ORIGIN

Growing frustrated now, Eythan continued to sift through the bones, keeping an eye out for glimmering gems and fresh morsels of marrow to eat (and share with Aure.) His little clawing motions grew faster and more frantic, carmine eyes scanning impossibly fast across the pile. He may as well revive as many stones as he could, to the best of his ability, while he could. Essentially, Giggle had told him to make it count. In accordance with that, Eythan would.

In his shuffling about, the hybrid caught a glimpse of something sparkly.

Blinking, he jerked toward the shiny thing. Careful to keep the achroite in the tip of his beak, Eythan reached out with a careful talon, delving into the pit of bones. Feeling something solid where he felt around, the gryphon grabbed it and withdrew it from the pile, pulling it into the light to inspect. There, still fused to a bone, lay a stone.

The shimmering yellow stone was still yet fused into an oddly-shaped, mangled ribcage, as it turned out. As Eythan attempted to lift it, the bones proved to be far too heavy to properly hold with one paw. Instead of fruitlessly trying to dredge it up, the gryphon placed both of his front paws near the sternum, where the orthoclase lay. Pushing every bit of his weight on it, he easily snapped the fragile old ribs away from the sternum with a sickening pop! Said sternum dropped and spiralled at the bottom of the ribcage, bits of bone still attached to the perfectly diamond-shaped gem.

Throwing his head back a little to further place the achroite in his mouth, the hybrid carefully took the orthoclase into his beak as well. Well, that was two attempts down, with one more to go. With both sets of talons freed, Eythan could easily sift through the bones some more. He clambered a little deeper into the sea of bones, shuffling through them with a soft clatter.

As Eythan moved deeper into the spread of bones, now up to his elbows, he kept his head tilted down and ears forward. He watched and listened for discrepencies in the bones and how they moved. Bone on bone sounded hollow, but bone on gemstone often produced a denser sound than before. As he scuffled and wiggled through the bones, the gryphon heard a lower sound, the scuffling of something deeper in the skeletons. The gryphon paused, and so did the sound. His ears rotated, scanning for a source to the sound. One step forward, and a soft clink! sounded. Talons on gemstone.

Peering down one last time, Eythan began to dig through the bones, revealing one last stone to the light.

Unaware of the sodalite's dead state, Eythan eagerly drew it from its little hole in the pile of bones, lifting it to his beak. Shifting the bones back into the pit and into its haphazard-seeming state, the gryphon lifted off with a few powerful strokes of his wings. The first few motions beat against the skeletons, scattering them as they pushed him up and up. Higher and higher, he went, until he began to fly toward the heart of Canis. It would be good to ensure that these stones were safe in the labyrinthine Chambers, even after they emerged. For some odd reasons, cave rats weren't too thrilled with the prospect of living within the hidden network of halls and dens. It was fortunate, given that he always got to sleep in silence. Whenever he did sleep unhindered by nightmares and horrific nostalgia.

The trip was brief, as he kept to the left of the Chambers's walls so he may find his way back out. He arced to the right only once, into a delightful little alcove only about a foot above the floor. Safe, in case the neonates emerged and fell out and in case cave rats did happen to nest here and decide to look for a meal. They weren't the greatest at jumping or climbing. Eythan alighted softly, tucking his wings eagerly against himself with the click of his talons. Depositing the achroite, yellow orthoclase, and sodalite within the hidey-hole, the gryphon stepped back to inspect them. Carefully, he nudged them side to side: the achroite held its domain in the left side; the orthoclase took up the center; and the sodalite resided at the right. Plenty of space for chrysalises to grow and prosper.

