Tired. The hunger had fled a day ago, by the flicker of the lights, but then, he could have fallen asleep. A week ago, that would have terrified Czernobog, to lose time so suddenly and blatantly; now, it was all he could do to keep himself upright, not slumped on his side, forming a protective barrier around Tiny's unborn children. Tiny's coffin - egg - whatever it was, it seemed to grow by the second, and one of its edges was beginning to dig into his heart, another reaching to edge between two floating ribs. Any time he shifted, it itched along muscle, and Czernobog twitched, uncomfortable in his own skin. He kept his eyes fixed on the growing chrysali within his self-made circle of safety, gently nosing at them every few hours, pressing a wide, round ear to their shells and making sure he could still hear their beating hearts.

Some small part of him was terrified that when they hatched, so too would the lump in his chest, shredding his chest to pulp. A larger part was scared that it would stay there, unmoving and dead, until someone could remove it - but he knew that was a pipe dream even now. The chrysalis has rooted into place, gemstone tendrils wrapping around internal organs and wiggling to tap at his liver. It was so much, almost too much to ask of him; he had children too, didn't he? A family? But that was what family did, Czernobog thought - protected each other, to the end. Maybe this was his ultimate purpose: to act as a vector for Tiny's return, to watch over his family until then.

The thought was just a little comforting.

But Eve... Eve he couldn't even think of. Because his family had left, and he wasn't even strong enough to protest, to run after her, drag her back if he had to. He was down his Hat and his Tiny, and all the giant monster could do was lay there, starving, and hope for a second chance.

She was just tired. She was just really really tired.
The more she went around on her path, the more gems she found to heal, the more suffering she saw. Children, friends, honest, innocent gems, all hurt by someone else with the intent to kill. She thought she was strong enough to bear it, that she would take their tears and their hurts and turn it around to heal them and make them smile again, but...the smiles and the love and the life she helped wasn't enough to combat the hurt that had rooted in her own heart. She was tired of seeing so many gems on the brink of death take her offered help and just....walk away, happy and healthy without a second glance.

She wasn't selfish, it wasn't like she wanted them to dedicate their lives to repaying her or anything ridiculous like that but....she remembered when she had saved Basil for her sister Dovefeather twice, and when they woke, they paid no attention to her at all. The only person who appreciated her, who saw how hard she worked was Tenn and Bog. And Bog...well, every time she saw Bog, he was hurt, and that was its own pain in itself.

She just wanted to see Bog not hurt for once.

And when she parted the leaves on her herb-collecting path, what did she see?

Bog, lying there, curled up, shallow breathing and this thing in his chest.

She stood there for a second, stock still, shocked at the pure irony of this sight, then she walked over to him slowly, like she just couldn't believe she was seeing him like this.

Hurt.

Again.

"Bog," She whispered, touching his fur. She looked all over him, searching, and she saw that....thing...in his chest, rooting into him, making the plant matter she had coiled around to heal him fall away like old, dead leaves.

Boredom accompanied the lack of energy, and every few minutes Czernobog would huff, or snort, or tap the ground with a hoof, or resort to checking the children's heartbeats for the twentieth time. He almost didn't notice his own discomfort when it was layered over by sheer inactivity. He'd tried, once, to get up, to walk away from the nest and hunt, but everything inside him had shifted with the movement, and he'd almost fallen forward, and he'd had a thought - a horrible prediction. What if all his guts fell out, dragged out by Tiny's stone? What if Tiny fell out and his egg cracked? What if someone snuck past and hurt the eggs? What if they got him and the eggs and Tiny?

He'd slowly sat back down, overwhelmed and trembling with fear. And there he'd stayed, until now, days later, wishing for one of his family, someone to distract him from the awful itch covering his heart.

Thankfully, it seemed Grandpa Aquarian had answered the call, movement catching his eye not a minute later, the form slowly resolving into his friend, the one that healed. Seemingly not noticing her anxiety, Czernobog grinned, tail wagging so hard it smacked against his pelt on both sides. "Caaaaaaaaayenne," he replied, general expression resembling that of an eager-to-please puppy. "Frieeeeeeeend!" For the moment, it was as if his brother wasn't ensconced in his open chest wound, and he wasn't stuck protecting his eggs out of a sickeningly deeply-ingrained sense of loyalty.

For the moment, Czernobog was just relieved to see his sister.

She didn't know how to feel right now.

She wanted to scream at him, punch him and yell at how he kept getting himself hurt and on the verge of death, but she couldn't do that, because it was never his fault. She wanted to yell to the air for the caves to just stop trying to murder what was probably the nicest gem she'd ever met, and that was saying a lot - she'd met Clover and Amalthea, and they never wanted to hurt a fly.

She wanted to cry, but, if she was honest to herself, she was just too tired to cry. She only seemed to meet gems now if they were hurt, and she was just so tired of it.

Cayenne just watched him break out in happiness, such an impossible thing when he could barely even get up, and greet her in such a wonderful way, and she gave him a tired smile and petted his fur. "Bog," She replied. "Friend."

