It's more cute than weird, but this soon is definitely not his culture's custom. Though writing sappy love songs wouldn't be too out of character for teens after starting dating, and he knows cultures where 'small gifts' including poetry are the entirety of courting.

He'll... Have to figure out how 'poetry' works. (And legible writing...) Maybe Kadlawen won't mind if Ateshai copies over poems from his culture? He'll have to check with someone what the courting customs are.

He smiles at the poem, puts it somewhere not-the-table where he won't forget about it, and considers where to go, then knocks on the wall three times and thinks of the entrance courtyard they came in.

Where Kadlawen is merrily whirlwinding in! Convenient how the timing works out, there. 

About seven seconds later (the tornadoes do take a little while to dissipate, however often this is elided over), he sees Ateshai,  beams, does something that wouldn’t be mischaracterized by the word ‘prancing’, and brandishes a set of relatively small potted orchids, each a dizzyingly vibrant shade of blue.

”Hello! Um! I brought flowers! And blessed them- um, you probably don’t have the cultural context for that- in the same sense that royal unicorn mages have the virginity thing and royal roc mages have the whirlwind thing, royal sanzitania mages can can bless plants? So now these don’t need water or sunlight or anything, and they’re really lucky. Um. Hi!”

"Hi! That's really neat, let me put them back in my room real quick - " He does so, then returns. "I'm going to have a lot of fun poking at those, probably, thanks!"

“It was my pleasure! Um, so you can do whatever you’d like, tonight- I don’t want to monopolize your time, or anything- but I figured that I could pop you back up to your ship right quick, if you wanted to see anyone or do anything there, or I could show you around the city you landed in, or we could try sparring with these neat blades I bought that’re completely incapable of hurting people, or we could try hiking, or we could attend this neat thing where you have to try and outrun a bunch of sheep, or a combination, or- whatever you happen to want, really.”

"I'm fine not visiting the ship for a little bit," he says, smiling at the adorableness. "Hiking sounds my speed? I would probably be a cheat at the sheep thing, I'm faster than my frame suggests and can shift to be better. Runla might get a bit too tempted to chase them, too."

"Sheep are dumb. If they didn't want me herding them into funny patterns, they shouldn't run away from me, or should do a better job of it."

Eee, Ateshai’s smiles are not getting any less entrancing- 

“Certainly! On both accounts, really- and I can go ahead and take us there, there’s a neat little mountain trail that has the most gorgeous bluebells in bloom right now-“

And: one ‘mutter mutter, swish swish, tornado’ sequence later, they’re at the base of a mountain! Not a particularly tall one, mind- one of those smooth, round instances of the breed, worn down over time- but a mountain, certainly. 

There is, as promised, a trail, which they can start walking on. Companionable silence ensues.

 “So, um, what’s the rest of your family like? Aside from the lupine and extraordinarily charming instance thereof walking beside us, of course.

"Hm. Big. I don't actually remember my birth family, I was very young when I apparently decided very firmly I wanted nothing to do with them - not sure why now, but I was very discerning as a child so almost certainly a good reason. Runla's parents adopted me. I have a lot of siblings, only some Oheanri wolves actually reproduce and they're usually making do for the whole pack. 'A lot' as in twenty as of the last time I communicated with them, including Runla. Only four are older than me, the rest are various stages of pup. I have pictures I left on the ship, if you want to see them at some point, though they probably all look pretty similar if you're not familiar with wolves. Mom's the one who played with us the most, taught us to hunt and get up to mischief. Dad was the main one looking directly after us - helping us deal with life, pretty much. Mom taught, dad advised, basically? Mom's wife was only around some of the time, she had major wanderlust, but every time she swung by she'd have some new story - she's the one who got me into adventuring. I also have a bevy of aunts and uncles and other assorted relatives, though not many cousins.

