Tahi-shei liked mushrooms, and generally, it wasn't exclusively because he was of the fungal element. Though that probably had quite a lot to do with it. Currently, he was settled down in a small field of mushrooms and lichen that had grown on the side of some rocks, his head resting on a bed of the growth as he meditated. Generally he might have told you that he was communing with them, or letting the mushrooms whisper their secrets to him, but mostly he was actually taking a nap. Not that it was exactly easy to tell the difference.

He was in a sort of half-awake state, still aware of the gentle magic that was innate within these growths and how it thrummed within them. Fungus could grow on his own body, out of his own skin, feeding on his own magic. He was quite fond of his skills, but he did wish they were more refined. Pride could do so many things! Tahi-shei wanted to be powerful like that, too, but learning new spells took a long time. He didn't know how old Pride was, but Tahi was apparently at a rate of one spell per cycle, and he'd seen Pride use way more than four, so it had to be several.

There was also the possibility that Tahi-shei was just a worse mage, but that wasn't an answer he'd accept. Pride was also a deer, so clearly they had to be similar, and he just knew that he'd be a great mage!!

@madhukar

Madhukar had opted to stay in Orion for a little bit.

It wasn't that she was liking it here, no way! But she was learning here, more than she was learning anywhere else. This seemed to be like a hub of sorts, for all kinds of sorts. Fungi, glow rocks, gooey wigglers, brats (probably). Not bugs though. That was what made it upsetting. Where were the bugs?!

There was a bunch of fungus right here, right in front of her! Weird little capped things that looked similar enough to plants. There was even a GIANT one in the center. They looked... decently interesting, right? So why no BUGS?! No BUZZING?!? It was dumb!

So in PROTEST, the kitten was gonna climb up the big brown fuzzy-looking one in the midst of the field. She padded up to it and tried to climb, with each tiny paw, farther up the summit of this "giant fuzzy mushroom". If she wasn't gonna stop with the trees, there was no way she'd quit with this goofy-looking fungus!

Once she had reached the top of the weird wiggly fungus (which she, in her ire, assumed was moving up and down ever so slightly because 1. weird plant-thing and 2. she was moving on it), her own thoughts began to drift towards a similar subject to this weird fungus's. Madhukar was, in contrast to this big brown fungus, a prolific magic user, and while she didn't have a great grasp on what that meant, she did understand that whatever she could do could be improved upon.

That's part of why she was here, right? To improve upon it.

Staring at a(nother) fungus down below, Madhukar concentrated. She honed in, and began to think... angrily. That brat was a real spark-starter, and so was the lack of noise, and so was the relentless rise and fall of this wacky mushroom (which she was now sitting on) and so was Sniffles and so was EVERYTHING! And EVERYONE! And AAAAAAA--

--Kaboom!

A small thunderclap, barely able to be heard by anyone besides her and... whichever ears might've been next to her, of which she did not believe there were any.

It was tiny. Too tiny. TOO TINY!!!

@Tahi-shei ((WAKE UP SLEEPY-hEAD))

Tahi-shei had barely noticed the weight of the small kitten on him in his dozing, but then there was a sudden crack! of magical energy and he let out a shriek, jolting upward and potentially knocking her onto the ground if she didn't hold on (which would probably hurt, honestly). Tahi-shei realized that there was something on him (or at least near him) and panicked, trying to cast Inky Cap to hopefully get rid of it.

The funky mushroom didn't seem to thrilled by Madhukar's boom. No, it reared up, sending the kitten flying off in response. Well okay the-- OOF! and the kitten had landed on her back, skirting back across the floor (just a little bit) with a loud yowl. At least her fall had been cushioned by a few mushrooms!

At least.

At MOST, she was now actually scintillatingly furious. Her own body attempted to summon a crackle of sparks to hop between places up and down her spine. The sparks did jump, but the effect was underwhelming; barely even visible or audible, actually. Not that Madhukar cared, she was already assuming a bristling, high-tailed, spitting kitten position.

