Kethri sighed and flew ahead, landing on another branch to watch Hecate trudge onwards, "You're got determination, that's for sure."

She clenched her talons around the branch she perched on, eyes narrowing as she followed the fellow owl with her gaze. Hm...

"... I have a proposition,", she said, "Why don't we start over? Try to be civil with one another, redo our greetings... then I can perhaps help you get out of this cursed place. What do you say?"

@Hecate

She felt her beak clench. Grind.

Humiliation, anger, a spark of rage. That same shame churning within her. "I was civil," she snapped, "as I always am." (She was not, but don't tell her that...) "You can start by apologizing, and asking my forgiveness, and perhaps I'll be kind enough to offer it," and her tone, her perfect sweetly-melodic voice, was acid. "Otherwise, leave me. I've been quite tolerant enough, and-..." -anger, roiling- "-and I won't ask again."

Hecate wasn't sure what she'd do if the other owl refused to leave her alone. She could only barely see its white form in the mist, a blur; and she'd never lashed out--physically or magically--in anger, before. But Kethri--and to a greater extent, though Hecate was too blind (ha) by her own anger to realize it--Hecate's humiliation were driving her to a black hatred she'd never felt before.

She just wanted this other beast gone.

A pause, a moment's focus, and then a bit of a struggle past her emotion--a fight to calm herself--and a second wisp joined her first, one ranging out ahead and the other quietly bobbing alongside her. Somehow, it soothed her rage--made her feel just a tad less helpless. Maybe if she got enough, she could just throw them at this white fool. See how she felt being blind (in a temporary, lights-in-the-eyes sort of way; Hecate was not so cruel as to wish permanent blindness on even this hateful beast, not yet at least).

@Kethri

Kethri found her eyes rolling again (though since owls can't physically roll their eyes, her head tilted back instead). She clacked her beak once and sighed.

"You weren't. You haven't been. You've been yelling and making a fuss this entire time,", she stated plainly, "But I'll apologize, though I won't ask for your forgiveness. I don't beg for things. I'm sorry for being rude, and I'm sorry for plainly stating a clearly sore topic. You're free to forgive if you wish."

Hecate was interesting. She had a fiery temper and magical ability, yet whatever disability she had hindered her. Kethri was cold, like ice despite her magic would suggest. Her head tilted and she found herself wishing to know more about the owl, though she wasn't sure if it was in a friendly way, or something more malicious.

She noted the second wisp and ruffled her feathers, loosening her grip on the branch. Though it seemed to comfort her fellow owl, instinct told her to watch very carefully. All was not as it seemed with magic.

@Hecate

For an arrogant, prideful creature, hearing "I won't beg for forgiveness" overpowered the "I'll apologize." And more than that, the other bird started off with an accusation. The words roiled through her, stoking that pot beyond boiling, and she turned with a narrowing of her eyes, a drawing upright, and a hiss.

Hecate didn't know that Kethri was a hatchling--and how could she? She could hardly see, and the other spoke as if she were old, experienced. Would it have mattered..? That was an unpleasant consideration.

"I do not want you here," she began, slow, clear, cold. "No one will ever want you," she added, and there was a spike of twisting pain in her gut--was she talking about Kethri, or herself?--"You have met me and in only moments you have shown nothing worth speaking to."

She lashed out with her magic--premeditated, yet impulsive. Planned, cold, but searing hot. Shame and anger and frustration most of all; frustration at the swamp, at this ugly-minded beast that would not leave her alone, haunting her like an echo of herself--it snapped from boil into roaring steam. She reached for that pale, blurry form, aiming to snag it with her magic, to bodily jerk it from its branch and fling it into another nearby tree, so that she herself could make good, at last, her escape.

Hecate is attempting to leave;
@Kethri

Kethri was about to retort, possibly with another harsh truth or insult, before she found a constricting grasp around her body hindering her from even twitching a wing. She'd never faced magic before, only knew of it, so of course, she panicked, letting out the tell-tale needy wail of a baby bird calling out for its mother, before she was sent flying.

Wings flailed and claws lashed out, trying to grab something to stop her mad tumble through the air. Before she could right herself, her head slammed into a tree and she tumbled to the ground in a feathery heap, her cries silenced.

Kethri was dazed as she lay in the mud, unmoving like a sparrow that had flown into a window. She weakly tried to get her feet under her, after a while, wing weakly flailing as she staggered drunkenly before falling back to the mud, very nearly guzzling mud in a faceplant. She lay there up against the tree, feeling small and weak, her head aching.

"... I'm sorry,", she whimpered rather pathetically, her voice not the angry snarl it should have been.

@Hecate

She was still boiling with rage; she hadn't particularly tried to maim the owl, but she heard the crack of skull against tree, heard the splash in the mud, the weak voice apologizing. The shame surged even higher, frustration mixing with anger and hate--hate at Kethri, hate at herself--as she hesitated for a moment.

Hecate turned to look back, Kethri's form visible to her only after a moment's searching, as a pale white blur in the mud. Half of her was tempted to just... leave. She'd made good her escape, she could just fly away.

...Right?

