Who knows how long the Collector stood there? He came when she seemed asleep--when she hadn't moved, when her gaze was not facing him. And he came unseen.
One moment there was empty jungle, the forest shivering with cold autumn wind.
The next, in a patch of bare, orb-lit dirt that had held nothing, there was... something.
Drawn to his full height of eight feet tall, his dark cloak wrapped closely around him; with horns twisting back and crimson pinprick eyes regarding the cage, unblinking, the Collector spoke. His voice was a smooth baritone purr, cultured and soothing.
""Blackberry, is it? Wake up, little bird; I have a proposition for you."
Perhaps Rift, or another of the Kingdom of Eridanus, were close enough to hear. The Collector didn't mind. He waited, staring down patiently, pleased with all that he had planned.
@Blackberry
There was a glint within the shadowed hood, as if of teeth, as if of grinning.
"I've heard so much about you-... Ahh, but this isn't about me, is it? It is about you."
The cloak shifted, the Collector taking a step closer; clawed, grey-furred hands slipped from the robe and gripped the branch-like bars. He leaned in, staring down at Blackberry intently. "I have a little task that most would find too... dangerous. But for someone in your position--and someone as tough as you have proven... Well. How long have you been trapped in there-...?" For a moment, the words hung, like dew from a leaf: and then they fell, dripping, the diamond-glint of great rewards rife in them. "I would say you have nothing to lose--and a great deal to gain."
He paused, again; each word was laced with temptation, slick with his hidden leering and purring with dark promise. "But tell me, Blackberry-... What is it that you want? I always pay fair prices, after all."
@Blackberry
Blackberry made her request; and Rift, his surprisingly-polite demand.
The glint of a shark-toothed grin widened beneath the Collector's hood. He answered Rift; but his eyes remained on Blackberry, his hand dipping back into his black cloak.
"I am the Collector," he told Rift smoothly; "and this one here is one I have come to collect. It's been a little... hassle for you, hasn't it? All this responsibility, and no one to share it with, no one to join in on your idea of justice. But I have something to offer you, too--a trial of another making," he went on. The hand began to slip back out of his robe, something in his fist, something large, his clawed fingers tight around it. "There is something that I need from Hydra. Something that would be dangerous in the wrong hands; something that cannot be left to chance. But it is hidden from me," he added. "Let her obtain it, for others' safety; let her be exiled there until it is returned to me. Hydra is a fitting punishment for what I hear that she has done... and I always reward such tasks fairly," he added.
The fingers unfurled. There, lying in his palm, was the soft blue glow--pale and glittering--of an apatite gemstone. "A new start; what do you say? Should you perish there, I will ensure that your stone, and his, are given to someone of your choice... And should you succeed in recovering what I seek, I will grant that new start still," he added. His crimson pinprick eyes flicked toward Rift.
"A washing away of the blood on her claws... to be reborn. She will remember little of all that she is done, except to abhor the idea of violence. Of course, the tragedy is that she will half-forget the moose-... but that is a small price to pay for bringing life back to his stone--wouldn't you say?" The gemstone was swept back into the robes, hidden away as if it had never been there, and the Collector stared at the Gembound. "To begin again... Together with family." The word held a sly hiss to it, the crooning of a snake's tongue.
"So: do we have a deal?"
Blackberry's Gamble: The Collector is offering to release Blackberry into Hydra. The cost: she must attempt to retrieve an object of his description. The reward: if she fails, her stone, and Blueberry's, will be given to a character of Blackberry's choosing. If she succeeds, however, she will be granted Blueberry's stone, and will be forced into her chrysalis to mutate.
This mutation would see Blackberry hatch as a white goose with only very few, fractured memories of her previous life, and an impulse--almost a compulsion--toward benevolence and kindness rather than hysteria or violence. Tragically, her memories of Blueberry would be only the echo of a memory, glimpsed in bits and pieces, and in dreams.
@Blackberry
"Punished!" The word hung in the air for a moment, full of amusement, ringing there in the quiet.
"...No, my dear goose. This is not a punishment; this is justice, with all its varied rewards."
The Collector turned to Rift, and spoke as if he'd read his mind. "Ahh, Rift; forger of a Kingdom. You have taken on so many responsibilities," he murmured, as if sympathetic, those tiny red eyes flicking over the cat's mutated form. "Suffered so much; and yet dutifully, humbly, have you remained fair and just." The black-cloaked form swept into a low bow, as if to say the Collector respected Rift, as if to offer his acknowledgement. "-But it is over, now. You are welcome to come with us, perhaps-? To wait at the gateway to Hydra--the doorway to the hell that lies beyond. To see for yourself that the trial will be fair."
The Collector reached one hand out. By whatever magic he held--something strange, foreign; something unnatural--a branch that formed a prison bar twisted away at his touch, opening a gap in the cage. It wasn't clear whether he controlled the plant, or whether it pulled away, as if cringing, from the Collector's magic.
And then, as if it were already decided, as if it was all within his control, the Collector--a door to the cage now opened--stood back. He smiled at the pair. "Shall we?" he asked, and waited.
@Rift