ORIGIN - status report

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Something wasn't sitting right. The thing that had flipped in her belly seemed to writhe the more Dragon spoke, until she couldn't shake the discomfort anymore-- not wanting to be rude, but certainly quickly becoming overwhelmed with the urge to cover her ears and go back into her chrysalis for another few thousand cycles.

The alligator shifted down and Eurydome was pushing up, claws unsheathing to grip the roots. She crawled forward down, hesitating only a moment before leaping onto the marsh below-- to ensure that there was no body of water for her to fall into there. It felt better, at least for now, to be on her paws again. The slow walking put her stomach at ease.

It was only then, after some movement, that she spoke again. "I'd like to hear about them if Jupiter is gone," her voice came quiet. If. There was no point in making new friends and loved ones if she was never going to see them, after all. "I'm worried they might want to kill you for talking to me-- for thinking we both would rebel."

There was no 'might' when it boiled down to it-- at least for her. There would be people who would want her dead and the Master in Draco may well be one of them, unless Jupiter managed to pull something off. Worse yet, if her Master was gone, maybe she should be dead, if she has no more purpose to fill.

Eurydome didn't like that thought in the slightest. She was overwhelmed with the urge to heave and empty her guts into the marsh. The only thing that stopped her, currently, was that her belly was empty.

So, she kept walking-- after waiting for Dragon to scramble down from his perch --at that slow, almost leisurely pace to make sure he could keep up. "I eat everything," she said, but the change of subject wasn't enough to soothe her either, not completely. "But I don't have fish often. Never cooked."

The land came to a slight dip, here, and as Eurydome came towards where mud met deep water, she paused and she hesitated and she lowered herself slightly, one hand reaching to press her palm against her back. The feeling of marsh against the smooth of her underbelly did nothing to off-set the feeling of sickness in there-- if anything, it made it worse.

Worse yet, the water was so dark it was difficult to see. Eurydome's eyes were sharp, but they weren't that sharp, anything she tried to lash at might as well be a shot in the dark. She wasn't confident in her ability here.

She waited until she saw the slightest of movement in the murk. And she pounced.

A horrendous SPLASH scared away a flock of Callers (and right after they had just settled back down, too) and mud and water went flying in all directions. Powerful, soaking went forelimbs had found their way into something-- she could feel the scales writhing against her pawpads and torso.

The gladiator let out a guttural snarl-- not necessarily at the fish beneath her, but at... everything else. The caves and the Masters and the sleep and the rebels and Jupiter. At Dragon for the crime of kindness. At herself for never retaining information, where others were a sponge. At everything.

Crack, crunch, and it was over.

The slimy fish was limp beneath her mud-soaked limbs but the blood was still rushing in Eurydome's ears, her breathing shallow. And then she remembered she was meant to be having a conversation.

The cat-centuar stepped back, hands grabbing the fish by the tail and pulling it back further onto land. "I don't know what's different exactly," she said as she did so, letting the creature flop over into the mud with a squelch. She hadn't remembered these things being so... gross-feeling. "We had... farms."

Pale gaze lifted towards Dragon again and she stepped back from the body to begin scraping mud and water from her haunches again, ear flicking back as she waited to see the fire. "Is there anything specific you wanted to know? I don't know if I'll be able to answer everything, but I'll try."

The change in subject was nice for now, at least.

@Dragon

"They will not," Dragon assured her. He sounded confident in this. "I, and my children, have aided most of them before. As neutral allies," he added. Not as servants. "I am known to them." Which was true, mostly. Astraea, Farina, Artio, Tenzin, Astraea, Vargas--Dragon had met them all, worked with them to fight Order or Raheerah or what have you. They knew his dedication to the caves, if nothing else. Dragon crawled fully down and splashed into the mud. He began to haul himself alongside Eurydome, grateful once again for her slow pace, twisted limb dragging along behind him.

As for Nemean? Well. Imp'd tried to eat Nemean. Hm, now that I think on it, Vargas worked with Nemean too, did he not? When harming Imp. I wonder whose side--these politics are too much for me to decipher. He gave up, for now, and he was fine with that; what was important was arriving, bluntly asking his questions, and getting answers. He had no doubt that the Masters were straightforward enough to give him honesty, at least. "Just hide somewhere when I go," he amended, "so that if one demands to be taken to you, I cannot expose you. Then find me on your own a day or so later."

Now they reached the water, and Dragon moved a bit away: slipping into the channel with barely a splash, his dark body seeming to merge with the equally dark marsh beneath. He was turning, intending to spook some fish toward the centaur (he fully expected to be the one to do the fishing, given that this was how he lived day-to-day), when there was a deafening splash that sent the water rocking toward him in a wave.

