ORIGIN - chloroform sky

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That link'd plagued its thoughts for some time, marked them with a confusing miasma of questions and swirling anxiety. It'd broken the Collector from all his suave businesslike mannerisms, and he'd swept it away, but not before asking its origins. Alpha hadn't been able to answer - that had been where all this worry spawned. The offered hat was foregone, if only to avoid losing it (if that chain was valuable and worth taking back) while it hurried back to Tunnel N.

If there was one, there was sure to be more - right? A chain was many, bound together. The link it found was singular, just lying in the dark even though it couldn't have been there before.

Alpha'd somehow memorized the metallic tang in its nose as it carried the object back to Canis and promptly hid it; and was currently looking for a similar scent. It plodded towards the spot of the initial incident, sniffing and finding its own trail with ease. Sweeping over that, the orthoclase lowered its head, pacing a few steps this way, a few steps another - looking the spitting image of a bloodhound on some sort of scent. Quills rose in agitation, and it snorted, huffing out the saccharine atmosphere.

Taking a few halting steps, the kaiju sneezed with a thunderous sound and shaking of the head, and went right back to simpering about the spot, albeit with heavier footfalls.

A few more minutes passed of snuffling futilely through the soil before it froze, mane pricking in anticipation. There might've been a mere shift in the breeze, but it lifted its eyes to regard the path up and down the tunnel regardless. Magicka fluttering out from its chest, many small lifesigns appeared. Rats, mice, perhaps a stray deer or two - but nothing to validate its worries of ambush. This was a narrow tunnel; a dragon might be limited to the ground by its girth, but he could still send a column of flame down it. Alpha wouldn't have any room to run, and it knew it.

Alpha's head turned in a slow scan of the ground level, and briefly swept upwards, grazing past some manner of bird-shape that shifted backwards as it looked. Wait. Glowing eyes moved back to that figure, staring intently even as its magical flow ebbed. The orthoclase tensed. A spy, it surmised quickly, aggressively, but otherwise remained rooted to the spot, only pivoting to fully face the rock shelf.

@Damask

@Orthoclase-Alpha !

a feathered figure crouched high on the northern wall — underfed and not fully grown, still a little long in the leg and short in the tail, but a sleek bird of prey nonetheless. crystalline light blinked along her left side, casting the other in shadow. she steeled herself, intense silver eyes directed below.

damask had been working hard these past few weeks, mapping, hunting, sharpening her skills. she had more than amorphous ambition on her mind now. auré's words spun over and over in centrifugal memory: "you are strong — so strong." "so — we made you. part of my stone, and part of aza'zel's magic." "whatever you want to be, damask — explorer, investigator, magician — the king — ..."

... — and to get there, she had to climb higher, higher, higher.

it wasn't her first time in this tunnel; she'd acquired a rough idea of the entire southwest quadrant, refining more and more with every aerial survey. not much to see here, though. just stone, moss, and echoes of light. the cyan glare of polaris was what truly attracted her. she kept dancing around it, mothlike, hovering at the entrance yet never quite mustering the self-certainty to go through it. for all the progress she'd made in affecting an air of confidence, it didn't feel — real, still. but fake it 'til you make it, right, kid? try harder. today's the day, and you better believe it.

but her head had ducked, suddenly, as she dithered: a migraine flash at her temples, red on red pulsing before her. damask had cast out her magic, surveying the tunnel for signs of life, and found — an absolute monstrosity painted in blood, so massive and alien it caused her own to pound in her ears, even as it approached from faraway orion. she'd managed, barely, to fly out of sight and take cover as the spell faded; but even now, the aftershocks lanced up her spine, released in a shuddering sigh. a natural parapet concealed her frame as she peered through narrow gaps in the stone. the horror she'd seen paced just beneath her, impossibly larger than any creature she'd ever encountered, marching back and forth with its snuffling — nose? — glued to the ground. damask's expression shifted in a cocktail of awestruck shock, scientific fascination, and a very healthy splash of fear. what is that thing? her head cocked back and forth in trademark avian form. if i could just get a bead on it —

and as if on cue, the being looked up. straight at her.

getawaygetawaygetaway — !! she scuffed inches backward, wings unfurling to take her far, far away from this place — but she tucked them away and stopped herself there. a flare of déjà vu: damask had seen something ... similar, to this. a wooden likeness. not a replica, but they had the same quills, the selachian tail, the surplus of sight. couldn't be a coincidence, right? and remember: attikias said people. that means sentient. forget instinct and listen to reason. this is an opportunity. take it. also, you're way out of reach.

tensing, the young accipiter sprang up onto the parapet with a flap of her wings. she lowered her front to face four neon eyes, tail swishing behind her in perfect poise. that thing beneath her, it — try again. that being beneath her, they were on some sort of scent. that much was obvious, no matter their shape. damask spoke coolly, her voice raised just enough to carry: "looking for something?" anxiety simmered low in her stomach, and she betrayed exactly none of it.

you're getting good at that.

