ORIGIN

His eyes snapped to the other feline at the Eyes and gestured his head aside, as if urging the cat away. Was it deaf? The stag's impatience was mounting, but a crawling ice had entered the back of his mind. His ear flicked irritably at the sensation but he could not rid of it. Finally, he gave in, dipping his head sharply and snorting air toward the grass. "What!" he hissed to his linked partner, his head snapping at an angle to stare hotly into the distance of Eridanus—toward the far reaches, where Pisces lay.

"You could show It some appreciation," came Tenzin's calm voice, like a wellspring of of cool waters. "It did bring you back. You should have let them free a long time ago, instead of—"

Astraea's mouth parted where he stood, and he let out a low grunt. "Do not speak of It to me!" His eyes were searing red, burning invisible holes through the plantlife of Eridanus. "It is not the fate we serve."

Slowly, heat filled in the spaces where the coldness had been. When Astraea did not hear anything from his partner, he quested for him, but did not receive an answer. It took some effort, but he was able to reconnect to the phoenix. The stag stomped his hoof, unaware of the children at the moment.

"Tenzin," he prompted, the attempt softer than before. They were connected, but his partner was not answering him. What was he doing? Pouting!? "Tenzin!" No response. The stag turned fully toward Pisces now, his head lifting and rearing backward before he bellowed loudly, "TENZIN!" Fungi erupted through his skin, blood flowing freely down his legs.

"Astraea," answered the phoenix quietly. Because he had been ordered to.

"We do serve the same fate...?" It was a statement more than a question, but it had been asked. It shouldn't have been. It shouldn't have needed to be. His ears cupped forward. "We are partners. We were made together. To be partners. To do this together. To serve the same fate eternally. Do we still...?" He could no longer feel Tenzin's protective chill embracing him, and thus, he knew the answer; but Astraea did not want to hear it.

"We do not." Tenzin confirmed solemnly, and their link shattered like silent ice.

For the first time in ten thousand years, they were alone.

Astraea lurched forward at the sudden loss of weight from his other half, nearly collapsing onto his forelegs in the grass. The sounds of Eridanus came rushing into him, as if he had been nourished in hushed silence for ten thousand years; as if he had been spoiled by the constant background noise of Tenzin, encouraging him, supporting him, loving him; where before he thought this was an annoyance, he immediately missed it; and now everything else was too loud.

"WHAT." A different voice barged into his head, engulfing him, crushing him beneath its weight.

"Not right n—"

And then it was gone, leaving him with the feeling that he had failed somehow, again.

The stag's bloody legs wobbled and he collapsed into the grass. The water in the Eyes spilled over like tears, doing what he would not; and Astraea sighed, defeated.

"Do you still look after Skahan?" he asked of them, and the ground beneath them rumbled.

The earth moved and shifted behind the Eyes, the cave wall yawning as the soil rolled out of it like a tongue, the dirt and rock glowing as an object neared the surface; it grew and grew, brighter and larger, before finally a large serpent-like skull-shaped stone of something was presented to them. It was, indeed, a mix of the colors they were searching for. It shimmered and it glowed, dancing with light. The wall behind it and earth below it returned to their normal shape, grass filling in for dirt and ferns growing out of the most uprooted areas.

Astraea pressed himself to stand, walking over to the large stone and standing angled on a mound of left-over debris.

"This is your architect," he announced. "Skahan."

Good luck getting it back to Orion, he thought cheekily, struggling to keep his composure.

The responses were varied, but the most crippling thing to him right now was not the fungi that burned in his skin or the energy he had expelled; it was the loss of his link and partner. He had waited here in Eridanus, giving up his duties for the day, to do this task at the will of his partner. And now his Pisces was simply absent from him.

"No," he denied their help quickly and began to move away from Skahan's gem. "It will heal. Thank you." The mutterings of others were vague in his ears, but the weasel had come closer, and he glanced over his shoulder to view it. "As I mentioned by the trench, he was perhaps the largest of us, but is smaller each time he is awakened." Astraea regarded the size comparison of the least weasel Gembound compared to Skahan's gem. "As an architect, Skahan exerts a lot of magical energy to do what is needed, whatever is needed of him. And so, the source of his magic is large enough to compensate. But his body suffers for it, and he dies; and he is never reborn the same each time, if we need him again. That is what we have noticed."

The stag turned, lifting a hoof to move away, but stopping short when he noticed the eaglet beneath him.

"My child," he said softly. He felt his legs tremble again at the effort to hold his weight on only three of them. He steadied himself, placing the other down carefully around Hera, and bent his head down to sniff her. Fine. Healthy. What a thing to witness after hatching. "May this be a testament to the power you can achieve," Astraea whispered to her, motioning his head back toward the architect's gem. He winked at her, but she would never grow into an architect of course. Still, he hoped it would give her the will to be big and strong!

In Orion, Alnitak stirred within the Kings' body. It heard Dragon's call. Only those who pledged to the birds would hear the individual voices of Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. All characters can hear the voice of the Three Kings.

"WHAT," Alnitak snapped back to Dragon. "WHAT KIND OF STONE IS IT?"

"From what we have been told, the creature was large enough to create most of the tunnels—" Mintaka tried to explain, but Alnitak cut him off, "I ASKED WHAT KIND OF STONE IT WAS, NOT WHAT KIND OF CREATURE IT WAS."

"He is saying it would needed to have a large stone, were you expecting it to have small stones like ours?" Alnilam sassed. "We paint the sky, we don't bore into the earth."

"MAKE IT A GROUP EFFORT." Alnitak suggested to Dragon.

"You don't actually have to yell at them," Mintaka explained slowly. Was it the idea that they were far away just... confusing Alnitak? Or because Dragon yelled first?

"We will come to you. Thank you." The Kings' spoke to all present now, shifting from their roost in Orion to travel to Dragon's heard location in Eridanus.

The Three Kings of Orion will arrive in 1 Round.

Astraea's face soured at the idea of seeing the Kings' and he waited for a moment before stepping around Hera, quietly making his way past the rest of the group.

"Good luck," he commented lightly. His steps were slightly uneven and his pace was slow, but he began to set off into the depths of Eridanus, wanting to leave before those caged birds showed up.

Astraea is attempting to exit and will leave by next around unless stopped.