Applewood Fields || Distance

As the Christmas season has definitely come and gone, Felicia, ETN-05 and NRN-01 worked together to take down the Christmas lights and decorations. As soon as work was finished, NRN-01 was quick to return to playing with the gadget she's come to love. Although the cold machinery looks quite out of place in the woodlands, it seems that blinking light never gets old!

In the meantime, Ember continues to enjoy her stay with the Ettins in the mysterious spaceship. For a while, she has fun chasing ETN-06 back and forth near the door, playing cheerfully - however, it isn't long before trouble comes.








Mysteriously, and without any clear reason, ETN-06 passes away. She wasn't ill, and didn't seem to be suffering; perhaps something just went wrong in her body somewhere along the line. Ember, a bit sad about the loss of her new playmate, moves on to explore her environment a bit more.

Nith'eroi continues to lie still in the corridors. Maybe she's become too grief-stricken to move on, or maybe she simply feels this is the end of the road for her... but unable to move, or unable to see what could possibly be ahead, she only awaits her fate....

...however, at the last second, some guiding force seems to take Nith'eroi by hand and lead her from the brink of death to the destination she was seeking. Perhaps a bit confused and bewildered, she stumbles into the open area her friend had found herself in. After taking a second to breathe in some fresh air, she's quick to start eating some of the food that had been lying around! It would seem that quietly wasting away in a cold corridor can make you a bit hungry.

Though far from home, Ember and Nith'eroi seem happy to be reunited, enjoying their time together in peace once again to the sounds of the buzzing (and gurgling?) machinery that now surrounds them.

Back home, things are also rather quiet. Life goes on as always. Felicia has once again taken up the art of painting on the balcony, and this time, she's painted a Norn... with a fur color like that, perhaps it's even a painting of Ember. Poor Felicia seems to feel lost, and her feelings are understandable; after all, two of the Norns she had been looking over as her children have suddenly disappeared. Though they are happy and safe in a land far away, Felicia may never find out where they've gone...

In the meantime, ETN-05 grows to be an adult. Although she didn't seem to carry any relation to Nith'eroi, having been born from an Ettin and not a Grendel, she seems to be a spitting image of the
Grendelborn, making Nith'eroi's absence all the more bittersweet.

ETN-05 seems a touch out of place, though she's comfortable and happy in her new home. She's a very quiet, shy Norn, though, hardly ever speaking up. She seems content to relax on the deck and watch the brightly colored butterflies pass by, warm in the light of the stars overhead.

Time marches on, and soon enough, Nith'eroi is chosen as the next to birth a child. Seemingly aware of the responsibility, she makes her way to the pad of warmth in the ship to lay the egg. However, once she's laid it, she finds herself fascinated; she gently gathers the egg in her hands, gazing at its black-and-white checkered shell and carrying it around. Is this truly it... the beginning of a new life, in her hands?

It isn't until Nith'eroi falls asleep that she finally sets the egg down, and as she rests, it quickly grows in the warmth of the heated pad.

The child that hatches looks not unlike Ember, though a brighter pink in color rather than Ember's more heated red. After thinking on it for a little bit, Nith'eroi decides to name her child Fayrah, a spark of life born far from home. Fayrah seems to take a great deal of pleasure in playing with the popping flowers, which even all the way out here, cover the floor of the spaceship and playfully explode with a "POP!" when touched.

Perhaps, though there is quite a distance between them and their woodland home, Nither'oi, Ember, and Fayrah will be able to start a new colony of Creatures living in harmony on the strange spaceship.

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[I'm finally back! Please forgive my inactivity as of late; schoolwork has gotten a bit hectic as we approach midterms, and I've been focused on it. I hope to continue regular updates soon!

In addition, although I was excited about Creatures 2 functioning on my computer, the game stopped working for no discernible reason less than a day later, so the planned Creatures 2 run has been postponed. Creatures 1 is working, however some of the kits are not, so I will have to see if I can't fix them! In the meantime, posting will continue to feature C3/DS as usual.]

Applewood Fields || Cold Christmas

Things remain fairly mundane in the woodlands, at least for a while. Happy and comfortable with their current lives, the Norns live together in peace. They enjoy one another's company, playing games and loud music and celebrating Christmas festivities.

However, while everyone else was celebrating a particularly fun holiday with plenty of food, fireworks, and flashing lights, Ember slipped away under the radar and disappeared into the winter night.

