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Inertia
Mar 24, 2020 6:36:35 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 24, 2020 6:36:35 GMT -6
While she was angrily chatting away at Silver for nearly dropping her, something caught her eye. It was an odd color compared to the grass around it. She released her claws from their gloves and pointed at the thing she saw in the grass over there. She pointed more aggressively and squeaked loudly.
"What is it?" Silver asked. Clearly she wanted something, so they knelt down and took a look at it. There was an off-white spot in the grass near where she was pointing. Was that what she wanted? Silver stood back up, took a few awkward steps, then squatted back down so they could see what it was. It appeared to be a stone of some sort. Actually, there were two of them, one in white and one in black. It seemed weird that she was so interested in them, but maybe she just didn't know what it was and was curious.
6
[95.15 - 1.2]
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Inertia
Mar 24, 2020 6:42:40 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 24, 2020 6:42:40 GMT -6
"Is this what you wanted? A rock?" Silver asked. They tried to remember to use a lot of words around Kabuki so she could hopefully pick some of them up for herself. It would be ideal if they could fully communicate, but they knew it would take a long time to get to that point. For now they would just over-emphasize words and hope that she picked some important ones up.
Kabuki shook her head and leaped down into the grass. It wasn't a far jump, but it still startled Silver a bit and they instinctively reached out to catch her. Ultimately, they let her go and investigate and pulled their paws back as not to disturb her too much. Even if their first instinct was to protect her, they needed to give her space to discover and learn things for herself. That's part of what this trip was about, after all. They would just have to keep a good eye on that mysterious old mansion so it didn't pull anything funny while she was exposed.
7
[95.2 - 1.4]
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Inertia
Mar 24, 2020 6:45:33 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 24, 2020 6:45:33 GMT -6
"What do you think it is? The rock?" Silver asked. They kept saying the word 'rock' to get it to stick, but Kabuki shook her head. She tapped on the object a few times with her claws to solidify her conclusion. She did not think it was an ordinary rock. If she even understood fully what they meant by asking that, that is.
What she did next was rather surprising. She made a peeping sound, like a baby bird, then pointed to the object. Peep. Peep. It was a harsh sound coming from her, so Silver didn't understand it at first. Why was she squeaking like that? Then they realized that it sounded like a bird call and everything fell together.
"Do you think that's an egg? Like a baby? Egg?" Silver repeated the important words in the conversation as always, but also because they had trouble believing her hypothesis.
8
[95.25 - 1.6]
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Inertia
Mar 24, 2020 6:53:38 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 24, 2020 6:53:38 GMT -6
"You know, you might be right," Silver said. Kabuki looked smug at their concession. While she might not know the words, she was very clever and could see the shift in their tone. She had to be really sensitive to that kind of nonverbal communication in order to understand others, especially if she was to protect herself from humans much larger than herself. Knowing when someone was leaning toward angry gave her plenty of time to form an escape plan. It wasn't likely that she'd ever have that sort of trouble with Silver, of course, but she didn't know them well enough to make that call yet.
"Are you an egg?" Silver asked the object as though it could respond. They could say that they were doing it for Kabuki's sake, but they generally did that anyway. They reached down and gently touched the black one, eventually lifting it up to turn it around in their hands.
9
[95.3 - 1.8]
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Inertia
Mar 24, 2020 6:57:41 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 24, 2020 6:57:41 GMT -6
"If this is an egg," they continued, "then I wonder where the mother might be. There's not a nest or anything. Is it a magical egg?" A ton of weird situations started to run through their head. Nothing around here was ever as it appeared to be. The fact that the egg-like-object caught Kabuki's attention had to mean something. Had it been calling out to her? It didn't feel magical like some things often did, and for that matter it didn't feel especially warm or alive, either.
They couldn't just leave it, mother or no mother, life or no life. If there was a chance a baby creature was in these eggs, they had to take care of them. They pulled a bandanna out of their bag and wrapped them both up gently. Kabuki watched on curiously. She wondered what they were going to do with them once they were wrapped up. Were they going to carry them around now? They better not take up too much space where she could be sitting!
10
[95.35 - 2]
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Inertia
Mar 24, 2020 13:26:04 GMT -6
Post by Renathan on Mar 24, 2020 13:26:04 GMT -6
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Inertia
Mar 28, 2020 6:39:32 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 28, 2020 6:39:32 GMT -6
Kabuki was already bored of the weird egg rocks on the ground, so she looked up at Silver expectantly. She tapped her foot on the grass which made no sound and did little to make her look more intimidating. When Silver finally realized that she was doing it, they gently lifted her out of the grass and tried to convince her to sit on their shoulder. She was reluctant to do so, as she wanted to be carried like before.
"C'mon, sit up here. It'll be more comfortable and I can use both of my paws. Okay?" Kabuki didn't seem convinced. "Please? Look at how far you can see from up here! You'll have the first eye on everything!" Now they had a point which the illustrated by waving their paw across the landscape. Kabuki eventually made a grumbling noise, but did climb up onto their shoulder. Only after she was offered her precious flower, however.
11
[96.35 - 2.2]
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Inertia
Mar 28, 2020 6:42:17 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 28, 2020 6:42:17 GMT -6
"There! Now you're queen of the castle!" Kabuki would like the sound of that if she fully understood it. The whole concept of queens and castles were a little bit beyond her linguistic capabilities at the moment. They weren't words that came up very often, despite being so ubiquitous in meaning.
