ORIGIN

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He would have waited if she had continued her warnings, asked it of him, but she nodded and he did not hesitate at all to scoop her up and bring her inside. She was small enough to hold with only his left arm as he closed the door and shuffled over to a desk with various things, including papers, knickknacks, and corked bottles. There was a gentle bounce in the way he held her, like one might hold and rock a baby, as he picked through the things to nab a cloth and small round tin. She had begun to sniffle and cry, and the wisp of her magic startled him not; in fact, he had not the time to notice it yet. He set the cloth and tin down on the arm of a chair before a drowsy fireplace and hurried to his kitchen—everything was within a few steps of the other, as he did not need or wish to live lavishly—where he grabbed a small cup of water and returned to the chair.

This was when she had finally begun to howl the questions that despaired her. As Tamulus settled into the chair, he drug a small blanket over her body while continuing to cradle her in the crook of his left arm.

"We'll get there, let me see to this first," he said gently, lifting her chin to get a better look at the wound dug around and under her gem. Had something tried to take her gemstone? He dabbed the corner of the cloth into the cup of water and began to wipe away the blood.

"For questions I can answer, you are in the Vaa. More importantly, you are no longer in the caves, but on the surface. You all live inside of a moon called Let, and," he spoke as he shifted the cloth and wet a new area, continuing to clean, "my name is Tamulus. I have some suspicion as to how you arrived on the surface, but for the why, I cannot say." He paused to view the area he cleaned before sliding the lid off of the tin, which held pads of clean gauze; he plucked one free and held it against her cheek to help absorb blood as he passively fed magic into her stone, aiding the closing of the wound.

"Can you describe the man for me?"

@Wilder

Tamulus's hut was warm, his arms were gentle, and the blanket pulled over her was heavy and soft. His touch was delicate as he moved her head up to inspect the wound and Wilder let him, still trembling but slowly calming under his care. Everything around her spoke of comfort and safety - so unlike the cold gray cave she'd been in only moments before. It was a serious emotional whiplash, and Wilder was still struggling to understand everything that was happening to her, so she simply sat there and sniffled as her sobs died away, listening to the answers to some of the questions that had been burning since she'd first arrived. A soft purr had started up in her chest as she soaked into Tamulus's comfort, but it quickly died away as her brain went into overdrive.

After he'd finished answering, she was quiet. Shocked. Confused. It was like her entire world had been split open. No, it literally had. The word "surface" hadn't even been in her vocabulary before, not like this at least. She didn't even realize that there was a surface. For her, the world had been only caves. Nothing else beyond those walls of stone. She wasn't there anymore. She had left the caves behind completely. Nothing could have prepared her for that and she was shocked into silence.

She suddenly felt even more alone then before. Everything she'd ever known was behind her. Far away. How far, she didn't know. Deep, deep beneath the ground, apparently, too far to reach by anything but magic. More and more questions were starting to pop into her head and she desperately wanted to ask all of them, but there was so much happening in her head that they were shut and silenced quickly, trying to focus on what she did know and what Tamulus was asking of her.

"He called me..."wilder then the Vaa". Like it's bad. But he was bad." She shook her head, as if it would help her stop hearing his words. "He was...like you, on two legs. But no wings. His head looked like a wolf but I don't think it was real. It didn't move when he talked. He had claws that were cold like rocks and a big cape - like the Collector. He said...his name was Tunglith Verin. He was looking for some "Phoenix Knight" but...what does that mean? Who is that?" She sniffed again, turning her wide violet eyes towards Tamulus. "Why did he think I knew? I didn't do anything - I was just...I was in Pegasus and then I was here and he was yelling at me. Who is he?"

She shook her head again, raising a paw to rub against her forehead. "This is...a lot. I didn't know there even was a surface, but here I am. Is that why my magic didn't work before? And why he's never seen something like me? He called me horrible. And foul." She ended sadly, as if some part of her had, incredibly, believed what he'd said.

Tamulus listened to her description as he continued to tend to her, both magically and non-magically, changing out the gauze as needed until the wound began to close up. When she sniffed between words and looked at him, he let his eyes meet hers in the gentle way a parent regards a child.

"Mhmm?" he hummed as if to confirm he was still listening.

