ORIGIN

Oliver waited until the waters swirled darkly, and then gathered himself to purge the corruption that was now so clearly visible. Whether it was tainted magic, or toxic minerals, or some sort of fungus or bacteria he had no idea. He wasn't about to stick his nose down and sniff, either. Just in case.

Focusing, he took a deep breath. Eyes slipped half-shut, face slack with concentration.

He could feel his magicka blooming up, and shifting into the water itself--and feel it tugged on, pulled, drawn out as if into a storm within the pond. His blue eyes snapped open in fear as he realized that his spell was slipping out of control.

The waters were black, now, pitch and thick, more sludge-like oil than actual water. With a worried whine he took a shifting step back, and then another, slowly letting his magic taper off and fade.

"Okay," he said softly, a quaver of fear in his voice. "You're a little worse-off than I realized."

Oliver took a breath. He didn't believe in deities--he never had; he'd never really been told about any, after all, if even any existed. But now he had some urge to pray for outside help--to beg for some sort of divine intervention in his little task.

But there was no one else, was there? There was only him, and he was the only one trying to spread this life, and purge this sickness, in Canis. It was up to him. He was the only intervention this place would see.

This thought steeled him some, bolstering him. If he failed, no one else would do it, and the place would stay stagnant and lifeless. And then, if Eridanus burned again, everything would be lost. With a grimace of deeper focus, grim now and stubborn, the bird-dog splayed his claws out over the waters. Half of him feared some now-sentient monster surging up from the black, grabbing his feathered forelimbs and dragging him in, and his "hands" trembled as he did his best to concentrate.

Again he called upon his magicka, and this time focused on the idea that he--and only he--could aid. That he had to succeed. That now that the black was all drawn forth, and visible, it was up to him to cleanse it.

"Come on..." But this time, nothing happened. The water remained pitch-black, quite unlike the crystalline pool some distance away. Disappointed, Oliver dropped his hands, looking off at the clean water and then back to this silty black with a frown.

"Look, I'm trying to help," the hybrid told the water insistently. Clearly, if nothing else worked, reasoning with it had a chance--right? "What's wrong with you?" And this wasn't said in an accusatory tone, but rather, worriedly. "You seem--sick. Or well--maybe water can't get sick," Oliver admitted, his voice soft and earnest. Had anyone else walked in, they might have wondered what, exactly, the hybrid was addressing that must lay beneath the blackened surface.

"But you don't look right and I want to make it so the plants can drink? And gembound can drink, if they come here. And I don't think it's a good idea to drink when you're like that." He squinted. "Is it that you don't wanna get drunk? ...Drank? I guess I wouldn't, either. And then get peed out and stuff. But, I mean, you're water. You can sit here for a real long time and be pretty and clear and only a little bit of you would get d... drank, you know?" Hesitation, silence, as he wondered if he'd said enough. Somehow it didn't feel like enough. "Please, just--trust me. If you get mad about it later you can always turn black again?"

He offered up this deal uncertainly, and then scooted forward again, claws once more splaying out over the darkened surface. It seemed to him to be unpleasantly like a churning stomach--like the visual representation of what it felt like to have stomach cramps and the resultant miserable illness. Was this what it looked like, inside your belly, before you pooped dark water? ...Gross, he decided.

A squint and he tried to picture it going the other way--because imagining diarrhea was going to do him no favors in purifying crystal-clear water. No. He had to imagine turning the illness away, fixing the cramps, making the stomach healthy and calm.

The water, he suddenly realized, was clearing up.

Eyes sprang wide, and as his concentration was broken, the progress halted--and he yelped, and bore down harder, pouring his magic into it. Slowly, gradually, it cleared further. The darkness faded, the silt settling into invisibility or perhaps being purged altogether--he couldn't be certain. But after several long and struggling minutes, and a great expenditure of magicka, the hybrid found that the water was perfectly clear. Or--nearly so.

It didn't stink, at least.

