ORIGIN

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"You mean to make graffiti?" It was— harmless fun, right? Artistic renditions of thoughts that can't possibly be acted upon without reasonable risk? Garnet Five-Seven-Nine wouldn't be caught wishing that any of the Masters were dead — it was a bit useless to — but a little bit of drawing never hurt anyone…

Feathers puffed up and still laughing (still amused or a little hysterical with the idea of fun? Who knew—) the champion stared at the box of chalks presented to it. The initial burst of glimmering color was enough to make it squint. There was such a wide variety that it was momentarily at a loss of what to do with it — if anything. Here was a choice, and here was a Gembound that had made few voluntary choices in its 5500-year general existence.

Overseer Vargas? No— no, not him. Not here. Not next to the Nemean-graffiti. The creature's gaze turned back to Imp, briefly — there weren't enough shades of brown to keep him from becoming an incomprehensible blob. Its eyes gravitated towards the jewel tones: vibrant, deep blues and golds, reds, pinks. Colors to stand out. But what to use them for?

Its memories of its earliest trials came to mind and it stiffened abruptly. Reminiscing. Thinking—

Almost mechanically, it moved to capture what jutted out against the flow of its thoughts. Interrupting, an obstacle. Haphazardly strewn across a wall up and to the left of the Nemean-graffiti and its personal portrait.

A dash of red here, blue there—

And Garnet had a crude, unskilled image of a skull to present, large- and hook-beaked and small-eyed, far larger than the champion itself. The ribcage was half-drawn in scrawled gold and blue — the focus was the skull.

"I remember," it hastily explained, depositing its last chalk of choice into the box, wiping off its forepaws, and alighting, "during a Trial — one of my first — I saw the bones of an Eyehook Matriarch and remember thinking, so clearly, if there is something that can kill that, I can't survive. But I've outrun death many times and now I'm here —"

Its beak clicked shut and it turned away. "Nevermind. I saw these bones once."

@Imp

"You didn't put a penis on it," Imp observed, but it wasn't with criticism, now--it was with a sort of absent tone, as he looked closely over the brightly-rendered bones.

"The matriarchs are the big ones, right? I hate those birds," he added. "One tried to eat me. But I beat it up!" With an idle set of movements, he began to pick at the chalks. He picked up a black bit--one that hadn't been used all that much--and set to drawing on another part of the wall. Imp did this with the unhurried demeanor of one inviting for their companion to make it a group exercise, as if he expected Garnet to keep drawing stuff, too. "You can draw more, if you want. So why are you here? It's shit-cold, here," he went on. "Where were you going? You were one of those guys who just woke up, right--what do you all do? And what do you do for fun?" he asked.

None of it was interrogational; he was just making conversation, which was rare enough for him. But this was clearly a brother-in-fun; someone else with leathered wings, someone else who laughed and drew on walls.

Imp glanced to him, and though that mischief lingered, his expression was almost friendly.

Meanwhile, he seemed to be drawing the Masked Merchant scrawled too-thin across one wall. His cloak was vague, so that if a Gembound had never seen the Merchant it'd be hard to discern this thing from a sort of black lump; and the 'eye' he'd tried to draw on one hand was just a blob.

But Imp sat back, examining his work: and, with the flourish of an old master artist, added a couple of sets of male genitals jutting up from the Masked Merchant's head. This time, they were almost subtle; they replaced his antlers in such a way that a viewer could've been forgiven for seeing only those antlers themselves. A closer look, however, revealed a little too much detail, too much curve, and far too many little bulbous bits.

@Garnet Five-Seven-Nine

Garnet peered at the bones, wide-eyed and ears back. No, there wasn't a phallic object to be seen. Caught up in the process, it hadn't once considered making a joke out of its piece. The matriarch's skull lay bright and hastily scrawled, untouched. It couldn't think of an appropriate place to place a penis.

It would be the only dickless piece, it turned out.

"They are — the oldest. Only the strongest of the eyehooks endure long enough to become so large," the champion chirped rather monotonously, pacing up and down the wall, staring, "I ran down the cliffs before I could see any fight with the vultures." Ruby-red eyes watched Imp set to drawing the figure of death that awakened it and whipped into restless sleep — complete with penis antlers, of course.

Grinding its beak together, Garnet shifted towards the box of chalks; wings flapped once or twice as it perched and shivered. "I will, if I think of anything," it called, staring rather blankly at the myriad of colors. "I was looking for someone," the odd hybrid continued, not intending to elaborate, "but started to freeze up. I needed to take a moment and here I am."

