ORIGIN

Pride didn't linger in Eridanus as often as he'd done in the past. This was, in no small part, down to the missing Mercurius. Pride came to check on the garden, from time to time--to ensure nothing had destroyed his dear friend's work--but aside from being overgrown, it seemed well enough. So he came to graze, when he was hungry, but he did not simply lounge in the sunlight or bask by the streams as he'd once done, nor rest for hours beneath the white lion's peaceful watch.

Still, he found that he missed it. At the moment, slender legs were carrying him through the cold rush of a brook; a shallow one, but he relished the feeling of water regardless. Orion was beautiful but in a... dead way; all crystalline and ruins, motes of glittering dust. It was like an ancient piece of art, carved to perfection and left to crumble: still hauntingly gorgeous, but in a sad, almost philosophical way, at least to Pride (infamous as an overthinker). Eridanus, though: it was life, movement and light, constant change and natural beauty. Birds flitted through the leaves above, the creek swept around his hooves, the dirt underfoot teemed with life.

Diamond-studded neck curved down, and he drank deeply before moving on, browsing his way along the banks, pristine coat bright in the orb-light. He almost felt safe, here, but even so he knew it wasn't true; he was a deer in a cave full of cave deer, and being hunted--even by accident--was always a possibility. He gathered his magicka to himself as a preemptive shield, settling the potential energy around him just in case.

There was a patter of tiny feet, splashing, a thump as the creature threw herself onto the ground, and then--bleating.

Pride turned, quizzically, pale eyes seeking out this new maker-of-sounds, fixing on the strange creature that very distinctly had both humanoid and cervine traits. She was wearing clothing, and he expected a laughing greeting, given her somehow impish nature--and so, his surprise when being met instead by bleating was strong.

A bit shocked, certainly taken aback, his head lifted up and away and for a moment he simply stared, very much a deer in metaphorical headlights. He blinked, and then--puzzled--spoke, trying to draw his thoughts together out of the blank "what" that Vivilene had startled them into.

"Ahh--hello?" he hazarded, tentatively.

He was, for a moment, taken even further aback by the brief, mild voice murmuring into his mind. Surprised, he tilted his head, and then dipped it in acknowledgement, even managing to pull his stance from "twisted half around to stare in bewilderment" to a more upright, "attentive friendly conversation time." He began to pace toward shore, but almost at once noted the stranger's shy, hesitant new body language--perhaps she'd thought he was a Lesser, then, and was nervous?--and turned, instead pulling himself up a slightly steeper bank a little farther downstream. He spoke, as he did so, also turning his mind--(and turning to face her, to concentrate on this) toward her.

This proved to be a mistake. His lapse in concentration as to where he was going, coupled with his kind but perhaps misguided attempt at taking the steeper shore farther down, led to sharp hooves carving a rut through the soft mud of the shoreline. Pride went down hard, face-first, with a flinching "oof"--slamming his entire chest, neck and face into the dirt before going down in a tumble of previously-graceful legs, flailing, into the stream.

It was cold, when one fully-immersed like that, and he scrambled back up in a loud, splashing fit of water and tangled limbs. A moment later he was back where he'd started: upright, in the stream--but now with mud, dirt, twigs and grass all over him.

He blinked, and looked to Vivilene.

"I, ahhh..." and rarely did he feel so foolish, "I was just--drinking. It isn't too cold if it's just your hooves," he added, noting as he said it that Vivilene had hooves. And antler nubs, and a glowing moonstone, and a faintly-familiar tail-... The white stag's brow furrowed as familiarity kicked in, though he didn't put it quite together yet.

"My name is Pride. And I do not normally greet others by falling face-first into rivers--my apologies. I was trying to, ah, speak into your mind in turn, to open a link so you could respond. A lesson in focus," he added, glancing to the mangled riverbank with wry humor.

Pride was not a particularly touch-oriented being, generally avoiding close contact with others; he was aloof, and so to have a stranger simply come up to him and start--for lack of a better word, grooming him--was bizarre. She carefully picked clean his coat, and he, rather quizzically, tolerated it.

"I often come here, but for the most part I live in Orion--do you know it? It is the cave next door, with the gemstone ceiling?" He paused, and peered over Vivilene, curiously. The "familiarity" he'd sensed was clicking, now. "You, ahh--do you happen to know who created you?" he asked, his voice a brief waver. If his children had had children of their own, they'd have told him...

...Right?

Pride glanced away, blinking; he didn't want to seem rude, with such an abrupt question, and so he continued his prior answer.

"There are a few of us, in Orion, who call themselves the Seven. We protect others, where we can, often with our magic."

Pride's heart froze, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. He stared at Vivilene, taking her in all over again. The deer shape, the strange face, the nubs of antler.

Azizos-... had children?

"Antlers," he found himself saying--slowly, gently, automatically. His voice sounded distant, to him. "They are antlers-... Not horns--like mine. I am Azizos' father," he went on, and slowly, stunned, lowered himself to his knees to lay there near his apparent granddaughter. "That makes us related." ...Obviously, but his own mind, stunned, was still catching up. "He did not tell me he'd made children of his own-! Is he all right?" He didn't think, judging by her phrasing, that Vivilene had actually met his son--but the mention of him in the past tense was more than a little worrying, and his pulse sped up a notch with faint fear.

Surely he was fine..? Unless-

Realization crept in; if Azizos had died, and someone else had revived his stone-... It would explain why she'd never met him. Why she's speaking of him as if he's gone.

The world swayed, a little, so that he forgot, for the moment, Vivilene's other question--about magic--in favor of trying to shove down worst-case-scenarios.

Sound felt muted, and his mouth was suddenly dry with fear.

"Do you know if he's--still alive?" he asked, and even to him, his voice sounded weak.