ORIGIN

Audland had come back in Polaris with new scars and an all around standard but reconfigured amount of zest for life. He'd checked on the two forming oilstone chrysalises. Healthy. Growing fast. Probably bound to hatch in a few weeks. Audland didn't know how this was supposed to work. Beyond curiosity he didn't personally care for what was in there. So he'd left.

He knew the way back to Ursa. It was right there. But Audland, in traditional slacker fashion, had seen an opportunity to do literally anything else, and had taken it without a second thought. Oh nooo, he's looost... Oh nooo, he doesn't know the way back, haha... Well, he didn't exactly have a boss, so there was no one to fool but himself.

Fooling himself was a favorite past time it would seem. As Audland traipsed down the tunnel connecting two rooms that were not Polaris or Ursa, he fooled himself again and again into thinking about stuff that doesn't matter. How he feels. What that means. What is a 'war' and where will it take... See? Stupid things that don't matter. He didn't want to think anymore. When the thoughts get too loud, he tries to summon forth a fire that he can hold against his own arm. He burns the thoughts away, or tries to. The flame is dull, and the heat is non-existent (as usual), but the pain is nice. The sting of it makes him inhale, and heaven knows Audland needs more clear air.

While walking, Audland notices something. Well, he smells it first, but he sees it very shortly after. It's hard to miss. Five pillars of glittering gemstone, large pillars with maximal surface area. What in tarnation is all that for?

Audland trundles over to inspect the pillars. He tries to look close, to perhaps understand what kind of gemstone makes them. Maybe there is some sort of pattern from which he can derive a meaning. Or maybe it's just another dumb and stupid thing in these caves that doesn't matter and never will. If it is, it will be a triumph. Nothing in this cave system can be more pointless than his previous topic of musing.

Despite his thoughts and his dogged avoidance of them, Audland could still notice the details of his environment. The scrambling and shifting in the corner of his eye did not go unnoticed. His investigation of the pillars paused for a moment while he sought out the source of the noise, only to find... nothing. The darting whorl of his gleaming yellow gaze around the scene brought about no additional information. Suspicious. Anxious instinct prickled at his neck, and Audland lowered his stance into a more defensive posture.

The watcher revealed itself quickly, as Audland had expected—but not at all in the way he'd expected. She was large, but certainly not larger than he. She could fly! Or, glide. And she did so, to... um. Well it certainly wasn't an ambush.

Audland's suspicion turned instantaneously to the mild panic and discomfort that most emotionally stunted people experience when they're instructed to sit down and eat; they look tired, they look thin. She wasn't greeting him at all—she was fretting. Not even about him, she was fretting over him. Shoot. Shoot!

He stood up a little too straight and raised up his arms as though in gentle surrender, shaking them as if he could wave her concern away. "No- No ma'am, I'm fine! I'm—I'm surprised you could smell" anything at all beneath this floral stench goin' on around here "anything at all." He attempted to focus his magic into the burn spot on his arm and show her that he could heal it. "I'm alright, see?"

Audland was a little too hasty to show her the burn, however. The magic was coming to his aid incredibly slowly today. If coming in last was an Olympic sport, his magic would have won silver at least. Maybe gold. Audland tried for a smile, but it came out nervous and shaky. What the hell was she doing? Hell, what was HE doing?

"I'm- I'm usually banged up somehow, anyway—LIKE, I have mushrooms growin' on me under the fur and such, heheh. Those tend to stink way worse than the burns ever do." Every word that came out of his mouth made Audland want to slap himself shut, but the words just kept falling out. He'd never thrown up words this bad in his LIFE. GOD this was embarrassing! He hoped a real ambush happened soon and they could take him and shoot him out back. Lord almighty.

It was almost painful watching her reign herself in. But, Audland couldn't really apologize for being himself. He could be... gentle, though. In return. He could try.