Something was bothering her, a voice whispering in the back of her mind: something out there was calling her, and she needed to go.

Without drawing much attention to herself, Ember activated a portal to enter another world.

The atmosphere in the place she reached was new to her, something she had never experienced before. It didn't have the same natural, comforting feeling that the woodlands did; this was a place filled with futuristic technology, strange machines she had never seen before. Instead of growing in the ground, carrots grew in a machine! Music was played not from a radio, but from a bizarre, topsy-turvy looking device, bigger than she was and twice as loud!

It was here that Ember discovered a pair of creatures that had, apparently, also made the journey from the big spaceship to this smaller, more futuristic one. One was an Ettin, and the other was a Norn who appeared to be the Ettin's daughter.

To Ember's surprise, she found that the Norn, whose name was a simple and easy-to-understand "ETN-06", had lived here her whole life! How different it must have been, Ember thought, for this creature to grow up in such an advanced environment.

Back at home, Nith'eroi was the first to notice Ember's disappearance. How had she managed to vanish like that? Right behind her back! After searching high and low for her dear friend, Nith'eroi, too, embarked on a journey outside the woodlands. She reached the portal, and activated it, shocked and frightened by the blue whirl of light that whisked her away to another world!

However, unlike Ember, Nith'eroi becomes lost in the strange hallway that lies between the old spaceship and the land that Ember reached. Confused and deeply concerned about Ember's safety and where she could have possibly gone, Nith'eroi lies down in the company of an Ettin who has stood here, unmoving, for an incredibly long time. Soon, the Ettin leaves, too, leaving Nith'eroi alone in this frightening new world.

With seemingly nowhere to turn, Nith'eroi lies lost in the hall on Christmas night, neglecting her needs as her mind remains occupied with worry for her friend...

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Applewood Fields || Of Friendship and Gadgets

Life in Applewood Fields resumes a peaceful atmosphere, as the grief that the dangerous disease caused begins to slowly fade away. 

Beneath the blinking lights of the Christmas tree, Nith'eroi and Ember meet one another for the very first time. Though Nith'eroi's birth mother was of the very same species that attacked Ember when she was a young child, it seems that she is able to put those differences aside, and the two instantly form a bond.

Together, they play with the radio and fireworks machine set beneath the tree, creating an incredibly noisy display of friendship and harmony despite the nearby Felicia's attempts to sleep.

In fact, they become practically inseparable, and begin to spend every moment they can together!

Meanwhile, Felicia is chosen as the next to have a child. Now that Ember is of age and happy adventuring out in the world, it seemed that it was finally time for Felicia to have a child of her own!

After a short while, Felicia settles down and lays her egg beneath the nest of the great Gosh-hawk. Always a protective mother, she keeps close watch near her egg until it hatches, although the woodlands are quite safe these days.

The baby that emerges, however, is a little unusual...

Though she appears to be an Ettin, Felicia's child is, in fact, a Norn! Perhaps an oddly shaped Norn, or the soul of a Norn occupying an Ettin's physical body... but a Norn nonetheless! Felicia, choosing to combine the traditions of her daughter's ancestry (as Nith'eroi told her in tales about her adoptive Ettin mother) with her own customs, names her NRN-01 - a Norn with a neat, orderly Ettish name.

Although she behaves mostly like a Norn in the way she explores the world around her, NRN-01 seems to have a close connection to her Ettish instincts, as she quite enjoys playing with gadgets!

Time and time again, although she does not seem to have any need to collect gadgets as Ettins do, she has a great deal of fun seeking out and playing around with them. Perhaps someday she'll become an engineer?



In the meantime, another Norn also joins the quickly-growing family in the woodlands, this time a Norn born from an Ettin! As her name shows, evidently she is the fifth Ettin so far - even though she's not truly an Ettin, it seems the Ettins accepted her as one of their own. After making the long walk from the terrarium door to the main area, she fits right in with her fellow Norns.

Felicia decides to watch over her, although she seems to be quite independent already, even at such a young age! The unusual (but loving!) family in the woodlands continues to grow...

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Applewood Fields || Grendelborn

In a dark, dangerous place, far from the woodlands, there was a Norn named Nith'eroi.

Her mother, a kind of creature known as a Grendel, abandoned her not long after her birth - but the Grendel died shortly after, once she had distanced herself from the child as much as possible. She may have been ill, or maybe she knew something was coming and didn't want her newborn to be near; whatever it was, her reasons were a mystery that Nith'eroi would likely wonder about for the rest of her days.

