> entering from tunnel o ;; for dark! blind buddies :3 <

The world was cold, freezing. Tal'at thought he might go numb if he stayed in the tunnel any longer-- the one with the silty, mucky earth. It was so damp-- he flew the whole way to avoid touching the warmth sapping floor. The cavern opened, finally, into a huge gaping maw that screamed at him. Roaring noise flooded his sensitive ears as he glided out of the cold passage way into damp... but slightly warmer... air.

The only problem was that he couldn't make out any small nuisances in the airwaves, no, all the subtle vibrations were overwhelmed by the rushing water. He slowly made his way to the earth and found a soft, bouncy bed of soft, fuzzy ground. It didn't tickle like grass, instead it was just... spongy. Tal'at lifted his heavy head and "peered" around, twisting his ears to try and pick out any noise that might be audible above the waterfall's constant static.

Just where was he now? The bat shivered, still chilled to the bone from his travels. Why did it have to be so wet? Perhaps he should have stayed in the land of sweet fruit and.. what was the word... Green. Green, lush grasses and ferns. There was plenty of food, it was warm, and the wind spoke to him in soft, polite whispers.

"Tch, tt, tcht," he chattered to himself, catching his breath. He tried to grasp at his extra sense, the one that detected heartbeats, but why anyone would want to live in such a terrible, noisy place was beyond him. There was.. A pulse, a flicker of red in the empty space of his brain. So something did live here!

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Dark was sitting quietly at the water's edge, having somehow managed to yet again slip away from his caretaker and "mother" bird while she was resting. He'd heard a noise, down here, and silently skittered off, entirely having forgotten his chirped assurance that he wouldn't do exactly that.

He'd hunted, for awhile, without any sense of what that really entailed--followed the sound of a skittering thing, the same as he'd done once before. Food, he knew, made noises like this: chitter, scratch, nibble, scuffle, rustle. This one squeaked in fear and had sounded like it was cornered in some rock, so he'd left it alone. He was hungry, yes, but he didn't want to hurt someone.

Now he sat fluffed out like a stacked-upright pillow, staring down toward the crystal-clear lagoon of blue and the rushing waterfall, though he couldn't see it. He could hear it, though, and it was deafening in a sort of relaxing way. Or a numbing way, maybe. He couldn't hear anything else over the water, or not much--had someone spoken close by to him, then perhaps. But the chirping of other birds, the rustle of the mouse he'd spared, the gentle rush of cave air through the long grass some ways off--this was all drowned out by the Pisces's great falls.

He was, in a sense, blinded by the sound--unable to see, unable to hear much else. It made the soft curling moss beneath his talons so much fluffier, the caress of air over his feathers all that much more intense and pleasant. Even the faint cool spray of mist over him seemed to fill the world.

With a few pleased beak-clicks and soft chirps, the owl settled down, gem eyes slipping shut.

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The faint red, a tiny beating heartbeat, drew the attention of the young bat. He crawled across the squishy, easy to grip surface, walking along on his wings until he finally got close enough to feel the Heartbeat strongly, and the light clicks of a beak reached his ears-- if only barely. There was certainly some form of creature here, and now the tiny mammal was all sorts of curious. Who was this? Would they be friendly? He had no reason to assume they wouldn't be, and so he began to speak up to get their attention.

"Who is there?" Tal'at asked, tilting his head inquisitively at the owl in the warrens with him, unaware of who else might be around-- his red sense was still a bit weak and underdeveloped. He wondered about this Heartbeat, considering the clicking of the beak he had only faintly caught under the roar of the water.

Was this creature also a bird? He thought, from the Heartbeat, that it might be slightly smaller than his other friend. "I am Tal'at.." He offered, inching just a bit close to the Heartbeat-- he wanted to investigate, to crawl over the new gembound, to get an idea of what the fellow being looked like... But he would wait for an answer. It was only polite.

