ORIGIN

Ash had noticed that way Damask stiffened at the touch. How could she not? She knew the response like she knew the pathway air took down her own throat; intimiately. She didn't know if it was trauma, or mere surprise, but her avian niece was just as quick to hide it.

Boundaries were something they both struggled with, then. She would remember it, and keep a distance, despite the way her heart frantically begged for connection and closeness at every opportunity. It wasn't worth it if it made others uncomfortable... She could feel her own skin crawling at the thought.

But that was a background note, processed underneath the rest of her thoughts as the conversation strolled onward. The promise of companionship from Damask was uplifting, golden joinery filling one of the cracks in her heart.

Ashtoreth's ears pricked, listening closely as Damask tried something-- magic, most likely. The child began to cough, eyes squinting shut with tears, stumbling back. Ashtoreth's feathery mane puffed out with alarm, and she raised a paw as if she could reach out and help. There wasn't much helping it.

A thought occured to the hybrid; she didn't see an outward stone on the fellow gembound. It could have easily been hidden under feathers, of course, but... She didn't have much time to consider it as Dammy gasped, forcing out words before she had the air for them, which only further acerbated the issue. Ashtoreth's tail twitched, and she crouched low on the ledge, peering out into the city as the child had-- to give space, to show that it was "alright"... At least, that was the vibe she had gotten when Damask had done it.

Her ears pivoted as she listened, all the same. The disjointed sentences pieced together a considerate thought from her niece, one that made her lips twitch up into a sly grin.

"Without magic?" The air hummed, the sound ducking and diving playfully about them-- if she was forced to use words to communicate more complicated thought, then she would at least have fun with it. "Maybe if we could talk without words." It had been a notion she had considered, several times. Body language did some good... But no one had ever really sat down with Ashtoreth and tried to create a concrete way of communicating without vocals.

A damn shame, really. She had a lot of thoughts, but when you were limited to the strain of using magic, well... It got tiring. After a certain point, you started taking the lazy way out and not speaking at all. Which, in turn, made it feel like no one wanted to listen to you in the first place.

That was all things she didn't want to impose on the child, her tail flicking back and forth. "Magic is the eas--," she started to dismiss, before her own magic sputtered out. She huffed, lashing her tail and flicking her gaze up to the fake stars that glistened overhead as if to damn an unknowable God.

Her point remained: even though making up a new, wordless language with Damask sounded fun; if she relied on magic, no one else had to put forth any extra effort. They wouldn't use a made-up language enough for it to be worthwhile. It was hard to want to put effort into something without being certain anyone else would care beyond the bare minimum. Dammy seemed different, sure, like another piece of her-- but just because Ash felt that way, didn't mean that the kiddo felt the same.

She shook her head, and crossed her paws, settling her chin down on one as she peered at Damask, and then back to the broken city beyond the wall.

speaking made it worse. no sooner had she finished than another bout of coughing scraped her throat raw. damask quickened her pace, gulping in air through forcible motion. stupid. you knew it was coming, you cast and failed and cast again, you stood at the threshold and you crossed it anyway. stupidstupidstupid. she ducked away to hide the ugly grimace she felt on her face, all peeling canines and eyes glued saltwater-shut. the knife gnashed and gnashed, her lungs pumped and pumped, and stars like orion's spun before her, a wave of dizziness over her own heaving breathing — but ashtoreth's reverb reminded her of here, and she scattered tears and tinnitus with a violent toss of her head. "without magic?" the words seemed to porpoise in midair. she risked a narrow sidelong glance, surprised at the playful cadence — and found ashtoreth unmoved from the precipice, only her ears twisted back, tactfully ignoring the clamor behind her. an exact replica of damask's own strategy. smart, she thought through a mental bedsheet of mist, still kicking to throw it away.

"maybe if we could talk without words."

"maybe," she echoed, a rasping whisper with a wheeze for punctuation. that was ... kind of ingenious. if not their voices, they had their bodies, and didn't they — didn't everyone — speak a little of that language already? smiles, nods, flicks of ears and tails and wings: all of these were universal, more instinct than teaching, but who was to say they couldn't make their own meanings? a lexicon of muscle and nerve, knowable to them and them alone. it excited her.