A new feeling was welling up, another unpleasant one she didn't like--another hateful sensation that snagged her and held her here against her will, a hostage to her own genetic flow. Damn.
Hecate looked out into Cetus, then back at the white bird. She opened her beak to speak--and fought off a brief flurry of suspicion (What if she's just lying-? What if she just makes fun of me again?) before speaking, reluctantly, the savagery of her tone belied by the content of her words. "Yes, well--you should be nicer!" A moment's pause, the briefest--"I didn't mean to hit you that hard. I just--wanted you to leave me alone. Are you-" She nearly choked on her words. She didn't want to be nice to this white bird. She hated her! A clack of her beak sounded like a gunshot as her own impulses fought themselves, and she waddled through the mud as she spoke, stopping a couple yards away. "Are you--can you fly?" Can you leave, and leave me alone, and I can pretend this never happened, and not have nightmares about that cracking sound...

@Kethri

The world lurched dangerously as Kethri tried to stand as if gravity had suddenly started dragging her to the left rather than just down. Her head hurt and her pride was definitely wounded, but it was the former that concerned her. The more she struggled to stand and fly, the more she tumbled and fell into the mud, turning her beautiful feathers a muddy brown.

The owl wouldn't know what it meant, but she was concussed.

Kethri heard words being spoken, but it went in one ear and out the other, half of their meaning lost as she tried to do something to get away, to get onto a branch or up somewhere higher than the ground. She knew she looked pathetic, wings flailing and claws struggling to gain purchase, and even when they did, she veered left and only fell again.

After her 15th attempt, she finally went still, panting like she'd been running from a monster rather than rolling in the mud like an idiot. No... she couldn't fly. Couldn't do much until her vision stopped spinning and everything stopped moving on its own.

"Ow...", she moaned, folding her wings up as she tried to regain what strength she still had, though there was still the question of whether it would mean anything with how much her body was fighting against her.

@Hecate

Hecate herself was still young enough, inexperienced enough, that she had none of the calm or logical response of a more seasoned being. Instead, as she saw the way Kethri swayed and fell, she felt panic rise in her. Hysteria threatened to bubble from nervous words as she spoke.

"I didn't mean to hurt you-" (well, she hadn't meant to hurt her badly, just a little!) "-Not really, I just--you're okay, right? You're all right?" she babbled. And how much of that was genuine worry; how much was panic about the consequences? Like one sibling who'd accidentally, really hurt another in a spat of anger, and now knew they'd have to live with the guilt and the wrath of their parents... Hecate didn't want someone's death on her hands! What was wrong with this owl? What could she... do?

"I didn't mean it" I just hated you "I'll wait here-" I don't know what else to do...

Hecate looked up at the tree, briefly horrified. How the hell had she hit that hard-? She'd never tested her own magic, before--not against another Gembound, not even in hunting; she'd only ever thought to pull her prey to her for the kill, a grim and unpleasant, usually-messy task. She'd never slammed anyone into an object. For the briefest instant a surge of exhilaration threatened to rise--her power! That was her power--but she fought that down. That was... terrible. Disgusting.

...Right?

She shouldn't use such magic for something so... unpleasant; and now she was looking at Kethri again, wondering if the owl would die. Not knowing what she was meant to do. For all her bravado, for all her snobbery, Hecate would've done anything in that moment for someone to turn up and know what to do, and to fix it all.

@Kethri

The first thing that Kethri thought to say was something she herself didn't really expect.

"I'm okay,", she said, cracking open her eyes before shutting them again, the ground threatening to come out from under her.

She leaned up against the tree she'd been slammed into, head down and wings slightly unfolded, resting on the ground to support her as she regained her bearings.

"... I'm sorry,", she spoke softly, and slowly began to tremble, like a younger sibling only seconds from screeching for a parent.

Tears welled up and fell, making Kethri hunch over further and turn away to hide the weakness, trembling softly. She slowly looked towards Hecate, wary in her mannerisms, barely even moving, as if the other would lash out at any moment.

"I'm so sorry,", she repeated, sniffling wetly, her feathers flattening, making her look smaller than she already was, though it also made her down even more apparent.

She'd messed up. Messed up badly. Though it was a valuable learning experience. Mess with the wrong person and you'd get hurt.

@Hecate

And Hecate now played the role of the sibling who realized that--whoops--they'd used way too much force. It was only now, close up, and with Kethri at last pushing to her feet, that Hecate could see the fledgling's real size. She'd have a wingspan the length, perhaps, of Hecate's body alone--a large bird, but small by comparison and damn she'd given it a good whack. Oh, no, she thought, looking over the pale and shifting blur before her.

But she was--okay? So she said. And... sorry. The voice tugged at Hecate's heartstrings (which, up until now, she hadn't been aware existed) and she found herself wondering, briefly, if she should still be angry. Her own feelings were so confusing that she could hardly untangle them in any meaningful way and after a moment she shuffled uncomfortably.

"Right. All right, then. I--I also apologize." It was stiffer than she felt--she half-wanted to burst into tearful apology herself but that would be unseemly. Undignified. She suppressed the urge to do... any of that, fidgeting for a moment. "I'm-..." Her beak lifted a notch as she tried to get ahold of herself. To... build new bridges, maybe. "My name's Hecate. I was walking because I cannot see... not very well. My gemstone's in front of my eyes," she explained, speaking with a confidence she absolutely did not feel.

She felt miserable.

And she hated it.

@Kethri