ORIGIN

Vargas was not far off. He was, though not easy to miss, also not particularly hard; the light was grey with autumn, and his towering figure could, for a shorter Gembound, at first be mistaken for lanky tree limbs. Of course, had said Gembound looked up, they'd have seen the acid glow and quivering quills above.

The fawn approaching hadn't gone unnoticed, but for a moment, Vargas simply thought that it was another of the Lessers of the caves. The way it moved, though--alone, and not in a herd, first off--but hesitant, as if with wonder at this new place, made him doubt himself.

Vargas turned, abruptly, his hulking silhouette brushing the foliage aside with quiet cracks, and paced toward Aran.

"You;" he called down to him, in a voice that brooked no argument, "Are you sapient? -Aware? Can you understand me?"

His voice was naturally gruff, but he was curious; the cave's life, these days, was wholly unfamiliar to him and he was learning new things every hour, it seemed. This creature--what was it? Could it think, and speak, or was it merely mindless? Was it lunch?

"Hrmph. That's a 'yes,'" Vargas grunted. Lunch, it seemed, would have to wait.

"Sapient! It means--capable of thought, hm? Able to speak. So yes, you are sapient. What is your designation-... Your... number, or... name," the Overseer half-demanded, a little irritable. None of the Gembound had numbers--he knew this one wouldn't, knew it as surely as he'd known it about the last three or four--but he couldn't help but hope.

"How old are you; were you created here? Or did you come here--and why?"

Ahh--perhaps the creature wasn't aware of his authority, though. "I am Overseer Vargas. I am in authority," he explained, with a grumble.

Long gone were the days when this went without saying.

"Ahhh... you are young," Vargas surmised. He pondered this, looking the little creature over. What would it be like, once it was fully grown? And what would it be good for? It certainly reminded him of the cave deer, which to his knowledge were good for little more than hunting down and eating. They could run relatively swiftly, and he'd even had a few escape him in the past, but what good was that for what they required?

"Vargas is my name, itself. Overseer is my title," he explained, lowering himself to his haunches with a patience that might not have been expected for a creature with his appearance. "Authority is-... There are creatures who run this caves. The owners of it, the masters of it, the rulers, yes? You understand these words-?" Hopefully the little deer caught on to at least one of them; Vargas wasn't sure how to explain things without using other words. "I oversee the caves on their behalf. If I tell someone to do something, then they must do it; that is authority. And if they do not, I have the power to punish them."

He paused, eyeing Aran for a moment, and pushed aside a particular fern that was scratching against his spined leg. "Do you know of the Masters, at all?" he asked. "And where did you come from--if not from here?"

Orion? Vargas pondered this, leaning a little closer to squint at the Barasingha. Astraea's, then? It certainly bore similarities, though he wasn't very good, yet, at picking out the details between this creatures.

Vargas sat back upright.

"Not far, then. And your magic? Do you know what form yours takes?" he went on, matter-of-factly.

For a moment, he again studied Aran. The green made him think of plants, or perhaps fungus or prokaryotic magic, but often the appearance of a creature had little to no bearing on what sort of magic it bore. Curiosity rippled through him, but he didn't speak further as yet--perhaps the little creature, young as it was, didn't even know what it could do.

"Ha! Of course you don't. You creatures spawn of your own accord and wander, blind, without purpose!" Vargas scoffed. He leaned out, one spindly arm aiming a single little finger-flick onto Aran's gemstone where it branched into what would someday be impressive antlers. "Here; this, your stone. Emerald, I think? Or--no, titanite?" He peered closely for a moment, and then--seemingly satisfied that he'd identified it correctly--he rocked back again on his haunches. "You focus on this, as what you are--you draw magic like a parasite! Ha. Use it," he half-suggested, half-commanded.

As he spoke, he seemed to shimmer--and then to fade; instead of Vargas there were trees and leaves, though his outline was still visible. Had one not known he was there, they may never have noticed him--at least, not by sight; but to Aran, the faint glow of his quills and eyes and the slightly slipshod shadows here and there would likely give him away.

"This is magic," the Overseer declared, his voice rumbling forth from that seemingly-empty space. "But there are many things that it can do."