ORIGIN - Reflections

His flight was still unsteady. Clumsy, even. He rarely flew; he felt uncertain with it, a leaf trembling on each breeze of the wind. Almost always, Ember remained groundbound, pacing along with that slow and steady plod.

White wings flapped twice, and he lowered himself (with relief) to the rock, and paused to look around.

The stone of Pisces glittered with moisture. The moss looked wet, and though the whole place was cold, it was beautiful. And it was cold; he drew his magicka around him like a cloak, faint warmth emanating from him.

Ember folded his wings more carefully against his back, and then made his way toward the centerpiece of the vast cave: the waterfall that roared into the lagoon below, its spray glittering in the light like tiny diamonds. It fascinated him at once, each glint and shine sparking reflections in his already brightly-glowing eyes.

He was silent as he made his way slowly, carefully, to the edge of the lagoon. And once there he leaned over, half-grown, goofily disproportionate face staring in with rapt solemnity. What lay beneath, in the cold, clear depths-? It was beautiful, he thought; whatever lay within must certainly be so, too.

@Indigo

Indigo Eyes preferred warmer rooms like Fornax and Leo, but there was something refreshing about the cold of Pisces. She liked to come here after spending all day on the shores of Leo, letting her skin heat up and dry out-- when she got too hot to spend any more time outside of the water, and cool down next to the waterfall for a while.

It was the best way to spend a day, if you wanted her opinion.

The beach was quiet all day. Usually, it would have been welcome, but this particular day, Indigo found herself disappointed. She'd wished, secretly, that the cat she met had been lurking around again. When she left Leo and went snaking through the tunnels underneath the caves, she found herself hoping that, somehow, the leopard would be in Pisces.

So, when she saw a pale figure standing along the shoreline, she was excited. She surfaced quickly with an inward splash, four-digited hand grasping for the very edge of the lagoon to pull herself up and out of the clear water. She took a breath, and that's not her.

Claws clicked against the wet stone. "You shouldn't stand so close to the water," she said to the gembound who, in hindsight, looked nothing like a little flufly cat. "You might fall in. You don't look like you'd be very good at swimming?"

This last one was a question-- something she'd picked up over time was that, to start a conversation, you had to ask questions. And ask questions she did. "What are you doing here?"

@Ember

Ember had expected--maybe--fish. Pretty fish, certainly; but... fish. He hadn't known that anyone lived in Pisces' lagoon, bar Mister Tenzin (who Pride had told him a little about). He certainly didn't expect a sudden face slipping up from the cold beneath, or for said face to suddenly start speaking.

Hackles and spines flicked half-up, alarmed but not fully aggressive, as he scrambled a couple feet back on wet rock.

Then he calmed--as he realized Indigo wasn't hostile; as she spoke. He didn't think to apologize to her for being startled. He just blinked a little, and then leaned forward, ears pricking up as he sniffed at her instinctively. At her advice he dutifully shuffled that single step back again, so there were a polite couple feet between them--and so he wasn't teetering at the water's edge.

"You are--friendly?" he asked, blinking, his words coming slow. Then he stopped, looking down at his oversized paw-dragon-feet. "I don't think I would be good at swimming. No," he decided in agreement. "But--I've never tried?"

Indigo didn't offer a name, nor ask his own, and he didn't think to do the same in turn. Instead he simply answered her question, thinking about it first, so that it seemed a long pause as he lowered himself to hefty haunches. "I'm... exploring. And I want to learn," he added, quietly. Emberglow eyes shifted to the surface of the lagoon, ranging over it, before pulling back to the strange and magical creature before him. "Are there more of you?" he asked, voice curious and soft.

@Indigo

Friendly? Indigo wasn't so sure the meaning of the word. Instead, she pointedly glanced Ember up and down for a moment-- taking note of the amount of fur clinging to his body --and offered, "I won't eat you," as a response instead. She didn't much like the idea of hacking up hairballs later.

She didn't think to offer a name either-- why would she? Instead, the creature spent a moment grasping for the flatter land on rock and pulling herself right up, tail flopping wetly on the cave floor. She stretched, yawned, and lounged very leisurely on the shore, curling her arms up behind her and peering sidelong at Ember.

"Not like me," she responded. "The other ones down there don't really talk, and they're usually smaller." It was fairly sparse down there; Indigo had never actually had a conversation with anyone else from the water. The only time she interacted with anyone at all was during these moments; when she came up to rest and dry off for a while.

The naga shut her eyes absently. "How much have you seen?" she asked in a Very Casual Tone. "Of the caves above the surface?"

It wasn't a question she wondered often-- but it was one that she had considered recently, since meeting Cerilaine. The realization that not everyone knew the same things as her had been fairly recent, and with that came a curiosity for the things she hadn't seen.

As much as she could do it herself, the idea of venturing too far away from the water freaked her out a bit.

@Ember

Indigo's reassurance that she would not eat him was somehow... not as reassuring as he'd hoped. Information churned slowly through his mind, and sort of made itself into a bundle that eventually spat back out through his mouth. His thought process was... methodical. "Dad says we shouldn't... eat those that can talk," he told her. In fairness, he was still a child, mostly; the things he blurted (if with measured tone) were half-related at the best of times to the conversation at hand. But! Perhaps it would be useful information. Somehow.

Ember looked down into the water, as Indigo went on. The other ones down there don't really talk, she was saying, and he wondered about that. About small things, underwater. Did she mean fish? Or something else entirely?

And what had he seen..? He leaned back on his haunches, expression going distant, wing-limbs settling his weight down. He thought back. He'd seen Orion, of course. Eridanus. He'd seen Polaris, briefly; Pride had taken him there to practice. He'd seen Tunnel J, and a few of the other tunnels, but he'd not ventured far into Monoceros. It occurred to him, belatedly, to wonder what Indigo meant by 'above the surface.' After hesitation he assumed she meant the water (maybe?) and so he answered with this in mind, and with a little curiosity for inspiration.

"I've seen... a few places? I'll tell you about them, if you tell me about... what's underwater?" he offered, a tenative and hopeful suggestion. He liked stories. "Oh... my name is Ember," he added, quietly, realizing belatedly that he hadn't introduced himself. Then, with childlike simplicity, he asked "What's yours?"

@Indigo