Like A Haystack || Retro Needlesong & Daisyfire Hang Out!

Eyes wide and ears forward with surprise, she bounded over after Needlesong to admire the crystals. “Your twolegs did that? They taught you?” She was almost incredulous. With the twolegs he knew, he was fairly certain the creatures weren’t capable of learning much of anything. Apparently, though, they had things to teach cats. Like rocks hiding literal treasure. “How can you tell a rock is going to have crystals inside? It just… it just looks like a rock..”

The casual air it held about it all was part of what kept her in awe. Had things like this really been so normal in its life? So common that they only warranted idle comments and easy hums? For now, Daisyfire would refrain from making a comment about Needlesong being willing to stay with his former twolegs. Both because Daisyfire felt he himself couldn’t really reprimand the rebellious nudge against the Code these days, and because it was already clear their twolegs had been very different creatures.

A thought then occurred to him. “Unless… all rocks do?” She scrunched her nose in disapproval of the speculation. “I feel like- I feel like someone would’ve mentioned that if all rocks had crystals inside of them.” Then again, how many non-Needlesong cats were breaking rocks?

Tilting her head, Daisyfire tried to keep the details of the rock in memory. Yellowish eggs? “I wonder why they look like that, I can’t imagine crystals could make the rock look that way.” In a way, though, wasn’t that fitting? It was very reminiscent of all the things that came out of eggs, just that these were crystals that… probably didn’t become anything else. She didn’t think Needlesong would have an answer, it was just one of those things that fell so easily and impulsively out of her mouth.

“Did your twolegs find duds, too? I always felt like it was impossible to tell what they knew or were thinking, I wonder how they knew about these crystal eggs and what they knew about them. I didn’t know twolegs could be so… inventive.” Needlesong’s memories of its twolegs sounded so much different than his own, he was almost curious to ask. It didn’t feel right to prey, though.

Wrinkling her short nose again, she tilted her head. “The lake was salty? Sounds like the only point in visiting a lake like that is for these things,” she noted as she returned her gaze to the rocks, scanning for the color and shape Needlesong had pointed out. “Just to… hand them away for disks and paper…? What could possibly be the point of that?”

Pawing at rocks as he scowled, Daisyfire finally found something to catch his eye. “I saw our twoleg do something like that, but instead of giving away rocks for paper, they gave away one of my half siblings. Not that I knew them well, but it was… scary to watch. I don’t think I ever tried to figure out what goes on in twoleg minds, to be honest. I was just happy to get away,” he grumbled as he pried the rock out from its spot. Bringing it up to Needlesong, she allowed the discovery to sway her mood to something lighter. “I think I found one! What do you think? Or is it the wrong… yellow-ish, or something?”

Daisyfire was relieved for the sympathy. Some part of her had expected criticism of some sort - Needlesong’s twolegs didn’t give away cats for trinkets. They gave up trinkets for trinkets, much more understandable. They’d taken him places, spent time with him, something he seemed to enjoy - she didn’t even know what to call her twoleg. They had simply been the Human.

Her eyes shone with the offer. “Yeah, I’ll give it a go! Hopefully there’s something worth keeping in here, right?” Carrying the treasure, she visited the perch and, with some enthusiasm, shoved the rock off of it. Whatever was in it, the motion was satisfying. Reminded her of knocking down those shiny things that had rested on the windows and clock at her twoleg’s house. It was always fun to watch them break, but they’d usually just become boring white shards.

This rock, though, broke apart into crystals. White crystals that lined the inside of the egg, shimmering and shining now that they’d been exposed to light. She was enamored. She’d seen crystals before, but it was an entirely different experience to actively seek them out and free them of their egg-prison. “Well! As far as twolegs go, it sounds like you got pretty lucky - and as far as these rocks go, we’ve been getting pretty lucky to find the ones with crystals today!,” she purred, hopping back down to gingerly collect the treasure as she had seen Needlesong do. “Where are you going to put this, anyway?”