vaguely backdated a bit to when Tobias is still Baby™

His hooves clicked as he wound his way into Pisces. He slowed, then--for Tobias's sake; let the child, he thought, take it in properly. He'd offered for the cub to ride atop his diamond armor and Mischief was in the 'saddle.' Tobias had, it seemed, quite bonded with the hare, and she liked to get out and about, anyway.

Pride came to a halt, turning so that Pisces was clearly visible past his height. And again, he took it all in. The glittering falls in the distance (their roar audible from here), the spark and dance of the reflections of the lagoon's water across the cave wall and ceiling high above. He knew Tenzin would be slumbering in there--somewhere--or even awake, perhaps, for once. But really, he was just here for Tobias: to spend some time with the kid, to bond a little. They were family, after all; any children of Mercy's would be children of Pride's as well.

"What do you think?" he asked softly, still looking out across the expanse. "Tenzin sleeps in that big pool, out there. Would you like to go and see?"

He'd given Tobias his choice of destinations; he'd explained only the bare-bones definition of the "Ice Bird" Master, and that he was "very nice," and lived in the water. A choice between that, the "spooky" swamp of Cetus, and a few others had Tobias definitively latching onto Pisces--and here they were.

Just a father-son road trip, of sorts; maybe they'd hang out awhile, maybe Pride would tell a story or practice magic, but mainly they were here for the journey and the time together.

@Tobias

@Pride !
that right there might be the sweetest starter of all time. just so you know. i got real emotional writing this reply. :"]

Today is the Best Day Ever.

Yes, Tobias has, admittedly, not been alive for very long. Yes, he is remarkably easy to impress, even for a little boy. Yes, he can scarcely remember his own name just now, let alone begin to conceptualize all the wonderful days to come that may well top this one — and yes, his last Best Day Ever was ... yesterday. (What? He tasted a strawberry! It was incredible!) But believe me, it's gonna stick for a while this time, because this isn't just a field trip — it is his very first adventure, his very first adventure!!!, and in this moment, he could drown in his delight.

The slick ice of the tunnel is waning away into unbroken stone, and his paws quicken in time with his fluttering pulse. He's panting a little. Poppa Pride offered to give him a ride to their destination, of course, and — ah, let's be honest; that saddle is definitely going to have a Tobie in it on the way back home. But right now, home is the very last thing on his mind. This is his first time beyond the confines of Orion, and much as he loves his father (and the splendid little Mischief in his company!), he wants to experience every second of the journey on his own terms with his own four paws. Up and down, ice and snow, hours on his feet — he's up to the challenge, and he'll brave it all, see it all, feel it all, everything around him and ahead of him, here and beyond. That's what being an adventurer is all about, right?

Yes, he knows — and at that moment, the click-click-click of his Poppa Pride becomes a slower click, click, click — Tobie hurries after him, gets to his heels, brakes, almost bouncing in place with sheer anticipation — and Pride turns —

"What do you think?"

... If Tobias had the words, he would say, Glorious. He would say, Beautiful, spectacular, marvelous. But he doesn't, and so he can only sigh, breathtaken. "Wow ..."

Poppa Pride continues, evokes the dull spark of a memory, Tenzin. The name is a lot of why Tobie chose this place over all the other suggestions; he sensed the implication of a potential new friend, he was told said friend-in-waiting was "very nice," and he was of course won over in a heartbeat. But he isn't altogether processing what he's hearing just now. He registers the name, and then "out there," and finally some sort of question — "... go and see?" A pause, and then his head bobbles up and down in response.

His eyes haven't wavered, lifted high to the expanse unfurling all around him, shining and glimmering with a teary film of wonder. At length, he blinks it away and looks to his father. His features haven't so much softened as melted, wobbling with an achingly sincere little smile. "Oh, P-Poppa, i-i-i-it's —" (Not to worry! This is normal from him, this trouble with his words; they get all silly on him, and he grapples with them for a second, and then he wins and it's okay. It's getting easier, slowly but surely. Case in point ...) "It's like a dream."

Again his voice dwindles into a blissful sigh — and then, abruptly, he scampers up to wind around the slender pillars of his Poppa Pride's legs. Just as quickly, he shimmies away, humming happily in his throat. Another smile, brighter, more focused and sound. He's ready now.

