Cetus, Hera had quickly decided, suffered from a dearth of berries.

There were few things growing here that could be used to dye her mutated, horribly drab feathers, so she was forced to make do in the only other way she knew how. That was: magic. Perched on a gloomy treetop, Hera summoned magicka and willed a banana into being. It was a fine specimen, though not part of an eagle's usual diet: just barely ripe enough to taste sweet, its tips still tinged green, and as long as a large jungle mouse without its tail.

She slashed through the peel easily with her talons, gobbling up the fruit within and beginning to shed sparkles. Hera would never know what exactly made them glow--whether it was a special, magically altered molecular structure or whether the sparkles were simply pure magic--nor did she care. It was pretty, which was reason enough by itself to eat one, and it helped attract attention without the darkness that other failed spells brought.

Hera spread her wings and took off, trying her very best to focus on the fact that she was glowing rather than the fact that she was grey. "Dragon?" she called. "Dragon!" She searched the marsh below, too, but with his camouflage and her sparkly radiance, it was far more likely that Hera would be spotted first.

Whether that was by Dragon, or someone else.

@Dragon
also open to anyone who wants to join!

He heard his name, called from the distance. Ahh--Hera, he thought, and was pleased; it did not sound urgent, and he was glad to hear the eagle's voice. Magicka flared, ghostly red wings unfurling from his back, and a moment later he was in awkward vertical flight.

The wings--and horns curling out from his skull--drifted with strange black and red magic; as he swept into a nearby clearing he was visible for a moment quite clearly before spotting the eagle's sparkling light.

"HERA!" he boomed, calling out to her. "It is good to see you--I am here. Where do you want to talk?" He waited, hovering; if she simply wanted to speak here, he'd land in the muck and wait, but maybe she had something else in mind.

And then could come the pleasantries--the "how are yous" and so on; but his wings took effort to maintain, and he wanted to be sure he could release them before entering conversation.

@Hera (but feel free to wait for whoever else!)

Ahh, there he was! Those massive red wings were impossible to miss. "Heya!" she cheered, swooping down to meet Dragon. "Long time no see, yeah? Come on, let's go talk on the ground." For as impressive as those wings looked, Hera knew that magic was unreliable and supporting a huge alligator in the air was tricky business.

"So!" she continued, alighting on a jutting stone crag. (No way she was gonna get mud on her feet, thank you very much.) "I'm back! As you can see." Hera fluffed her wings, shedding a few magical sparkles. "Went on a vacation to that new cave Leo, got my future told…oh! Thanks for pointing me to Giggs, by the way. Man, I've never talked to a bone in my life, but she does it so cool it's like she's magic."

"I think I'm better now," she added more quietly. Not as well as she wished she was, but better, at least. "And you, Dragon? What have the rest of us kids been up to? Workin' hard or hardly workin'?" she asked, then immediately cringed at her own words. "Okay, nope, that was a bad one." But there was laughter in her voice, and a real sparkle in her eyes as she cocked her head at Dragon. It was good to be with her old friend again.

@Dragon

He followed, landing just as the magic faltered and faded, and the wings vanished even before fully stowing away. The alligator was left sprawled across the high-up stone, and a glance around left him with a wave of nostalgia. "I used to climb up these, as a hatchling, and sun myself closer to the orbs. Only dry place in Cetus," he remarked, and then offered a quiet bass laugh.

Hera seemed to have gained a new spark--or perhaps regained her old. The trip had done her good, he noted. Or was it a facade, to cover her ongoing fear? Had it grown too severe-? She never struck me as that sort, but I will wait and see, he decided. Her abrupt, quiet 'I think I'm better now,' was almost a reassurance--she wasn't hiding her issues, then. But the cheer seemed almost forced, or maybe that was the terrible nature of her joke; certainly once she continued she seemed more honestly happy than she had been.

Close analysis over, Dragon offered, at first, a grunt. "Leo, yes, I know it. I was aiding in the, ah, enchanting--they required those to push water-breathing magic into objects. I don't know why, yet," he added, "but I do intend to keep watch on it." It was was always important for Dragon to monitor the goings-on of the caves, that much was for certain. "As for the rest--nothing has changed, much. They rest. They hide. They sleep or they eat." A grunt, a dark laugh. "They are lazy children, but they live. I have... plans, I would like to begin with, but I need more of them. More of us. I need one of us who can shape earth. You have wings--better than my own; do you think you could keep your eyes out for such a one, in your travels? I will tell you about this idea I have, if you are interested."

Dragon paused, then, studying the eagle closely. All the changes she had undergone--the brutality of the trials, the hooked talons and strange ears, the glowing eyes--she was still Hera, and still returned to him, here in Cetus. For a moment, he felt... something, something half-unfamiliar to his reptilian mind. Sympathy? Grief? Guilt? He wasn't sure, but after a brief hesitation he spoke again--wishing, somehow, that he could have done more for her than simply send her off somewhere brighter. "I am glad you are back, Hera, and that you seem well. That Giggle was useful to you," he added. "I was worried!"--and this, at least, was a little humorous but bluntly honest.

@Hera

An eagle's beak didn't allow for much in the way of facial expressions, but if Hera had been able to, she might've smiled. She had only known Dragon as his adult self, but the thought of him as a tiny, wide-eyed hatchling was immensely amusing.

The thought was quickly dropped from her mind, however, at the mention of the enchanting in Leo. Hera had heard things, here and there, of a creature gathering many Gembound for aid, but she had stayed far away from it all. It didn't seem to be related to Vargas or Hydra, but… she was wary of such things now.

