ORIGIN - She's an Apprentice, I'm a Part-Time Jeweler and Our Budget is Two Point Five Million

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Azure followed Dip uncertainly into Orion's ruins. It was a crumbled city--dozens of brick buildings long-since partially-collapsed into rubble. But enough of them still stood: leering black doorways, lopsided or half-obstructed by rock. Huts, their roofs gaping open to the ceiling. Some, though, might be salvageable--they could clean out the rock, maybe hang cloth over the entrance or the holes, and fill it with bits of their own lives.

"Do we want someplace closer to the outside? Or do we get someplace hidden farther in? One's... easier to see, but harder to travel from," Azure murmured to Dip.

She adjusted her wings on her back, a little. The stuff she was carrying was starting to feel heavy, and uncomfortably hot, and the skin around a few of her feathers hurt as if they had cracked. Still, she didn't want to put things down just yet. They had a home to find; they'd have to choose it carefully.

@Siren

Serendipity considered, as she wandered barefoot along Orion. She didn't necessarily want to go too deep into where all the buildings were clustered together-- there might be others living there and she didn't want to throw Azure off into the deep end, as it were, when she was more accustomed to being alone.

"We can try to find somewhere more hidden on the outside?" She suggested. "There might be a lot of people on the inside, but if you'd feel safer in there then we can look?"

It's not like Serendipity had any particular preferences or anything, but her main concern was trying to find a place big enough and that wasn't completely wrecked. "Do you think they change on size based where they are? Or is it just-- uh, random?"

@Azure

Azure nodded, a little, as she walked. They were just reaching the outer rings of buildings, now, and she could see the dust motes sparkling in the air, the cobwebs dangling from the pitch-black, ruined windows. Each and every building seemed somehow ominous, and Azure couldn't help wondering if she'd made the right decision in coming here.

Don't be stupid. Once we've got lights in it, and got it cleaned up, it'll be fine. I think. Never mind that she hadn't actually seen inside any of them, yet. What if each house's floor was made up of a gaping mouth full of teeth? That wouldn't be fine.

At all.

Azure blinked this errant worry away. All else aside, the stuff on her back was heavy, and she had wings--she could scout quite a few buildings by air much more quickly than she could by walking slowly around. "Help me set this stuff down? This way I can have a flight around, maybe see what there is."

She knelt, carefully, tilting herself to one side and lowering the wings there, hoping that Siren could aid her.

@Siren

It was oddly quiet, aside from the sounds of hooves and talons and bare feet against the cave floor. Siren, for some reason, had half-expected to see at least some others milling around, living in old buildings, or clearing them out. Perhaps they were just all out somewhere, like Pride usually was?

She shuddered, but continued on anyway.

"Oh, uh, yeah," she said, quickly interrupted. She set her own stuff down and moved for Azure, taking down the blankets off her back and then the bag, setting them in a neat pile. "You should probably take a bath or something once we're done here," she added, eyeing over Azure's back. Baths always helped her feel better after walking around carrying stuff for a long time, at least.

"Good luck? I'll wait here."

Azure glanced back over herself, surprised.

"...Do I stink?" she asked uncertainly. Well, that didn't do wonders for her self-image.

She shook the thought away and quickly took wing, and though tired, she was able to make much faster work of it this way.

She hovered, here and there, peering into buildings--but soon found that she could hardly see. She swept down, picking up a random, fist-sized rock, and focused on this. It flared up brightly--brilliantly, in fact--so much so that Azure, startled, wondered if Orion might be easier to cast spells in than Monoceros. Regardless, she now had a light source. It glowed a bright golden-white, and she carried it from ruin to ruin, sticking it and her head in and having a quick look around.

Soon enough, she was back before Siren, landing neatly and ruffling her wings back into place. "Okay. Hey. So," she began, hobbling on three limbs as she used the left forelimb to clutch the brightly-baubled gem against her chest. "A lot of them are like, just half-rubble, collapsed ceilings and all. There's a few that way," and she indicated over her left shoulder with a point of her beak--"that are like, plain square ones, and mostly intact? Then there's a few over that way--"and her beak pointed another direction"--that are a little bigger. Two of 'em have like, two levels, but in one the stairs are broken so it's kinda just a rubble-ramp. But it has more windows. The other one's got two levels and some of the stairs work but it's got a big hole in one side of the roof?"

She hesitated, wondering if any of these appealed to Dip. Then, impulsively and abruptly, she blurted--"Do I really stink?"

@Siren

For a moment, Serendipity stared blankly. She hadn't really connected baths with smells or anything. "No?" She said, blatantly quizzically. "You hurt when you wander and carry stuff for a long time but a bath helps you feel better afterwards. Why would you stink?"

And then Azure was gone-- leaving Serendipity wondering what the hell the correlation was between bathing and stinking, though she forgot about it fairly quickly in favour for sitting around staring at the ceiling with her mouth open.

Like most children, Serendipity was easily entertained by Pretty Colours for several hours.

Not that she had to wait particularly long for Azure to get back, that is. She blinked back to attention when Azure landed again, listening, and then considering. And then quickly considering out loud. "We should go to some of the bigger ones?" She suggested. "I dunno how big I'm gonna get 'cause nobody knows what I am. Uhh. I dunno if we need like, a whole lot of windows and the ramp sounds a bit.. like an issue, but surely we can like, fix up most of the damage and stuff?"

