ORIGIN

For a moment, there was fear as rushing, ice-cold water swept Kera right off her paws. With a strangled yelp, the puppy began momentarily flailing in the water as memories of the crystal river flashed before her eyes. Of drowning, of the owl, of saving Aka's life only to be betrayed later.

Kera had swallowed several mouthfuls of water before she found her footing again. She stood hunched over and heaving for several long moments. Somehow, the cold was even worse out out of the water than it was in it.

As she heard voices-- including Dragon's increasingly familiar bellow --she shook herself dry and edged closer to the alligator to lay down, watching the phoenix. For a moment, she was confused, eyes flicking between him and the phoenix.

What did it matter, she wondered? Who ruled and why they were here-- why was it important? For a moment, she watched Tenzin with a frown, head on her paws. Keeping information from the phoenix wasn't the way to go. They needed a favour from him.

"They said the stone belonged to an architect," she said quietly, breathing heavily still. "Maybe they want to revive it, or the architect wants to revive it. I don't know who the architect is or where we can find him, or what his business is, or if he can be trusted."

"Their test of popularity was weird," the wolf pup continued absently. "The golden-eyed one had the most followers, and the blue-eyed one the most stones, and the blue one won. I haven't heard much from the golden-eyed one since they fused." She sounded faintly sad, about this.

Alnilam seemed the nicest, at least. "They gave us different kinds of wings, but they're not real wings." With this, she pushed herself up and edged into the darkness, focusing quietly.

As more blue-green, faintly-glowing mushrooms sprouted around her and pushed back some of the dark, Kera settled down in the faerie ring again. "They said the stag would have the stone," she said as she got comfortable. "Does the stag have a name?"

Dragon listened closely, filing this all away to memory.

'That is not a trick, at least.' Hrm. So they can grant me flight. I will bear this in mind--but the question is, is their price worth the reward? He considered. He wanted wings--flight--to gain in power and strength more than nearly anything.

But not as much as he desired survival. And not merely in the short-term: he wished to outlast, to live, to continue long after many of the other beings had flitted through their ember-short lives, and their own fires had faded. He still felt that grasping the history and truth behind the caves' reality was a great stride toward this: without it, they might all be wiped out.

Raheerah had been proof of this.

Despite his immediate irritation--none of it showing on his reptilian face--at the great ice phoenix's refusal to tell him more, at his cowardice, Tenzin had revealed something to him. Dragon now knew more than he had when coming in here: he now had one more tiny piece of the puzzle.

'There are beings that rule even us.' Well. Now I know. He fears. So there is something greater, then--something greater even than the dragons, than the phoenix, than perhaps Nemean--who must be obeyed... by them. Who must be killed, by us, if we are to survive. Hrm.

The alligator remained staring, and then, abruptly, spoke.

"This bird-being spoke of us belonging to it, as much as he to us. I wanted merely wings. Will it be able to read my thoughts, to control where my claws take me? Should we aid it? Should we find this--Astraea--and aid the three-bird in what it asks?" he rumbled.

Rinaotei's travel to Pisces was a casual one despite things; she did follow the other Gembound who also seek Tenzin she didn't endeavour to initiate conversation though but with how loud Dragon is it was next to infeasible to not overhear what they are saying. Sundry snippets of it caught of Rina's interest one such case is of 'The Betrayer' called 'Nemean'. When Dragon went into the description of this 'Nemean', she paused in her movements as she realised that this 'Betrayer Nemean' sounds like the same being who ostensibly caused the lights to go out again. Lots of things about her never seem to be positive about her it seems, this light faerie sounds just unpleasant in general and perhaps not to be trusted. Still, Tenzin from Dragon's description fascinated her; additionally, Tenzin does sound like a being to take inspiration from she's compelled to meet them now.

Soon though Rinaotei realised that from her sudden pause when thinking about the likes of Nemean she soon realised she had fallen behind from the others. She decides to take to their air to catch up to them, soaring smoothly through the air despite the tenebrosity, having explored a lot she is familiar of the structure of some caves and soon she was at Pisces relatively expeditiously as her great wings beat with mighty force. She slowed as she winged forward until Rina jerked to an abrupt stop and endeavoured to remain hovering in that one spot in the air when the water of the lagoon just erupted suddenly, but soon she saw a sizably voluminous bird emerge from it. They were about as sizably voluminous as the Kings current form but looked like to they have a body made entirely of ice when she watched from afar able to see them even in this tenebrosity it was almost like their own body shone it's own natural light like Light Magick.

An ice phoenix, so this is Tenzin, an unusual childlike wonder seemed to well up in her inwardly as she looked upon this fantastic being. But there's additionally something else that she realised; the lagoon of Pisces where Tenzin appeared from is where she emerged in this world! How has an explorer like herself who explores just about every nook and cranny at every opportunity she can, had never discovered such a being living in the depths of the very lagoon her emergence took place?

She heedfully listened the things being uttered by them; it was a little tricky to hear though she even had arduousness understanding the words Dragon is saying since Rina was still entirely remotely far from them; however, she could discern the mention of the kings and the stag they are probing for own name mentioned. She decides, at last, to join in on this conversation, so she goes to swoop down till she was on the ground and gradually goes to approach Tenzin and join the search group.

