ORIGIN - status report

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Much of what Dragon said left Eurydome with more questions than answers; that Dragon was apparently voluntarily staying out of Hydra, that he had children, that there was an era after her own-- whatever that meant. Her assumption was that Dragon must have been an Overseer or something akin, but he didn't specify himself as such. Purposefully? Overseers didn't tend to just forget about their title.

"They, uhh, let you reproduce?" She asked instead-- which seemed like a better leeway into Dragon explaining his rights and rewards than asking straight up if he's some kind of Master's pet.

The gladiator had to think about this question regardless-- Orion had been quiet, empty, partially destroyed in some areas, but she was hesitant to call it... ruins. It wasn't ruined, it was just in a sad phase of its existence.

Something about the conversation had suddenly made her uncomfortable. "I suppose," she murmured, "it was very different the last time I was awake. Are you-- younger, then?"

That possibility didn't sound right-- Dragon said he'd been around for a long time. He couldn't exactly be new, unless his sense of time was skewed. Eurydome shuffled on the spot with thought, scarred face drawing back into a slight frown.

Maybe, after she fell asleep, everything had gone back to normal? The lights came on, people stopped rebelling and dying, and everyone went back to work? ... just how many people had died, that the caves were so empty now?

She scritched at her mane. "Is there still a rebellion?"

@Dragon

"Let us-?" Dragon began to ask--but then he remembered. There had been concern, some time ago--a fight, even, an argument--about Gembounds being allowed to keep their children.

Did Eurydome mean this?

"There was no 'they,' when I hatched," he explained. "Not for any of us. We were children, falling out of rock eggs, with no one to show us how to live. Those were days of adventure! Days of danger!" He sounded faintly excited by the memory. "The Masters only turned up later, I think. I do not know if they were somewhere else, somewhere outside the caves, or sleeping. If you are from before they slept, then you may be older than me! I might be, 'younger.' I was one of the first of us to wake." In his eyes, he was older than most. But in hers-? She might be decades old; centuries, even. He had no way of knowing--but long enough to wear away stone. But Dragon had no idea how long that would take.

As for her question of a rebellion--he'd have perked a brow, but he settled for peering at her sidelong. She was old, then, yes. "I have heard about a rebellion, a long time ago. I do not know much about it. I know that one of the old rebels came here, and tried to hide here; but it was infected by Order, and we had to kill it and destroy its nest." Well-... he hadn't killed it, but it had been killed, at least. "I know that Astraea wanted it hunted down." He studied Eurydome for a moment, pondering. Had she been a part of the rebellion-? Would it be rude to ask? Dangerous, even, to ask which side she'd been on?

If she'd been a rebel, he would have to warn her that she might be in danger, but--surely she already knew that. And if she had been aligned with the Masters, well, Dragon thought that the caves were pretty much in hand, aside from some in-fighting. He could share more information, either way, and potentially request some more in turn. "I am too young to be anything but neutral on ancient history--but can I ask which side you were on, if you were on a side? Or is that rude?" he asked.

@Eurydome

No they? Gembound were alone? If there were no masters then how were they created-- for what reason were they created? Maybe it was the Creator himself, but-- why?

"It sounds fun," she offered absent-mindedly at the mention of adventure and danger, but her mind was quickly wandering away.

A side was complicated. Eurydome had met with many rebels; she'd fought many Valkhounds that were hunting the gembound that were hiding-- but she never saw herself as having a side. When Eurydome burst out of chrysalis and saw the face of Jupiter before her, she knew to be loyal. It was reinforced in her time and time again: if you disobey your Master, your creator, you are a useless creation and you will be culled.

Her shuffling, again, was an uncomfortable gesture. "I don't know," she said-- and it was an unfortunately honest admission. A gilded arm lifted, forearm sweeping up her face and through her hair. "There was never really a point where someone told me which side I was supposed to be on. I just did what my Master told me to. Sometimes I hid, sometimes I fought. Sometimes I'd steal, or ransack homes and dens and kill whoever was hiding in there."

The gladiator's face scrunched briefly. "I mean-- it's what we all did." A pause. "Except for the ones that didn't, but-- I know a lot better than to question orders."

Eurydome was quiet for a few beats, watching Dragon. The wrinkes in her face began to smooth out again, arm dropping to slouch over on her forelimbs. "It's not rude but it's-- confusing, I guess. I just want to get back to doing whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing right now."

And on that note-- Order was sure as hell something she'd never heard of before. If another Master wanted rid of it, then perhaps Jupiter wanted the same-- but what if not? Eurydome found herself quickly missing the times where her job was simple: get bloody, entertain the visiting Hands, maybe scream a little.

"Its nest?" She eventually asked. "What's the Order?"

@Dragon

It sounded... grim, certainly, but Dragon was not about to judge. She didn't seem particularly aggressive; if anything, she seemed a tad uncomfortable. If, that was, he was doing the whole "reading cat-centaur expressions" thing correctly. "Which master was yours?" he asked bluntly.