Pride waited, glancing down and taking the time to indulge himself in Tobias's wondering gaze, in his awed reply. The stag's face softened further. "A good dream, I hope," he answered quietly, and lifted his head to regard the pools.

There had been nightmares, here. He would do his best to keep them as far as possible from these children. Astraea--his dark mirror image, ears flat, snarling 'Keep your children, then!' flashed through his mind, and Pride pushed it away. Now was not the time.

Now was the time for light shining off of the falls; for reflections of beauty, for innocence. For the wonder of a cub. He leaned down to offer a nudge into Tobias's fur as the kitten wound around his legs, and then--giving him a short head-start--Pride lurched into a slow, steady click along behind him. "Explore however you like, Tobias. I'm with you; I'll be right behind you. There's plenty to see, here." He glanced around, as he said it.

The distant falls. The flick and shimmer of silver scales--the fish in the shallow pools. The mossy Warrens along the walls, or the ledges in the south, bound to draw a more adventurous child. Pride would let him pick his own way; he ambled along nearby, observing.

Of course, maybe Tobias would ask him things. Maybe he'd have questions about something he found; maybe he'd want a story, or he'd get hungry--Pride would take that as it came. For now he let the kid roam, his expression peaceful--affectionate--as he watched.

Of course, Mischief wanted down--and down she scrambled--now that they'd arrived; she'd keep the cub closer company, no doubt, scampering playfully here and there as he explored.

@Tobias

@Pride !

"A good dream, I hope."

Is there such a thing as a bad one?

His Poppa Pride leans in for a nudge, and Tobie wiggles around to push his nose into the firma terra of his father's cheek — a forcible nuzzle, turning into a nod as his eyes slide briefly shut. A bad dream? The idea nibbles at him. Shoo, shoo. "Mm-hmm." The sound is light, soft. Now he breaks away, and there's the shimmy, the sigh, the humming. He looks to his father, expectant.

"Explore however you like ... I'm with you."

Oh, say no more, Poppa Pride. Tobie pulls in a deep, mustering breath, the kind that swells in your chest, makes it rise up and stick until you let it go. And, with that, he casts his eyes away.

That first look was like the first sip of something heady, where the sheer strength of it numbs you to the underlying nuances. This look is where all those little flavors come out to play. Again, for someone else, someone older, a whole host of words might spring to mind — different arrangements of codified sounds to communicate the same elemental idea. But Tobias doesn't have them, and Tobias doesn't need them. For him, senses and feelings are more than enough.

Above all, there is so much water, pools of it, a great lagoon of it, truly a wealth of it; he can even feel the cool, misty weight of it on his fur and in his lungs, like rain about to fall. But what really mesmerizes him is the falls. He shoots a spare glance at the nearer, opposite end of the room, where stony ridges clamber up in tiers along the wall. Tempting, but he has cliffs at home that aren't all that different. You know what he doesn't have at home? A waterfall!, singing to him in a louder, lower register than the garden's rustling trees could ever hope to approach. And isn't that where Tenzin the Very Nice Ice Bird is? His paws feel a pull to it, and like a sleepwalker, he lets them lead the way, still craning his neck this way and that to drink it all in. The rivulets down the walls, the wavy green shapes of the warrens — those flashes in the pools like something alive, what are they? — but the ceiling, the ceiling, he keeps coming back to the ceiling: the caustics rippling in crazy-pavement patterns, that claw-shaped hole pouring in the water — oh, it's all so much!, and — wait, where's ... ?

His ears swivel backwards. "Wh —" A quick glance over his shoulder, and — yes, okay, the click, click, click isn't lying, Poppa Pride is indeed still there. Tobie isn't used to taking the lead, and it's an uncomfortable feeling, an uncanny reversal of the natural order; but there's not too much to it just now. He knows where he's going, and Pisces in all its austerity doesn't offer too many decisions or distractions along the way.