Silver wanted to spend more time studying the weird flora that existed during this time of year, but they were sure they would not get as much research done as they would like. With both Kabuki and the mansion itself there to play tricks on them, they were not expecting to be productive in any way. That was fine with them, though. What they really wanted was to spend some quality time with Kabuki and bond with her a little bit. Well that was the plan anyway. So far it wasn't going swimmingly, but they had plenty of time to sort it all out.
12
[96.4 - 2.4]
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Inertia
Mar 28, 2020 6:45:31 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 28, 2020 6:45:31 GMT -6
There it was. The heartbeat of magic. They could feel it in their heart stone. Silver reached into the bag they had put the eggs in, just to check them. They were still fine, and most importantly, not the source of the magical feeling. No, that was more... over there. At the base of that tree. Trees were neat, right? They could study those, too, maybe. Any excuse they could come up with in their head in order to justify investigating what they knew to be potentially dangerous magic.
Kabuki's bright pink eyes sparkled with the blue light of the lanterns as they approached the tree. They were so beautiful! She must have one for herself, but she was so far away from the ground, now! She tugged on Silver's hair and pointed at the lantern, then to herself. 'Give me,' she might as well be saying. She was not being very subtle, but it was hard not to be direct with the language barrier.
13
[96.45 - 2.6]
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Inertia
Mar 28, 2020 6:49:35 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 28, 2020 6:49:35 GMT -6
"Wah!" Silver shouted in surprise as their hair was pulled. "Ah, what did you do... oh, you want that lantern? Okay."
Silver picked up the lantern only to find out that it was in fact two lanterns. They were stuck together, so they grabbed both of them. "There's two lanterns," they said rather obviously. They were still working on that language thing, after all. They went to hand the lanterns to Kabuki only to find out that they were pretty big in comparison to her. They were light enough, but she probably wouldn't be able to carry them around as they traveled.
"Why don't I hold on to these, okay? You can look at them whenever you want. See? I'll hang them on my bag." Silver tied them to the handle of their bag so that they could dangle down and Kabuki could keep looking at them. She seemed satisfied with this compromise, or at least she didn't pull their hair again.
14
[96.4 - 2.8]
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Inertia
Mar 28, 2020 6:53:11 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 28, 2020 6:53:11 GMT -6
As pretty as they were, the lanterns were not the source of the magical humming in their ears. They rubbed the side of their head and tried to figure out where the feeling was coming from. It wasn't exactly like a sound or a smell where they could just follow it. Magic was more subtle than that, and somehow less, all at the same time. They frowned as they looked around.
Kabuki scratched at Silver's face, leaving a tiny drop of blood and a little cut on their cheek. "Ah! Hey. You're about to lose shoulder privlages!" they said. They rubbed the spot where the blood was coming from and looked at their fingers to confirm that it was actually blood.
"Fine, if you want to get down, be my guest," Silver said. They leaned down and allowed Kabuki to climb down to the ground again. Would they be doing this the whole time they were exploring? They did want to say that they didn't mind the distraction, but the ever increasing beating of magic in their bones was confusing them more than usual.
15
[96.45 - 3]
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Inertia
Mar 28, 2020 14:09:40 GMT -6
Post by Renathan on Mar 28, 2020 14:09:40 GMT -6
 Two lonely lanterns swing in the breeze... |
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Inertia
Mar 30, 2020 6:25:42 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 30, 2020 6:25:42 GMT -6
Kabuki would be fine on her own. She didn't need Silver to help her. She huffed and stomped away after something she had seen that caught her attention. As much as she didn't want to admit it, they were right. She did see more things from the higher vantage point. Something stuck on a tree branch caught her attention and she must have it. She could probably convince Silver to grab it for her, but she wanted to do it herself to prove that she could.
Meanwhile, Silver was still looking for the source of magic. Eventually the humming in their ears led them to a strange crystal on the ground. They were reluctant to touch it. This had to be where the magical feeling was coming from. They knew how magic crystals worked, or at least they knew that they worked and as much as they were drawn to it, they weren't sure what to do once they found it.
16
[96.9 - 3.2]
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Inertia
Mar 30, 2020 6:29:07 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 30, 2020 6:29:07 GMT -6
Well, damn. Kabuki was far from being able to reach the thing she found in the tree. It was a glittering decoration of some kind with many little jewels. She quite liked jewels and wanted it for herself. She looked over at Silver. They were busy doing some other thing. She hissed to herself and tried to come up with a plan. She was small, but she was clever enough to overcome this problem, she was sure of it.
Eventually, Silver gave in. They reached out and touched the crystal. Gently at first they brushed it with the pads at the tip of their fingers, then finally grasped it. It didn't harm them. In fact, it felt kind of nice. Silver knew that crystals like this could have incredible power, but they had never found one like this before. The ones they had hidden away were brilliant and full of light, but this one seemed... hollow.
17
[96.95 - 3.4]
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Inertia
Mar 30, 2020 6:40:23 GMT -6
Post by Silver on Mar 30, 2020 6:40:23 GMT -6
It was an almost perfectly clear crystal, devoid of any distinct markings or color. That was almost more interesting to them than the part about the magic. Magic usually had an elemental affinity, or so they had read when trying to figure out what to do regarding their own magic. There were some spells, however, that were not allied to any particular element that they knew about. Could this crystal aid with such things? They weren't sure, and they were honestly pretty confused about it.
Kabuki was looking around at the landscape, scoping out all of the rocks and branches to see which one she could climb up on. There were some good ones, but none close enough to get her into that tree. Well, unless she used her wings. She didn't like to rely on her wings since she was still not too good with them yet, but she didn't see any other options at the moment.
18
[97 - 3.6]
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