"Most of my siblings are little shits, we tease each other a lot, though there's personality variations, too. I was close to Runla growing up, she's just barely older enough that it mattered to children so she'd lord it over me. Also one of my brothers was a big storyteller, but otherwise a quiet sort, and I liked to hang out with him when things got overwhelming."

“Awww,” he says. “I have six- had six siblings, wow I didn’t think that sentence through- though I only really knew two... Um. Rabaprom hatched six years after me, and Shawadhga six years after- a cyan with an isonade and a violet with an abaia, respectively. Raba was always getting into all sorts of mischief, and Shawa was always so adorably appalled by it- she fit the abaia stereotype to a tee, see, always reading, always solemn, always lurking in a dark corner somewhere, and then Raba had all the typical disrespect for the law and none of the malice-“

His voice drops, a touch, in enthusiasm.

”They, um, died. Permanently. Because of... the thing that I don’t like talking about, which made me a sorcerer and not just a unicorn mage. Alongside our twelve parents, though I wasn’t really close to any of them- ‘mother’ and ‘father’ translate a little strangely, people mostly have children in twelve-person groups, one of each gender? Um. You do deserve to know, if we’re dating- the quick summary is that this one... organization kidnapped me, when I was about fifteen, and... used me for the thing that you use royal unicorn mages for. And I escaped. And they followed through on certain threats. And kept right on chasing me, until the portal leading to this solar system closed.”

A pause occurs, interrupted only by a twig snapping underfoot.

“That’s, um, why I ended up with a roc and a sanzitania. Rocs are granted by the Dessicated Hunter, to predator and prey, and sanzitanias are granted by the Bumbling Astronomer, to people who make horrible, horrible mistakes.”

"Ouch. That sort of thing always sucks. Especially when you're young and family's involved. I don't mind external threats, I don't know how my power level measures up here but it's enough I have few genuine challengers in our worlds. In my world, most people are one of two main genders, and have kids in two-person groups. The wolves usually only have one breeding pair, but can be dating others."

He nods.

”Thank you. I picked up on the ‘two main genders’ thing, and the ‘mostly have children in two person groups’ bits. I’m- theoretically the most powerful person around, here? Only royal sorcerer in business, and all that. But I’m going to lose a fight with just about anyone, just because I’m really unwilling to hurt people or seriously restrict their movement or anything, and my only teleportation option is dreadfully murderous unless I can enhance it with thaumaturgy. And then I’m not particularly willing to be the sacrificer, rather than the sacrifice...”

Sigh.

”Um, my apologies about being so depressing, I promise that it’s just that one particular topic that makes me act like an unfortunately gloomy sea cucumber, I still really enjoy your company and everything. What sort of thing can you do, power-level wise? Aside from ‘have a smile that could make onrushing armies stand aside and find themselves all aflutter with the internal butterflies’, of course, I already know that bit from personal experience.”

"Awww. It's cool. And, hm, my abilities are hard to sum up? I can turn into animals, plants, and elementals of various sizes... My nature bond is the wolf domain, though that probably doesn't mean much to you - I can control plants, summon animals, double Runla's size and some other fun buffs, that's always hilarious, I can reincarnate people but only if they've been dead less than a year - that works even when most resurrection spells would fail, I can turn metal into wood which is neat to do to people's weapons, and various elemental attacks including giant balls of fire. There's more, but we'd be here hours detailing every little thing I can do."

“Ooh!” he says, returning to that ‘adoring staring’ hobby of his. “Shapeshifting isn’t impossible with regular thaumaturgy, but if you’re turning into anything that isn’t usually a person you need to sustain the effect, and that gets mana-expensive quickly- thaumaturgy can’t make actively magical effects stick to people, although familiar specific powers can. Shen mages can shapeshift into animals and plants, and dragon mages can turn into other people, and amarok mages can do something a bit like turning into an elemental, but it’d take a pretty niche sorcerer to have all three.”

