Dark Nimbus Storm

“Of course you are.” She playfully swayed a hand, pretending to be dismissive about it. “Yes, why else would I say so?” Ozera was quite often, very blunt like that. “I’m pretty sure you like being brave too, my sunny little feather duster~” Ah, she was testing his bravery it seemed. Oh well, such is the scientific method of ‘mess about and get messed up’.

Ozera tilted her head, seemingly having momentarily forgotten the density of this pancake themed individual. “Hungry?” A brief snicker. “No. I’m flirting with you.” She added, with a glowing smile.

At this point she wasn’t even really listening to Pankaa’s attempts at excuses. He wasn’t sick, that much Ozera knew for certain. Not sick in the way he was trying to hide behind at least. At some point in the interaction, Pankaa had only managed to end up holding hands with Ozera. “Hm. I like that.” She responded, choosing to hold onto Pankaa’s hands for slightly longer when he tried to let go. She would let go shortly after and immediately choose to lean an ear to Pankaa’s chest. “Anyway, no fever, so...” Ozera trailed off, trying to listen to Pankaa’s heart.

Pankaa’s words made Ozera feel more at ease; she knew that the two were going to do something about this. The question right now was... What? What could they do? Sometimes thinking too much was a curse, wasn’t it? Pankaa seemed to have something in mind though. Something ridiculous, bombastic, silly, maybe even a little bit stupid.

Sometimes things like that were necessary. Uncertain of what Pankaa was intending to do, Ozera’s expression became determined and she gave Pankaa a nod. To her surprise, the Avali had decided to leap off his own Nimbus towards the giant one!

Ozera smiled softly, of course this was a stupid idea, it was nonsense really. Still, it did not deter Pankaa. “Ahh, that’s my sunny little feather duster alright.” She sighed, a blush colouring her face. There was a faint glow within her backpack as well now, unbeknownst to either Ozera or Pankaa, it was reacting to their affection for each other.

Patting Pankaa’s Nimbus on the head she would give it some instructions. “It can’t be helped. I’m gonna go be stupid with him. Can we trust you to be our backup? If you see a bright green signal flare, come get us, okay?” With that, she too made a leap towards the giant Nimbus as well!

Ozera didn’t comment on the counter-teasing, if only because Pankaa getting flustered was a greater opportunity to use against him. “Yes, my sunny little feather-duster, you heard correctly.” Wait, why did she emphasize that of all things?

Pointing to the reaction in his feathers, Ozera gave a little chirpy laugh. “Hehe, bird.” That wasn’t even remotely close to an answer for Pankaa’s question though... “Because I derive joy from doing so.” Closer, but still not much of an answer. “Trust me, we’re a based combination.” There was little arguing that, as far as Ozera was concerned. She was content to simply listen to Pankaa’s heartbeat, whether it was increasing in rapidity or not. “Seems robust and healthy to me, if not a bit speedy~”

Resolute in the decision to follow Pankaa to the giant rumbling cloud, she placed trust in Pankaa’s jack-o-nimbus. Twirling in mid air and creating a spiralled arrow shape with the bio-armor around her arms using her shapeshifting prowess she sped up to reach the larger cloud at roughly the same time. She reshaped her armor to allow a slow fall before returning it back to normal, allowing Pankaa to catch her as he so desired. “Oh, hello again. Now isn’t this familiar~?” She smiled, referring to when he had scooped her up earlier.

Moving to stand on the giant rumbling cloud properly, Ozera took a look around. The atmosphere here was.. Tumultuous at best, harrowing at worst— especially given what the pair had thought out. The grief this entity had was intense to the point where everything else beyond the border of it had become greyscale and darker. Red and black streaks of energy crackled within the gargantuan Nimbus, only momentarily lighting the scene up as wisps of dark grey floated upwards all over the place “A lot of sorrow has built up around it... We need to find the source.”

Ozera tried her absolute best to not burst into laughter, so she gently put a hand on Pankaa’s shoulder. “It’s more than anything like that. Don’t worry. I’ll help you understand.” As for why or how? She was going to enjoy Pankaa’s comical density while it lasted, and it was going to last for a while it seemed. “It brings me joy because its you.”

Choosing to back away, Ozera readjusted the feathers on Pankaa’s chest— or about as well as she could manage given that he was so flustered. “You won’t actually burst into flames.” She smiled. “That’s just how it feels when you fancy someone. I must say, you have good taste.” Ozera gave Pankaa a vibrant smile and a finger pistol gesture.

Of course, she could have landed safely of her own accord, but she didn’t feel like it. “Thank you all the same~” Pankaa put in the effort to be at her side, to cherish and protect her. He didn’t even need to say that he would, it was just something he did without question. He would continue to do so, asking that she follow his lead. “Stay close? Of course, that’s the idea.” It was part of why she made the jump anyway.

As the two moved, the Nimbus still didn’t seem to notice their presence, it behaved as if it was unaware of them... “This is strange. Don’t most if not all Nimbus clouds have to acknowledge those that attempt to stand on them? Is that not how they discern who is or isn’t worthy to do so?” The rumbling and darkness continued, and the grey wisps that left the nimbus seemed to be mostly coming from the edges. “Hmm.” Ozera looked in the general direction of the clouds center of mass and noticed something.

