The last of the labradorite shards had fallen from her flank, leaving a small trail behind her as the young beast stretched limbs for the first time. Young, but certainly not small - it was a massive pile of iridescent blue and gold shards she had stepped from and, despite the appearance of a young, light gray, fluffy chick only barely about to grow in its adult feathers, it was a chick that was nearly 6 feet tall to the top of its head.
Unfortunately, that still wasn't tall enough to reach the tops of the trees. She strained for a moment, reaching her neck as far as it would go, even gettin up on her toes, but it wasn't enough. So she leaned back down and settled to munch on some of the nearby shrubs.
There wasn't yet much going on in her head. A simple, newborn bliss of living and beastial instincts to eat, drink, sleep, and survive that wasn't yet causing stress. She was a simple, new life that settled to eat for a while before wandering aimlessly, the thuds of her heavy feet against the ground shaking the brush, head sometimes swinging back and forth to keep an eye out for danger.
It was too flexible to be a tail. Could it have been another sauropod? Meeting them was an instant decision. Andromeda set off in a crash through the trees, racing to meet them. She'd only known herself and Rex! Would they look just like her? They probably wouldn't have her spines, but that was fine!
She thrust her head through the trees, craning her neck down to get a good look at them. "Ah, you're not...a..." She said trailing off as she was mystified by Itzel's appearance. As she stared, Andromeda became more and more confused at what exactly she was looking at. It was like looking at some weird hybrid of herself, Rex, and a bird. They were upright like Rex was, with her neck and a birds beak. And they had claws. Massive ones. Her tail whipped side to side. Whatever they were, Andromeda quickly decided that they must be full grown. They were nearly her size after all. Gembound didn't just pop out that big.
"Woah, the hell're you? You're freaky-looking. Your eyes 'n claws are...real big. Well, I ain't see you around before. Didja get zapped by electricity or something? Your feathers are all stickin straight out all weird like. Theres a stream the way I came if you need to put em back down." Andromeda frowned, briefly wondering what it was like to have feathers. She couldn't imagine being covered in those. She'd seen plenty enough roamin around with feathers, though. She personally felt they looked itchy. Or ticklish. Especially this gembound's feathers.
@itzel
The sudden crashing through the trees immediately put the poor chick on high alert. Its head snapped up, neck quickly raising to try and see through the trees for what was approaching. It let out a small alarm call and backed up. But it was only moments later when a beast came crashing through the leaves.
She called again, this time slashing at the air threateningly with claws, instincts telling her that this was a predator. It was going to hurt and eat her and she needed to stand her grown and scare it off. Who wanted to get in the way of those giant scythes, after all?
But it wasn't attacking. It was...talking? Buggy, baby eyes blinked at it and it chirped questioningly. She could understand it, oddly enough.
Her head cocked to the side.
She looked back at them and her neck twisted around, beginning to press down on them with her head, but they stubbornly just stood right back up.
She turned back to Andromeda, the instinct to fight or flight gone, no longer worried about predation. Something said to her that if it could talk, it wasn't going to eat her. So she took a couple of steps forward and motioned with her beak.
"Electric is...wait, why're you talkin' like..your voice cant be..whats with it bein that high." Her brows furrowed, and her eyes darted about, her brain running a mile a minute. There was something very weird about this adult gembound. Her darting eyes caught a glimpse of iridescent blue shards. She locked onto them. That was a chrysalis. She swayed. She looked back at Itzel, now noticing her matching iridescent blue stone. The fluid slick edges of Itzel's down. The way she repeated 'hell' with the inexperience of a new swearer. Then it clicked.
"No way. No way you were just born! That's not how it works! I didn't get to be that big when I hatched! I coulda been so scary...its not fair! No--you, you're just...playing a prank. Yeah. You probably just went t'sleep in your rock or somethin' and forgot how t'talk." It was the most obviously not true thing she'd said, even to her, but nonetheless. She huffed.
She had the distinct urge to call for Rex, like a kid wanting their mom to fix a problem. "Stream?" She parroted, still reeling. "Yeah. Yeah, stream! Ill take you there." Andromeda shook her head, neck spines rattling with the motion. Andromeda turned, keeping her tail as still as possible and her neck reared to show she was NOT intimidated by this child nearly her size. Then, aloud, she said: "Follow me." She snorted, beginning her tromp through the jungle undergrowth, stepping high in a show of bravado. She kept her pace slow, for the small, rational part of her that was certain this was just a big child.
"In case you're new, and you're not playing a joke on me, electric is like zappy stuff. It makes you jump when you touch it. And hell is just a word you can say whenever you feel like it. Its a good one, I think."
@Itzel