It had been a few days since his hatching, and the creature was growing restless among the groves. The newness of life had left him already; Netil wasn't interested in his surroundings in the manner of a curious child, but he did seem to deviate towards detected movement more often than anything else. The tremble of leaves, the swaying of heavy boughs, and the scurrying of small critters each made his attention drift.

As he woke, having wedged his small body in among the soil, he woke to a blanket of fog. It wasn't unusual for Cetus to be so thoroughly misty, but this fog seemed to be preternaturally thick. Had the caves not been a closed system, perhaps the creatures within would be privy to sunrise and sunset; but they weren't, so the thick soup of fog was the next best thing. It was early, relatively speaking. The air eddied through the paths in and out of Cetus, causing the mist to drift ever so slightly.

As Netil woke and shook the sleep from his inky black head, his motion seemed to startle something else to life. Something small charged out from the soil adjacent to him - from the soggy foliage behind him, perhaps, where it might have found warmth - and the movement left a brief gap in the fog. It was enough to snap the beast in to a more cognizant state. He went lunging after it, first with just his snapping teeth, then with his entire torso, slumphing himself out of the mud in order to waddle hungrily after the target.

there's a beautiful storm in your eyes

boredom was what seemed to be ailing the growing teen, it was all in his eyes and the constant thick mist in front of his face was not helping at all. for some time now, he'd been having trouble finding some way to entertain himself after all everybody else was busy preparing for his parents incoming marriage so quintus had decided to find someway to keep himself busy; wandering usually led to adventure and action. then again it did not seem like he was going to be getting what he was looking for, he had already caught himself sleeping once and his eyes was beginning to feel heavier by the minute. "damn," in a lousy effort to wake himself up he would widen those ocean blue eyes of his as much as he could; it was then that the sight of quick movement would catch his attention causing quintus to blink and clumsily flinch in shock before noticing an unusual looking gembound attempting to catch something. mischief was influencing him and instead of walking away, he would step in front of the strangers path in an attempt to cease his movement; "stop!" 

The monster's target slipped in to the fog, behind some sort of obstacle, and Netil hissed openly at the defeat. He was momentarily stunned when the obstacle spoke, and whipped his lowered head up so that he could observe with a sideways view; the obstacle in his way was alive, evidently. It had eyes like him, but its body wasn't built the same way. As if understanding their various differences (or maybe because he was studying them), Netil flexed his fleshwings and droned a small warning from deep within his throat.

No, this creature was different, very different. Not like Ghanyarah or himself. Inferior? It was a complex word that Netil would probably never use or understand, but the feeling within that single word was what bloomed now, deep inside of him. This obstacle-beast was like the rat he had been chasing, but far bigger, and louder. Was it edible too? The lizard bared its fangs briefly, flustered because of his hunger and his defeat, and staggered back a few steps.

"Ssstop?" A long tongue flicked out from his mouth, tasting the fog and feeling the temperature difference between himself and the warm-blooded thing before him. Netil glanced beyond the obstacle to where the fog still rolled, hinting at the small body which had raced through it to safety, and he loosed a reptilian groan, leveling an annoyed expression upon the cub.

there's a beautiful storm in your eyes

"so you are as dumb as you look," the teen was not attempting at being hurtful but just merely truthful; the sight of the creature before him was rather unusual and nothing like he had seen before. he had mistaken it for a lesser gembound but there was something in the creature's eyes that hinted it had a sense of intelligence despite their lifeless color. there was also no denying the fact that netil had just spoken words out of his mouth and something that the little gembound knew was that inferior gembounds were not even capable of speech. taking a few quick moments to look over and study the unidentified beast with a slight tilt of his head, quintus would yowl in frustration for despite all the staring he was doing he couldn't figure out what the other gembound happened to be. he was still feeling wary and instead of advancing forwards, he would merely continue talking to the thing; "what are you?"