= 'let jay say fuck.' buckle up, folks.

A long sleep and mostly ignoring the world around her had helped to cure the kitten's bellyache, but now it was replaced with a different kind of ache. An ache she knew, at least. Hunger, it was called, and was often sated by eating mice.

Which meant the lumbering, broad kitten would have to try to hunt again.

She stalled on this option by taking a needlessly long time to, first of all, stretch. And then she groomed her fur-- or as much of it as she could reach with her own mouth and paws. Then, she stretched again, before pulling herself upright and taking a wander around.

It took her several minutes of sniffing and tracking before she caught wind of a mouse. She remembered how to do it properly, but she wasn't very good at it-- she was too large, too broad, and too lumbering. She dropped down until her belly brushed against the cave floor, stalking along slowly and as carefully as she could, until the mouse came into view.

She continued moving-- inch by inch, getting closer and closer until the scent of mouse assaulted the roof of her mouth and then, she leapt. She caught the mouse under her huge paws and spent a few moments batting it with her paws until it was dazed, until she gave it a clean bite to the back of its neck.

Content with her efforts, Jay picked the limp mouse up with her jaws and began wandering back to the base of the tower to eat.

@Eythan

Eythan didn't have much of a reason to be in this cave, other than it literally was just a place to stretch out his wings. Beneath the starry vault's not-sky, the gryphon could fly without fear of running into miscellaneous rocks or getting a stone thrown at him from below --- the later had happened, once, okay? Sometimes Gemlings think they're real funny and just decide to start tossing. Anyways, because Eythan was not upset about it (he was nawt upset about it, okay?!) he took the liberty given to him. Besides, it wasn't like he could sleep.

He was too antsy for that shit, but apparently not to just drift around in large, winding circles not unlike an actual vulture. Broad wings made a Gembound lazy. Bright eyes just stared down below, golden irises tracing the path of any and all movement. Some creatures would mill about, vague silhouettes that he wasn't really able to discern from all the way up by the ceiling. In his curiosity, Eythan tilted downward. From a lower altitude, everything was visible. Sweet.

(Eythan The Tower's Coming. Oh my god he has headphones on. He can't hear us. Oh my god!)

Smack!

"FUCK, DUDE!" He hollered, a squeaky sound compared to his standard baritone (which was totally legit, by the way, and not at all an edgy falsetto---) as he smashed into the side of the tower. All sense of up and down vanished as he began to fall, unable to right himself. With a rather unsatisfying plonk! Eythan fell right in front of Jaysong. Convenient.

@Jaysong

At first, Jay ignored the sounds of wings beating above her head. She had more important things to worry about, like kneading the hard cave floor under her paws and getting comfortable, curling herself up against the base of the tower. She dropped her catch and began to pick through it.

She was more or less halfway through eating the mouse-- picking through bones and yanking out the stone to get to the good stuff --when she heard a smack from overhead, followed by exactly two (2) words she had never heard before, nor had any mental association to.

The kitten lifted her broad head, quizzically, but luckily she didn't have to look for very long before she caught sight of the culprit, a tan-and-white.... thing that crashed right in front of her and into the stone floor.

... perhaps Fuck Dude was it's name?

"Hey, uh," Jay managed, blinking lamplike eyes very slowly. "Are you... did you die...?" It should be noted that this seemed like an entirely logical conclusion for Jay to come to-- something told her that falling from great heights meant that you sometimes wouldn't be able to get back up again.

She half-hoped he wasn't, of course. Not for any moral reason. She just wanted to question what the hell just came out of his mouth and she was all the way sure dead people couldn't talk back.

@Eythan

"Ugh, that fuckin' smarts," Eythan grumbled, words slurring slightly due to the birds swimming around in his skull. Internally, he knew that that comparison wasn't correct in any way, shape, or form, but did he care? No. Bright eyes dilated and focused, winding over to the very small black cat. At least he had half the brain cell to not immediately think this was Wilder. This critter was much broader and generally somewhat intimidating. Or... as close to intimidating as a little puff can get.

His eyes widened in realization as he rolled up from his side, onto his stomach. He had just introduced this actual toddler to the Fuck. Maybe it hadn't heard him yet or was just going to go back to munching on its food. Honestly, though, Eythan was surprised he hadn't broken anything. Fragile little bird bones and feathers for the win: being light as a feather had its benefits.

