ORIGIN

A pale ghost stalks the mirrors of Tunnel A. Asterius's blank eyes dart around, looking. Searching. There is something I need to find. Someone.

They had been distantly aware since their birth. That they were not the first to receive her mantle, her burden, her destiny. There was another, somewhere, hidden. If only Asterius could find them. It had been too long, alone.

...Did her elder sibling even know he existed?

There's the clatter of stone shattering, and Asterius finds himself picking up the pace. Something, someone here.

She can sense it to, that mirrored other, Natural Order. The one they were looking for. Perhaps her approach had stirred it to waking. Perhaps it was a coincidence in timing. Either way, it had happened, and so it was fate.

Rounding that corner to, she'd be faced with that mirror. Pale flesh and fur, blue Skystone sparking, that knowing look.

"Hello, sibling," it would return the greeting. "I had been looking forward to finally meeting."

Held in the gaze of her counterpart, Asterius fights with strange emotions. There's a feverish eagerness, to prove herself. There's the fear, of worrying what Wulfsige would think of him. Finally there is a faith - a belief that whatever Wulfsige does, whether they leave here together or split to work their own way, that it was meant to be.

She can sense their hesitation. You had accepted this burden believing it was yours and yours alone, did you. It was conflicted, wasn't it? But she will wait for them.

"I am Asterius," she would declare, voice confident. "Our creator decided it was best you were not alone. And so I am here for you, Wulfsige."

Perhaps if she was more like common Gembound, she would have smiled. But Asterius's face remains set like stone. "Likewise to you as well, Wulfsige," he would bow in respect. As much as they were equals, made for the same purpose, she was aware of the other being her elder.

And then they concede that they had fallen asleep. Asterius does not pay that any mind, shifting straight to business to report. "I personally assisted with the finishing of cleansing Canis, sibling. It is now no longer within Order's thrall. Gemini still remains to be done, but we can now turn our focus there." There's a pause, before they add, "Many other Gembound have also worked to do so. Even if it is dangerous for them, and they would be safer elsewhere, they might prove useful allies in this."

He knows Wulfsige likely wouldn't be the happiest with their charges risking themselves. But to cleanse a whole cave was a mighty task for just one or two. Asterius had been forced to put aside her worries about it already.

She'd straighten back up, returning to standing. Idly she thinks, perhaps they need not show so much respect to their elder - she was placed her to be Wulfsige's equal, after all. But she supposes that can wait until they have gotten used to each other's company, their eyes watching each others back.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that they want to make a good impression.
"I see. Your efforts have not gone in vain." He's aware they wish they'd succeeded immediately but - there has been no END yet. The future is still uncertain. There is still life to guard.

She thinks back to Canis, who she saw there - but there are not many she is comfortable calling upon. "The ones who purged the rest of Canis... several of them were that of the House of Chaos. But the ones who were not- a wolfhound, like you, and a hunched beast in white. They might be useful." Asterius shifts some at admitting that - but any enemy of an enemy is an ally for the time.

They do their best to think - reaching for knowledge they don't exactly have. They did not have enough experience, too few others to discuss with. She's left grasping at straws.