ORIGIN

As Azure helped to clean out the last of the rubble from the doorway, she considered the idea of lighting.

"...It sounds good," she said at last, glancing back into the dark room with a critical eye. "But maybe make sure they can be moved. So if we wanna sleep, and like--shut them off? We can move them somewhere or cover them with something. That was probably a mistake," she added, nodding up toward the permanently-glowing brick now firmly-embedded in the ceiling.

She took a moment to pick another stone--this one broken, a big chunk of old rock unattached to anything--to try and add an additional, mobile light source to demonstrate (probably needlessly) what she meant. Though it'd also help to provide them with more light as they worked.

Like the others, this rock flared up so brightly as to be almost blinding for a moment before settling into a brilliant, this time golden-white, glow. Azure nodded to it, then pushed it off to one side of the big room, near the doorway, where the lighting was a little dimmer. "Like that," she explained.

"I'd say we could grow a garden or something but I don't know how to do that shit. I can make shit glow or make it shock and that's about it." Her tone, far from complaining or self-pitying, was amused.

"I wish we knew how to make cloth, too. And cords and stuff. We could hang all kinds of things around in here. And cloth, like you've got, over the holes and windows and door and stuff. It'd be nice," and now her tone was a little wistful.

She shoved the last of the rocks, alongside Dip, out of the doorway. "...Right," she said, panting a little. "Now what?" There was so much to tackle--so much rubble that still needed clearing out, so much needed to make the space more habitable. She was a little overwhelmed with hte immensity of it all.

Azure thought about all of this. It was all a bit overwhelming--particularly because her mind was reeling at multiple things at once. Wincing at the mention of Eridanus (mispronounced as it might have been), wondering who the Blacksmith was, subsequently wondering who the Collector was, all while peering twisted-necked up to try and figure out just how to hang a cloth over something in the ceiling.

At length, she settled for a wise-sounding "Uhh."

To her credit, she did her best to rally. As she made her way back inside, she tried to address at least a little of all of this. "I don't know those names. Eridanus I gotta go to anyway to talk to that Mercurius lion--I've seen him before. He might be able to tell us about plants. Maybe he knows someone who can tell us about rope and stuff too."

Azure looked up at the half-crumbled stairs. They weren't in great shape, and as a result they were both a little inconvenient--moreso for her, with her four legs (even if two were new), and a little dangerous. She pushed up, leaning her forelimbs on them and inspecting them closely. They were hardly more than tiered rubble, at this rate.

She tried to imagine how to best tackle repairing them--and all the other stone in here. Abruptly, something moved between her front left foot. Azure stumbled, but before she could withdraw she felt a small something rising up. Staring, she was rather shocked to find that a gemstone--perhaps half the size of a brick--had formed beneath her limb and was now reinforcing one of the stairs below. It almost matched the dusty shade of the rock itself, but it was translucent--a smoky quartz, though she herself didn't know the name for that. "Holy shit," she breathed--and then, more excitedly, "Dip! Dip, come here--I think I did the magic you did! Or--" and here she glanced around, a little warily--"...Or the house does magic."

A little alarmed, she turned to look at Serendipity. She had no idea how to tackle the idea of learning abrupt new magic--and even less of how to tackle a potentially-sentient ruined building.

Serendipity blinked over as Azure 'uhh'd at her. But this made enough sense to her that she shrugged. Serendipity did, in fact, 'uhhh' a lot herself-- but she was a child and she got the impression that children were meant to do that a lot.

Though, Azure was answering soon enough as she started pushing more rocks out. "They're, uh, brothers, I think?" She said in response to the names, helpfully. "The Collector looks a bit like I do, but he's black and taller and a bit fuzzier. I don't think he has a tail, either? I've never met the Blacksmith."

They did have strange names, now that Siren thought about it. But she did literally name herself after an emotion, so perhaps she didn't have a lot of room to talk.

"I can come with you if when you go, if you want," she suggested. "I know you might want, like, privacy and stuff, though. Uhh. I can go ask the other plant-growers while you talk to-- what's-his-face and see what I can find out, if you want?"

