The next many nights passed relatively uneventfully. The swarm didn’t run into any creatures quite as dangerous as those on their initial hunt, although they did still take losses, despite her best efforts. She’d tried to stop them from fighting suicidal fights a few more times but had given it up as hopeless at this point. The swarm was far smaller than it used to be, but still large enough to overwhelm anything they came across.

She noticed they were all growing. Many nights had passed by at this point and she and her siblings had become significantly larger. If she would have fit entirely on a patch of moss before, that same patch would only fit her stomach now, her shoulders and hips spilling off the ends, and she was on the small end of the spectrum. Some of her siblings were a full head longer and her head would only come up to their nose slits.

Her mouth water had started burning stuff at some point. She had woken up one night and there’d been a small sizzling hole where she’d been drooling as she slept. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about the situation.

She had of course tested this on all manner of things. She could pockmark stone and dirt, but flesh and most plant matter practically dissolved when she got her mouth on it. It made eating stuff feel strange but she got used to it. Wood was somewhere in between. Somehow it didn’t seem to hurt her at all, but a sister had run away screeching with a sizzling spot on her back when she’d licked her.

She felt pretty bad about that, and hadn’t tested it on anyone else afterward.

She did observe her siblings however, and noticed that no one else seemed to have the burning mouth water. Many a drool puddle existed but there were no holes left like hers made.

She’d had to start being really careful moving around her crystal. She started rinsing out her mouth in the stream whenever she wanted to move it around. Only the water her mouth made on its own burned things. Her saliva. She’d figured out it was safe to grab things for a little bit after she drank or rinsed her mouth out.

The rinsing was also necessary if she wanted to mess around with her balancing rocks or sort her stuff pile. Quite a few things had pockmarks in them at this point because she wasn’t as careful with them as she was with the crystal, which was why she was conflicted about the whole situation.

It was a useful ability, and made her bite even fiercer, but it was ruining all the stuff she’d been gathering. It made everything harder if she wanted to keep stuff intact.

She’d brought back many other things, like shells she’d found, neatly shaped sticks, mushrooms, and really anything she thought was interesting and was small enough to carry.

Turns out all her head balancing practice had come in handy once she’d had to limit carrying stuff in her mouth for fear of destroying it.

But none of the other things she’d found had been as amazing as her crystal, so that was the one she slept with, the others things getting to hang around in her stuff pile.

On a sadder note her crystal appeared to be dimming, it was noticeably less bright than it had been when she first got it. She could look at it fine now without blinking.

She’d also noticed that the tingling feeling she got from touching it had been sticking around even when she wasn’t touching it. Which was weird, but it didn’t feel bad and she was used to it at this point. Most of the tingles were in her head but more of it seemed to be moving around her body in general nowadays.

But all that was small news compared to her grand discovery (well, maybe not the acid spit, but still). She’d figured out where the light had gone! After many nights had passed, she realized she hadn’t ever seen the light she’d seen on the day she was born again. She’d been looking forward to it coming back and was beginning to worry it wouldn’t ever happen.

Her answer to the issue had come after a particularly long night of swarming. They hadn't come across anything large (which was great as far as she was concerned) and had needed a longer time to find enough small creatures to fill up. As they’d been returning to the cave she noticed that the forest had started to get brighter. She was excited the light was coming back but so tired from the long night she decided to explore more after she slept. But when she woke up, the light was gone again.

It made her suspicious. Maybe the light just came around very rarely, but she suspected…

She stayed up for a while the next night after they got back from the second hunt. She almost gave up and went to bed when nothing was happening but after enough time passed the world started getting lighter.

She’d been sleeping through the light!

She checked again the next night and sure enough, it happened again. There were whole phases the world went through. The light phase and the dark phase. Day and night. She was always up at night and asleep during the day, as were all of her siblings.

And that brought her to today.

Anticipation!

She’d made sure to sleep as much as she could during the rest period between hunts. Normally she would just mess around with stacking rocks or playing around with her crystal or the dirt.

The dirt had become interesting again once she’d found she could make patterns in it, which felt significant. They stuck around as long as her siblings didn’t mess them up, and it was like she could store the pretty pictures in her head on the ground. Sort of. She wasn't too good at it yet, but it was quite fun.

For some reason, she’d never considered leaving the cave without her siblings, which was really odd now that she thought about it.

Considering that was her plan for today.

She was rested enough and was just waiting for it to start getting light. She knew it’d hurt her eyes before, but she was bigger and tougher now, so she figured she’d be alright.

She supposed if it got too bright she could just come back.

It would have to get very bright, though, because she really wanted to see what everything looked like in the light.

Looking out of the cave entrance she noticed the world was starting to brighten.

It was time.

She made her way towards the entrance and noticed a... hesitancy to leave the group behind her. Some part of her urged her to stay with the swarm, to sleep while the light shined.

She squished it.

I will not be denied!

She huffed out a determined breath, and padded off into the forest, as it filled in with the breathtaking colors of the dawn.