Aure'd learned many things in these past few cycles; fallen and gotten up again; tried and failed to find ways to cope; tried and succeeded; that he was more comfortable in the air than he was on the ground. Whatever came his way had to endure some fifty feet of height and gravity to get to him. Many things couldn't cross either of those thresholds. No creature could fly up faster than searching eyes could register. High up was the best vantage point Canis had to offer, low as the roof was.

At least... he could feel out for errant clusters across the cave with far more ease than he otherwise might on the ground. Being on the same level as a number of fungal collections had them blurring together into overly condensed masses.

Flight, too, was vastly composed of muscle memory. A twitch of the wing here, shift of the primaries there, and he leveled out through every thermal. It hardly failed him, except with stray gusts and shifts in temperature that had air pressure - and himself - dropping. That, and a preoccupation with making sure Canis was clean and clear of disease had him descending a few feet, shaking his head as magicka sparked uselessly.

Cripes.

Wings beat at the air to steady himself, and Aure slipped into the rhythm of it with far too much ease. One, two, three - one, two, tree, he counted. Like every shift of the feather was another step in a long-practiced dance routine; and tonight was his big recital.

Steadied and levelled out, the young King reached again. His breath hitched in his chest.

Nothing.

Okay, he reminded himself carefully. FRAGILE: Handle With Care was stamped all over his current mentality, but - Caves, he was going to get better at navigating it. He didn't so much as yearn to hide from it (every little thing that haunted him) but to acknowledge them for what they were. It was... merely obstacles that weren't there before. Peculiarly shaped roadblocks.

Like... the peculiarly shaped stone nearby. A split-second glance had Aure convinced it was a dark, feline shadow slinking about, carrying portents of doom. Feathers ruffled, he stared into it. His perception faded into a grey repose. Faint, white flecks were scattered throughout the cavern, connected through yet-dimmer mycelia. No dense collectives. No Hive.

Safe to land.

The young King's talons clicked as he did so, blinking away the sixth sense.

Canis returned in all its fully-saturated glory: tawny and grim, with motes of dust spinning through the air. If the young King hooded his eyelids just right, they smeared into a rather delightful bokeh. All that was needed was a camera to capture the little moment... however strange it was. The boneyard had hardly any beauty to revel in. None by any traditional definition, anyways. Aure could see a little bit of wonderment in the fortresses - their construction had been a labor of love for one another, by those that had built them. They had been hiding in "rebellion," but he saw it more as protection and surviving in a world that did not want them.

He could admire them, even in their death, and almost come to sympathize. These Caves... they were not kind all the time - no matter how he fought and compromised. No matter what he sacrificed, emotionally or magically. It seemed like it was almost fated for there to always be some greater power that must be and that could not be obeyed. Where'd the hierarchy end?

Aure paced the circuit, red-and-white spotted caps sprouting idly in his wake.

His beak tightened into a thin line. How far up the chain of command could they go... ?

Aure shook his head. He could think about all that when he was lying awake at night. That time always seemed best suited for it - casual existential spiralings. Only occasionally did they veer off into anxiety-inducing night terrors. Every passing day brought a lower chance of that. Dog-beasts exploding with fungus faded into the backdrop of his memories, instead naturally replaced with the mere sight of the chambers and Emuh's glowering, eternal eyes.

The young King continued to walk as he thought, fly alarics sprouting. Bright eyes glanced to and fro, twisting over his shoulder to regard the steadily increasing density of fungi. They were a more whimsical-seeming breed, but entirely comfortable. Each one took to the earth with familiar ease.

Somehow, he could imagine a reservoir starting to refill.

With that realization came a faint, niggling sense of ambition long-buried by his growing up. A desire to be the most skilled and dexterous he could be with his magic. A yearning to be able to protect his own with a flick of the wrist. Aure redirected his magicka - and the caps stopped growing in his footsteps. The magicka show, a year ago, came to mind. His one demonstration of his skill and power, and it was a smash hit.

The hybrid paused. He... could still pull such a trick off, right... ? Even then, Aure thought, he hadn't been at the peak of his ability. He was certainly not scraping half a year of age. Young, ambitious, and full of moxie - apparently.

His conjuring, this time, was much more careful. A gentle wave of the wing, and a wisp manifested.

A dangerously whirling storm... lights streaking through it - ah, lights. Plural. Bright eyes glanced at the familiarly reassuring wisp bobbing in place. His subconscious directed it to draw a playful circle. Strange how a sentient and empathetic mind will bond with just about anything: even its own magic. Aure gave it a small smile regardless, and waved his opposite wing.

Rather than manifest another wisp, the first bolstered itself - apparently swallowing the spent magicka - and took on an incandescent glow. It dove straight for the young King, who had mere seconds to widen his eyes, blink, and duck behind his own wing. The resultant burst was searing-hot and a cruel reminder to not be so cocky. It was merely fortunate that it didn't catch on proper fire.

The emotional and physical burn wound hurt worse than any fire would have, though.

Aure held his breath until his heartrate started surging into a rabbit-quick rhythm, and he glanced sidelong. If... his magic was going to be so rebellious, it might be wise to seek a more enclosed space. The open-air circuit wouldn't do for much longer. Not if everything went up in ghastly flame, anyways. Too much risk to others.

Fluttering into the labyrinthine chambers, he offered a quiet (but hopeful) plea to the bones: don't let me blow myself up with magic. It was half-joking and -not. But, he punctuated it with a slight smile and pressed up against his gem once again.

Nothing but the sting of betrayal on singed feathers. It seemed magic and flight... no longer mixed so fluidly.

Aure threw his wings back, letting his secondaries flap in the wind for a brief moment before catching air like a naturalistic parachute. His spade-shaped tail feathers flared out, claws outstretching - and landed.

Bright eyes blinked slowly, neck creaking as he tilted his head just so. A twinge of soreness rolled through his body. There was nothing to be done about that, other than to let it be stretched out; and not to overexert himself. His magic had already sought out all his worries and quashed them. All he had to do was repay it, in some way.

Focus was his first idea - hence the alighting - and he exhaled shakily.

With the banishment of the last bits of oxygen in his lungs, came a glowing light. "Oh," he inhaled softly, "that's it." I should be taking another angle...

That angle was to study. He'd performed in that will 'o wisp and storm act before; and, he was going at his magic in that exact way. Aure had forgotten, for a moment, that he'd been changed in some way - and it was merely a matter of unraveling how. What better way, than to attempt something entirely new?

It was magic he'd already known, that orb. He'd learned it to chase shadows away from his mother before the wisps had come into his skillset, and he had not forgotten it. It was brighter, calmer... perhaps, even more soothing without the eerie phosphorescence of his wisps. Aure found comfort in casting those, but if this came easier to him, now...

He was off-track, staring into the conjured firefly with blank eyes. His ears flicked lamely, and he peered down at the floor. He'd done the plants first, then the light - (he, being that pale lion, Mercurius.) Blunt claws shifted. Greenery was not anything he'd mustered before, but sheets of fungus... ?

Aure swept a wing out. Caps of all sorts crept from the omnipresent mycelium, spreading as far as the sound of his feathers rustling did.