Magicka was a fickle thing in Canis, difficult to grasp at and even more difficult to control at times. Apparently, when it was in short supply, it was that much more active and prone to escaping between your teeth. Magicka in Polaris, however, was in plentiful supply that far exceeded any kind of demand Gembound could hope to put up.

Enter Aure, looking to do a bit of practice and get a better grip on his more powerful forms of magic. Despite all of the warnings of borderline uncontrollable casts and dangerous backfiring, the wyvern pressed on, swooping low to the ground and alighting at last, barely fifty meters from the Spire. Even from here, he could feel its chaotic push and pull on him; it beckoned him closer, yet warned him with whips of pure energy sparking between smaller crystals at the base. If bright eyes were turned away, at least, he could ignore it and his morbid curiosity (What if I just tapped it?) would turn to what his purpose for being here was.

First, an arcane flame; it was blue like the majority of the life-filled Core, pulsing warmly despite its cool tones. Aure sat and simply watched it, casting it about a few directions but allowing it to do as it pleased.

@Viola

Since her meeting with Azure, Viola had far and few interactions, instead simply moving around, place to place, expanding her territory or abandoning it. She mostly kept to Monoceros but upon realizing that there were other caves, other places that weren't just the windy cave of warmth, well, she had to go and see. And maybe stake a claim of her own.

Polaris was, perhaps, the most magnificent of all, glowing and shifting colors with that great big sizzling crystal right in the center. She immediately wanted it, all of it, but she at least had the sense to know that she could not defend an entire cave from intruders. Having so much territory was daunting to the young ostrich so she decided to settle with just a section for now.

But where to start? There were lots of different places to start. Maybe the Spire. She wasn't going to stake a claim on that, though, far too obvious. She would do that when she was bigger and better. But it was as good a starting place as any. She approached the giant crystal, feeling a little bit uncomfortable to be near it, when she noticed a shadow against the light. She veered her coarse so that she could walk towards that, instead, wondering if it was a rock but no, it was a gembound.

She didn't notice the little wisp at first, what with all the blue light, but when she did, she didn't at first connect it to be created by the gembound. She marched right up, not even trying to hide, and yelled quite loudly, "What is THAT?"

@Aure

Apparently, being distracted by a glowing, arcane flame of your own creation made you quite prone to being spooked. As if every other sense had been dulled, he tunnel-visioned on the wisp (y'know, concentrating as hard as possible.) Because he was so focused on the light, Aure didn't even remotely hear a little... gremlin marching up to him and hollering basically into his ear.

So, the wyvern reacted as anyone else would: with a jolt; then, a turn of his head; next, a twist of his entire body as he jumped; and, finally, a bolt of his magicka causing inky black frills to start growing up and down his neck and emit a somewhat musky odor. Ugh, that's going to take ages to clean off... was his first thought, and what? was his second. "By the Bones, you spooked me, kid!"

A pause. Bright eyes surveyed the odd, downy hatchling basically at his feet, head tilting. "What is what?" Rather helpfully, his wisp danced back into view. "Oh, this?" He wasn't going to be rude, but the body and the voice blasting in his ears didn't match up at all.

@Viola

When the hybrid jumped, Viola got spooked in return, stepping back, her wings opening threateningly, making her look like an oversized brown puffball. But then seeing the larger gembound getting so terrified of just her walking up, and the musky odor coming from the mushrooms that had sprouted over his neck (a sort of self-defense) struck her as quite funny and she let out a honking laugh.

Her gaze looked at the frills and back at the wisp. "YES, that!" Of course it was that! Was he dumb? Senile? What else would she be asking about? "It looks like that," her head gestured towards the big glowing crystal right next to her. Did he make that too? "Tell me!"

@Aure

As soon as the spookfest was over and the strange, leggy puffball was laughing, Aure relaxed--- but not without brows quirked in incredibly rapt confusion. One, this was clearly a bird but so clearly not. Where were the wings? The tail feathers? Why was it so... long? Bright eyes scanned up and down the strange chick, unable to discern what exactly she was.

His gaze quickly shifted toward the spire, and he hummed. I guess they do look like it,"It's called a wisp. It's kind of like... cold fire," he explained, pulling the previously-scattered flame back to himself for the gemling to see.

Absently, he raised a wing-claw to scratch at his neck and immediately regretted it. The inky frills up and down his neck broke at once with an awful squelching noise. Aure sighed wearily, trying to focus in on his magic. Seeing as the fluid covering his body was a slime, it was safe to assume it could just... vibrate off of him. And vibrate it did, coming off in thin rivulets and pooling on the ground where he stood. Before he cut off his magicka flow, he shook himself and shuffled out a few steps, ensuring his feet were clean.

Soft bird, clean bird, happy bird.

@Viola

Viola's head tilted dramatically in confusion. Cold fire? She knew about hot fire but cold fire made no sense! And it was stupid! Fire was supposed to be hot. Not cold! One of her talons suddenly raised and she lashed out at the little wisp, her entire foot going right through it. It was cold! "WHAT?" she yelled, "Why is it cold?"

