Within the deep lagoon, nestled within the coral and the seaweed was a beautiful gem, gleaming blue and green and harboring life within. As light danced across the surface, it glimmered in different colors and cast rainbow tinted shadows on the rocks and weeds around it. There was a shadow within, something curled, something with a tail, the fins gentled wrapped around its head. It would surely be a beautiful creature, as beautiful as its gem. And there was no doubt that this was something new.

There was a shift in the shadows as a small spark of consciousness flared to life. The thing, whatever it was, was awakening. The creature stirred. And it began to stretch, its long tail trying to unravel and pressing against the confines of its shell. When it came to a standstill, the thing pressed harder. And harder. Cracks began to dance across the surface of the chrysalis, it wobbled, it shook, and in one swift move, it broke. There was a burst of color and bubbles as the chrysalis was shattered. The gem pieces were thrown up from the force but then slowly began to sink against while a burst of sea-green fluid drifted up around the center of the break. As it finally began to clear, water, cool and clean, rushed into the creatures gills and they took their first breath.

And they were ugly. It's scaleless skin a horrible gray color and stretched thin over its gangly body. It didn't look at all natural, nothing like any other creature. At the sight of it, any curious fish nearby turned and darted away as it moved and uncoiled itself.

Two thin arms, a long, swishing tail with a partially developed tail fin. Any other fins across its body hadn't grown in yet. It barely even had any webbing on its hands. Only a few tiny strands of air adorned its otherwise bald head, sticking out like little spikes.

As seconds began to pass, sight clouded into the little one's vision and she looked around this new world for the first time. Everything was very bright, compared to the darkness she had been living in before. She found herself wanting to retreat to darker, deeper waters, find a nice cave to hide in until she was hungry, but, as far as she could tell, this was the darkest place in the lagoon. She frowned. Well, what was she supposed to do then? If she couldn't hide nor find the darker places then what was the first step? She wasn't hungry, no, the nutrients from the chrysalis still sated her appetite.

So she glanced up and found an even brighter world above. She wondered if the light was supposed to be where she was supposed to go. She didn't like that, no, she much rather preferred the dark but her life had come in light. Perhaps there was more...?

So the creature began moving. It was slow and awkward as she learned how to swim and consisted mostly of wiggling her body, but she finally made it to the top of the water. As she broke the surface, she suddenly found that she could no longer breath from the gills above her mouth. It was a shock at first and she dipped back below the surface, breathing in the water deep before she realized that she could still safely stick her head above the water and just breath from the gills in her side.

So she did just that, emerging again but being careful not to raise herself farther then her shoulders. Now this world was very interesting. Much different then the one beneath the waves, although, to be honest, she much preferred the underwater. But she couldn't help being curious. She stayed like that for a little while, trying to take in all the sights of the world above, wondering if she was supposed to leave her watery sanctuary. She wasn't very sure what to do.

"Speech"Thought

From his icy chambers at the bottom of the lagoon he watched; when life first began to propagate above him, he retained his chilled aura and froze the immediate area around himself, to contain the cold around him. When it hatched, he quested for it. He had not frozen it before it could be born, at least. He was relieved. It journeyed through the lagoon, to the deep caverns and then to the surface, but he could not see more than its stone. What creature had been born from him, from Pisces?

The ice around him cracked, releasing air toward the surface as bubbles of various size, some large and slow, others tiny and fast. Hello, Tenzin thought as the bubbles escaped to make their own journey to the surface.

The creature felt a stirring in the water nearby and felt a burst of air touch her gills, almost like a hiccup. She looked back down into the water and was fascinated by the large things that were floating to the top, only to burst around her as they breached the surface. Curious, she dived back down, wiggling as strong as she could and paddling wildly with her webless hands. She watched the bubbles float up, cocking her head with curiosity.

She stopped swimming and instead hovered in the water, curiously reaching out to touch one of the things. As her claws came in contact, it split in two and continued to rise. As more of them floated past her, she tried it again, cutting a nice large one into a number of smaller ones. Her face split into wide, ugly grin and she began to slash and poke at the bubbles rising around her, pushing herself through some of them and watching them turn into a million tiny pockets of air.

After a little bit of this, she stopped and began to wonder about what these were. Where they came from. So she twisted herself so that she was facing the bottom of the lagoon and swam as strong as she could, following the line of bubbles down deeper then she had known was there. This was more like it.

There was something there, something that chilled the water and she smiled with pleasure. Ah, dark, deep, cold water. This was what felt natural to her, homey, even. And then she came upon the source of the bubbles. A sheet of something shiny, cracked, and a shadow underneath. Was this kind of like the gem she had broken out of? Was something else hatching?