If it had anything resembling full-fledged ears, they would've been pricked full mast, swiveling only slightly to pinpoint the exact location of this - spy? Observer? Alpha's eyes drew into a light squint, lids barely shifting to block out some light in the tunnel. As if that would remove the rock shelf entirely and reveal who was hiding behind it.

Quills rattled minutely as the bird-shape came into clear view, all monochrome and feathers. Shockingly mundane even with her sleekness and quick, sharp eyes. They were as keen and sharp as those teeth in her muzzle. Her wings were large, stance vastly different than most birds it'd seen, what with the long-edged tail hanging high like a flag. Different.

In spite of all that, the orthoclase didn't spend too much time on thinking about that.

"Looking for something?"

She'd been watching it long enough to notice that. Alpha slackened its jaw slightly, baring its teeth to the heavens for a moment. An instinctive, gut reaction before quieter common sense nudged its into the door. Knock knock, it went, it has been here for a time. Fangs locked together, nostrils flaring as it sniffed uselessly in the air. Sugary, still - now with a vague note of dustiness. Quills smoothed down somewhat, but it was otherwise fairly unemotive (even with the physical limitations it had as far as such things were concerned.)

It shuffled back as far as it could without bending its tail too far against the wall, claws extending out. Curved blades dug into the soil, making a hasty scrawl in it: an elongated rectangle, with bezier curves marking each corner - and a smaller one inside. Something with definite shape, thickness. From high up, it might've been just large enough to see, if one squinted terribly hard.

"This," it barked, pointing a hooked thumb at the crude drawing, "it is metal, golden. About this big." Tap, tap on the image. "There is heavy magic in it. I found one here." Neon eyes turned up to the monochromatic bird, blinking once. Imploring.

@Damask

@Orthoclase-Alpha !

damask observed with attentive intensity — and well-hidden trepidation — as the creature rattled their mane and bared acidic fangs, pointed her way. despite their alien assembly, their gestures translated quickly into emotion: hostility, but erring towards wary distrust, not outright aggression. don't break. just wait it out. a moment's passage proved her right. having put their teeth and quills away, the being pressed back against the far wall. at the sight of flexing claws, damask shifted her center of gravity, subtly seesawing over her perch. what are they ... oh?

they had begun to scratch a picture in the dirt. the topsoil was too dark to make it out from this height, but she could track the strokes and envision their effect: two nested rectangles, rounded at the edges, about six inches thick and three feet across the diagonal. damask kept her balance exactly as it was, now, watching closely — not the drawing, but the colossus themself as they scrawled it out. that took thought, creativity, real intellectual capacity. the presence of those traits shouldn't have come as a surprise. it shouldn't have. it did.

then, they talked.

damask started and blinked, recalibrating. the being's syntax was about what she might've expected (simple, brief, blunt) but the voice ... no growl, no rumble, it wasn't even particularly deep. they spoke in a resonant monotone, middling in pitch. maybe a shade more on the feminine side, but the rest says otherwise, ah ... he or she or — stick with they, probably? — why are you overthinking this. damask shook her head, slightly. usually it was cut and dry, on sound if not sight. she'd never had this problem before. anyway. non-issue, they. now cut it out and listen. their description of the item riddled a furrow into her brow. she'd only found metal in the context of armor and weaponry, comprising the tip of attikias's spear and decorating the skeletons at tunnel p's entryway. evidently the picture was drawn to scale, as well, and "heavy magic" — now, that really piqued her interest.

there was something about the being's tone as they finished, the way they peered up at her. something earnest, almost lost. after a pause, she kicked off the parapet and dropped to a lower shelf, wingbeats settling her back into place. still safe, but conversationally appropriate. the drawing was faintly discernible from this vantage, and she gave it a perfunctory nod to signify that she hadn't ignored it. "hard to miss," she noted. a dozen questions came to mind: what are you? who are you? do you have a name? how should i think of you? will you hurt me, or is this for real? damask opted for none of the above. instead, she went businesslike, slick and fast and one step ahead. her inquiries were prefaced implicitly with a sort of i'll see what i can do, sails half-spread in an offer to action. "right: clues, theories, places to look? how certain are you that it's here — that there is another at all?"

The avian teetered over the edge, half-clinging and the other perfectly balanced. Alpha briefly wondered what it'd do if she fell — or descended on her own terms, so soon. Reflexes would've likely dictated an immediate assault, and the motions would be half-complete before that more subdued personality trickled back in. That train of thought ended as quickly as it began; it was distracted with scrawling with somewhat accurate dimensions and precise shape.

