ORIGIN - respite

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Serendipity likely should have been a whole lot more nervous or afraid than she actually was. Granted, she didn't really know what the levels of nervousness should be for 'about to convince potential murderers that her potential murderer friend should live here,' but perhaps that was mostly besides the point for her right now.

She was more distracted with how pretty Orion was. Most of the lights here came from the glittering quartz up the ceiling and the silver danced off the edges of dark, ruined buildings. There was a long tower somewhere nearby, and close to the entrance of tunnel I, there was a throne.

She was very interested in this.

It took a while to wander up the stairs to the glorified chair, but once she managed to reach it, she spent a long time eyeing it up and down meticulously. It seemed like a lot for something to just... sit in, presumably, but whoever had made it and sat in it must have been shaped like her, surely?

She couldn't imagine Laurel or Azure sitting in it, at least.

.. oh. Right. Things to do.

Serendipity rolled her shoulders back, but she didn't leave the throne's side just yet, staring down at the dark room. "Uh, hello?" She called out, eventually. "Seven?"

@Pride

Pride wasn't here so often, anymore--or rather, he was here daily, but not for very long. The Seven weren't as active as he'd have liked, but that was hardly anyone's real fault; the cave's numbers just weren't very high, and those who were Seven had been busy with their own personal lives and the like, as of late. As luck would have it, though, he was at the Throne when Siren called.

He wasn't visible, of course--he was back behind it, sniffing over strange odors he'd found nearby. At the voice, his head came up, antlers sweeping the air, his ears pressing toward forward. Delicately, gracefully, slender legs carried him from behind the stone--he seemed to simply materialize, like some sort of strange cervine ghost.

At the sight of the child, he paused. One gray-hoofed leg hung slightly midair, and he took in the sight of her briefly. Young. Strangely-shaped. She knows of us? Gently he set the hoof down, and spoke.

"Yes?" he fluted, then realized this wasn't entirely polite. "I am Pride, of the Kingdom of the Seven--how may I help you?" Sort of like a sales clerk poking out from behind a rack, really.

He hoped, briefly, that there hadn't been an attack somewhere--trouble, elsewhere in the caves. Perhaps she was there to join them? He hoped so, for a moment--they had need of new members--but he tried not to think about that too much. It would be impolite, really.

@Siren

There were a great many places that Siren would have expected a gembound to appear from, but stepping out from behind the throne as if from nowhere was not one of them. She considered, if only for a moment, if Pride were somehow related to the Collector and if he'd vanish again whenever they were done here.

But probably not. He was very pale.

Serendipity stepped forward, extending a hand towards one of Pride's hooves without thinking. "Um, hello," she said, blinking a few times. "I'm Sirendippity. Or Siren. Or Dip. Uh, whatever. Uh, Kingdom of the Seven? She said it was Sinful Seven I think?"

Her brow crinkled briefly, and there came that nervousness she was supposed to have when she walked in here in the first place. "You're very pretty," she blurted out for no reason other than just to fill some of the silence, though instantly regret it. Pride looked intimidating, and it didn't really help that he was so much taller than her.

That said, that hadn't been an issue when she met Dread, but Dread wasn't potentially going to kill her and her friend, she supposed.

@Pride

Pride dipped his head again, in acknowledgement, as if respectful--not so deeply, this time. Doing that repeatedly would have likely left him dizzy. "Sirendippity," he responded in the same soft, melodic voice. "Similar to 'serendipity?'" Or maybe the same word, but simply mispronounced? "It is good to meet you," he added, and then stood quiet to listen to her news, or request, or whatever it was that the youth had brought him.

To her question, he nodded once. "We were called the 'Sinful Seven' previously, but as nothing about us was sinful at all, we chose to change the name. We are protectors, here in Orion, or we are striving to be," he went on, with calm humility to his tone. "Perhaps with time."

'You're very pretty.' Pride blinked, and then broke into a quiet, tinkling laughter, entirely friendly. "Oh, thank you, Sirendippity. That is very kind of you. As are you, as well. May I ask what it is that has brought you here?"

His expression, now that she'd randomly and so terribly kindly--and abruptly--complimented him, was a little more relaxed, a little more warm, then prior. It was mostly amusement, but of course flattery, as well, always had its uses--and he didn't think the child had done this to manipulate.

How very kind of her indeed.

@Siren

Serendipity blinked once, quiet for a moment. "The second one," she said, in response to her own name. "I dunno how to say it. Sirendippity. It's good to meet you too!" She was cheerful, now, but neither of these points were quite what she was here for.

Her ears lifted with understanding, briefly, at the explanation of their name. And then a second realisation hit-- "so you're the good guys?" She asked, her eyes shiny. That was good news! She was a good guy too! Maybe Azure didn't have anything to worry about?

And right onto the meat of the situation, it seemed. She dropped her hand and went to tapping her fingers together instead for a few beats, choosing her words Very Carefully. "I, uh, met this friend. And she's very nice! A very good friend," she began. "She likes to create stuff and so do I but we create sorta-- different stuff? She makes lights and I make, uh, metal stuff."

