((Continuation of Such Lovely Lights))

The leopard, Fira, and her new platypus friend, Destiny, were resting beside the banks of the Crystal River in Polaris. They’d been having a very long and meandering conversation about… not much of anything, in Fira’s opinion. Fira was a very go-go-go sort of Gembound, even for one, and maybe especially because, she was so young. She had all that pent-up little-kid energy still. Later on, that go-go-go attitude would come more from needing a sense of constant Purpose in her life. She would not be happy unless she was doing something. This cooling down of her life, this wandering conversation, went against her natural inclinations.

But Fira could be pretty chill at the same time. She was hypocritical like that. Or maybe not so much. Think of Fira like a solder on an off day, or a break. Normally, she’s all, ’Yes sir, no sir, I’m on it sir, give me my mission.’ But on off days she can be found lounging around doing whatever and enjoying her temporary freedom from a life of rigid structure. She craves that order. She’s no leader. Maybe she could be, but she’d much rather take the orders than give them. But even the soldiers who love their jobs need off days, right?

And this is what this was — a casual conversation with a friend. As a cub, she didn’t register all this yet, but she would, with time, begin to see herself for what she was.

Her friend had wanted to try a bit of Magic, so now Fira lay patiently waiting to see if the platypus could change her fur color like the leopard could…

Words: 280 @Destiny -- It turned out so rambly, I'm sorry XD

Destiny looked, as best she could with her short stature, at her reflection in the pure waters of the Crystal River. Seeing herself, she felt neither repelled nor drawn to the beauty of her duck-billed face. In fact, she was rather indifferent. Whilst she didn't see the oddness some saw, she understood it. But it was her, and there couldn't be anything wrong with that, right?

But, back to the matter at hand.

The little platypus glanced back at Fira with a dramatic swing of her beak so she could make sure that the leopard was watching. Knowing a little better what to do now, Destiny sucked in her breath, closed her eyes tightly and focused deeply on the feeling deep inside her, that had been used to hear heartbeats and cause her gem to lightly glow. She held her breath for a while, unable to tell whether or not it'd worked, and so opened her eyes a sliver. It took a few moments to tell but, after a while the youngster realized she'd become a slightly darker shade of brown.

"C-crikey, I... I did it!" she chirruped, her voice bright with stunned happiness. "Fira, Fira! How do I look?"

She giggled and tried to pose, although that wasn't much of an option with her shape and babyish podge. The best she could do was curl up a little and put a flipper to her bill. Not that she quite realized; she was a little too used to the awkwardness of her form.

@Fira -- XD that's fine!

Fira watched as Destiny attempted her Magic, and grinned when the platypus pulled it off. Watching the process made her skin itch a little — a side-effect of her own spell attempt, probably. She wasn’t sure exactly how the Magic turned fur color, but it didn’t surprise her that such a thing might cause itching.

Destiny asked her how she looked, and once again, Fira was left with the word Pretty sitting on her tongue like a curse word. What was wrong with her that she hated that concept so much? It just seemed so pointless. Being pretty didn’t mean anything. You could be pretty, and stupid or mean at the same time, so… in the end, what you looked like didn’t matter in the slightest. (Unless, of course, you were changing your appearance to blend in while hunting, or something like that.)

“You look… good?” she faltered. Then she realized she needed to explain all this. Something compelled her to speak her mind. “But listen. It doesn’t matter if you're pretty or not, okay? What matters is if you’re a good Gembound. Treat people right and nobody will care if your fur is a pretty color or not. If you’re mean, it won’t matter how physically nice you look. Besides, being pretty isn’t useful. Find a skill to work on, and then you’ll be smart or funny or something, and you’ll be fine.” Fira realized after her speech that that last part maybe wouldn’t make her friend feel all that much better.

“I mean — you are smart and funny and whatever else already. But… anyways, those are the things you should focus on.”