Anyways. "Nah, I've survived worse than that, kiddo."

@Jaysong

Fuck Dude had repeated the word. Perhaps it wasn't his name-- but he was making assumptions about her name so it was only fair she made assumptions about his. "My name's not kiddo," she blinked. "It's Jay."

She passed a glance between Eythan and her meal, bending her head down to take a few quick bites of it before the hybrid made eyes at it. It was hers, after all. She caught it. Fuck Dude did not.

"Like what?" She asked, curiously. "And what does that mean? Fuck? Is that your name? It's a good name. Fuck." And it was a good name, at least in her eyes-- names should be satisfying to say and Jay was almost certain that she could say it all day, if she wanted to.

Her next question came from her flicking her tail upwards to the tower, indicating to it. "Do you know what that thing is, Fuck Dude?" She asked. "Me and my friend saw something like it, but it was blue and light and it was really angry."

@Eythan

Ah, fuck. Eythan was in deep, now. He flicked an ear, nodding slightly as the kitten introduced herself. "It's just a nickname, Kiddo and--- jeesh, I'm not gonna steal your fu--- food." Before he knew it, Jay was repeating the Fuck and asking if that was his name. If he knew how to properly express despair, his head would be in his talons right now.

Instead, he just frowned and glanced away. How do you explain to a very small, possibly newborn, child that Fuck wasn't a very good thing and also not a name. Maybe by just... saying it was that? Eythan clicked his beak in thought, before shaking his head, "my name isn't Fuck and that's not a very good word for a name. I'm Eythan, not fuck dude." Maybe Jay'd get the implications that fuck wasn't a good word in general and that only Adults^TM can use it, legally. Maybe the Collector knew more about bad language than him. Of course, the Collector seemed to be full of shit and shade so--- hmm.

Thank the Caves the subject was off of fucking, for now. Eythan glanced up to the tower, choosing to ignore his new moniker. Mistake: made. "I dunno what it's actually for but everybody just calls it the Tower. There's a bunch of broken stairs in there and a tube thing at the top that some other Gembound left behind." A telescope, sweetie. "There's nothing really special about it. The Spire's just an ass--- ugh," he paused to mutter under his breath, "okay, no cover-ups for that one.

At least he could explain what an ass was to a child, if she so wished to know.

@Jaysong

For a moment Jay stared across at Eythan, chewing away at her mouse. "Then your nickname is Fuck Dude," she concluded, swallowing the mouse before dipping her broad head back down to take another bite, tearing flesh from bone. "Fuck is a good name." She obviously did not get the hint. "Names should be short, and good to say."

Chewing. Swallowing. Eating some more, until the mouse was a pile of skinny bones and Jay was playing with it's gemstone-- a small opal --tossing it between her white paws. "I could say Fuck a lot," she said. "As in, you could shout it and you'd hear it. You know? Like a name should be."

She did not ask what Fuck meant, however-- similarly, she didn't ask what an ass-ugh was. Perhaps if she were older and had more than a handful of braincells, or perhaps if her attention wasn't then quickly devoured with the tower.

Jay flicked an ear back. "Yeah, but there's two of them," she mewed, pushing herself up and kitten-bumbling towards the entrance of the tower. "And one of them's glowing, so, you know. That seems super important." She stood by the doorway and craned her neck towards it, sniffing cautiously.

"It smells bad," she announced, before toddling on in. "C'mon, Fuck Dude."

@Eythan

Eythan scowled at the nickname, but did not indicate otherwise how annoyed he was by his new nickname. At least it won't spread through the grapevine, right? Hopefully this fresh Gembound didn't have many friends to spread — quote, unquote — hot goss to. "The f-word is not a good thing to say, no matter how loud or easy to hear it is." Thinking back to the Collector, the gryphon's ears flicked back, "old people don't like it." He was hip with the kids, right? Darn old people, not allowing cussing when you're not legally an Adult™. Stupid old people.

Good thing Kiddo didn't ask about what the Big Potty Mouth Word meant, because he sure as sin didn't.

He shrugged a spotted shoulder at the notion of the tower being important and— "there's two towers—?" Eythan blinked. Oh, then his brain cells kissed and he experienced Critical Thinking. "Oh, you mean the Spire!"

The gryphon sniffed, as well, squinting. He retched, grimacing, "aw, jeez, did someone take a big dump in here!?

@Jaysong