The newborn stumbled from the fortress with all the grace expected of him, careening with an off-kilter gait as the weight of the pudgy body was overcome with momentum in one direction or another. He knew nothing of the world around him except that it was dim, damp, and unfamiliar but that did not mean he was afraid of it; the tiger had no sense of mind to be afraid, just as he had no sense of mind to know where he was going or why. Just that he needed to move, to get out from the confines of the fortress. And that is what he did - until he caught himself upon a ledge and went tumbling head-over-tail in to a pile of bones and rock.

The fortresses were where she had been hatched, and from time to time, she returned there. Sometimes it was merely out of boredom; other times, to reminisce. Often, a select bone would catch her eye, to be taken back and added to the pit.

Today, Omen was circling above--easygoing adventure in both their minds. It was an idle sort of wandering, a walk, just to see what they would find. When the clatter of bones reached her ears, she felt the thrill of excited alarm from the black Caller high overhead. Though the bird did not, precisely, speak--there were no words to her thoughts--the ideas in the form of emotions and imagery were always easy to 'translate' along their mental link. I see a thing, Mother-Sister! was the general gist of it--and through their shared senses Giggle caught a glimpse of something in the bones, something striped and furred.

Curious, interested, she changed direction at once, her slow ambling gait shifting into a swift lope. Nostrils flared and she caught the scent, ahead, of a stranger.

And then--abruptly--there it was; tumbled down into the bones, young perhaps and rather ungainly. Though in fairness, one tended to spring from the other. A cub, of some kind? --Oh no... a cat, she realized, and her stomach fell. Cats... Cats were never trustworthy, in her experience. They were backstabbing, and conniving, and all the ones she had known were two-faced snarky brats. But this one was but a child, by looks, and as she came to a stop a few feet away, she determined not to bark at it.

Time would tell if it were like the others... though she held out little hope. Instead she gathered herself, and kept a bit of distance so as not to frighten the thing. A glance told her that Omen was--wisely--sticking to safety, on a perch high above, and so she turned her attention to the stranger, and she spoke.

"Hello there, little one. Are you new? --Do you speak?" she added, realizing at once that it may well be a new hatchling. Perhaps it didn't understand words, yet--or perhaps it simply looked young.

As a gesture of good will, she turned her magicka toward the strange and magickal fruit that she could create--which tasted good, and seemed nutritious, even to her meat-eating sensibilities. Whatever a Gembound ate, this usually seemed to be taken well. The sparkling fruit--as it popped into existence--was less... yellow, than normal, she noted. And with a little disappointment, she saw just how small it was. Ahh, well... food is food, she thought, and after stripping away part of its peel with a flash of thick teeth, she nudged it toward Malik.

"My name is Giggle," she told him carefully. "You can eat that, if you wish."

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Malik

There was a sound overhead, and it took a few moments before the cub managed to orient his line of sight with whatever had landed to watch him from above; he struggled for a bit with the mobility of his body since it was so very new, but he only barely glanced at the incongruity before a sound startled him. His eyes dropped, and he looked around with a wide-eyed gaze in time to notice the awkwardly angled figure of another gem-thing.

The voice appealed to him on some level. Perhaps not the word usage, since he was just beginning to grasp the concept of speech now that he was listening to it, but more than likely the tone interested him. The cub tried to mimic the movement of their own mouth. He opened and shut his muzzle a few times without making any vocal noises and then, as he tried a few more times, managed a few sharply feral notes. These were curtailed when he noticed the other creature doing something else - something shiny and new, literally! - and before he could really grasp that he was watching magic unfold, there was a small glimmering object between them.

My name is Giggle, the creature introduced, with the fruit as an offering. The cub moved to intercept the object without complaint - and set upon it with lunge of his paws. He didn't eat it yet, but batted at it with his forelimbs, then caught it under a hind foot and plopped down on to it like a house cat playing with a rubber band; he kicked at it a few times and managed to crush a small part of it, and by that point it was too messy to continue toying with. The cub sat up and began to groom the squashed fruit from his paws.

...Well. He'd found it of interest, at least.

Giggle watched with dour amusement as the tiger cub rolled around, kicking apart the banana. When he began to groom himself, she looked wryly down to the peel. Her dark eyes then shifted back up to glance over Malik's striped coat, pondering it briefly; she'd only ever seen ones like it rarely.

Well, he doesn't seem capable of speech. So unless he's bait for some kind of very strange trap, he's freshly hatched, she reasoned. She glanced around, but saw no chrysalis--though she saw the scattered bones the cat had seemingly tumbled into.

The hyena pushed up, paced closer to Malik, and then lowered herself to lay nearby, watching him.

"These are bones," she offered, nudging one with dark snout. She knew he might not understand--but that is why she spoke; to give him an idea of language, some words to perhaps begin to work with. Wet nose touched the stone below. "This is rock." She glanced around, then nodded to Omen, now perched on the stone a dozen yards away--warily ready to leap into flight should Malik start for her. "That is a bird."

Giggle then dropped her eyes to the squashed, sweet-smelling mess left on the stone. "And that," she informed the cub wryly, "was a banana."

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Malik