ORIGIN

Azure landed atop the wall of the Dam with a quiet flutter of wings.

She didn't come here often; indeed mostly she stuck quietly to Monoceros, hiding in one corner or another. But Polaris had its own draw: magic. Magic, and gemstones. And that's why she was here, today. Her creativity, lately, had really taken root; she wanted to expand on her work. Jewelry--gemstones filled with preserved flowers, or streaks of galaxy-like glowing dust--were all well and good, but Azure had gotten it in her head a couple weeks ago to experiment further and the thought, like a bad itch, had refused to leave.

Rich blue eyes inspected the locale as her head darted back and forth. Golems--many of them, all rock and crumbling movement. But there were old bones, too, and a few discarded gemstones. For the most part, Azure could summon gems herself--but there were some things, like metal and so forth, that she couldn't make herself. And Polaris, heart of the caves, would--she hoped--have some of what she was after in it. Though what exactly she was after, even she didn't quite know.

Just... cool stuff, really.

She had made a haphazard pouch out of gemstone; it wasn't soft and pliable, but rather a very deep bowl of sorts, made to lie flat against her flank. And this was tied over her torso with twined dried grass, a product of her telekinesis. She intended to fill this up with various neat little things, and take it back home again to toy with.

So-... First things first.

She had a shopping list, of sorts, in her mind.

Seashells--shiny ones--from the river, here. Ochre clay, if she could find it. Bones, from wherever. Ultramarine, that rich, blue, gold-streaked mineral she'd seen from time to time. Metal scraps from Tunnel J, and charcoal from the Monoceros dragons' hunting grounds. And last but not least, some of the sparkling quartz from Orion.

Rested, the hybrid took flight again, and swept toward the river beyond the golem dam. Seashells first, then; she'd see (ha) what she could find.

Nothing.

She turned, banking with swift flaps of one wing-pair, the other half-gliding, half-resting. Those rear wings were mostly good for balancing, anyway, at least until her main wings grew tired; they were too small, positioned too far back, to provide her main propulsion.

Cobalt eyes searched the water, but it was deep, fast, and difficult to see through. Maybe with a light-?

Azure swept down to land, and picked a broad stone--flint, she thought--and concentrated on it. It gleamed, a bright golden-white, and she lobbed this into the river, watching it slowly sink past the steep shoreline and down to the deep bottom. It tumbled downriver a little as it fell, curled along by the current, but she paralleled it, watching.

Ah-!

The glint of a seashell--there, and there. Good!

Azure paused above where the flint had come to rest, preparing to try and retrieve them.

The hybrid took a quick glance around, checking for any danger. The golems either hadn't noticed her, or hadn't followed her this far down river; everything was dim and quiet. Safe, then--for now.

She turned her attention back to the river, focusing intently on the sparkling objects lying scattered along its floor, half-illuminated by the dimly-glowing flint rock.

"Right," she murmured, under her breath. "Come on, then." She wanted a few of them, if possible--some to make into jewelry, and some to crush into sparkling dust that she could experiment with as dye.

Nothing.

Azure sighed, resettling her wings on her back, resolving to try again. What was she doing wrong-?

The water was fast; maybe she had to take its weight into consideration. It wouldn't, she realized, be like picking up something that had nothing but air in its way, no; it was weighed down, heavily so.

Azure took a breath, and tried again, with more force behind it this time.

This time, the shell came whipping up out of the water with enough power that Azure nearly lost it, staggering back and twisting up to keep track of it with her eyes. She turned, exhaling, feeling the throb behind her skull as she gently lowered the first seashell into her pouch.

One down, then. However many she could get to go.

Azure turned her attention to the next shell. She'd sort of lost track of the rest of Polaris around her, now, her full senses focused on the tiny specks of light dancing down at the bottom of the river.

She wrapped her mind for the next one, and concentrated.

Nothing came of this, and she hissed out in frustration, clacking her beak a little. She was half-tempted to just jump in, but she knew that was a bad idea; the river was swift, and she could feel the cold emanating off it from here. The sides were too steep to easily get back out of, and she didn't know if she'd be able to just take flight again with wetted feathers.

"Bastard," she muttered, and took a deep breath, preparing to try again.

A sigh, and another try--for dye. (Look how neatly that rhymes.)

