Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

[skysung]

Who: A very disgruntled and possibly aggressive dragon kit
Open: Wide open! (unlike the door will be; Kitten can't reach doorknobs)
When: Day 152, afternoon
Where: Near the arrival point in the Bastion, or locked into whatever building you like
What: Kitten arrives and has questions. ...Also she didn't know about spell limits.
Format: Prose preferred but I'll match!
Warnings: Don't antagonize an angry dragon?

Kitten is very disoriented upon arrival on the plains. It isn't just the shifting of the ground around her, appearing as she moves. She reaches her magic down into it, the way she'd check for faultlines, but fails to learn anything of use. The circumstances allowing for kidnap of a dragon are few, and yet here she is, in a strange place unlike any of which she is aware in either the Mortal or Divine realms.

Noticing something on her wrist, Kitten claws at it, wondering whether it is the mechanism of her capture. She can sense something from the amulet, but it is an unfamiliar magic if it is magic at all.

For lack of any better plan, the dragon starts out for what seems like a beacon. She plants her feet firmly even with the knowledge that the ground on which she steps only appeared there moments ago. When she is finally picked up and taken to the Bastion, it's her first flight not clutched carefully in the talons of a grandparent; she is still far too young to fly, her wings underdeveloped.

She can see buildings, signs of life, in the Bastion. And so, Kitten shouts into the mind of anyone unfortunate enough to be within her range, doing her best to sound competent and intimidating, "WHERE AM I!? Why have you brought me here? Where are my parents? They had best be safe!"

That will do for a starting point.

Once she has either received at least a few answers or been thoroughly ignored, Kitten shifts the color of her scales. She blends chameleonlike into the area around her as she chooses a building to explore. A soft whistle, and the door opens on its own. She pushes it shut gently, quietly, and sneaks through the rooms unseen, doing her best to muffle any noise of claws on floor. Only someone with better hearing than human is likely to notice her footsteps.

The whistles are more audible, as are the latches of doors as they open at her voice and are shut carefully behind her. The fourth door, however, poses a problem.

Kitten senses no magic in it, but it won't open. Immediately, she turns around to head back the way she came, running at the door and whistling shrilly without any regard for stealth or silence. It stays shut. Kitten casts a bitter glance upward at the handle of the door, beyond her reach.

Hopefully someone comes to investigate before she takes drastic measures. You do like your doors and your buildings in one piece, I suppose.

Comments

[findsrisks]

That sure is some loud shouting coming from the path to the Skyway.

Nanaki glances around first, looking to see if anyone more qualified to talk to a giant shouting dragon without worrying about getting hurt (like Paar, or maybe Rin) is around. But she sees nobody, so she decides to cautiously approach.

When she gets closer, she can see that this dragon isn't nearly as large as the other dragon that lives in the Bastion. Still, big thing with claws makes Nanaki a touch nervous. "Er, hi?"

Totally the best way to start a conversation.

I should have specified size more accurately, sorry!

[skysung]

Kitten is actually quite small. About forty five inches long, and a third of that is her tail. Her scales give away her actual mood to anyone who knows her well enough. Kitten is angry, yes, but she's also scared, and her scales are much pinker than the usual red of anger. She'd like to outgrow her involuntary color shifts. Then she can hide how she feels sometimes and just stay blue.

A small snort of smoke accompanies her response to Nanaki's greeting. "Do you have any answers, or just the greeting?" She's impatient, and Kitten has no parents or horse here to lecture here about her lack of manners.

Oh WHOOPS |D sorry

[findsrisks]

That's still 'way too big' in Nanaki's books. She's pretty sure Kitten is big enough to knock her down if she really tried, which is the worrisome part.

But Nanaki will still go ahead and answer Kitten's questions as best as she can, even if Kitten is being impatient. "I don't have all the answers, but I know some things, so maybe I can help you? It might be best to start at the beginning, though."