"MREEEEEOWR!!" she accused the mushroom, which was actually not a mushroom. Whatever it was, it did not look friendly, what with all the spooky... frills? Were those frills? Whatever, they were on it and she didn't like that at ALL!

@Tahi-shei ((face the kitten rage))

Tahi-shei was struck by the blast, and he shuddered violently. Well that was a supremely unpleasant experience. He took a few distinct steps back, frowning as he tried to make himself look bigger. He assessed the creature in front of him, and paused, turning his head to the side. "Umm... are you a Lesser?" Then, he paused. "Well, I guess that's a hard question to answer, since I don't know much about them... I know they can't talk, but you're really small, so you might not be able to talk. And I've never seen a Lesser shaped like you before, but I don't go many places, and I know that there's Lessers shaped like me."

He had no clue why she'd been attacking him, though -- that's what he perceived the Thunderclap as, anyway. He supposed her reaction to his start was reasonable since it could have been said that he scared her just as badly as she scared him, but on the other hand, why was she climbing around on top of him anyway?

Finally, he calmed down enough to take notice of something -- he'd successfully cast Inky Cap, and he hadn't even been focusing on it! "Oh!! My spell worked! My spell wor- oh." He had noticed that, in his panic, he'd apparently clipped one of the rocks because one of the frills was already partially gooed, and the rest were following. "Ew," he whined, trying to avoid getting it on his fur as much as possible before glancing back at the kitten. He had no clue if she'd managed to get any on her, but the frills hadn't been as big as he'd been hoping, so he figured it was mostly a matter of how close she'd been during the initial cast.


@madhukar

So it appeared the not-mushroom could speak. Well then.

Was she a lesser? "Madhukar! I'm Madhukar!" she hissed at the tall not-shroom. Whatever a "lesser" was, she wasn't it, because she could talk. YES she was tiny, could everyone just get OVER that already?! Apparently this not-shroom hadn't seen any "lessers" shaped like it. Madhukar glanced over the not-shroom's shape for a moment, considering it. She noticed two things:

1.) It did look like something she'd seen before. Tall, slender legs, sort of... graceful looking? Although clearly this one wasn't very graceful because its words floundered around like a fish out of water.

2.) The frills Madhukar had thought she'd seen before were turning... goopy. Oh no--

"That's right! Goo weird!" Madhukar certainly noticed its reaction to its own goo. She was glad she wasn't the only one who found the substance peculiar. Now, before it went about asking weird questions she didn't know the answers to (as goopy things were prone to doing): "Whutsa spell?" Now it had to answer, because SHE had asked the question, and you had to answer questions. That was just the rule! Madhukar didn't make the rules. (The wiggler did.)

All the while, Madhukar's back began to sting. Yeah that fall... was definitely going to form a bruise.

@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei started again at her speaking. "Oh! Um... whoops. You're... not a lesser, then. Sorry." But her speech was disjointed and reminiscent of his in his first cycle, and Tahi flicked an ear. He knew that all Gembound learned to talk at different rates, so it was hard to be judgmental.

The young kitten's question gave him pause. Tahi-shei considered it before settling on, "Well, a spell is like... well, whenever a Gembound is born, its stone comes into contact with magic, which is this kind of... energy. Most magic is elemental, and usually its hard to control in a raw form. But when it comes into contact with a stone -- whether by coincidence or because someone has cast a special spell on it -- the stone becomes imbued with that magic and starts to turn into a Gembound. When you focus on that magic and refine it, you can make it emerge in some fashion, called a 'spell'. They can be hard to learn! But you can also learn magic of an element different than yours, its just harder. Liiiike, if I had to guess, you're probably electricity. I'm fungal, so my magic is related to mushrooms."

For emphasis, Tahi-shei scuffed at the ground with his hoof to try and spawn a little field of mushrooms. A beautiful ring of glowing fungus kicked up around him, and he made a pleased sound. This worked better sometimes than it did others, after all. "Everyone uses spells differently, but they'll almost always be similar. Sometimes though, a group of Gembound can be powerful enough together that they can cast a totally unique spell just because they hang out together so often."