"Friend....hurt. Always." She said, quietly. "Why." Her smile dimmed, and she didn't really ask it as a question. She just...was tired of seeing him like this all the time. Her curled, sharp stone finger glittered, reacting to the quiet turmoil inside her chest and her mind, and she sent a wave of pain-numbing magick through him, and at the same time, she saw into him, saw this....second gem that had rooted in him, tearing into him without remorse, and she felt despair.

She didn't know how to fix this.

Cayenne looked... tired. And maybe a little bit mad. Czernobog's rounded ears flicked back in concern, head moving forward to snuffle at her fluffy chest, grumbling happily when she pet at his wiry fur. Bog. Friend. A low murmur, almost like an mmmmhm of affirmation, rumbled through the pig, though it dwindled off at her other words. Friend... hurt. Always. Why. And then her smile twitched down even further, and the boar was at a total and complete lost to do. A distressed whine built up in his throat, and he nudged at her chest again, ruffling it with hot breath.

At the end of the day, he couldn't truly explain. Maybe it was bad luck, or fate. Maybe it was his Purpose, or the job he'd been assigned. No matter the reason, her words were true.

He couldn't remember not being in pain.

"I," Czernobog began, voice stilted and oddly soft, as if he'd been taking lessons in just how the tongue-speech worked. "I aaaam - am. I am. A. Guaaaard? Guard." That felt like the right word, but the pathway from his thoughts to his mouth still seemed blocked, an unflinching wall between him and understanding the creatures around him. "Aaaand. And. Guards. Protect." Black, beady eyes sparkled with a mixture of pride and guilt. "Iiiii - I. Am. Expeeeeend... expendable."

No blame lay in his tone - because this was his Purpose, as far as he knew it. To protect his family, fight for them, in their place. The jaguar's shocks would have killed Eve. The dragon would have come to Cetus and killed his grandfather. His own powers were unruly, erratic, a God's fury trapped within a pig. "Youuu. Are. My. Friend. Iiii. Prrrrotect. You." Jowls lifted in a smile, and if one knew to look, his expression spoke of something much more ancient, much more intelligent than what the boar could get across. "Jestem Bogiem. Bogowie nie umierają, Cayenne. Nie martw się na mnie."

She gritted her teeth, her little fangs bared, and she clenched her fist and hit into the big boar's furred flank. "You're not expendable! No! Lie!" She was shaking, the fear and bitterness of the past few weeks getting to her. "Bog nice, Bog kind, Bog sweet and thoughtful and innocent and just keeps getting hurt and I can't do anything to keep him safe no matter how many times I heal him and I can't-" She started crying now, and her hands covered her eyes, her shoulders shaking. "I can't keep seeing this, Bog, you just need to stay safe because I can't- I can't handle this anymore."

And then he said he would protect her, and she looked at him through blurred vision, and she twitched, and a sob escaped her. He was speaking in some language she didn't understand so fluidly, and she frowned, her mouth a little open. Was that- why he couldn't understand her very well? Did his mind just work in another language?

How foolish of her to think he was simple, when he was trying so hard. She had utterly no idea what he was saying. She swallowed, and heard her name, and understood at the very least that he was trying to comfort her.

She touched his hide, her hand rustling in his coarse fur, and she shuddered a sigh. "I don't want you to die, Bog, but I don't know what to do. I can't t-take that out of you, but I can't just watch that thing kill you either. I don't know what I can do but take away the pain."

Unfortunately, it seemed his assurances were for naught - Cayenne looked more upset by the moment, words blurring together, and for once, Czernobog felt that familiar disconnect from her voice. Expendable. No! Lie! Bog nice. Kind. Sweet. Keeps. Hurt. Anything. Safe. How. Heal. Can't - His ears flicked back, black eyes widening in utter confusion, the barrage of words combined with her obvious distress making them well with tears of frustration. Can't. Seeing. Bog. Stay. Can't. Handle. Anymore. The sound, it was all wrong, like she was slipping back into the strange language the others spoke, and the boar tried to keep up, but nothing stuck, none of it made sense.

His own language crowded his mouth, desperate to get her to calm down, but she seemed to take some sort of comfort from his words at last, and he pushed into the soft touch at his hide, staring at the little lemur worriedly. Don't. Die. Bog. Don't know. Can't take - out. Can't - watch. Kill. Don't know - the pain. The boar grumbled, angry at his own inability to comprehend, just barely matching the words to - perhaps? - the chrysalis growing in his chest.

He fell silent, simply watching Cayenne, eyes narrowing in concentration, nostrils flaring as he searched for the translations, how to get the words out properly, in a way she could understand. His own language got in the way, but he waved the words away like slippery eels, reaching for tiny minnows of the tongue-speech. Finally, it came to him, a school of words shining, and he plucked them with black oily tentacles, shoved them from his mind to his maw.

"Gods. Don't. Die."

He hummed, beady stare pinned on her, and grinned suddenly, pearly whites on display - and for a moment they looked more like daggers than the squared-off teeth of a hog, black eyes flashing sickly, poison-green. "Gods. Live. Forever."