"You, ha, uh, they wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the—" her tongue seemed to be reluctant to form the word—"the Masters, would they?" Toxic green eyes burned in her memory, and her heart stuttered despite herself. Hera had no idea what they would need water breathing for, either, but maybe it would be a good idea to... just avoid the bay, for the time being. She eyed the marsh's waters suspiciously, tightening her grip on the crag.

"Plans! Right, you told me a little before, I think?" If she talked about something else, then she didn't have to keep focusing on that. That was the idea, at least. "Yeah! I can do that! If I see anyone with earth magic, I'll let you know! And the stuff you mentioned before—I'm no good with plants or gardening, but I can bring Lessers? And make bananas—unless you've got more ideas for how I can help?"

@Dragon

"Oh, they do. With one called 'Farina.' I have not heard of it," he added, and he still had no idea that he'd once had rather a close encounter with that particular Master. A very close call, in fact. "I will find out what they are doing, do not worry about it yourself. As for this plan; do you remember that I mentioned rocks, hiding us with rocks?"

He looked at Hera, a sly flicker to his gaze. "I would like to find someone we can trust, someone with the magic of rock and stone. Someone who can not only hide us with rocks, but carve us a new cave," he explained. "I know we will not be able to make a new Cetus--but I want somewhere large enough to survive in. But instead of only blocking off a bit of Cetus, I wish to make our own home, hidden--one that no one else knows about. I doubt it will stay secret for long, but long enough-? Maybe! For that, we need someone who can do it."

He considered, at her question. "Hm. Maybe those with the magic of light and water, as well... But they must be those that we can trust. We need more of us. You have travelled, of late; what's the status of the caves? What are the Bonebound like, and what are the rest of them up to? Is it busy, out there?" he asked.

@Hera

Hera swallowed. She had not heard of a Farina either, but it was a Master, and those tended to be... well. Giggle's reading had implied that some of them might be able to help--even bring light--but there was no telling if Farina would be benevolent or not. I do not need to worry about it, she reminded herself. Dragon was old, and cunning, and he was capable of getting to the bottom of this without putting his own life at risk. They would be safe in Cetus, under Aquarian's protection.

Instead, she focused her attention on Dragon's idea. "Earth element seems pretty rare these days, but I'll keep an eye out. Leo is a popular place, and I've heard of a place called Pegasus that's even more popular. The Bonebound are doing well--they have many members, now." She had not spent too much time in Canis (too close to Hydra for her liking), but Giggle was one of the Bonebound, after all.

"I can make a ball of light, but I've never been able to bauble things like others could." Nor did she rely on the spell much anymore--the consequences of a backfiring spell scared her too much. "Do you know how enchanting works--how to push magic into objects? I hadn't known it was possible for things other than light."

@Dragon

"Thank you," he rumbled, to the first; but her question had him thinking, drawing his claws along the rock as he pondered it.

He hadn't asked much over the mechanics of enchanting--but at least it seemed straightforward enough.

"From what I can tell," he began, more slowly, "it works like this: magic is used to... prime an object, and then another magic is imbued into it. That second magic--stays, as though someone is using it constantly. So, if I use my magic that allows me to breathe underwater--which is what we were doing--then the object should allow its wearer to breathe underwater, too."

The alligator paused, thoughtfully, rumbling deep in his throat for a minute. "I wish that I knew the magic to open an object to hold this magic! This--enchantment. It has much potential; I do not know what sorts of magic you could apply, but I can imagine how useful it could be," and there was a faintly mournful note in his voice.

@Hera

Hera listened intently, enchanted by the idea of such a spell. "The things you could do with that...!" she murmured, shifting her talons excitedly. Mentally, she reviewed her own magical repertoire. A constant light was nothing unique--but Hera's eyes crinkled at the thought of an object enchanted to spawning magical bananas. And the gusts of wind she sometimes used to travel faster would be useful, too.

"Man, we gotta figure out how to do that someday," she decided. "That, or recruit someone who knows how! Yo, could you imagine if we put the banana magic in an object?" Hera cackled, fluffing her wings. "Speaking of bananas--do you want one? Ahh, the sparkles wouldn't go very well with your whole red spooky wing aesthetic, would it?" Gold, the usual color her sparkles took, happened to match with a different set of wings. "I wonder if I can change it, actually. Never, tried, but--"

She concentrated, thinking of a banana, but also melding the image together with the memory of Dragon's red-black wings. The spell didn't seem to work that way, though, and all that came into existence was a single mournful gold sparkle, drifting down to the murky swamp below. "Didn't work," Hera said ruefully.

@Dragon

"It would be uesful," Dragon agreed.

When Hera offered a banana, he snorted in mild amusement. There was a light flash, and a banana appeared; Dragon neatly snapped it in half with a loud clap of his jaws, gulping down his half. The wings--already having faded a few moments back--were gradually replaced by a sparkle. He nudged the other half toward Hera. "We can share it," he answered in his rumble. "So; what did Giggle say? Was there anything of interest?"

The Bonebound had long been fascinating to Dragon. They, like the Children, kept (mostly quietly) to their own little section of the caves; they, like the Children, tended to turn up in moments of great need. They were less bold than the Seven, but less secretive in turn than the Children, and the groups had been mostly cooperative (and nearly clashed once or twice) throughout the years. Their leadership had come and gone, however, passed down through this Gembound and that. "So when you say the Bonebound have many members--is Aure still at their head?" he asked. He rather liked that one; young, but strong-minded, so it seemed. Though that hyena did always seem to be right at his shoulder--his mother, if Dragon wasn't mistaken.

He wondered, vaguely, how Serek was doing. Giggle's other son, he'd come to live with the Children for a time, but Dragon hadn't seen him in a bit. Hopefully, he was well; perhaps he'd returned to Canis.

@Hera