Azure paced along the water's edge, and dropped a little lower--as low as she dared, splayed claws braced so that she didn't accidentally slip in.

"Come on, shell. I'll make you into something pretty," she promised, wincing as she concentrated. It flicked up, nearly past her this time--but a moment later she'd snagged it in her beak and backed away from the water's edge. Cautiously she settled it into the gemstone receptacle atop the other one, tapping it gently as if to offer it a reassuring pat.

"See-? That wasn't so bad, was it? -Talking to a inanimate object," she added, chastising herself a little aloud, with a soft laugh.

She took a breath, and shook out her feathers.

"One more," she murmured, aloud--and then she could move on to other things.

She took a break for now, though: took flight, turned, skimmed low along the water (wings briefly tucked and held high to avoid slapping the sides of the riverbanks) and dipped in her beak like a pelican, scooping up a couple gulps of water to drink. She was still swallowing it down as she landed again, shivering as she made her way back to where she'd dropped the baubled gemstone. It was refreshing--but cold, and she decided it had been wise to not try and dive for the shells.

No thanks.

Another glance around ensured that she was still safe. Her attention went back to the shells, then; once she'd reoriented herself to the glowing flint's location. And again she tried to concentrate--to bring herself one more shining shell from the river floor.

A third shell rose up, and she inspected this one before tucking it carefully into the half-assed gemstone 'bag.' All three were shining, mother-of-pearl gracing their interiors. This one was grayer, more scallop-like, but the others had been more akin to very small whelks, with cream, white and peach-colored banding. Beautiful things, really, and she happily added this one to the tiny collection.

Now... next things next.

She had her seashells. Azure went over her mental checklist; the next things she wanted were brownish-orange clay, and blue mineral that she could crush up into powder.

Right.

The hybrid took flight, a plan in mind. The first thing she'd do was make a light; and then she'd canvass the outer edges of the caves, passing through the more shadowed points. This way--she hoped--she could find stuff that others had overlooked, maybe. If she was lucky.

But first, she'd need a light; and so she circled nearer the Spire until she found a largish crystal jutting from a rock. It was nothing too large--nothing a good kick of her hind hooves couldn't smash away from the stone--and small enough to carry; but it wasn't a pebble, either.

She landed, breaking it away--wincing at the loud cracks as it broke--and then turned, investigating its now jagged-edged surface. Pale blue, crystalline, and pretty. Okay. She could work with this. And use it afterward, maybe, as glow-dust.

Azure touched her beak to it, the by now very-familiar magic of imparting light flowing up through her.

A soft glow illuminated it, again golden-white (and for a moment she considered making the glow blue--but she needed to see colors, blue among them, in her search) and a moment later the hybrid was again airborne, her makeshift light clutched in her magpie claws.

Azure began to make passes around the edges of Polaris. Where floor met wall, mostly: the outer ring, the far distant sides of the cave. She was searching for either ochre, or Lapis, though she didn't quite know the names of either.

She flew for some twenty minutes, stopping now and again to check on something or other that she'd spot--a tiny twist of plant misidentified as stone, or a piece of flat crystal useless to her. At last she found a streak of blue against the stone, and here she landed, examining it closely. A few kicks and some clawing--the work of another ten minutes or so--broke the small mineral vein free; it was rich cobalt blue, streaked thinly with threads of glittering gold.

Perfect.

She broke it into manageable pieces, and stored this, with quiet and careful tips of her sharp beak, in the gemstone receptacle as well. Then she moved on, her search not finished yet.

Ochre was next. Polaris' floor was tawny brown, so she wasn't sure she'd be able to pick reddish clay from its surface by eye alone, but she could try.

Azure began to fly about haphazardly, feeling the drain now on her wings, so that two or three times she stopped and simply walked, for awhile. She touched her beak against the floor, testing for clay that she could use, occasionally scraping here and there with her straight, short talons.

She hit the jackpot shortly thereafter: a large, broad swathe of reddish-orange clay, tacky to the touch and smelling, even to her blunted, bird's sense of smell, of earth.

"Oh, cool," she murmured, aloud, before tackling it.

The hybrid spent some time digging at it, picking chunks away and carefully tucking them into the gemstone--careful not to drown the little seashells in it, nor the chunks of blue lapis lazuli.

This would work! This could definitely work. For what, she wasn't quite sure yet, but-... it was good.

Cool.