Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sune. Was that...leg? He thought so. He continued his approach until he was semi-close to the child fox, eying her leg. Yep, that would need binding. Looking around, he could see some twigs on the ground. Perhaps those could be used to bind it, if he could find some vines. He peered up at the tree - sure enough, there were a few vines wrapped around the trunk, a bit higher up. Fortunately, he had wings, unlike the little fox. "Matte." That was wait, right?

Spreading his leathery wings, he took to the air a bit shakily. He hadn't flew in awhile, and as such was unaccustomed to the oddness of flight. He began to ascend slowly, careful to avoid branches, and then he snapped off a bit of the vines with his beak. Hopefully Kayou was still waiting at the base of the tree.

Coiling down gracefully, the serpent began his descent only to see the little fox trying to fly herself. He couldn't help but give a soft hiss of laughter - that was possibly the most adorable thing he'd ever seen. Perhaps once he'd bound her leg, he could try and teach her. Flying between species would likely be similar, since they all had the same flight stroke, the same general wing position.

Gliding down to the ground, he collected two twigs in addition to the vines, which now lay over a wing as a human would hold something over their shoulder. Having collected the necessary materials, he turned back to Kayou and began to approach her, slowly, steadily. If she tried to dash again it would invariably injure her leg even worse, and he wasn't positive that he would be able to catch such an agile creature.

The serpent, seeing her move, immediately froze. Oh, snap. This wasn't enough to stop her movement, however, and the little thing eventually just sort of...fell over. Immediately he rushed over, not waiting for a further cue. Shock was a terrible thing. After a moment of ruffling under her fur with his nose, though, he managed to recognize a healthy pulse. Of course, finding a pulse with no hands like a human was a difficult process, and took quite a bit of time, by which point (if she had been in shock) she would've been dead. Oops.

Quickly Iro set about to binding the fracture with the twigs and vines, maneuvering his wing-claws extremely carefully in an attempt not to sever the vines. Though he could do delicate procedures, the risk of laceration was high, and slitting the fox's throat wasn't exactly a kind gesture. Once he was satisfied with the rather rickety and unfortunately semi-ineffective cast, he settled down next to her, stretching out on his belly. The weather here had been pleasant so far, and though the fear of a predator remained for the young fox, he felt that his presence would be enough of a deterrent for most. Regardless, his ears twitched around nervously, listening to the sounds of his surroundings, waiting for some sign of consciousness from the foreign-speaking foxling.

((Haha, nice. Although not for the person who ended up in a ditch. How'd they manage that?))

Iro lazily turned his head towards Kayou, watching her. Oh, this was a problem. He thought for a moment. With the humans gone, the Dustlings...would they become feral, with time? Would they become the animals they were thought to be? Without communication, without language...Suddenly the world seemed to be a much more terrifying place, nearly horrific in nature. Something had to be done.

But for the moment, this little one was his charge. He thought back to his previous instruction in the strange, symbolic language and came up with nothing. Instead he stretched out a long wing and placed it on her back, pushing with a gentle, but firm pressure. "Rest." It was in English, but hopefully she understood a little.

((I don't understand how you can just...ignore barriers like that, you know? It's like, "Oooh, there's an orange thing and a big "ROAD CLOSED" sign, let's go!" But I can't drive, either.))

He jumped as she yipped, and considered calling to her as she went, but he realized it would do no good. She couldn't understand him. Regardless he followed, at quite a distance just to be safe, until he saw the abandoned shack. Iro ogled at it for a moment. How long had this thing been here? He scanned it from foundation to roof, noting the solar panels. Quite sophisticated, yet also in decently bad shape by human standards. Still, it certainly beats the wilderness.

He slid in through the doorway - what had done this? Surely not this little foxling. By that point, though, he could hear the screech of a nearby electronic device, something he had come to associate with his former human. An old TV. Curious. The fact that Kayou had managed to turn it on, likely without any examples to go by was quite astonishing. Perhaps there was more hope than he had imagined.

For a moment he watched the images on the screen, silently recognizing the language they were speaking. The funny symbol language! That was how she'd learned to talk, to an extent. This was quite the intelligent little vixen. Seeing that she had made a bed for herself, Iro slid over in front of the TV, coiling up into a bunch silently. He'd never been one for television, but...he didn't want to snoop around Kayou's 'home'. Instead he gestured with a wing to the walls around him, tilting his head at her questioningly. How had she found this place?

Iro followed her eyes, from the entry in the ceiling to the burn mark against the wall. She must've landed here when she fell from the heavens. Interesting, and really, really fortunate. He marveled as she switch the discs in the CD player, amazed by all that she had managed to learn on her own. And now...an instruction video. Whoever had lived here before likely worked in the technological industry, or was just curious about the strange languages that lay across the sea. Either way, it would've been nice to have met them.

Now the movie was playing an amusing little jingle, "Ichi! Ni! San! Yon! Go!", the images on screen displaying the symbols for the words as well as various objects in quantities related to the number. For example, when ichi was spoken, a lone sun popped up on screen, dancing and waving its little arms about cutely. Iro repeated the words under his breath, feeling a bit silly. His human had always laughed at this sort of thing, but now that he watched children's TV, it wasn't really all that bad. Maybe while he was here he could pick up on some of the symbol language, and learn to bridge the gap between himself and Kayou.

Through this, would they be able to speak to each other eventually? Perhaps. It was an interesting prospect.

The male jumped as she yelped, watching her as she gimped her way over and began to try and drag the bed out. Swiftly he made his way over and grabbed it awkwardly with his claws, helping her to pull it along. How sweet of her! After a moment he let go of it and slid onto the comforter, coiling back into his traditional sleeping state. Though the comforter was large, he nearly took up the entire thing. Turning to face Kayou, he nodded and uttered, "Thank you - Arigatou." It was one of the few words he could recall clearly from when his human had been around. Though he was now resting, he still listened to the television, watching colors flash across the screen. "Aka, kiiro, daidaiiro, midori, ao, murasaki..." He could hear his name pronounced in some of the words. What did it mean?

His eyes wandered to the little she-fox, concerned. That pile of rags seemed so...meager. He felt as though he should scoot off of the comforter and offer her a spot. But would that offend her? He waited to watch.

((Extremely. If I were Iro, I'd be more impressed than even he is.))

Iro noticed the slight movement of air through the nest, but couldn't feel any of the warmth from where he lay. Though he fought to stay awake and pay attention to the lessons on-screen, slowly he drifted off to sleep, occasionally awakening just enough to mumble a word or two before dropping off again.