Baroque felt helpless as he watched the tiny bat face turn into a scowl and huff and wheeze at them, unable to make sounds like they did. The little one was trying, sure, which meant it wasn't some sort of lesser gembound...

But the poor thing couldn't talk and it broke the grizzly lion's heart. He wanted to explain to Thistle, but first he thought he would try and listen to the whispers of magic around them. If he could make sense of the garbled murmurs, perhaps he could figure out what the child was trying to say with his magic?

Time seemed to slow down around the gembounds for just a few seconds, the muffled words speeding down but not becoming any clearer. The boy laid his ears back against his skull and waited for the weird thing to stop happening-- it occurred sometimes but Thistle never noticed and he didn't understand it enough to mention it.

"He can't talk," he told his friend, worry saturating his tone.

@Thistle @Oric

She frowned in a worried manner, both at the upset new gem and at Baro, her eyes flickering between the two. The new gem seemed...angry at them. She'd never had anyone be angry at her before, just worried, and it made her uncomfortable. She reviewed what had been said in her head, going over what possibly could've made him upset at them both. Did they say something wrong? All they said was their names and where that sound came from, surely there wasn't enough room for error there, was there?

"But he was making sound..." She said softly at Baro, looking at the new gem. "Can you do that again? Maybe that's the way you speak."

The idea that one might have to have another alternative to speech intrigued her. To not use her voice though, that was scary to think of. She liked how easy it was to talk and sing and make up words to match others, but she remembered how difficult it was at first. Maybe this was the same situation for this new one? He could talk, just...strangely.

"Remember how hard it was to talk at first, Baro?" She looked at her grizzly friend now. "It's hard for everyone. Maybe it's hard for him too....but in a different way."

Oric was completely fed up with these Gembounds — and with himself. At this point he was fairly certain there was something wrong with him. But now he knew he could communicate. It was just… different from the way the other two were doing so. He couldn’t make his vocal cords vibrate. No noise could come from his throat. But this… echo-y whispering… The one called Thistle said that… maybe that was how he spoke? What a god-awful way to get one’s thoughts across. Ugh. But if that were true then… at least he had something.

He closed his eyes and focused. It had worked multiple times before, but before he hadn’t understood he was doing it, so no words had been used. Now if he could concentrate, it might get some actual intelligence across to them…

“Where am I?” The sound echoed around as it had before, except this time the words were clear and understandable, if quiet. HA! So that was him! … Honestly, the whispering was a bit creepy-sounding, but at least now he could talk. In a way. Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?’ Finally, the echoing stopped, and Oric’s black eyes flicked between the two Gembounds again, eagerly awaiting their response.

Words: 222
@Baroque
@Thistle

She looked at Baro, then lowered her head to Oric's eye level. "You're in Orion, the room of stars," She replied, smiling encouragingly at him. "There's a lot of pretty buildings here where gems used to live, I think. I haven't seen much of it yet, but it is awfully pretty thus far."

She paused for a second. If it was hard for them to speak, and they were asking questions, they must be confused about what was going on! She remembered how that was like when she woke up, when nothing made sense and she was asking so many questions that Baro's ears probably hurt.

"Um...There's a lot of rooms throughout the caves," She said, hoping she would clear some things up for them. "Orion is just one of them. There's a place with a waterfall, and there's a forest with mist, and a jungle, if you search enough. And there's a lot of other gems here, if you need help, or if you want a friend."

Baroque blinked and nodded quietly at Thistle as she suggested that it was probably just hard for him to talk... But he had another way of doing it. One that Baro had tried really hard to understand-- and when it finally came through, he felt a shiver sink down his spine. Why did the whispers seem so familiar to him? He couldn't place it, so he simply stared down at his paws.

This' had all of the explaining covered. He stayed quiet up until her last sentence, when his ears pricked and he gave a patience smile towards Oric. "Y...yeah. We could be your friends, if you want... We live in the waterfall place, Pisces, with my family... It's nice there." His tail swished behind him as he fell silent, a bit unsure what to do or say.

He simply wanted to help the newborn feel better, and he was under the distinct impression that little Oric didn't like him one bit.

@Oric

Silence ensued after Baro spoke again, and the little new gem kept looking more and more frustrated with them both, glaring at them, and Thistle was starting to feel uncomfortable. She wanted to help them, she wanted to make things easier for the new one, so she settled herself down on the ground comfortably, looking sweetly at the little bat.

She started to explain the things she'd discovered about the caves since she had woken up, hoping that this would ease the gem's upset expression somewhat with its difficulty with talking. Both Baro and Thistle spent the time like this, painting a picture of the caves under the stars of the room.

[exit Thistle]

Baroque lost himself to Thistle's words, enjoying the stories and knowledge that they both had learned together. It was starting to, unfortunately, get quite late, so he decided it would be best to wrap things up. "If you ever need anything, little one, come to Pisces. I'm sure my dad could help you. He's really brave and... And my mom's really smart, so." That all said, he licked Thistle's ear and then the pair of them would bound off, after whatever they had come to Orion for in the first place.

"See you around, I hope, little one!" Baroque said as a final goodbye, eager to keep up the adventure. The new gem would hopefully be alright on its own... it didn't seem to care for either of them very much, despite both their efforts.

;; baro exit