✜ 曌/Zhao (??) - she/her - The Worlds of the Eye/The Lost Worlds ⚝ char description: Researcher, very serious. She's not very emotional. She never really cared about anyone else... until the day the egg hatched. But nothing stands in the way of her goal. ⚝ design notes: ･ None ⚝ relationships: ･ ??? ⚝ backstory: Zhao was convinced that there was a world that needed saving beyond her own. From a young age, she was very interested interstellar travel. The Worlds of the Eye where she lived were restricting... And despite warnings from her friends and coworkers, Zhao set her mind on finding out what lies beyond the furthest boundary of the Eye. The dreams and visions she had about The Lost Worlds told her that they needed desperate help, and it seems no one could do it but her. And so she began engineering the perfect escape spacecraft-- with the exact acceleration speed needed to escape the Last Barrier. She ran tests and experiments. She failed over and over again. She became extremely secluded, never leaving her desk, concentrating only on her work. But finally, on the 10 year anniversary of setting her lifelong mission, prototype #91 was perfect. (obviously she didn't build 90 others she's not that dumb) She did not hesitate, and began documenting her long days of space travel in her journal. If this worked, she would be out in a month. If it didn't... there's no point even thinking about it. Now it was all or nothing. 32 days have passed. Zhao woke up and did the usual routine, eat breakfast, check the engines, the course path, document progress, excercise, eat dinner and go back to sleep. But today was different. She could feel pressure in the air, the air felt suffocating. She knew this was going to happen, and she had prepared for it, but it still took her by shook. This sudden change in air pressure meant Prototype #91 was passing the Last Barrier. She looked out the small window, and could not hold back a gasp. This was... the Lost Worlds. The Eye was a blurry sphere behind her, staring her down with its intense starry gaze. But what she saw before her was soft, gentle, and welcoming. She looked back for the final time before drifting into the Lost Worlds. The large abandoned exoplanets that were once home to some species of life. The ruins of structures someone once built by hand. The lights that were never turned off before "they" could escape. "They" disappeared without a trace of what happened. Zhao read that there wad an evil spirit contained somewhere in the Lost Worlds, and the only way to recover is to destroy the egg that held it. The problem was, the egg had been carefully protected by natural forces for over a century, and Zhao would need some sort of plan to recover it. Luckily she had already prepared for this. Looking back at her messily scrawled notes on her journal, Zhao read, The Egg rests in the middle, between the chaos and peace, between nature and science, on the edge of space and time. It does not recognize but its own kin. This could only mean one thing. The Tanzanite Nebula. Zhao adjusted the course of Prototype , facing the direction of the nebula. There it was... wrapped in fluffy clouds, glowing brightly. The egg. It was made of purple crystals with gold accents. Zhao knew she couldn't get close without being crushed by the powerful forces that surrounded it. Instead, she started playing a particular radio signal from her spacecraft. She designed this to specifically resonate with the wavelengths of the egg. She watched from afar as the egg wobbled, bounced a bit, and then it burst open with a blinding bright flash. The flash lasted for a few seconds, drowning the Lost Worlds in light. The flash slowly faded... And as Zhao looked around excitedly, it turned to disappointment as she noticed nothing had changed. Gloomy fog still covered the world, and the egg... wasn't there anymore. What's happening? Zhao shrieked. Something hit the back of her spacecraft. The alarms started sounding as Prototype tumbled in the opposite direction of the impact. Zhao rushed to the control panel, but when she looked up, she shrieked again. A small cat was perched on the window screen, peering curiously into the spacecraft. She was not wearing any specialized spacesuit, nor did she have an oxygen tank, but she just stood on top of the window. Are you my mother? The small cat spoke softly. Even though sound doesn't travel through outer space, Zhao heard the words loud and clear. Wh-wh-what..? Your mother? She was too shocked to string her thoughts together. Who was this cat, and why is she seemingly immortal? She stared for a few more seconds, before blurting out, Yes, I am your mother! [char permissions] DO NOT DRAW ANTHRO
og design by @huskiewithsocks