"magic is the eas —" and ashtoreth's spell promptly fizzled out. as she stopped to gather herself, damask faced her with effort and fought to do the same, chest heaving, shivers setting in. her breathing had started to quiet — the pain between her lungs, to subside — by the time ash settled and peered back at her. the child met that look, even as one eye trembled smaller than the other and nostrils flared and contracted in time with her pupils. then the invisible tug-o'-war broke, and she took a long moment to think.

first, something to say. then, how to say it. ten seconds, twenty, thirty, and she had it. the young accipiter uttered a sharp, wordless chirp to catch her companion's attention, recapture the eye contact they'd severed, then breathed in and swallowed. time to hit mute.

in a series of slow-mo signs, she translated each word from sound to sight — mouthing each alongside the gestures, the shapes exaggerated to ensure legibility. despite the temptation to check herself, she straightened and kept her gaze trained on ashtoreth's, still panting (if softly) through just-parted lips.
— what: an inquiring sweep of her wingspan;
— were: a left-to-right flick of her tail to symbolize the past;
— you: a bow of the head, followed by an upward push;
— doing: an alternating raise of her feet, as though walking in place;
— and here?: a perpendicular circle of her snout down at the floor. this one she struggled with, shaking her head and working her jaw in dissatisfaction before arriving at a solution.

now, the whole question.

in one fluid motion, she synthesized the sequence. first, her wings and tail brushed with a soft rustle — the former forward, the latter sideways — along the floor; then came the sign that indicated ashtoreth; and a tight circle of prancing, high-stepping feet. finally damask stood where she'd started and fell still (clever, right?) before abruptly freezing with a flush of blood to her face.

had she just ... danced? the performance was purely functional, yes, but it must have looked ridiculous, pathetic half-grown mess that she was, and ash had been watching the whole time, and ... oh, no. ohh, no. she coughed and shoved her eyes roundly away, back rippling like a hyperesthesic cat's. showing it would make it worse. she forced herself to take a seat, put her focus back where it belonged, wait to see how her audience of one responded. only a quiet, rapid tap of a single talon on stone betrayed her burning yearning to step free of her skin.

Ashtoreth watched Damask from her perch, tail swishing idly behind her. The kid seemed to be considering it, giving a single rasping squeak of 'maybe' before the rooftop descended into a peaceful, thoughtful kind of silence. It was the kind of silence that Ashtoreth found comfort in, the kind that many others found intimidating. She saw no reason to fill it, except for the nagging sensation that she had put her niece (she didn't really feel like a niece...) on the spot.

She turned her nose out toward the city once more, letting the drafty air currents of Orion's open sky whisk across her whiskers. Maybe there was an easier way besides trying to create a whole new language or using magic all the time, but it was difficult to think outside of the narrow box she had lived in her whole life. Was it so much to simply exist without the need to constantly be yammering away about one thing or another? Her thoughts didn't wander too far before Dammy's chirp drew her head back. Her head swirled around to peer at the youngest Vita, ears craning forward expecting more words.

Instead, she was met with motion. Her pupils widened, and she shuffled her stomach to settle on the ledge, lowering her forepaws to brace against the parapet. A quizzical sweep of the wings, a tail wave of motion, a nose swung forth... Slow, methodical thoughts put to actions, and as Damask paced in place, Ash found her heart pounding in her chest and her breathing quick and shallow through her barely parted jaws.

Really? The winged noodle frantically tried to piece together the meaning, the pulse of her blood in her ears strangely nerve-wracking. What if she interpreted the wrong question, what if there was a misunderstanding--

And then, Damask Vita repeated the motions, moving smoothly from one to the next in a beautiful dance, one that left Ashtoreth stunned. The child seemed just as stunned to have done it herself, and the pair stared at each other for a split second before Damask turned away, coughing once again.

