Cassiopeia had been long buried, overgrown in the time it had been forgotten. There was little in terms of gembound life, save for the remnants of some battle; broken chrysalises that once housed the injured or unborn. With the cave's tunnel now open, however, the stagnant magic of the room had begun to flow again, and from that grand reopening came new life from an old stone. A forgotten stone, some remnant of the past with no way to remember what it once might have been. What it would birth, however, would be anything but normal.

There was a tapping sound. Quiet, but persistent. Slow, at first, a sound like the clinking of glass cups. IT was twitching in its sleep. Its dreams had become more vibrant in the past few days, waking it sometimes, moments of sentience between visions of nothing and everything all at once. It dreamt of fuzzy renditions of the caves, of running, of killing, of being killed, of being trusted. It dreamt of being a soldier, and of being a dancer, and of being anything other than itself. It dreamt dreams it would not remember, soon, as the tapping grew more insistent. Hairline fractures were growing in their crystal womb, leaking fluid as the hours passed. Time mattered not to the sleeping gembound, nor did it matter to the insentient gem that encompassed them.

The caves had long awaited them. The Arbitrator, Seraph.

In one swift, sudden motion, as if commanded by some unseen force, cloven hooves shattered both silence and stone. Out stepped a gangly thing, maybe three feet tall and wrapped in the feathers and leather of their wings; a blanket against the chill of damp skin and mucus-coated feathers. Its eyes opened to greet the cave's dusty embrace, three void-black orbs in pools of blood. It was dark, here, just outside the entrance to the prison. Its stone had been covered by some of the overgrowth, a hiding place which it had quickly outgrown. Silence returned after the commotion, save for the slow, drawn-out scraping sound of hooves on stone as the beast tried to rid itself of its eponychium. It stretched out further with each dragging step, every movement followed by the pop and crack of vertebrae settling into place. It was here. It was alive. It was ready.

'I am here at last!' it seemed to announce, the click of clean hooves on stone causing the very earth to shake around them.

Perhaps the creature was not so long awaited after all, but rather long avoided, as Its call to the caves was rejected. Instantly, violently, the self-proclaimed arbitrator was swept off its feet by its own magic backfiring, sending it crashing down into the very growth that had kept it protected until this one fateful moment. Its hatching was a mistake, the cave seemed to say. It owed the caves for the very magic It was allowed to wield, they seemed to taunt, as vines tangled in blade-like horns and around thin limbs. Easy to break limbs, like the very twigs they pushed against to try and right themselves again. Thorns found purchase in hide many times over before It found freedom again, snorting.

I am cleansed. It thought with a soft smile, looking up at the few dim cave lights strung to the ceiling. The cave had humbled It, released it from its pride with the sharp sting of pain. Saviour, It called the caves. Forgive me. I know now what I must do.

The scent of blood is what called for Its attention, causing the beast, of which there was no other descriptor, to wander upon the scene. Why? Was its first thought, its only thought, as it stared. A strange feeling, like worms surfacing during the rain, built in its stomach as the creature cut, alternating with firm pressure between each slow tear. It thought the action was accidental, at first, but the creature continued, relentless, unfeeling. Gembound. The word seemed fitting, almost, but It was a gembound and if It was a gembound, surely this creature could not be one. They acted as if They were the caves, as if it had control over other living things. But if It did not, They did not, and so surely this thing was not a gembound. Unclean. It decided, a silent and still judge as Bacchus continued despite the audience. Shameless. Wrathful. It continued, rage beginning to boil and bubble within its throat. The lesser screamed and writhed, and in some way, It found beauty in such a thing: the writhing. The bat moved like It had when the caves had cleansed It, and yet it was wrong, so terribly wrong.

Bile rose in Its throat the longer It watched, threatening to burst forth at any moment. It took conscious effort to fight the urge. All the beauty of the cave, all the life, all the magic... and this is what it was birthed to witness? Blood sullying stone? "You've already killed it, one way or the other." It spoke finally, throat hoarse with disuse and gravely with a failing attempt to hold back vomit. It was true; a flightless bat would find its end on the cave floor, abandoned by the flock. "At least let it go peacefully. Well, as peacefully as it can..." It scowled, keeping a firm distance away from Them. "Let it bleed." It would be a kinder death. A mercy.

Dark eyes met bright ones, three meeting two in a stare that was nothing short of a challenge. Your death would be a mercy on the caves.

