Vargas pulled away and the wyvern stayed in place; not because he was ordered to, but because he was still fiddling about with magicka as the immense Overseer was contemplating something. As Aure drew himself to his feet, wings tensed and prepared to flee, he realized that he did, in fact, have mind-reading capabilities --- and what better time to use them then now?

A splitting headache rang across his vision near-immediately, a roar of static rising in his conscious as he suddenly (and unwittingly) began to broadcast it towards Vargas: shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT---! Why did I do that, why does it hurt so bad, I need to make it look like I'm fine and not suffering from my mistakes. I should ask him about other Overseers, maybe and--- how many are there in Canis? Among other things.

Aure stiffened, putting on too-perfect posture to compensate for the migraine digging at his eye sockets and threatening to wrench his eyes out with spoon-like claws (if he didn't do it first, with how much they hurt.) Clearing his throat, he casually indicated, "at least ten that I know of. I've seen more but I don't... know them. And... yeah. I was born here and I decided to stay here."

Ah, shit--- he'd broadcasted all of the last minute or so of his thoughts to Vargas, hadn't he? That was quite the opposite effect he had intended, and the migraine grew yet stronger. If he got out of this alive, Aure supposed he'd have to just take a nap for a thousand years and pretend that none of his senses existed. But, the monstrosity seemed to just shake itself and demand that he just stop thinking. Caves, if only. Life would be a lot easier if he were a simple Lesser rat, scurrying about and eating its own feces to get all of the nutrients out of it, somehow.

For good measure, Aure pricked himself in the leg with a blunt claw, forcibly cutting off all flow of magic --- even if he really wanted to vibrate all of this slime off of himself. He felt disgusting. "Sorry," he chirped, not really caring to explain himself because Vargas had already moved on. Thank goodness.

"Well, I... uh... my mother gave my stone life, but my stone used to belong to another bird like me. Just no ears," the wyvern tacked on, hesitating slightly. He didn't really come to be like a lot of other Gembound seemed to. That whole thing was awkward, and he had no reason to believe that Vargas would care. He was more preoccupied with Aure's status of willfully living in a pit of bones. "No, but... I know, at least, that something terrible happened here--" he thought of the Lorekeeper's story his mother had passed on to him, "and that there were... Gembound... being hunted..." Aure trailed off, things beginning to click, and looked up at the kaiju with a slight bit of dawning horror, "were they the... the unworthy?" Ears pinning back.

Vargas could be one of the Loud Ones in that story, but Aure would rather die than outright make that sort of accusation against this thing and die a horrible slow death at the hands of acidic green he began to vaguely recognize from a bout of marrowsight.

Bright eyes widened with growing horror as Vargas simply stood in place, speaking so casually about genocide. As if being marked unworthy weren't enough, Gembound were hunted down, because they couldn't just--- exist somewhere out of the jurisdiction of the Overseers, because they were a waste of space. The idea of a Gembound being made was a sticking point, even as the monster moved on to a somewhat prideful tone about those that were (he assumed) marked worthy. "Made?" Aure parroted, brows furrowing, "like--- how I was? Or--- created as experiments by someone?"

Astraea's words seemed just that much more harrowing now that there was even more of a basis to go off of, huh?

There was also the matter of Vargas talking like he was above Aure, but he willfully didn't address that at the moment. In the spirit of not pestering with a thousand more questions --- no matter how much he wanted to voice them right then and there --- his gaze simply trailed to the bones around him. "It's home," he chirped softly, tracing the shape of a femur beneath him with an idle claw, "and I don't think they should be alone in death, without a gemstone or magic or flesh and blood to move and speak with. They speak, sometimes --- I think --- and we listen to them."

The wyvern lifted a wing, rubbing at his stone, though he didn't elaborate on the bound-to-our-bones belief as he would've liked to. A shot of magicka came from the contact, but nothing more.

Made, as Astraea had mentioned --- likely purged as he had mentioned. Made and deemed unworthy. The prospect of it didn't--- it just didn't make sense. Aure verged into philosophical thinking, pondering why the Masters (he assumed they were the ones doing the creating) would spend their time creating imperfect beings, when they could make everything worthy and remove the need for so much bloodshed. If something worked, why not repeat it over and over again? His brows furrowed. Of course, there was the question of "we?" wasn't there...

Vargas backed off a bit, as if this conversation was simply companionable and not unearthing everything either of them knew. The monstrosity fell silent for a moment, then burst with an abrupt demand: "tell me more of how you all live."

Aure furrowed his brows further, then averted his gaze. Where to begin? A fairly long pause ensued, and he took a deep breath and began: "we just... live, I guess. Hunt when we need, feed where we need--- some of us stay alone and others band together in groups for a common goal: to learn, to protect, to listen." The Children of Rot, the two Kingdoms, the Bonebound. "There's conflict at times--- such as the Bloodberries rising and killing without need or purpose, invading Eridanus with the intent to slaughter. They fell quickly and are now either gone or in hiding."

Bright eyes glanced back up at acidic green ones, ears perking up slightly, almost proudly, "but, we live peacefully, with one another. Forging bonds and protecting one another from whatever the Caves hold for us."

Vargas seemed to contemplate Aure's words, but the only indicator of it, really, was a low grumbling growl. It seemed like a thinking sound, anyways --- the monster was otherwise pretty much not emotive, except for the slight squint and widen of way too many eyes (and the wyvern was still trying to figure out which set to make contact with.)

He stopped making eye contact as the Overseer as soon as he started staring a little more harshly, noting that the times had changed and that he wasn't going to proceed with his hunting duties (Aure hoped, anyways.) Preemptively loosening his wings to take off, Aure took the hint with a simple nod and turn. A lone question niggled at the back of his mind, still, and before he could stop himself--- "what do you mean when you say 'we?' That---" Fumbling over the awkward wording, he cleared his throat, "that we --- as in the Gembound of today --- weren't made like you were? Are the Gembound of the past different from us, or?"

And, in exchange for the question, some quick --- hopefully helpful --- advice for the new age of Gembound willingly living in Canis: "there's a set of boulders near here that has some Lesser carcasses around it as bait. The rats that come to them are pretty big, good for food." Aure tilted his head in the direction of the boulders, toward the northern edge of Canis.