It stiffened for the few moments it took its company to pull the distance between them to a smaller length. Halting gestures, wary gaze. All easy to pick up, if nothing else was. Don't get too hasty, the monster's posture dictated, for the moment before its attention was again drawn to the link. She gazed at it, tracing the curvature with her eyes. Alpha grunted, a guttural sort of huff from its throat, "you haven't seen one." A mere observation to match the yet-unnamed Damask's.

Don't be so foolish to think that it was appreciative of the lack of small-talk, pretenses (all that nonsense) when asked what was ultimately a simple series of questions. They were prying, information-seeking, but not personal. Its stance shifted, loosening and rocking weight onto the more-natural palms of its feet. No need to look so tall, though it still kept its head up, quills just-puffed. Certainly at the head of this encounter.

This rhythm was comfortable, almost familiar.

"It was… around here," Alpha stated with the air of a dry report, pacing sidelong some few feet (eyes not leaving Damask, of course,) "this tunnel was dark, then. Not even light from Polaris." How certain am I — ? It hesitated, but provided nonetheless, "it was a link in a chain. It may have been alone with the other... things." Sniff. "Trinkets," it elaborated with a grimacing snarl of teeth, "and gemstones — and traps" (this it said with a clear growl, voice dropping a pitch into that more masculine territory with ease.) "all suddenly there and drawing Gembound. It bears investigating, if there is any left."

Sniff.

Nostrils flared, and the kaiju grumbled before biting down another harsh sneeze. Residual saccharine in there had long since lost its novelty, and it raised a hand to snub its knuckles across its snout. All the while - it'd done its part for informational dumping; it was this one's turn to regurgitate any available, relevant knowledge: "what do you know?"

@Damask

@Orthoclase-Alpha !

the colossus tensed up in ... somewhere between threat and recoil, almost? not just a predatory back off — the stay away of prey. like they wanted neither to attack nor to be attacked. what are you thinking? look at them. you can't apply the laws of typical body language to a body that's anything but typical. and yet, damask could have sworn she'd seen it: a kind of vulnerability beneath the armor, the quills, the eyes that burned like sickly fire. yes, her leverage hinged upon some esoteric link that may or may not exist; but all the same, she had this sway over them, value, a measure of power —

don't get that too often, do you? bet it feels good, yeah? nice, great, good for you. now quit dreaming, remember what you're dealing with, and be smart, kid.

"you haven't seen one," the being was saying, and damask tipped her muzzle in a slight bow of acquiescing acknowledgment — more at her own reprimand than the statement itself. watch and listen. they took a moment to relax, she thought, ease into a little less of a display. "it was ... around here," they began. she leaned forward to attend as they went on. a blackout? trinkets, gemstones, traps? that did bear investigation, but ... it was the alien stranger who had her attention: their pacing steps and lingering eyes — the way their voice suddenly pitched back and forth, eliciting a (completely unnecessary? hello?) double take, a pin of her pupils — and that second sneeze; how they tried to suppress it, wiped at their nose.

at length, they turned the interrogation back onto her. "what do you know?"

she let a loaded pause stretch between them as she considered her answer, and then, bluntly: "that if it were on the ground, you would have found it by now." the young accipiter sighed and riffled her wings, eyeing the shelves and ledges along either side of the tunnel. the keen edge of her gaze roamed slowly to the crevices that lay further down — just inside or outside of the being's reach, by her calculations.

"i can look, but i'm going to need something from you first. two things," she amended. "first, to know that you won't try to touch" — (not hurt, not harm, certainly not kill) — "me. second, your name. a token of trust," and on that final word, she took a subconscious stab at dropping her voice, grinding it out low in her throat, mimicking her company's fluid modulation — and promptly broke it, crackling on the consonants. what do you think you're doing? why, you idiot? a cringe, a cough, and she repeated more naturally, "trust."

damask allowed a few seconds to pass, gauging their reaction before finishing her pitch: "it's a fair trade."

Were the orthoclase more magically inclined and capable of prodding against the minds of other, it might've leapt to an aggressive correction: it did not allow itself to act on the feeble flight response of prey - only the wariness of a predator that knew that not every assault would be cut-and-dry. Magic was abound in these caves, and even the most diminutive and wretched of beasts (see: Damask's very own grandmother) could hold reality-altering power in its paws. Alpha was simply exercising caution.

In this case, it was bullet-quick shift back into posturing as silence followed its interrogation for (apparently) longer than strictly necessary. It didn't turn away, merely pacing the length of the visible tunnel with its right side facing in - flashing those teeth and radioactive eyes, carving hooked ruts into the soil. Patience was readily available in its wheelhouse, but not in this circumstance. About twenty feet down the corridor, Alpha turned, skulking back towards its drawing with a straighter, more direct path - stopping when, at last, she spoke:

"That if it were on the ground, you would have found it by now."

