SilverCheer's Challenges

Heartbeat.

You wake with a start. It’s bright, the sunlight shining through your open window and dazzling your still-sleepy eyes. Unusual, because your window is normally closed with the blinds drawn. But that’s not what woke you, is it? It wasn’t the warm breeze stirring up the strands of your hair. Nor was it the smell of the forest circulating slowly through your room. No, it was an imperceptibly soft noise, yet one that echoed through your head with the impact of a tree crashing to the ground.

Heartbeat.

You sit up as it sounds again. Enters your head without the permission of your ears. You wonder, is it really a sound, then? Either way, you need to close your window. No matter how nice the morning is, you know your window was shut went you went to sleep last night. It’s worrying, but not as much as you thought it would be.

You stand and walk to your window, grabbing hold of the frame and pulling it down with a sharp tug. The scrap of cloth tangled in the bush outside escapes your notice until later that day.

Heartbeat.

The soundthought somehow reminds you of a heartbeat. Like pressing a palm over your heart to feel your pulse. Curious, you look around your room in search of the origin.

There on the foot of your bed, you’re not sure how you missed it before, is a pretty green egg. It’s rather large, maybe a little bigger than your fist. Mint green and covered in small, lighter shapes. Flowers, perhaps. The only thing out of place. This has to be the source. You put your ear next to it and…

Heartbeat.

This is all a bit strange to you. A heartbeat shouldn’t be audible from the distance you were hearing it. Or not hearing it. Registering it in your brain?

In any case, something strange is going on.

You hum quietly to yourself and something responds.

Heartbeat.

Not in words (that would be just odd, coming from an egg) but with a sort of empathy encompassing your mind. Gentle waves of warmth happinesskindbrightcontent thread through your emotions, calming your thoughts and soothing away the confusion.

Other sensations float just out of your reach, enough to catch a glimpse, but not to experience. Graceful dancing on light feet, in time to an unheard score. A hint of steel, not hidden, merely sheathed. Not dangerous until given reason to fight. More warm kindness, reassuring and quietly supporting.

Heartbeat.

The feelings fade to the back of your mind. Still there, but not overwhelming your thoughts. You blink away the lingering fuzziness and stare at the egg. Well.

You can’t bring yourself to toss the egg out the window, like you probably should with anything that can affect your mind. The egg doesn’t seem dangerous and appears to like you, you think. Maybe you can hatch it?

Heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

It’s a bit of déjà-vu when you wake up a few mornings later to your window open again. You’re lucky there’s been unusually nice weather recently.

You’ve been keeping the pretty green egg in a nest of wool and feathers on your bedside table and you’ve rebuilt your house slightly to move the furnace closer. Eggs need warmth to hatch, right? Insulation and an external source of heat are necessary. Though, really, it’s a magic egg, you’re not sure if normal logic applies here. Whatever the case, you’re still hearing that heartbeat, so it’s not dead.

Ever so carefully, you’ve been experimenting with the empathic connection between you and the egg (and isn’t that a weird thought). It changes a little every time, so you’re fairly sure it’s a form of communication. You’re uncertain whether this link will continue after hatching, once the hatchling will, presumably, be able to make noise.

It’s become reflex to check the egg upon waking and you freeze when you see only a few jagged pieces of shell remaining. You nearly leap out from under the sheets in worry, putting open window and broken egg shell together and coming up with Bad Things. As panic fragments your thoughts, you catch a flash of pink and gold on the windowsill. The scientist in you pauses your emotional whirlpool for a moment and you take a closer look.

It’s a little pink… blob. That’s all you can really call it. A little ball. A gold swoosh rises from the top (??) of the blob and falls almost to the windowsill. You’re pretty sure it’s supposed to be hair. Tiny, really tiny, paws support the blob and a pink curl sits above a pair of sky-blue eyes.

On a hunch, you kneel down next to it and listen carefully.

Heartbeat.

This time your brain puts broken egg shell and tiny blob thing together and you realize this is probably your egg.

You… honestly you kind of expected this. Except you thought it might be green, like the egg.

You hold your hand out towards it tentatively, hoping it won’t bite you or anything. It nudges your palm curiously before hopping into it and your chest feels a warm glow. You run your thumb down the flip of hair and it purrs lightly.

The empathic connection you felt with the egg seems to have all but vanished, though only time and experimentation will tell if it stays that way.

Time to deal with your window. You’re really not sure how it opened in the first place, seeing as the hatchling is the size of your palm. You lean outside to make sure there aren’t any convenient clues like last time before tugging the stubborn frame down to the sill. Returning your attention to your hatchling, you realize it’s been bouncing lightly on your hand. You scritch the top of it lightly and wonder absently what to call it. Can’t keep calling it a blob forever, after all.

It’s pink, gold, and blue. A ball. Tiny feet, a little curl. It purrs. And, now that you think of it, the texture of its skin reminds you of flower petals. You’ll call it Flora, for now.

Heartbeat.

…What does it even eat? You realize that Flora is going to take more caring for than an egg, which you could leave in its nest while you needed to work. You can probably bring Flora with you, so time isn’t a problem, but you don’t know what it eats or how much sleep it needs or what it likes and dislikes.

You stare at the bits of food strewn across your table. Your options aren’t exactly limited, but if it’s like magic potions or something you’re going to need a few more brewing stands.

Flora probably doesn’t eat meat, just based on the size of it, but you offer it a nibble. It looks at you reproachfully and turns up its metaphorical nose at it. Not meat, then.

Bugs? …No. Your bees are not for feeding purposes. Even for adorablobs.