The ground floor was at least beginning to clear up a fair bit, with Siren meticulously dragging rocks and rubble outside, when Azure called for her. There was brief, fleeting alarm-- the thought that something bad might have happened, that her mother was back, or something --but it seemed.. fine? She seemed happy, even.

The child hobbled quickly over regardless to take a look at what she'd done, and when she realised, she yelped and flung her arms around Azure's neck, hugging her a little bit too tightly. "You're making more new stuff!" She said, absolutely ecstatic."Maybe the house IS magic but it's helping you learn more stuff?"

She let go fairly quickly-- realising this much this might be seen as some sort of invasion of personal space. She slid back against the staircase a bit, then settled down to take a look. "Can you do it again?" She asked.

Azure tensed a bit at Dip's sudden enthusiastic hug, but gave her a brief and friendly nudge nonetheless. Still baffled, she looked around, then eyed the crumbling rock again. She planted her talons onto another of the cracked stones, concentrating.

"I don't-... I don't know. Maybe? I could try," she allowed. She wasn't quite sure how to proceed, but... what had she done last time?

I think I imagined it was reinforced? And then it was gemstone? She concentrated deeply, trying to repeat this feat. Slowly, beneath her foot and with the pressure of her magic, the ancient stone smoothed and strengthened. This time it was bright yellow--a citrine or some such. "...Whoa," Azure said with awe evident in her voice. "You think I can pick which stones to make, some day? This IS what you do, right?!"

For a time longer she stood staring at the stair--prodding each of the gemstones with her beak, inspecting them. They'd need to do a lot more work to fix it all, but it'd make for a pretty cool stairwell! Multicolored, bright, flashy. Happy.

After a few moments, she turned her attention back toward Dip, blinking. At her offer she shrugged a little, noncommitally. "Maybe. But you already talked to Pride with me. I'll think about it. Thanks, though," she added, remembering as almost an afterthought that she should really try to be polite. "So-... what do you want to do? Like, in the long run; we're gonna move in here, right, then what? You want to make stuff, but any reason why?" It was an easygoing question, rather than interrogating; conversational and curious. It was still a little stilted, maybe, perhaps forced, but Azure, to her credit, was trying.

Siren grinned, nodding, as she watched Azure make more gemstone bricks. "Yeah! It's really kinda tiring and it doesn't always work but you pick what stones! You can try to pick what kind of shape, too-- and colour. I can like, make a lot of it sometimes, and shape it to be a certain way? Like the ring."

She shifted over, planting her hand against the next step that needed repairing. She hoped this much made sense to Azure at least-- she wasn't very good at teaching. Not yet. She furrowed her brow, concentrating, taking a long breath.

Something began forming under her hand at least-- but it quickly turned to blackened dust, crumbling away beneath her fingers. Serendipity hissed briefly, shaking her hand and pulling it away. "Maybe it, uh, likes you better or something?" She shrugged it off, and then crawled off the stairs to go back to cleaning the bottom floor.

The one thing she hadn't actually thought about was the 'long run.' She knew she wanted to find the Thing with Yellow Horns, and the Blacksmith, but not much else. "I guess, uhhh," she began, lifting a smaller rock to her chest. "Well, I can ask Pride to teach me how to be a guardian and stuff, and explore the caves? But that's-- not really the long run, I guess? Though being a guardian might."

She crinkled her nose, thinking. "I just wanna make stuff, I guess? Armour and weapons and stuff, for people who need them, and maybe learn how to use them myself to help me be a guardian?"

Answering why she wanted to make things was easier, at least. "I just like it! There's all these, like, broken things in the tunnel near Monnickros, right?" A good effort at 'Monceros,' at least. "And it's just-- sad that they're all left behind and dirty and broken. I wanna know how to fix them, and find people who'll love them and take care of them and stuff, and I wanna be able to make more for more people, too. And it's fun!"

"I like being in the forge and stuff. I like the heat, though it's-- kinda unbearable sometimes? But it's good. I like hitting metal with hammers 'til they take a new shape and I like finding big scraps to melt down and make into something really new, and pretty."