The twist causes him to stumble, almost trip, and he hurries to right himself, turning his eyes to the falls once again. He picks up the pace to his approximation of a "march," which is to say "a bouncy, tippy-toed trot." Mischief hares ahead of him, and he pounces after her, thrown slightly off-course, giggling, panting: "Hey, w-w-w-wait!" Catching up as she slows, he gives his head a shake and homes back in on his chosen destination. His beloved playmate remains a zigzag of white in his periphery, and if she should happen to find anything of interest, she may well manage to tempt him away again — but he's trying his best to keep his mind on just the one track, at least up until they reach the ponds. He keeps coming back to those falls. It's that pull.

"P-Poppa Pride?" he pipes up, peeking back behind him. It's brief, but he stumbles again anyway. "Wh-Wh-Wha ... Where's it coming fff-from?" Now his eyes go up — that hole in the ceiling, an unknown as profound as anything he's ever seen. Somehow, the sight of it brings that nibbling thought from the back of his mind to the forefront. "The — the wa-water, I mean, b-b-but also — wh-what about dreams?"

Here, Tobias holds his breath for a second.

"I, I — mmm —" Please hold? "I thought all dreams w-were good."

Tobie's excitement was obvious: wide eyes and near-dancing paws carrying him off ahead. Pride followed more sedately, content and pleased with the cub's joy in the moment.

When he was asked of the waterfall, the white stag lifted his own gaze to peer at it. "I do not know where the water comes from. Perhaps a lake, above; or maybe a river flowing in from somewhere even higher. Maybe it's magic," he added, with a little quirk of cervine brows.

Tobias's other question didn't leave him stammering or concerned; on the contrary, his response was warm, easygoing, and comes with a soft laugh to start it off. "No, some dreams are unpleasant. Some are even scary. But even if you ever have one of those, remember they aren't real; they can never hurt you." His tone was reassuring, and he glanced up at the falls for a lingering moment (as if still thinking of the water) before looking back to the cub. "I once had a bad dream that I was being chased by a gourd. ...So you always have good dreams, then-? Tell me, Tobie; what do you dream about?" he asked, and it was another friendly, unhurried question, asked softly to the backdrop of the rushing water.

@Tobias

@Pride
hopefully this little number was worth the wait! never mind the length ...

From the waterfall, Tobie's eyes do not waver. Poppa Pride doesn't know where it comes from? Poppa Pride? Doesn't know? Oh, jeepers, that is one monstrosity of a mystery. If he doesn't know, probably nobody does. (Perhaps this new Tenzin friend, though ... Hmmm. It's worth asking, if he can remember to.) He's too busy trying not to trip on himself to see that quirk of the brow, but he already knows his father well enough to hear it in his voice, and the suggestion it accompanies — "maybe it's magic" — prompts a little giggle. He likes that idea. We'll treat that as the leading theory for now.

But somehow, he wants this second answer all the more. His curiosity clamors for it, not so much an itching feeling now as a nigh-unbearable burning. Something tells him that there's a whole layer of meaning lurking underneath it, maybe a whole aspect of being that spins beyond his experiential orbit.

"No, some dreams are unpleasant. Some are even scary."

Wha? Tobie's paws stutter to a dead stop. He looks over his shoulder and seeks out his father's gaze, eyes wide with total mystification, almost entranced —

"But ... remember they aren't real; they can never hurt you. ... I once had a bad dream that I was being chased by a gourd."

And just like that, the spell is broken. Tobie crumbles into a fit of soft, bubbly laughter. "A, a, a — a gourd?" he manages underneath it.

"Tell me, Tobie; what do you dream about?"

Ooh. His eyes wander off on a diagonal path, brows furrowing between them. "Mmm ..." Please hold. Your son will be joining you shortly. He turns away, and his paws begin to move, carrying on their march towards the falls. But there's something in the way he walks that says he's definitely not ignoring or avoiding the question — his pace is automatic, distracted, strikingly devoid of the usual bounce. You see, it's not that he's struggling with the answer itself. This may surprise you, but he actually does remember his dreams, of all things, or at least the overall feeling of them — the colors, aromas, sensations, soft and blurred around the edges but vivid nonetheless. Oh, this is a big question, and a small answer just won't do. The trouble is ... "I-I-I — I, I ... mmm." That. That's the trouble. Again, not to worry: he's not exactly frustrated; he's just thinkin' real hard, smacking his lips, chewing on his tongue. There's that hum again, rising up in his throat.

"IIIII ..."

