It was blinding. The sun glinting off of obsidian pillars, illuminating a cave that should by all rights be as black as night. A waterfall poured down through the ceiling, onto chunk of brilliantly gleaming blue daras that really had no right at all remaining perfectly shaped for sitting two "humans" across all the centuries it had been there. The humans, a pair of young girls, perhaps fifteen at a glance, sat back to back, their legs folded under them.

The air glittered and shimmered around them. The waterfall roared, pounded on their shoulders.

One, the one closer to the openings of the cave, sat in perfect stillness and silence. The light glinted off of her silver hair, long bangs soaked against her face--A soft, round jaw. A button nose, a wide smile. Her eyebrows, dark to her hair's silver, were slender and sharp. Her hair, loose from its usual star clip, fell down between her slender shoulders.
The kimono she wore, black as night, laced through with amethysts and burgundy stars in whirling patterns, was soaked through. Her purple obi had been carefully folded onto a boulder elsewhere in the cave.
Surprising, for how human she was, a long, sinuous tail curled around her knees. Black fur melded into feathers that split apart like swallow's tail at the silver tip.

She and her sister had been meditating for an hour. Long enough that, if she allowed herself to focus on the thought, she'd recognize that they should probably stop and start heading home, before the sun dipped below the horizon.
But here, with the power of the Daras flowing through her... it was hard to stop. The Daras had a pulse, and she wanted to chase it...

The one further from the cave's opening was shorter than her sister, petite with soft features. The light glinted off golden horns that swept up from her raven hair. Despite her elegant appearance, her hair was fluffy-- or would be if it wasn't plastered to her head from the waterfall-- untameable licks that feathered out around her face, and would give her an appearance not unlike a chicken's hind end if she didn't keep it pulled back in a narrow ponytail. A sprinkle of bioluminescent spots shone in her otherwise black and glossy hair, like stars in the night sky. Her kimono, otherwise a match to her sister's, was a deep blue with an asanoha pattern in white. She kept her tail tucked in tight around her, a deep black with golden feathers at its tip and another sprinkling of luminescent "stars".

She also looked mildly like a drowned rat from how long she'd been sitting there.

It was of no concern to her. This deep in meditation, she couldn't even feel the cold, or the wetness. Only her sister's presence and the power of the Daras beneath them.

The Daras pulsed. Tsuru breathed. Grey eyes fluttered, aglow from within with blue power.

The water was cold. Freezing. She hardly felt it. The Daras colder.
Her breath echoed. Stillness in her thoughts. Scents from the outside. Observations that fluttered past with only a dim acknowledgement. Fish. Gryphon. Nanai berating some intruder below.
All acknowledged, filed away, dismissed.

Time non existent.
Time all encompassing.

The taste of blue, of power. The taste of her sister's scent. Heavy on her tongue.

Outside the cave, shirko swooped and chattered to each other. She could almost see them, from somewhere outside herself. Like free camming. Down below, at the shore, buzzards and bettas squabbled over a wallow.

Blue.
Tsuru breathed. Exhaled. Her tail twitched, the Daras Pulsed and--

"There you two are."
The Blue shattered with Papa's voice and in a moment, Tsuru crashed back into herself, suddenly keenly aware that she was sore and freezing and soaked to the bone and that her legs were asleep and that her stomach was thoroughly Empty and protesting this fact with fierce pangs. She whipped her head around, fixed a scowl on her father that matched his own, exposed too sharp teeth.

"You're interrupting our training." she snipped, knowing it wouldn't be lost under the roar of the waterfall.

Katsura groaned. As much as she wished to dive back into the power of the Daras, it wasn't going to be possible with her father right there. Maybe if she meditated long and hard enough, she could transcend the needs of this mortal body of hers... Like the way her stomach was reminding her that she hadn't eaten in hours.

"...you're going to pull us away, aren't you...?" she sighed, pulling in on herself now that she was fully aware of how Freezing she was. But maybe being pulled away would mean some of Dad's cooking...