Ever the explorer, Catalpa was. In the weeks since her hatching she'd explored further and further out from the icy cave of her birth; wandering through the tunnels, sniffling at every stray rock and weird plant she came across, insistent on knowing more. The world is big and new and above all, exciting—some days she can hardly bring herself to settle down and rest!

Her travels have brought her far, indeed, and now she finds herself in the warm sands of Leo, a place that she can only describe with one word:

Hot.

Very hot! Swelteringly so, especially for the kitten who had first known Pisces; the soft, fluffy coat which proved a boon in the cave of waterfalls is now a detriment, seeming to make the heat weigh upon her ever more harshly as she pads through the sand, panting.

Even the water's warm here, a discovery which displeases her to no end. What's the point of water if it's not at least cool? In the cave she hatched in it was ice-cold, freezing right down to the bone, to the point that it almost hurt to get soaked in—the water here is so warm she could dunk her whole body in and still not feel the chill. Hmph.

As warm as it is, however, at least it's wicking the heat away, and as she wanders further down the coastline of the bay she finds her annoyance soothed by the gentle lap of the tides upon her paws. It seems that Catalpa didn't get the memo that cats were supposed to hate water; with a particularly notable heave of the waves she giggles and fights back, batting at the water with little splashes of her paws.

Fine. She guesses she can like this place, if only because of the bay here. She has to admit, it is kinda cool. She's never seen this much water in one place in her life.

@Renasci

Renasci

Bright gold and blue eyes watch the new white shape move across the surf.

Renasci hadn't gotten too much bigger - yet. They have a feeling they will get bigger, since something in their mind reminds them they should be able to fly like the white feathered pond swimmers in the Gardens, and the smaller singing birds of the few other caves they'd seen.

We'd call them a tween, on Earth, and for the caves they are even aging oddly, slowly and with seemingly great deliberation, like the way they stalk the fish they've tried to share with their Moremore, or eye the bright blue dragon's collection of hooved creatures they've decided they'll eat some day.

But, back to the being at hand, getting too close to the cliffs where they roost.

Fluffy, yes, kind of like them, nothing like Moremore. Smaller than them, but they think the fuzzy one in the water looks like them in the way that feet and eyes are too big... young.

A friend, maybe?

Maybe.

"H... Halt!" they finally call, half hidden behind a stone further up the beach. Mostly grey feathers are puffed up, and lichens strung across their hips and chest really makes them look like a wild child, and they.... might have been intimidating if their voice wasn't shaking. "You're too close to my home.... stop. Please?"

@Catalpa

Consider, if you will, the average size of a kitten.

Perhaps Renasci—not being fully-grown and on the shorter side of the humanoid scale regardless—wasn't that large in comparison to, say, the deer roaming the fields of Pegasus, but to a little kitten who had barely crawled out of her chrysalis a week or so ago, the harpy was positively towering.

Even from afar, the harpy seems a giant; their mere appearance is enough to stop Catalpa in her tracks, the fur on her back prickling as she stops dead in her tracks, watching them pop up from their hiding place with wide eyes; taking in the smoke rising from them as if aflame.

What home? She doesn't see a home around here... doesn't really have a concept of what one's home could like, besides the little dens of burrowing animals in the dirt. But no matter how much she glances around, she can't see any of those tell-tale holes in the sand...

"Um... what home?" she asks, brows furrowed with confusion.

@Renasci

Renasci

It seems the two are at an impasse- both fluffed, staring, and wary of the other.

At least until Renasci snorts under their breath at the fluffed up, half soaked kitten. It's an amusing sight, and pulls a small grin from them as they step out from behind the rock, before plopping down on the sand with a harsh huff.

The question is followed by silence, a shifting of legs to fold them together, a fluttering of wings to rest them in the sand before the harpy replies, "I live in the cliffs with my Moremore, and nobody else is allowed in there unless they say so. So... uh. I also don't think you can get there unless you've got these," they flutter their wings, and gesture with one hand, "And can use them."

Another pause, and a lengthy bit of staring at the cat before they take what they feel is their turn for a question. "Why are your feathers like that? Or do you have fuff? Frmrr? I..." they scratch at their nose in apparent frustration, crinkling their face with a sigh. "Some words don't stick well with me. Apologies."

@Catalpa

The big, tall creature is stepping out from behind the rock. They're coming closer. They're…

…sitting down in the sand?

Brief tension gives way to confusion as Catalpa goes through a series of thoughts. First: they're not being mad at her anymore. Second: they're not trying to hunt her. Third…

…they're smiling?

She's so confused by the sudden change in mood that she can only flash a brief, nervous smile of her own back at them, showing a row of tiny, sharp little kitty teeth before curiosity gets the best of her and she creeps closer. Her expression still holds a measure of wariness, but… not as much as it did earlier.

Plus, she can't help but wonder what this Gembound is. She's never seen something stepping on only two legs before…

"Cliffs?" she asks, tilting her head. Those are pretty high up… her gaze latches onto the flutter of their feathers and her eyes widen. "You can… you can fly? Like the birds?"

