The apology twisted his stomach with worse guilt. What right had he to expect, or even hope for, apology from someone who couldn't even remember what they were apologizing for-? He started to mumble something, head turning away and ear-tufts flattening back, but Rift's question left him wincing instead.
But then, Rift remembered Mercy.
A…goose? He could imagine what a goose looked like in his head. A bird - a large one, yes, but still a bird, with no sharp talons or curved beak. How had she been able to murder and manipulate when she had no natural defenses to back it up? Magic, maybe, but still, Rift wanted to laugh at the idea.
He didn’t, though, because something twisting in his gut told him that it was serious. It had truly happened and he had suffered the consequences. He shivered, dreading the idea of a ruthless dictator sending children to murder on her behalf.
But BlackBerry was in the past - right? - and there was the prospect of finding something of himself that he longed to remember. He looked at the image of Sebastian once more before Oliver took the compass back. There was Mercy, as well - he noted to himself to go and talk to him as well. Oddly enough, he glanced up in the direction of Orion before Oliver pointed it out. It seemed he knew where that was…but hadn’t he never been there before?
He nodded.
He remained solemnly silent to that first question; only a faint nod. He couldn't answer why. Maybe if he'd had an explanation he could've understood, he'd have been less betrayed and hurt by the decision. But so far as he knew, it'd been unilateral, and nobody else had been given any say. So he had nothing he could add, only that grim quiet.
As to the rest? Oliver glanced around, trying to take in the forest through Rift's eyes, to imagine it how the cougar must see it. To remember green, and waken up to this sickly, web-strewn filth-?
This offer was gentle. So far as Oliver was concerned, Sebastian was probably also asleep in his chrysalis somewhere--as Rift so obviously had been. 'Horrific murder and magical resurrection' wasn't exactly something he was familiar with, on any front.
Rift hummed thoughtfully as he looked out at the sea of fungus, how it was already creeping towards the edge of the garden. There had to be a way to get rid of it, or at least hold its advance from here at least. He was already very fond and very protective of the garden here and he swore in that moment to keep the cursed white from even touching the roots of his plants.
Thinking up a number of different solutions to it already, Rift looked back at Oliver, eyes misty from thought.
This Rift bore none of it. He was the Rift that should have been, had Eridanus never been sickened or burned, had Astraea never appeared or the Kingdom threatened. Perhaps less cautious, but the optimism was there once again. His heart was eager, his knowledge humble. And it was with pure delight and innocent love that he looked at his garden, his friends!, and back at Oliver. To him, a stranger now a friend that he could trust wholeheartedly.
He stood taller, his vow sealed by the appearance of little sprouts and budding wildflowers springing up across his fur. He was excited and ready and so full of life and energy, already turning and springing towards the edge of the garden to investigate and plan further. No worries holding him down - he was simply alive!
Oliver's return regard was far more wary.
He'd only briefly known a hopeful Rift. That hopefulness had turned into a naivety, of sorts, that had wound up forming what Oliver had come to think of as a grave injustice. Admittedly, he had no idea exactly what had happened between the cat and the goose. But it did mean that Rift's happy-go-lucky, or maybe oblivious, cheer did not reassure him.
It left him quiet, pensive, staring after the departing surge of green (familiar, at least; almost reassuring, if he hadn't still borne that kernel of unusual fury)... hoping that history did not repeat.
If Rift had lost his memories, then he'd lost the lessons that he'd learned, too. Oliver didn't know what might come of that, but... exhaustingly, he knew that he'd be unable to refuse the cougar. If Rift needed help? Oliver would be there.
Not necessarily because he wanted to; but because that now-shared streak of violet and gold compelled him to.
For once, he wasn't sure how he felt about that help.
Unaware of Oliver's apprehension, Rift was already making to start his project with a youthful vigor. Twisting plants from just outside the garden to create barriers of leaves and roots alike, determined and optimistic that his ideas would work. He turned back just for a moment to see Oliver watching him, but why would he worry about what Oliver was thinking? What need did he have to wonder if Oliver was doubting him?
He had not experienced doubt, after all. He didn't remember it.
He turned back and purred at the magic flowing through his body and into the ground. It still felt weaker then it should be, but it was so familiar and so right. Nothing else in the world seemed to matter.
*exit