A small group of younger Xunari exchanged goodbyes, gathered in the soft glow of the moon, early in the night. The two reef Belemoids, Finn and Twinkle, had gotten up extra early today to trek over to their friends Koi and Empress, to catch up. As the day quickly turned into night, the former two had announced it was time to leave.

 

As they headed back to their cave, Finn bumped in Twinkle as the other stopped dead in her tracks. "What's wrong?" Finn asked, his view blocked by the other reef belemoid.

 

She couldn't see what was ahead of her, Twinkle blocking the view, "We're almost home, right?" she said to the other, who still seemed too stunned to answer. "Twinkle?" Her friend kept blankly staring ahead, not replying, so Finn gently pushed past her to see what was ahead.

 

what he saw ahead partially took her own breath away too.  Where was supposed to be their cave entrance, instead lay a pile of rubble. It took Finn a moment to recover, swallowing hard. "I- it'll be okay! We can head back and I'm sure Bloo will- help." 

 

Twinkle swallowed hard. nodding sombrely. Finn knew, just like her "sister" that there would be little to no saving this. She gently nudged Twinkle, back into the direction the two came from.

 

 

Bloo seemed- honestly very confused as the two wandered back into the colony- Twinkle not looking at anything but the ground, and thus with Finn in an unusual position of "leader" of the duo. The older Belemoid was mid-discussion with Seymore, who had been waiting for ages to discuss another expedition to Mireh, when he saw the two.

 

"Hang on, Seymore," he started walking off, the other trailing behind him "something is wrong here." 

 

As he walked up to the two young reef Belemoid, having to correct himself from mentally calling them whelps (especially Twinkle had long not been a whelp, with Finn being on the brink of adulthood too), his sense of dread increased.  It was highly unusual for the two to be this quiet and low on energy.

 

"Hey guys." he spoke, smiling kindly, "I thought you two just left?"

 

Finn gave him a pained smile "Uhh yea, you see, Mr. Bloo sir- we have a- a bit of an issue." Bloo was, again, taking aback by the younger of the two suddenly taking the lead. Usually Finn was more in the background, but Twinkle was quite clearly absolutely crushed by one thing or another.

 

Bloo nodded "Well, whatever it is, I'm sure we can fix it." He gestured at Seymore. "Seymore here is willing to help too, just explain what happened. He wasn't sure how Seymore would feel being thrown to the wolves in a way, but he wanted to make sure that the young belemoids would know they wouldn't be alone in this.

 

"Uh," Finn stumbled "Our cave is kind of... Gone?" she looked at Blue, probably trying her best to not look *too* helpless- but failing in doing so quite miserably.

 

Bloo was quite taken aback at first. Caves didn't just walk away after all. "What... Do you mean 'gone', Finn?" he tried his best not to sound mad or too perplexed- that probably being the last thing the two needed.

 

"Well we tried to go home earlier but there's just- rocks? It might've like- collapsed or something." Finn spoke awkwardly, shifting her balance from one foot to the other, and as she finished, Twinkle nodded sadly besides her.

 

"I... See." it was then that Bloo realized that the cave the two lived in had never been reinforced. Being in a wet, swampy area the water must've eroded some rocks or something and caused the entire thing to collapse.

 

Bloo wasn't sure what to say "I'm sorry kiddo but I- don't think we can really... Fix that." Bloo looked back at Seymore, who stood behind him frowning.

 

"We can try to get your guy's stuff though? Would that help?" Seymore offered "We just got some new mining stuff," he added "It shouldn't be too much work, and we might find some ore while we're at it anyways." Bloo quickly realized that the other was trying to make the two feel less guilty for asking for help, and smiled at him thankfully.

 

"And afterwards, you guys are welcome to stay here, of course." Bloo had never offered the two a place in the colony before, figuring the two seemed more than happy in that oddly moist cave of theirs. But as was apparent right now, he supposed all good things must come to an end.

 

Twinkle nodded "That- would be nice. Thank you both so much." offering them a shaky smile.

 

Seymore nodded "I'll go grab the pickaxes then. You guys scout ahead."

 

---

 

As Bloo arived, he quickly saw what the younger two had meant. He frowned, looking at Finn's smaller form. On one hand, he had no doubts in the young Belemoid's abilities- on the other hand, she was probably still too small to do any actual mining. He frowned. 

 

"Finn?" the blue reef belemoid looked up a him expectantly. "How about you help clear some smaller rubble? Me and Twinkle can get started moving stuff, so maybe you can keep an eye out for any ores and such you can spot." at the youngling's nods, Bloo then turned to Twinkle. "We can get started on making a little tunnel while we wait for Seymore. Just try not to touch any of the bigger rocks, alright?"

 

they started moving around the smaller rocks and pebbles- making a smaller tunnel trough the rubble. Eventually Seymore came back, carrying the pickaxes and bags for the ores. Finn has been sorting trough the small bits of rubble carefully, filling the bags with any interesting rocks she had found.

 

With the pickaxe it was quick work to make the tunnels thick enough for Twinkle to be able to climb trough into a small section of the cave. She came back out excitedly holding a bag of stuff "Look Finn!" with excited tears in her eyes, she emptied the contents out of the bag she had ben given- various meaningless looking trinkets falling out.

 

She picked up a shell, shoving it in Finn's face "All my treasures are still there!"

 

Bloo wasn't entirely sure why that seemed to matter so much- but the two young ones seemed in way higher spirits after that, Twinkle quickly filling the bag back up and announcing that she had everything she'd need from the cave.

 

"Alright," blue said "Let's just fill up these bags with ore, and then head home then."

 

The other nodded along, quickly going back to work under the glittering moonlight.