Nith'eroi, a Norn with a Grendlish name, grew up under the care of a kind, elderly creature that called itself an Ettin. The Ettin, whose name was simply ETN-01, took it upon herself to bring Nith'eroi up as her own, teaching the young Norn the Ettish language and telling her tales from Ettish mythology.

Ettins are very practical, calculated creatures, Nith'eroi found. They are born not from a living mother, but from a machine beneath the surface of a desert. They name themselves in the order of their birth, quite literally, using numbers. Their lives revolve around structure, logic, and routine: they believe that they have one purpose, and that purpose is to gather as much machinery as they possibly can. No matter which Ettin she spoke to, she found that each and every one responded to her in the same way, and they all had the same goal in mind! Nith'eroi, though she wasn't sure she understood, followed ETN-01 on a few journeys to locate such machinery.

And so Nith'eroi's life, though perhaps not quite as ordinary as the lives of the Norns in the woodlands, began. By the elderly Ettin's side, she wandered from place to place, in search of somewhere safe she could call home... not quite fitting in with one group or the other, rejected by Grendels, yet growing up without ever seeing another Norn.

During a lone search for gadgets to bring home, she found herself in the woodland terrarium. It was there that after spending the first half hour of her life struggling for survival in dangerous, barren lands, she finally found a place where fresh food was abundant and she felt like she truly belonged...

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Applewood Fields || By Mother Nature's Hand

Quietly, without any particular sort of ceremony or special announcement, the powers that be chose Fyrah to bear an egg.

Just as quietly, and without drawing very much attention to herself, Fyrah laid her egg just below the ledge on the left side of the terrarium. It was there that the white egg, colored with specks of robin's-egg blue, slowly began to develop, protected from the elements by the ledge and surrounded by the company of the forest's native animals and insects.

Though Fyrah remained reasonably close by, it seemed she trusted the environment and forces of nature she grew up with to care for the egg's safety!

However, despite the quiet, subdued circumstances of her birth and the equally quiet, subdued coloring of her egg, the baby Norn that emerges is a fiery hot red. Coming into this world surrounded by friends of Mother Nature, she observed some of the critters around her before chasing off after a dragonfly, taking her first steps out into the world. Going by her bright, heated fur coloring, and her fearless passion even right at birth, her mother named her Ember - the spark of fire that would bring forth a new generation.

For a short while, life continued on as normal. However, it wasn't very long before a meeting happened. By chance or by fate, Ember came upon the terrarium's mysterious visitor, who had, up until this point, been running around out of sight up by the railing. Though Ember was pleased to meet a new friend, it seems the mysterious other creature did not return the favor! Unfortunately, this friendship ended as quickly as it began - with the creature attacking Ember, prompting her to run away! It doesn't take long for the adults to separate the two.

The creature, dejected, returns to its place in the railings, though it does not leave. Perhaps the terrarium is the best place this creature has ever known, despite its abrasive behavior.

Things go back to usual until, suddenly and without much warning, disease strikes.

Fyrah, just seconds after she contracts a mysterious illness, suddenly passes away. In her final moments, she didn't seem particularly displeased, having hardly known what hit her. At the very least, she passes comfortably in her home, not far from the place of her birth. Though her life was cut short, her legacy will continue on in her child.

Not long after Fyrah's death, Lacie falls to the same illness. Ember, too, falls ill, but but is able to quickly recover with emergency aid from Felicia and the medicinal properties of the colorful plants. Felicia, distraught, vows to watch carefully over Ember - and keep the scaly creature that may have brought the disease far away from her home from now on.

The sun begins to set on the horizon, an orange light filtering through the glass dome over the Norns' heads. Felicia, with her newly adopted daughter, lies down in the grass and decides to reflect on her situation for a while...

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Applewood Fields || Mysterious Visitors and Yuletide Lights

For the first hour or so, things remain fairly quiet and peaceful in our little creatures' world. Each of them begins to explore their surroundings individually as they grow more comfortable and begin to feel safe in their home.

Fyrah, while traveling to the far left side of the terrarium, discovered a curious potted plant with long, leafy stalks and brilliantly colored flowers. Those flowers are pretty tasty, too, she finds - it's like eating candy, almost, a burst of flavor coming forth as she bites down on the soft petals. She likes them so much that she doesn't want to leave!

