd.
Between the mountain range and the creature lies something very, very strange. An assortment of stone, and wood, and glass, and rocks, in odd assortments that confuse the eye. But even stranger is the feeling in the air. Something here is off. Something's… changed. And still changing. Sealing the deal is the ones changing it, flitting from structure to structure, doing strange things and working even stranger mechanisms, speaking words that feel familiar alone but make no sense put together. Who are they? The creature does not know, but they feel a sense of attraction to this place of chaos and magic.
They scan the field, and their eyes come to rest on a single structure. Unassuming, completely identical to all the others. And yet they feel something. This is where they must go. The creature starts down the hill, towards the small structure. They do not know where this journey will take them, but they feel that this is the first step they must take to find out.