Imp paused, considering.

He'd expected Fahl to win. He felt kinda bad stealing a victory from a kid. But-... shrug; even with his newfound kindness, Imp was still Imp at heart, and he gave a short, crowing cheer of "Yeahhh! Go me!" before gulping down the rest of his fish. "You'll win next time, buddy!"

The gator-bat hybrid then settled himself down, a little, listening to Fahl eat, and-

SNEEZE.

Imp jerked, flinched, scrambling back a pace, before he realized what it was. He burst into loud laughter, abruptly. "You SCARED me!" he laughed, half-accusingly, but mostly amused. "Anyway, whaddya wanna do after this?"

Imp wasn't an ideas guy. He knew the kid was young; might not have a lot of notion of what he could do, what options he had to choose from--but that much, Imp didn't really reason out. He was just a happy feathered blob smiling blindly at Fahl, listening to him-... well, sneeze.

@Fahl

Encouragement of any sort seemed to hold unbelievable power over him, spurring an unnatural level of eagerness in its best results. The assurance had only a small effect, his mood somewhat brightened by the possibility of future victories.

Blockage cleared in spectacular fashion, Fahl blinked away stray droplets from the uncomfortable spray he'd unleashed. Amidst the laughter, disbelieving of whatever just happened, he forced air out his nostrils. The disgusting mixture spurted out in tiny bursts, became a dribble, and finally ran dry. Was that supposed to be normal? It was mildly off-putting to think that this could be a common occurrence for him. Who would take someone who snots all over the place seriously?

He tucked into the remains of the fish, which hopefully hadn't been rained on too badly, before presenting his answer. "More fire? You use mouth. Good magic." And something that'd leave a better impression than violent sneezes. While he didn't mind Imp's amusement, he didn't know what to do when confronted by a stranger's reaction. Yes, his teacher had been unfamiliar to him as well not too long ago, but Fahl's memory moved on quickly.

@Imp

Imp's expression was cheerful, but even so, his words weren't exactly the most reassuring. "Sure, Fahl, but I'm not actually that good with magic!" (This, despite having declared himself a 'master' not moments ago.) "What I was REAL good at, was drawing. I was so good that one of the asshole leaders of the cave got mad at a drawing I did and RIPPED OUT MY EYES," he added, hollow sockets (lids thankfully shut) wide with dramatic effect. He didn't sound bothered; more as though he were delivering the half-fun last line of a brief horror story.

"Anyway, I can't draw anymore so I may as well try fire, I guess." Magic hadn't ever been super interesting to him, anyway; it took... focus, and patience, and other things Imp didn't really have. Regardless, there wasn't much fire offered him that he wanted. For all his bluster and bravado, Imp didn't crave power--which was just as well, really.

"Anyway, show me what you got!" he offered, sitting back, almost dog-like, on haunches and wings.

@Fahl

It might have been a good thing that Fahl's recollection of events wasn't the best when he was engaged in conversation, otherwise the details conflicting with Imp's previous tale of woe might have stood out. Instead, mind fixated on his own image insecurities, the most he actually processed was the denial of magical prowess. His teacher saying that he's not that good? No way.

"You good," he insisted. If he excelled at whatever drawing was, why wouldn't he be great at magic too? Fahl hadn't yet grasped the concept of specialties and that skill didn't apply to all things. A master was a master of everything to his child mind.

Copying what he'd seen earlier, he braced his legs against the ground. Head tilted back and mouth opened, prepared to deliver the same rolling waves of heat. And then Fahl demanded obedience from whatever power he contained.

It was perhaps for the best that when the magic responded, it manifested not in his mouth but in a space past his snout. The air shimmered familiarly. Unaware that he had produced a cheap imitation of what he believed to be a genuine attempt at fire magic, Fahl turned to Imp with delight.

"I use fire."

@Imp

Imp felt the flickering warmth, and he wasn't about to stick his snout forward to ensure it was, in fact, fire. That would have been stupid and a quick route to a burned nose. Anyway, what else could heat be-? Imp gave a wordless, quiet cry of approval, a sort of little whoop of triumph.

"YEAH! You sure did use fire, buddy!" he praised, brightly. And then, faint memory flickered up, as if from the depths of a bubbling black swamp--possibly because the memory was in the waters of a black swamp; a massive alligator, a father, roasting slimy white fish in an engulfing flame.

"Try this. It's better, this way," the gator's voice had rumbled, and Imp distinctly remembered the crisp taste of the flesh, the nasty slime all burnt away.

"Oh! If you burn fish, after you catch 'em, they taste better, sometimes!" Imp tried to explain. He then paused, confused, unsure if he'd already told Fahl this--but hey, it was something useful to do with magic, right?

@Fahl

And the praise was flowing once more, intoxicating the iguana like a fine sanguine wine. He drank it in with as close to a smile as a reptile could give. The positive attention could form an addiction for him, but Fahl neither knew nor cared about the consequences of such things. Imp was happy for him, so he readily accepted it.

"Yeah," he echoed, the enthusiasm only muted in comparison due to his leaden tongue.

