ORIGIN

As he descended the stairs into the boiling air of the Underforge, the Blacksmith loosened the grip of his mask with his free hand, the other cradling a wrapped bundle underarm. When his face was free of the mask's hold, he took a deep breath of the volcano's hot air and exhaled a content sigh, shifting the mask as an additional package under his arm, and using his other hand as a guide along the pocked, worn walls.

It was not a descent he made often, sadly. Not anymore, at least. As the view of the forge yawned before him, he made toward a low slab table to set his things on before turning to lay his eyes on the giant molds and furnaces, long laid to rest with the dormant cave. Here they once forged giant weapons and accessories for the valkhounds, but no longer—at least, not for a long time...

He relinquished his mind of the thoughts and tapped his knuckles to the table in absent idling.

"Brother mine?" he called gently, his voice nearly lost in the hiss and groan of the sleeping forge. If Algol were here, he would be somewhere within the shadows, observing, and probably hoping the visit was not for him. At least, that is what the Blacksmith thought, and chuckled quietly to himself. "Are you in?"

The flash a moment later was red, this time. (He changed it periodically, for theatricality's sakes, and out of boredom.) Algol stepped forth, making a show of brushing the soot from his sleeves.

"I was not," he answered, in his smooth purr, "but you know I will always be here when you have need of me, brother dearest. For a price."

He paused, studying the Blacksmith.

"...Too much? Ahh, never mind it." He waved his own mock-sinister demeanor away, for the moment. He enjoyed his own sense of humor, but it was tedious with no one to share it with. And Perseus's sensibilities were nothing like his own. Red pinprick eyes sought out his brother's. Maskless, he noted. And his brother, too, was carrying some sort of bundle.

"It's been some time. When did we last meet-? That disgusting tea party, wasn't it..?" The Collector let out a long-suffering sigh. "Well, consider my curiosity piqued, in any case."

He strode over, sliding up onto another of the ancient, long-abandoned anvils beside the one the Blacksmith had rapped knuckles on. One leg crossed primly over the other, the hoof bobbing in the air and hands crossed likewise in his lap as he awaited whatever this revelation might be.

It would likely not go unnoticed that the Blacksmith smiled at his brother's entrance, however cruel Algol could often be—"but you know I will always be here when you have need of me, brother dearest." The Blacksmith reached up to scratch at his flat nose, and if he had the ability, he might have blushed. For a price. He smirked.

"Oh, the tea party was lovely, I thought," he murmured, the rasp and hitch in his voice absent now that he could breathe and speak free of his mask. Because here, seeking this favor he were to ask of his brother, he was not going to be the Blacksmith—he was, once again and in his brother's presence in this old, tired forge, Perseus.

As Algol moved to sit, the Blacksmith's eyes turned down toward the bruised, red cloth that hid the package he had brought. Reforging the blade hidden within stirred something within him, how imperfect it was, how unobtainable its original quality would be to him, and he smiled idly at the thought.

Their parent's teachings had not fallen entirely on uninterested ears, as Algol had turned out to be a rather clever smith, though not the one he was born to be. Percy remembered the days fondly when they were small and Algol turned his wicked sense of humor on him, teasing him and cursing the items he would make—and oh, how he was so proud of them! Even now he kept them tucked away, hidden, treasures for him and him alone. Naughty treasures, tainted with Algol's sinister touch, but they were his.

"I've a request," he began after the moment of introspection had passed. Large, soft brown eyes lifted to view Algol in a gentle, longing way. Despite everything, this was his brother. And of all the beings that had stirred to life within the cave as of late, Algol would always be the other half of his whole. His attention turned back to the cloth and he shifted to unravel it, producing a silver blade bruised with darker clouds of inferior metal, and shining brightly where the surface steel survived. Engraved along it were lines of gold, inlaid with new and still inferior veins where he could not completely repair it. The cloth still buried the base of the hilt-less sword beneath swaths of dirtied, sooty red.

"I was gifted this sword—its pieces, rather. As I was repairing it, it reminded me of when we were young and learning to smith. Oh, how naughty you were, often draining our father of his patience." He laughed briefly. "But it will always be imperfect. Its steel is from the surface, and I wondered if I might procure some, however I realized I did not want to. It is whole again, as both good and bad steel, etched with its failings and its successes." He tapped the blade with his nail and its quality rang with a wobble. Their father would have smelted it.

