@Oliver

The spire of Polaris stood as tall as any trees that were in the caverns. The height seemed so massive, it could convince anyone new to the area that there was noting in the caves that was taller. The little kit fox certainly couldn't find anything more eye catching, but then again, she hadn't quite stepped that far away from her favorite hiding spot. Polaris was already massive by itself, but with the Spire, there was no way anyone as small as the pup couldn't think it was absolutely massive.

It was beautiful... But then again it was also pretty scary.

The little fox would find herself scooting right to the edge to have a little peak, but then scurried away from it, intimidated by the very massive distance between the top of the Spire and the ground. She hid herself safely behind a solid stone, hiding her face on the back of her paws. The poor pup was having a lot of conflicting feelings. Part of her was sick of being stuck in this area, and she wanted to go exploring, but an even bigger part of her was already afraid of the massive cave she was in already. What if she found something even bigger and scarier?

No. No, she would have to stay put.

...But she was starting to get restless. She didn't like this feeling, and didn't want to sit still anymore. Everything was so quiet and lonely, it was starting to make her even more paranoid and more tense.

The little pup lifted her face off of her little paws allowing her ears to twitch a bit as she looked around. She hadn't heard anything odd or out of the ordinary, but she was quite aware that animals of all shapes and sizes came here often. She would like to be right where she was until they showed up.

Still, she had been perched on there for a while, and she was starting to stir a bit. Maybe it would be good to just take a bit of a peak elsewhere. Certainly that wouldn't hurt. The little pup backed away from the stone and started making her way down, but didn't get too low before stopping and lifting her right ear up to listen.

He saw only the tiniest flit of color, of fur; but it was close to the Spire and that was enough to have him shifting direction, head tilting gently. He was out here gathering a few minor supplies in preparation for the Olympics--he intended to offer his service as a medic to any wounded--but he hadn't expected to run into a stranger today. He wasn't sure why he'd expected that; the caves were busy enough, but he just hadn't seen a lot of other Gembound lately.

"Um--" and promptly his voice cracked, so he cleared it; "Excuse me?" Oliver paused, hesitated; the makeshift basket he held looped over one arm, empty now, wavered as he stood there.

"It's not safe to be near the Spire. It, uhh... It melts people," he added, with a faint grimace. He wasn't entirely sure how close one had to be, or how close the small creature was--he couldn't see it from here. But it seemed... nervous? It had hidden, back behind a rock, so he decided to tack on a friendly greeting to hopefully put it at its ease.

"You can come out, though--my name's Oliver. I won't hurt you?" His demeanor was inoffensive, gentle, and his voice peaceful (if a little concerned), but he wasn't even sure that what he'd seen hadn't been a Lesser, even.

Maybe it'd been a red rat? He couldn't really tell, from here.

@Clarissa

@Oliver

The moment she heard the voice, the little fox made a quiet yelp and zipped right back behind her rock. It was her rock because... well, no one else was here, and she was hiding behind it, so it was her rock. However, as the stranger kept talking, the fox found her curiosity peaking again. One of her ears lowered a bit as the other perked up before the little pup slowly moved from behind the rock to peer at the stranger. The little fox flinched back a bit, but seeing that the other canine did nothing despite seeing that she was just behind a rock that he could probably leap over with little issue, especially with the wings, the little fox started to slowly approach him.

The fox's little nose started twitching as her dark brown eyes squinted, trying to get a whiff of the stranger as canines do instinctively. However, the moment she had, the little fox backed up a bit, twitching her ears forward and backward before plopping down in a sitting position and tilting her head.

The little fox, being on her own with very little interaction with other creatures outside of hiding from them and yelping, or doing something like this where she sits at a distance from strangers when they convinced her that they didn't mean any harm, or if her curiosity got the better of her. In this case, it seemed to be a bit of both. Still, getting her to come any closer was gonna take some patience from Oliver.

The little kit started shuffling her left paw around nervously, clearly ready to jump behind the rock at even the slightest indication that she should be scared of something. Even if she shouldn't and she just was, she'd do it. Even just sitting her was slowly filling her with dread, though perhaps not as quickly as one would think.

The little fox's tail curled around her left hind leg as much as it could as she just remained sitting there, staring at the other canine warily.

Oh, boy, it was scared. At least, it seemed to be--hesitant, wary, if not outright frightened. Oliver blinked, his Olympics-related goals temporarily forgotten, pity stirring him.

"Oh, I'm--I'm really not gonna hurt you. Do you have a name?" he asked, and then cast about for something to offer her as a token of peace, a truce.

A moment of focus and then the bird-dog held a banana in hand, gently pushing it forward to offer it out. Realizing she probably wouldn't want to approach--shy? Young?--he pulled it close again, crow-like claws swiftly splitting the peel half-away; then he lobbed it to land and roll near the kit fox. "It's good to eat, even if you don't uh, normally eat... fruit?" he explained, voice soft. "It tastes nice, and it won't make you sick, but it does make you... sparkle, for awhile. It's magic."

Then he lowered himself to his haunches, wings making him look rather like a creature sitting shrouded in a cloak; but his demeanor was peaceable, and unhurried.