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Dark jumped a little at the sound of the soft voice behind him, then turned to stare blindly back in its general direction. For a moment he just stayed like that, ear tufts all puffed up, the rest of his feathers puffed straight out. He only heard the sound of the water; there was nothing moving toward him, nothing attacking. But then, the voice had been soft, quiet. The owl felt no fear--there was nothing to fear, just a stranger, a friendly voice that he hadn't yet heard. Hesitantly and gently, he tried out the name.

"Tallll... lat."

He hopped slowly closer, turning his head to and fro to try and catch some sound, some hint of where this stranger was. He could hear nothing, though, so he spoke softly again, his voice barely audible over the waterfall.

"...Where are? Can't see."

Then he paused, remembering that the new friend had asked who was there. How rude of him not to answer! It was rude, right? He tried to think, to remember what he was called. ...Did he have a name? He couldn't remember if he did. He thought he might have, once... But what had it been? He shrugged internally, pushing the thought aside to answer, soft and chirping, and innocently trusting of this newcomer.

"No name? Don't know? ...I see dark. I am Dark."

He nodded. Yes, that sounded right.

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"You cannot see?" Tal'at echoed, his own heartbeat reacting to the words in a manner that was strange. Foreign. Was it alright for the blood to rush in his ears like it was?

Dark. Dark... Like Shadows. Light and Shadows. Dark, the thing that made it hard to See. It fit the stranger quite well, though Tal'at did not know this for sure yet. For some reason, the one before him couldn't see-- was he also blind, as the bat was? Tal'at clicked his tongue and inched forward a bit more, until he reached the heartbeat, and with an outstretched wing managed to brush something soft and warm. Feathers.

Tal'at knew feathers. This was a bird, most definitely! "Dark good name. I like it. I cannot see," he explained, now that he was closer and his words might be easier to understand. The bat did not move to feel over the bird, but instead held still to see how the owl would react to his touch. "We are alike? I am blind."

Was seeing something that only some gembounds got to do? Was it special, like magic? Were there gembounds that could not hear, could not feel? Taste? It was a strange thing to think about. For now, the young bat was simply glad to meet someone who was like him, at least, possibly.

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Dark held quite still as Tal'at crept closer, listening to what little rustling he could, and the approach of the stranger's voice.

"Tal'at good name too. I like," he said softly, using the words this one had just offered him. "Can I touch?"

He was already gently reaching up his talons, as he asked, trying to feel over the bat's strange wing. It had no feathers? It was fur, and leathery skin, a fascinating texture--

Suddenly, there was a jolt, a surge, as Dark's magic flashed through him to the bat, unbidden. He saw flashes, colors, things of light, green. It was all green. And he could see Tal'at, brown and fuzzy with a strange rock on his face, eating a thing that was small and green too, with an orange inside. It--and then it was gone, so brief and vague that he couldn't quite make sense of it. Still, he knew that it was the creature before him, and he spoke, curious.

"Brown? What it eat? Green thing?"

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"Yes you may," was Tal'at's short reply, growing every more still as the owl's touch ran over his wing with cold, hard talons. The bat's ears twitched as the fellow gembound jolted and stopped moving, just for a moment. He did not know it, but the owl was seeing into his past, using a sense that not even Tal'at knew existed.

His heavy gem-set face tilted to one side, ears swiveling at the use of color words. If Dark was blind, how did he know colors? Brown... Brown was the name for the small-voice, Fox-thing's color. Soft. Fuzzy... Fur? Was fur brown? He suddenly wished he had asked Giggle about what she had looked like, and about what he looked like.

Still... It sounded like Dark was asking what he had ate... What the green thing was? Green was plant's color. He had eaten sweet, tasty fruits. Yet how did the Dark Heartbeat know this? "Do not understand," he grunted, scooting closer to Dark, hooking his thumbs into the owl's feathers, keeping his head from bonking into the owl-- his head was very hard. Fur met feathers, his leathery skin still in the clutch of the sharp talons of the owl.

