"Lonely?"

"Plants aren't social."

Uncertain tail-flick.

It just feels a bit weird to have them like that. I'm not sure why.

"Huh."

"Even plants that are going to be in gardens one day usually start in pots so people can tend them till they're bigger."

If things feel weird but he can't think of why it's probably just because he doesn't know enough, he thinks aloud.

He moves on into the house.

There's a dining room on the left and a parlor on the right and two staircases up ahead and a big open atrium between the stairs with a piano and a couch pit and a fireplace and a projector screen and a fountain on the wall opposite the fireplace.

All of it is very shiny.

He skirts around the couch pit and investigates the fountain (and sips water) and sniffs the fireplace, and then slinks around the piano's legs and bats at the foot levers a bit.

The blues think this is adorable but want him to mind the pointiness of his claws around scratchable stuff like pianos.

He is definitely going to get too excited and forget that sometimes.

...This thing is rare or valuable? Ooh.

Pianos are pricey, yeah. They make rubber things you can put on pets' claws, if he won't be able to remember? Or they could put oven mitts on his feet for indoors, so he can still get his claws out when he wants them on purpose.

And it does music? That's what their thoughts sound like. Music!

Those sound annoying but he is willing to try them. Maybe he should just be outside most of the time if everything in here is delicate.

It does music! They both play, one more than the other, as a hobby. One demonstrates and the other fetches oven mitts for him to try; if the basic idea is okay they can get something better fitted.

Music!!! He clambers up onto the bench and possibly into a lap before the oven mitts arrive and stares at the piano's keys, head feathers all a-fluff.

Awwww, lap Katmem! She'll play through the whole concerto.

Here are oven mitts for him to try.

That's really good. Music is beautiful.

Oven mitts feel weird and restrict his 'paws' too much. Even the back legs are surprisingly dextrous in the paws and it's weird not to be able to flex each digit independent of the others because there's something covering them. Really little oven mitts that go over each sharp bit would be better, and none at all would be best.

They can do individual-claw-mitts just for indoors until he's gotten good at not impulsively scratching pianos and things?

His foster mom is happy to play lots of piano with an alien baby in her lap.

Not destroying things by accident is worth some discomfort sometimes.

He radiates contentment at the music. He reaches out and tries replicating a simpler bit with two clawtips after a while.

Awwww! Does he want a piano lesson??

He thinks he gets it, you press the things and it makes music, but lessons can't hurt!

She's reading this sheet music, here! So that she can make the specific tune she wants.

So, like pictures for music? To share with people? He might want to just play what he thinks sounds nice instead.

Okay. Lessons can still help with playing by ear but he does not need to take piano lessons if he does not want them.

Instead of piano lessons, he will sing ooo-aaa-uuu sounds and a babyish mental message of curiosity-about-everything and liking-pretty-things along with her playing.

(He does get antsy about being in a lap when the piano is no longer quite so new and exciting and curls up under the piano instead.)

Eventually he wants to know how the piano works, is it science?

It's sort of science? Mostly in the sense that everything is science. They can show him inside under the lid if he'll let them pick him up (they're not sure it's a good idea for him to fly indoors).

Hatchlings can't fly. His Creators told him that and he remembered it instead of forgetting, because crashing sounded scary.

...He is kind of nervous about being picked up but will try it.

The piano-playing foster parent moves very slowly to scoop him up.