The haunting sounds of Callers scattering every which way overhead alerted him further, and he surfaced again, froglike eyes peering toward just upriver. A couple strokes of his powerful tail brought him to her, and he waited in the water beneath as she clambered back out. He was more comfortable here, really. We had... farms. Her snarl had given way to conversation, again, and he pushed half his torso up onto the mud with one great heave of his tail.

He opened his jaws, but the heat in his gullet sputtered, and he snapped them shut again with a great clap. "I will cook it when my magic agrees with me," he told Eurydome, with humor. As for farms-...

"What was the culture like, then? The creatures? These days," he went on, figuring the information could and should go both ways, "we are born mostly randomly from the stones. We create children, sometimes. We wander, explore. Some of us seek allies or companionship, others fight, die. There is no real control over it; the Masters wander, and sometimes step in to correct real dangers." Like Astraea, formerly a benevolent guardian appearing in times of need, now a furious overlord from time to time. "Was it different, when you-" -were alive? lived? that isn't right, he thought. He dipped back and blew a few bubbles in the water before finishing that thought. "-Before you slept?" was what he settled on.

@Eurydome

Eurydome was quiet for a time, listening-- watching as Dragon tried and failed to summon his magic (ah, she knew that too well) and slowly settling in the murk with only the slightest of grimaces as the ground seemed to simply conform to her bulk instead of remaining firmly flat.

How much did Dragon know? She might as well start from the beginning, as though he knew nothing.

"We were all created. Never random," (at least, as far as she had experienced). "The Masters created us, sometimes by explicit order from a Valkhand. Sometimes by their own will. We always had a purpose and we were trained for that as soon as we hatch-- I was made for entertaining an audience at the arena, but others were made for all sorts. Hunting, fighting, growing food-- I heard there were some created around the Palace in Cetus to keep everything clean."

"Being allowed to wander was rare. We all had our purpose and we all stuck to it. I was lucky to see outside of Orion at all." That had mostly been thanks to the rebellion, but moving on.

"If we were faulty, or we disobeyed our Masters, we would be destroyed. If we did our jobs exceptionally, we would be granted the rights to procreate or given homes to live in-- personal dens, our own space. Some who were born without names would have the rights to pick their own names, too-- I was lucky that Jupiter gave her creations names from the beginning." Another bristle of pride for her Master, before the gladiator was moving on. "Some of us would be promoted, too-- some masters had a group of Overseers who would act in their place when they were busy elsewhere. If we were lucky, we'd be given leisure time, time to rest. Maybe you could wander then? But you'd have to be back for your duties."

What else? "The Masters all had their tasks, too, but I don't know too much about it. The only ones who didn't seem to do anything were the Hands, but I'm sure they had their purpose? They're sort of... top of the food chain. They can do whatever they want."

"When the rebellion began, Jupiter said it was for our freedom. She didn't... like the rules, I think. The restrictions. I never... really understood it, truthfully. I don't know if I ever will," she picked at her fur absently. "But it was... terrible. We weren't allowed food anymore, and we were being hunted by everyone. We had to steal and hide all the time. Everyone became very.. bitter, unfriendly-- because we'd all seen our friends and colleagues die."

A pause. "I guess I just... never saw the point in it. Why rebelling was so important."

@Dragon

Dragon listened in silence, broken only by a few squelching sounds as he stepped forward to try and cook the fish again. Jaws parted, crackling air pouring over it, searing the slime away at least--though it was a bit weak to fully cook it through. But other than that he only listened, until Eurydome at last fell silent. "Perhaps she won, then!" was his first thought, spoken aloud. "We live where we want, we reproduce freely." It didn't occur to him--he didn't really know--that some parts of the caves were more restrictive. This was a relatively recent development, after all, and... well, the alligator didn't get out all that much.

He didn't really offer sympathetic words, as he didn't think of it; it didn't occur to him that the enormous cat-woman-gladiator here might be terribly sad. But in a practical sense, maybe what he said would help, somehow. He pushed on, regardless, after nudging the now-cooked fish toward Eurydome.

"If they were so tightly controlled, if they had no real control over whether they lived, or died, or held families or homes or food... I can see why freedom would be important! Rebelling," he explained. But it was a matter-of-fact tone, nothing zealous or even heartfelt. He saw it as a simple truth, really. "I think many of those alive today would not give up those rights so easily. Names, even-..." Dragon trailed off, eyeing the fish for a moment.

