ORIGIN

It wasn't often that Eve left Cetus. She only really did so for two reasons: the first, to find adequate shinies to add to her collection. Tunnel J was usually good for that-- it had all sorts of things and trinkets for her to bauble and haul back to her nest, though usually with some difficulty. She was, in fact, very small.

The second reason was to visit her little family. The family outside of the Children of Rot, that is, and she quite preferred to keep them separate. She loved Dragon and Ghanyarah and Tal'at, but not in the same way she loved Oliver, White and-- to an extent --Black. She made sure to escort her son out of Cetus before he got into trouble. At the time, Cetus had been full of it and she couldn't trust Oliver to not get himself hurt, somehow.

Having them separated kept her mind at ease. She worried for her children when they were out of her sight, but she knew she'd worry even more having them in Cetus.

... Then again, with what Dragon was saying about the 'Masters,' she might worry for them either way.

Nothing had prompted this particular visit to Polaris-- nothing more than simply missing her family. The flight to the Spire from her nest wasn't particularly long, but it was tiring for a crow that hadn't spent as much time flying as she used to. When she turned a corner and saw the bright blue light of the Spire, she promptly landed on a boulder before it and let out a huff.

She wasn't sure who was around. Black was often here- White, the last time she had checked, had gone travelling with someone Eve didn't know (which seemed particularly suspicious), and Oliver was helping making things shiny when the caves had been dark.

The caves hadn't been dark for a while now, however.

The crow let out another huff and shut her eyes, deciding to catch her breath before bothering to actually try and find anyone.

Oliver and Black were both nearby, as it happened, but after speaking for some time, Black had fallen silent to stare at the Spire for a good long while. Oliver, knowing that at times his father's moods took him into this mindset, had left him to... ponder, or whatever it was he was doing.

Now he turned, and as he made his way from the Spire, and quite to his surprise, he saw his mother on a distant boulder. His expression went smoothly kind, happy to see her; he didn't see her very often, and the warm little hybrid held her in high regard. Awkwardly, mostly due to his long winged forelimbs but giving off an appearance of a happy puppy in his enthusiasm, he bounded over to her.

"Mother," he greeted her, flattening back tufted ears and leaning up with a dog's instinct, trying to sniff her over from his place lower down, checking that she was all right. His magicka, too, flared up as he checked to ensure she wasn't sick, that she was well and strong and good.

"How are you? It's good to see you. Is everything all right? Is White okay?" His voice was soft, but his questions came rapidly, their excitement and slightly worry a bit muted by his cautious, gentle voice.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

Eve had heard the sound of something approaching, but she hadn't opened her eyes until she heard her son's voice, head tilting down to look at him. She stood still for a moment, letting him sniff over her, before she unfurled her wings and fluttered onto Oliver's head.

"Hey, kid," she chirped as quietly as she could, to avoid squawking at full volume directly into her child's ear. "How have you been?" She spent a moment fussing over the hybrid, preening at the fur on his forehead and his ears, then shifting to the back of his neck to smooth down the black fur.

Eve, as it happens, was fine. She was a little plumper than usual from a lack of exercise-- her only real pastimes in Cetus had consisted of fluttering down to snack at the Pile when no one was looking. A tiny bird like her had no chance at hunting, anyway.

She hadn't come into any contact with plague either-- not yet, anyway, though with a diet consisting purely of decaying flesh, she likely isn't too far off getting sick at some point.

"Everything's fine," she replied with a very conscious effort not to scream next to Oliver's ears. "I've not seen White-- she's not around Cetus --but I can take a look around for her if you're worried."

Once Oliver's fur had been groomed to her standard (which wasn't very high), she spent a moment nuzzling his forehead affectionately with her beak. "I came to see how you were doing. Is anyone giving you any trouble?"

Like any good mother, the crow would not hesitate to beat the shit out of anyone bullying her son.

Oliver listened to his mother speak, his face in as close an expression to a smile as he could manage. He peered up at her, content, and dipped his head a little.

"Oh, don't--go out of your way, it'd just be good to know where she is, you know--so we know she's okay. I'm glad you're okay, too and no, nobody's bullying me. There was a big contest they set up so I helped make lights for it, 'cause I made all those lights back when the lights were out?" Oliver was now doing the thing where he spewed a ton of information all at once, with very little break even for breath or change of topic. "I meet a lot of Gembounds hatching so I take care of them for awhile? You know, show them out to eat and stuff and the best place to go, 'cause-... well if you want fish Orion's not good but if you want grass Eridanus is the place, you know? So I help them how I can and I help sick people if I can. There's been a lot of sick rats and I'm trying to help them, too. Dad said there were Eyes and someone called Senka in Orion, so he came back here to check on me but now he's staring at the Spire," Oliver added, glancing back to peer in Black's direction.

All of this was delivered in a soft, gentle monologue, all of it carefully-spoken, as if Oliver was ever trying not to offend. There was no fear in it, though; it was just how he was.

At length he looked back to Eve, blinking up at her.

"What have you been doing?"

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}