Mercurius rumbled softly, dramatically waving a paw and spreading his toes a little with the shake of his head. "Ah, no credit is needed!" A chuckle escaped him as he tilted his head down, "they'll know exactly who such a quote came from." Worries all melted away as he rocked onto his side and stretched comfortably. "I'll be a renowned poet and philosopher, someday." Of course, this wasn't said with much conviction. He preferred humility over popularity, of course. Why else would he be such a hermit?

Ah, and then there was talk of the void. The pale beast's gaze turned from his plans of reinforcement back to Pride, who prodded at the concept of the Void. Mercurius hummed softly, "yes, but... it was quite an unnatural darkness. He said it was impossibly quiet and that it was impossible to move, smell, think. There were too many eyes." He could imagine it --- many of his dreams had been fraught with the imagery, the abstractness of nothing given form. Maybe it wasn't quite the same as the real thing, but lucid dreaming often led to sleep paralysis. Mercy blinked and sighed. "I think the Void did not exist before Clover was... taken. She could conjure up darkness that consumed you, but you could still see, feel, smell."

Quietly, he added, firmly, "understand that this was ages ago. The one who makes the Void did not exist, then, I don't think."

"I've been to Canis before," Mercy murmured softly, quietly contemplating whether or not he had seen hide or hair of the hyena. With a conclusive shake of his head, he whispered, "but that was to practice a spell to see into the past, into the bones. I saw the fall of a king, I believe, but no hyena." Inky lips turning into a hard line, he sighed. Looking to and fro, he nodded to himself. "Perhaps... I will visit her some day... to learn of this void-cat and its eyes." It disturbed the storyteller deeply to know that this creature was a cat --- Faelan had never described such a thing. A cat which could weave light and darkness to her will, and chose corruption.

The pale beast considered himself lucky that he did not end up that way, at the blunt end of the cruel knife. His shoulders sank visibly as he admitted, softly, "I do not allow shadows to come too close to me lest the Void somehow be held in one of them." Were he not exhausted and weary, he would have mustered a bit of light to chase all darkness from the sleeping children. Instead, the baubles would have to suffice. "Never in this life have I drawn my claws through another's flesh and blood... but I will not allow the Void to touch Arsu and Azizos." Fatherhood could change someone.

"Faelan seemed surprised when I told him he had been gone for some time," Mercurius mused, "but it may have helped that I still walked while he was trapped."

An amused chuckle unwittingly escaped him, though, as Pride asked him of his age. "How rude! Asking an old man how old he is!" It was all in good fun, though, and Mercy aimed a playful bat at the deer. "I'm most certainly not old enough to be considered a fossil or one of those Ancients." Drawing his paw back to his chest, the pale beast thought for a moment. "Ah, I know that I walked around for thirty-odd cycles, alone for most of it." Some time had slipped through the cracks, though. "Many of us had fallen back asleep, though, and I with them. It was long enough, at least, for this garden to miraculously grow out of control. I would say I was asleep for five or so cycles. There were flowers when I went under, and I woke up to none."

With a smile, he concluded, "it's been around three cycles, since, so that'd put me around forty-three or -two cycles, maybe."

Mercurius --- very dramatically --- bowled over to the side, as if he had been struck by his companion's antlers. A plaintive, quiet mewl escaped him as he stuck his legs out. "Ah, I've been murdered!" A laugh slipped from his mouth as he rolled back onto his own stomach, forelegs tucked slightly beneath his own mane; premium loafing posture.

"I didn't have much else to do while everyone slept," the pale beast shrugged slightly, gaze trailing to and fro, moving from one unidentified point to another. Keeping an eye on time's pace was better than keeping an eye on his own mentality, it seemed. Mercy simply nodded in response to Pride's half-dismissal of the conversation and meeting. The children must be lonely without them. No amount of flora could match the warmth and comfort of fauna. The storyteller missed his beloved.

He stuttered to his feet, a smile on his face dispelling all previous worries about the cervids haunting him. A warm feeling rose from his heart and settled in his gut, best described as fatherhood and a sense of home. Perhaps the garden would finally be an adequate host to the pale beast --- and to his newfound family. "They truly are precious, yet strong already. It seems that their bond as brothers is already unbreakable."

With that, he followed Pride back to the garden, all uncertainties abolished.