"I am one of the champions, yes — of the… past, now. We have survived many of the trials and tests. There—" it paused, head tilting, eyes narrowing. Brows furrowing, the creature wondered for the whereabouts of its fellow champions. Would it be cruel to imagine (hope?) that they were lonely and purposeless? "There wasn't much else for us. This is the longest that I — we? — have been awake."

Then, it bounced back, as usual: "why were you in the Trial? You clearly hold no respect for the Masters and order." It wasn't an accusation or aggressive statement. A simple chirp, questioning and quietly curious.

@Imp

Imp turned to peer at Garnet with a considering eye. Memory flickered up within him, and suddenly, his voice rose to harshly hysterical.

"OH! That was YOU, wasn't it-? WITH THE SMOKE?! That was HILARIOUS!" He half-doubled over, cackling with laughter so hard that he began to cough--and then to laugh again.

Eventually, his laughter faded, and he was left--with his permanent-gator-grin--staring at Garnet.

Almost immediately he broke out into more laughter. Irreverent, raucous, his peals of barking guffaws filled the tunnel. "No, really, that was great! Everyone was all, COUGH, COUGH, 'waaa I can't see,' and all the choking and shit and you were just, OUT. Like, you were gone! You're lucky you didn't die," he added, "but it was still pretty funny."

He turned back to the wall, and started on a new Nemean work of art: this time, a small mural of the fairy caught within a spider's web. "Why-? Uhh, I figured it'd be fun, I guess! It was, except for those guys who died and all the heat and stuff. That part sucked. But I was good at it! And also to learn stuff."

Imp didn't elaborate on what "stuff," precisely, he'd been hoping to learn--nor whether he had learned it. Instead, his tongue jutted from one corner of his mouth while his eyes squinted, his wing-talon carefully curled over a bit of black chalk as he struggled to sketch out a passable pattern of a spiderweb.

@Garnet Five-Seven-Nine

Sabotage was - funny? Funny to Imp? Amusing enough to garner such a delighted reaction, at least. On one hand, it was validation for an admittedly asshole move; on another, it was almost an ignoring of its intentions. "It was just to get ahead before the fighting started," Garnet chirped matter-of-factly, then shrugged, "I wasn't prepared for the flood. That was hoping and too much luck to bank on." Things had worked out in the end, but it still wound up paralyzed in one leg and awakening with a seizure. Luck gets you nowhere in life after the head-start.

The champion ground its beak, choosing not to point out just how Nemean-like Imp's response to the smokescreen had to have been.

Confusion reigned further supreme across its mind as the grinning gargoyle simply passed out his reasoning for the Trial to be fun. Fun it had been, even with the blistering-hot salt flats and the early deaths and stragglers. He must have been good enough at running - flying? - to survive, but to think that it was fun? And to learn things? "Weren't you afraid for your life? That an eyehook might swoop down and take you by the skull until you feel nothing below it? That a scorpion would ruin your chances of ever moving again? That one wrong step would lead you to nothing but an eternity under the dunes?" It shook, and not just from cold.

Garnet Five-Seven-Nine took a sharp, steadying breath, and picked at the chalks until it found a darker green color - the one Imp had used for its portrait. Eyeing the other, it sighed, "sorry. I can't see how the Trials could be fun - not in a way that this is."

Although, the fun factor of art was rather quickly drying up. It hovered near the wall for a moment, crimson gaze flicking between it and the nearby master of artistry, before starting to scrawl. A rather fervent series of scribbles were followed by two sweeping curves. Garnet drew a rounded figure, then paused - inspecting Imp's other drawings for reference. In a rather well-done imitation, it rendered a dark-green portrait of its momentary teacher. The mane was just as scruffy and the wings just as leathery-seeming.

All that was out of place was the shape of the head - it had the eyes, ears, and tiger's eye horns, but possessed the key markers of a penis, right down to a very small tip for a nose.

@Imp

Imp watched the drawing with a critical eye as he spoke.

"Yeah, well, if you can't enjoy life what's the point?" Surprisingly introspective for-"Everyone's dumb!"-or not. Imp was grinning.
"It's fun to mess with them, you know? I thought your smoke was funny, anyway."

He considered the idea of fear. Had he been afraid...? He supposed so. "I was scared when the vulture attacked me, yeah! But that made it even better when I beat the shit out of it. Did you see it?! Ahahaha! And that big one--I RODE IT. I rode it all around all the way up to the top! And I rode a log down the flood, it was great!"