Flora seems to like fruit, but once you’ve fed it thrice its volume in apples you’re pretty sure it’s not getting any actual nutrition.

On a whim, you splash it with a spare health potion. It bounces happily around the table, letting out the occasional peep. So, health potions are an option. You hesitate, considering your stockpiles. It’s probably feasible. You could feed it health potions, but you like to find another source.

Some flower petals are edible, right? Cod knows, you have a ton of flowers. Flora munches experimentally on a few of the blossoms, though it seems to like the blue ones best. You snag one for yourself and bite off a small piece. It tastes a bit minty. You know there’s an apiarist in a nearby village who recently synthesized a new species of bee that produces mint combs, maybe you can get your hands on some of that? Or perhaps the breeding tree so you can produce the bees directly? You add this to your to-do list for the day.

Flora nudges your hand, so you pick it up. It climbs unsteadily along your arm (only staying upright because of an occasional steadying tap from you) and attempts to leap up to the top of your head. After it smacks your ear twice, you put your hand around it and lift it to its goal. It purrs happily and a few poofs of multicolored sparkles fall from your hair.

Okay then.

Even if the empathy has faded, apparently your new friend is still quite special.

…Oh this was such a bad idea. Not that it seemed like it at the time. There wasn’t any way you could have anticipated this, being completely ignorant of Flora’s physiology.

From Before you were Here, you remember eating some mint flavored candies. In a fit of brilliance, you realized you could probably make a reasonable facsimile of that candy with the mint honey you extracted from the honey comb you’d obtained from the apiarist.

It took some experimentation with heat and other reagents, but you finally made something that tasted a bit like what you remembered. Flora was really the one these were for, so you would offer it tastes, as well. The problem arose when you forgot Flora was just a little bigger than your palm and you’d been feeding it sugar for hours.

You bury your face in your sticky, minty-sweet hands as Flora literally bounces off the walls and ceiling at speeds similar to those of a full-powered Gravisuit. You managed to splash it with a Regen potion before things really got going and have a few more ready, in case it runs out. Little sparks trail after Flora like a high-speed game of snake.

You begin to notice some odd things happening. Out the window, you can see your wheat field growing to full-size before your eyes. …The only plant you have farm blocks under is netherwart. Some of your smaller saplings decide to uproot themselves and perform a clumsy jig. There’s not a cloud in the sky, but you can see small raindrops forming in midair and falling to the ground. You also find yourself suddenly hovering an inch or so off the ground.

Whoa, WHOA!

Your arms windmill at the sudden loss of friction and you decide this is enough. You don’t have a sleeping potion, but you snag a slowness potion that’s just finished brewing and throw it to the ground with all the strength you can muster.

It covers you both in murky blue sparkles and you land on the ground with a tap, clumsily reaching out to grab Flora as it suddenly looses the acceleration to keep moving upwards.

You lay your other hand over its head in apology. Slowness isn’t harmful, but you didn’t want to hit Flora with a negative status effect.

Flora looks up at you with sad eyes as it struggles to bounce up. You’d grab a speed potion to return everything to normal, but you don’t know what might happen if you hit it with conflicting statuses. Petting its golden swoosh of hair seems to calm it enough to wait for the potion to wear off.

You breathe a sigh of relief as you see that everything outside has settled as well.

Today you have Learned Some Things. You’ll try not to have a repeat incident.

The first time Flora encounters a zombie, it freaks out. Luckily you’re with it at the time.

You built your house in the forest because you really like trees. You also built it before you realized the monsters liked to hang out there in the shade, where they wouldn’t incinerate in the sunlight. You didn’t actually think they were smart enough to figure that out.

Not one to waste work, you kept the house and resigned yourself to defending yourself and your land on a regular basis. You feel that the multitude of heads on your wall proves your prowess.

That’s not to say you’re fond of battle, but you’ll certainly keep the spoils, given the chance.

You’re showing Flora your apiaries one morning, having finally decided it’s unlikely to try and eat them, when you hear a low growl from behind a nearby tree.
You really don’t need this today. And you really don’t want Flora in the middle of a fight. Zombies you can slay no problem, but you don’t want even the chance that Flora could get hurt. You don’t really have a choice, though. The zombie’s already seen you.

Cupping your left hand over Flora and holding it protectively to your chest, you draw the glittery blue sword you forged from improbably malleable diamonds and stand ready. Flora squirms as much as its tiny legs allow, but you’re careful to hold it gently.

The zombie meanders towards you, arms held awkwardly at your face. You’re lucky it’s not one of those speedy zombies you occasionally encounter. The situation gets a bit tense as it refuses to move faster than a crawl and you have no intention of charging it when Flora suddenly stops moving. You take your attention off the zombie for a moment in concern.

One of Flora’s eyes has found a space between your fingers and it stares at the shuffling figure with a terrifying mix of emotions. You begin to panic. You don’t know what’s going to happen next, but you’re pretty sure it’ll be disastrous.

Two meters closer and Flora snaps.

Blinding light coalesces between you and the zombie, a slice of sun brought down to earth. You clench your sword tightly in preparation, but the light is enough to almost blind you and certainly enough to incinerate the zombie.

You stand there in shock, attempting to blink swimming black disks from your vision. Your sword falls to the ground as you place your right hand around a trembling Flora. Quiet whimpers emerge from your cupped hands and you make hopefully-calming noises at it. You really don’t know how comfort works. Like with the mint incident before, petting seems to help and it stops shaking after a few minutes.

You decide to make it your goal to be Flora as far away from monsters as possible. For its reaction, fighting is not good for it.

Perhaps you’ll show Flora the bees another day, after you clear away anything nasty.