ORIGIN

Now THIS was an interesting find!

Bartos had seen the throne before, but every time he walked past it seemed to be occupied by other Gembounds. It was a big, black leopard who had on lots of shiny cool armor (would Bartos ever be big enough to wear that armor, or any armor?) or Kerby, but Bartos didn't like bugging him too much because, while the large cerberus was definitely his friend, he couldn't deny his inherent apprehension at a three headed dog. Or other Gembounds - he couldn't really remember the details. All that mattered now was that he was here at the throne and he could investigate it to his hearts content because there was no one else here!

The cat purred loudly to himself as he meandered up the stone steps that led to the platform upon which the throne was situated. His tail snaked pleasantly behind him, ears and whiskers twitching with curiosity. As he walked he kept close attention on the rock surfaces, the smooth sensation of cold stone beneath his toes. It was virtually flawless and held the pattern of dark veins - it was dusty, but maybe in its hayday it could have been a lovely marble... Maybe a blood marble. If only there was a way to get a piece of it...

Finding himself distracted, Bartos didn't even get a chance to inspect the throne. He was far too occupied pawing at the floor, sniffing and rubbing the dust and grime away in hopes of seeing its closer details.

Bartos had gotten so engrossed in his attempt to clean off the floor so that he could see its details, he had lost all grasp on his surroundings. The cat furrowed his brow and eventually ended up flop-rolling onto his side, pawing at the ground and scrubbing the grim away, narrowing his eyes in scrutiny. He was going to get this floor clean even if it killed him! He wanted desperately to see its details, because it looked like it could possibly be a really cool rock and he didn't want to potentially damage it by using his magic on it before he knew what it looked like. He was in fact so involved in this task that he hadn't even noticed the approach of the other Gembound - her quiet footsteps were lost in the sound of his toes scrubbing against the floor, one ear pinned against the ground while the other sat lazy and unlistening atop his head.

Only when she spoke did he suddenly jolt up, the hair along his spine standing on end as he scrambled to his paws to whirl around and face her. There, he beheld the image of another like him - another feline, only she was lithe, and her face was rounded. She looked young, despite being of similar size to him. "You scared me!" He claimed, wide-eyed as his chest rapidly rose and fell with startled breaths. After a couple seconds, his heart eased and he puffed himself up, almost embarrassed that he'd been caught off guard. "Wha- What?" He blinked. "I'm a cat! What are you?" Wasn't it obvious? Then again, he met several felines who were, well, felines, but not necessarily cats. Did it matter? No, but Bartos was obliged to show the same courtesy in curiosity.

Bartos didn't intend to frighten her, especially since she had startled him in the first place, so when he noticed that she too had jumped and the electricity crackled through her fur, he stared wide-eyed, intrigued by the foreign magic he had just seen. With a blink, he shook it away, her voice drawing his attention again. First an apology, then she explained she was still learning about the Gembounds. He could respect anybody's desire to learn! So the cat smiled and nodded and stored her species type in his brain, a 'chee-ah'. His tail snakes curiously behind him as he reclined to sit on the ground.

Still, before he could say anything else she turned her attention back to the dusty marble floor. "Oh! Yeah! Well, no, I wasn't playing, I was just trying to clean it so I could see what it was. See, I really like rocks and the floor looked like it was really pretty, some rocks are deliberately comprised of other rocks or they're carved or polished and they look really nice, and I want to know how, so I was trying to clean off the rock so I could see it better!" He rambled, then finally gestured to the floor below. "Hey, what was that thing you did? With the sparks? It looked like my friend's magic, with light, but yours was fast!" Bartos added, tilting his head curiously.

Her comment about the paws made him take a look at hers, then his, then hers again - sure enough, hers were a little bit bigger than his, but only a little. Bartos was older than her (it seemed), but they were still approximately the same size and the chee-ah was most definitely going to get larger than the cat. He couldn't help but feel a little offended that her paws were bigger, and he didn't know why; it was at this point that he'd also noticed she only had four toes on her paws, where he had five. That was strange. Maybe it was just a chee-ah thing. He shrugged it off and produced a wide grin. "Yeah, okay! I bet it's really pretty under all this dirt." He commented and plunked back down on his haunches, rubbing furiously at the ground in hopes of displacing the grime and dust.

His one ear twisted, rotating like a satellite to pick up the sound of her voice again. "That sounds like magic! Everybody is capable of doing lots of different things, but mostly we can only do one kind of thing. I don't know what yours is, but I have a friend who can make light, and I can make the ground shake and rocks break." His eyes flickered over to the chee-ah again and he paused in his task, straightening up. "Let me show you!" Without waiting for an answer, Bartos wiggled his tail behind him and smacked the ground, hoping that something would come of it.

Post-Roll Edit:
Sure enough, from the epicenter of the contact between his paw and the floor, the very earth beneath them began to rumble. It quaked and shook, vibrating beneath their weights; he could hear the groan of the rocks as they shifted and shook, but this time, Bartos was prepared. He steeled himself against the titantic movement of earth below, remaining upright. This earthquake wasn't as powerful as the one he had cast for his doe friend, but Bartos wasn't necessarily intending on knocking the chee-ah down. He just wanted to show her!

As the shaking of the earth slowly subsided, the cat found himself balancing and regaining his composure, glancing over to the chee-ah. She had managed to remain upright as well, and when she asked if he was the perpetrator of the ground shaking, he gave a proud nod. "Yup!" He did do that. He'd been practicing a lot, too, and it seemed that he was having more and more luck with his magic. Then again, failing his magic didn't really have any repercussions - just that nothing really happened, or it was weak. It was frustrating when he was trying to split rocks and nothing happened, but he would just try again. Over time it exhausted him, but that didn't matter. Bartos could just sleep and try again.

When the chee-ah tried to summon her own magic, Bartos took a step back and watched. He had yet to associate her magic with anything dangerous - in reality, electricity was a powerful and wicked element, but the cat had no concept of dangerous magics. He simply watched and waited, and slowly the air adopted something of a metallic smell to it, and slowly it began to feel super charged. The hair on his skin stood on end too, and it felt like static was running through his fur, puffing it up. Suddenly, bright yellow arced across the chee-ah, sparking in the air while static burned all around them. Bartos widened his eyes and looked around, enthralled with the display. "That's so COOL!" He gasped. "Can you do anything else??" The cat cocked his head, obviously getting ahead of himself while the sensation of the static still lingered in the air.