Was that why Aquarian had been so confused, the first time he'd erupted from the murk-? Demanding to know who they are, who had sent them, where Nemean was? Had he awoken expecting a regimented world of nameless slaves chained to purpose, rather than children wandering wide-eyed through his world?

"Hmm. Thank you for telling me these things. It puts some things into perspective--some things I didn't understand. It's clearer, now. You say you were made to entertain an audience-?" he went on, glancing again at Eurydome. He tried to imagine her putting on some sort of act, or show, but he couldn't quite picture it. "What was it that you did?"

@Eurydome

Her ear flicked back. Maybe she had won-- maybe Vakornol simply assumed that Eurydome had already known this and made no mention of it. She tentatively reached out for the half-cooked fish and sniffed at it before picking it up and taking a bite. Scales and all.

The outside was hot-- pleasantly, Eurydome had decided --charcoally and smoky. The inside was a sort of gradient from burnt to raw in a way that she then decided was unpleasant, making a face as she chewed through an ombre of textures. Even as she swallowed it, it didn't seem to quite sit right in her belly. "That's-- new."

Which, at least, was not a lie.

"I liked the control," Eurydome said a little more gently, unfortunately taking a second bite out of the fish. "I liked having.. structure. Being told what to do and being able to fufill my job. I understand it might not be for... everyone, especially if they've already grown used to it already." Is that why Jupiter held it so close? Had her rights been ripped out of her hands?

The gladiator wrinkled her nose a little. "I fought in the arena," she went on. "In Orion. All kinds of Masters and Hands and things would come to see. I'd attack whoever entered the arena with me, and the more bloody and noisy it got, the more praise I got later."

"I did it for a really long time--" she twisted, gesturing to the extensive scars on her haunches and hind legs; plated gold. "These are from when I was newer, when I got the piss beaten out of me for the first time," she grinned regardless, good-naturedly, as though she were fond of the memory. "I miss it a lot. Even just being looked at and being cheered for. It felt good."

She idly offered the fish back to Dragon to take a bite, too. "Do you get to fighting a lot?"

@Dragon

Dragon listened, quiet, attentive to everything that the centaur was saying. These things were good to know: little nuggets of knowledge that on their own might not mean that much, but when slotted into a greater picture could help him understand the implications. Dragon was no fool; he saw the value even in such seeming small talk.

"Fought!" he repeated, and studied her anew. The scars on the outside. The desperate desire for structure on the inside. Granted, she was clear about it: she knew it wasn't for everyone. Yet something about it sat a little wrong with him.

They created creatures purely to indulge in injuries and violence... for their amusement? he wondered. No wonder Jupiter had taken this one away, into a rebellion. A weight settled into his belly.

Was this the sort of thing Farina wanted to bring back? Astraea, Vargas? 

The necessity of building some kind of hidden haven felt more urgent by the minute. The necessity, even, of escaping the caves, somehow. She was offering him a bite of fish, and he turned, studying the water. There were more down there--alive, of course, but if he were careful that was an easy remedy. He sort of sludged himself back in through the muck, opened his massive jaws, and inhaled: and what came out wasn't a mere wavery blast of hot air, but a gout of flamethrower fire. It crackled into the water, hissing upward, superheating a small area of it--and then the alligator dipped his head sharply, with a hefty splash.

He came up with one--two--more fish. They were quite dead, slime still burned away but nothing of crisp flesh atop them. Maybe they were hotter throughout, though; he couldn't tell, didn't care. He lobbed another halfway between them, in case Eurydome wanted a second; his own was tossed back into tilted jaw, and swallowed whole.

"I fight when survival demands it!" was his answer. "We fought Raheerah--drove him back--with Astraea and Tenzin, if you did not know of that. That is how I got this," he added, waggling his twisted limb a little in Eurydome's direction. "When I was very young, we fought Aquarian. We have fought Order, and creatures of shadow that have invaded here. But I do not go looking for fights. My magic is the deadly kind," he added, the implication being that he couldn't really fight for entertainment. Not without reducing someone to cinders, anyway.

@Eurydome

Her head tilted at Dragon's parroting, lips parting briefly. She considered saying it back to him (had he misheard?) but didn't get the chance as the alligator's jaws errupted into flame. This was different-- this wasn't the little microwave mouth he had displayed earlier. The gladiator instinctively shifted back as the heat blew against her face, head swivelling to the water. Dragon vanished, and Eurydome was left stunned for a few beats.

The fish that he brought back looked much more appetizing, however-- she abandoned the half-eaten, half-raw fish in favour for one of the burnt ones and mimicked Dragon's display. Her jaw popped off its hinge and she slotted the entire thing into her maw, making quick work of the delicate bones and scales, delighted by the crunch of not just skin and bone, but cooked flesh, too.