Resigned as she had sounded, the monster bared its fangs again. (Knock, knock! Who's there -) Logic hurried in, assuaging the rattle of its quills and putting up the concept that maybe she was right in that regard. It rushed in again at the offering of assistance, tamping down that inherent arrogance that came from being wholly independent. Alpha's jaw ghosted the motion of an incomplete thought, before click!ing shut in consideration.

Reaching up there would be a fruitless endeavor; but, fixating on the simpler portions of the bird's request? Perhaps not.

"You won't try to touch me."

"It would not be worthwhile to attempt." (Reassuring.)

"Second, your name. A token of trust."

Alpha couldn't restrain the audible "pah?!" at the idea (sharing names is considered a sign of trust?) nor its slight bristling at the - what, an attempt to growl? Seem intimidating? "Trust," it parroted regardless, less like a correction and more of a strange kind of disbelief.

Regardless, on to the indirect yes. It slowly rocked onto its haunches, sitting slightly hunched over its frontmost limbs and scowling. "My designation," the kaiju enunciated, "is Orthoclase-Alpha." Simply leaving it at that plain statement, it imitated its best idea of what cordial and casual meant: reclining somewhat like a feline vaguely interested in one's business, but otherwise not inclined towards any actual action.

No matter what this one did, though - Alpha's eyes never left her form.

@Damask

@Orthoclase-Alpha !

the being whirled away to pace and posture, and damask's eyes sharpened, scientific. okay, some notes on our subject: they're impatient. still guarded. uncertainty stresses them out, and they hide that stress with intimidation tactics. when she broke the silence, they drew to a halt, snarling — (reacts poorly to suggestions of sarcasm) — only to rescind that threat. either needs time to process, or struggles to reconcile conflicting impulses. or both.

had to be careful, remember? all this observation and analysis, it wasn't fixation or fascination or any sort of study; she was just ... accounting for the risks. arming herself with data. maybe attacking her wasn't a quote-unquote worthwhile endeavor just now, but for all she knew, that could change any time.

and then — her mistake. it didn't go unpunished. very few of hers did. "pah?! trust?" scrambling to mask her flustered nerves, she straightened up with a singular nod of insistence: you heard me, pushing through waves of what were you thinking and that was stupid, just completely and utterly pointless —

"my designation is orthoclase-alpha."

— but here, she tore away from the tides. why would they call it that? was it assigned to them? by who? damask's eyes wandered to the left as she tested the ... designation on her tongue, head tilted. orthoclase-alpha. five syllables: too long in full, and neither half came off as a family name. the latter was weightier, more stressed. "alpha," she said crisply. "noted."

without further preamble, damask leapt into the air and crossed the breadth of the tunnel. updrafts churned beneath her wings; she could've taken this distance in far fewer flaps, but with the colossus underneath her ... better not to take chances. she reached the other side in the span of heartbeats, alighting on a jutting ledge. nothing here, nor in her visual vicinity. look a little harder ... what's that? a fissure in the shadow, set a few shelves below. she glanced at alpha and branched her way down, several feet lower than her previous perch. "say i did find it." she didn't turn, but her ears twisted back as she approached the cavern, alert to every sound. "what then?"

she peered against the darkness. the opening was narrow, just wide enough for her to burrow through; it seemed to bloom from there, but it couldn't be more than a few feet deep. still, a set of claws rose to her chest, magic at the ready. crouching flat, the bird of prey edged inside.

The crevice was mostly empty--dark, mossy, its damp walls sweet-smelling. A few old, long-abandoned shards of green vesuvianite gemstone were nearly invisible by the way they almost perfectly matched the growths of moss; but the dim light caught them here and there, their old, dirty surfaces still providing a faint gleam.

@Damask @Orthoclase-Alpha

@Orthoclase-Alpha !

okay. nobody home. damask let her wing fall from her breast and crept all the way inside. a droplet of water pattered onto her nose, prompting a twitch and a small, snuffling sneeze. watch your tail there, ah — and she spun around to tuck it uncomfortably inside. mossy walls pressed at its length, fuzzy, spongy. with a huff of displeasure, she rummaged around by eye and claw: definitely no three-foot link here, but ... hm. there was a modest collection of matching gemstones, dingy green and dull with age. after a brief examination, she gathered them in her teeth, pushed back into the open, and set them down on the ledge outside.

her avian silhouette appeared at the edge of the shelf; one of the shards glinted between her claws, lifted high to catch the light. damask gave it a demonstrative wave before taking aim and flicking it to the floor, a few feet shy of alpha's head.

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