Despite the coming trial, the Desert Rose found himself eerily calm. It was as if he were saving his strength- rather unusual for the frequent pacer.

The children were busy. While he expected to teach some of them, for now he busied himself with trying not to overthink things. He'd found a particular shelf in the warren to look over the rest of them as they came and went, and here he lay, head resting on his sharpened claws with his signature side-saddled hind legs.

It was quiet, almost as if they were watching a storm brewing in the distance. He couldn't do anything about it. His stomach flipped and turned and he didn't seem particularly pleasant to be around, at least, but he'd been trying his best.

Blearily, he blinked as he turned his head to watch the warren's entrance. It was empty with the others out in the tunnel proper. Part of him wondered if the youngers would understand what was going on- he'd taught them, yes, but was it enough?

He wondered, too, if his brother even knew of this trial.

Desert noticed Hemlocke staring for a moment, and turned his head to regard them with a faint curiosity. He looked almost like a lion lounging (for once!) on a sunny rock. His head rose when Hemlocke did and his tail curled closer to give it room.

Hemlocke, now, was the one to try and do small talk. It seemed their personalities had reversed- now he felt like the more reserved one, while Hemlocke was now kind in its words. Considering how to respond for a moment, Desert let his eyes linger over the children play-fighting below, shuffling his wings closer.

They had not talked. And now he may vanish without a word to everyone else. "We haven't," he begun simply, his pitch low and gravelly as though he'd just woken up. It wasn't hard to make a guess at what Hemlocke was dancing around, and Desert wanted to ignore it for as long as he could to be able to sleep tonight. "They are good. Different, but... Good."

He shoved up, propping himself on his front paws with his hind still laid out to the side. The moment hung, and his head lowered as though he were Atlas holding up his own pride. The tension was flowing off him like a thick invisible mist of dread. He couldn't avoid it any longer.

"If I don't come back..." He begun before heaving a sigh out. They needed to get this out of the way, or Hemlocke would eat itself up while he spent precious time in Hell. "If I die, the Sentinels will fall to you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make it, to not burden you, but I can't guarantee that I'll make it back alive. Or, more likely, even at all."

He glanced to the side, tracing the outline of the den he'd been working on for days now. He had more to say- it was obvious, but he waited. It was what he was best at, after all.

Desert's ears flicked forward in a tired surprise at the hard no. The tension had to be cut eventually. His eyes flicked to Hemlocke for a moment before watching the children tussle. "It was a good move," he spoke with a soft laugh. But, his face soured. "I don't expect to die, but I want you to be prepared if it comes to that." An age-old weariness regarded the alien in front of him.

His front claws drew together. "If something were to happen anyways, find Labradorite Five-Four-Six." It was the only thing he wanted to ask of his companion. "He needs to know what's going on here." His hind legs hopped up for a moment to tuck in under himself. "If you can even find him- we're fine as is, at least, but I suspect he'd be able to fill the gap I leave."

"But, I appreciate the faith, at least. The Overseer seems rather confident in my abilities, but there's never a full chance to these things." He shook his head, his mane fluffing up in its unruliness. "What do you remember of the winter trials, Hemlocke? I... I'm afraid I can't really recall much."

Damn his infernal memory. He closed his eyes and huffed, gazing out as though looking through a veil at Alpha pouncing at something along the floor. Would it ever stop growing..?

Desert's gaze softened at the repeated 'okay's, his shoulders dropping. He didn't expect more- he didn't want more. It wasn't in need of a promise. He didn't even need that closure, but the knowledge that his request was heard was enough to settle him down.

As if speaking about winter brought on the cold, Desert could feel the new chill that existed through the tunnel settle into his bones. Both of their memories seemed to be for the worse, and the dragon's ears flicked down in disappointment towards the situation. "Perhaps," he spoke simply, his tail tucking in closer. "I don't remember there being any, either. But, that's another thing I wanted to talk about- Did you happen to see me before we spoke outside the Trials? I didn't think the gaps in memory would expand to time not so long ago-" He winced. 'Five thousand bloody years', he thought to himself.