His words had her choking quickly, however-- "you FOUGHT Raheerah?" As a child? And lived?

He had to be exaggerating at the very least, outright lying at the most. Eurydome was captivated regardless. "How did you do it? What happened? Where is he now?" (how many must have died during that?)
The knowledge that he had fought Aquarian (as an even younger child, apparently) wasn't as surprising to her-- but she did start to feel the headache returning as she started to think too hard about it. "Not everyone is made for the areans," she amended after a few moments. "It's not about who can kill the other the fastest-- well, it might be, sometimes --but it's about keeping the audience intrigued without boring them."

One hand gestured, the other picked bits of bone from between her teeth. "They might get a kick out of watching people try to avoid your fire," Eurydome offered. "But it's fair enough if you don't want to fight-- maybe it's better to kill things quickly for the sake of survival than to know how to draw out fights for a long time."

@Dragon

Dragon let out a short laugh. (He had not been a child at the time, certainly, though he couldn't exactly correct that thought.)

"Yes! I was leading the Children, by then, and I had grown large. There were many of us, and a good number ended very, very wounded, or dead. I could not even leave Polaris; I had to stay for a cycle or so, healing my wounds. Tenzin's magic, I think, was what did the most. Ice, against fire!" For a moment, the old alligator's eyes glinted, lost in the glory of that fight.

It had been almost hopeless, a chaotic mess of flame and blood, but it had been wonderful! ...It had also been the fight that had, for the first time, left him wanting to stop. He'd realized, by the end, that he simply could not continue, and his spark to continue the battle had almost gone out.

Almost.

He'd still torn a couple of Raheerah's scales free. They were probably still around Cetus somewhere.

"You ask 'what happened.' I think it began because Raheerah... woke up. I am not sure! I only know that he went to Polaris and set the cave on fire, and we drove him into the holes of the ceiling. I hear he came back recently, and was defeated a second time, taken away from the caves. Maybe for good! I do not know."

There. Raheerah update: complete.

As for the arena? Dragon peered at Eurydome, for a moment. "Are they fighting there, now? I mean, these days. The last time I heard, it was empty. Dust." But again, he didn't exactly get out much.

He pondered the idea of being an arena combatant, for a moment. He did love to fight. And if he could use magic, well, all the better. But battling it out for the amusement of a crowd, of the masters? He could see part of him loving the idea--perhaps if he'd been taken young, trained for it. But now he was too independent, too thoughtful a beast. He had greater concerns on his mind than entertainment for a dictatorial regime.

Survival, for example.

"It sounds as though it would be fun! But I think it would not be not for me."

@Eurydome

Eurydome listened with flicking ears, eyes shimmering with interest. If Raheerah was gone, there was a chance other Masters were, too, which was a concern to her-- but the knowledge that the dragon has essentially been chased from the caves gave her some strange feeling in her gut: hope. This emotion, however, could only be described by Eurydome as 'when you make your opponent trip up and you get very close to winning the fight.'

Even if he might come back, for now-- the less baby-raging dragons in the caves, the better.

Her mood deflated a little visibly when Dragon asked his next question. "It was only me and Vakornol there," Eurydome said. "We fought a little-- with no audience, or-- well, anyone. I couldn't find anyone else awake afterwards, either."

Bulky fingers scritched at the hollow of her chin absent-mindedly, and Eurydome's gaze cast briefly downwards. Vakornol wasn't one for conversation-- and neither was Eurydome, really, but this? This was... "this is nice," she said. "Talking. Eating."

Living, without the concern of Masters peering over their shoulders. Was this the kind of freedom that Jupiter wanted-- that she might have secured for everyone?

She shifted on the mud. "You're very nice. Thank you."

@Dragon

Dragon laughed good-naturedly at the compliment.

"You are welcome! You are welcome also to visit whenever you please," he added, lying flat now in the mud. 

It was somehow a relief to know that the arena wasn't back to blood-spilling business. It meant the Masters hadn't quite gotten the churning gears of this cave back up to... whatever they wanted to do with it. There was still rust, still dust, and he and his Children therefore still had a chance.

As an afterthought, he added, "I do not think I know Vakornol."

Then he just sort of... lounged there, for a moment, enjoying the stink of his swamp and the moisture of the fog. It occurred to him to ask another polite sort of question, then: "If you have been asleep so long, do you have any other questions of how the caves are now?" She, after all, had told him about the olden days.

@Eurydome

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