Exploration & Surprises

[Lucien]

Sylviana particularly enjoyed being out in the woods with her parents, to run through the thicket in the form of deer or waft through leafy branches as mist. Neither could she seem to get enough of her dad shifting into the form of a great owl and taking her up above the tree tops, holding her gently in his claws. But he only ever did that as a special treat when she had been exceptionally well behaved.

So when neither Topaz nor Lucien had any obligations that evening and they decided to take their daughter out to play in the forest outside of town, no one was happier than the little girl. As soon as they were surrounded by trees and the sounds of the forest and the very moment she had permission to do so, Sylviana scrunched up her little face in concentration to shift her body into that of a deer. That her Mom helped with the shifting and the holding of the image didn't spoil her sense of accomplishment in the least when moments later she leapt forward on long, furry legs.

Topaz followed, not wanting to give the little one too much of a head start. It had been some time since Topaz was in the part of the forest they had picked for playing in this evening, and she knew from experience that features changed over time. She didn't want Sylviana to be the first to find fox or rabbit holes or anything else she could get hurt stepping into unaware.


Lucien surveyed their surroundings, checking for “blank” places that would belie a vampyre in the area. He found none, and soon followed suit, shifting into a great stag, bounding off after his mate and child. The forest around them smelled fresh, as though a recent rain had washed everything clean, and there were no humans intruding on the forest.

He followed behind, making certain nothing stalked them, and considered becoming a panther, but he wasn’t certain whether Sylviana would recognize him as ‘dad’ as opposed to ‘predator’, so he maintained the stag as he bounded along.

~ Look, mommy. May I? ~ Though Sylviana had asked, the darkish spot behind the bush she had happened across was just too tempting to check out to wait for permission. And it was possible that her parents wouldn't give it. But by the time they'd say 'no' she'd at least have checked it out a little. With that thought Sylviana poked her little deer nose around the bush and sniffed at the curiously cooler air behind it.

~ It looks to be a cave.~ Topaz sent Lucien an image of what she was seeing, laced with irresistible curiosity.

Lucien picked up his pace, closing the distance even as he checked for trouble around them, ~Wait~ He strode into the little clearing in his human form, seeing that his daughter clearly hadn’t listened. The cave was dark and cool, and smelled slightly damp as he approached it.

~Sylviana, come back here this instant.~

~Okay.~ Sylviana did listen, sort of and reluctantly, and there was nothing 'instant' about the slow way she set one furry leg in front of the other into the direction of her father's voice. ~But daddy, we have to hurry! There's treasure, I just know it. Please?~

Topaz met Lucien just inside the cave entrance. Already having decided that deer didn't belong into caves she too had shifted back into her natural form.

[Lucien]

Lucien knelt to be at Sylviana’s level, “We will explore it, but we will explore it together. Caves can be dangerous places Sylviana. Now I need you to change back.”

~You are the best daddy ever!~ As soon as she changed back she stretched out her little arms to wrap them around Lucien's neck. "We're great explorers!"

"We may be that" Topaz chuckled. Holding back rather than going ahead and checking out this new to her place was difficult for her too. "Are we ready then to have a peek?"

Lucien shook his head in good humor. "What am I going to do with both of you?"

He scooped up his daughter and stepped into the dimly lit cavern.

"Exploring a cave, for now." Topaz chuckled and stepped up next to him and brushed a kiss to his cheek. Then she moved ahead to see how far back the cave went. "You'll see, it'll be fun, especially should we find anything besides rocks and dirt. Look, there seems to be a tunnel."

"Exploring." Sylviana agreed, peering into the darkness ahead and for the moment content to be carried. But that would last only until they would happen upon something interesting.

Lucien simply shook his head and let his sight adjust to the darkness. “If we had a Gem Singer, I think we could have found something of interest.”

"What's a Gem Singer, love?" Topaz asked as she moved into the tunnel. While he Carpathian sight was good, the tunnel had too little light to see by, so she asked the magic bits for little fairy lights. The seemed happy to do so and a couple sprang into being dancing just ahead. "The tunnel appears to slope down a bit."

"Gems. Treasure." Sylviana sounded excited. "Hurry daddy, or mommy will find it first."

So far the cave was rather boring as far as caves went. Dirt, rock, and darkness were around in abundance, but not much of anything else. Then, as Topaz followed around the bend in the tunnel the fairy lights dancing ahead of her floated higher up. Topaz's gaze followed the small dancing lights and then she caught a sparkle on what appeared to be the ceiling of something larger than the tunnel they had been traversing.

"Are you coming?" Topaz fluttered up to have a closer look and found that what had caught the light was a water droplet. The ceiling here was covered with small bumps, mostly a light brown, though some marbled with reddish spots of color, and each bump held on to the bit of water. "You have to see this, it's beautiful."