Some shadows, shapes, and they were moving. Close to a more noticeable red glow.

“Pankaa. I see silhouettes over there...”

“All you need to do for me first is relax, okay? The first step to knowing something is not knowing. Logical, right?” Yeah, if not a bit silly. Ozera knew this expression that Pankaa was making; the one he made when he didn’t quite understand something but didn’t want to say it for fear of sounding stupid— but to Ozera it wasn’t stupid to admit to a lack of knowledge. Besides, he had already done and said plenty of goofy or funny things anyway! “Try to be calm, and consider your feelings. What about me being around makes things different?”

Ozera gave Pankaa a look that was more or less asking him to take it easy. “Because you already would have. Duh.” She probably carried some sort of anti-explosion potion on her at all times anyway, so even if he actually did burst into flames she could handle it. “Silly boy. Clearly it is, and you can.” She gave him a sweet smile and moved to nuzzle her beak on his nose. “You already have. Just accept yourself like I did, you’ll be okay.” She added, holding a hand over her own heart like Pankaa was doing.

Now making their way further into the territory of the massive Nimbus, Pankaa confirmed Ozera’s inquiry. So what was going on here? “How do you really even know if they’ve truly acknowledged you as worthy? Yours is a prankster so that isn’t really a great source, at least to me. I would guess that you know them a lot better than I do.” Given Pankaa’s level of hearing, amongst the grumbling, crackles of energy and booming sadness, there was something faint in there; drowned by the rest of it and it was different from the negativity, but it was unclear what it was— or it would remain as such unless Pankaa focused on it!

Watching the silhouettes, Ozera frowned, she couldn’t quite place it but something was off about them. “I think there’s something to it. Do you feel anything?” She asked, following behind the Avali.

Once Pankaa had reached out with his ki sensing abilities he would find that there was some faint traces of energy sprinkled around; these traces matched where the shadowy figures were. However, unlike the energy within a fully living being, these were... In a sense, the remains of energy that once existed. Leftovers.

Memories?

“Good, I know you can do it.” Ozera gave a light nod. To Pankaa’s credit, he almost handled it. He definitely relaxed first, as suggested, however, when asked to consider his feelings he kind of stumbled over them. The good news was that he didn’t entirely deny them this time! Huzzah, progress!

“Hmhm~ Was that really so hard?” Ozera could tell that this was just the surface of a more intricate emotional mine; an interesting crystalline structure of feelings existed within this marvellous geode of a guy she had found for herself. She was determined to unearth all of the complexities.

Ozera looked up as Pankaa’s ears changed colours after her show of affection.“Hehe, purple.” She started giggling every time Pankaa tried to shake his head since it just contributed to Ozera’s gesture. “Yeah. Because I refuse to lie about something that is this important, to myself, or to you.” Ozera realized immediately what that could imply so she needed to clarify; “N-n-not that you’re doing that, lying I mean, you aren’t, you don’t do that. It isn’t that you can’t or don’t feel the same way, you just have trouble expressing it, but let me tell you this’ you are more than worthy of how I feel. I have years worth of data to back up my claim!”

---

“A ‘vibe check’, so to speak?” Though that didn’t explain how the pair could remain on this giant Nimbus. Was it slow to judge? Could it still even judge anyone that stood on it at all under all of that emotional turmoil?

Speaking of emotional turmoil, Pankaa’s amazing ears focused on the sound that was an outlier in the situation and thus would be able to hear the muffled tune of something. Was it a song? Was this Nimbus singing to itself?

Ozera wasn’t a fan of what Pankaa had discovered with his energy sensing. “How so? What’s missing from it?” She doubted that there were any actual people up here besides them, first of all, there were no discernable living behavioural patterns occurring as far as she could see. Either way, Ozera followed closely behind Pankaa.

The closest figure was quite short, somewhere around the height of Ozera and Pankaa. Besides being pitch black and grey, there was a small pinprick of white within its chest. “If I had to guess, that would be the source of its energy, yes?”

“Yeah well we didn’t say ‘no take-backsies’ so I activate my veto for that entire agreement.” She poked her tongue out at Pankaa. It was a silly little agreement that they made years and years ago as kids and it was the kind of thing that only children would do. “it was immature in hindsight, logically speaking.” When asked where her data and evidence was, Ozera held her head up and smirked in a very smug manner. “I have a big brain, so a lot of it is there, of course. Buuuut—” She held a hand over her heart. “— a lot of it is here too.”

---

“Hm?” Ozera tried listening to what Pankaa had described, but she had to try really hard to get much of anything related to what he had been suggesting. “I think I hear a consistent rhythm somewhere? Maybe? Hard to tell” She couldn’t know for sure, so she would just defer to Pankaa’s judgement.

“Memories, you say?” Ozera looked at the closest figure with great interest now, choosing to wrap her tail around Pankaa as well. They were effectively tethered that way, and it was a heartwarming gesture too!

“Hang on—” As Pankaa reached out to touch the energy, Ozera followed suit. “Together?”