"It did not have a hilt. Were I to make one, and I've several plans already, I wanted to include you in it. Us, in it." Percy's eyes shifted back to his brother. "Would you lend me a piece of your stone, Algol? That I might join it with mine in the hilt?"

He had been witness to many families recently. Despite the random surge of magic that brought them together, the ideals and the meaning of what a family was had not been lost to the centuries they all had slept for.

And how he longed for his still, all these centuries later.

'Naughty.' A faintly sour thought. Algol's interests had always run to the dark, though he doubted his brother fully understood. Or maybe he didn't want to understand. It was almost precious, this grasping for familial straws and meaning and love and bonds in an infinitely dismal world.

But ahh, he was not one to judge. 'We make our own meaning, after all. Or our own entertainment.' If this was what passed for Percy's, well... He would play his part. Of course he would never smile sappily and assure him that this was beautiful and wonderful and good. Ugh. No.

"Of course, brother," he answered smoothly, gesturing to the sword. 'I suppose I am the bad steel in this metaphor.' He wouldn't outright say as much. Possibly Perseus hadn't meant it that way, and he didn't want to hurt his (ugh, again) feelings.

Instead, almost playful, he tipped his head to one side, foot still bobbing. And in a gesture of solidarity, of sorts, pushed back his hood so his own grey-furred face was visible. "I wonder, though; what did you have in mind for payment?"

It was, in part, for his own amusement. His own meaning. He expected Perseus to offer him tea (god forbid) or some fun little useless trinket. Or words, he didn't know. "Not that I don't grasp the meaning of all of this. It's all very touching. But you know I don't work for free," he added, making a show of primly examining the claws of his right hand.

Very touching. His body shifted and turned so that he was leaning with his back against the table, folding his arms over his chest as he faced his brother. For a moment he simply regarded Algol and the way he often sat, one leg over the other, his foot bobbing; and Percy felt safe in the familiarity of it all.

"I thought you might like the sword," he said after a time, his eyes held steady on the other. "I have a few of the things you once made, as you were learning and perfecting your own craft. And sure, I have made you things here and there, too; but in this blade," he half-turned, reaching out with the closest hand to touch his fingers to its cold steel, "there is the turn of weather, where it shines and where it is dull. We are each." His arm returned to cross over his chest and his attention drifted back to Algol.

"Where we are both good and less good at certain aspects—for example, your talent for enchanting! Far better than mine. Would that I could possess your knack for it," he said, his words ending in a sigh. Not that Percy was terrible at it, but Algol...! Oh, how Perseus was proud of him. "I'd like it to be the Blade of the Twinned Star." And Algol, too, had a better penchant for naming things. Oh, how he was jealous of his brother's many talents. "Whatever you do with it after I finish the hilt is up to you," he went on, turning his face slightly to view the blade.

"But where it shines, it shines. The quality of this surface steel and gold are... they are phenomenal, Algol. As are you." Perseus dropped his voice to a near whisper as his eyes once again found his brother's red, and he offered a gentle, though weak, smile. "I am happy to see you thrive in this place, as terrible and as lonely as it feels. This... prison." The forced smile faded. "These creatures, the gembound, they are quite funny, aren't they?" he babbled, sight falling to the dusted ground beneath them. "So full of hope." He waved his hand and shook his head. "Ah, but I am rambling."

His eyes snapped back to where Algol sat and he threw a playful, uncharacteristic grin. "How have you been, anyhow?"

'The sword?' That shifted the tone of his thoughts. That was... a generous gift. And rather than faint mockery, he felt now as though he owed Perseus. Not in the way that he might feel resentful, but rather--ahh, a rarity;--grateful.

As his brother spoke, his gaze drifted over its shining surface, the twinned silver and gold. Touching, indeed.

The Collector did not interrupt, except to murmur--at his brother's praise of Algol's enchanting--"And you the better smith." Far better. But he held onto that thought, for now, bit it back to listen.

He pushed up, crossing the distance between them in a couple of clicking steps, reaching out his own hand to touch the blade ever so briefly. When he spoke, it was first with a soft sigh, and a more somber demeanor than his usual irreverent near-mockery.

"...They are, yes. Full of hope," he said quietly. As if it were a bad thing. As if it were a tragedy.

He let his hand fall.