Ash's teeth clicked together as her jaws clenched, and she shoved herself off of the ledge, scrambling with an urgency across the roof to slide (nearly sliding past with the force of the motion) around Damask, wings flaring out to slow her as she dug her claws into the stone. She nearly careened into the gaping hole of the half collapsed roof, but in the end she raised her head and shuffled her feet under her lean, long body and swished her tail.

She attempted to chirp, a harsh little wisp of air from her lungs pushed up the roof of her mouth; the start of a sentence, the drop cap of signing.

Her whiskers trembled. A moment of hesitation. She-- Hadn't thought very far ahead, but it was fine. First thing was first, she needed to answer the question.

Ashtoreth bowed her head, tucking her nose as close as it would go to her chest. She crouched low so she could raise her tail and wave it in that left-to-right quick flick. She paused, and swept herself into a circle, stopping precisely where her paws had been a moment before, and emphasizing the spot with a stomp. How to explain what she was doing here, was a touch tricker, summarized easily with a single word.

How to convey that word, however... Her movements still slow and exaggerated, she raised a wing and tucked her head into her shoulder. She had to stretch her wing forward to mime tucking her snout under her wing, because it didn't quite reach without her curling around in a donut. But the gesture was not quite sleeping-- she accompanied it, a bit awkwardly, with a step to the side and then back again, rocking her body this way and that.

... And then, she swished her tail again, left-to-right.

She glanced back at Damask-- awkwardly, belatedly, realizing she had not mouthed the words, and to her credit she wasn't entirely sure she would know how to make the right shapes. She could kind of read them from Dammy, but it wasn't like she was deaf, it wasn't like she had a reason to know how to read lip shapes.

Well, shit.

With an inhale, she raised her head again, and repeated the motions, this time smoothly.

I was, nose to chest and a tail swish, here a tight spin and stomp, her wing already drawing forward to brush her nose, dreaming of tucking her head and rocking, one step to the left, tail rising to wave left to right, sweeping her whole body to the right with the motion, the past.

It was poetic, and also, incredibly silly. She slowed to a stop, waving her tail once more for emphasis, to the right, to the right, but she let her head slip down toward the floor. Her deep, chestnut eyes peered up hesitantly at Damask as she huffed for breath. The air was scorching hot from sheer embarrassment, but she knew her niece had felt the same way.

That was why she had charged headfirst into it. She wanted to show it was okay to-- to do this, silly as it was. She didn't want Damask to think her ideas were dumb, or naive, or any of the horrible things that her brain told her on a regular basis. Damask, after all, was crisp and white and young and unfettered-- all things that Ash wished she could go back to being.

In that moment, she was glad there was nothing but the sounds of their breaths and the shuffling of claws and talons on stone. She might've babbled out something crummy and sappy, otherwise.

okay. take it easy. hit or miss, savvy or silly, you took your shot. damask shifted from side to side in her seat. the vitas' mutual hesitation seemed to stretch far longer than the split-second it occupied in space. ash had followed the movements with — almost rapt attention; the sensation of being watched, appraised, made the fledgling want to squirm, and with that just-withheld impulse came an uneasier echo of her earlier thought: did she like it?

then, the standstill broke, and it broke hard as ashtoreth dove from the ledge in a wild flurry of feathers and fluff. the colorful shape of her skidded along a curving trajectory, headed straight for (ah!) a yawning hole in the roof beneath them. damask reacted at once, pushing herself upright and half-lunging forward to grab a scruff, a wing, a tail, whatever she could — but ash had it covered. good catch. the young bird of prey rocked back onto her heels, puffing out through her nose in a suggestion of nervous laughter. what now?

ash had the answer: a sharp, voiceless whisper of a chirp — an instant's uncertainty — and a sign.

for all her hesitation, all of her restraint, damask's face lit up with delight. yes! it worked! she does like it, look! that first one, it wasn't one of hers, but she knew it! right off the bat, super easy. i. then: was, here, doing, each sign understood, replicated, and understood again. the next was more of a challenge. damask tilted her head back and forth, puzzling over it. the tuck of head into wing was obvious, sleeping; but that wasn't exactly right, not with the rest of the motion, nor her firsthand knowledge that ashtoreth had been demonstrably awake. and that second left-to-right swish of the tail ... was had already been used. something else in the same spirit? a furrow developed between her brows, eyes rolling back and forth in concentration. think, kid, think. a pause passed in fervent calculation, the solution just out of reach.