A strange and very very distracting sound reached her ears and she made the most bizarre move, stepping back, her head snapping perpendicular to the ground and her neck curving like a pool noodle, her wings opening and shaking out, as if she were clearing dust from her feathers. "WHAT IS THAT?" she screeched. "Don't like it! Stop it now!" Black ooze was coming off of the bird and Viola stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. Extremely concerned about what she was just seeing. After all, this was a part-bird part-something -else that could conjure cold fire, made strange vibrating noises, and was oozing black liquid. Absolutely wild and completely terrifying to the child.

"WHAT ARE YOU?" she yelled, still backing away a bit, obviously freaked out. Her talons flexed. If he got too close, she'd fend him off! She wasn't going to die to some weird demon today!

@Aure

"Well, it's not---" wait, what was it? "it isn't a real fire. Not necessarily. It's kind of like a light, but from my mind?" What a great explanation, Aure: A+.

The rather amiable conversation shifted dramatically as the wyvern essentially vibrated the inky caps off of himself (I should've provided a bit of a warning.) This sassy, lost child immediately puffed up, looking for all intents and purposes like a feather duster about to destroy his life --- as much as a feather duster could, anyways. Aure couldn't have possibly predicted that he would be promoted to 'Demon' status, but settled into his new office space easily. Cutting off the flow of magicka to his vibrating self and stepping daintily out of the tar-black pile of goop on the floor, he lowered his head. Ears back, he shook his head, "sorry, kid, I should've warned you about that. I didn't think you'd hear it." She didn't have ears, so... valid excuse.

Nonetheless, the chick was still posturing and demanding that he explain himself and his entire identity. Well... may as well actually introduce himself. "My name's Aure," (he left out his surname for obvious reasons) "and I'm just a Gembound like you and everyone else here. My father's a bird and my mother's a hyena." To indicate, he lifted a wing-claw and rubbed at his smooth, carnotaurus-esque jasper crest. "I'm not gonna hurt you, ki--- what's your name?"

@Viola

The "feather duster", as Aure observed, continued to shake her feathers angrily, her head leaning forward and backwards, as if she were going for him, but then losing heart at the last second. He was scaring her and she didn't want him around! If she was going to claim a spot for herself here, she didn't want a demon around to take it away from her! Nope, if it did anything else, she was ready to fight. She shifted from leg to leg, almost running in place, her temper shooting around out of control, energy so high, it was amazing she wasn't spontaneously combusting at the moment.

She paused, though, and allowed herself to consider. The word Gembound didn't mean anything to her for a second, until she realized that they were all gembounds. They had gems. She had one on her head...so did Azure...and now Aure did too. So they were all animals with gems on their heads. "Mother? Father? What, you got friends?" It probably came out a little ruder then she meant it to be, but she was suddenly jerking around, looking for this "mother" and "father" that Aure was talking about. Were they going to attack her too and take her stuff?

But there was no one else here. No one except demon-bird-hyena (whatever the hell a hyena was) and her. She didn't really want to let her guard down, but she allowed herself to answer the one question. "I'm VIOLA. And you better not or I will hurt you back!" Her claws flexed. Obviously, she didn't care that she was barely half Aure's size - she was ready to go if he was.

@Aure

Aure was pretty sure that the chick was on the verge of exploding, and it was just a matter of how she'd explode that worried him. Would it be in a baby rage? A puff of feathers? The wyvern would rather deal with the former, considering he could probably just hold the kid back with a single foot, even with those beefy little thighs. At least his mention of being a Gembound seemed to soothe her a bit, and her claws briefly stopped chattering against the floor over and over.

He sighed, realizing --- again --- that not everyone had parents. Or... a parent, really. "Oh, my father's... not around. He's where my stone came from, yeah?" A wing-claw rubbed against the crests, again. "My mother gave my stone life again. They're both family, not friends." Catching wild eyes searching, Aure shook his head, "listen, no one's going to attack you, okay--- Viola? We can just chat, if you want to." He shrugged lightly. "Or, I can just leave you to it and practice magic and stuff somewhere else."

It wasn't like he owned the place.

@Viola

Viola's eyes glanced up at the crests on Aure's head again. Gems came from somewhere? She thought they were just scattered around and occasionally spate out creatures. At least, that's just what she had observed so far in her life. Obviously, she had a lot to learn, but she wasn't particularly concerned with the real origins of gemstones. Aure wasn't, after all, attacking her and there really wasn't anyone nearby so, at last, her wings pressed against her body again and she relaxed...a little bit.

Well, this situation didn't seem to be that bad. Viola was silent for a minute, her simple brain working to figure out if she should feel threatened anymore until she decided that "hm, perhaps it was all okay".

Her feathers smoothed out at last and she stilled her weird movements until she was just kinda standing there looking at Aure. It was almost visible on her face that she was thinking, trying to make some kind of conversation, perhaps make up for her rudeness or try and figure out if Aure really wasn't a demon. "Family? Tell me what that is. Where do you get them? Are they like friends?"

@Aure