ORIGIN - At The Shores of Eternity

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Wilder glanced over towards the kangaroo and immediately perked up at its friendliness. Her ears went straight and her eyes gleamed with happiness. She had been a little nervous that it would be an unfriendly one, like some of the other children were, but apparently not! "Hi! I'm Wilder! Yeah, I know Dragon! I'm..." she cut herself off here with a small glance towards the alligator. She remembered that she was supposed to be secretive about this stuff and perhaps the kangaroo didn't know anything about the Children of Rot yet. She wouldn't bring it up until one of them did. "...his friend!" That was safe to say.

She opened her mouth again to thank the joey but Dragon's simple, demanding tone caught her attention and she faltered with a stutter, the joy falling off her face. She blinked and faced Dragon with a dip of her head. Her ears pulled back and her tail drooped. "The goose. Pride spoke to you." It wasn't a question. She already knew. Where to start, though? With Aure, she had started with the Collector and his mission for her, but telling Dragon that the he had sent her to gather information on his group that was made for keeping secrets didn't seem like such a good idea. Not now. Not yet. She wouldn't lie, she'd just...leave it out. "I found her in a cave. Actually that tunnel, the one by Eridanus. I'd heard stories about her before but...she was miserable. And I mean, I've never seen someone so low before. She'd lost her family, her love, her son. She was broken and I couldn't just walk away. I would never have forgiven myself if I had, even if she had done really really bad things."

Her tail flicked and she blinked slowly. "I wanted to help her," she repeated, "so I told her I'd help her find someone that she was missing. I thought that Pride might know...we used to be friends. But he must have intruded on my mind because he found out where she was. He promised me that he'd set up a trial for her so that people that hated her and people that didn't could decide what to do with her. I warned her...I know I shouldn't have, but I had to. And I had to tell her that that the one I was searching for, Blueberry, was dead. Killed by the Seven. Pride left without me and went straight to her. And he killed her. Horribly. I could hear the screams from Orion." She shivered a bit and stopped there. She would not reveal, yet, the last bit of information until she saw Dragon's reaction. If he cast her out and cursed her for helping Blackberry, then he could not know she was still alive.

@Zyros

Zyros was happy to hear from the cat named Wilder. But then in an instant, she noticed Wilder's expression drop immediately. Obviously the kangaroo felt like a child in an adult's conversation, which she was, and decided to stay quiet as Wilder spoke to Dragon. The joey listened to what she said, something about a goose who had done bad things, that she tried to help. Zyros had no clue what was going on, but she decided it would be best not to interfere. Though of course she couldn't help herself, so she turned back to Dragon. "Uh Dragon, I know it isn't any of my business, but Wilder isn't in trouble is she? She seems really nice." Though of course, the child still had finding the secrets of the cave in her thoughts, part of her attention went back to that as she listened to the rest of the conversation in silence.

@Dragon

Dragon listened, quiet, to Wilder's entire story. This version of events was slightly different, but not really enough to mean much. He doubted Pride's belief that Wilder's entire persona was an act--despite the fact that she had just turned up at the same time as this potential spy. His paranoia ran deep, but perhaps not as deeply as the white stag's did.

"It is not up to me to decide if she is in 'trouble,'" Dragon responded to Zyros. "What is left to me is to decide what to do for the rest of us. Don't ask questions," he added with a weary glance to the joey, "about that."

To Wilder, he went on. "Pity is a weakness; pity can also be a strength. We none of us are so strong alone as when we stand together. Yet, the goose chose to stand apart, Wilder. She is an enemy of all of the groups of the caves, after having killed and tortured. And you chose to help her, knowing full well that it might put at risk our relationship with the rest--and the survival of our own young! Should she have come here, there is no saying which of our own children she might have harmed or killed. We are bound to the well-being of all in the caves, not only the ones we pick and choose. Yet you chose to aid one against the many, many who have been wronged by her. What do you say to this?"

He was an old reptile with the potential to become ancient, and his tone reflected this: patient, unhurried, and staid. He held no real emotion in it, only impartial fairness. He wanted both sides and he wanted Wilder to see both sides--and to see how she reacted to this.

@Wilder

Wilder only spared a small glance towards the joey before she turned her full attention to Dragon. She was in trouble. With a lot of people. The Bonebound, at least, had forgiven her. Now time to make amends with the Children of Rot...or leave. Usually she had to try to stay serious, but after all the pain that her choices had caused her and Blackberry, it wasn't hard to keep her childish antics out of this.

"With respect, Dragon, I wasn't going to tell anyone about it, besides those I trusted the most with the information." She seemed to have completely forgotten that she had, in fact, told someone and not just anyone but Blackberry's worst enemy. Or, perhaps, she simply remembered it differently. "And I don't believe that she was a threat at the time. I can show you, if you like, what I remember. She was weak and shriveled and screaming for me to kill her. There is no one with the talent to put up an act as real as that." She shook her head, a shiver running down her spine. "I...I'm not as detached and impartial as you. I couldn't leave her like that in good conscious. I had to do something. And I didn't even do much - I gave her food and went out to look for her friend!" Her tail twitched again and she struggled to keep her expression level and her voice in control. "Pride told me something similar - that I had no right to decide her fate. I was ready to leave it up to a trial, for those that she had wronged and other neutral voices to decide what to do with her. I thought that's what Pride intended on doing...but he lied to me and killed her anyways."

