ORIGIN

The images that came to him, as Bevy spoke, were as clear as if he were not blind--had never been blind.

He saw a rush of water flowing over sand, and a figure, a gembound, standing darkly-silhouetted beyond.

Watching.

The owl turned the magic, focusing it, drawing it back into himself with a flash of green stone eyes and doing his best to obey Bevy, to "show her" as he'd intended to do. It wasn't much of a vision, as far as visions went, but what he sent were not simple words, not the thoughts of a blind creature. No--he sent flickering images reflecting what he'd seen--he thought he'd shown this to her once before, but now he was making it clear.

"I can use my magic to see... and to show you," he said softly, as the visions of glittering water flickered into Bevy's mind (or so he hoped). Then he shifted place a bit, talons clicking on the rock, considering her other words as the images faded. Again his demeanor seemed more aloof, more in control than it had been--not the fearful creature of before, but almost... distant. He loved Bevy, but this wasn't the same Bevy as she had been, and this put steel into him that hadn't been there before--braced him against the sudden terror that had come. It would take getting used to, but until then he was on his own in a way he'd never been, and somehow, it made him calmer.

"If you want me to do this for your water guardians, then I will," he hooted softly. "If you want to introduce me to them, maybe I will become one. But I would warn you of danger anyway, Bevy. I would look for trouble and warn you anyway. If you want to call me 'scout' when I do it, and make it something I have to do, instead, then go ahead; it won't change anything."

Dark said this with surprising calm. It clearly wasn't meant as an insult--he was only saying that he was already doing precisely what she was asking of him. Perhaps it was such a perfect fit that nothing would change. Or perhaps he was somehow--maybe subconsciously--making the point that he was what he was, doing what he would do, regardless of titles and restrictions.

He would watch out for Bevy, whatever she wanted to call him.

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Dark scooted slightly closer, spreading his own wings and hunching down, turning his head toward the waterfall. Suddenly he looked alert, every part an avian predator, unseeing eyes wide as he shifted to listen toward the water.

The moment Bevy was airborne, so was he; he beat his wings once, twice, softly, soaring along just behind his mother-bird. He flew so silently that he was able to use her own flight-sounds to navigate, riding her tailwind so to speak, until as she landed he overshot (somewhat deliberately so as not to slam into her) and stumble-rolled onto the rock at the edge of the falls.

Here he pulled himself back upright, ruffling his feathers out and peering around. The roar of the falls was much, much louder here, and he turned to peer at Bevy.

"Okay. I'm here. Can't hear where you are. Can't hear much," he added, admitting the weakness with a touch of wistfulness. He relied wholly on his sense of sound for navigation, and with the roar of a waterfall, even a relatively quiet one, he was blind in more ways than one.

I wonder who it is she wants me to meet--and why, exactly, this person? I guess I'll see soon enough.

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Dark stared vaguely in Makyna's direction as he hopped after Bevy's voice. His gaze was utterly empty; it was hard enough for an owl to express emotion through his face, unless he was irritated or frightened--and then his feathers did all sorts of poofing and flattening down. But right now, he may as well have been a statue, or a shell.

All he could hear was a voice, so he couldn't form any idea of what Makyna was like; there was no way to get a first impression, a preconception. Instead he heard her vague greeting and he stared with a blank vacancy toward her, remaining silent.

It could hardly be said that Dark was particularly good with social etiquette on the best of days (and perhaps some of that could be blamed on his blindness; he'd never learned proper body language in the slightest), but now, half-deafened by the falls and waiting to learn more of Makyna, he seemed downright useless.

Finally, sensing that it was he who was meant to fill the now perhaps slightly awkward silence, he spoke--one brief, chirping hoot, soft and indifferent.

"Hello."

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Dark listened, and as he pondered Makyna's literal mental image--considering and setting them to memory, remembering the tans, the flower, the blues, the gem--and the strange shape of her, of the large cat, the lion--he heard Bevy speak. Strangely, he was the one, for once, to answer.

"He's waiting for me. I'll go there after. I'm going to show him a thing."

He was vague, distant, trying to form a mental image to send back to Makyna. It was automatic, and the owl forgot that Makyna wasn't, well, blind. The "picture" that he sent of himself was an image, sure, but it was filled with sound, too, and based off of it. He'd seen himself once, using magic, but it wasn't how he saw himself.

The image that he sent back to Makyna was whispering, a shiver of echo through a dim cave tunnel--lit, but not very brightly. A soft rustling of feathers was coming from the center, constantly shifting and hissing until suddenly, as he drew closer in this image, it went silent. The rest of the cave kept whispering and echoing, but the dark point at the center went silent, a void of sound--how Dark imagined the silence of an owl.

Then he was visible, as they drew closer: a dark owl-shape, indistinct and shifting, difficult to pinpoint.

Dark realized that he was hard to see; in sound-scapes, he was invisible, after all, his feathers making no sound. And so in this image he cast a light, bright and harsh and blinding--as he saw light, when viewed in his magic. And suddenly the owl was a small shape, but they were looking at the shadow he cast: and it was monstrous, vast and black with glowing green eyes, swelling over the tunnel. As he became visible, or rather as the shadow did, the scene filled with the sound of loudly-beating wings, like those of a hawk or an eagle.

The vision cut out suddenly; Dark was satisfied. He was a dark thing, with green eyes, owl-shaped--he thought he had done well, and was unaware that he had essentially shown Makyna a monster.

He chirped again, soft and cheery.

"It is. Nice to meet you--Makyna. I remember your sounds from before." Then he looked to Bevy, blinking large gem eyes.

"Should I meet more now or--or go to Leon?"

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