ORIGIN - What's with this sassy... lost child?

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Haven was flopped down on top of a rock, her grey body easily blending in with her tail and wings tucked in. She looked like the rest of the landscape as she basked in the light, purring softly. She'd been napping for a few hours, much like a cat, only moving to flip onto her back to warm that part up or to move onto a warmer rock.

And honestly after so much napping, she was bored.

So she stood herself up and stretched, back arching as she yawned, tail flicking out as she turned and jumped onto the sandy beach. What to do... she could hunt! There was plenty of prey and some more challenging options, like the slippery fish that lurked in the water, or the quick rabbits and hares that occasionally dotted the cliff tops.

But with Electrum gone, she'd lost a lot of her motivation. She relied on him too heavily and now that he'd gone into hibernation, she was lonely and didn't really know how to solve that problem.

Haven headed off down the beach, lost in thought, her head down and tail dragging in the sand.

@The Sentinel

Sentinel--half-grown and gangly--made his way along Leo's beach. He had been instructed to travel: to explore, to fight, to learn, both from Gembound and from their fighting methods. He knew the way to Leo; past this he was unsure. But he had thought to head the way he had come once before, to see what he might find.

And something of the wind and sea called to him.

The halberd he carried--walking with it upright, leaning slightly on it as thought it were a staff--was far taller than he was. Its bladed head towered fully three feet higher than he. The sand was not doing him any favors, either, making his lanky body--not well-built for bipedal or quadrupedal movement, but acceptable at both--expend a fair amount of effort to trudge through its soft depth. It was warm, and bright, and he was unsure at this: the light made it difficult to see.

Shadows coiled around him, whispering, twinning with the whispers of the halberd. He was certainly an odd sight to see, seemingly strolling along a beach: a half-grown anubis-like creature, its weapon too large and its eyes too many, in the bright light of a paradise-like bay.

When he spotted the form up ahead he was unsure what it was: the light affected him in the opposite way to most, so that brighter was blinding, and so Haven's shape was little more than a dark blur. A large dark blur, at that, though he'd seen larger in Draco, of course. The Sentinel picked up his pace, wondering if here might be a creature he could Learn From.

But what if it was only a boulder-? He genuinely could not tell, for sure, though it did seem to be moving. And so, after a moment of struggling to speed up in the sand, he called out; his rasping voice did not carry well over the hiss and crash of the surf, but maybe it would be heard nonetheless.

"ARE YOU... LIVING... OR A STONE?" he called, which was a strange way to start a conversation.

@Haven

Haven turned at the sound of a voice, nostrils flaring. She carefully walked towards them, clicking softly, before cocking her head.

"I'm alive," she said, and perked up, "Oh! I told Electrum I looked like a rock. He keeps saying that I'm way prettier than a rock but it's actually pretty good... camo..."

She trailed off as she started to ramble, and then cleared her throat, "I'm Haven. Do you have a name?"

She couldn't really tell from sight that the other was young, but judging by the outline she got and the picture of a short being carrying a weapon far too large, she suspected they were young.

"How new are you?", she asked, head tilted, just curious.

@The Sentinel

The Sentinel peered as the creature drew closer, a shape manifesting, clarifying, from the brilliant light. It spoke--it was alive, then, and not a rock. "What is... an Electrum?" he began, hesitating for a moment. He had never heard this word; should he have?

Now that it was closer, he did not think that it looked like a rock. It was long, for one thing: serpentine, but it did not strike him as 'alien.' He was around creatures with too many eyes and holes in their faces daily, and so Haven just looked average, to him. Perhaps rock-colored-? But no, there was pink there, in touches that flashed bright along extremities. "I am... The Sentinel." He spoke these words with no trace of pride or arrogance; it was just his title, just a job, just his purpose and beyond that, he was nothing.

He came up closer and then stopped, settling the halberd with its haft butt-down in the sand, and leaned on it a little. How new-?

"I have only been here... once," he said--but that wasn't what she meant, was it? He recalculated her meaning in his mind. "I do not know how long ago I was created." He'd have to... ask? He didn't know how old he was, or if it mattered. And had he known that it'd been two cycles, he had no idea if that was a long time, or not. He'd never thought to bring it up, before. "I have been sent out to see... and to learn. And to fight," he added, indifferently. "Does it know things, that others do not-?" And here he peered at Haven; perhaps this was his way of asking if she had anything to teach him.

@Haven

"Not 'an' Electrum. My mate's name is Electrum, it's what I call him. He's a dragon, like me, only he has eyes," she explained, "A mate is someone you choose to be open with and to live closely with, and share things with."

Haven sat down and shuffled her paws into an orderly fashion, her neck plates resting mostly flat aside from the spikes in the center of each one.

"It's nice to meet you, Sentinel," she said kindly, "But... hm. I don't have much to teach you in terms of fighting, but... I could teach you to use your ears and nose rather than your eyes."