He shook his head, trying not to think on his meeting with Tenzin. "My memory's missing around that time. I know I didn't hibernate, I didn't come out of any chrysalis, but there's just... So many unknowns." He turned to his nook he'd been working on that held the few gems he had squirreled away. "The gems, the bangles?" He lifted a wrist to show the rusted metal. "I have no clue where they came from. It's- I wouldn't take dead gems, but I don't know what do with them now that I have them, and there's no way for me to even know who they came from."

He paused. Wasn't there a way to look into the past? "Wait," he voiced out, his brain kicking into full gear. "The- The bangles. I didn't have them before, but I had them after. There's.. Arcane magic. Look into the past on these." He stood energetically, his tail lashing and eyes firey with a blazing thought. "Maybe that'd work on beings, too. Work on you and I. We could get our memories back."

His ambition was coming back full force, and even if it might bite him in the ass in the trials, at least here he could entertain it while he had the time. While his old man shtick fell away, he shuffled off the bracelets from his arms and held them like prizes in his claws. "There's a sort of red dog in the Bonebound- Giggle?- she knows mind magic. Maybe that goes time-wise, too."

He shoved them down to the ground, between the two of them. "I'm not taking them in Hydra- they'd freeze solid to my arms- but if I survive I'm going to find her. I'm gonna figure out what the hell I was doing."

His mane stuck out from where he was laying on it, but now he looked rather crazed with the fur on his spine lifting. It was such a trivial topic, but one he could solve, an answer he could find for yet another question in his mind.

Desert picked up on the word. "Rebels," he added in quietly, ears flicking back.

They weren't all rebels, but it seemed a majority tended towards it.

"It seems many of us vanished as soon as we came." He twisted his head this way and that in thought, claws drumming at his scaled chin. "I've seen Opal- twice, now. He's in the garden out in Canis." His head nodded in the general direction. "I don't know if he's awake yet, but he was rather... Out of sorts, last I saw. Doctor might know when he'll be conscious." Last he saw him, Doctor was by him.

Desert kept his eyes on his government assigned bangles, running a thumb-claw over the edge of one. "I remember that. But- I wonder if I hadn't entered some sort of stasis without a chrysalis." Obviously not, if he got these items, which he held up to the light and squinted. They needed to drag one of the orbs in here sometime, or make some light of their own. "That's funny. I didn't notice anything." He shrugged, trying to keep his emotions down.

But, he was still rather excited, his whole body keyed up. "It has to be." His head turned to Hemlocke with a wild glint in his eyes. He was getting into it now. "I'm going to let you know. I'm going to get to the bottom of this." He nodded with conviction, but softened for a moment. "But- Don't take them if I die. That'd be pointless- I don't want to be remembered by my past self." 'Remember me through the kids,' he almost said, but- he didn't really see himself in much of them. Epsilon, perhaps? Even then, they were all so different.

He shook out the thoughts and sat back down, winding down finally. "But- I got a bit wrapped up there, didn't I?" He force himself to not grin like a maniac. His whole posture made him read that he was getting loose, excited, emotional- and clearly wasting precious energy he wanted to keep in. And he certainly didn't sound like he was just talking about his own death moments before.

He caught himself this time. Taking in a hard breath, he steeled himself back in place and returned back to a stoicism that he should never had let go. "Sorry. I think I've been one to be out of sorts, lately, too." His throat cleared as he averted his eyes momentarily too. He glanced apologetically to Hemlocke, shuffling his wings in place. He had to be serious when his life was at stake, after all, no matter how much it seemed the others had faith.

Perhaps there was a little less faith after that show of elation. "Anyways. Perhaps these outbursts of energy'll help me in the cold. It'd be good to keep moving in there- I'm curious as to what our task will be."

He had to get himself off the subject of magic he didn't even know about, and magic he was so keen on rejecting before.