"Hello little cheepingbird," coos Kiawen, and she sets it on her shoulder opposite the piano bear and continues into the cave.
"Eee!" giggles Kiawen. "It's a pink bat thing. Probably they come in other colors, most of the things here do. Do you make a sound, bat-thing?"
And she reaches up carefully to pick up the bat-thing off her head and hold it in front of her. It snuggles into her hands.
"Aww, look," she says delightedly, "it's got four little paws and a little fluffy tail. It's like a... rabbit... bat. A rabbat? No, that sounds weird. A bunnydragon?"
Eventually they have located, named, and - they think - exhausted the species population of the Gentle Cave, put all their creatures back, and gone home.
Kanim goes to tell Bella about the cave. "In addition to being extremely cute, it's got this anti-injury field that I figured out after a bit of looking; I don't know how robust it is, but even if a piano bear decided to bite you you wouldn't get bit."
"Interesting. I wonder if that's duplicable - did you find a source?"
"We were wandering all up and down the crystal maze and we didn't find anything that said 'Look at me! I'm a mystical artifact!'," says Tanalin. "But maybe Kanim saw something. Did you?"
"Nothing screamed it. The cave is very self-contained - none of the animals or plants in it have ventured out - could be related, or not, I'll make another trip a while later and see if I can pin it down with more data points at different times of day."
"And we can figure out why they don't leave, and talk to Cricket, and bring home animals, right?"
"I suppose so. I don't think Cricket would hurt your pets if you acquired them, although he might find it irresistible to scare them."
"They don't seem to scare very easily," says Tanalin. "I guess living in the Gentle Cave will do that."