Free Knowledge That's Only Slightly Forbidden!

Leaving the pet shop with his new feathery companion, Freine made his way through Callasta, brushing off some feathers and fur that had gotten stuck to his coat. The bird currently riding on his back would probably make his attempts at not having feathers stuck to him a little useless, but at least her feathers were pink, so if she dropped any they would blend in with his own natural coat colour.

Freine continued casually making his way through Callasta, until he heard a loud explosion that sounded concerningly close. Seeing a crowd of cors wearing white coats and large goggles pouring out of a building that also had a concerning amount of smoke billowing out from the doorway, he decided that he’d already had one detour, so what’s another spontaneous visit? Curiosity killed the cat and all that. But then satisfaction had brought it back, so it’ll end up fine, surely.

As he approached, Freine could clearly hear one of the cors yelling something about expensive chemicals and the court- Freine wasn’t exactly an expert in chemistry or bureaucracy. His short stature made most spaces a pain to get around since those are typically built for average cor stature, especially any working spaces, and it’s not like he’d ever been to school so he only knew the basics from studying interesting books in libraries.

A dark cor with a chopped tail disregarded the first cor’s complaints, commenting that no one had been hurt, so everything was fine. Freine is pretty sure the first guy was angry about something completely different, but he’s not the one in a lab coat, so what would he know?

The dark-haired corceïs noticed Freine listening to the group, which wasn’t particularly surprising seeing as he was indeed bright pink and glittery, with an equally pink bird of prey perched atop him, so even despite his small size he was pretty hard to miss.

He wasn’t expecting the other cor to bound her way over to him though, somehow managing to cross the distance in the time it took Freine to blink, leaning down to practically shove her face into his to introduce herself.

"Name's Gio, I am the one responsible for the Callasta Laboratory! We make some fancy stuff you will love to see, I promise you!"

Before the shorter cor could respond, whether it be to introduce himself or make an excuse to get away, he honestly wasn’t even sure what he’d been planning to say at the time, Gio had already started pushing him towards the building, Gum flapping her wings in annoyance and hopping off of Freine’s back as he got gently but persistently brought towards the building that looks to have been cleared of smoke.

"Luckily for you today we are hosting a, uh, free visitation to the shop! Amazing right? Alright, let's continue and don't worry about the mess, yeah?"

Checking to see that his new Bloëres wasn’t about to wander off, and seeing that Gum was actually hopping after them, Freine decided that he may as well let this happen, and let himself be shoved into the laboratory building.

Once Gio let Freine actually walk rather than moving him forward herself, Gum hopped back onto the glittering corceïs’ back. He wasn’t sure whether it was safe for the bird to be in the lab, but the one supposedly in charge of the place wasn't saying anything about it, so it was probably fine.

…

Freine felt almost enlightened making his way out of the laboratory. He has no idea why he’d ever need any of what Gio had tried to sell him, but the science behind the process of forcing mutations within developing corceïs was equally fascinating as it was baffling and questionable in morality.