ORIGIN

Eythan listened with far more intensity than he expected of himself, likely because this tale was possibly true. Somehow, rooting something in reality made it at least twice as interesting to the hybrid. This Lorekeeper, as it seemed, was possibly a Gembound like he and Giggle, but different. Never a child? And there was a period of time called the Great Noise. Loud and full of calamity. Was it like the Great Awakening that birthed the late Bone King?

These not-Gembound had to hide away from the monsters in the light, avoiding execution. They must not have been meant to exist or they had committed some crime against the loud ones. And they found silence and solitude in these very caves, long ago. They explored and ventured through all caves except one. Eythan began to check off the caves he knew of mentally, as the bonecaster said them: Orion, Polaris, Pisces, Eridanus. That wasn't a great number of caves, but the name soon came along. Cetus was rather unfamiliar to him, surprisingly. He didn't care much for frolicking through unseeing mists.

He nodded mutely at the question of hearing of Nemean, but with a haphazard shrug noting that he hadn't personally encountered the little gremlin. But who were all of these other Gembound that were traveling with the Lorekeeper? Where were they now? Dead, probably. This story offered up more questions than answers, it seemed. "I think... my fathers fought Raheerah in Polaris. I found a big, black scale on top of my chrysalis when I was born. It had a bunch of lines on it painted in red." The long armed and legged creature reminded him of some creature he had heard of, glimpsed.

"I knew we weren't the first ones here, but... there were Gembound different from us. And creatures that maybe aren't Gembound?" There was an unspoken question within his final statement: "how did they survive without their stone?" "Maybe we weren't meant to be here." Eythan flicked his ears back. "A couple cycles ago, I would've just let them come back in. But," he paused, glancing toward the den, "I've got shit to fight for and protect, if I won't for myself. Those assholes abandoned the Caves, and they don't get to just fuckin' take it back without one helluva fight."

Maybe full-on war would be the one thing that finally united the Gembound. Common enemies tended to nurture alliances.

"But you said she said she was never a child," Eythan demurred softly, "all Gembound start as children. Even the lessers. Is there another level to us?" With a little chuckle, he added, "the greatest Gembound?" Well, that sounded dumb, didn't it. Glancing to Giggle's red stone, he pointed out quietly, "Skeena does too." Realizing that his previous father must have had a similar stone shape as well, Eythan shook his head. "I mean, yeah, she's your daughter, but I think her gem isn't like yours. It's too---" he paused, trying to think of a word to describe it, but eventually gave up, making a theremin sound with a vague paw-wave instead.

He spared a glance back toward Giggle's den, ears laid back. "I hope... that Aure decides that he wants to be the Bone King. I think he'll be a good one but, time will only tell." Bright eyes met dark ones again, and Eythan stood to clarify, "we need strong families in times like this, strong Gembound." In the hyena's silence, he stood.

As soon as the bonecaster suggested he go and look after Aure, Eythan shook his head violently --- not at the idea of doting on his brother, because he absolutely would if he could, but at the fact that Giggle would even offer to bring rats. "Hey, no. You just got nearly fuckin' knocked out by yours truly. You go and rest." Persistently nudging the hyena's shoulder, he tapped his talons against the stone. "C'mon, I'll get the fuckin' rats."

"You're better at the caretaking thing, anyways."

Truly, the irony here was that all of the Gembound were far from natural, right down to the straight-up growth from seemingly nothing. Oh, and the whole method of reproduction boiling down to shedding off a piece of one's life and imbuing it into another's stone and planting it like a seed. Not that Eythan particularly had experience with that. He wasn't ready for that, quite yet. Given how much he adored Aure, the door was still opened. Just a crack, he thought, hoped.

"I didn't mean it like that, I--- I don't know." There was a lilting hesitation to his voice. "I'm doing my best to guide him and help him. I think he'll be able to learn how to glide a lot sooner than I ever was able to. I had to get Remedy --- you met her, right? --- to teach me how to fly because I..." he laughed softly, "was being a brat and running away from home, from Dad." Eythan couldn't help the slight tear that came to his eye, though, as he was referred to as Azazel's other legacy. In a way, it was true. The Bone King had left behind some sort of legacy to carry on, and as he knew it, he and Aure were the only ones left. Kesil and Bremen had some sort of strange disconnect from the family, abandoning it at a moment's notice (Eythan couldn't help but to wonder if it was his fault.) In another way, it was even truer. The gryphon had always been sidelined in life.

But he didn't mind it. He relished in it, even. Impulse was a dangerous thing in the spotlight.

Blinking, Eythan balked, "well---! I went easy on you!" Already beginning to scoot in the other direction, toward the so-called Rat Boulders, he gave a bark of laughter at the hyena's warning. "You sound jealous! You're his favorite caretaker. I'm just a brother who happens to be very warm." With that, he turned back over his shoulder and trotted toward the rocks, off to hunt.