May as well focus, one stone at a time, right? Sanguine eyes flickered to the achroite first. "I shoulda fuckin' asked Giggle how to make the... life thing happen," he groaned, screwing his eyes shut and sitting down. Magicka was a funny little thing, and so was the innate Gembound instinct that drove them to reproduce through his method. Although, was this really reproduction? Anyways. Eythan's tail curled about his front paws as he tried to focus in on something. "If you want to be... uh, alive again, let me help you." Perhaps it was warm notions of childhood, or creatures emerging from their shells, born anew. /pending

A bolt of pain lanced through his forehead, as if his own stone had been shattered. Stumbling back with what was most definitely a migraine, Eythan wheezed. "Augh, fuck!" Lifting his talons, he clutched at his head, as if it had grown a thousand pounds heavier. His other leg worked on hoisting himself back up onto his haunches, pushing up and releasing in a jack-like fashion. Finally somewhat upright with darkness creeping in on his vision, Eythan scowled. Not entirely being mean to the baby-to-be, he grumbled at the achroite, "are you fuckin' sure? Do you just want to lie with the fishes forever? That was too certain, asshole."

Tail flicking side to side and skull lancing with unspeakable pain, the gryphon closed his eyes again, ears now pinned against his nape. Thinking, hoping, viciously working his woes into some semblance of magicka that listened to him. He tried to project some thoughts of warmth, of home (as much as bones and death could be) of the Caves. Somehow, it seemed like it would help with this damn spell casting. As soon as he felt a spark of magic and a draining sort of energy from his being, he leaned forward, tapping the achroite with his beak. It clink!ed softly against him, before rolling onto another face. In its heart, a light glowed. "See, that wasn't so damn hard, right?" With a rather giddy smile, the gryphon reached up into the cubby-hole and pushed the stone deeper into the rock.

As soon as the stone was purposefully stuck to the earth, it seemed to stick into it, intangible roots already protruding deep into the bricks and mortar of the Caves themselves. It pulsed brightly with magic, life festering inside. Had Eythan not felt immensely exhausted already, he would have hopped excitedly because a.) he didn't fail horribly, and b.) he made life! Voluntary magic well-controlled always sparked a little bit of excitement in him. Of course, in his current migraine-induced state, he could only smile outwardly with a perk of his ears. That was good enough.

His gaze turned to the diamond-shaped stone at the heart. "Please, just let me know gently that you don't want to live again. Just... say the word, or something." Honestly, Eythan knew that Gembound weren't exactly bound to their gems, but it felt okay to talk to the stones anyways. There had to be something left of the Gembound within them, since that was how hybrids came out. What, exactly, that entailed, was unknown to him. Was the body perhaps formed by the gemstone for the bones and the soul to inhabit?

Anyways, again, Eythan closed his eyes and tried to focus on the feelings he had before, calling upon the little and scarce moments he had of his childhood. The ones filled with pure, wholesome joy, such as learning to fly for the first time or encountering new friends. Not those filled with bitterness and a game of chicken between his father and himself; neither of which had been any better at discussing feelings and addressing the elephant in the room than one another. It wasn't a contest. It never had been.

Magicka surged through his stone much more readily this time, and Eythan more calmly leaned forward to deposit it into the golden stone. Its slightly translucent heart began to ebb and flow with a light as the achroite had, pulsing once or twice before falling dim. It was waiting, waiting gently to be planted. The gryphon obliged, placing the perfectly diamond-shaped yellow orthoclase deeper into the stone. It, too, stuck, with a certain eagerness. Nurturing life, rather elegantly and simply. "There you go," he murmured, mostly to himself, now.

One last stone, right? Eythan's gaze turned to it, dark blue and jagged. One last gift of life, right? Wrong. No matter how he thought, how he went about it, the sodalite remained silent, not even offering a single thread of magicka. Despite its fusion to a bone, it was truly dead. Turning it over more properly revealed a great rift in its heart, with several chunks missing. "Oh. Oh..." he chirped softly, lowly, withdrawing the stone from the alcove. The hybrid peered at it for a few moments, turning it over and over and over in his talons. Then, with a sigh, Eythan placed it back in its nook, carving out a minute hole for it to lie in. It wasn't a proper grave for its previous holder, but none of Canis really was. "Sleep easy."

Then, in his best way, Eythan lay down next to the planted stones and their temporary homes and immediately conked out for a long cat-nap. He had forgotten about his mission to find some bone marrow.