Wilder continued, and he nodded when she mentioned it was a lot to take in. He patted the last bit of blood from her fur and turned her cheek somewhat in an attempt to get a good view. The wound had closed and he could feel that he was magically exhausted. It had been incredibly deep, though not bad enough to engage her chrysalis; and he did not think she could have chrysalized out there anyway.

"It certainly is a lot, and none of it was intended to be thrust upon you at all," he said after a moment while moving some things out of the way before his hands returned to her, one stroking her head, the other at his side.

"Tunglith Verin," he said with a deep sigh. "Prince of the Verin Empire, the Black Wolf as they call him. The wolf head you saw was his helmet, forged for him by their family blacksmith soon after he earned his acurrsed title." His eyes wandered to the fire and brief flashes of chaotic warforging clouded his mind. A smile touched his lips.

"He called you wilder than the Vaa?" Tamulus asked with a soft chuckle. "He does not know anything more wild than the Vaa, and he would not know what to think of it if he did. The Vaa is everything they don't understand, the home of the witches, of others like you and me," he said as his eyes returned to her. "I have heard of the Phoenix Knight. I am curious why he thinks you might have, but it is possible he had his witches reach blindly into the magicka and pull you out." His head tilted. "But what had they reached for, I wonder? Do you know of any cursed with the affliction of the undead?" Because that's what the Phoenix Knight was, essentially. Unable to die.

"Oh, then a witch must have sent you here," he said, thinking out loud as his eyes wandered again. "They know no other safety than the Vaa. One of them must have saved you and sent you here, and your magic brouht you to me—ah, yes, that is why you could not use your magic there. It is too far from a well, but you should be able to use it with me." He lifted a finger to point at her wisp, eyes settling upon it and following it as it bobbed about.

"There are few places left on Let than can access much magic. It is dying," Tamulus commented as he continued to follow the wisp, his thoughts wandering. As it should. As all of it should. His eyes softened into the sadness of a lonely old man who had too long left to live and nothing left to live it for.

@Wilder

She'd honestly barely even noticed the pain in her cheek anymore, besides the distressed ringing in her head at having someone so close to having severed her ties to magic completely, but when Tamulus turned her head to inspect the wound, she realized that she couldn't feel it anymore. Had he been healing it the whole time? She'd been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she barely paid attention to it.

His words were more comforting then they should have been. As if some deep part of Wilder had convinced herself that this had been done on purpose, that someone had pulled her out in response to what she'd done or who she was. That it was something personal. But it was all just bad luck (although she seemed to attract bad luck like a magnet). She finally allowed herself to completely relax, the rest of the tension leaving her body and melting into the blanket. Tamulus stroking her head felt...really really nice. Nobody had ever touched her like that and she found herself leaning into it, purrs starting up again in her chest. She wanted to stay here forever, in his warmth, under his gentle touch. He was someone that didn't hate her or judge her or use her for their own gain. He was someone that simply cared. It was nice, being cared about again.

It was Wilder's turn to listen again, and she shuddered as she wondered what had given him such a fierce reputation. She had said before that it must be lonely for him...but now she wondered if he deserved it. "Why do they call him that? The Black Wolf?" If he wasn't a wolf, then why the helmet? Why the title? She didn't quite understand why someone who apparently hated creatures like her would fashion themselves after one.

At one point, she perked up a bit. "Like us? Wait...are there others out there? I mean, gembound? Out in the Vaa?" She'd assumed, after seeing Tunglith Verin react so ferociously to her and the shape that he, the witches, and Tamulus took, that she was the only gembound to be found up on the surface. Were they everywhere? Had they come up from the caves, or had the ones from the Vaa come down? She shook her head as his question, however. "No, I don't think so. I mean...I'm sure that there's a kind of magic that lets you control corpses. Not that I've ever considered using it." She shivered at the thought. She hoped that nobody would follow through with that idea.

Her eyes followed Tamulus to the wisp as she was quiet for a moment as she watched it flicker. "A well...do you mean like the Spire? Are you like the Spire?" The question fell out of her mouth, but then she realized how foolish it sounded - of course he wasn't like the Spire. He was a living, breathing creature and the Spire...wasn't, as far as she was aware. It was energy and magic and crystal and whispers wreathed around it, but not from it. She'd never fully understood, but every attempt to look further into it had always ended badly for her. (Not the time to think about that, Wilder.)

"Dying?" An ear twitched. "Why? What's happening to it?" She remembered, again, Tungilith, and how he'd spoken of the witches as if they were vile, horrible things. He must not have access to magic, as they did. And he'd never met a gembound before either. Concern etched across her face. "Is it going to leave the caves too?"