She could try, at least, like she'd tried to teach Indigo.

"As you can tell, I don't have eyes," she said, "Instead, I listen. Sound is actually invisible waves. They bounce off of objects and when they return to me, I'm able to sort of paint a mental picture of my surroundings. It's how I knew when to stop so I didn't bump into you, and how I don't ram into cliffs when flying."

@The Sentinel

It was, perhaps, an unfortunate definition. The Sentinel thought it over: there were many, he reflected, with whom he chose to live; many with whom he shared things. V-Chaos-Two came to mind, and Vargas, and to a far lesser extent the Agate and all her quills. "I have... many mates," he concluded aloud, in a tragic misunderstanding that might haunt him for cycles if not corrected.

He was silent again as he pondered the idea of seeing with one's eyes. Sound waves, and navigation in such a way. It could, he thought, be useful in bright light? Although--"I have many eyes," the Sentinel observed, "but I would learn this thing from you, if you can teach it." A beat of silence, then, as he mulled over the idea of reciprocation: it felt as though he ought to offer something in return. "I offer service in return." ...He'd let her decide, then, if there was anything she wanted, because he couldn't think of a damn thing.

All he knew how to do was guard tunnels...

@Haven

Haven blinked. A lot of mates? How unusual...

"A lot of the time you're only supposed to have one... but then again, I shouldn't judge anyone on who they love. But are they family? Like are they related to you? Because a mate is someone you... hm. You feel great affection for them, and you are compelled without being asked to protect them and care for them," she said.

"But I can try to teach you," she said, "I only ask that you help me find crystals. They're littered all over the place but I can't tell the different between them and rocks because I can't see the difference."

Haven walked over to the water and beckoned the Sentinel closer, "Come, I'll try to show you what I can."

She dipped a claw into the water, ripples spreading out, "Imagine that my claw is me, and I've made a sound. That's what the ripples are, sound waves. Now if I dip my claw over here, the ripples travel to his rock and bounce off, returning to me."

And, as described, the water did as she said, ripples spreading out and bouncing back against anything that disrupted their travel, "That's the theory of what my clicks do. Depending on how long it takes for sound to come back, it tells you how far something is."

@The Sentinel

'...Are they related to you?' The Sentinel thought about this, delving into his memory, but nowhere in his past could he find the idea of what made creatures "related" to one another. Before he could answer this, Haven was explaining about feeling protective.

That much, the Sentinel understood; he had a guardian's instinct, legacy of the dog who had given his stone, though he hadn't known much about Black himself. Clearly, then, if he felt protective of the Chaos Forge, of Draco and its inhabitants, he--yes. "I have many mates," he concluded, for a second time. Affection, though, did he feel that? Did-

He was being directed to follow, and so he did, dismissing his prior chain of thought for now. The whispers coiled around his halberd, only faintly audible, along with the black smoke that hid him now and then from sight; he ignored them in favor of staring intently at the lesson in the water. Claws. Ripples. Returns.

He was glad, too, to hear that he could repay this lesson, once he had learned it.

"Crystals will be found, if the Sentinel is shown where to seek them," he intoned, still staring at the water.

And then, after a long moment's contemplation: "I cannot hear the ripples." He looked to Haven, somewhat puzzled, trying to understand. Was he to hear the rippling water, or had he misunderstood entirely?

@Haven

"Because you're pretending that's what sound does," she said, "But let me show you."

Haven turned and let out a series of short, high-pitched clicks. She pointed off towards the cliffs, "The sound waves that took longer to come back mean the cliffs are further, but the sound waves that bounced off the ground vary, and I can use that to judge how far something is."

She rubbed her hands together, "Close your eyes, now. Just try to click for now and to hear the echoes that come back to you. You saw how far the cliffs were, now try to associate the quick and slowness of the echoed to gauge how far that is, and use it as a guide."

Haven came around behind him, "Then, I want you to walk forward- eyes closed! Walk forward and try to stop before the cliff so you can reach out and touch it. Keep clicking too."

@The Sentinel

Some dull part of the child's mind thought that it was strange, to use sound to navigate to the cliff and stop in time, when he could simply hold his halberd out before him. But another part grasped that it had greater purpose, that it could provide that sight in blinding light. He pushed up, away from his inspection of the ripples, and eyed the cliffs. Without a word he closed his eyes--two on his face, four more on his "ears"--and began to push forward across the sand.

As he went, he made a strange sound in his throat as he tried to imitate the clicks--a soft noise, a wet sound, like the smacking of lips. He paused a few steps on, and looked blindly toward Haven.

"I cannot make these sounds," he told her, with some confusion in his voice. He should be able to, right-? He hesitated, for a moment. "Is it formed of tongue, or teeth?" -Or something else entirely?

@Haven

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