After everything, after he'd returned, there was a yearning in Yvan's gut. He'd asked for forgiveness for eloping first, spent a day distant in thought, restless when it was time for them to sleep. He needed to take her there. She had to feel that warmth. She had to see that expanse.

Yvan held Ryoto's hand nearly the whole way there, leading her to the sun. "You have to see it," he spoke with such conviction. The colors of the galaxy surrounding the cathedral were beautiful, the air so crisp, the blanket of pressure simply gone. How could he even convey that to her without showing her?

His enthusiasm only curbed once they'd finally made it to the steps of the cathedral. Inside its hall, Yvan spun as he walked, practically vibrating with excitement. The ceiling of petals yawned high above either of them and his twirls only kicked them up with his tail, the pink parcels fluttering around his as he beamed. "Isn't it cool? In here!" Nails scraped on the floor as he bounded towards the mirror-like portal and hovered in front of it.

While there wasn't much difference between each version of the cathedral, Yvan still hesitated to leave. He hadn't even shown her the final exit, but that was soon, not soon enough, certainly not as he kept anxiously looking between Ryoto and the doorway.

"Come on..!"

@Ryoto

[oh, i love you!]

Fortunate for Yvan, Ryoto's forgiveness was never in short supply. Not when he was so tolerant of her clinging with extra intensity for the next few days, her face buried into his feathers and hair while his mind wanders elsewhere; her face turned into a petulant-looking frown as she coaxes him into remembering to eat his fish and stay just as well-fed as always; her face growing even more concerned when he at-last opens his mind to hers and proposes more venturing out—

But, with her this time. Because she has to see it.

It had seemed so unfathomably large that she'd brought her mightiest worry-stone with her, and with the irony of worrying incessantly that she might set it down somewhere or otherwise drop it and lose it forever in this big, new place. The worry is only amplified by Yvan's insistence on holding her hand and tugging her along, so the stone's held in a clenched fist, squeezed intermittently for support.

Of course, intermittently becomes constant as they go beyond the veil of shimmering water and glittering white feathers, and into a place of high-vaulted ceilings and constant flowerfall. It is quantifiably "cool", but—

Ryoto flicks her ears back as she takes in the sights, trying to muffle the rising overstimulation of every footfall echoing in the cathedral, and the sheer newness of it all in every way. And there's more than this?

"It's diff'rent," she calls softly, then grimaces as it echoes down the hall. She shakes off the crown of petals that's gathered atop her head, and squeezes her worry-rock with both hands as she starts plodding after Yvan once more. "M'coming..."

@Yvan

He knew she was overwhelmed, that's why he'd not bolted through the other door yet, but... "It's okay, promise," was his eternal assurance, even as he slipped through the mirror and dragged his tail behind him. Every second was filled with anxious tapping from his feet, an awkward dance forward as she drew closer.

So close..! "It's big, it looks bright, it's so everything out there." When he'd gone it'd been a little darker, not by much, but it got darker over time. Maybe it wouldn't this time. He needed her to see it.

It might freak her out, but he had an idea. Ducking his head for a moment as he watched Ryoto, he took one step, then two, then bolted out the door in a bid for her to follow him. She was going to either way, but he was impatient. Being a worrier wasn't going to help her right now! Right now she had to see the sky, feel that wind, feel the grass the way he did as he launched himself to it and rolled stains into his feathers.

That warmth up above just felt so good. It wasn't a crime to want to share it!

@Ryoto

[oh, i love you!]

"It's okay," Yvan promises, and somehow— as it always does— that assuages some of her worries. Even if the echoing noise of his feet tapping on the too-smooth floor is too much for even pinned-back ears to muffle. Big and bright don't inspire the hope and courage she needs to survive this overstimulation, but Yvan racing through the door does.

"YVAN!" tears loose of her throat as he vanishes across the bright threshold; a yelp of a single, worried sob that clatters off of every wall of the cathedral, and perhaps the single loudest noise that she has ever actually made. It binds her throat too tight to shout again as she sprints through the pews after him, breathing heavier with panic after every step—

Her eyes dilate to painful pinpricks as the light swallows her up, and she nearly retreats, eyes screwed shut, back into the dark. A single half-step back is all she can manage, because Yvan's out there in the big bright and she needs to follow him... and give him the what for.

Which is what she does, once her panic-induced adrenaline rush partially morphs into awe-stricken quivering, and metastasizes into yet more overstimulation (but... an okay kind of it?) once she feels the soft, soft grass underfoot and the breeze stirring across her skin and scales and the gentle warmth of the big bright above, sees that it's not just a blinding white but a calm, sweet blue with shimmering lights above and and and—

Soon as her eyes find Yvan rolling in the grass, she marches over to him, grumbles in pure, fleeting anger, and wrenches that breeze into a rousing toss of air to throw him down the hill with. She crumples into a loose ball of tail and hair, then, rolling after him and flopping down at his side, scooting close enough along the soft grass to nip at his face.

"Don'd'that again..." she grumbles, a little more teary-eyed than she thought.

@Yvan