You saw it late one evening, when everything was dark and the land was quiet.

A burst of bright, colorful light in the southern sky, over the ocean. It looked like a star streaking past for minutes at a time, and far, far too close to the earth to be comfortable. It was huge and cohesive, until tendrils suddenly began to fragment and break off in all directions, shimmering with a strange and unknown glow in several different colors.

You watched them scatter to all ends of the world–

Even yours.

A single fragment collides with land so close to yours. When it hits, the land shakes and groans below your paws, as if awoken from some kind of dream. You can't help but pursue it, or perhaps you come upon it by accident, in the day that follows.

One way or another, you find this single, shining rock. It's color is vibrant and alive, and unlike anything you have ever seen. When you touch it, your whole body heaves a sigh of relief.

As if it was waiting for this very moment.

Whether you choose to leave it where it fell or to bring it with you, that evening when you begin to settle in, something starts to feel just a little bit off. The wind brings with it distant scents of cats you've never known. The land around you continues to resonate in mild aftershocks, quivering with a kind of unrest that's impossible to describe.

Still, you find your own rest all the same. And as you fall asleep that night a feminine voice snarls at you in angry tones that unsettle your dreams.

"You'll be dead before the next sunrise, meddler. Thief."