"It is a beautiful piece, repaired or not. You repair and create; I alter and damn things, do I not? The Twinned Star... One to set new stars aloft, flaming little points of life. And the other brother to send them spinning out into the dark, hmm? Your work was--is--always superior." Despite the genuine compliment he was trying to pay, a sort of melancholy clung to the words.

Maybe it had something to do with his damnable brother reiterating how terrible, lonely, and imprisoning their home was. But he would not say that. Instead, Algol rallied himself, taking a breath and nodding.

"It seems, then, that I would be the one to owe you. That is most certainly an exchange in my favor."

His claws crept to his chest, flicking aside the robe almost idly as he reached for the gemstone within, with his magic. The shard that began to slide its way forth did so bloodlessly, but not quite painlessly, and a faint wince painted his face. He spoke past it. "I have been... well enough. I entertain myself, you know that. Throw a few leaves into your raked gardens now and then, and watch you clean it up from a distance."

He was only half-joking.

As his fingers withdrew, gently wiping away the piece of hematite before offering it delicately out, pinched between two black claws.

"Also... I suppose I ought to inform you--and I do apologize for having been remiss, in this--that you are an uncle. ...In the sense that I have been raising a large brood of them, if... poorly."

Maybe Perseus would want to get to know them, wherever they'd wandered off to.

It seemed they both struggled to genuinely praise one another, but Perseus wouldn't complain. He did not want to be owed. He did not view this as one of his brother's transactions. Perseus waved a hand gently at the suggestion and he shook his head. "No," he said quietly, turning down the offer.

He hid behind his grins and his cheerfulness like a coward, scared of the empty spaces that echoed their footsteps and their voices. His playful grin quickly curled and disappeared. But in those shadows would Algol always be, or so he told himself.

At the leaf comment, his face shot upward to snap his brother within his sights, mouth slightly ajar. "It's you...?" he asked, feigning surprise, but he could not fake it for long. He bubbled with a airy chortle and shook his head, his expression again souring. He reached for the hematite. Its presence restored a bit of a smile to his features. Perseus took it carefully, grasping it the cradle of his palm and closing his fingers over it.

But this news...!

"You what?" he choked, brows furrowed as his brown eyes bore into Algol's. "When? Where?" He was utterly surprised. Then, more quietly, and with genuine jealousy, "Do... do they call you father?" Perseus, the Capricorn of Creation, had fallen behind his brother in this one, far-lying and ultimate task—and he had created plants, sure! But offspring? His lips closed together in a pout. They hadn't been made for that, of course. His creations were solely to be of the forge, but their parent had taught him to grow the garden of Leo's upper residencies and he had—well, too!—but offspring?

He turned to place his fists on the table and he could not hide the wry smile that creased his gray fur.

"You always were the naughty one," he teased, half-joking, turning his face toward Algol once again. "How are they? Well, I hope? How... many?" He had so many questions.

He waved it away, all of it, almost embarrassed. "Well, most of them aren't really mine. Most of them. I gathered some stones, and some favors, and next thing you know there was a whole brood of them. I thought-..."

The Collector leaned back, palms flat on the table and pointed behind him. His head tipped back and he sighed again, crossing one hoof over the other as he sought the right words.

He hadn't even thought to tell his brother about all of this. It was just another tick in the idea that his long-running game had become something more. Or maybe that he was taking it far too seriously. "I thought we could have a little honest fun. Well. Dishonest, but honest between us. Find some joy in this putrid gallows," he added, deliberately and melodramatically sour. Because to say it in a serious tone? That would be to admit the truth of it.

He looked back to his brother, then, tilting his head. "It's a whole seven of them. Some do-... or 'Dad.' Many have wandered off, already. Not what I had hoped for, but then, I did instruct them to seek out 'joy.' I suppose I was a little vague," he mused.

Again, a little shake of his head, a gesture to the Blacksmith. "I suppose I should haul a few over here. Let you give them tea, or... something."

...He made fun, but he himself had elaborate tea sets. The only difference was that Algol, of course, drank his black. None of this fancy green tea for him, thank you very much.

"Do you want one?" he asked, obviously joking, looking down and picking flippantly at his robe. "I could trade you one for a hammer, or something..."

Ahh, but he didn't want to be such a... prick. Not really, not even joking, not even trying to lighten the mood.

He looked up, more serious, again.

"...When do you plan to finish this?" he asked, gesturing lightly to the blade. Perhaps he could stay awhile, and watch.