Cyg was big now, bigger than his mama, who had seemed so big to him in his early days. He hadn't much of an urge to wander yet, though, keeping mostly to exploring Andromeda, which in itself was a cave of endless fascinations.

Relative to the size of other beings, he was only the size of an averagely grown housecat, though that didn't include his wingspan. He was pretty sure he wasn't done growing, yet, either. It had been very odd, realizing one day he had grown bigger than his mama. He wasn't sure he much liked it, really, growing.

The only good thing that had come of it all was that the pre-feather fluff had fallen away about the end of last cycle, and now he could fly, because he had real feathers! Theoretically, at least. He hadn't actually done much flying.

He had wandered a bit further from the crystalline home today, when his eyes spotted a larger gembound. She was feline, though much larger than him, she had similar proportions in some ways. And like him, she had wings! Though his were different than hers, with hers more like the bats.

A green-blue wisp formed and danced towards the other gembound and then back to him. "Hi, hi, hello there! You have wings like me! And, and, you're part cat, right? You must be!" his words were eager, spilling out of his beak with cheery enthusiasm.

@Asira

After the rather unfortunate (or perhaps it was actually fortunate) accident, Asira had curbed her exploration habits for a bit to stay in Orion with her family. But nothing could keep her away for long. Her curiosity and energy levels had spiked, built from time spent too long in the same cave. She was full-grown now as well, and no longer felt the constraints of youth and the dangers that came with venturing too far without protection.

Andromeda was not a cave she had been to before. Its strange glowing atmosphere drew her in, and before long, she found herself venturing further and further within. At first, she decided to glide a few feet above the ground, but the crystals were much too interesting for her to pass by them all so fast. Asira landed, and proceeded at a walking pace. And that was when another glow that came not from the crystals nor the plant-life appeared. It was a wisp, followed by the speech of a rather small cat-bird looking gembound. He even vaguely reminded her of herself when she was young. But now she was big. Bigger-than-lion size big.

"Hello!" Asira responded, then paused to consider the question. "My dad is a lion, so yeah! What kind of cat are you? And are you part dragon too?" Though she was able to see that their wings were not quite the same, she could not confirm that all dragons had the exact same kind of wings. "Your magic is very cool! How do you do it? I can only do things like this." And Asira focused very hard on a chunk of crystal before her, feeling her antler glow as she did so. Then, by a seemingly invisible force, the crystal was sent flying in the air.

@Cyg

What... kind of cat? Cyg tilted his bird-like head at the much, much larger feline, apparently a lion. "I'm a... cat... cat?" he offered hesitantly, somewhat puzzled by this distinction.

"Well, a cat hybrid, anyway," he modified his answer, realizing that such a statement wasn't quite true. If he was a proper cat, he'd look only like his mama. "My mama's only a cat, though, I think. Her name's Wilder. She's smaller than I am now, and I'm still growing a bit more."

He looked puzzled again by the other question. "I don't think so? My stone was probably from some kind of bird, we figured, since I have feathers and a beak and my mama's a cat. What's a dragon?" his curiosity was beginning to take over.

His one functional eye widened, while his grandiderite eye remained set in place, as he observed the display of magic. "Wow! That's cool! Seems powerful! I've mostly only figured out how to make wisps, so far. And... I just kind of focus, to make them. I can maintain multiple at a time, though!"

Another, second wisp of the same color came to sputtering to life, a bit more faint, but present.

@Asira

"A cat-cat is very cool." she decided, thinking that if there were kinds of cats, then it made sense for there to be a base cat with nothing at all, and just a cat. "I don't know Wilder, does she live in this cave? Do you live here too?" Asira was still getting used to this cave, but her opinion of it was already that it was cooler than Orion. Even if her family lived back in Orion, Andromeda gave similar vibes but prettier and relaxing, with a ceiling that seemed just as far away. "Do you like being bigger? I grew bigger than my dad, and it still feels weird sometimes."

"You do look more like a bird. Bird-cat!" Asira realized now that if you merged the features of a bird and a cat, you really did start to take on the general form of a dragon even if you weren't one exactly. The longer she looked, the more she saw that it really did seem more like bird than dragon features. "Dragons also have wings, tails, horns, but we have snouts instead of beaks and we usually have scales..." she trailed off, realizing that she didn't exactly have scales all over, with the exception being her wings. "But I'm not a full dragon, I got my wings and horns from my parent Cadenza."

"Wow! You should teach me how to do that. Wisps are very pretty." She tried to make a wisp but instead just blew away another crystal. "Wisp-making is hard. What do you do after you focus?"

@Cyg

He preened, metaphorically, at being told 'a cat-cat is very cool' in such a decisive voice. "Yeah, we do! Mama, my siblings, and me all live here, yeah!" the bird-cat cheerily told the lion-dragon. "Mama made our home out of gemstone with magic! She's really strong!" Cyg clearly admired his mama a lot.

At the question about being bigger, Cyg hesitated. "Not really. I liked being smaller than mama, it felt right," he confessed.

He delighted at the others enthusiasm about his bird-cat-ness, though. He stood proud. An idea suddenly popped into his mind, though as the other mentioned wings, which she did indeed have. "Dragons sound epic! Are they very big?" he wondered, as the lion-dragon had not mentioned outgrowing this parent, Cadenza, even if she had outgrown her dad.

"I dunno, it just kind of... happens then," Cyg admitted a bit apologetically. "I only know the one spell- Or well, two technically, but..." he paused.

A whisper of playfulness echoed in his mind, but it wasn't his. He turned in the direction, where his blind side had been facing and grinned. "Caught you, Stella!" he laughed. In the direction he was facing was an adolescent Mystfox, an albino one at that. She play-bowed in his direction, tail with red-pink orb swaying with delight.

"Speaking of my other spell, this is my familiar, Stella! She's a friend! Stella, this is..." he trailed off, realizing in the excitement, they had only introduced their parents' names, not their own. "Um. What is your name, exactly? I'm Cyg! ...Well, Cygnus, really. But call me Cyg!"

Stella loped over contentedly, idly approaching the two floating orbs of light. And then her eyes glowed a bit, and the magic orbs vanished, and the glow faded from eyes, though she began glowing from her tail orb. "Stella!" Cyg half-scolded, but he seemed more amused than anything else with the Mystfox.

"Sorry, she must have been hungry! Stella eats magic- And other things, but I kind of spoiled her with magic when she was younger," he admitted.

His head tilted at Stella, communicating a question with his mind. She informed him that yes, she was still hungry, if in more sensations than words.

Therefore, he tried to summon a wisp yet again. It failed, quite dramatically, though that was not immediately apparent. The wisp appeared, and then it exploded with blinding light and vanished.

"Ah... oops," Cyg blinked, trying to clear the painful sensation of the light. "Must have badly failed, that time."

"I wonder if Stella can eat your magic, too? Don't use it on her, but maybe like... something nearby? She's a bit hungry. That is, if you don't mind? Hunting could work too, really," Cyg voiced a thought, but he didn't want to pressure Asira or have Stella get hurt.