Tsvetok had gone wandering.
It'd been trained... a little. And now, it was just walking off wherever. It snorfed the air loudly, crimson head lifted, crest-- for once --held back against its head. It smelled strange in this room, though. Something bitter and tangy that hit the roof of its mouth unpleasantly, and caused it to start drooling.
Oh, it wanted to fucking wreck everything in here. Including whatever those little growths of white, symmetrical fungus was.
It reached out for its magic and found nothing. Typical. It felt the slight pull in its chest and then nothing. Its throat hadn't even started burning with the incoming magic. Right when Tsvetok turned to get a glance of itself in one of the large, mirror-like geodes, the lights crackled and turned off for the night.
Usually, Tsvetok would have turned and fell asleep. But now, it was hungry for a little bit of destruction instead. That's what Master Vargas had said, after all. It'd even been called very good.
It was difficult to see, but that was easily fixed. As long as its magic didn't fail again, that is. And it didn't.
There was a powerful surge of magic that almost made its chest hurt. Flames roiled inside its body, flooding out of its eyesockets and mouth and illuminating the near-immediate area. It could see perfectly fine, now, albeit not very far into the corners of Gemini. It could very easily see the fungus that had started growing into the room, though.
Stalking forward to the flat surface of the wall, where a lilac-blue, clear crystal lay, Tsvetok took a moment to inspect the cropping of mushrooms crawling up the geode. It'd intended to start burning its outside, too, and tear the fungus and rip them apart until there was nothing left, but...
Well, even fire-chickens sometimes had a little too much fire going on.
Its claws and face heating up even more was the breaking point. Tsvetok screamed, its head throwing backwards as it collapsed to the floor, seizuring. Instinct told it to roll-- but rolling did little good when the fire was inside you. It thrashed on the floor with an enraged, agonized bellow.
Something had to give.
Not that Tsvetok was smart or, really, even that capable of internal monologue as of yet, but some deep instinct told it that dying and chrysalizing here would be very, very bad. And it certainly felt like it was about to retreat into its chrysalis.
The pain was intense, scorching every inch of its insides. The valkhound bellowed again, half-in agony, half-in rage. It went out for its magic again and found something. It shifted-- water. Water was near. And as it focused, a spray of water came and drenched into its mouth.
It was enough to numb the pain long enough for it to scramble over and seep into the shallow pool. Not that it was an immediate cure, but chugging the water out of the pool certainly helped.
It lay there for a moment.
And then, cognizant thought.
Maybe... just maybe... this was a stupid fucking idea. Maybe it should have stayed in Draco and stayed V-Chaos-Whatever-fuckass-number-Vargas had given it, instead of wandering off to look for things to destroy. On the other hand, though, destroying things was very fun when they went well.
This was not, in fact, going well, however.
Tsvetok slowly arose, smoke billowing from its jagged jaws, settling on all fours. Its feathers were soaked, now, and the fire had long gone out. It'd been plunged back into darkness. And the fungus still remained.
A proverbial coin flipped. And Tsvetok decided not to be beaten.
The valkhound shook itself out, water flying everywhere. Then, it reared its head up.
... and nothing happened.
This had been wildly unsuccessful. Maybe it would come back another day and try again. It's not like anyone had to know that all Tsvetok had done was come in, set itself on fire, and leave. No. If anyone had asked, it hunted. It ate. And it drank some water and that's why it was wet.
Yes. Perfect.
With a last, pathetic shake of its hide, the valkhound turned and began walking back from whence it came.