When it was time, it was time. He knew this, but he still felt a rush of impatience that ran subconsciously through him. He could't move at all, but it wasn't time yet. Not yet.

When what felt like days later, finally, he felt the urge to push free. With a shattering noise and the sound of pieces of chrysalis falling into shallow water with multiple splashes, a small, dark creature tumbled out. He uncurled himself quickly, his long body stretching out in an awkward position - back legs splayed forwards, front legs out at his sides.

He was already wet from being inside a yellow, moss-covered crystalline womb for a month, but now he was extra wet, laying in a shallow layer of water. Luckily his head had landed on a large piece of chrysalis, otherwise he would have been welcomed into the world with a face full of water.

With the blue eyes of youth, he lifted his head, which felt heavy on such a long neck and looked around. He was surrounded by really tall trees where ever he looked and the floor was covered in water. How far it went, he didn't know. Everything was surrounded by a thick mist.

He stood up, half of him soppy and dripping water, and looked around for the next thing to do. It seemed like the most likely thing to do was to get to higher ground. He was sure he wasn't a swimmer, but these trees looked perfect. Yes, trees were good.

Using his back legs, he jumped up onto the exposed root system on the tree he had been sheltered under, his back legs slipping as he caught himself with front claws to keep himself from falling off. He would need to get up a little higher he thought to see what was going on, and he would definitely be safer in the trees.

It had always taken Shoal a while to fall asleep, and even when she did it was often difficult to stay asleep.

She was often paranoid she'd be attacked while she slept. Fornax, where she'd hatched, had been a wide-open space with not a lot of areas adequate for hiding. Cetus, however, offered the shelter of trees. Shoal liked flying into them, perching there, and finding some quiet peace.

It was difficult to find peace, however, when you get startled by a crashing splash from somewhere underneath the tree. Shoal stared off at nothing in particular for a few solid moments. Some lesser must have fallen in, she concluded, before shutting her eyes again.

No, not a lesser gembound. The splashing was soon followed by an insistent scrabbling sound of something... ascending. That much might have alarmed anyone, and it almost made Shoal jump out of her own skin. She twisted around, staring down at the newborn clambering up the tree.

"The hell are you doing?" She rasped quickly, long talons gripping a little too hard onto the branch she was clinging to. "You're not supposed to be up here." Because, apparently, Shoal had the opinion that trees were bird-territory and bird-territory only.

@Thrax

The tayra was climbing up the tree, trunk slick with moss in certain places. The ascent was slow going at first as he tried to get used to the feeling of bark beneath his claws, when he heard a disapproving rasp above him somewhere. He froze up, tensing as he tilted his head up to stare upwards.

Beady baby blues took a moment to find the source, but when he did, his eyes widened a bit at the sight of a giant, oddly-furred beast. He said oddly-furred because its pelt was smooth looking, like a rock, except at the edges, where the fur seem stuck together and flattened. It had two, large, lamp-like eyes that were looking down at him with objection towards what he was doing, although he didn't understand that.

"What's the matter? I'm just climbin'." he decided, scrambling farther up the tree.

@Shoal

"You're not supposed to be up here," the ugly owl spat back immediately, repeating herself. Her patience had, as it ever does, run pitifully short. Mostly, she was unsettled that this new creature might turn around and start attacking her like the rats did-- it did look somewhat like a rat --but it did seem... small.

Shoal knew not to be deceived by appearances, however. "You're meant to fly up here, not climb, and you certainly don't have wings." She sounded hoarse and exhausted, ruffling out her shaggy, uneven feathers with a frustrated grumble. "You could fall down and snap your neck. I've seen it." She caused it. It was easy to pick up smaller, new-born rats and fling them at a good height to kill them. Or, at least, kill them before they killed her.

Briefly, the haggard owl chattered, her beak clicking. She leant back and puffed herself up until stray feathers were touching her mangled face, eyes falling half-lidded. "You're obviously young," she rasped. "But you can't be doing things that are blatantly going to put you into danger, the caves are hard enough to survive without you clambering up trees and not being able to get back down."

"Shouldn't you be burrowing under the ground or something? Digging tunnels and dens instead of going up here?"

@Thrax

The tayra made it to the lowest branch and he pulled himself up with a finalized sigh. His little baby muscles were not used to such a work out, but even though the oddly-furred beast was telling him he shouldn't be up here, it felt right to do so.

Not that was not focused on climbing, he could crane his neck up and take a better look at the other. He sat down, hind legs gripping the bark and his tail draped out behind him. He realized two things: he couldn't tell what was going on with her face and he could only see two legs.

"What's wrong with your face? Why do you only have two legs?" he asked, suddenly curious to know the answer. He didn't understand this word 'fly'. He assumed it was like climbing, but if you only had two legs, he couldn't see how you could. You couldn't grab and push yourself up on only two.

He thought about the rest of what the beast had to say. He looked back down over the branch to the mist below. "Yeah, but who burrows under water? I'm pretty sure I can't breathe in it and it makes my fur wet." he commented casually like he was talking about the weather. He assume the entire world was covered in water. He looked back up at the other above.

"What's wrong with your fur?"

This one is a shitbag, Shoal decided bitterly, half-turning with a hissing scowl. Her face, as scarred and twisted and patchy as it was, was obviously a sensitive topic for her. As was how it got that way. She ruffled her feathers out, eyelids half-shut and furrowed.

"Because I only need two legs," she said, pointedly ignoring the firest question. Briefly, Shoal followed his gaze down to the marshes below, then half-snorted, half-grunted. It was a strange sound to come out of an owl. "Then don't burrow in the water."

That much seemed obvious, surely? Even to a child? Even to a rude child, who could apparently identify that her face 'wasn't normal' but didn't have the sense to immediately think she meant burrowing in water? "There are dry spots that you're meant to burrow in, it's what the other rats do."

At least, she thought he was a rat. She wasn't sure. She was fairly sure it couldn't kill her, at least.

"I don't have fur, and there's nothing wrong with it." There were many things wrong with her feathers. For one, they were ragged and muted and ugly, and a good portion of them were missing. "Not everything looks like you and you can't go around asking why others look a certain way, you'll get killed."

... perhaps this thing did have a deathwish, between this incident and the fact that it had completely ignored her warning about falling out of the tree.

@Thrax