ORIGIN

Pride was still concentrating on retaking his magicka. He had grown leaner, during this; rather than hours spent grazing and lazing, he'd been travelling between the caves, forgoing meals from time to time for his practice.

Despite his travels, he hadn't seen Azizos around--the last he'd known, his son had made a child and then chrysalized. He knew Azizos was still alive; he and Mercurius had both seen the shards of stone lying in the grove from their child's awakening. But past that-? He'd been closer to Azizos than to Arsu; Arsu was a gentle being but a daydreamer, half-present, half-not. Azizos was a focused, curious creature more akin to Pride, where Arsu was certainly Mercy's sort. But he'd not seen him, now, in a couple of cycles and that grieved him, some.

He hoped he was all right.

The stag focused on his magicka. He'd not seen Nassir or Amazon in some time, either, nor Luster or Reign or the rest, and he hoped they in turn were keeping up on their magic practice. If they were called into battle again, he didn't want them finding themselves falling short. But there was only so much Pride could worry about, at a time, and right now his own ability was what he had to focus on first.

Mischief lay idly atop the throne, her tiny white figure sprawled utterly carelessly across its huge stone surface. She watched Pride with bored amusement, lazily lifting one overly-broad hind foot to scratch behind her ears. He was aware of her curiosity about him--her humor at his constant work. She thought he should just relax, and maybe she was right... but after he'd practiced.

He drew his shield around him, then, to start off, focusing on the energy that drew inward, and glancing with amusement at Mischief. "It has to be done," he told her bluntly, smirking some.

Right. Shield in place, time to... The white stag concentrated, and with a flicker of magicka began to lift off the floor--floating in place. He-

-Pride blinked at the sound of Azizos' voice, and turned sharply, pale eyes widening. "Azizos!" he cried, surprised and pleased, and made his way quickly toward him, forgetting to maintain the spell--dropping to the ground and clattering over by hoof. Mischief, too, recognized the stag-lion at once, leaping down and bounding to him. Where Pride offered a gentle nuzzle of greeting, the hare instead leapt all over, trying to scramble onto Azizos' back in an apparent frenzy of excitement.

Pride glanced down, and perked a brow. "I think someone else is happy to see you, too. How are you? Where have you been? Have you been visiting Vivilene--I hope you have--ahh, this? This is a shield. Sort of-... omnipresent; it stays there, once it's up. It can repel an attack, though it seems to disperse after even a light hit. Repels the attacker, too," he added, clearly proud of this. "I think if you throw a rock, it might demonstrate--just don't do so up close," he added, smirking. Then, more serious--but still lingering close, still basking in his son's sudden existence--"But tell me... how are you? Your father and I found the chrysalis, we weren't sure what had happened. Did you simply sleep?" he added, hopefully.

Pride returned the returned-greeting with another warm, affectionate touch, then stepped back just a bit. He listened, ears cupped forward, eyes shining with joy at seeing his child. "I'm so happy to see you safe," he said, first, in answer to the rest; and then his mind sort of tapered off.

...So Azizos had no idea he had a child--and Pride had to be the one to tell him? Oof. He considered, a moment, whilst Mischief turned around and around before settling with a flop atop Azizos' back. How to tell him..?
"Ahh-... well. Well, it seems--yes, that when you, ah. Ate that fruit-... You'd better find Attikias, and speak to him. It seems you--well. Don't drop Mischief when I tell you this, but you fathered a daughter, Azizos."

A pause, and he focused on his magicka for a moment. He didn't expect this to work, really, but he had to try. -Of course, nothing came; and after a moment's focus he shook his head in some frustration. "My magic's been--changed; I'll explain more in a moment but I'll have to describe her verbally, I'm afraid. She's--purple," he started off with, his head tilting, a little; "Very kind, young, of course; and shy. She cannot speak--whether temporary or not, I do not know. She has--well, sort of... her other father's torso, and arms, head; but they attach, at the chest, to a body quite like ours. She lives in Eridanus, with her family--if you wish to seek them out, meet them," he explained. He'd gone looking for her again, himself, but not seen her around; he was fairly confident, though, that Vivilene was in good hands.

Pride gave a quiet laugh, and dipped his head. "I'd imagine so. I'd imagine 'overwhelmed' seems a weak word for the situation, even. But yes--she seems happy enough; she enjoys stories, and if you wish to bring her a gift I think she likes peaches well enough. And yes, she has family, though I've not met them."

He studied his son, for a moment, the shocked kirin-in-headlights look across Azizos' face, and then leaned down to touch his nose to the ground. He didn't think it'd work... but he wanted it to, damn it, and his focus was powerful as he concentrated. His magic, however, was not, and after a moment he sighed and shook his head. "I tried to... show her to you, and to make you a--stone version, alternatively." The white stag lifted his head, and then shook it, gently, a little grimly, at his son.

"I am fine, but something did happen. Ahh--there's a cave, a sort of... side-area, in Polaris. It was recently-opened, and the creature within spoke of 'transcendence.' I wound up tangled in a trial that it posed, and when I came out--well. I've been weakened, badly. I cannot manage magic that I could, before. But it feels, too, as though there's more potential there. I have been trying to train it back up, if that makes sense. Once I am there--I will make a small statue of Vivilene for you, but in the meantime perhaps you might seek her out, once you feel able to. I think she would appreciate knowing you," he added--and then, as an afterthought, "She wants to help others. She likes hearing stories."

"I'm sure you will," Pride answered warmly, to the whole 'I'll see her' thing. There was no trace of judgment for all the absentee fathering in his tone. He tilted his head for a moment, studying his son, thinking; then, a little tentatively, offered--"If... you're uneasy about it at all, or nervous, rather--I can always bring you, introduce you to her? Set it up, perhaps, if you think the surprise might be a lot." It was gently-said, as the stag had no idea how Azizos might think, about such things.

Ahh--but he was asking about the trial, and Pride shook his head, a little. "Initially, I only entered to investigate. We'd opened the door, and all its rings; this was some form of... puzzle-lock, I suppose. When I went in, I think this creature--a large, black, spined owl-beast by the name of Emuh--believed me to be there for a 'trial.' I had little time to protest. He is... Hm. How to describe this? He is in a small cave, very small, but large enough to cause... troubles. He seemed to manipulate it, the very reality within, and I am fairly certain that his own powers must be quite strong. He seemed to create creatures from thin air--or perhaps they were illusions, I do not know; and the rock shaped into spines, barriers, even crevasses beneath my hooves. I had to gather an object from a ledge, across a step drop, over which there was only a thin bridge and upon which waited a number of aggressive creatures; then I had to maneuver through falling stone and past barricades of rising rock to place that object... a glowing orb, atop a small pedestal. Then it ended," he added, with a light shrug. And thank the caves for that.
"I don't know where the magic went. I know that I felt drained. Imagine... a deep hole, I suppose, filled with water," and he vaguely remembered having made this metaphor before and finding it lacking but could not, for the life of him, remember its better replacement; "And the water has been drained out of it. But you can feel that the hole has been dug deeper, and once the water refills, it will be more than ever. Does that make sense-? Though it is... not an amount, so much as power. I feel the knowledge of another magic itching at the back of my mind, but I cannot yet unlock it," he went on. And he had tried; caves knew he'd tried. With a sigh, he nodded down to the rock, picking one at random. This he lifted, hovering it idly between them, and in a dour, somewhat self-deprecatingly humorous tone, went on: "So I've been back to square one, for the time being. Practicing the simpler magics, and wisps, and the like."