There, there — ... There.

"Clooooose my eyes and see —" And there's that skip back in his step, but it's purposeful, slower, eyes glued to his paws, watching the footwork, syncing it up in something of a subconscious dance — "Places waitin' just for me // Places no one's been before // Places just for me to explooore —" And his voice slides up and down in tune, back and forth, slower, faster, effortless as anything; it's raw, untrained, disorganized — he's obviously making all of this up as he goes — but in spite of that, the singing's sort of lovely, like a choir boy's or an angel's, breezy and melodic and sweet enough to rot your teeth — "Mountains, beaches, forests, seas // Flowers, mushrooms, fruits, and trees // Bunnies, birds, and butterflies // Rainbows shining way up high! —" And all the while, he's playing hopscotch on an invisible court, paws moving right on time with the lyrics: just elementary little rhymes that fit simply into place and slip out on his tongue; and somewhere in the course of all this, shallow puddles have started to appear on the floor, and he splashes once or twice, deliberately — "My dreams are ways for me to see // Where it's too far for me to be ..."

Here, Tobias pauses, hovering, two paws on the ground and two in the air. He turns his eyes to Pride at his back, and this time, he does wobble a little, but he doesn't fall.

"Which makes today a dream come truuuuue."

The breadth of his smile narrows his eyes into sideways crescents. He puffs out a lungful of air, like a deflating balloon. It's not by any means the first time he's used his voice this way — it comes out singsong all the time, and never with a single stumble, but he's never gone for that much all at once. It's like something just came over him, a delicate sort of power, a hundred times more eloquent than anything his baby little self has spoken out of tune. It felt good, and it leaves him with a lingering glow of confidence, makes the regular words a little less challenging. Again Tobie buckles into a giggle, barely missing a beat, allowing little time for applause. "But, oh, b-b-boy, your gourd dream sss-sounds exciting." Something in his periphery catches his attention — a shimmer like he saw earlier, flicking back and forth in a deeper pool nearby — and he creeps closer as he continues. "A dream like tha-that s-s-sounds more like a, an —"

Peeky, peeky. His attention span is a seesaw, rocking back and forth between his father and the water. Finally, it settles with his Poppa Pride. "... An ad-ven-ture." The word floats into the air with heavenly reverence, its arcing pitch sung just above a whisper, scrunching up with a little thrill at its tail.

Pride watched (and listened, of course), his bemusement budding into a soft, warm humor. Ahh, but he loved this child; truly loved, every little innocent quirk and happy word and singsong syllable sinking those soft claws a little deeper. A blanket of protectiveness fell over him; he'd guard Tobie with his life. And, of course, be clear in his appreciation for the kid's unselfconscious talent. He was glad Tobias wasn't shy about it; no one, he thought, should ever be ashamed of joy or of their abilities. Not everyone would be confident and happy enough to simply burst into a full-on musical number in an open, public space. Pride--reserved and dignified in his demeanor always--would never have stepped a single hoofed toe in that direction.

It only added to the shift in mood (from everyday to bizarrely saccharine) that Mischief had bounced along and around Tobie as best she could through his brief performance.

"That was very good!" he praised; "Did someone teach you to sing?" Clumsy though some of the cub's words might have been, they were heartfelt and they were pretty. "I think you might be the cave's best singer," he added, in a quieter tone--as if this were a secret--with a conspiratorial tilt of his head.

He was not, however, about to go into the same detail about his own nightmare. He'd called it a gourd, but it had been one of those bizarre, leering pumpkins with glowing eyes and jagged teeth--the ones that seemed to appear in the autumn. It had chased him through the dark. He didn't reaaaally want to dampen the pastel, singsong mood with grim horror stories. "It was very silly, my dream," was all Pride said, with that same amused and head-tilted demeanor.

Hoof-clicks brought him to the water's edge, and he peered into the lagoon. "Now, I don't know if Tenzin is awake--but would you like to sing another song? Maybe he'll hear it, and come up," Pride suggested, soft playfulness in his tone.

As if offering to join the 'show,' Pride lifted his magic like a shimmering curtain, and a cascade of glittering, brightly-colored butterflies (formed with pure prismatic light) began to lift and dart around Tobias.

@Tobias