"Yes." It agreed, the simplicity of the statement settling their stomach, if only a little. Death was a fact of life, something even a newborn could understand. Their interaction had lasted only a few minutes at most, and yet every second felt like an eternity as It tried to process the events unfolding before It. They were senseless, and in the events' senselessness, It would find no reason; only darkness.

Its discomfort was not hidden in its stiffness, but something else was there, too; wonder. Questions. It did not run. It watched. It judged. Eyes drifted from the bat to the leopard, studying for a long while before It spoke again, testing Their patience. "No." It decided, voice flat as It met Their eyes again. "Not every being." It was like every question they could ever ask was answered there, all at once ideas of right and wrong, of judgment and punishment, flooded Its senses. Not you.

The bat was not deserving. It had been deserving. It had been prideful, if only for a moment, before it was corrected. That moment had been enough, still, and yet here the leopard was; dark, deluded, and... unpunished. They were deserving. There was no question of it, no need to test, no doubt. Just a full body feeling of certainty, of... righteousness. A role to fill, a task to complete. They must repent. It must help them repent.

More meaningless words, more questions, followed. The Arbitrator paid them little mind, alrighty decided. It would be a stubborn thing. "The Arbitrator." It declared, firm. It was not stiff with nerves, now, but standing Its ground. It waited for the leopard to understand; it was not its job to explain its answers. It was who they were, and what they would be; a name and title, all in one, as far as the leopard would know. Arbitrator: an impartial party, a judge of two tales. Only, Seraph was more than that. Seraph would also become executioner. "And what would It call you? What is your... future?" They would not have one.

Well, that wasn't true. Not entirely, at least, as The Arbitrator would see no fault in Bacchus if They righted their wrongs. If they repented. But Bacchus was too far gone, whether It knew that or not, and They would not stop for anything short of their own death. Something It would later discover, should the two meet again. It would look for Them, when it was worthy of Its title. When it could make good on Its thoughts.

The Arbitrator knew not of what Bacchus thought, but what Bacchus thought was wholly correct. They were one and the same, two creatures of obsession, two beasts driven mad, one just much earlier than the other. Two monsters that were consumed, every fibre of their beings tied tightly to their madness. Indistinguishable, for if Bacchus were to witness repentance, They would see it no differently from their experiments. Bacchus created It, in some form or another, shaped It, and Seraph would be Their undoing. How poetic.

Sinner. It named Them. Devil. It thought. But Devil was too powerful a title, too strong of a name, and It did not want to give Them power. They took it still, inviting It to finish Their work. It almost wanted to refuse, to walk away, but It could not. It was not an observer. It was a judge, and arbitrator, not an interchangeable descriptor. Seraph would be Retribution.

It took up Their offer the only way It knew how; a swift, smoldering step. A loud crunch was followed by the sound and scent of burning flesh; mercy and repentance in one neat package, tied with both rosary and sinew. It bore the pain silently as their extremities crisped. A cleansing fire. It deserved the pain as much as the bat deserved the mercy-killing -- It still killed.

The silent seconds that followed the bat's dying squeak were filled with unvoiced exchanges. The tables were turning, a ballet of the mind as Bacchus gazed upon It. They became the Observer, and then the judge.

'And does the Arbitrator turn its gaze upon itself?'

In all its newness, its hours-old thoughts, It had not once considered balance. It knew that there was give and take. It knew that there was the necessary cleaning of the unclean. What It did not know, however, was what Bacchus offered it. The price of a life. The greatest sin. It did not know what it took to clean the growing pool of blood off the stone floor.

'Does a life taken from the world seem equal to your burns?'

It did not move. The leopard stalked ever closer.

It did not know how They knew its thoughts. Bacchus had wormed his way into their brain much like maggots would soon eat threw the corpse at Its feet. It wanted to run, a distant thought as paws slowly closed the distance. It wanted to know. It needed to know, to prove itself; to learn its place in the caves. Bacchus' actions up until this one fateful moment did not matter, for They had offered It the one thing it was born knowing: Repentance. Salvation. Cleansing.

'I could help you repent, child. I can teach you the price of a life.'

It opened its mouth to speak -- a silent plea it lacked the words to voice -- but closed its mouth again, bowing Its head instead. They were right. In this one thing, They were right. It must repent.