Perhaps a bit of a rude question, again, but he hoped to shed some light on the topic for her. To tell her which side she'd perhaps been on; to tell her what it was she was supposed to be doing, maybe. His knowledge was somewhat limited, though. He knew, for example, that Astraea and Tenzin were sort of on one side; he knew that Farina and Artio were on another. And that Nemean, of course, was a "BETRAYER." He had some inkling that Vargas, elevated to Master recently, was aligned with both Astraea and Farina's sections, and likely Totum (though he didn't know that one's name) was, too.

Dragon also knew that Aquarian sat in the swamp and screamed at things.

Past this, his knowledge was limited or absent. For example, he knew about Raheerah--had fought him, in fact--but wasn't aware of whether that dragon was a Master. Hell, he wasn't even a hundred percent sure on Aquarian, either. This much he knew of only vaguely, from Aquarian's insistence that Nemean's betrayal had interrupted their work of creating destroyers. And of the other Masters he knew only rumors, or nothing at all.

Mental monologues of catalogued information aside...

"Order, not the Order; it's some sort of other force," he tried to explain, and if he could've lifted one forelimb up to gesture, he would have. He was fat, though, and needed all four limbs on the ground. And anyway, his wrists didn't lift that way. 

"As in: I believe much of these caves' creators were meant to serve 'chaos' as some sort of concept, or magic. Order is some opposing force. It uses fungus to control the minds of those it infects--white fungus, puffy stuff. They attempted to hide here, but there were enough of us that we ran into them. I do not care for whose loyalties lie where so long as they do not threaten my family," he added, his voice harsh with memory. Reji had not, at first, targetted the Children: but she had directly put them in the path of an incoming warzone and had kept that from them. 

"I do not know exactly what it does, except that those broken free of it are broken in spirit, too." Sometimes, at least. Those few he had met were miserable or furious, after the fact. "From what I gather it is a threat in the snowy part of the cave. The Masters tried to eradicate it there, and failed."

@Eurydome

"Jupiter," said Eurydome, amaranth fur bristling with pride.

Dragon began explaining what the Order was-- no, just Order --and it was clear that the light was beginning to glint out of the gladiator's eyes. Chaos-- Chaos was familiar. Where had she heard of Chaos? Maybe someone had tried to explain the concepts to her already, long ago, and she had forgotten.

She couldn't help but find herself, again, missing when things were simple. She missed being loosened onto whatever came in her way and stomping it down until it wasn't A Thing anymore-- she missed knowing what she was supposed to do in general. She missed when things made sense-- no fighting and no long explanations and battle plans and hey what the fuck was the name of that one guy in Canis?

When Eurydome phased back in, Dragon seemed to be talking about snow.

The gladiator blinked once, and where some people might ask 'could you repeat that?' Eurydome made the brave decision not to. "Do they need help getting rid of it?" She asked-- Chaos, Order, whatever the fuck, did not matter. "I feel a little, uh. Hollow, without any explicit orders. It's scary."

'Scary' in the loosest sense of the word; a phrase she was parroting without entirely knowing the meaning. Had Eurydome even been created with a sense of fear in the first place? She sure as hell wouldn't know it.

@Dragon

It's scary.

An admission that Dragon had not expected, least of all from this one, with her bulk and her scars. Was that the most frightening thing to her-? Being without structure, without command? That sounds more Order than Chaos, he reflected, and then exhaled slowly in thought.

"I do not think I recognize that name," he offered, eventually. "I would be very careful who you ask. I offer you advice: while the living Masters may know where 'Jupiter' is, they may be opposed to them." He paused a moment, thinking of how to better explain, though perhaps it was already clear. "You may accidentally admit yourself to be their enemy." Another pause, as he considered again.

"I could try to find out for you, if you wish. I would not be suspected as either rebel or loyal, because I am neither! Or you could simply ask, and hope for the best. I think Astraea is most often found in Eridanus--the place with the many plants. Vargas is in the Draco cave. Tenzin is, I think, in Pisces--with water, ice. He may be the best to ask; I do no think him to be violent," he advised, "but then, I don't know how much time he spends awake!" Half those Dragon knew to have sought him out had found him asleep beneath the ice. "Farina--is far beneath the water and angry, perhaps not worth the risk. And I suggest avoiding Nemean no matter what you do. She enjoys nothing more than tormenting us." True? Well, Dragon believed it, anyway.

"Once you have an answer, you might offer help against Order. I don't know. I do not know if they still need help! I do not know if they are even trying. Perhaps they are only keeping it confined," he added, and attempted a reptilian shrug, a roll of massive shoulders. 

"I will make you a deal, if you want. I wish to keep my family safe. I can try to find out about the Masters for you: about this Jupiter. In turn, all I ask is that if you ever regain their favor, you try to use any leverage to keep us safe--if we come up. As a topic," he explained. He didn't ask it lightly, and he didn't ask it in a demanding fashion, either--but the Children were important to him, and that, at least, showed.

@Eurydome

The news that Dragon didn't recognize Jupiter by name was troubling-- if she hadn't been around, then where was she? Had she just managed to avoid him by total accident? "I know," she was answering in the meantime, scritch-scritch-scritching at the stripes of her jawline. She didn't want to appear as the enemy to anyone, though-- she just wanted to do her job.

