Welcome to Gaia! ::

It took Ataya far longer than he might have liked to make it away from the house.

First breakfast. Then training with father, and after that, work with the hastars — not terribly much, since Mother and Father didn’t impose a great number of chores on he or his sister given their age. But to Ataya, it felt like an eternity. When he was finally free to do as he pleased, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, Ataya snuck back through the kitchen.

If Dysarrin smelled of rotting, raw meat, Ataya reasoned, he inevitably lacked an adequate supply of proper food. Thus, bathed in yellow sunlight from the kitchen window and standing on tip-toe to reach the counter, Ataya set out a simple square of patterned cloth. In it, he laid several small sweets, a cluster of berries, and a nut-filled bread roll left over from breakfast before folding up his package, knotting, and pocketing it in a satchel at his waist belt.

Surely, he thought as he slipped out of the house, peeking around to assure that neither Mother nor Father were watching, no one could resist Mother’s cooking. And, on the off chance that Dysarrin’s taste in food was as poor as his taste in bathing habits (or lack thereof), Ataya could always eat them himself. With the coast clear, he started up the mountain, giddy with curiosities.

Would he be there yet? Or would he have to wait? Where was the wild boy from? Did he have a family? Or was he conceived in the wilderness and born of the mountains themselves? Having no practical knowledge of how such things worked, Ataya considered it wholly possible that Dysarrin had simply come into being at the whim of a bored deity, created from some messy mixture of mud, rock, and wild meat and fated to rear himself alone in the mountain caves.

He certainly looked the part.

Of course, the mental fiction had the additional appeal of imposing a lonely existence on the other, allowing Ataya to imagine that he, too, wanted a friend as much as Ataya, and giving them some basis for ‘likeness’ despite their drastic differences.

Upon spotting Dysarrin, Ata slowed his pace a fraction. For all that he was insatiably curious, his sister had at least been right about at least needing to be wary. Whatever she might think, though, Ataya didn’t ‘trust’ the wild boy. He was just curious enough that said curiosity overruled caution enough that he wanted to see him again, learn more and decide how to proceed from there. As such, he stilled several paces down the path from the other and eyed him, waiting.

“Good morning, Dysarrin,” he greeted after a moment. “Did you sleep well?”

Ataya yelped, barking something sharply about claws and being gentle — regardless of being fairly well aware by now that the words were bound for deaf ears — but other than a few murmured frustrations after the dragging stopped, Ataya let it drop and squinted, trying to make out what the other boy was gesturing about. Grunts. Jabbing fingers. Dirt. His practice spot looked more or less like it always did: empty but for a few stray boulders, the shadows of the gnarled tree under which he often sat, and some scattered sprigs of stubborn wildlife tucked amidst the rocks. Other than a few stiff needles of grass twitching in the hot, dead mountain wind, though, nothing moved. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He glanced back to Dysarrin, and just as he opened his mouth to ask what precisely he was looking at, the wild boy yanked his arm up and stuffed something in it. A—

—rock. In a leaf bag.

He squinted at it. Back up at Dys. Down at the leaf bag. For several long seconds after Dysarrin tapped at it, Ataya waited for something to happen. An explosion, or a spell. Perhaps some smoke? A creature. Glowing lights. Was it meant to be edible?

Absolutely nothing.

Ataya hummed, thoroughly unimpressed, but he supposed, simple-minded as the other boy was, that perhaps rocks and dead leaves were of some sentimental or entertainment value to him. So, in the interest of trying to make a friend — though he wasn’t entirely sure how to go about that either — he gave his best effort at feigned interest.

“It’s…very nice,” he ‘agreed,’ nodding. “Good. Did you make it yourself? Does it…do…anything?”

Ataya watched, restraining his visible skepticism with limited success as Dysarrin hopped excitedly back and moved to toss the rock bundle. Then, then—

POP!

Light.

Fire.

A crack of smoke and a whizzing rock. Dysarrin could cast spells. That was impressive (and a surprise) in and of itself, but the fact that these leaf-rock things exploded…

Ataya squealed, bouncing and clapping in a momentary burst of raw childish enthusiasm. “Again—again! Yes—” He glanced about, eye following the path of Dysarrin’s finger, and on spotting (now that he recognized what they looked like) a variety of the little leaf-rock bundles scattered about his site, he gave another, thoroughly pleased sound and reached out, stretching and coiling his fingers. “Anona’ai—onai’ah,” he said, focussing his magic and bidding one of the bundles to raise up, up, and move closer to him.

When he had it hovering a satisfactory distance over the open space of his practice area, Ataya released the levitation spell with an upwards flick of his wrist, and hissed out a quick damaging spell. A dark shock of energy darted out like a poison cloud, black-purple and roiling (if small), but colliding with the leaf-bundle as planned. After only a momentary crackling garble — POP! — came the explosion, sharp and vibrant.

Ataya hastened to stop the zipping rock with a re-cast of the levitation spell, and only just managed to halt its descent from reaching the earth, slowing and catching it at a hover some two to three inches above the dirt. Humming in satisfaction, he plucked, gesturing the steaming pebble up and then bidding it to float above his palm so as to avoid burning himself as he shot Dysarrin a grin.

This was, in essence, almost exactly what he’d done on his own time, other than that he had used plain, ordinary, boring rocks, and Dysarrin had exploding leaf bags. Plus, it was much more fun not to practice alone.

“I like it,” he said, and this time, he meant it.

Dysarrin.

Breathed.

Fire.

This was, in Ataya’s opinion, perhaps the best possible talent for a prospective friend — or sidekick, or pet, or whatever it was that Dysarrin might be — to have. Or, it was certainly an entertaining talent, and probably impressive to other silly children back in Taliuma, and that was important. Ataya hummed, satisfied that he had found this…boy…beast wild thing first. That definitely gave him first dibs, and no matter what Akara said, he was absolutely worth keeping.