Words: 274 @Destiny -- idk where this rant came from. Fira in my head was like, "Hold on I gotta take over for a second" and this is what happened lol.

As Fira responded to her question, Destiny lowered her large flipper to the ground and seemed as though she were about to reply, a grin spreading over her face- but then she tensed up and gazed at Fira, a little like a scolded puppy trying desperately to keep a smile. "Uhm," she stammered, unsure of what else to say. But then she gave a tiny smile, flickering up onto her face. Destiny would let nothing get her down, no matter how big or small. "K-k-kay then."

She let a little warble escape her bill.

"Well, ah, it's not that it makes me feel like uh, a better Gembound or somethin'. J-just, ah, I like it when people say nice things. Lotta them just say I look funny. And well, ya'know, there's not much I'm good at either! Too little to be strong or fast and ah, I know I'm not tha' smart or, uh, funny or whatever... But I don't mind! Aha! Just a bit of a quirk I guess!" Destiny gave a tiny shrug.

"What I m-m-mean is, if I were perfect, I wouldn't be me. B-but if someone tries to make me feel just that little bit less flawed, then that's real nice of them and... and I just love to see it."

Destiny gave a small nod and looked into the water again, but her small colour change had already faded away. What a shame; she'd rather liked her new look.

Oh well; Fira had a point, and at least Destiny knew now not to call her pretty!

What an odd little mistake to make.

@Fira -- Same for this one pretty much. XP

Fira let out a sigh, wondering if she had said too much. But it was too late to take the words back now, so instead of dwelling on it, she snuggled into Destiny’s side as a show of friendship. “At least now you know you can change your fur color. That could be useful if you ever need to hide or something.” That was Fira, ever the thinker. Her first thought to new Magic seemed to always be, ‘How could I use this? To hunt? To fight? To flee? To hide?’ The possibilities were endless, if you had the right mind for this stuff.

Fira was still young, but she had the instincts of a cat much older than her. Even when she wanted to play, her real focus was on how to implement the things she used during play in a real fight, or a real chase. She thought about Destiny and how little the Gembound was, with her big useless flippers. Well, useless on land… But in the water, she seemed more graceful.

The leopard looked at the river again, wondering if she really should wait before learning to swim. It seemed a valuable skill to have. Well, that made up her mind for her. She stood up and went towards the water, looking for a shallower area, or a place where she’d have better footing. “I’m gonna try to swim,” she called back to Destiny.

Words: 238 @Destiny

Destiny thought quite deeply on that one, before she finally gave a vigorous nod. "Y-y-yeah! It will!" she said happily. "Thank you, Fira!" The little platypus grinned as broad as she could by opening wide her bill, and pressed herself as close as she could into the leopard's fur as she felt her snuggle up. Destiny liked that. It was warm, soft, cozy... If she wanted to she could just close her eyes and...

Destiny's eyelids felt heavy as she basked in the warmth.

Then that warmth was gone. Destiny's head popped up from where it'd rested on the ground and she rose, not that standing rose her up very far, and looked around. Fira had moved towards the water, and with a frantic few seconds of waddling, Destiny was there too. "O-oh! That sounds nice!" she grinned broadly, stretching her legs each in turn as though she'd dropped off for more than a second. "I can help teach you, I wanna help!"

Destiny looked around and then slipped into the cool water, regardless of where it was. She circled back so that her bill was above the water, following Fira patiently from about a yard away from the bank.

"I'll stay here and help!" she called.

@Fira

Fira was grateful for Destiny’s help, though she was unsure what help the tiny creature could be if the leopard started drowning, or was caught by the current. She said none of this out loud. It had become very clear to her that her friend was rather delicate when it came to how you spoke to her, and Fira wanted to make damn sure she never hurt Destiny’s feelings. She didn’t care much for crybabies, but Destiny wasn’t a crybaby. Rather, she was just sensitive about what others thought of her, and how she perceived herself.

