When Earthbound finally speaks, its soft. "...I just thought you were smarter than this." And honestly? Skyward would've preferred yelling. She could feel the anger burning in their shared chest throughout the entire walk home. Even now ey walked along the cliffs overlooking the city in an effort to dissipate that caustic rage. "Everything about this 'contract' seems like a trap. And he was so open about the possibility of failure- who knows what he WASN'T honest about." There was no possible way this could end well. Why couldn't Sky see that? "And I could feel you panicking when you signed it."

"I just had to." Resolute shame. In her voice. In her gut.

"Because you knew I'd talk you out of it?" A bit of heat simmers to the surface of eir voice.

"Because I know I'd regret not trying. Its something I think about all the time. If things could've been different."

"...You said you were just doing this for Coilean."

"I don't know! Maybe I am! Maybe- Maybe I just want to stop thinking about what-ifs. And I'll be getting that closure whether or not this actually works."

"And what if we just end up making things worse?"

"We both know how much he didn't want this. Anything will be better than just letting his husk wander around."

They both lapse back into silence, staring up at Orion's false night.

@Lichen + whoever else wants to join
Takes place shortly after Requisite Goods

Today there were voices.

Lichen tilted her ears towards the sounds. Muted by the distance but still very much there.

She was better at climbing now, setting large claws onto the cliff side, she could haul herself up the route she'd memorised. Not that she could enjoy the view, but flora and fauna often preferred the heights, and she and Aurelle both had to eat.

As she pulled herself higher and higher, her feelers unfurled towards the sensation of another gembound. She assumed they were playing tricks on her when she heard two voices but felt a single gem. Unreliable organs that they were.

They'd stopped talking by the time she was in earshot. "Hello?" The dragon called tentatively; her head didn't turn to seek out the others as she hauled herself up onto the flats. "Are you in trouble?" It wouldn't do to simply blurt out that she'd overheard them arguing, and that she was concerned that someone was going to tumble over the cliffs.

What a pain it would be to have to wake Aurelle over such a silly incident.

@Horizon

Anything that Earthbound MIGHT'VE said- and ey truly didn't know what to say- dissipated at the stranger's approach. "UHM!" Mutual panic, both of their heads shooting up like a deer hearing a twig snap in the woods. How much of that did she hear?"No! We're fine! Uh- Sorry to worry you." He gives her a timid little smile and a half-hearted chuckle.

Earthbound shuffles eir feet and eir already halfway to concocting a polite excuse to leave. Ey aren't really in the mood for a conversation after everything that just happened. But... the task The Collector had given them was to simply make a friend... The sooner they got started on that, the sooner all of this could be over.

Skyward, meanwhile, well... Well, she'd been thinking about a LOT of things- whether signing that contract was a huge mistake or simply a moderately-sized mistake. How she would explain ANY of this to Coilean. If Coilean would forgiven her when he DID find out. If she could actually follow through with this at all.

But, right now, in this exact moment, it was hard to focus on anything but the gembound in front of him. "You're pretty."

Earthbound's head slowly swiveled to stare at eir twin. "...Pardon?" Ey whispered, hopefully quiet enough for only eir twin to hear.

@Lichen

Truthfully, Lichen hadn't heard much of their talk. Just tone and voices, the words warped by the echo of the cliffs. Not that she apparently planned to share that with this stranger, unless they asked.

It had dawned on her that there was a panic in their voices, two voices. Perhaps she'd interrupted something intimate, and she should make a very quick exit...

The compliment seemed to have the same startling effect on Lichen as it did on their twin. The dragon stopped, mid-step and stared at the nothingness ahead. She'd never been called pretty before. Not even by Aurelle. It made her guts clench, and she couldn't tell if the sensation was alarm, nerves or... anticipation? What was she anticipating?

Her stomach dropped; she hadn't said anything in a while. She should say something now. "Uh," she began intelligently. Pull it together. "Thank you. I've never been able to see myself. I didn't know I was pretty..." She decides to answer honestly.

Make eye contact; sighted people love eye contact. Her feelers unfurled to sense the area around them, trying to pinpoint where the voices were coming from with this awful echo...

She ends up facing away from them, staring with a polite smile out over the cliffs. "It's good you're both fine." She softly tells the cliff edge. "I was worried there was fighting up here..."

@Horizon