After observing the potential for a chain reaction, Ataya’s mouth made a small ‘o’ with insight, and his gaze immediately began darting around the field, spotting the various leaf-bombs. He could do that. He could definitely do that. In order to show that he was up to the challenge — and perhaps to show off a bit, if it seemed Dysarrin was capable of being impressed — he reached out, latching on to one, two, three, four, five, six of the small bundles and lifting them. They were smaller than many of the rocks he practiced with on his own time and so not a challenge to manipulate simultaneously. The trick would be managing to combine the levitation, properly timed, with another offense spell.

He nibbled his lip, squinting as he judged his angle, and then spat out a spell: POP!

POP!

POP!

POP!—POP!—POP!

Rocks whizzed in every imaginable direction, small plumes of dust and smoke roiled up in miniature clouds of ash and signed leaf, and Ataya yipped, hunkering down when two of the newly ejected rocks came zipping in his direction. While overall a success, he couldn’t say he had fully planned for the chaos of the aftermath, and only when the air stilled and the noise ceased altogether did he flush and stand properly upright again.

Dusting off an invisible layer of smoke particles from his clothes and running his fingers through his hair once, he notched his chin up a fraction as though he had — of course — intended all of that to go exactly as it had, and he reached out. With a pluck of magic, he gathered up those of the widely dispersed rocks he could find and assembled them into a small floating circle, wound them around himself once and then guided them back off, allowing them to drop to the dirt in a concise pile in the middle of the practice area’s open space before glancing over to Dysarrin.

Ataya stumbled at Dysarrin’s tug, blinking and righting himself to watch as the other took off on all fours and scrambled up his primary shade tree. It seemed apparent enough — in congruence with the tug, though that might have conveyed the fact in and of itself — that Dysarrin wanted him to follow, particularly after the multiple looks and wordless grunts. Why the wild thing insisted on forgoing actual speech to communicate its thoughts was still a mystery to Ataya, but one he largely ignored for the time being given that it didn’t seem subject to change any time soon.

After an extended stretch of debate, Ataya followed to the base of the tree and proceeded to squint warily upwards at his companion. His sister climbed trees on occasion. There was one tree by their lakeside that had been grown and shaped specifically by their great-uncle Kilian’s mate, Vallarah — a part-ysali hybrid — to overhang a deep section of the lake, allowing her to climb up and dive in from there. Ataya, however, had never been one for precarious physical activity. Or physical activity.

He had joined her on those branches on occasion, but that tree was built for climbing — low and easy to manage with many foot and handholds even for a young child given its natural structure. This one was more gangly, narrower. Gnarled enough to provide a few grips, yes, but all around far less trustworthy.

That, and even if he did manage it, it would be so much work. And what if he fell?

“I don’t think I can,” he said. “I’m not very good at climbing. What is it you want me to see? You could describe it to me. I know you can talk.”

Still no words.

Ataya couldn’t precisely say he was ‘disappointed’ since he didn’t expect much more of Dysarrin by now, but he mentally begrudged the extra work of trying to interpret what the other meant given his refusal to simply state it. At least, he supposed, this too could be considered a game of sorts: piecing together Dysarrin’s grunts and hand gestures in order to make meaning from them. When he stretched out a claw, scraping and pointing and making loose imitations of…well, something, Ataya glanced in the general direction of his indications.

Dirt.

Scattered furrows in the dust and rocks from the miniature explosions and small coils of leveled smoke debris. He squinted to see if Dysarrin might be trying to point out another leaf bag, but he didn’t see any unused ones in the general direction of his gesturing. Frustrated, he leaned back against the tree and folded his arms.

“It was fun,” he said. “Do you have a lot of games like that where you come from? Where do you come from? Is it far? And wasn’t it dangerous to get here? Is there anyone else like you there? And why haven’t I seen any before if there are? My daddy's traveled a lot and he's never said anything about people like you. Do you play games with anyone else there, if there are any? And who taught you to use fire? And where are your parents? Unless you don’t have any of those either…? It would be strange not to have parents, I think…my daddy’d never let me out that far for long. Or, if I tried he’d be very angry. Are you sure you won’t be in trouble? And—”

Ataya quieted momentarily in light of Dysarrin’s sudden thump of a drop, and then squeaked as he was shoved against the tree. At a sharp bark of a command from the wild boy, Ataya narrowed his eyes, chest puffing up a fraction at the observance that Dysarrin still hadn’t learned he couldn’t just shove him around and expect to—

Halfway into that train of thought and fully ready to voice it, Dysarrin’s next words derailed him, and Ataya blinked. Anger forgotten — his limited attention span making him uncharacteristically forgiving at the tender age of seven — Ataya tilted his head and eyed his companion more calculatively. It sounded like another order, certainly, but with one primary difference.

“I always come here every day,” Ataya said.

He had no intentions of disrupting his own schedule for the pure purpose of disobeying Dysarrin’s ‘commands’ out of spite, but at the same time, Doryu pride dictated that he make sure the other know he was acting of his own intentions, not otherwise. Still, it worked out. If Dysarrin wanted him here, too, that likely meant he would be back, and that would almost surely make his magic practice more entertaining.

And, he said that he liked playing with him.

That alone made it easy enough for Ataya to disregard all other potential issues with Dysarrin’s methods for making his demand. He liked him. That meant that they were friends. Which meant Ataya actually had a friend other than his sister. And that, he thought, far outweighed any pitfalls involved.

He grinned.

“I will be here every day. You can find me if you come, and we can play…I like playing with you, too.”