"I have an innate ability to turn into any purely-physical thing-with-a-brain that's the same mass as me, but yeah druidic powers allow going outside that. Limited hours per day, though I'm almost to the point where it's 'because I will eventually need to sleep,' and if I manage highest power levels I could turn into a new thing every six seconds for eternity. Though that'd probably get disorienting."

“Probably!” Kadlawen agrees. 

Walk, walk, brief companionable silence, walk, walk.

"Your magic's neat, too - I'm not really clear on what the familiars do? Or, like, what magic's associated with yours."

He is not even slightly qualified to teach this, but he can most certainly pretend for that smile- or, for that matter, that person, the smile in particular is getting less important over time-

“Um. Well, familiars come in thirty-six kinds, and five tiers of ability? Lesser, common, greater, noble, and royal, each of which is around a hundred times less common than the previous one? And then you refer to a mage by their familiar tier and kind- Sasha, say, is a royal amarok mage- and then you refer to a sorcerer by their three familiars’ tier, and their gender, so I’m a royal red sorcerer.

Familiars grant blessings- or powers, or abilities, there isn’t really a formally correct term- depending on their tier. Lesser familiars grant one of their five associated lesser blessings- like, lesser zlatorog mages can pass through paper, or cure minor mental illness with their blood, or break really simple locks, or recover more rapidly from unconsciousness, or never lose their keys, they’re normally small things like that. Then common familiars grant two lesser blessings, and one of four possible common blessings, and greater familiars grant three lesser blessings, two common blessings, and one of three possible greater blessings, and so on? Until royal zlatorog mages have the royal zlatorog blessing and every other zlatorog-associated blessing there is? And royal zlatorogs themselves also have those abilities, but they’re, you know, mostly just weird semi-intelligent antelopes, it doesn’t come up much. If that makes sense?

... you, um, probably don’t want me to list out everything I can do, but unicorn powers are mostly themed around mental defense and spiritual purification and physical healing, and then sanzitania powers are mostly themed around plant control and good fortune and making other people have good fortune, and then roc powers are mostly themed around wind control and physical skillfullness and travel-via-wind?”

"Huh!" And he'll explain the common power divisions - wizards (very broad arcane magic; he knows the schools but not many examples within them), druids like himself (basically 'nature control'), clerics and oracles (healing, buffs, and... Other stuff?), paladins kinda have the same spells as clerics, bards (magic music), war mages, and he knows there's other less common ones - he can give a few examples from his homeworld, but not many from others. He thinks Veshiri has techno-mages? 

Eeee he’s so great at explaining things- and everything that he’s elucidating on is genuinely really fascinating-

Kadlawen enthusiastically nods and “mm-hm’s at appropriate times, replies with a few clarifying questions, further miscellaneous and minor conversation ensues- and then they’re at the summit (it being a relatively small mountain), surrounded by predictably beautiful bluebells, and a still-seemingly-setting sun.

Also at the summit, evidently, is a dragon. 

“I come for the one known as Ateshai,” rumbles the dragon, ruffling blue-feathered wings, “who has caught the knight of knight’s own eye, and so as writ upon the seven fates, and upon the lonely stone of dates, I come now to familiarize.”

"Uh. What does that all mean?" he asks, half to Kadlawen, voice creeping up mildly in pitch.

Kadlawen blinks, and takes a few steps back.

”Um- it’s a dragon? And it’s... your familiar now, I suppose? Um. I guess one of Kelsiran’s strange esoteric theories actually turned out to be correct for once, how surprising- um, magical creatures aren’t sapient or anything, but they come knowing packaged phrases, it probably can’t understand most questions, and if I were to try and translate that one into plain wecheyum I’d put it as ‘hello, I’m your familiar now, I was sent by the the Nebula Knight, blah blah blah predestination blah blah blah purple prose.”

"...Alright," he says, then to the dragon, "Hello. Do you have a name?"

“No,” intones the dragon.

"Do you want one?"