[skysung]

Being knocked over should be the least of anyone's concerns when it comes to dragons. The firebreathing, the bone-shattering whistles... those are a little more dangerous.

Kitten is still short on patience and tolerance. Rather than thanking Nanaki for offering to explain, she just says, "So long as you start!"

[findsrisks]

The bone-shattering whistles are actually something Nanaki does not know about. She is rather lacking on experience with dragons. But she does start explaining when Kitten prompts her to, though she hesitates a bit on some of her words. "Alright, alright. Well, This place here is the Bastion. See, everything went kind of...wrong. Explosions, fires, stuff like that. It's not very pretty out there, especially not with the monsters and stuff. But in here, it's safe."

[skysung]

"Where is my world? Why am I not in it? Had I been dropped in a safe haven in the Divine Realms that would be one thing, easily reversible and a favor for which I'd be grateful." She shakes her head. It isn't. She's not anywhere connected to home or she'd be gone already. Even a baby dragon can move between realms at will.

"How did we get here, and how can I get home?" Stern and serious for most of it, the word 'home' carries a hint of longing. She wants her mama and her papa. Speaking mind to mind, there's only so much Kitten can do to hide how off-balance she's been left by the stark unfamiliarity of the situation.

[blackblooded]

The hallway of the apartments is full of odd whistles. Crona, not really knowing how to deal with odd whistles, does not open the door into the hallway until the whistles start sounding very frustrated. Then, cautiously, Crona walks out into the hallway.

A tiny dragon. The meister was not expecting to see a dragon so different from the little one currently curled in a patch of sunlight on the floor of Crona's apartment.

"H-hello." A friendly greeting, even though this dragon might not understand. "Do you need help?"

[skysung]

"I need my magic back! Bad enough to be brought here against my will and told all manner of terrible things, but this on top of it? Why don't my spells work?" Kitten has spent her whole day on edge and with very little patience. The lack of so basic a spell is one more frustration added to too many preceding it. She learned how to open doors with her voice at only a year or two of age. At sixteen, she is now trapped, unable to open a simple door with not a single ward or spell upon it.

For dragons, magic is a sense as much as an ability to be harnessed. The eating away at her repertoire of spells is very nearly the greatest possible worry for Kitten, second only to bad things happening to those she cares about. This has not been a good day.

[blackblooded]

"You can only use spells three times a day." Magic. There's so much magic here. Crona will never really be comfortable with that.

"After three times things don't work as well."

[skysung]

"Am I to be as helpless here as a human babe, then? I cannot even open the door without magic!" Kitten shoots the doorknob a pointed look as she speaks into Crona's mind, snorting in annoyance. Sure enough, it's higher than her head, and probably impossible to reach no matter how she strains. Kitten would have to move furniture underneath it and clamber up. She cannot even manage that much without magic unless the furniture is lightweight.

Kitten was in such a temper a moment ago she probably would have tried to destroy the door before thinking to open it like a reasonable being. She may be an intelligent mage and a dragon, but she is still just a baby.

"What do you mean by 'not as well'?"

[blackblooded]

"Sometimes it works. It usually doesn't." Crona puts a hand on the doorknob, not opening it yet. "I'm sure you'll be able to find someone to make a thing that can open doors for you."

[skysung]

"Is each spell limited to three uses per day, or is three the total number of any spell? Do spells rebound or cause problems after three attempts, or can I keep trying without consequence?"

She doesn't address the second part of what Crona said yet. The reassurance rings hollow because doors aren't actually what she's most worried about. They're just one more frustration piled on top of a whole series of concerns. Instead of thanks, Crona gets more questions. Kitten never seems to run short on those.

"Will I lose other magical abilities too? I can't talk without it. Will I be limited to three conversations per day?" She feels a little greedy saying that part, considering how recently she learned to speak into the minds of those around her at all. Kitten lived sixteen years without speech. She could do it again, but she desperately wants to avoid that. "Losing my sense of magic around me would be like losing my sight or my hearing."