and then — ash put it all together. each movement, woven into a flowing dance; each gesture, a jigsaw sentence. the pieces snapped into place, each shining brighter alongside its siblings. the final flick of the tail made sure of it. i was here ... dreaming! that's it! ... of the past.

damask drew in a gasp of awestruck wonder, smiling and nodding her applause. it was ... amazing. amazing. she swept immediately, almost too fast, to her feet. the signs manifested at once in her thoughts, and it was all she could do to form them slowly enough for clear comprehension.

the first was simple. she prefaced with a chirrup, then bowed her head, raised a wing-claw to the far corner of her right eye, and tapped twice: i see. her smile lingered in her features, tentative now, but plainly not for want of enthusiasm.

this next sequence called for further articulation. another drop cap, to start, and a chin-to-chest tuck. next, she swiped her tail left-to-right and whirled around in tall, springing steps. these damask executed in quick succession, given their familiarity through repetition. those that followed were more exaggerated. she spread her wings from her sides and beat them, twice — she'd been shooting for three, but a wince interrupted her, breath rattling briefly at the pressure. hey, don't worry about it. keep going. she tipped her head forty-five degrees to the left, kept it there for emphasis, and picked it back up. that sign was essential; she hoped she'd made the right choice. the same sign to the right could be or, if it lands — yeah? and finally (she liked this, felt she'd gotten it just right) she pressed her wing to her breast and swept it outward and upward, muzzle rising to follow the arc: a grand gesture for a grand endeavor. there.

i was here flying and exploring.

a moment's panting intermission, and then damask inhaled and released her third chirp. one more. she spread her sails, pranced in place, flicked her chin up from her chest; and, a little hesitantly, reenacted ashtoreth's complex sign: her muzzle curved out of sight beneath an outstretched wing, featherlight weight shifting as she stepped to the left and back. here, self-consciousness began to creep in (you sure it's not dancing?) but she shoved it away with a shut-eyed shake of her head — only to catch herself and freeze. wait. that's not part of ... no, okay, just do it over. she hadn't repeated the previous sentence, given the amount of motion required from her wings (hopefully that's all right) but this one merited it. head bowed, wings sweeping, feet dancing (yes) up and down, she held her position a moment before thrusting her muzzle ash's way, folding one wing, and extending the other to cover her face. a sidestep to the left and back, and her last sentence was complete.

what do you dream?

she relaxed to her default and blew out a sigh: one of humor, satisfaction, and pleasant exertion. at last the fledgling settled to the floor, tail curling around her feet. eagerly, expectantly — anxiety nowhere to be found — her eyes met her companion's. this wasn't like speaking. not at all. maybe her performance had been laughable, made so by the body she inhabited, but ashtoreth's was not. no matter the sight, the idea was damask's; and it was worth being proud of.

Ashtoreth snorted as Damask gestured back the sign for I and see, pointing at her eye. It was a clear and obvious symbol, so much more succinct than hers about dreaming... But... But if Damask understood it, then it made her give a toothy grin right back.

The feathery mustelid did the only thing that made sense, she mirrored the sign right back, dipping her nose at the end of her own series of nods, and raised a paw to her own right eye. Then, of course, it was time for her to pay real close attention as Damask had more to sign.

I was here-- easy, breezy, so much simpler to convey than straining to speak... And from the young child, trying so hard, she had never felt more acknowledged. Here, someone was going above and beyond the effort to actually communicate on her level. It was almost a distracting enough thought tugging at her heart strings that she might have missed the details of the signs given, but her complete, rapt attention belonged to the raptor. She wouldn't miss a second for the world.

Flying, most likely.
A middle gesture, connecting it to the next, and,
... Sweeping? Surveying? But then it clicked, the first thing she had done when exposed to the grand, glittering stone city: Exploring.