Tamulus felt comfort in the fact that she was finally letting herself relax. Her circumstances were bizarre but hopefully, he could get her home sooner rather than later. Regarding the Black Wolf, however, he was not sure.

"I don't know," he admitted, having taken a moment to think on it. "I guess they must find wolves to be intimidating." But when she perked up at the idea of others like her, he smiled. "Yes, technically. Originally, Jupiter and I had to create many creatures as gembounds as we curated the lands, but many of them are gone now. What remains is their natural offspring, generations and generations of them... But the witches that you saw in Verin are also what you consider gembounds." His voice hardened as he said that, and he took a moment to lift his eyes and stare into the fire before returning to her.

Indeed, then, she had not met an undead. Or maybe she had, and she didn't know it. Somehow she had been connected to something like that and she was unaware. Tamulus could not think of anything that he had encountered, but he would not put it past the chaos in the caves to create something so foul. His only response to her was a thoughtful hmm as they moved past the idea.

"Yes, like the Spire," he confirmed. "Do you know what the ocean is? A lake? If the Spire is the ocean, then I am like a lake." He paused for a moment and tapped a finger on his chin. She probably didn't know what an ocean was, or not well enough to grasp the concept. Oh well. "Er... sort of. But it's the best I can come up with for now. If you follow that, your magic is like... a puddle, but if you are fed by a larger body of water, you are stronger." Tamulus felt his smile betray his serious words. "Maybe that is not a good comparison," he said with a small laugh.

The lightness of the conversation again ebbed.

"Hmm. No, you are in the most concentrated area—in the caves, that is. But our belief is that the Spire is eating the magic that Jupiter and I put onto Let. You could say, I guess, that we borrowed the magic and the Spire is taking it back." His eyes drifted away from her and to the fire again. "Well, anyway, that's what we think." He realized then that he had not seen or heard from Jupiter in a while. With Dhracia's recent returnings, he feared the worst. Tamulus looked down to Wilder finally and tried to reshape the smile he wore earlier, soft and gentle. "Getting you back into the caves is somewhat complicated, so let's focus on that. Are you feeling better?"

@Wilder

She thought for a moment, trying to remember the last wolf she'd met. Sure, she could see how they could be intimidating. But she was confused, if the man had been so surprised by her speaking, then he must not have met another before. Were there wolves up here that were like Lesser Gembound? Odd. She'd really never met one herself in the caves, only rabbits and mice, and a few violent beasts.

She tilted her head, catching the name she didn't recognize. "Jupiter? Who is that?" Now that she was properly calming down little by little, curiosity begged her to keep asking and asking and asking questions. This was a huge discovery! The caves weren't the whole world, only within the earth of another world! Like an egg that would never hatch. She wanted to know more about Let. About the Vaa and Tamulus and the witches and that horrible man, however much she feared him.

She tried to follow along with Tamulus's comparison, imagining the spire as the ocean in Fornax, Tamulus as the lagoon in Pisces, and herself a little puddle somewhere else. She nodded, a little hesitantly. "I...guess. It kinda makes sense. I couldn't use magic because a puddle will dry up on its own." She shivered. Did that also mean she couldn't stay out here for long without being near Tamulus? She had certainly felt very strange in the room with the Black Wolf, like she could never get a full breath of air.

A bit of relief passed across her mind. Magic wouldn't leave. She would never have to be as helpless as she had been before the Black Wolf if she was in the caves. Her tail twitched as she thought for a moment more. "But if its going away, cant you just take more and put it back?" She noticed his eyes drifting and her ears curved back a bit, wondering if it was a sensitive subject for him. Perhaps he hadn't seen Jupiter in a while.

At the mention of going home, she perked up and nodded. "Y-yeah, much. Thank you. But um...can I ask something? Before I go home can I just...see outside? I didn't really get a good look at it but if there's no cave walls or ceiling...well I mean I'll never get the chance to see it again, I think."

"Jupiter is... a good friend," he said, though hesitated briefly. One of the few who could see things for what they were, the vile and cruel rebirth and recycle of life. Pointless. Would he not have just created another Let? It wasn't the same. It would never be the same after they died, despite how many times their stones were given new life. Even Wilder, curled so warmly in his lap, had not been Wilder before. And even though this Jupiter and the others were unlike him—bereft of their original free will, their original self—she could still see things the way he did.

