[Machete]

The sky was a brilliant blue and the grass was a brilliant green, and the little gray girl felt the soil under paws and decided that today was alright. 

The oceans roar was far away and Cassandra felt comforted by the soft grass, the wide open space where she could see anyone who approached. The soil beneath her feet was not sand or ice and it felt solid and stable. Whatever she'd had before and couldn't remember was definitely not as good as this. Gemini was, as it was for so many souls, an improvement. A place to go when your last life had been left behind somewhere terrible. 

She wandered through the fields and flowers, pausing to sniff at a rosebush before marching on. But even she could get thirsty, so she followed the grass to where it was greenest. She was looking for water without salt, still water, safe water. And the grass she found was very, very green. 

The fairy pools were bluer than should be real. The vibrancy of color in Gemini was enough to be disorienting in it's own way, like the contrast was turned up too high, the intensity too bright, too shiny. There was the sense that everywhere you went you were stepping on something that was alive or had been alive. That the land itself had a million opinions it was just dying to share. Cassandra hesitantly stuck her paw into the water. It was deeper than it looked, much deeper, and for a second she felt queasy. 

When she took a step back to decide, she felt herself bump into something soft - "Oof" She said as she fell to her rear. When she turned her head around, ears pinned, to see who she'd stumbled into, she half feared it was a ghost. Some soul wandered up from a grave somewhere to say hello to here. But no - it was just a shaggy little boy. "I'm.....really sorry. I didn't mean to..."

[Machete]

He was drawn to the fairy pools like all creatures are to things arcane and beautiful.

Machete grew more by the day, and though it was not a dramatic change, it would be apparent to those who spent consistent time around the shy boy. His coat, once nothing more than baby fuzz, was shaggy and soft. The growth plates in his bones worked to form an image of the wolf he'd someday be. Like clay, the beginnings of a firm shape were forming from the roly-poly puppy body. He could chew meat now with his strange new teeth, though he liked milk still and was loath to be weaned from it.

Most important (and okay, scary) of all... he could leave the den. He could go see Gemini. Today had marked his furthest trek yet, a mile from the den though he didn't know it, curiosity eclipsing fear of the fathomless unknown, and it had brought him here. The fairy pools lured him in, shining like the neck of a wealthy woman, its colors like something he'd seen cradled in the crook of a gentle dream. It was cold to the touch, though the breeze coming off it felt nice on his face. Curled in a patch of tall grass soft as cotton, he'd closed his eyes in secret pleasure and...

... promptly fallen asleep. He was still a baby, after all. They do that.

In his sleep, the colors of the pools glimmered and fluttered in a hypnotizing symphony. A discordant note sent the light show bursting like a thousand tiny supernovas all at once; he cried out in surprise and bolted awake in the next instant. Something had bumped him! Somethingwasgonnagethim oh no aaaaaAAHHH -- !!

"Wh-wh-what?!" Machete stammered furiously, trying to spring to his paws and mostly ending up kind of... somersaulting backwards. And then somehow landing on his face. When he looked up, his pale eyes wide and his mop of hair sticking up, he saw... a girl. A girl? That wasn't so scary. She was a peculiar gray that was almost lavender, and she was bigger than him, but not by too much...

... maybe she'd want to play?

"Who're you?" asked the boy, blinking owlishly, his puff of a tail starting to wag.