don't worry baby, don't you cry, as long as we keep getting high
keep burning like we're never gonna die, fire baby, fire baby, love, fire baby, fire baby, love

The wind roared around the baby rhino calf, a tempest that surrounded her and ran through her veins like blood. This was her home, the young horned beast who had only been alive for a few, small, sweet days. The twister was at the heart of her spirit, and she ran among the winds with such courage and bravery. They did not scare her, despite being still so young and so small. She rode them, her hooves hammering the hard, wind carved earth. Sometimes her muscles fought against the wind, but always she was brought back to align with them.

Nemesis ran in circles around the twister, her eyes bright and her heart racing. She felt so alive, but she had always had this spirit. Even when she was first hatched, her world was roaring with the screams of the wind, and the fierce energy was in her blood. She would grow strong on these winds, a fight in her bones that would not settle for less than perfect.

In her training-- she had been born running and she would not stop, the stampede was who she was-- Nem fought to unlock her magick. So young, she had little control over it, but once the rhythm hit her pounding hoofbeats, the energy in her bright orange, spike-nested crystal crackled. A flick of fire flew through her blood, to her fiery feet, where the magick would spark, and bond to the air that roared around her.

;; post roll

With the air roaring around her, the fire caught. Flames licked at her ankles, leaving her mark in the twister, a wide, furious circle. The tail of fire spread out behind her, begging for the air that flew so strong around her. She managed to hold the taste of power for a moment, but with the vortex's endless circle, the air was always too strong, too fierce, for her to hold the smolder step for more than a few paces.

Like a candle, Nemesis had been blown out as soon as she had found her flame, and the wax crumpled and she stumbled to a stop.

"Damn it!" She barked, throwing her head around, tail lashing. "I WILL get this!" The wind hissed and tried to tug her into the tempest, but she huffed and stormed out of reach of its nasty, strong claws. She could only stay close as long as she ran, and for now she was out of breath and burnt out.

He didn't know what possessed him to return to the wind room, but Phineas was there, clinging to the ground with his wide paws as best he could as it buffeted him carelessly.

The first time he'd come here, he had been thrown into a trench by the strong gale. Now he was a little bigger and more in control of himself. His claws were unsheathed and he gripped the ground with all the strength he could muster in his paws. It was incredibly slow-going, but it was worth it when he raised his squinted eyes and saw the incredible heart of Monoceros.

It was a twisting tower of wind, so strong and fast it could be seen visibly as a whirling distortion. Phineas' attention remained on the vortex as he took slow, tentative steps forward. He tried to ignore how the wind ripped at his fur and made his stomach flutter with nerves. He tried to fight the knowledge that he could not get much closer without being whipped away by the strong wind. Curiosity willed him onward even though it was dangerous.

That is, until a brilliant, but brief flash of fire light caught his eyes. Phineas couldn't widen them with the wind scraping across them, but if he could, they would've been large as dinner plates as a voice cried out from the gale. Nemesis was barely visible to the right of the twister, a larger Gembound than any he had seen thus far. From here, though, her orange gem seemed almost luminescent.

"Hey!" Phineas called out as loudly as he possibly could. The twister threatened him greatly, but his interest in Nemesis, and whatever she'd just done, made him brazen. He took another step forward, then another, and soon he was as near to Nemesis as she was to the twister. A strong gust of wind swept by him, though, and he struggled to keep his feet on the ground.

Phineas attempts to keep his balance.

He was too small, too young and too unstable, though, and the wind knocked him over at last and sent him tumbling away... but then, just as quickly as he fell, the twister's force caught him and began sucking him inward while he grappled at the ground.

A faint voice, a Word, came to the rhino's ears. Words came from gembounds, just like her, and it was cruical that she listen. Swerving her head in a wide arc towards to noise, the wind buffeted her face and made her ears fly back. Mrf.

There, on the far side of the whirlwind, was the gembound. This one was small, like the others, but it was built more like bulk than Fang. Definitely not a creature of wind. Perhaps something more like Louie, more like small fumes, or maybe water or earth. The thing had called to her, however, and still being of sweet innocence she saw no reason not to charge headfirst in to save the struggling gembound.

A rhino's charge, even a young one's, was hard to steer off course. Her body pelted through the cyclone, clipping the edge of the strong winds she had run along, racing to get to the animal in time. Even she would find it hard to rescue something that got too close to the eye of the storm.

;; post roll

The wind gave way to the massive beast as she bolted towards the young lynx, too small, too weak to fight the twister. This creature had not been born to the wind, and so it would not know how to handle it. But she did. She knew it because in some small way, it was all apart of who she was. Her horn carved a path straight to the slipping cub, and without so much as a step out of place she scooped the small gembone up and barreled far out of reach of the strong, billowing gusts.

Pride swelled in the beast's heart as she slowed to a stop by the ledges. Hot air blew from the pockets above, reminding her of the brimstone that flowed in her veins. Gently, the rhino lowered her head again and set down the lynx gingerly.

"Now just what're you doing?" She huffed, her tail twitching. The poor thing had almost been taken by the storm! Why would it do such a reckless, careless thing like stray so close? Nevermind that she herself had literally been running around in the outskirting winds of the twister.

Though he struggled to keep a grip on the floor, Phineas could find almost no purchase. The howling wind sucked him in, effortlessly, like he was little more than a bit of paper. He was done for and he knew it without ever really knowing how.

He squeezed his eyes shut and readied himself to be devoured by the wind tunnel, but then he was roughly hoisted up and moving. He remained as deathly still as he possibly could as Nemesis thundered out of the wind's way. Maybe if he played dead, she wouldn't eat him.

He was set back down on the ground, and only then did he open a single turquoise eye to gaze at his saviour. She was a strange looking beast, much larger than the others he'd encountered (as he'd known from a distance, but it was far more obvious up close), with a brilliant orange gem seated on her face. She didn't look exactly friendly, either, and he winced at her question as if physically slapped.

"N-nothing!" squeaked Phineas, shrinking down as though to hide in the floor. "Y-you were..." but his voice died off, because one look at her told him that she could do things he could never dream of, and that trying to explain that he was doing it to copy her was just ridiculous given their size different.

For whatever reason, Nemesis took the tiny feline's mumbling for a question, and stepping-- or maybe stomping-- back, she tossed her head to the sky with the air of a young girl who wanted to be princess in a game of tag. "I was training! Becoming one with the wind, and all that. You know a fire can't live without air, yes?" With a rough snort, she bowed her head again to look the sack of scrawny fur in the eyes.

"What are you doing here? This is Queen territory. Do you have permission to be here?" She asked, scoffing lightly. He hadn't done anything wrong so she wasn't going to chase him out or anything... He cowered nicely and made her feel quite powerful, which was about the best way to stay on Nemesis' good side: don't look like a threat. She considered things for a moment, and then grinned a wide, wicked grin of (probably reassuringly flat) teeth. "Well, you have permission now, I guess. I saved your life so you owe me and junk."

With a flick of her tail, swatting away invisible flies some more, she turned to face the cyclone again. She supposed she should tell Fang about the intruder, but who knows where she was. "... Wanna see the best place in all of Monoceros?" She offered, sounding surprisingly friendly for a moment.