ORIGIN

Hesitant, the half-grown wolf entered Eridanus.

She had since cleaned the blood away from her fur, but the scent lingered and the taste remained in her mouth. Giggle had been largely unhelpful, if seemingly content that she was uninjured-- but her worries still weighed down on her shoulders.

It was, in fact, her fault that someone had died at her paws. There was no real point in pinning blame onto the dead; there was no real point in saying 'but she was going to kill me' or claiming self-defense. Kera had gone too far.

A part of her wanted sympathy. Another voice to tell her that she had, in fact, done the right thing and made the caves a safer place for everyone. She wanted a shoulder to lean onto and another mouth to help her wash the scent of blood and gore away from her coat. She wanted to fall asleep easily.

Another part of her wanted something that would tell her that she was wrong and that nothing could be done to fix it. Someone to tell her to grow the hell up, get over it, and move on. A voice to say, 'that's life.' To kick her back into gear. Tell her what she had to do-- protect the lights, make friends, and protect those friends.

So why was she here? Kera didn't know if Rift would be able to do either of these things but she knew him well enough that, perhaps, his mere presence would be more than enough to calm her down for the time being. Perhaps teaching him about mushrooms and lights would distract her long enough to figure out how to make amends.

Perhaps not.

Kera, however, was hopeful.

She tried not to think of the blood or the anger or the fact that there was probably a goose-body in her den. She tried not to think of the danger she might have put the topaz into, leaving it half-hidden among grass and hay. She tried to focus on seeing Rift again, and reuniting with a friend.

The wolf took a breath as she padded into Eridanus. "Rift?" She called out carefully, wide-eyed as she stepped around trees, sniffing carefully to pick up the cougar's scent, though for the time being she caught nothing but blood and feathers.

With a disgusted, upset snort the wolf continued pacing further into the mossy room, nose brushing against ferns as she went.

Kera paused as she heard footsteps in the room, ear flicking. As she turned her head and saw Rift appear she instinctively stepped back, afraid that the cougar would catch the scent of blood clinging to her. She exhaled, but nodded with a faint smile.

"Hi, Rift," she said. "I just wanted to see you for a while. Hang out? Talk? I don't know. Things have been a little bad, lately." It was strange to think about-- the lights had turned out but it wasn't exactly what Kera imagined.

That said, Kera wouldn't really have imagined murdering a goose right after switching the lights back on. The wolf shook her head a little. "What have you been up to?" She asked, trying to pull her focus onto Rift. "Do you stay here, now? Or are you just passing by?"

Her voice was soft-- as it always was when she spoke with Rift, afraid of accidentally hurting his ear somehow. Taking a look around Eridanus regardless, it seemed like the kind of place that Rift would enjoy hanging out in-- there were a lot of trees and plants and moss and things; it was all very green. She could appreciate it in comparision to Canis or Polaris, which had very little foliage.

Hell, her den had very little foliage.

She kept smiling regardless; in a way that she was trying to pretend everything was fine-- even if she had just murdered a goose in front of her one and only friend.

Maybe gentle catching up was what Kera needed; though she wasn't entirely sure. Paranoid about her own cleanliness, she lifted a paw and began hastily leaning it, ears perked to listen to Rift. "You--" she began very softly, then paused and raised her voice a little. It was more out of politeness than anything else-- Kera often found herself speaking quietly to old friends. "You did? That's great!"

She could feel herself perking up immediately and it likely showed; her eyes brightened and her head lifted a little with interest, tail wagging behind her. "How did you fix it?" She asked with faint awe. She listened still to him speaking, quiet for a moment and smiling, even as his eyes darkened-- though she paused and frowned shortly after he added his last statement. "I'm sorry. It sounds like things have been hard for both of us."

The half-grown wolf loped after Rift, half-thinking of her own abandoned den and half-thinking of what Rift's den could possibly look like. The answer: much like how she imagined it. She paused briefly by the trees, sniffing-- catching Rift's scent and the scent of other, unknown gembounds, before she slipped inside after the cougar.

She smiled again as she saw him using his magic. It was unique; she'd seen other gembounds making light, or fungus, or even fire, but she never saw another who could make moss. Hesitantly, she stepped onto the moss and settled herself down onto it. It was much softer than her nest in tunnel N had been, and she took a moment to rub her face against it, eyes half-shut.

