Sentinel--half-grown and gangly--made his way along Leo's beach. He had been instructed to travel: to explore, to fight, to learn, both from Gembound and from their fighting methods. He knew the way to Leo; past this he was unsure. But he had thought to head the way he had come once before, to see what he might find.

And something of the wind and sea called to him.

The halberd he carried--walking with it upright, leaning slightly on it as thought it were a staff--was far taller than he was. Its bladed head towered fully three feet higher than he. The sand was not doing him any favors, either, making his lanky body--not well-built for bipedal or quadrupedal movement, but acceptable at both--expend a fair amount of effort to trudge through its soft depth. It was warm, and bright, and he was unsure at this: the light made it difficult to see.

Shadows coiled around him, whispering, twinning with the whispers of the halberd. He was certainly an odd sight to see, seemingly strolling along a beach: a half-grown anubis-like creature, its weapon too large and its eyes too many, in the bright light of a paradise-like bay.

When he spotted the form up ahead he was unsure what it was: the light affected him in the opposite way to most, so that brighter was blinding, and so Haven's shape was little more than a dark blur. A large dark blur, at that, though he'd seen larger in Draco, of course. The Sentinel picked up his pace, wondering if here might be a creature he could Learn From.

But what if it was only a boulder-? He genuinely could not tell, for sure, though it did seem to be moving. And so, after a moment of struggling to speed up in the sand, he called out; his rasping voice did not carry well over the hiss and crash of the surf, but maybe it would be heard nonetheless.

"ARE YOU... LIVING... OR A STONE?" he called, which was a strange way to start a conversation.

The Sentinel peered as the creature drew closer, a shape manifesting, clarifying, from the brilliant light. It spoke--it was alive, then, and not a rock. "What is... an Electrum?" he began, hesitating for a moment. He had never heard this word; should he have?

Now that it was closer, he did not think that it looked like a rock. It was long, for one thing: serpentine, but it did not strike him as 'alien.' He was around creatures with too many eyes and holes in their faces daily, and so Haven just looked average, to him. Perhaps rock-colored-? But no, there was pink there, in touches that flashed bright along extremities. "I am... The Sentinel." He spoke these words with no trace of pride or arrogance; it was just his title, just a job, just his purpose and beyond that, he was nothing.

He came up closer and then stopped, settling the halberd with its haft butt-down in the sand, and leaned on it a little. How new-?

"I have only been here... once," he said--but that wasn't what she meant, was it? He recalculated her meaning in his mind. "I do not know how long ago I was created." He'd have to... ask? He didn't know how old he was, or if it mattered. And had he known that it'd been two cycles, he had no idea if that was a long time, or not. He'd never thought to bring it up, before. "I have been sent out to see... and to learn. And to fight," he added, indifferently. "Does it know things, that others do not-?" And here he peered at Haven; perhaps this was his way of asking if she had anything to teach him.

It was, perhaps, an unfortunate definition. The Sentinel thought it over: there were many, he reflected, with whom he chose to live; many with whom he shared things. V-Chaos-Two came to mind, and Vargas, and to a far lesser extent the Agate and all her quills. "I have... many mates," he concluded aloud, in a tragic misunderstanding that might haunt him for cycles if not corrected.

He was silent again as he pondered the idea of seeing with one's eyes. Sound waves, and navigation in such a way. It could, he thought, be useful in bright light? Although--"I have many eyes," the Sentinel observed, "but I would learn this thing from you, if you can teach it." A beat of silence, then, as he mulled over the idea of reciprocation: it felt as though he ought to offer something in return. "I offer service in return." ...He'd let her decide, then, if there was anything she wanted, because he couldn't think of a damn thing.

All he knew how to do was guard tunnels...

'...Are they related to you?' The Sentinel thought about this, delving into his memory, but nowhere in his past could he find the idea of what made creatures "related" to one another. Before he could answer this, Haven was explaining about feeling protective.

That much, the Sentinel understood; he had a guardian's instinct, legacy of the dog who had given his stone, though he hadn't known much about Black himself. Clearly, then, if he felt protective of the Chaos Forge, of Draco and its inhabitants, he--yes. "I have many mates," he concluded, for a second time. Affection, though, did he feel that? Did-

He was being directed to follow, and so he did, dismissing his prior chain of thought for now. The whispers coiled around his halberd, only faintly audible, along with the black smoke that hid him now and then from sight; he ignored them in favor of staring intently at the lesson in the water. Claws. Ripples. Returns.

He was glad, too, to hear that he could repay this lesson, once he had learned it.

"Crystals will be found, if the Sentinel is shown where to seek them," he intoned, still staring at the water.

And then, after a long moment's contemplation: "I cannot hear the ripples." He looked to Haven, somewhat puzzled, trying to understand. Was he to hear the rippling water, or had he misunderstood entirely?

Some dull part of the child's mind thought that it was strange, to use sound to navigate to the cliff and stop in time, when he could simply hold his halberd out before him. But another part grasped that it had greater purpose, that it could provide that sight in blinding light. He pushed up, away from his inspection of the ripples, and eyed the cliffs. Without a word he closed his eyes--two on his face, four more on his "ears"--and began to push forward across the sand.

As he went, he made a strange sound in his throat as he tried to imitate the clicks--a soft noise, a wet sound, like the smacking of lips. He paused a few steps on, and looked blindly toward Haven.

"I cannot make these sounds," he told her, with some confusion in his voice. He should be able to, right-? He hesitated, for a moment. "Is it formed of tongue, or teeth?" -Or something else entirely?