@Zyros

Now was when Zyros truly decided to keep quiet. Though that did not stop the young joey from thinking. To help someone shriveled and weak was a good thing in her eyes. So with that being the case, Wilder should not be in trouble for anything. Zyros may not have understood the entire situation, but she did believe that Wilder had done a good thing. Then questions started to flood her mind like a river. Who was Pride? Why was the gembound she was helping considered a threat? Zyros had to literally force herself to keep her mouth shut, and not ask any more questions. 'Don't speak unless spoken to,' she thought.

@Dragon

Dragon was silent, for a moment, watching Wilder. He considered his words, but so far, the cat's words were not helping. She seemed to see no wrong in what she had done.

"Regardless of whether you intended to tell anyone, it would come out eventually--everything does; that is not the point. The point is taking actions that jeopardize us. Doing a bad thing does not become nullified simply because it goes unnoticed, Wilder. And do you not know that the stag has magic of the mind..? From what he told us, he intended to retrieve the goose for a trial, until he found you asking it--with your own mind--what to do about him. That sounded suspicious, don't you think? But all that aside, Wilder... Even if you truly believe that it was good to take it all upon your own shoulders, tell me this: do you truly believe that you did nothing wrong?"

@Wilder

Wilder opened her mouth to respond but then shut it. What could she say to that? To any of that? Dragon was right, she knew he was, just as she knew Pride was right. She had acted irrationally. She shouldn't have protected the goose. But did she even protect her? She tried to think back to what she had done. She had had every intention of helping the goose, but not sneaking her into Cetus or Orion or Canis, simply help her see the joy in life again, to find a new path, to maybe find some kind of happiness, if there was any left for her. She didn't see how that could jeopardize anyone.

But...if she had been wrong? If Blackberry had lied to her? Maybe that's what Dragon was talking about. If she really had been playing Wilder for a fool and would strike out at the weak whenever she got a chance. The cat was confused and she was starting to get a headache from all this thinking. "It...wasn't like that. I...uh..." a veil of confusion fell over her face for a moment as she tried to remember the exact context of what she had been saying to Blackberry. "I was telling Blackberry about Blueberry and she didn't seem to react to anything. So I asked her what she was going to do about Pride and the Bonebound coming for her. If she was going to leave, I would have followed her and gotten her to stay. I swear on my life I wasn't going to just let her walk free." If that was even the point of this whole thing.

But now it was down to it. Had she done anything wrong? Aure hadn't questioned her about this. He had fallen into understanding pretty quickly. But this wasn't the Bonebound, this was Dragon and the Children of Rot - skeptical, secretive, wary. So she was silent for a minute as she considered everything.

"...no. I don't. I...I don't regret wanting to help her, but I should have thought about it more. I should have come to you or Aure or Pride first. I shouldn't have contacted her when Pride told me not to. I wasn't thinking about what could have happened if she was lying or something. I'm sorry." She bowed her head shamefully and went quiet, her tail flat in the mud and her eyes staring miserably down at the brown earth below.

@Zyros

Zyros continued to listen on to the conversation as she forced herself to stay quiet. All of the conversation seemed confusing to the joey. Especially since she wasn't involved in any way possible. She sat there in the mud as Wilder became even more discouraged, and it clearly showed in the way she held herself. Zyros wanted to tell wilder it would be alright, try to at least comfort her, but it clearly wasn't her place to do so. So she continued to sit there as the cat hanged her head in shame. Zyros wanted to voice herself as Wilder's friend, but maybe now was not the time. She also didn't want to upset Dragon. The joey looked on as she took a quick glance at dragon, then back to the small cat. Hopefully Dragon could forgive Wilder for whatever she has done wrong.

@Dragon

"You speak of what you should have done differently," Dragon said, slowly drawing his claws through the mud, "and yet you think you have done no wrong." He paused, for a moment, letting this thought hang in the air--and then he let that pause run on for awhile.

Then he went on. "There is one other thing I will ask you of. Your... fits. Are you a danger to those around you? You seem to lose control," he observed. "As at the meeting. What causes this?"

@Wilder

Wilder looked back up and tilted her head, expression filled with confusion. Did Dragon misunderstand her? Perhaps she should have been more clear. "N-no, I said I don't believe I did nothing wrong. I made a lot of mistakes and I did a lot of things wrong." She wondered if there was a point in time in which she had thought she'd done everything correct, that it was everyone else's fault. Her memory was not perfect...but perhaps then, she had made those decisions because she had really thought they were the right ones. Had she really grown that much in such a short period of time?

She wasn't really prepared for Dragon's next question, but she was a little surprised that she wasn't. It wasn't exactly a secret. She shifted a little awkwardly, but she definitely wasn't going to lie or skip truths on this one. "I'm unsure. I spoke with Aure about it - I had a really bad one some time ago and he felt threatened, but I've never hurt anyone. I'm working on figuring out what the cause it but...I've agreed to limit my spell usage for the time being and distance myself a little from large groups, for their safety. Until I've figured out a solution." Her ears perked a little bit. "But I'm getting better! I usually know when they're coming and I can stop it!"

@Zyros

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