She's seen a couple of the feathery creatures around Pisces, small enough to be edible, but to her perpetual frustration she's never managed to pounce fast enough to grab one of them. They've always flown away, just outside her reach. If only she could fly like they could… like this Gembound can.

And then they ask her a question, and she blinks. "Feathers? F-uff? Uhh…."

It takes her a moment of thinking before the answer comes to her. "My fur? Um." Catalpa looks down at her paws, picking one up and putting it back down in the sand. "They're just like that. I didn't do anything to them."

@Renasci

Renasci

"Will be able to, someday... h'm still getting tuh- bigger." They trip over a word mid-sentence, and rub at their nose in irritation while their ear crests flare out sidewise, and then up. Perking not unlike Catalpa's own ears, really, and the harpy seem to be unconsciously mimicking her.

They give the cat time to chew over their question, waiting patiently for someone so young. Meaning, their wings keep shifting like a child excited to leave their seat would. The most still parts of the harpy are their eyes and hand being pressed down into the sand before them, palm up, like an offering.

Moremore scared them when they first met them, a little, but it seems like Ren is the big one right now, and they aren't sure how they feel about it.

The answer to their question - and restatement of the word they struggled with - gets them to perk up, and they smile. "Fur, right! Thet's neat you don't do 'nything, I thought fur wus short like the deer fur is." Renasci seems pleased, and makes a soft rumbling, chirp like noise.

"I uh. Do you have a name? M'names Renasci."

@Catalpa

"You're getting bigger?"

This, the concept of somebody who, to Catalpa, is already a towering creature, some mythical being unlike anything she's ever seen (to be fair, she hasn't seen many other Gembound in her life), boggles her mind. How can someone who's already so tall get taller? That shouldn't be possible! Is there even a limit to how tall a creature can get?

How big is she herself going to get, she wonders? Surely not as tall as the harpy is. The harpy's big. She doesn't feel like a big creature. She's small and quick.

(Besides, if she got too big, how would she stick her head into holes looking for tasty mice?)

Luckily, another statement grabs her attention before she can think about things like creature sizes for too long. "Um…" Catalpa says, considering. "I think it can be both? 'Cause, um, there was this Gembound I met, and they were as little as me, and but they had small fur. Not long like mine. So I think it can be both."

That makes sense, right? She thinks that makes sense.

"I'm Catalpa!" she says, smiling again. "'Cause I'm a cat. So Catalpa."

A moment's thought. "But the -alpa's just 'cause it sounds pretty. And it felt right."

fun fact: this is not actually why i named this oc; she's named after the catalpa tree!
@Renasci

Renasci

Any ego this small child has puffs up, along with their feathers, at the amazement of Renasci getting bigger, and they nod smugly.

The harpy nods along, then, as Catalpa explains fur, and they look very contemplative as they rub at their face in thought. The idea of another with long feathers, like how fur has a long and short version, gets a confused crumple to their brow.

But- "Ah, really? K... Caht, huh? I dunno what I am, exactly, haven't seen someone else like me." a sniff, and they rub at their nose to get at an itch. "I named myself, after nice mouth shapes. Rrrhen," they curl their lips in a snarl, softly rumbling behind it, demonstrating their name as they continue with their mouth then open wide in, "Ahh," like a call, then an almost hiss that sounds like high winds over someone's ears accompanied by a wiggly arm movement, "Ssssccei."

"My Moremore had a big, long nahme, more thun Morganoth, and Titles that made them big and scary. They had a lot of heads, too, to maybe one day when I get big and important they might wake up again. But until then, I'm down here uhnd out ohn the sahnd." Seems like Ren's speech issue only shows up... sometimes. Usually, they just sound nasal on their a's, but other times, it seems like they bite their own tongue trying to talk.

Mostly grey and slightly blue wings are slowly wiggling themselves under the sand, and the offered hand remains palm up. It's warm, anyway, so they may as well wait.

Black and white ear feathers flare out, and they tilt to look out over the water. "Do you eat fish? Or, have you?"


@Catalpa

I picked Ren's name from a latin word meaning 'to be reborn' since they're gonna be a phoenix harpy-like character, so yay name fun!

Catalpa finds herself nodding along in an approving way as the harpy tells her the origin of their name. Yeah; yeah, she likes that. Those are nice mouth shapes. And they feel right for them. Just like she couldn't be named anything else but Catalpa, they couldn't be named anything else but Renasci. That's just who they are.

She's still missing the palm Renasci has laid out in the sand, unfortunately. Being quadrupedal, she's rather ignorant of humanoid body language… and most of her attention is still fixated on the harpy's form themselves. She's never seen anything like them, either. Their feathers, their… two legs…

She's not sure what to think about them. They're nice, and their colors are nice, too, in a way that reminds her of grey-blue clouds that carry rain… but they were smoking, earlier, so they probably aren't very water-y. Like she is.

What are they?

She doesn't know, but she does like looking at them.

"Fish?" She tilts her head, considering.

Her bright eyes shimmer with excitement as she looks up at them. "Can you catch a fish?"

@Renasci