ORIGIN

Oliver smiled as best a bird-dog could, but... he wasn't sure if he was reassured, or not, by this. He was glad, but... somehow worried, too.

Before he could think about it too hard, another thought hit him quite abruptly--urgently, even. "Oh! Do you know how, uh, Orthoclase-Alpha is? I haven't seen 'em in awhile and, well. I was kinda worried," he explained, a little bit apologetic.

He didn't know Alpha well, but he'd tried talking to it, once. To help it. That hadn't gone well, really; Oliver had worried about it ever since, and hadn't ever seen it again.

The Sentinel considered, for a moment. He had been warned not to give out too much information, but just where that line was drawn he was unsure.

"The Sentinel has not seen it for some time. It... departed," he explained. "Perhaps it will return." Not exactly an enlightening response, but it was what he had to go on.

"The Sentinel goes now to find the Boneseer."

Enoki had told him where to look, and now he no longer had reason to delay. He turned, without any real goodbye--nor did he wait for one--and paced swiftly but unhurriedly from Oliver's little grove.

Oliver sagged, a little, both at the news and at Sentinel's somewhat abrupt departure.

"...Okay. If you see them tell them they can come here any time? I'd like to see 'em again," he added. And then, calling out to the Sentinel's departing back: "It was good to meet you! Come back, like, whenever!"

Maybe he could ask him other things, then. Like if he had a real name and if not, why. Or why he had to guard the Aperture, and what the Forge really did. Or how he felt about all of that.

Right now, there wasn't time; they'd discussed a lot, and the Sentinel was leaving. But it felt... unfinished, and Oliver couldn't help but feel that yes, he was losing his father all over again.

The moment he was gone from sight, the bird-dog turned, crawling into a pile of leaves and vines, hiding himself from the world.

He then pulled himself back out again, and retrieved a piece of the pumpkin, as he'd promised himself he would; then he crawled back in again, curling up beneath the foliage and well out of sight, grief-stricken. He needed time to process this. He needed time to heal.