Ashtoreth gave another nod of acknowledgement, shuffling up on her paws as though eager to keep the conversation going, but as soon as Damask had caught her breath, she gave another chirp. The noodle settled back on her haunches, and with a few blinks to wet her eyes, she was ready for more.

Damask repeated her sign for dreaming, and then froze, and began again. She signed dreaming once more, then swept her wings and gestured to Ash; the inquiry plain as day.

There was a brief moment, a sudden flicker of fear that washed through her-- that she would either have to lie, or worse, explain what had happened cycles in the past, so long before Damask was even conceived that the fact she was still traumatized by it seemed laughable (to her self-deprecating, shamed internal monologue) and simply irrational to even bring up. It certainly wasn't something that Damask needed to know, nor was it something that she wanted to weigh the child down with.

It wasn't Damask's job to fix her. As kind as it was for the child to invent an entire new language-- something she couldn't even do for herself-- and humor her with company, that gave her no right to suddenly dump a bunch of baggage on the kid at the first drop of a hat. Okay. No worries. So she could just lie. Just one, teensy problem: she didn't want to lie, either. Damask actually understood her, of course she wanted to open up and actually... Be able to talk about it for once in her life. Shit.

Then... Maybe. Keep it... Casual. Half-truths, enough to give the kid an idea that it wasn't necessarily pleasant dreams, but nothing to worry about. All in the past, right? Ashtoreth could do that. So she inhaled a fresh breath, and stretched out her limbs, flexing her wings, and gave a little air-burst of an unvoiced chirp.

First, the half-dance mirrored of her statement, an acknowledgement of the question. Tail wag and a dip of the nose into a twisting tuck of her nose to her wing all while sweeping her feet, The past I was dreaming of. Her paws skirted the edge of the crumbled ruin, and she felt one foot slip, but she hopped forward and shook out her fur with a silent huff of laughter. Okay, she thought with her eyes shining upon her niece, careful now.

She tucked her head in, tail swishing to the right, pressing herself to the ground, pulling in her wings and laying her fur flat, squishing herself in as much as she could. It wasn't a perfect gesture, but-- I was small, she hoped it would be clear. The next was a little trickier, and she wondered if Damask would have thought a better gesture for it, but she tried all the same.

She tucked her nose down and swished her tail, I was, and then settled back on to her haunches to raise her paw. She brought her paw up to her still tucked nose, and then pushed it forward toward Damask, then drew it back, repeating it a couple of times-- a comparison, which couldn't be confused for 'and', since they had a sign for that now-- which she ended with a sweep of her nose to Damask, raising her paw to her nose again for emphasis. like you.

Unlike, perhaps, could be done by waving a limb cutting across, separating the two things. It didn't feel perfect, but it would work for now.

She moved on quickly from there, the statement still unfinished. She silent-chirped, and gestured to herself again, drawing her wing in about her flank and looking toward it as she swept it outward in the Damask's grand, invented gesture and bounced up into a stomp. I explored here. But it was missing something. A sign for 'first', perhaps? She'd think on it.

Ashtoreth pressed on to what she really wanted to get across. Her feet tapped the stone again, tail wagging left to right, and lowered her nose. She closed her eyes and drew her ears forward, showing relaxed contentment across her face and rubbed her paw to her chest. Here was my favorite, or maybe, Here I liked, but either was appropriate. She swept her wing out again, tilting her head to follow it, to explore and brought her head back to neutral before cocking it to the side, and...

The noodle took a deep breath, feeling nearly as winded as Damask making all these elaborate little gestures (at least her stone wasn't embedded in her ribcage) and then dropped down into a bow, spine arching, and began to ruffle up her feathers. She wriggled in place, wing tips spread and twitching, excitement writhing down her whole pelt. The symbol clear as day, though it might have needed some adjustment for Dammy to sign-- play!

Normally, she'd repeat the gesture, but she panted as she eased back into sitting, shuffling her wings back into place. She pulled at her magic, wanting to say at least-- Thank you-- but to no avail. Still, she was starting to feel pretty worn out. They could... They could probably use an easier way to sign some of the more complex stuff, huh?