“A Gem Singer is a Carpathian who can call the perfect gem stone from the heart of the earth to fulfill a need. It can be for many things, but there is only one unique stone for each person. The Gem Singer’s have the ability to coax it from the ground so that it can be worked and employed for it’s purpose.” Lucien needed no fairy lights, but his mate and daughter seemed to be enjoying the dancing lights as they traversed more deeply into the cavern.

"Lemme down, daddy, please? I need to go and look." What she meant was that she wanted to go touch. Being carried was nice, but one couldn't get any exploring done that way. And there was this interesting rustle to check out, too, not just the glitters mommy had found.

Lucien let down his squirming daughter and glances toward the ceiling where Topaz now fluttered. "Something of interest my dear?"

[Lucien]

Lucien adjusted his body temperature to be more comfortable in the cave as Sylviana explored several feet in front of him. He wasn’t thrilled about letting her do this, but Topaz and she were having a great time so far, and there hadn’t been any indications of trouble, so they paused to look at Topaz’s finding.

Sylviana took off right away to search for whatever had made that interesting noise. She crawled over the rocks that where too big for to simply walk over, advancing into the depth of the cavern at surprising speed for someone as small as her.

"Some of these formations look very interesting, not like precious rocks, but the color combinations must be rare." Topaz replied, slowly moving along the ceiling to check out more of those colored patches. "Your Gem Singer might even find them note worthy."

"You're ugly." Sylviana told the smallish blind cave snake she had picked up when it tried to slither away from her. She studied the creature for a moment longer and then tossed it aside. "You're not rustling either."

Lucien caught up with his small daughter, dropping down to be closer to her level, "Sylviana, no creature is ugly. Each has a unique place in this world. And, you would not like it very much if someone much bigger than you picked you up and then tossed you away as you just did to that poor blind creature."

Lucien loved his daughter, but he could not allow her to treat any life as she had the blind cave snake.

"No!" Sylviana appeared to give those words some serious thought. "Just up in the air and catch me again. That's fun. Go wheee!" She peered up to him then. "Okay, daddy."

The rustle from somewhere up ahead repeated and Sylviana scrambled off to investigate, leaving her daddy.

"Puppy." Sylviana whispered, "bear puppy," and approached the small furry creature with both hands extended.

Topaz had heard that whisper, and whispers being far more curious than normal voices she turned to see what her daughter was about. From her aloft position it only took a little flutter of wings before she could see what had attracted Sylviana's attention.

"Don't touch, Sylvy." But it was too late for that warning. Sylviana already patted the furry creature.

Topaz's warning not to touch had Lucien on alert as he moved quickly, but not preternaturally, toward the direction his daughter had gone. ~What is it?~ He sent the thoughts to Topaz, who had a better vantage point.

~The cutest pair of bearhound cubs I've ever seen.~ Topaz shared her view of Sylviana climbing right in between the two and rubbing her face into their fur with Lucien, an altogether tender image.

[Lucien]

Lucien shook his head at the image, ~We better hope mother isn't around anywhere close, or we could all be in trouble."

He made his way over the rocks Sylviana had so recently climbed over.

"I don't think we're going to be that lucky." Topaz opted for softly spoken words instead of telepathy when she sensed that another creature had entered the cave and searched the darkness for any sign of it.

Lucien crested one of the boulders in time to see his daughter between two young creatures, he called softly to Sylviana, “Come here Sylviana.”

"Okay Daddy." Sylviana responded after pouting for a moment. She wrapped one arm tightly around one the mewling cubs and then climbed toward her father's voice.

"Shh, baby. Daddy called." She cooed softly to the cub, fully intending to adopt bearhound as her new pet.

It was then when Topaz spotted what could only be the mother of the cuddly twins. The beast was huge and massive, standing on its hind legs and testing the air. It flashed strong, sharp canines in her direction and then turned her bearlike head on her thick neck in the direction of Sylviana and Lucien, its long, heavy tail brushed over the cave floor.

Lucien did not wait for his daughter to reach him before cocooning her in a sphere of protection once she was clear of the small creatures. “Time to go,” he glanced at Topaz.

The bearhound however had no intention of letting the cub stealing creatures leave without a fight. It ambled over the rough ground with surprising speed, traversing the formations with seeming ease. Intelligent eyes trained upon child in the sphere.

Topaz's gaze followed the movements of the beast even as she shared her vision with Lucien.

[Lucien]

Lucien moved then with his preternatural speed to get between his daughter and the mother bearhound. He wouldn’t harm the creature if he could help it, but he wouldn’t let Sylviana come to injury either. With the ancient words, he threw up a wall of rocks and soil between himself and the sphere that contained his daughter.