"Sorry for taking my time and barging... But hello all nonetheless." She wished to integrate her input in all of this, but she does ken that Nemean was mentioned however something about them which she does know that could help.

"Perhaps this is off topic, and perhaps I am slow with learning current events, but I have to say that supposedly The Betrayer Nemean is the reason why the caves are in darkness currently." She wasn't directing this at anyone, everyone who can hear maybe more so with Tenzin here though since being in slumber like that it must be arduous to learn such things.

"Speech"

Laying in her ring of glowing mushrooms, Kera listened attentatively to Tenzin and ignoring the shouting weasel some distance away. For a moment, she was confused. For a moment, she did not understand what had been said.

There are beings that rule even us.

It clicked. "Who?" The puppy asked, wide-eyed. "What will happen if you talk about them-- what will happen if you don't know what they want, or you say something they don't want us knowing about? Will you die?"

There was a short pause and a shuddering breath. The thought of something all-knowing and always watching sent a chill down her spine, a chill that not even the mushrooms could soothe-- or perhaps there was just not enough of them. With her fur standing on end, she pushed herself up. "Have we seen them before, and if not, why? Where are they? Are--"

Another pause.

"Are they the Eyes, that were in Canis, that took Giggle?" With her mind working now, she paced back and forth before pushing her face down to the ground, willing the spores around Pisces to take root.

Sure enough, they did. The bioluminescent caps pushed against her face, caressing her cheeks, as though they were whispering in her ears calm down, Kera, but calm down she did not. She went right back to pacing with the eerie blue-green glow illuminating her ragged fur.

There were slaves, were they ruled by the same beings that ruled Tenzin? Perhaps in a different time, or surely, he would be dead? Kera had completely forgotten about the birds and the stag-- now known as Astraea --in favour of mulling over and over-thinking a grand total of seven words.

The only thing that stopped her from pacing was Rinaotei's mention of Nemean, the Betrayer. She halted, ear flicking-- but none of this information was new to her. She shook her head and continued to pace back and forth.

Nemean had nothing to do with this, she thought, and soon started to focus in on the task at hand. "If the birds can be trusted, we can help them," she said. "But what do they want the stone for and what's an architect?"

She moved towards Dragon again and sat down next to the alligator, peering up at the phoenix. "Where can we find Astraea?"

Dragon listened, and turned and hissed with a loud rumble at the tiny creature who dared spout its shrill insolence.

His heavy mouth opened, and as with the black wolf in Orion, he let forth a guttering flamethrower that would pass just over the weasel's head. Not an attack, exactly... but a display, a warning. He roared, afterward.

"Be still! The being aids us! Your insolence adds nothing, snack!" The pain came close in its heels, searing, agonizing. He turned his head slightly, scooping up some of the water that still flowed in its slow tide back toward the lagoon, and cooled his mouth with it.

Meanwhile, he listened. Kera, the white wolf, she was speaking of the why. Why did they have masters?

Dragon thought, briefly.

For survival, perhaps. Yet it seems unlikely. For power, mm. Our magic, our powers--those can be taken from us... Perhaps our minds and our powers would be taken, should we rebel. Perhaps they are held hostage by this.

Aloud, however, he said nothing. Were he to guess at this, and were he to be right, Tenzin might feel forced to kill them all to protect the cave's secrets.

No; he kept his big mouth, for once, shut, calculating eyes locked upon the ice-bird.

Dragon huffed, and for a moment, thrashed his tail in the water. The creature seemed lost in thought, this--ice phoenix; and his answers told Dragon everything he needed to hear. The star-birds couldn't hear him, or read his mind. And yes, they strange gods would kill them all.

Good. This meant he'd been right. There was work to do, once this was all over.

The alligator bobbed his head once, and spoke, voice rumbling into VERY LOUD volume..

"THEN WE WILL GO TO ERIDANUS!" he declared with a bellowing roar.

His tone was certain, strong and determined, but as he turned to high-walk out, his slow reptilian speed made his exit far less dramatic than he'd likely hoped.

For a long moment the alligator just slithered his way out of Pisces, splashing through the remaining water as he went.

"Come, if you are coming!" he added behind him--though whether it was only to Kera, or to the entirety of the group, was not made clear.

Kera was fully prepared to ignore the conflict between Dragon and the... what-ever-it-was. The alligator had called it a snack, and so it must, perhaps, be a snack.

It did not occur to Kera that this might be an insult.

She opened her maw to speak further, but as she did, billowing orange fire came out of Dragon's maw, right next to her. With a startled yelp, she dove off to the side away from him and watched as the reptile dunked his snout into the water.

With a short snort, she turned her head back to Tenzin, listening. Senka. The Eyes were Senka. She would have to remember this name for Giggle-- this snippet of information would have to be passed onto her, though she wasn't sure if it would be anything new for the hyena to know.

She listened further, thinking. Eridanus was the green-place that she avoided out of pure disinterest, she thought-- though she wasn't sure. She was about to ask but Dragon was bellowing again and starting to move off.

She blinked and picked herself up to her paws. "Thank you, Tenzin," she called to the ice-bird behind her as she moved after the lumbering alligator. "Please don't die."

Pacing up to plod along next to Dragon's side, Kera licked her jowls idly, thoughtfully. She shortly decided that, should this all be an elaborate trap set by the kings of Orion, she would probably be safest allied with a fire-vomiting fat lizard.