That was alright. She squinted her eyes, smiling at the kid, but she couldn't manage to offer a question back just yet. It was a lot of work coming up with all these new ways of gesturing; her head was swimming trying to come up with more and more ways to get her point across. Though, despite her exhaustion, she could feel the satisfaction hung in the air. It was so, so worth it. Someday she'd tell Damask just how much this meant to her, even if the kid could already see it across her face.

how easy it was for them to bounce roles — performer and audience, speaker and listener, somewhere in between. damask waited patiently for the next act; it took a moment this time, the space of a fresh inhalation. once it had passed, ashtoreth stretched and rose back to her feet. she kicked it off with a simple repetition to clarify the answer to come — only to lose her footing again. the fledgling kept herself just barely still, trembling with effort and restraint. gotta trust her, gotta trust her. sure enough, ash corrected, eyes bright, voiceless laughter in her mouth. damask nodded her encouragement: keep going! and continue she did. i, was, followed by ... unmistakably, small. the next sequence was the same in construction, right up until the finish. she cocked her head, thinking. that gesture back-and-forth, it indicated them both in equal measure, not one or the other. the final sign confirmed it. i was like you. it hit her like an electric shock, and she couldn't help but start. like her, meaning: small, as said, (and oh, how she wished she weren't,) but also — callow, naïve, an imperfect work in progress. a child, no matter how hard she tried to act otherwise.

but — she didn't mean it that way. damask smoothed her feathers and settled, about as embarrassed by the overreaction as she was by its precursor. it's cool, kid. just watch.

she almost missed the sentence that followed, but she caught the last gesture. explore. extrapolating from there was easy enough: i explored, presumably here. they had that in common, then. and the new sign that came next, after a familiar preamble ... this was maybe her favorite yet, crystal-clear in its joy and sincerity. i loved it here. it pressed a smile onto damask's face, like a dried rose into paper. but she would have to amend that interpretation, for it wasn't quite finished — to explore, ash went on, and ... ah, she knew this one for sure. play.

all together, now!: i loved to explore and play here.

if damask could've applauded, she would've. she offered up a smile instead — not a thin one or a faint one, but a genuine grin, pinching her eyes from the bottom up, even showing off an upper row of teeth. the gratitude was mutual. given the evidence, it seemed as though ash's mutism was entirely involuntary; but where she couldn't speak, damask ... well. damask had all the tools, lips and a tongue and a working set of vocal cords, but she found that she ... didn't want to. that somehow, it didn't feel right. all of a sudden, her face fell, one inch and two. she ducked away a little, riding out a wave of discomfort, confusion. no, it had nothing to do with a feeling, only the imbalance of pros against cons. she was still uncertain of her ability to get it right, to convert thoughts into words without an inadvertent loss in translation; that was all it'd ever been. resolving the problem was just a matter of practice. she'd already made a whole lot of progress these past few weeks, see? she would adapt, she would control this, and she would get over it. she had to. she would.

but not in this here, not in this now. with ash, she didn't need to.

damask cleared her throat and hopped to her feet, shoving a (tighter) smile back on. right! signing. she let out a little chirp, then closed her eyes and tucked her chin into her chest. the rubbing motion wasn't very doable with a wing; ergo, she opted to press her claws to her heart instead, patting the spot a few times for emphasis. this done, she snapped back to attention, spun around, and repeated ash's sign for a comparison between them, waving her wing backward and forward with a push of her muzzle. i love it here, too ... a glance behind her, the way she'd come: canis, with its bones and its dust and its low-slung ceiling. the fledgling shook her head, exhaling confessionally. ... not there, though. but don't tell anybody that, okay?

a breath, a drop cap, and another new sign. eyes shining on the stars overhead, she lifted her wings to their greatest height. then, she let them curve down, meeting in the middle, and marched in a circle. that first gesture might've been interpreted any number of ways — amazing, wonderful, incredible — but any synonym would suffice, so long as she achieved the right effect. her exact intention: it's beautiful here.