She took a moment to haul a few rocks out before turning, dusting her hands off before settling them on more rubble. "I know you wanna make stuff too, but what are your plans for the-- long-run?" A part of her wanted to ask if she'd ever find her family and what she'd do to them-- only to remember that she probably didn't want to talk about that.

"I mean, after you talk to Mercy-us and stuff?" She added.

Azure listened, and as she did she noticed a distinct difference in what she was doing, and what Dip was describing. "I don't think I'm just making them from scratch? The stairs are like-... turning into them," she clarified. "And not even the whole rock, just little bits of it, where the cracks are." She decided then and there to work with each stair until each was a solid, shining gemstone. Wouldn't that be cool? "But maybe doing it this way is easier? I don't think it likes me more." She wasn't sure, but it seemed unlikely.

For several reasons.

Azure continued to listen as she concentrated on reinforcing another crumbling section of stair. At Dip's description of armor, and her explanation of why she wanted to fix it, Azure felt a very unfamiliar feeling rise in her. She looked up, staring. That was just fucking adorable. The armor was sad, Dip wanted to make it better-... She was just so pure.

"Do you wanna be my sister?" she asked abruptly, her stare intent on Dip. Granted, she couldn't... retroactively share stone, or something. But hell, her own brother had turned out to be her father, so family seemed pretty fuckin' malleable based on whatever someone felt like saying. Why not declare someone a siblings?

Right after asking, Azure felt a little foolish. Anxiety struck; not only might Dip say no, which--was understandable, since her request was teeeeechnically impossible--but she might be offended. She might say "eww, no" in disgust and leave then and there. She might-...

Azure shook herself from her thoughts, blinking. "I mean-... Guardian sounds good. Creator, too. You're really nice, Dip. It's-... nice to hear," she finished a little lamely, kicking herself for not coming up with anything better than "nice." Twice, no less.

"After..? I dunno. I want to make stuff, too. Not to fix it--I don't know, I just never really thought about that before. Maybe I can use some of hte sad armor stuff to make things, too? I like the idea of that," she went on, offering a brief and friendly glance. "But I just wanted to make things. New things. To add pretty stuff to a shitty world, I guess. To make stuff that only I could make. To be me, you know? I never really knew you could create anything at all, and I like doing it."

Speaking of which.

There was a soft cracking noise beneath her feet, and Azure looked down, removing them from the stair. The cracked part now had a thick vein of blue marble-like stone, opaque, threaded along its prior crack. Apatite, though she didn't know that, and wasn't aware of who else she knew with a similar stone. It was pretty--and it was strong. That was all that mattered.

At least, for stairs.

Oh. Not making them froms scratch would make it easier. Siren squinted over at the staircase for a moment, thinking. Maybe the house would teach her, too? Maybe she had to wait, or maybe Azure could teach her.

Or maybe the house did just like her better.

"Maybe? Maybe we do the same thing but like-- go about it different or something? I'll try practice it later," she said, rolling some more of the rubble out. When she had, the ground floor was more or less clear, with Azure still working on the staircase.

She took a look around, thinking on what to do next-- when Azure spoke and took her out of her thoughts.

"Sure," she said automatically, without flinching. This seemed like a reasonable thing to do in her mind, at least-- Serendipity wanted a family of her own, not to be alone and grown out of the wall, and she quite liked Azure. Azure, perhaps, could use a family member that wasn't... an asshole, too. It was only after a few beats of actually thinking about it did she ask a follow-up question. "Is there like-- something special you gotta do? To officially be sisters? I mean-- we can do it, right?"

She didn't see why not, at least. She wandered back over, sitting on the staircase again.

"You're really nice, too! I've met a bunch of nice people-- uhh, no one really bad, actually, but I've never really met anyone else who was super interested in making stuff, too?" She said. "I mean, Glory was, but. He didn't make pretty things, like stones and lights, you know? It's really special."

Of course, he could, but he was yet to tell Siren this.

She nodded along to Azure's words, about creating and being herself. "I'm proud of you," she said. And she was. She didn't want to say it out loud-- and remind her of the -berries --but she was proud. She'd managed to disassociate herself from a shitty family without self-pitying herself, and took to making things instead of being evil like her mom. Grandmom.