"Speak of fruit? I eat fruit. It is sweet. I found it... In the green. World of Green. Many plants there. You know past? How see colors?"

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Dark listened, and considered. He held quite still as the bat seemed to cuddle right up to him. He knew some of the words, but not all of the details. Hmm... how to explain?

"When I touch things. Sometimes, I see. See things. Color-things." He pondered, and then squawked quietly.

"I show you."

If this friend couldn't see very well, like he couldn't, he could show him. It'd be a gift, of sorts. Dark concentrated, still gently gripping the bat's wing. Perhaps the proximity would help? His magic welled up, spilling forth, bringing his mind to Tal'at.

"Don't scared," he added. "Sometimes scary--bad noises, bad things. Not now. Not scary."

Dark then fell silent and focused as best he could, and sent the images he'd seen from Tal'at back to him, showing him directly, imparting them as a present directly into Tal'at's mind.

A world of green, green plants, ferns, and in them the small furry brown bat, eating happily away at a mango. The vision was brief but the colors were vivid and clear, and sharp. Each clump of fur, the texture of the mango, the dew on the ferns...

Dark willed him to see. He made it last, letting the bat see clearly for perhaps the first time.

"Is magic," he explained quietly, as the vision finally faded. "...I think."

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Tal'at could hardly believe what the tiny owl was telling him. He was blind, but sometimes when he touched he could see colors... And he could show Tal'at? Dark would show him? A spike of fear trickled into the bat when Dark told him not to be afraid-- surely that was only something you told someone when something scary was about to happen-- but as his mind was given a new feed of information, a feed that it knew how to process but never recieved before, Tal'at felt only wonder.

He saw the green. He saw the shadows. The light and the dark, the textures in the fur, sharp and clear. He looked so soft, his gem so shiny. He tried to hold on to the memory as best as he could, quickly trying to grasp at the new sense. Green was of plants, oh how true Giggle's words had been! And yes, his fur was brown, soft and fuzzy, and he had that tasty fruit which was full of almost-life inside. It wasn't quite red, but compared to all of the green, he thought for a moment the image of him was eating a Heartbeat.

As the shared memory faded, Dark explaining that it was magic, Tal'at suddenly had a way to paint the world. Reds and Greens. He was a gentle brown, almost like red. He assumed that Dark must be also like brown, although perhaps more like the shadows... Black. Dark was Black and Brown, because he was of darkness and also warm fuzzies. The earth beneath him was green, vibrant green, squishy and soft.

Much to Tal'at's surprise, he began to See. Not the same as the vision that Dark had showed him, but a new sense. This spread outwards for him, painting the floor a bright green like the ferns. It crawled over the land, painting the floor beneath him-- though eventually it stopped, where the moss ended.

Stunned by the vision and surprised by his new sense, Tal'at simply settled into the fluffy plumage of the owl. "It is magic. You gave Sight. I could see." His words came slowly, an almost whisper. He was in absolute awe. "You see Past. With magic eyes."

Like Giggle who could listen to the future from the bones. This one saw the past in brief touches of strangers and things... It intigued him; he wanted to know more. Tal'at just didn't know where to start. He was having a hard enough time finding the words to speak.

"Is amazing gift. I thank you."

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Dark slowly released the bat's wing, planting his taloned foot firmly back in the moss.

"Welcome," he answered softly. And then, pondering, he added--"Can show more. Only need ask."

For a time he was silent, content, cuddled up against this new friend. Warm, and fuzzy, just like him. Well, fuzzy, while he was fluffy. Then a thought occurred to him. Was this his friend? He wasn't sure what one had to do to be called friend. Was he supposed to do something to be a friend, first? He knew the word but--maybe he had to ...to answer a secret question or... or learn some special talon-grasp. Or go on some journey somewhere first. How did it work? Clicking his beak softly in thought, he just asked the question instead, quietly gentle.

"Are you my friend?"

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