She made an offer that made him want to laugh, but he didn't. Something about her sincerity um... eluded him. Audland wasn't a gentle creature, but her demeanor stilled something in him that he hadn't realized had been screaming. "Ah, no, I don't think they can be removed from me. They're... Have you never met my kind before? The monsters runnin' all amuck in this place?" The answer to that question was less important than the answer he sought to his next: "And-Union Pillars...? Is that what these are?" He pointed at the glittering pillars in question. "What—uh, how would ya go about 'helpin' me' with these?" Maybe Audland was coming off as being ruder or blunter than he'd intended. Not like anybody ever taught valkhounds any manners.

The burn on his arm still tingled. Out of... he wasn't quite sure what, Audland didn't really want to let the burn linger in front of this person in particular. While awaiting her response, he'd focus some more attention on healing the wound. It was a minor wound. He shouldn't care this much, but—well. He was going to have to mend it eventually. His magic wasn't doing wonders for the burn, but every little bit helped.

Audland had, in the past, been desperate enough to hope for just the slightest moment of relief from the ails of Chaos. Tossing and turning at night, gripped and crushed by phantom hands, set ablaze and charred to black ash, seeing visions of bloody battle with patches of the endless void in between. So many eyes that stare back at him. He'd wished, in those moments, that just one of them would close, just long enough to let him rest.

It had happened so many times that he'd given up on it by now. Chrysalis was the only long term solution, and it wasn't ever long term enough. Audland's body and mind had been built to handle it, however. In their own ways. Built to slot it into something, tuck it away somewhere; to let the pain become rage, and to take that rage out on whoever was unfortunate enough to be around that day. It was the circle of valkhound life. And that shouldn't bother Audland. Normally, it didn't!

It was a nice thought, though. That someone else could provide that relief—real relief. For just a moment. Audland didn't answer her further than a somewhat dismissive nod-and-grunt of understanding, but the thought churned in his head. It meant something to him, for better or worse.

The other part, the Union Pillars. That really got the blue bingus's mind stirring. Declare... love for another? Companionship? Wait, was this... "Homosexuals..." Audland's voice was quiet as a whisper. He was so deep in his thoughts that he hadn't stopped that particular one from slipping out. "—Ah, I mean. Is this for... Um, a few cycles back—like, many cycles back, I reckon—there was this fight, and I said a word, and Master Astraea—deer guy with the mushrooms—came around and explained. Homosexuals. Romantic affiliations and gender shenanigans and whatnot. Is that what all this is about?"

After a few moments of thinking very, very hard at the floor, Audland stared at Bolormaa with extreme intensity. "Do—Do you make them? The homosexuals??"

Audland watched Momma Bolormaa laugh in the face of his question. She held no malice, evidently. Audland wasn't sure if he should laugh at himself too, so he just stood and stared a little in awe, until she was ready to answer. He'd never been called 'dear' like that. He'd called other people 'dear'—well, 'darling' and the like. He was beginning to wonder if he had been using pet names wrong.

So it wasn't her that made the homosexuals. Maybe no one did. Maybe no one decided who would be romantically attached to whom, and for what reason. Maybe what Audland felt was a giant prank he was playing on himself. That didn't feel too far from possible. At least he was welcome at the pillars. Rest of the caves too, to be honest. Who was stopping him?

She explained that the pillars were for ceremony, but not what a 'ceremony' was. But before Audland could ask, she fired at him a question so cutting, he lost track of any other train of thought. He stared at her wide-eyed and tight-jawed for a moment, shocked to the core by the impact of her gentle, oblivious tone. How unfortunate was he, to have been running away from this exact question, only to stumble back onto it like a landmine. Or maybe she had been fooling him this whole time, with her kind words and warm disposition? My, how he'd fooled himself. Never before to this degree.

Something must be changing in him. A disquieting notion.

"I—ahem," he was trying to respond. Needed to clear his throat. "I don't know if... You've met—You're familiar with those like me. Monsters. The kind that burn themselves." Among other things. He tried to summon a demonstration, but none came to his hands. Instead, the mildest singe began to waft into the air at his back. "Do ya...know if we... Can we care about others that way? Romantically, or otherwise." The real question being: have you ever seen it happen before? Audland figured she might have, given how she'd asked him despite knowing what he was.

Audland winced at the twinge of a burn starting to smell. He was beginning to feel the chaos creeping on. Hm... that might be a problem. His time here was limited.