At length, she nodded. "I did," the wolf said. "There's this great big.. stoney thing, that controls the lights. The Betrayer threw a dead gem in there, but we got him out and we're trying to figure out how to revive him."

She paused, for a moment. "I saved someone's life, you know," she grinned, eyes flashing with gentle pride. "A snake that got caught in the stone-thing while trying to get the gem out. It started moving while she was inside and I went in and got her out." She shut her eyes fully now, content. Her tail thumped gently against the bed of moss.

"What about you?" She asked. "What sort do you tend to consider intruders?"

A moment later, she added-- "I've learned some new things, too- with the light. Watch," she said, rolling onto her back and concentrating quietly for a moment. Her gem glittered, and she felt magic begin to start up in her gut-- but it fizzled out fairly quickly.

With a sigh, she offered a grin to Rift regardless. "I'm not very good at it all yet, but I'm getting there," she said good-naturedly. "I just need practice, is all."

Tail wagging contentedly among the moss, Kera listened to Rift speak. It was nice here; it was nice to see him again. Within a few minutes she had forgotten her own troubles and was instead concentrating quietly on casting her magic with a few gentle nods towards Rift.

"No, not always; I can't ever figure out why, though," she said gently, briefly itching her belly with one of her front paws. "I can't ever tell if it's me, or the magic itself, or if it's something stopping me from doing it-- it looks like you did something, though. That's always a good sign. Is your head alright?"

She cast a brief glance over the cougar before resting her head back onto the moss, laying on her back as she went back to concentrating on summoning light. It didn't seem to work; her gem glittered but nothing happened. Perhaps there was something wrong with Rift's den, or perhaps the tree itself, but it didn't matter much. Kera remained happy and content, and she heard Rift speak further about the snake in the generator.

Her ear flicked, as she considered for a moment. "She was white," the wolf said, thoughtful. "She didn't give out her name. I think she was upset or something because she left before anyone could really talk to her." The wolf shrugged, unconcerned.

The wolf grew a little grim as she listened to Rift's definition of intruders, but she soon sat up abruptly and spun herself around to look at Rift urgently, wide-eyed. Kera, of course, only knew one goose. The troubles she had forgotten all came back to her abruptly and she was concerned about the state of her fur once more, bending her head down to sniff for blood clinging to the white pelt. "Do you know her name?" She asked with some concern.

"A goose attacked me when I just came out of the rock," she explained with a frown. "I might have won that fight and I took her place as my own, but-- did I tell you about this already? There's-- there's more, but..."

She hesitated, frowning.

Rift loved life; she knew that fine well. He loved plants and he seemed to appreciate other gembounds just as much. What would he say if she told him what happened? Kera did not know-- and Kera wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"...I mean, I saw her again," the half-grown wolf frowned, ears flat against her skull.

Kera turned her head to grin playfully between the root that touched her ear and Rift, if a bit briefly. "That's good-- hold on," she said, concentrating once more. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling, briefly, gem glittering warmly under her fur again. This time, however, gently-glowing lights appeared up on the roots of the tree, dimly illuminating the room and shining like distant stars.

Kera smiled, more to herself. "I'm glad you're okay, and-- well, I think Winter might have been a little scared by the whole situation with the lights," she said. "I think she'll be okay."

The wolf's head sunk to the bed of moss again with a gentle sigh. The terror of the caves. What an idiot-- even in the goose's final moments, the only thing she could do was monologue. Kera shut her eyes briefly, frowning. "No, you might be right," she said quietly.

She did not know, exactly, how to begin telling Rift-- so she began with, simply: "I think I killed her." She frowned some more, licking her paws tensely for a moment or two beofre continuing.

"I think she was going to kill me," she said breathlessly. "I acted in self-defense but I went too far and I think she's dead and gone-- there was a lot of blood, Rift. I-- don't know what to do."

She grimaced. A part of her still said it was for the good of everyone else in the caves, but could that really be true? A life is a life, after all-- but what is one life taken so that many others could survive? Had Blackberry even killed anyone before?

Kera did not know. She shut her eyes, grieved.