Okay, so the hybrid viewed the cruel and life-threatening trials with a surprisingly positive attitude.

"-Is that me? My face is a little weird, the color's off but it's go--wait. IS THAT A DICK?!" He rocked back on his hind legs, wing-arms propping him against the wall to get a better look.

It was unclear, for a moment, whether Imp would react in outrage or with hilarity. He stared, jaw agape--and then burst into peals of laughter, dropping back to the ground. "It's great! Hey, where'd you learn to draw like that? You could join me! We could be artists!"

@Garnet Five-Seven-Nine

Life was a gift when it ran. It was a reward for performing well and surviving whatever danger turned the corner. Continuing to breathe, even within a chrysalis - no, it hadn't felt much but fear in those trials, in this trial. Imp had been scared, too, but broke past it with the confidence that he would live, that he would survive. That he could, quote-unquote, "beat the shit out" of a vulture. Ride a log down the flood. Live to see another cycle, as many cycles as he wanted.

"I've - never thought of anything but being scared during the trials," it admitted, though it was a rather obvious conclusion to come to. Next, its stream of consciousness turned to continuing to be scared for its own well-being. Out here, beyond Hydra's reach, there were no light-blocking Eyehooks, no hypnotizing spiders, no scorpions driving their stinger through you. It was quiet. Wrong, but - almost peaceful, if you allowed it to be. "I can... afford to have fun, now," the garnet murmured, still hovering by its magnum opus, "right?"

Ruby-red eyes peered at Imp.

Then, the champion sniffed and grinned. It forgot about how cold it was for a moment, chittering-laughing again. "I remembered the penis, this time," Garnet chirruped, giggling and dropping to the ground. It didn't particularly see the hilarity in genitals quite yet, but seeing Imp in stitches drove it to near-tears laughter. Dickhead.

"I learned from you, obviously, but -" it sobered up quickly, ears flickering back, "I'm not sure if I can join you and be - an artist all the time. I have... duties. Things to do. But -" It smiled hopefully up at the dick-faced gargoyle, "we could do this again, later."

@Imp

"Yeah you can have fun! Why couldn't ya? Your life's yours," Imp pointed out, oblivious to the untruth in this statement.

And to the latter--"Oh, you leavin' so soon?" He paused, then rocked back on his haunches, twisting around and lifting one longish gator-clawed hind leg to scratch behind his bat-ears, along his fluff-coated neck. "Well-... Yeah, sure we can do this later. You just gotta find me, okay? I'm an ARTIST, I gotta travel." His faint disappointment in Garnet's apparently impending departure was immediately forgotten in the face of his "artist's" pride.

"-Hey, you wanna break off a piece of chalk or two to take with ya? LITTLE pieces!" he added fiercely, already moving to hover protectively over his supplies. "But if ya take a couple of nubs, if you can carry 'em? Then you can draw, too."

@Garnet Five-Seven-Nine

But - was it really? The old ways were inevitable and the only one whose lives belonged to themselves (somewhat) were anything above an Overseer. But... the old ways were gone, it seemed. Or, long-dormant at least.

Garnet decided to not answer that question.

The champion scuffed a claw across the floor, wings shuffling as they adjusted to a more flight-ready position. "I don't have to leave, not right now, but... it's cold. I feel my legs locking up." Imp seemed disappointed, but at least he was enthusiastic about a next time; one that might never happen if the gargoyle-like creature was nomadic. Ruby-red eyes glanced side to side as it nodded, "don't you - have a place you settle in often? A home? I could find you there."

Its gaze flickered to the penis-drawings and then the chalks - which its art teacher was already ready to bite for. "I wouldn't have anywhere to put them," it chirped rather mournfully. Another 'not yet' to add to the list. Once it settled in Orion, maybe it would take Imp up on this offer.

@Imp

Imp thought about this, then shrugged.

"Nope, not really! I like Canis. And Cetus! And some of those tunnels, with all the carvings. And Monoceros--oh, we could go to one of them? It'll be warmer! Hold on," he added, and suddenly scuttled closer. He gave no real warning: it was just his jaw snapping open, and shimmering waves of heat roiling forth. He didn't aim it at Garnet, though. He knew this magic could burn, and pretty badly! But he aimed it sort of around and above him, hoping to heat up the air.

It was a rare moment of generosity.

"Better?" he asked, peering at the little rabbit-thing.

@Garnet Five-Seven-Nine

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