Fira concentrated on getting into the cold water without slipping, but fate had other plans. She carefully stepped into the river, staying near the bank so it wouldn’t be too deep. She let herself get used to the feeling, ignoring her natural cat instinct to get out of the wet. She’d have to learn to get used to it, or she’d never learn to swim. When her two front paws had been fully submerged for some thirty seconds or so, she waded farther into the river — and promptly slipped and splashed face-first into the water.

The current was stronger than she had expected it to be. Her head went underwater for a second, until she forced it to break the surface. She tried to remain calm as she scrabbled to find purchase on the pebbles beneath her paws, but the water was dragging her downstream, and towards the much deeper center. She didn’t know where Destiny was because her vision had narrowed to a tunnel as she fought the current. She forced the word from her throat as calmly as she could. “Help.”

Words: 280 @Destiny -- this should be fun lmao

Destiny waited patiently as Fira stepped into the water, using her large flippers to steady herself in the water as she kept pace with the larger animal easily, even drifting slightly ahead so that they were at the same point at any given moment. It seemed as though it was going quite well- for the first few seconds at least- and Destiny was about to express these thoughts to Fira when suddenly, the cat went under. Panic surged through Destiny and immediately she set herself in motion.

Easily she surged ahead, and to the side of Fira, where she pressed her side into the leopard's, struggling to push the larger creature to the shore. It was like pushing against a dead weight. Truthfully, Destiny knew she wasn't big enough, and would never be big enough. Panicking silently under the water, she pressed into Fira's side again, again, and again- but inevitably, nothing happened.

So she moved around to Fira's chest, so that she was pushing against the current. Alone, she'd probably have been fine, but she couldn't quite tell how much this was helping. At the very least, she tried to push her friend's chest upwards so that her face would come up above the water. But then, she decided, that it'd probably be more productive to push Fira's face directly, so she swam up to it and hoisted the leopard's chin onto her back as much as she could. Pushing upwards with her flippers, she made her nose was above the surface, so that at the very least Fira could breathe.

"Aaah! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, are you okay?!" she squeaked, although perhaps this wasn't the best time. "T-try to take ya paws off th-th-the rocks. Scoop the water like you're runnin'!"

Even now, Destiny struggled to make the best of this.

@Fira -- Indeed it will xD

Fira could feel Destiny pushing against her side, but the pushing wasn’t helping. The current dragged her farther and farther into the water, and now even her weak scrabbling on the rocks wasn’t effective. She was still a cub, and now she was out too far and couldn’t touch bottom. She flailed uselessly, her head going under again and again — until the platypus pushed her back up against the leopard’s chin. Fira was grateful for that. She sucked in breath after breath, continuing to flail. She tried to follow Destiny’s advice — to scoop at the water like she was running, but her legs were not cooperating very well, and she was making kicking motions more than running motions. This did, at least, serve to keep her head above water, though now the current was faster and stronger, and she was moving far too quickly for her liking…

Words: 147 @Destiny -- short post is short, but I mean... I don't wanna write too much about what's happening so that Destiny and Fira can work it out IC together instead of just narrating all of it myself. <3

Even despite her efforts, Fira didn't drift any closer to the shore. They were in deep water now, and she could feel Fira kicking her legs to stay afloat. It was enough, but it wasn't quite swimming. "You're doing great!" Destiny praised, her voice happy, and proud. "J-j-just keep scoopin'! If you're scared of it it'll keep t-t-trying to pull ya down but you can beat it! I know you can, c-c-cause you're really, really big and strong!"

Destiny wasn't getting anywhere when she tried to push Fira back to the shore, so she just kept holding up the leopard's head. Despite her calmness though, she was ever aware that they were drifting into deeper water. The furthest Destiny had swam out alone, even. She had faith in Fira to be strong enough to get them out of this, but little faith in herself to do much more. She was just glad she was able to keep Fira alive.

@Fira - she keeps failing omg