Sylviana watched with wide eyes as the wall rose and came into being. The bearhound, however, was not content with merely watching. Those were her cubs that the wall separated her from.

"Move. Out. Of. My. Way." The massive beast demanded first in Sylvan, and then in Common, already turning to take down the wall.

Topaz fully opened her fairy senses to share with Lucien the intentions and emotions she perceived from the beast. While but a moment ago the bearhound had clearly intended to tear Sylviana away from her cubs, in pieces if need be, now all its rage and intent was focused on the wall in her way.

Lucien scooped up Sylviana as he could hear the bearhound digging and shredding her way through his wall of rock and soil. “We need to have a talk about touching wild creatures.”

"But daddy, it was all tame and cuddly." Sylviana pouted, still upset that she could not have a bearhund pet. "And it loves me."

He shook his head as rocks and soil began to give way, “He was not tame, he is wild, and he doesn’t love you the way you think. And his mother is very worried that you were going to hurt her baby. We can look and enjoy, but we cannot touch.”

"It's the same as with deer and bunnies and foxes, Sylviana." Topaz reminded their girl as she fluttered over to land beside Lucien, now that the bear hound mother was busy and distracted and it was safe to do so. She knew Lucien would have felt miserable had she come over any sooner and put herself in danger when there was no need to do so.

“We need to go, that mother is going to be furious at being separated from her babies.”

"Go fly? Wheee!" Sylviana, unlike human children, had the benefit of perceiving far more than just words when her parents had to educate her, which made for far quicker comprehension most of the time.

Lucien reinforced the crumbling wall to buy them a little more time before turning into the cave, “There is fresh air, so there must be a vent back here.” He strode into the darkness with his daughter in his arms as the fairy lights illuminated the passage toward a chimney in the rock.

That looks like it's going to be fun." Topaz smiled when she saw where they were heading.

A thin shaft of light reached from the surface down through the split in the rock over their heads, it formed a chimney of sorts that wind whistled down, giving a soft trilling noise from the narrowed opening. Lucien chuckled, “Fun hmm?”

"Yes, lots of fun." Topaz peered up the chimney. "I don't even see any bats we'd have to avoid.

"Treasure!" Sylviana called out, pointing excitedly at something glittery on the floor.

Lucien glanced first at the open rock above them, and then down at the floor to see where Sylviana was pointing. He knelt down, unwilling to let her out of his grasp just in case.

There was indeed a gold coin laying there to catch the light from above, along with a few shiny rocks, silvered paper, a burned stick, and even a delicate though broken silvery chain.

He let her pick up the bits found there, “It would seem that someone was here before us. Is it often that people pass through here?” He glanced at Topaz, it was her land.

"I don't think so. People tend to leave tracks." She scanned the area and with a little help of the sentient magic she found what she looked for, a largish bit of a feather. She reached to pick it up and then showed it to Lucien.

“Crows?” He had to laugh.

"Not likely" Topaz laughed with him. "A little Roc is more likely to judge by the feather and the size of the chimney, unless something smaller found the feather and brought it along with the other things. Somehow this doesn't strike me as a place a Roc or crows would like, though."

Lucien quirked a brow at her, “What is a Roc?”

Sylviana was busily picking up the shiny bits and bobs as Lucien looked at Topaz for explication.

"An oversized bird." Topaz shared the image of a Roc in flight she had seen many years ago.

"No. Mine! Let go! Daddy, it's taking my treasure!" Sylviana swatted a hand at a long fingered, green and white hand that seemed to reach from out of nowhere for the baubles she hugged to her with her other arm. The next moment, and before anyone could react, the thieving arm was gone again, and with it one of the shiny bits Sylviana had picked up.

Lucien’s brow rose as he watched the hand retrieve one of the shinies. He stood up, taking Sylviana with him. “Well, that was most certainly not a bird. Time to go.”

"No, but a harmless creature. "Topaz chuckled, "At least the most harmless of ethereal creatures. But you are right, it is time to go. Sylviana already has all the treasure she can possibly carry."

They made it back home and when Sylviana had gone to sleep, Lucien checked his mail.

Lucien’s Anniversary Present

Lucien smiled to himself when word arrived. His surprise for Topaz had finally been delivered, and not one moment too soon.

The sleek craft now sat docked beside the Star Dragon’s berth. The Star Wanderer was smaller, and did not have the observatory or the target range, but it was comfortable, and it would comfortably transport 4 people. The cargo bay was smaller, but he didn’t see that there was a great deal of need for storage. She was just perfect for shorter journeys, and that suited him just fine.

When the time was right, he would tell her that they could go to Auriga when ever she wanted to go.

He paid the pilot who’d delivered her, then left Star’s End for the Palazzo.