"But she's real lonely! She said nobody had ever been nice to her before! And we started making all these plans to, like, build together and create stuff and stuff, and she asked if I wanted to live with her so we could talk and work together and stuff," it should be noted that, as Siren was a child who had not yet told a singular lie in her life, her tone was genuine. Distraught when she mentioned Azure being sad and lonely, waving her hands around to try to explain 'and stuff,' and most importantly, she did not take a singular breath for the last thirty seconds.

Impressive to some.

Alarming to others.

"But!" She continued, "When I said that we should live here, 'cause the dens are big enough for both of us and I dunno how big I'm gonna get 'cause nobody knows what I am, she said that everbody here might be really mad at her and put her in a cage and kill her and stuff? And I was like, 'why would they do that??' And it turns out! It's because she was raised by assholes, whatever they are, but it's nothing good! And she almost did bad things, but she didn't really want to? And now she's alone and scared and stuff and it's-- I dunno! I want her to be happy because she's my friend?"

"And she wants to know if, like, if she even showed her face around here would she like, get in trouble? And die? I mean-- I wanna know that too, 'cause she's really cool and fun and I'd like to keep being her friend, but I don't want her to be like... hiding all the time? I mean-- she didn't say she was hiding she just said she was avoiding because she was scared but I don't want her to be doing either of those things? But you won't hurt her or be mean to her if you're good, right? 'Cause I think she's good."

Serendipity looked a little pale in the face at this point, but when she finally silenced herself, she did so with some incredibly heavy, taxing breaths, craning her neck back as if that would help her suck more air into her lungs.

@Pride

Pride had never really been barraged like this before. He tried to take mental notes, but they mostly consisted of half-blank, mentally-teeth-gritted please slow downs.

When at last Siren fell silent, gasping for air, he turned this all over in his mind. That last bit of information had left his gut sinking, and he withheld a sigh. I did not want to deal with this right now, he thought to himself, wearily. A Bloodberry, clearly, given the mention of cages, bad things, "assholes" and killing (and the word "assholes" coming from this child's mouth felt very out of place, he felt).

First things first. Pride's magicka flickered out at the very thought of the Bloodberries, searching the area to ensure they were alone. Though Siren was but a child, he would not at all put it past the Bloodberries to use her as a distraction for mounting an attack on him. Nothing reverberated; there were no gems nearby, bar a few Lessers scurrying in the ruins, unseen.

Relieved, Pride turned his mind to Siren again. Taking a breath, he began to address the child's exceptionally long list of... well, things to address.

"Yes, we are the good guys, to answer your first question. We do our best to help others, and to protect against threats within the caves. We work together with several other groups toward that end--there are those who seek knowledge, and those who tend the plant life, and others who look into the cave's past and try simply to exist as family. We are on good terms with them all."

...Mental Note number two was that this kid was really, really young, but that manifested only in a gentle bit of information--"And as a cave guardian, I should probably warn you that the word 'assholes' may insult some--not me, truly, but it not considered a terribly polite word. Do not worry about that, though," he added, lest she think he was going around policing language. "It is just a bit of information in case no one else had told you."

"Now," he began, choosing his words very carefully indeed, "I suspect that this friend of yours is one of the ex-Bloodberries? That is the only group who has wronged the others--they ended the lives of many Gembound, kidnapped children and the like--and most of them are dead or on the run, now. Three were taken captive by the... ahh, the plant-tending group, and then released on the terms that they would try to learn to be better Gembound. They have been training to use their magic, to better interact with others, and so on--at least, two of those have. One of them escaped before we could work with her. Others escaped from the initial battle, and scattered. I wonder, what is this one's name? Do you know which Gembound we are dealing with, here?"

Because honestly, his answer depended very strongly on hers. Blackberry would need to face trial in Eridanus. Jayberry, he'd kill on sight without hesitation. That one was personal; a low hatred boiled in him for the wolf.

Well.

The mutant.

With any luck, it would be Cloudberry--as much as he wanted to kill Jayberry, he did not want to break this child's heart. Assuming she wasn't lying, of course... but he could check that easily enough.

@Siren

Serendipity was, at least, silent long enough for Pride to fit several words in edgeways. She blinked very slowly, cat-like, her ears flicking back and forth. It wasn't long, however, until something Very Important had come to her attention.

"I wanna be a guardian!" She squawked, eyes like saucers. "I wanna help people! I wanna be a Real Good Guy, I'm already very good!" Her track record was, at least, pretty good for somebody who only hatched about a week prior. The most dubious thing she'd done was speak with the Collector but really, that wasn't totally evil. At least, not to her knowledge.

And besides, why join people who take care of stuffy plants when she could be a CAVE GUARDIAN, PROTECTOR OF THE REALM AND ITS GEMBOUND?

She stashed this new information about assholes away. And then immediately forgot about it at the order not to worry about it. "I won't say it anymore," she promised. At least, not unless they used it first, decidedly. That seemed fair?

Her little baby brain got back on track once Pride started speaking more about the matter at hand, however, though she was still teeming with Excited Child Energy at the thought of being a CAVE GUARDIAN, PROTECTOR OF THE-- She listened with her brow slowly furrowing again, before piping up.