[blackblooded]

That's a lot of questions from a very small dragon.

"Three times for anything. Maybe you're allowed to talk with everyone as much as you want, because you need to talk to people."

[freedom_engineer]

[Fortunately for Kitten, Colin's workshop doesn't have lots of closed doors. The workshop itself is wide open in several spots. Loading bay doors? Open. Front door? Open. Supply room door? Propped open. A curious dragon can get in and out without any need to open a single door.]

[As for Colin himself, he's sitting at a work bench, hard at work on a set of radios. He's got good ears, but he isn't paying much attention to the stuff going on around him. Anyone sneaking up on him will be able to get pretty close to him before his proximity alert lets him know something's nearby.]

[skysung]

Kitten is well-camouflaged on her approach, scales matching to the colors of Colin's workshop. The courtesy of open doors is not returned, given who newly arrived she is and how uncomfortable she is with the answers she's received so far.

She makes as little noise as she can manage, but when she finally finds the apparent owner of the workshop, Kitten can't resist approaching more closely. She doesn't know the purpose of most of it, which makes Colin catch her attention. Both of Kitten's parents are mages. She's friends with the dean of the royal university and various palace science instructors. This dragon has spent much of her life in other people's workrooms, but none have been quite like Colin's.

"What are you making?" she asks via mindspeech before realizing he still can't see her. She drops the camouflage from her scales, back to her usual sky blue tinged with gold. Kitten will probably have some questions about the situation here too, but she doesn't want to hear the same answers just yet. Refusing to listen doesn't change things, of course, and if Grandfather Diamondflame were here he'd scold her for being so driven by sentiment. That's the problem, though. He isn't here. He might not be anywhere, if what she's been told is true.

[freedom_engineer]

Colin doesn't seem to react at first, but that's mostly because his eye alerts her to her presence. He tenses ever so slightly in preparation to dodge a potential attack, but otherwise, he doesn't move from his spot or even look up.

When she speaks in his mind, though, he he lifts his head and looks at her. "Oh, you're a telepath," he says. "And a new one here... I see. Hello there!"

He turns his body to the side to reveal the pile of half-assembled technology on the table in front of him. "I'm working on a couple of radios," he says. "And since that may not mean anything to you, it's a set of devices that lets us communicate over long distances."

[skysung]

"What is a telepath? The word is new to me." Manners, Kitten. Even Spots, who would scold her for not at least offering a greeting after skulking through someone's workshop and being greeted as a friend in spite of the invasion. And Spots is a horse, a species would not credit much with manners. "Hello. My name is Skysong, but most call me Kitten. Mama says I have to grow into the name."

She approaches to get a closer look at the radios, not getting too close to the table lest its edge block her view. Kitten stands up on her hind legs and stretches her neck as far as she can. "Mages at home have spells that can do such things, but I've never heard of a radio either. How does it work?"

[freedom_engineer]

Colin is already amused, and he nods slightly. "All right then, Kitten-soon-to-be-Skysong," he tells her. "My name is Colin Starfury, or sometimes Merton when I'm up to no good. And a telepath is someone who has the power to communicate using their minds rather than their voices."

He turns to her more fully, and he grins. "Let me get you a seat so you can take a look," he tells her. He stands from his own bench and goes to get another stool from across the workshop. "I can tell you all about radios, but most people get bored, so... it's basically a system that uses high frequency waves to carry information of all sorts, in this case voices and sounds, across long distances. The radio has a transmitter to broadcast the wave, and a receiver to catch it."

[skysung]

"Not so soon. Dragons grow up slowly. I have over a decade left of infancy." As for the definition, she nods decisively. "All dragons are telepaths, then, once we're old enough. It's only the word that's new. I had help with my mindspeech. As far as I know I am the youngest to learn it in a very long time." Centuries at least. Possibly millenia. That's what happens when an opal dragon wakes up after a twenty century nap and decides it's time you learn to talk in a language your adoptive human family can understand.