Cautious, he leaned down and sniffed it. A little metallic, sure, but no longer sickeningly stagnant and rotten-smelling. A careful few laps of his tongue and he rocked back on his hind legs with a satisfied, if exhausted, exhale.

Two pools of clean water, then, and a cluster of saplings, grasses, and ferns. This was good! It was a good start!

For now, though, he most definitely had to rest.

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

The bird-dog woke and left, and returned some hours later. He finished off the last of his banana, and then set about laying his new samples over the soil. He'd brought back a "fist"ful of dirt, fresh stuff he hoped to spread over Canis' questionable earth--it wasn't much, but then, he couldn't carry much. More importantly, though, there were a number of seeds, sprouts, saplings and other young plants. He was carrying a good amount in his jaws, the rest clutched in his left wing-hand's talons.

Slowly he splayed them over the soil, spreading it and mixing it into the sandy dirt. There were enough charred bones in the area that he was hoping he could make a decent fertilizer; in his experience, plants seemed to grow better where, as his thoughts phrased it, "stuff died." And, of course, where "stuff pooped." For now, though, he just focused on judicious placement of the seeds, sprouts and so forth: a single sapling to provide some shade, but not too much; then around that he planted young ferns, grass shoots and seeds. He repeated this in a few places, until the whole walled-in area was spread evenly with the potential of a garden. One day, if it grew well and if it spread, it would be a lush green thicket in the middle of the lifeless cave.

Then he sat back, and set about speeding up the growth of the seeds. They'd hopefully sprout, eventually, anyway--but it could take many cycles for this place to properly grow, even with the water he'd cleansed and even with plenty of poo to help it along. Instead, he wanted to lend his magic, which he saw as offering a little bit of his own life force to grow the garden all that much faster.

Gradually, with little rustles (which may have been in his own mind, really) and the spreading of new and tender leaves, myriad shoots began to rise from the soil. Contented, Oliver sat back, his expression both peaceful and pleased.

"Thank you," he said quietly. To the plants.

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

It had been some time--a few days, at least--since Oliver had last tended the garden. It was spreading on its own, now, if slowly. He wished to galvanize it into stronger growth, though he wasn't quite sure how to do this.

One step, he'd decided, might be to gather up enough of a similar plant that they could easily reproduce on their own. He'd looked for something small, and fast-growing, and had found a few bushes that spread through pollenized flowers, so far as he could tell. The ferns didn't seem to do that, and the grasses shared roots, but these bushes might do. They were soft and leafy, pleasant to look at, with a faint and minty smell. These he now held clutched under both wing-arms--a good eight smaller plants--and as he came to a halt at last by the garden, he paused for awhile for breath.

It was hard enough running on all fours, or gliding, the whole way from Eridanus. Like this--hopping on two legs, with his forelimbs tucked unnaturally upward--he wound up exhausted and very sore, and it took way too long to travel.

Eventually, once he'd rested, he took a look around.

The water was still clean--at least the waters that he'd cleansed. The growth was--well... growing. Good! The dirt was still there, and still dirt, which was also a plus. He wasn't sure that dirt could turn into anything else--mud, maybe, or rock?--but it hadn't. So that was nice.

"Okay," he told the minty bushes, picking two of them up again. "I'm gonna plant you, okay? And we'll make sure you're okay here." He smiled at them, certain that somehow the plants could sense his good intentions, and went about digging small holes and planting each of the bushes. He spread them a bit, but kept them close enough that hopefully they would make more. However, exactly, that might work.

His limbs were aching when he started, and when he finished they were downright pained. The soreness when he moved was really unpleasant, and he even whimpered a little without meaning to when reaching his "fingers" out to splay claws over the plant life. He winced.

He hadn't meant to sound weak. He was a guardian, or at least he was meant to be--that's what Dad had told him.

Whatever the case, it was time to ensure that the bushes didn't just die. They tended to do that, he'd found, when replanted--unless strengthened by magic. He closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply, focusing on his magicka.

The plants blossomed gently, and once again, Oliver had to lay down to rest.

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