"Well, uh," she began. "She didn't really say? But I didn't really ask either but I have a habit of like, not asking before people just leave. Uh. Though I left her. But! She said that she didn't really have the time to do anything bad before she, uh, 'got her ass beat.' And she seems really nice now! She said that because her family only really knew how to destroy and stuff she wanted to learn how to create and now she's like, really good at it? Her name is Azure."

It didn't seem like Azure was really capable of running away. Serendipity, somehow, had gotten the impression that she was brave. The type of person who'd stand up and face stuff in the.. face. But, if she were avoiding, maybe that wasn't the case?

She didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about the kidnapping and the death and the destruction and stuff.

Why did Serendipity feel sad, suddenly? It's not like Azure actually did do any of that stuff like she said, right? She wouldn't lie to her friend, would she? Would she?

The child fell oddly silent-- unusually silent --as she shoulders slacked and she turned her attention to the quartz lining the throne instead, frowning.

@Pride

"You may say it around me if you wish, though I cannot in good conscience encourage it," Pride reassured Siren. His ears swept forward, a little, at her request--his eyes sharpening some from the prior weary "I don't want to deal with this shit" face.

"We are always pleased to induct new guardians--and I would be happy to train you in magic," he replied warmly. "If that interests you. But let us start with--Azure, is it? First. Now, I do not know the name. One of my magics is that of the mind--I can see thoughts, memories and so forth. Do you mind if I touch your own? It will not hurt," he hastened to assure her. "But I imagine it might be much faster for our purposes."

And it would let him check the child's motives, of course-... But Pride did not truly suspect her of much. Of being manipulated, at the absolute worst.

Her head seemed to sink, and he stepped forward impulsively, striding gracefully over--at a slow pace, so as not to frighten her. He reached out with his magicka (since he didn't, unlike Siren, have hands) and tried to gently nudge her chin up to face him before letting the magic quickly fall away.

"I am here to help; there's no reason to be upset," he reassured her.

@Siren

At the end of the day, despite her fearlessness and loud mouth, Siren was a child.

She didn't know how to tell Pride that it wasn't him that was upsetting her, or how to bring up the possibility that her friend and somebody she trusted might have lied to her. She didn't know how to bring up the possibility that anyone is capable of lying, and that people get hurt, and die, because somebody lied.

She flinched as an invisible force turned her head towards Pride-- no matter how gently, it didn't feel particularly reassuring. She opened her mouth to speak and croaked quietly instead. It.. hurt. Being sad hurt, the back of her throat felt sharp and her eyes were burning.

"Okay," she ended up murmuring-- though she didn't entirely understand what Pride was asking of her, and then she fell silent, focusing instead on trying not to cry.

Because that's definitely not how Cave Guardians do.

@Pride

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Pride dipped his head gently in acknowledgement, and then closed his silver eyes. He concentrated, taking his time with this--it was a powerful magic, and one that often lashed back if he wasn't patient and cautious. When he felt it ready, like a ball of energy in him, he opened his eyes and studied the girl.

Gradually, like rising whispers, his mind linked to hers. He took it all in, quiet, trying his best not to broadcast his own thoughts back--those he kept to himself.

Grief. Hurt. Is it down to the Bloodberry? Has she been harmed? This idea immediately brought a faint touch of protective anger, as it always did with the ideas of them harming children. Show me... Ahh. Hm. He saw the image--Azure, against a backdrop of orange rock. At first glance he thought it to be Cloudberry, but a closer look made him hesitate. He did not remember these colors on Cloudberry--she'd had browns all over--and a soft mouth, too. This one had a sharp and pointed beak--and antlers. Cloudberry hadn't had those. And a few too many legs, he thought wryly.

He was tempted to think it was Cloudberry anyway, purely due to all the blues, but Sylvanberry had been similar, hadn't she? They were all children of the moose, and the goose.

While he was there, Pride spent a moment checking the nooks and crannies of Siren's mind. There were glimpses and images of things he didn't know, but he saw no lies in her, no malice. She was young, and earnest, steadfast even.

He pulled his mind away. "I do not know her, I think; I have not seen her before. And after seeing your heart, Sirendippity, I do believe you'd make a fine guardian some day. I would be happy to train you, if you do wish to join us--even if you do not--to use your magic to protect others. As for Azure," he continued, the unfamiliar name strange upon his tongue--"Tell her to come and speak to me when she enters Orion. I will talk it over with her, so long as she is not violent. Some of them must face trial, others must meet with Mercurius to ensure they don't stray to their old ways, but if she is honest in her intentions, I see no harm in talking to her. I do not know her, so she is not one of the..."

He paused.

The gemstone.

The tiara.

That was Cloudberry, wasn't it..? Unless two children had been hatched with the same stone and the same placement, it had to be. Mutated, perhaps?

"...One of the worst of them, anyway," he finished, then tilted his head. "If that was Cloudberry, once--you may as well ask her--then she will need to speak periodically with Mercurius as her brother and her sister did. And warn her, too, that Jayberry is still alive--violent, aggressive even--and has already attacked Yewberry once."

Caves, but this was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. Why couldn't she just have stayed in Eridanus..?

@Siren

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