She clambers awkwardly up onto the stool, leaning forward and looking closely at the materials on the table. "Waves? Those are how sound travels, I think. But you need something else to take it there, because sound would not go so far on its own." Her scientific education is primarily rooted in biology and geology. Technology is new.

[wayofvoice]

Paarthurnax has actually been away from the Bastion at the time of Kitten's arrival. There's hunting to be done and once he had gotten far enough from the Bastion- a new survivor had been found. He's had a busy morning, needless to say.

His return is always an easy one to notice- any outside can see his shadow falling over the Bastion and those inside can still hear the sound of his large wings. Zuko is left to wander on her own. Normally, he'd promptly return to Dragonfield... but today he pauses as a scent catches his nose. Just what is that...?

[skysung]

That is a very familiar sort of shadow. It's a comforting one, the sort of shadow her grandfather Diamondflame casts when he comes to visit. Even if he isn't a dragon from home, Paarthurnax's shadow is something she knows, something she can latch onto in a day where nothing has been as expected. Kitten runs out underneath the dragon in flight, calling upward in mindspeech, "Paarthurnax?"

Crona mentioned the name earlier.

Kitten is a dragon built along similar lines to Paarthurnax, with a long neck and tail, sturdy scales and claws. She's much smaller, only forty five inches long from her nose to the tip of her tail.

[wayofvoice]

The first time something had pressed into his mind here, it had been the strange feeling of suffocation and terror because of Anna's ability. This is different- no less strange, of course. It brings him down to land, neck already craning to see just who is calling his name.

He's... expecting bigger, but that doesn't dampen the relief he sees at the sign of scales no matter how much more colorful they are than his own mountain colored scales. Still not one of his direct kin, but Paarthurnax considers the tiny little dragon kin all the same.

"Was it you to call me, wul gein?"

[skysung]

"You do speak in human tongues! I never could. I had to communicate nonverbally until I learned mindspeech, since I did not grow up around other dragons. Very few people understood my language." Forgive her for the detour. Her vocal cords can't form any of the words she's spent her life hearing.

Kitten gets back on track quickly, though, in case this particular adult dragon has the kind of temper she's seen in a few residents of the Dragonlands at home. "Yes, it was me. I was told there was another dragon here, and your name. Your shadow was a welcome sight."

hover text wheeee

[wayofvoice]

Fortunately for Kitten, this dragon is quite possibly the most patient thing in the entire Bastion. He listens quietly to her excitedly rambling. It's not as though he cannot understand her excitement, after all. He remembers the way his own soul had lifted when the Dovahkin had finally come to greet him. Meeting one of your own is a joy all its own.

When she finally finishes, Paarthurnax gives a nod of his head in agreement. When he speaks, it's only natural that he reverts back to dovahzul. It is one of his kin- why would he not? Her way of speaking already suggests to him she might understand. "Zu'u ofuun grik lor. Nid do dii siifur fron lost meyz voth zey het. Vorey los pruzah du'un, nuz wah koraav hin vrii los frund zaarein. Gesaag zey, mal gein, lost hi kosaan taught vir mu greet gein aanvorey voth un Thu'um uv los tol vofun ko hin lein?"

It's a question he feels he must ask. Things are so different elsewhere and she has already admitted to not being able to speak as he does.

[skysung]

Kitten chirps in quiet contentment at the compliment implied in his comment about her scales. She does have to shake her head in response to the question. She can see the differences in their scales, hear the difference in their speech, but Paarthurnax reminds her of the elder dragons she actually likes. It is strange to think he's from another world entirely.

"Thu'um is not a language nor a culture that I know of. As infants, every dragon I've met before you spoke in a language that few other than gods and dragons recognize as words rather than mere sounds. Eventually we grow into our mindspeech and can speak to anyone. Mine is a very recently learned skill." Which is a large part of why she's such a talkative child. Sixteen years of a language barrier leaves a lot of talking to be done.