He wondered, briefly, if he met her—the real her, out there somewhere—would they get along as well? Did she keep a house full of plants like the ones she made for Let? Did she keep pets, feed wildlife, name the birds at her birdfeeder...? Somehow, he felt that the one he knew was no longer on Let. It did not surprise him, especially with Dhracia's return. Jupiter would have felt it too, would have been drawn to the Lord like a moth to a flame, would have tried to extinguish Her... and Jupiter would have failed.

Idly, his hand continued to pet Wilder. It was comforting.

If magic was going away, couldn't they just take more and put it back...? His lips twitched into a small smile. But her request brought a moment of relief from heavy topics.

"Yes, let us take a walk. I will try to explain more then," he said, pushing up from the chair while keeping Wilder cradled in one arm. They made their way through the door and he closed it behind him in a single motion, stepping out into the cold with the soft crunch of thin snow underfoot. When they were clear of the porch, his wings stretched all the way out behind him; it felt good to get a good stretch in.

And beyond the lawn of his cabin stretched a mountain range, reaching into the sky that yawned endlessly above them with the planet hung beyond the clouds. He took a moment to let her drink it in, staring up at the planet himself before asking quietly, "Would you like to walk or be carried?" She should be feeling better, but he wanted to check, of course. (Asked OOC!) When she answered to walk, he set her down gently. His wings shuffled to curl around in front of him like a cloak.

There was a small trail beyond the treeline of evergreens. He pointed to it for a moment as he began walking slowly in its direction. He assumed she'd want to explore and see everything they passed, but he did not mind taking their time. The brush was various plants, some dotted with red berries, but typical of an unbothered northern wilderness.

"We'll be following that trail. It will take us to a good view," he said, then reflected on her questions. "These plants live well beside me, but in other areas, they are more sparse. I'm not sure if you caught a glimpse of the Verinen Empire, but their area is the most desolate. In part because it is lacking in magic, but also because they have destroyed it themselves in their greed and stupidity." He paused to bite his tongue. There was a lot he could say about that.

"There was a time we did take the magic, and we put it in everything you see. Let was barren when we finally made it out of the caves, but we breathed life into it, Jupiter and I. It took us a long time to do it and to explore, but we did it. Now, though, we wouldn't have the strength. And the Spire that is there now is... too powerful, we think. Maybe not on purpose, but it is. Do you know it is called Skystone?" he asked, reaching to hold the tip of a leaf between two fingers. "Anyway, I would consider that the most powerful of all the stones you might find. It is the Source."

He crouched to inspect some of the berries.

"Your magic is not your own, it belongs to that Spire. When you die, your magic will return to that Spire. All energy it creates is returned to it; but even the energy that was not created by it returns to it, because it replaced a previous Spire there that was Oilstone. A new reservoir. All energy created by the reservoir returns to the reservoir. But the energy, the magic, is drawn to it as freely as it lends it. It's tricky. Where we once had created everything here and kept it thriving, the amount of energy that the new Spire took to change you—the gembound—into Earth creatures, and to bring the nest out of hibernation, took a lot from the moon. I don't think the one who did it was aware of that," he paused here to stand, turning up to look toward the planet in the sky.

"It's... well, I don't know if neutral party is the right term. It created all of this. It did this. But, I don't think It is the kind of thing to doom something on purpose. I guess I would call It the Source of everything, of Order and Disorder and of Itself, Natural Order, but I like to think It isn't evil." He frowned. "Anyway, I wish it were as easy as just taking more energy and putting it back. Unfortunately we'd have to destroy the Spire, which was what Jupiter was researching. Well, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we... maybe I made a mistake creating Let," he continued, his voice dropping into a near-whisper.

Look at what he had wrought. The wars, the death, the suffering; and now all of them were slowly dying out due to random happenstance. If they had never evolved the moon into a thriving world then they would not have the weight of all of it on their shoulders. And Let... His eyes closed as his hand curled into a fist over his heart. She would not have suffered the things she did, the sacrifice she believed was right, the awfulness it caused and how much bloodshed had been in vain. Would he have been different, too? Would Jupiter had been different?

