Grishia sat, crossing her legs as she 'worked.' She was fully engaged in her task, now, lost in focus on her artistic adventure across Vestyge's armor plates.
Had her mother walked in, undoubtedly a heart attack would've ensued.
Still, she muttered to herself as if committing it to memory:
But! Aha! A new question!
Grishia paused, thinking.
She tipped her head back, trying to remember.
She paused, and awkwardly patted the drawing that she'd made.
Vestyge's eyes followed Boney as he toddled around on its own, while Grishia was consumed by her art. She couldn't have told it to, could she? He mulled over the Golem's odd autonomy, though it didn't hold much interest. It wasn't a question he needed an answer to.
"That's kind of... Screwed up, for the bones to tell you that." Vestyge said, correcting his language quickly. "It's true though - about the hard stuff." Maybe letting her know that early would be some kind of boon. He wouldn't know.
"That is something a bone would say." If one could be read - Vestyge was a skeptic. It sounded more like a way to deliver harsh information in way that was... kinder. Less personal. A strategy he could admire.
He looked back to examine the finished work, his carapace creaking together as his neck strained. It looked like a bunch of glowing scribbles from there. That was about what he'd been expecting, so he didn't mind. He offered Grishia an approving nod all the same.
"I used to live here. I had to move for work. Came back to reminisce." His eyes scanned his surroundings again, dragging over the piles and piles of ancient death.
"If you can see the past... Maybe you could see me. Help me remember it." And help him decide where to put it, where he could finally let it gather dust. His eyes settled on a canid-esque skull that sparked some kind of recognition, he thought - but there were many like it.
Grishia slid down, brushing paws off on her fur. She pondered what Vestyge meant about it being 'screwed up.' That felt wrong, to her; she felt like she should... defend the bones, somehow. But she didn't have the words for it. Didn't quite understand.
And then the conversation was moving on. She picked her staff back up and stretched, looking around.
Grishia looked around, then looked back at Vestyge. She rested a hand idly on her golem's spine.
"No. Before that." He answered evenly, mulling over the name for a brief moment. Another new faction - descendants of those before? Or something new? If it was their ancestors decorating the floors, he supposed Grishia would've been better informed. But all things are forgotten with time.
Vestyge should know.
"You have magick, right? And you can... See the bone's past. See how they got there." Watch how they'd died. "You could touch me. Not sure it'd be as interesting. We can do both, maybe - save the best for last." If he could figure out which of these skulls he actually recognised, which was a challenge.
He'd never been magickally adept. Maybe he should've practiced more. Still, he preferred relying on the gifts of his creator. Vestyge was here for a reason.
Had been.
Grishia nodded very solemnly, this new and sacred charge stilling her childish enthusiasm into a serious expression. The splashed celestial patterns glowing on Vestyge's hide might now have seemed somewhat out of place, but Grishia didn't note that; instead she studied the Valkhound for a moment with a gaze that seemed older than it was, her brows knit in that way a young child's might--just before they came out with some ageless wisdom. Or toddler's idiocy; there was rarely any way of knowing.
But what she actually said was a simple enough question, one as she glanced around her at the littered remains of long-dead Gembounds.
Externally, this was less of a sacred charge, and more of a mundane exploitation of the ill-informed. Vestyge did not think outside of himself, or how what Grishia saw might affect her permanently.
There was a glaze over his eyes and mind as he reached for the furthest of his feelings - memories unremembered - or perhaps worn away from being incessantly recalled. Vestyge crept forward, eyes sweeping over the piles again.
The fell on a skull, rodent-esque but not quite so small. He wasn't sure the pull was something genuine or something he had manifested himself in his search. Still, he hovered over it, crouching so that his smaller arms could reach it.
"Let's try this one." He turned his attention back to the little gnoll, arm and skull outstretched toward her. (Vestyge made sure he was perpendicular to her to ease this transfer.)
Grishia took it, and no doubt Vestyge's perpendicularity was appreciated: she was still very small. Even the skull was a little large for her toddler's size; she sat back, lowering herself to the ground, and settled it in her lap. She too noticed its rodent-like shape, studying it with that child's seriousness. Then she settled her paws on where its temples would've been, and thought really hard.
Her magicka flickered up. She froze, hardly breathing, as the images began to come.
It should be noted that this wasn't her first Marrowsight. It wasn't the first time the small child had vividly witnessed someone dying. She'd sort of been eased into it with a couple more... mild deaths, or as mild as they could come. The gory horrors that her older brother had seen, filled with monsters in the dark, had thankfully evaded her.
This one wasn't so different. She could hear a gurgling breath--the kind that some might call a "death rattle." And she could see...
They were lying in a pool of it, she saw. A pool that was slowly spreading.
It hadn't hurt, of course. But the IDEA of it was awful.
Completely innocent to the identical nature. To the truth of her own vision.
He moved toward her, settling in front of her - as if she were a teacher of some sort. Someone who's words alone deserved respect and attention. Maybe if Vestyge focused hard enough, he could see it too. Go back there one more time.
But that wasn't what happened - and it wasn't ever going to happen.
Empty. Grishia's words were empty. Someone had been there, and then he'd killed them. He had learnt nothing new, remembered nothing he couldn't already.
What he was searching for was a lot to ask a child.
Vestyge was quiet for a moment, still, save for the sole twitch of a finger. Processing. "... It felt quieter back then. Which... is odd." He retracted inward, reflecting. "Less to think about."
Another pause. "Death is just death. There's not much to it."
Grishia had to take a moment, her faked composure not too far off reality but death was still a lot for a little kid to take in. Even the third time, the fourth... She took a breath, something about what Vestyge had said piquing her interest. Distracting her, just enough.
Maybe it was a grim topic for a child. But Grishia wasn't any child. She was a child with a pet made of bones, with a staff threaded through with death and life, with a home in a cave filled with the dead. So... suiting, maybe, just for her.
He could see the glow on his flank in his peripheral. Returning to the now, his many-eyed gaze focused on the Grishia again. Vestyge had never been a child. He'd been new, young, a very long time ago. Longer than anyone cared to record, or remember. Did he remember?
Trick question. Of course he didn't. It was if he'd always been, stuck in one place as the seasons changed around him. He'd always been in hibernation, in one form or another - adrift, alone. Separate. He liked it that way.
"I've seen a lot of it. More than you, maybe. I've been the cause of it a few times."
"You see enough of it, you come to know its all the same. You see one death, you've seen them all. It's the life before it, around it, that's the complicated part. Some find it interesting."
He scratched the back of his head with a long claw. "I find it too much to deal with, personally. It's why I never left Canis." Until now.