the original question, though — it felt only right to answer it herself, per the laws of reciprocal conversation. better late than never. i dream ... she began with a chirrup, repeating that well-worn sequence — only to falter. oh. i didn't think this through too well, did i. what did she dream about? this: the inside of a chrysalis, brimming with air and fluid and a struggling, screaming body; aza'zel's yawning eyesockets, his throat torn apart, his ribs breaking like glass against the stone floor; damask's first kill and the dozens-and-counting after it. half the time, she woke up wheezing. i can't tell her that. so what could she say? she couldn't rescind her first three words, but the rest of them remained, hers to finish. what if she just — redacted the bad parts? all at once, it struck her, and she finished in a hurry, as if to compensate for the delay: ... of the past, as well.

omission didn't count as real dishonesty, right? especially not for the benefit of a friend. and, besides ... she'd sensed something a little off about ash's answer too, a glimmer of her former melancholy. maybe there was more to what'd happened here than she let on, and maybe, just maybe, she'd made the same choice: to sweeten and soften the bitter bite of the truth.

and that was just fine.

twice already, damask had made that gesture, like you — and now, she made it again, again, again, sliding into a breathy bout of laughter as she nodded and waved her wing back and forth. we're a lot alike, huh? at length, she collected herself, coughing slightly, and half-turned towards the edge of the roof. enough idle talk, silent or not. this would hurt — the tension in her chest would stick around for a while — but it'd be worth it. she thrust a wing from her chest to the distant throne, a grand sweep with outspread pinions; chin to chest, left, and forward. how about we explore? me and you, together? no mention of play, but her eyes sparkled with something very like it. without waiting for an answer, she spun around and jumped up to the parapet. somehow, she knew without a doubt that her company would follow. still, she threw a quick peek over her shoulder. just to make sure. no sign necessary, save for that look: you coming, ash?

In such a short period of time, Ashtoreth and Damask had clicked, and it was clear as day in even down to the smallest details. Seeing the grin on Dammy's face was enough to elict a delightful thrum in her chest, pride swelling to fill every crevice. It passed after a moment, a look of melancholy (or simple thought?) falling on to those monochromatic features... She did her best not to overthink it, and with a lick of patience, Damask cleared her throat. Feathers ruffling, Ashtoreth sat back on her haunches, rounded ears craning forward at her niece's little chirp.

Dammy loved Orion too; naturally. What wasn't there to love? Tons of hiding spots, and a huge vaulted ceiling to sweep, the tower to perch on and the various cliffsides surrounding the city's perimeter. The dazzling ceiling, the sparks of quartz that pocketed every few meters.

The winged mustelid paused, her whiskers twitching as Damask glanced back toward Tunnel K, back toward... Canis? And shook her head, a comparasion that made Ash's fur prickle and nearly stand on end down her spine.

... she didn't like home much either, some days. She wanted to ask why, but Damask was already gesturing, and... Didn't she already have some idea? Canis was suffocating, in more than one way. She was glad that Aure had convinced her to come home, but despite barely knowing Damask, she felt that. The raptor wouldn't have to worry about her telling a soul, even without asking. It was a private thing. Ashtoreth only nodded in agreement, dark eyes focused on that unspoken feeling between them.

A new sign. She blinked, trying to interpret the large, wonderous sign that accompanied here. Maybe she felt safety here, though that didn't quite feel right for such a grand gesture. Something about here that wasn't the same as Canis. Oh, maybe that it was big?

It didn't matter much, anyway; and the next line caught Ashtoreth's curiosity. Damask expressing her own dreams of the past, despite being so young... How could a kid long for the past? ... did something happen to her too? It seemed like a discussion for a different day, and as Damask went on to agree that they were a lot alike, she couldn't help the toothy grin that spread across her mammalian features.

As Damask stepped to the edge, and extended an offer for the two of them to run off an adventure together, Ashtoreth was bounding up after her before Dammy even looked back. Yes! The wind fluttered under her wings, sweeping through the both of them, and with a narrow, teasing squint, the challenge was thrown forward.

Last one there is a rotten egg! Ashtoreth leaped from the parapet, wings spreading out as she swept toward the Throne, off for the first of many grand adventures to come.