At Dragon's offer, she stopped mid-scritch-movement, glancing blankly down at him. His following deal revealed the intentions of his kindness-- but it was... fair. Whatever Dragon had going on here (Eurydome was still unclear what exactly it was) was important and he wanted to keep it safe. Sure. But--

"What if I don't?" She asked. "What if she's gone forever and I can't do anything? I don't want to leave my end of the deal unpaid." It was clear in her tone that she wasn't entirely afraid that Jupiter was actually gone (again, unclear if she had ever experienced actual fear in her life) but was instead concerned about her debts.

Eurydome did not like being in debt. It was messy.

She shuffled. "I can still do whatever I can-- but I don't know if I can guarentee the exact kind of safety you'd be looking for in that situation."

The gladiator took a long moment to think, after posing this possibility-- most of the names she recognized. The elf, the phoenix, the sprite and her antics --but the others, not so much. She instead went on her general knowledge; on what little fragments of memories she had retained over her long slumber.

"We attacked Draco a lot," she said, and it wasn't important (to her) why. "The Master there might know about her."

@Dragon

The alligator's head bobbed as he watched Eurydome's foot scratch away at her chin. He blinked as she paused, and spoke, the brief moment of being mesmerized by a giant paw over.

"It is a 'just in case' deal," Dragon explained. "If you never gain influence, or the Children are never in danger, then it is of no consequence. It is... insurance, for us. I would aid you for nothing, really, but it is a very long way and I always seek ways to ensure our survival here." He was being blunt, honest, but certainly not unkind: his initial greeting and check on Eurydome had been relatively friendly good nature. "I ask for no guarantees! But you mention broken deals, and your Master perhaps being gone, which brings a new idea to mind, a question."

The alligator took a breath, studying Eurydome for a moment--he was glad the conversation had gone this way, because now that he was thinking of something he might not have otherwise, something rather important. "If I ask the one in Draco about her, and she is dead or gone, that leaves you in danger and alone. What would be your next step-? That is--do you want me to ask, if that is the case!--if there is some way you can speak with them without fear for your life? If they would be willing to talk with you? If you want to continue a rebellion, but alone, of course... then I will say nothing," he added--though he thought her chances, in that case, to be rather slim.

Unless she joined Nemean, perhaps, but he doubted the sprite would do much good for a single soldier's survival prospects. More likely, she'd send her minion off to die somewhere and laugh about it.

@Eurydome

Dragon's kindness was clear, but it was kindness that Eurydome was beginning to question. Why was he being nice? Beyond the safety of his family, what did he want? Just survival?

She didn't have much time to consider this further before the next question was posed to her. What would she do if Jupiter was gone? Her instinctual answer was to just go back to the arena, but all the challengers were in their chrysalises and there was no audience to watch. As had been established earlier: Orion was in ruins.

If Jupiter was gone, Eurydome had nothing left.

That scared her.

"I don't want to be alone," she said, forelimb lowering and crossing the other, not quite realising how much a vulnerable admission this might be-- to her, it was just another piece of casual conversation. She didn't really want to go back to rebelling, either-- not if no one else was doing it, not unless she was told to continue it.

A hazy memory told her that Jupiter believed in freedom-- an irony that had flown right over Eurydome's head. Maybe a part of freedom was the ability to choose to go under the command of another Master, despite it all, despite what Jupiter was rebelling for.

Eurydome contemplated this specifically for a moment, and something twisted over in her gut. "I don't know," she went on after a few beats. "I don't want conflict outside of the arena. I'd like to talk to one of the other Masters if it's possible, but I don't want you to risk your neck if they would attack you for trying to look out for me in that way."

Her head was starting to hurt, thinking so much. "Are you hungry?" She asked, a little out of the blue.

@Dragon

Eurydome's sudden admission was... tragic. Sad. Dragon felt a pang of sympathy, but he waited to see if she would speak further--and she did.

When she had finished, he ignored her question, for a moment. The rest of... all of what she'd said, all of it, was more important.

"There are many of us throughout the caves, and many live in families. It would not be difficult to find yourself a new home, new allies," he suggested, almost gently. "I can tell you of the ones I know, if you want to learn about them, now or later." 'Later,' as in, the unsaid "if your Master is dead."

As for risking his neck-? "In asking, it would not be my neck that I am risking, but yours. They might want to kill you, I do not know. I do not know of the rebellion, or how serious it was," and this was an admission made without shame. How could Dragon feel foolish for not knowing about something that had come centuries before?

And on to the more casual topic, at last, and with a truthful answer. Dragon wasn't all that hungry, but--"I can always eat. If you can catch the slimy fish, I can cook them; they taste much better that way. If you haven't had them, before," he amended; she was so old that she might already be well aware of that.

He glanced around, down at the dark, damp earth below, at the water pooled within its divots. "If you are hungry, we can hunt together--I assume that you eat meat?" He glanced to her. She sure looked like she ate meat.

"I wonder, is there anything you can tell me about your era? Anything... different, from now? I haven't met many as old as you are, and I am curious," he added, shifting to make way, in case Eurydome wanted to leap down.

@Eurydome