@madhukar

This not-shroom seemed to understand, pretty quickly, its mistakes. Well. That was... a LOT easier than it normally was. Gooey ones always seemed to surprise her the most...

Anyways, it began to rant. Straight up prattle on about a single answer to her very simple question. So a "spell" was quite complex, wasn't it? She had an easier time paying attention to this as she might've otherwise, because it was directly related to something that had recently been causing her much of... an unknown emotion (grief, among other things). She tuned out a few parts but what she got was this:

1.) Magic = energy, inherent by birth
2.) Magic = hard to control (boy did she know that)
3.) Their stones = magic because who knows and who cares
4.) AND THIS WAS THE IMPORTANT ONE, focusing and refining magic made it do what you wanted, and that was a spell. So that noise that followed her around... the noise she'd been trying to make happen of her own volition earlier?! That had to be a spell! That was a manifestation of her MAGIC!!

The realization finally hit her that THAT'S what that was, and THAT'S what she was trying to do.

And then there were two other important facts: Madhukar herself was probably "electricity", and the not-shroom was fungal (haha). So maybe the not-shroom was, in fact, a shroom? Maybe. Based on the... rather impressive display, actually, that idea didn't seem so far off from plausible.

Apparently there were also spells some could "cast" simply because they hung around together a lot. That was the wackiest thing Madhukar had ever heard. She would not have minded some more power, but having to be around other creatures to get it? Absolutely not worth it.

Huh. Well. This had been quite intriguing, honestly. An actually useful conversation. Who would've guessed it! Always a dice roll with the goopy ones, it seemed. Madhukar looked at the fungal not-shroom thoughtfully, quietly, only giving a single slow blink... and in response to the voluntary silence, her magic attempted to manifest in a quieter spell, to zip about her, from the tip of her tail, to her back paws, to her spine, and then to the top of her head. It didn't end up looking like much; barely visible, actually. Madhukar hadn't even notice the static racing through her fur. And yet its presence on its own dictated much about Madhukar's current state with her magic.

She couldn't control it.

@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei turned his head briefly to the side, considering the kitten. She hadn't actually said anything in response, but seemed excited by the idea that she could control her spells. Equally, Tahi took notice of the magic buzzing around her fur, and realized that this kitten probably didn't have the best control. He hadn't either, not in his first cycle, but his spells were inconvenient at worst. He couldn't imagine not being able to control spells that potentially harmed people. "Erm... I could, uh, help you learn how to control your magic, if you want...?" Tahi offered hesitantly. "My name is Tahi-shei, or Tahi for short," he offered. "You're Madhukar, right?"

Broadly, Tahi liked magic. He also liked helping people, and from what he'd noticed, that seemed to be the main goal of the Seven, whom he was still mustering the courage to ask Pride if he could officially join. Maybe helping this cat would make the answer more likely to be 'yes'. His ears flicked awkwardly. Not that he even knew if he could teach her, per se. Tahi mostly gained better control over his magic through creativity and mediation, because his magic was an extension of the fungus within the caves. He had absolutely no idea where electricity magic came from, but if she wanted his help, he wouldn't mind trying to figure it out.


@madhukar

The not-shroom offered to help her learn to control it. Madhukar nodded, with actual positive enthusiasm! This was so strange, being helped by someone instead of hurt by. She had a goal, and this creature... was offering aid in attaining it! Without even KNOWING her!! She was... thoroughly impressed. The creature's name was Tahi-Shei. Madhukar nodded again, more reverently this time, simply saying "Madhukar" again in response to Tahi's last question.

"How help?" Madhukar tilted her head with curiosity; she had no idea what Tahi could even do for her. Tahi had offered, though, so that seemed promised something useful, at least. As she tilted her head, magic began flickering around in her, trying to keep the static up of its own volition. Because, well, Tahi was right. Chaos was all this kitten knew at the moment. It didn't work out for the magic, because as soon as one spark was pat on top of Madhukar's head, it fizzed out, leaving behind no trail, no feeling, no anything.

Madhukar stared in willing wonder.

@Tahi-Shei