A strange noise came from her throat, a soft echoing cry of wonder and question as she inspected the cracked ice. Is someone there? She spoke in an incomprehensible language the twisted through the water, like waves on the rocks and echoes in the deep. It was a haunting, chilling, and unnatural noise but to the creature, she was simply asking a question.

"Speech"Thought

@Game Master CJ

Her strength in swimming surprised him, that she could reach nearly a mile down into the lagoon to discover his place of hibernation. There was a sound, an aquatic language that traveled only through the water, and he smiled from his place within the ice.

"Tenzin," he offered his name, shifting his massive wings slowly to turn himself, silvery-blue eyes opening beneath the ice to search for her small figure. She was truly a creature of Pisces, he thought. "Do you know your name? It is a word that means yourself. It is unique to you."

@Lamia

She heard the voice as if within her head and it surprised her so much that she gnashed her teeth in a nervous fashion. She didn't know anything could do that. Of course, she had only minutes ago, she did not know yet what was or was not possible. But still, if she couldn't do it then she did not understand how others could do it.

The opening eye, however, was not so surprising, only the size of it. She knew something was down there but this thing was quite big. Much bigger then she expected. Curious and interested, she swam a little closer, almost until she was up against the ice. Tenzin? A name? A word that meant her. She made some strange rumbling, meaningless echoes in the water before she came up with a name that she felt suited her. Lamia, she answered in the strange language as before. My word is Lamia and it means myself.
"Speech"Thought

@Game Master CJ

His eye shifted with subtle movements as he watched her move closer, then his large head nodded slowly within the water. "Hello, Lamia," he greeted. "That is a nice name. It is yours, and you will meet others with different names. Most of them live outside of the water," he commented, unable to see her clearly through the ice.

"When you breached the surface, could you breathe the air out there?" he asked, wondering if her life would be contained to the water systems of the caves or if she might slither the land someday.

Lamia tilted her head as her hands reached forward to press against the ice, watching Tenzin with rapt attention. Such a huge eye, such a large creature. And such an ancient voice. It spoke in her head in a different language then her own but she understood his meaning, just as he understood hers. How this was possible she did not know but she at least know that, perhaps, she'd found her first friend.

She smiled at the thought, showing off rows of tiny, needle-sharp teeth. Thank you, she murmured through the water. I am glad I have a nice name. Her tail flicked in a sign of happiness, fanning out to show her pleasure. It was her first experience of such an emotion and she found it a pleasant one and decided that she wanted to be happy. Always happy. She did not want to be anything else.

She thought a moment about Tenzin's next question. Air? I do not know what this is. But I could not breathe when my head was above the waves. There is no water to fill my lungs.
"Speech"Thought

@Game Master CJ

There was content and happiness. He wished others could feel as simply as that, but it was unfortunate that most of the beings were so complex. Even Lamia might be more complex. Tenzin wished well for her happiness, that she remember and cherish it when it might falter. He considered her response and how he might explain air to her.

"Air is what other creatures breathe, those that live outside of the water," he tried to explain. "You will come to know these things, it is okay to not know them right now. But there is water in the air, and in time, you will learn to breathe the water in the air—it is not as easy as breathing the water you live in, and will take use of your magic to do so." He wondered if she was even aware of her magic yet. "Such it is to be yourself, Lamia of the Lagoon, Lamia of Pisces."

@Lamia

Lamia rolled this new information in her head, trying to connect it to what she understood. But what is it that she did understand? The list was very short and was mostly just instinctual things: the dark and cold are good. Keep swimming to keep living. Water is for breathing. She could not breathe when not in water. So, perhaps air was water for everyone else. Or just whatever was there when there was not water or anything else. "I...understand." Although, in truth, she wasn't fully there yet.

There was a word that Tenzin said that she also did not understand. She was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to repeat the word back. She did not know how to communicate this word naturally - it was out of her vocabulary. "What is that? The thing you said. That I will use to breathe. I do not know of it." She said some other things in her watery language but they were incomprehensible, more of her testing sounds to try and find the word for 'magic'.
"Speech"Thought

@Game Master CJ

"Magic," he repeated. Chilled water, air, and ice glistened around him within his confined space. "It is your life-force. You will come to know it, it is a natural part of you," Tenzin explained slowly, shifting around in his icy domain. "Yours is the element of water, but you may learn other elements as time goes on." He felt a small smile tug at his cheeks. He created the original water creatures, and now the Gembound were born from their stones—he wondered who Lamia had been before, but it didn't matter. She was here now, and now was all he focused on anymore. It was too much to recall thousands of years of work, war, and waiting.

"When you breach the lagoon's surface again, do not be afraid when you cannot breathe. You must focus on breathing the water in the air. It will not be simple at first, but with use you will get better at it," the phoenix repeated, but didn't want to complicate it by adding more information than necessary at the moment.

@Lamia