"Oh, Jupiter," he breathed finally, eyes opening to look down at Wilder. "You know, earlier when we were speaking, I had the realization that I think the Jupiter I know is dead—but out there, somewhere," he said, pointing into the sky, "is her real self. The Jupiter I knew was a good person, so I can only choose to believe she is like that elsewhere, too." Were all of her iterations as good as this one had been?

"Apologies for the rant. So what about you, Wilder? What do you think of outside? Are you having any trouble breathing the air up here? It would be more pure than what you are used to," he said after a short moment, looking her over quickly to make sure she had been okay.

@Wilder

She wiggled a bit in Tamulus's lap, excitment finally returning. Now that she felt wholly better and a little more clear-minded, she found herself starving with curiosity for what things looked like out there. She wanted a good look at what the ceiling looked like if there was even a ceiling at all. And what was a world with no walls, no tunnels and caverns? What did the grass look like and taste like, what about the air? She hadn't gotten a good look before and before she went back, she wanted to see it, just once.

She was still as Tamulus carried her out, still enjoying the warmth and security of being held by him, but as soon as they stepped outside and she looked up, she could barely feel anything anymore. Breath swept from her lungs. Eyes widened with first fear, confusion, and then pure wonder. There was no ceiling at all. Or maybe that was a ceiling, high up and blue like that, but then what were those white things? She had nothing to compare it too but puffy fur that was simply drifting in the air, but if that were the case the creature must be huge! And the world...it stretched and stretched forever, crags of familiar stone in less familiar shapes, stretching up towards the puffy white all the way up there and then beyond, something even more gigantic, just hanging there, unmoving. She stared at it for a moment before tilting her ears towards it. "What is that? Up there?" She wondered how far away it was. Higher then the ceiling in Leo? In Fornax or Ursa? It didn't seem possible, but so many things were breaking her definition of what could or couldn't be.

At his question, she let out a small "I'll walk, please!" The instant she was set down she felt a small chill from the absence of Tamulus's warmth, but she brushed it off, becoming enamored by everything around her, sniffing the foreign grasses and plants along their path, trotting after Tamulus while sticking her nose in every bush and tasting every scent she could. The berries she quickly tasted and decided that they were sweet, similar to ones she'd found in Pegasus once. She pulled herself away from the constant exploration to listen to Tamulus talk. "I didn't see outside but...the people that I saw didn't seem very happy. Are they scared of magic?" She'd known gembound scared of magic and she could imagine what fear could do to someone. Twist it into hate and further and further. She was understanding the 'Black Wolf' a little bit more.

Her ears lifted a bit at the mention of the Spire. "Oh...I didn't know it was quite that powerful. I didn't know-" Skystone? She'd seen creatures of Oilstone before, of course, but never of Skystone. Where they opposites? Or similar? She had so many questions, but she didn't think there was enough time to ask them all. She'd have to pick a few.

She was quite for a while, letting Tamulus have a moment to himself after his speech, sitting down beside him and just looking around at the world. It was beautiful, unlike anything she'd ever seen. She couldn't keep herself from looking up. She wanted the memory of this place seared into her brain forever. She never wanted to forget.

At last, Tamulus turned to ask her and she looked up at him, ears pulled back. "I don't know...I'm sorry, I wish I could bring you news of Jupiter but I don't know who that is. Although...you said she's out there somewhere?" Her ears pointed to the stretching blue, and she wondered what Tamulus meant by that. Did she have a twin? Did her gemstone go somewhere else? "When I go home, though, I can ask around, although I don't know how I'd ever contact you all the way up here." It was a sad thought and realization, that she'd never come here again, most likely never speak to Tamulus again. She sighed softly, tail moving around to curl over her paws. "It's wonderful up here. It's so open and...free. I never realized how much the caves feel like a cage. A large cage, maybe, but now that I'm up here I don't know I'll ever be the same." At his other question, she took a breath in. "Uh...a little. It doesn't feel bad, just...different. It feels thin, like I can't get a full breath."

She was silent for another moment before the burning question pulled her to speak again. "You were talking about the Spire earlier. I assume you know a lot about it, or at least more then me. When I hatched I tumbled right into it and it did something to me. I kept hearing this voice say things like "Death is a lie" and "The pain is eternal" and I'd go blank sometimes and crave more magic. It hasn't happened recently, I can fight it back, but...do you know anything about that? What that means or what that was? Is the Spire...alive?"

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Game Master CJ

Wilder

Game Master CJ

Wilder

Game Master CJ

Wilder

Game Master CJ

Wilder