"Oh. We don't have those," Iceheart said. At least, she was fairly certain there weren't any signs up on land. If there were, she definitely missed them "There are lights on strings everywhere, though. They don't point anywhere."
He slowed to rest and she stopped by him, too. She wasn't sure if it would be polite or not to ask if he needed help or to even sit down next to him, so she stood patiently by thinking about the questions he asked. "I fall and it hurts," she answered about her wings. "If I spread them out, it doesn't hurt. Not everything has wings. The deer and rabbit don't. The fish don't." He didn't, but his fins did almost resemble them. Maybe swimming was a lot like flying-- but even then, Iceheart didn't exactly fly very well. She just... fell very nicely.
She was still absent-mindedly sniffing him when Undertow stuck his tongue out near her. It didn't occur to her that this was his way of smelling-- she simply flicked her own blue tongue out at him without thinking anything was particularly odd about the matter. She wasn't one to speak ill about someone else's culture.
"I don't know," she answered very honestly. It's not like dead fish were capable of telling her if being out of water hurt or not. "I'm sorry it feels heavy and slow."
Why didn't she swim, though? "Where I come from, the water is really cold. It hurts when you fall into it, so I don't swim there. I haven't tried to swim anywhere else." A beat. "I didn't intentionally swim where I come from either, though. I fell in. Maybe you're not supposed to fall in when you swim." She was half-recounting, half-asking Undertow's opinion-- he seemed like the expert on swimming, after all.
"I hunt rabbits and little deer. The big deer will kick me really hard, though, so just the little ones," Iceheart answered. "And I catch fish. Do you want one? I use magic."
@Undertow
Iceheart nodded along quietly to Undertow. He did live in water! She watched his tail flap in the water (yep, yeah, definitely water) for a beat before realizing he sounded like he was on the verge of apologizing. For asking questions? Her massive ears swivelled towards his face before her head followed suit. "It's okay," she said, blinking. "You can keep asking stuff. I know lots of things."
She didn't, but we move on.
"Deer are kind of like me, but they don't have wings. Some of them are the same size as me, and some of them are bigger. They all have these small, hard feet and big floppy ears. Rabbits are really small and really fast. They both have tiny little tails," she explained. "Rabbits don't do anything and deer can kick you really hard."
She could probably try swimming here, too-- but something about the water made her uneasy. Undertow was moving along anyway and Iceheart was more than happy to pursue. She was quickly shaking her head at the serpent though, "I don't make them, I catch them with magic," she clarified. "I can-- oh!"
Emotion-- real emotion --leaked into her tone at once. She knew this spell-- she could do it, too! Though her next words weren't as emotional as that single oh, the excitement was still palpable in her calming voice. "I can make my feet cold, too. I can make an ice-spike to catch fish with."
She pushed up and waded back into the water. "I can make myself wet, too, but I get really tired after that and I need a lot of water before I can do it again," she continued absently. There was a little dappled thing in the water drifting lazily, black-and-white and blind.
Iceheart concentrated, and she held her breath (because that always helped, somehow). She could feel magic tugging a muscle deep within her and from the water, ice began to crackle and form into a thick, jagged spike. It was a delicate sort of process; like a taut thread that could snap at any moment.
The icicle lurched and speared the fish straight through its muscular body. Iceheart took the ice-- melting rapidly --in her jaws and escorted it back to Undertow, where she used her forelimbs to un-skewer the mirrorfish from the spear. She offered it in front of his face on the sand. "Here," she said.
"I can use my claws, too, but it's less cool." The pun was obviously far from intended.
@Undertow
The lack of manners was completely lost on Iceheart, who was also all of four days old. She did take the half-fish, though, and she started to scarf it down with equal fervor and crunch-squelching as she cracked delicate fishbones between her teeth.
"'ow?" She asked, like she had any idea how her magic worked. Iceheart wanted to throw water around with her mouth, too, though-- that seemed fun. It didn't seem very useful for hunting or catching anything, but maybe not everything had to be about 'responsible use,' whatever that was.
Undertow kept talking and Iceheart was happy to listen, though as she chewed, she was getting increasingly lost. Kraken? Luckbites? Water crawlers and skullcrabs she could hazard a guess at-- but lightstrings? Deep death? The dragon was quickly throwing her head back to snap down the half-fish before she spoke.
"I don't know what those things are," she said, licking her jowls. "Like... most of them. Water crawlers and skullcrabs are crabs, right? But I don't know what... krakens and deep death is."
A beat of silence went by and Iceheart slowly sat down, tail flicking. "Why is it so different?" She asked, toneless but earnest. "Why are we so different? Why aren't we the same?"
@Undertow
Iceheart resisted the question, 'what do skulls look like,' because something deep and instinctual told her that she wasn't really meant to know what skulls looked like. Head-bones was enough. She listened regardless, ears high and flicking. She glanced down Undertow for a beat as he mentioned the Deep Death's and kraken's tendency to grab. It might have been obvious to him, but it wasn't to her.
"Oh," was all she said for a moment. Something about their differences was... sad, though not in any particular way that she could put her finger on. Claw on. It wasn't that she wanted everyone to look exactly the same, but the Black City seemed so... weird and strange to her. Everything above water must have seemed so weird and strange to him.
He spoke again, but Iceheart barely heard him. She was completely elsewhere when he suddenly cried out and water went crashing everywhere. The dragon stood up at once, alarmed and uncertain how she was supposed to help him.
He looked small. Shrink-wrapped. Did he need water? How do you make water? HOW DO YOU MAKE WATER?
Iceheart tried to call for magic but nothing came. What was she supposed to do now? She circled around Undertow in a mild panic, eyes enormous. "Are you dying? What do I do? How do I help? Do you need to go back to water? Do I drag you there?"
@Undertow
Iceheart didn't really know how to respond to this. She'd felt magic not responding and sometimes there was a twinge of pain, like a muscle that had been pulled and exerted too much, but it never felt like... a bite.
"Okay," was all she said for a beat. What else was there to say?
She stopped circling Undertow, lingering near his head again. "I'm gonna shove you deeper into the water," she said before she bowed her pale, broad head and began gently shoving Undertow out of the shallows and into deeper waters. He was heavier than she expected-- but she tried it nonetheless. It'd fix him, right?
Once he was in respectable waters, and Iceheart was up to her shoulders in hot water again, she stopped and sat back. "Has your magic bitten you before?" She asked. "Is that what it does? I met someone who's magic made them hear things that aren't real." This was put forth very matter-of-factly.
He was also very bad at catching fish. Speaking of-- "Do you need more fish?"
@Undertow