It is a little confusing, she thought to herself. Too many strange things seemed to go on in that regard.

"What do you think we should do next?" She asked, nodding out to the cleared-out room. "I mean, uh, you can keep working on the stairs if you wanna? I can try make things to put around here, maybe."

...How did one go about making a-... a sistership official? Azure squinted, a little, at Dip; she'd gone motionless, deep in thought about this very important-... uhh. Thing.

"...I dunno. We could make something? Like... Make sister-stuff for each other? Or do a--a pact or something..?" She really wasn't sure; she was definitely making this shit up as she went along. But that's how she lived her life, really. It wasn't like there was an overflow of good role models roaming the caves even on a good day. "We can definitely do it, though. Who's gonna stop us?" There was cheerful mischief in her tone. Sure, the caves might not have a strict moral code and official peacekeepers roaming around, but that just meant they could do whatever the hell they wanted. That was the benefit of making life up as you went along.

Azure was closely inspecting the stairs when Dip started to compliment her. Calling her work pretty, and special! She turned back, beaming, and was about to thank her when she dropped the bomb.

The thing that family said; the thing that'd never, of course, been said to Azure her entire life. The kind of thing that prompted the big breakdown. I'm proud of you. She froze, for a long moment--her gut instinct was to blurt Why? not because she was fishing for compliments, but because she was genuinely confused. But-... She took a second to think about this. She knew the answer already, didn't she? Dip had just said it all. No; that was Siren's insecurity talking. She didn't have to ask why. Even if she doubted that she was worth it. Instead, very quietly, she padded over and murmured, "Thanks, Dip. Means a lot to me." It was a little awkward, definitely muttered, but it was heartfelt nonetheless.

She blinked and looked away, trying not to show too deeply how much this affected her. The question of "what next" provided a welcome excuse to clear her throat and look around. "...Uhh." (The old standby.) "Let me try and clear some more rocks outta here. Say-... does it bleed if you pull hairs out?" she asked abruptly, eyeing Dip's hair with a critical eye. "Maybe you could make--um, rope?--with that."

Not that Serendipity would accuse Azure of making shit up (which she was), but she was vaguely confused about what she was on about. She had no idea what sister-stuff was, or what a pact would even consist of. But surely Azure would know, even if her family was shitty?

"What do sisters make for each other?" She asked, half-expecting Azure to just know. "And, uhh, what would a pact mean?"

And who would stop them? Serendipity had an idea, but she forbid herself from even thinking about it. "Well, whoever wants to stop us will have to go through me first," she said very confidently, straightening herself up importantly. She was a guardian, after all-- or at least in training. Nothing could get past her, not if they wanted to stop her from being sisters with someone.

She had noticed the freeze, the pausing, and the muted murmur, but she said nothing on it. She didn't exactly want to apologize when she wasn't sure what she was apologizing for, and she meant everything she'd said. Not wanting to pry, either, she offered Azure an affectionate nudge to the shoulder with her hands.

For a moment, she turned to just stare at the building around them, thinking. She'd need to find some nice cloth for-- rugs, Azure had said. Some wool off the cave deer would make for comfortable nests, too. She blinked over again towards the hybrid when she spoke.

Did it hurt?

Let's find out.

Serendipity rose a hand to her hair and tried to pull a clump out. None actually came out, and it didn't bleed, but it did hurt. "Ow," she mumbled. "I, uh, don't think I'm meant to do that." At least, she was fairly sure you weren't meant to do things that actively hurt you. Seemed like common sense.

She turned her gaze up towards the ceiling, blinking, and then pushing up. "I mean-- maybe I could cut it but then it might bleed? I dunno if I wanna risk that," she called down as she climbed the stairs, inspecting the roof.

Should be easy enough to fix, if the magic would let her. "I mean, uhh-- there's plenty of time to like, find out how to make rope, you know? Like, there's no rush," she continued, planting her hands on the wall closest to the hole in the ceiling.

This house really must have disliked her-- for a moment she thought the wall itself was crumbling under her hands, though it was just more... stuff, trying to form and failing, and coming apart in her palms. She crinkled her nose a bit, peering up, ultimately determined to Keep Trying.