Would burning fish really taste better? What lay at his feet were scraps, but he supposed that he could make it work. And, besides, had Imp led him wrong yet? Bending his head down, Fahl focused and tried to push heat from his mouth.

A fizzle and a multitude of pops. Then steam hissed up to meet his face with its scalding touch. Fahl stumbled back, limbs awkwardly flailing. A faint yelp tore from his throat, and he crouched defensively once distanced from the small cloud that'd erupted to meet him. Eyes fogged and stinging, he waited for it to settle before approaching the fish leftovers. Still startled somewhat, he took a cautious nibble.

To his disappointment the blandness mostly remained; however, a difficult to determine taste also edged it. Well, at least someone else was available to judge.

"Is fish good?" If he wasn't unnerved by his encounter with heated water, the scraps might have been nudged to Imp. Instead Fahl stayed still, certain that something must have gone wrong.

@Imp

"Yeah, man, fish is great! And meat's good, if you can catch it. Harder when you're blind," Imp explained, "but mice are simple enough." He didn't trust himself to fight rats, though. They came in groups, sometimes, and even the little ones had a pretty nasty bite. He ran into bats along the ceiling often enough, too, that he had to flee; so the hybrid stuck mainly to fish and other, less hostile foods. "Fruit's good, too!"

This gift from his fruit bat parent had left him capable of digesting it, and he loved a good banana; past this, he didn't have a lot of advice. "Umm. But everyone eats different stuff. Some Gembound only eat grass, or... Rocks." (Imp made this up on the spot; he assumed it to be true. He certainly didn't keep tabs on everybody's diets.) "So you gotta find out what you like!"

@Fahl

Great—that's what it was supposed to be. He picked up another lukewarm scrap of fish and let it slide unchewed down his gullet, confirming his failure in the empty flavor left behind. Not bad, but also neither good nor great.

Could his taste buds be at fault here? Yes, as Imp said, Gembound had different dietary needs. But Fahl wasn't the most logical of children, even with a partial answer to his problem; for the moment, he blamed his own lack of magical skill. The fish must not have been burnt enough (well, actually, at all). Next time, he'd try harder.

Still wanting to be the eager student, though, he kept his self-criticism private. "Mice? Fruit? Grass?" New words, apparently, for food. "Rocks?" If he'd known this one's meaning, Fahl would've reluctantly disagreed with his teacher due to his own speculation on the matter. Since that was not the case, he only stared blankly while struggling with this new gap in his knowledge.

@Imp

It took him a moment to realize that Fahl was asking for clarification on these things; once he had, he blinked (sort of) and tried to rise to the challenge.

"Oh, uhhh. Rocks! Like this stuff, underneath us," he explained, lifting a wing-arm and slapping it gently onto the stone underfoot. "Rock! -Well, I don't think I've ever actually met anyone who's eaten rock but there's a lotta weird stuff out there. Like... eel-things that walk on land, and giant monsters with green bits, and little things that fly. They come in all shapes! And uhh, fruit. That's like the banana, but--not magic. Everyone likes the magic ones. I dunno if you'll like the, uh, not-magic ones."

Oh--important lesson! The eye sockets of the blind hybrid widened, a tad. He couldn't remember if he'd given this lesson, yet, but it bore repeating anyway. "Okay, so there's lotsa little animals that can't talk. Those are the ones you eat, if you eat meat. So uhh. The littlest food-things are called Mice. They're small and furry and go fast. The red ones collect shiny stuff," he added, all knowledgable and wise. "The bigger stuff--even just the rats--can be dangerous. They're mean, and--big," he repeated. He remembered his father's warnings: that rats had been the ones to scar even the alligator's head, neck and back, when he'd been but a hatchling. "Anyway, be careful when you hunt and don't eat sh--stuff--that talks. Grass is green plant-stuff. It's the pointy bits that grow on the floor. Uhh... I don't think there's much of it here," he added; there was some in the Warrens, but mostly grass, in Imp's experience, was a thing in Eridanus (flowing and green) and in Cetus (harsh and reedy).

(Ooc--wanna wrap it up soon? Imp can leave Fahl to rest or some such? I don't wanna cut it off early though so I can continue if you want!)

@Fahl

To put the situation lightly, the answers Fahl received were a bit of an information overload. The explanation on rocks he grasped easily enough; it was the tangent on all things weird where his mind became muddled. Imagination tried desperately to keep up and sketch out the vague descriptions of creatures as he heard them but failed. He was so left in the dust that at the subject change to fruit, the most he could say in response to that was a dazed, "Banana?"

Thoughts still scattered from the previous deluge of enlightenment, he skimmed over the rest, picking out whatever sounded important: don't eat things that talk, red mice and shiny stuff, bigger things mean, grass is green growing stuff.

"Got it," he said, head spinning, though the accuracy of the statement was suspect. Combined with the rough fall he had before, the lessons were finally taking their toll. Fatigue making its presence known, his mouth parted in a yawn. Although Fahl remained upright, his legs started to sway beneath him.

@Imp

((Yeah, I'd be interested in wrapping up soon. Resting works. Fahl's pretty active, but the kid's got to take a nap sometime.))