"I mean-- if there's a bit of the roof missing and stuff I could probably uh. Fix it with gems? And making them in the right shapes and stuff or something? Did you see any out there you really liked-- no you don't stink," she added with a faint, confused frown.

@Azure

Azure nodded, a little. To her, a bath was fluffing dust or water up and rinsing off her feathers, but... if Dip said it, it must be true? A bath was a little relaxing, she supposed, but it took effort, too.

"Oh, well--uhh, maybe come look at the one with the stairs and the broken roof? We could fit stuff in there, at least. If you like it I can carry all the stuff there. It isn't far," she added.

She turned, leading the way toward the ruin in question. The doorway was black, full of cobwebs, half-blocked by rubble--but one of the glass-less windows was clear, and after a moment's search, Azure found and climbed through that. It was low enough that she figured Dip could get in, but she looked back anyway, to offer help if needed.

Her baubled stone glowed brightly, and she lifted this as she turned back, looking over the room. Just to the left, beside the door, a half-ruined stone stairway led up to an upper floor. The upper floor itself led out onto a balcony overlooking the ruined doorway and the forum far in the distance. Above the second floor, one whole corner of roof was torn away.

For the most part, the building was full of dust and rubble, but if cleaned up, at least the structure itself was relatively sound. "A lot of these are falling apart. But this one seems... better than most?" Azure shrugged.

@Siren

Siren offered a light shrug as she turned to follow along, leaving her stuff behind to see what she'd found. "We can clean it out first so we have an easier time putting stuff in, if it's good?" She suggested, before clambering in through the window.

The building smelled slightly musty, but not entirely unpleasant. She took a moment to wander the ground floor, careful not to step on sharp rocks or thick cobwebs. Serendipity hummed for a moment, thoughtful.

"It'll be more spacey when we clean it out and stuff, right? If this one isn't, like, too bad then it'll be easier," she said, before moving to ascend to the top level. She took a wander around here, too, before slinking out to the balcony. She stared up at the ceiling, and then down to the forum.

She imagined, for a moment, sitting here with Azure on long days, working on creating things and talking about... whatever friends talked about. Anything, surely? But it seemed nice. Peaceful. "I like it," she announced as she turned back inside.

"Do you think it'll stay up if we fix it? Like-- it won't crumble and break while we're asleep and stuff?"

@Azure

Azure studied the structure with a critical eye.

She had a grand total of exactly no experience with buildings and bricks, but that didn't stop her from coming to a (probably wrong) judgement nonetheless. "We could reinforce it, with--the fallen bricks, or gems?" She was hesitant about it, but it seemed right, anyway. "I'm pretty sure it'll seem bigger inside with all the rocks gone, yeah."

Testingly, she braced herself against some of the rubble--and rolled free a smallish chunk of rock. This she then rolled to the half-crumbled door. Only then did she remember that the doorway itself was barricaded by fallen rock, and so she began the slow process of shoving out bricks bit by bit.

"I guess--" she began, speaking in short fits and starts between shoves--"we could--get all this shit--outside... And--oof. Pick out what we need? From the--pile, after. For uhh. Strengthening it," she added.

It was a little dark, even with her bauble, so she set that down and looked around.

She could hardly make the entire building glow--not brightly, anyway. But she half-clambered, half-flew, stumbling in dust and rubble, to the upper story. There she made her way to about the middle of the floor, and focused downward. After a moment the center brick began to flare up blue.

That should do it, Azure thought--and with a nod to Dip, she descended back downstairs. Sure enough, the brick, from above, was casting a small amount of light across the lower level. It wouldn't be pitch black, at least. "Okay, I made us some light to work by, for now. Do you want me to go get your stuff and put it outside or should we clean this shit all out first? It might take awhile," she added, thoughtfully.

Another thought occurred to her, then. "Say, I haven't spent much time in this cave--is there water somewhere close by? Uhh, food, too? Plants?"

@Siren

Serendipity had more experience with building tools and the like-- not exactly in, well, buildings. Somehow, to her ears, however-- reinforcing a wall with broken bricks didn't seem quite right. She crinkled her nose, looking up and down the ancient walls. "Gems might be better," she said. At least with gems she could shape it to cover the wall and offer some kind of vague shield if it came crumbling down.

Forming it would be absolutely exhuasting, though.

She blinked over as Azure started hauling the rocks, and moved to scramble outside and closer to the door. If they were going to move everything out, then they might as well start with clearing out the doorway. She took hold of smaller rocks first, scooting them out the way of the building, and then started hauling and rolling the larger ones with some effort.

"Yeah, uhh--" she paused briefly, thinking. "I could make some, like, gem-clusters around the place? And inside, that you can make glow? Uhh- that might be nice for lighting and stuff, I mean."

"We should wait until we've cleaned everything out first," she then added. "If we put everything in first then it might just get in the way while we're trying to clean, you know?"

For a moment she worked on just hauling the rubble outside, taking bit by bit out of the doorway. She paused when Azure spoke again, taking a moment to take the sarong off her shoulders to tie it around her waist-- the same thing she did while working in the forge, where it got too hot. "There's, uhh, water around, yeah," she said quizzically.

Though, to that second part, she had absolutely no clue. Plants weren't something Serendipity was entirely interested in. They tasted bland and had a strange texture-- she preferred small rats, or deer. But she was far too small to regularly hunt deer.

Subjecting the vegetarian to rat-meat might be bad, however. "Uh, we could take a look around for plants and stuff?"

@Azure

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