If she'd caught a scent of him, he smelled of fur, of feathers; of grass and sweetly of flowers and herbs. There was, oddly, no scent of meat, of carnivore, on him.

@Clarissa

@Oliver

The little pup tilted her head at the word “name” before slipping down into a lying position and scratching the ground in front of her. She was definitely tempted in interacting with the stranger, but she wasn’t quite confident enough to actually go for it. The conflicting feelings from the smaller canine was quite obvious, but she didn’t answer his question. She didn’t quite know how to, it seemed, though the little fox seemed to have some idea on what he wanted to know. Even if she could bring herself to want to answer, the words just weren’t coming out.

The stranger then showed a fruit, or rather, something that had a bit of a sweet scent to it as the little fox sniffed at it from a far. The dog-crow unpeeled it, saying that it would taste good. The little fox looked the dog in the eye, and was suddenly feeling more at ease. There was something about his face that gave her the impression that he didn’t mean any harm.

So the fox started nibbling the banana down, pausing a bit, and then practically wolfed the whole thing down. The little pup had been eating fine, but she seemed to be a lot hungrier at this moment than she initially thought. The fox smacked her lips a bit, satisfied by that bit of sustenance before deciding she was finally ready to approach the dog crow. The fox walked over to him slowly, but then sat down and looked up at him. “...Clar...issa…” The fox said slowly, finally getting around to answering his question.

She could certainly understand what he was saying, but she hadn’t had much practice in her own speaking, what with her being alone for so long. So, while she wasn’t very eloquent, or even could speak in sentences very well, it seemed she was able to speak some.

Oliver offered a gentle smile, as best a bird-dog could, and settled in a little more. He was content to see the young one eating, and it reassured him that she'd at least be safe here, for now, with him.

"I'm Oliver-" he began, softly, before realizing he'd probably (had he?) already said that, and this, for a moment, left him quietly puzzling over the last couple minutes. He shook himself, a bit, and blinked.

"Um, I mean, it's nice to meet you, Clarissa." He waited, while she ate, reaching out his magicka with a brief touch--an attempt to give the kit a little boost, a cleanse, just... in case. It was his kind nature at work, and little more.

As she ate, he spoke, idly, his tone friendly. And he kept watch, too, in a calm way. "So, are you new? Did you just hatch? This is Polaris, uhh-it's not... the best place for babies, I think," he added, glancing around.

Dad had told him not to mention the Dragon; last time Dad had mentioned the Dragon it had apparently crashed down through the ceiling as if summoned and eaten the children present so-... Oliver decided to not do that. But Dad had also told him about the giant flesh-monster, here, and the golems, and the magic of the Spire. Granted, Oliver had been created here, but it had been near pools of boiling dragon's blood so maybe not the best example of live-giving available out there.

"Anyway, uhh-the banana good?" He hesitated, unsure how to make small talk with one so young they could barely, well, talk. He could offer, maybe, to bring her back to Monoceros-? Or to guide her somewhere safer, like Eridanus maybe...

But Polaris wasn't the greatest place, no. Not at all. At least, not in Oliver's worried mind.

@Clarissa

@oliver

The little fox sniffed at the dog-crow curiously, ears twitching as he introduced himself. The little fox plopped down on her backside as she tried to sound out the name, with very little success. "Ohl... Oooli...?" The fox squinted as she tried to focus. She really didn't seem to have this talking thing down yet, but she was trying. She managed to put that aside when she heard that he'd actually heard her name rather well. The little fox stood up allowing her tail to wag a bit as she nodded a little. She seemed excited that she said it well enough for someone else to understand.

The fox tilted her head as she looked back at the spire, not quite understanding the danger. Sure the place was... big, and big kind of equaled scary to her, but Clarissa had been hiding so much at anything that moved, she seldom came across anything there. She wondered if she should've taken his word for it, but then again she had been there for a really long time. Well, to her, anyway, she'd only been alive for about a month.

The subject was back to the banana, and the fox found her tail wagging again as she licked her lips and nodded. "Gooood..." the little kit giggled as she approached Oliver again and started to squint, focusing on trying to pronounce the dog's name again. "Ohli... Ooooli.... fff...fff... fer?" It seemed like Vs were kind of throwing her off a bit. "Oooleefer?" The fox tilted her head at him trying to see if she'd gotten it right.

"Oliver!" he agreed, his face lighting up happily. "That's right!" There was something simple in the joy of it: in a learning, happy child, in a connection made between happy strangers, and Oliver for a moment was very content.

"So, um--do you have--a family? Somewhere safe, um. Somewhere to take care of you?" He was already wondering if he should show the little one the way to... maybe the Bonebound, or the Children of Rot.

Life was safer with adults to look after a growing Gembound; to hunt for them, to protect them. The Bonebound were good with this; Oliver's own allies, though, were in hiding or scattered, and only a handful to begin with. He wasn't sure, anyway, that he'd want Rift looking after a baby. Mercurius, though... But did he have the spare time and so forth?

The crow-dog mulled this all over, wondering what exactly he should do. It definitely didn't seem right to just leave the kid here.

@Clarissa