ORIGIN

His time awake had crawled by, immeasurably slow and grueling.

Aure had gotten up from his mother's side, sleepily noting that he would go out and do it today. It, being, confronting Eythan and deciding --- once and for all --- whether or not he could trust him not to revert to his apparently murderous tenancies. And... to announce his plans for the future, Aure supposed. Mother had sent Omen along with him, a single glistening red eye in the dark trailing each wingbeat silently.

The wyvern had yet to decide where he would call Eythan forth from. He wanted to stay close to the den, so that Mother could come out at a moment's notice. In that case, he made sure to keep its opening within view. That narrowed his options down ten-fold. Bright eyes looked back toward the hallowed caller behind him, and he nodded. With a single call, the bird disappeared into some higher reach of the cave. Aure wasn't exactly sure where she had gone, but felt comfort in knowing that he was being watched. Tilting slightly in the air, he moved carefully towards a pile of bones. Spotting one that seemed clean and white, he swung low. His talons snagged it up into the air, and he climbed skywards. Perhaps some marrow would be an adequate offering to get Eythan in a good mood. In the next instant, the bone split in two, the smaller half skittering off into some unknown recess. That was fine.

Aure landed atop the larger piece, and scraped out a bit of marrow for himself first, savoring the spongy, buttery substance. Mmm, bones. The wyvern looked around for a moment, judging if anyone was in close proximity. Then, he called: "Eythan?" He hadn't seen his brother since coming back home. Neither had Mother. Was he even in Canis, anymore?

He was still sore, oddly enough. Sore with the weight of invisible scars. Weary from the healing of flesh torn from his body by one stony fist. Despite having been walking once more for quite some time, Eythan was sore and carried a somewhat noticeable limp in his step. He hadn't flown in a while --- the idea of it was too tiring to even think about. All he had really done was just lie around and choke down some smaller bones. They were something resembling sustenance.

Least to say, he wasn't in the best state of being he had ever been.

But, at least, hearing his brother's voice made him feel a little better. Small ears immediately pricked in the direction of the call. Without even being told to, his limbs began to carry him (albeit sluggishly) towards the source. Seeing a fluffy white lump in the distance, Eythan called, "Aure? Is that you?" A few steps closer, and he was able to confirm. "Hot shit, it is you! Why didn't you tell me you were back?"

He reached up with a casual foot to ruffle the young hybrid's feathers.

As soon as he heard the shuffling of paws approaching, Aure's mane bristled. He tried desperately to smooth down his own proverbial and literal hackles, but he hadn't anticipated Eythan actually being here. The gryphon approached, nonchalant and unaware. How could he live with the weight of his father's death on his shoulders? No matter how sorry Mother told the wyvern his brother was, Aure couldn't understand it. He never had been in such a situation --- and hoped that he never would be --- so he couldn't in any lifetime understand it.

"Yeah, it's me," he said with a little more dryness than he had planned for. Seeing a bit of white come toward him, the hybrid bristled again and shuffled away with the wave of a wing. At the same time, Aure nearly growled, "don't touch me." Okay, woah, hold up. Put that impulse away. Don't end up in the same predicament. He had recited this all through the night, dreaming up different scenarios for how this would go and what he should say. Nothing would be for dramatic effect, or childish impulse. He had time to consider his words and the possible ripples from them.

Smoothing down his obviously ruffled feathers, he breathed, "I'm home now and I want to bring the Bonebound back together again. But I can't---" Aure paused, hesitating slightly. He chanced a glance toward where he had spotted Omen, watching carefully. Fortunately, it just seemed like a botched attempt at eye contact. "I can't until... until I can trust you."

He steeled himself with a breath, staring up at Eythan, "I know what you did and I don't understand. I don't understand how you could just do that and act like it's all fine." Then, Aure waited, wings tense and already reaching for his magic. Tension weighed heavy on the air.

Eythan visibly flinched, withdrawing his paw immediately and setting it back on the ground. He gawked for a second, beak cracked slightly. "Don't touch me," he parroted, "what centipede crawled up your--" The gryphon would be cut off, though, as Aure began to talk about being home and bringing together an age-old family with new blood. Then, there was talk of a little thing called trust. Eythan's ears unconsciously flickered back, a subtle hint of the defensive posturing to come. He knew what was coming. He had for a while, now. Aure's tense wings said it all.

"Giggle told you." That was all the older of the two could say. His head lowered, and he staggered backwards slightly. For all intents and purposes, Eythan was submitting to the done deed. Some selfish part of him thought that there may be a lesson to be learned from this, for both of them. The eldest would learn about a bit of honesty, and the youngest would learn a bit of the sourness of life.

So, he murmured carefully, "I act like I'm fine because I have to."

The bone pit's milieu was growing tenser by the second, and no amount of self-soothing could ease it. Aure forced his breathing to steady, lest he fly into an unintentional tantrum of ramblings. That was a habit he wanted to break. "She told me that you were sorry, but I need to hear it from you." His gaze fell downward, scanning Eythan's talons. They were sharp, deadly. Feline blood coursed through those veins. Don't trust cats, Mother had said. Unintentionally, the young one staggered backwards.