However, as our dear Fyrah settles down for a nice nap in the grass, a mysterious new creature passes her by! This creature, with smooth skin, buggy red eyes, and what appears to be a head of hair, sneakily passes Fyrah by as she's sleeping. 

Before Fyrah can even awaken, the creature darts in, grabs some food, and gets out of her sight! In fact, before anyone notices the creature, it leaves the terrarium entirely and goes on its merry way. Perhaps maybe sometime these mysterious creatures will visit again in the future?

As our Norns begin to grow and change, so does the forest-like terrarium they call home. A field of flowers has begun to grow on the ground level, tickling at Lacie's legs as she romps through in search of something tasty to eat. Her beautiful, bright pink fur seems to let her fit right in with the equally colorful purple butterflies!

Sometimes, the Norns make a game of catching the seeds that explode out from the flowers as they mature. POP!

Felicia, meanwhile, has taken to finding higher-up spaces in the terrarium. At the very edge of the railing, at the highest spot, lies a canvas where creatures are free to paint to their hearts' desires!

Though it may simply look like she's taken a paintbrush and made some scribbles in red, yellow, blue, and a touch of green, perhaps Felicia's actually created a complex piece of abstract art that only her fellow Norns can truly comprehend...

Finally, since today is December 1st, a little bit of Christmas decorating was due! Together, the three Norns worked hard to decorate a Juniper tree with colorful blinking lights and shiny golden ribbon. The tree topper? A Norn angel, of course, which Felicia carefully fashioned from an uneaten cheese wheel using her newfound artistic ability. (Will it still smell as good as it does right now by the time Christmas comes around...?)

In addition, by standing on each others' shoulders, the trio hung up long strings of blinking Christmas lights everywhere they could, ensuring that the terrarium will give a dazzling display of Yuletide spirit to anyone that happens to pass through!

...But not all is well! 

Just who is this mysterious creature? Unlike the visitor before, although this one also certainly seems to have hair, it's also got green scales, a lizard-like tail, and an underbite with a row of sharp teeth!

Is this new visitor to our lively terrarium friend or foe? Only time will tell...

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Applewood Fields || Prologue

Somewhere far, far from here, on a ship deep in space, lies a self-contained ecosystem teeming with life. Birds sing, insects buzz and dart about, and fish swim back and forth, their scales glimmering in the bright light of the sun and stars past the dome of glass that separates this tiny woodland from the vacuum of space.

It is here that, for the first time, a brand new life is about to begin. Somewhere in the forest lies a trio of eggs, each sporting a monochromatic pattern on its smooth shell. Tiny cracking noises occasionally come from each as the creatures inside slowly begin to make their way out...

Though they stand on two legs and have human-like hands, these tiny baby Norns are their own kind of creature indeed. Each of the three of them has a soft coat of fur, a ruffle of fluff on their head, and a pair of long ears! They begin to explore their world together, overwhelmed by a barrage of new sights, new sounds, friends to make, things to eat, places to be.

The first, Felicia, is a Siamese Norn. Though she knows little of her breed's terrifying past, she seems to want to explore quite a bit, eager to break from the pack and survey her surroundings. She may never be kept in a cage, but her desire to adventure where her ancestors could not seems to run strong in her being.

On the other hand, the second, Fyrah, is a Wood Norn who seems to prefer the company of other Norns. Just as they were together right at birth, Fyrah sticks to Lacie's side like glue, looking to her friend for guidance and companionship as they explore their surroundings together.

Last but certainly not least, Lacie is a Colortrue Bruin Norn, sporting rather flashy hot pink fur! Unlike her friends, Lacie's shockingly neon colors don't seem to blend in so well in a forest environment... could this prove to make trouble for her survival down the road, or will she be able to use it to her advantage?

Just what, exactly, lies ahead? What dangers could there be? Are there others in the world out there? In a place this big, with the outside world even bigger, nobody can be quite sure what adventures await these tiny newborn creatures...

[As a sidenote: This world, Applewood Fields, is using Amaikokonut's Scenario Script Hera. It interests me so much that I decided to give it a try for myself! Scenario Script Hera forces the world to be all-female, and scores creatures based on how well they care for themselves. If you are also interested, you can find Scenario Script Hera here on Amaikokonut's blog, Naturing::Nurturing.]

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