Oh, and before Eythan could interrupt --- "I'm afraid of you, Eythan, alright? I'm afraid of what you're going to do to me, what you're going to do to others. You killed our father, and I have reasons to believe you killed our brother. I must be next, right? I have to be." Before fear could overtake him and force him to flee, Aure inhaled sharply. "Someone once told me that there's no evil. Only pain and impulsive actions. What did Father do to you that made you do that? What did Carni do to you? I don't understand. I don't understand."

Where his voice had been strong before, it faltered, now. Aure's conviction lost strength and every part of his posture showed it.

Eythan did not like this: the fearful look in Aure's eyes, the way he staggered backwards, the way he hesitated over every word, the preparation to flee at a moment's notice. It hurt to realize that he had never noticed it before — when the wyvern was young, barely two cycles old, he had been nervous at the top of the Chambers, and unwilling to let himself fall. Whether or not it was déjà vu from the jasper's previous life, Eythan couldn't decide but... but he hadn't realized why the child had been so nervous. The spotted gryphon's wings sagged and he sunk to his haunches, then his elbows. "Fuck..." he cursed beneath his breath, spitting at his own, blood-stained claws.

"I'm sorry — I really am, but Dad was hurting himself and he let himself fall. I tried to save him when I only helped him die. I didn't kill him." His throat bobbed, swallowing down a thick sob. "He blamed himself for mistakes that weren't even his and I was too stupid and young to notice. I was just a dumb cub who thought the world owed me something. I just didn't know what that something was. I still don't." Perhaps he was still just a dumb cub, who played in the dirt and with sticks and mud. He threw stones at passing cars and egged front porches at times. "But, I don't miss Dad, as awful as that sounds — listen, I didn't really know him, so I can't mourn him. I mourn what could have been: long nights spent underneath his wings; him teaching me how to fly; him showing me the world. I wanted to give that to you, but I was too stupid to realize —"

His breath hitched for a moment, and Eythan paused to exhale. "Listen, Aure, listen. You are not next. There is no next. There never will be a next," he reassured, "and I act like everything's okay because I have to. If I start looking back, I start to get dizzy and lose track of where I am. I start looking down from high places and think about what it would be like if I joined Father, if I joined Carni — who did nothing to me, I was stupid, stupid, yet again."

"Everybody makes mistakes, and Dad knows I've made more than my fair share," he concluded, carefully, "but, my biggest mistake wasn't killing our father. My biggest mistake wasn't killing Carni. My biggest mistake was killing myself." Eythan lowered his head, utterly defeated. "If you dwell on the past and don't try to improve, then you're just going to get left behind and you're going to drown in the guilt until somebody maybe drags you out of it," he paused to peer in the direction of Giggle's den, "and that's a big fucking maybe, Aure."

His gaze then drifted towards where Aza'zel once called upon the Bonebound, where he led with all the pride and confidence of a good King — if only he had been a little more vulnerable — "don't repeat Dad's mistakes, and you better not repeat mine." There was a harsh reality to life, that Eythan felt like Aure needed to know, "please don't waste your time mourning anyone or anything for too long. They're never worth it, they're already dead and nobody's come back from the grave to tell us all how fucking fantastic and worth it dying is."

Eythan understood even less than he did, Aure realized. Even with all of the pandemonium of life the gryphon had lived through, he had come out no wiser, no clearer. There was no answer to what went through any Gembound's mind, down here. The young one's wings further fell, and his gaze fell from his brother's own bright eyes to the bone he perched atop. He had forgotten about that bone. Father had been full of self-hate, despite his selflessness. Eythan had been angry at the world for taking a father from him and unsure of how to vent it. Mother was the only one that had truly known the King. Mother was the only other thing in the caves that he showed his vulnerabilities to. Even then, she hadn't known. She had been left in the depths of some awful darkness. And through all of this, Eythan had tried to fall like Father had.

"I—" Aure stuttered uselessly, "Eythan I— I'm sorry." His blunt claws left the marrow-filled bone, kicking it towards Eythan; "here, have this." He quickly lurched forwards to nuzzle his brother. Before any objections could be raised, the wyvern turned and began to spread his wings, "I'm glad I'm home, that you still are, too. Be careful."

With that, Aure disappeared into the Chambers on quiet wings.

;exit Aure

The bone, marrow and all, clunk! mutely against his beak. Eythan's ears flitted up at the brief nuzzle, and before he could even stand, the young wyvern had taken off. "I was gone too," the gryphon murmured without much purpose. His wings unfurled from his sides for a moment, wanting desperately to follow. But even he knew how to take a hint. Aure would want some alone time after all of that. Eythan knew he would, too, should the roles have ever been reversed. He always had been crippled and pestered by emotions he didn't quite understand.

Propping his meal up between his paws and picking at it with his beak, he wondered idly if it ran in the family.

;exit Eythan

Auré

Eythan

Auré

Eythan

Auré

Eythan

Auré

Eythan