Pride gave a little nod at Mercurius's words on sins, pride, and of joy. "Very well said, my friend, and better than I could have done. I may use your explanation in the future, though I promise to attribute it to a very wise speaker." He gave a gently-humorous tilt of his tines, and then looked out over the garden, and into the mist, as if following the lion's lead. He had no way of knowing that Mercy's thoughts were of creating light, of defending against potential darkness. He didn't know how disturbed the lion had been, or how severe his experiences had been--how traumatic.

But at Mercurius's mention of the "endless and bleak Void," his head swivelled toward the lion, eyes narrowing in thought. He replied at once, tone a little more intent than before, his attention wholly on Mercy.

"Wait a moment--Faelan--was in the void? You speak of this as if it is common knowledge. I have heard of it before--but is it common knowledge? I have never seen it, myself, but--ahh, do you know of a hyena, in Canis? She goes by the name of Giggle, and is a bone-reader-..." He trailed off, stunned into silence as he recalled her last reading. Hadn't she said something like, you will gain something--like an inheritance, territory; I do not know what family you already have? He shook the thought away, blinking. "Do you mean to say that this Clover became quite literally--ahh, tainted, changed--by the Void?"

@Mercurius

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."

@Pride

Pride listened--frowning, thinking--and glanced to Mercurius as the lion spoke of the eyes.

"That is precisely how the hyena described it. If you have not met her, you may wish to consider it. This bothers me--that this void has spanned the caves enough to strike two that we know. She claims to know more of it--she made mention of a cat that she claims controlled it--but I fear what might happen should it rise against our children and should we remain ignorant of it, still, by then." He fidgeted for a moment, disturbed by this thought, remembering Giggle's shared memories of the blackness, of the nothing, and of the eyes.

"She claimed not to know how long she was trapped within. Was it the same with Faelan?"

Then, with sudden interest--and distracted from all this talk of shadow and eyes--he peered more closely at his lion comrade. With gentle humor in his tone, and though he'd likely asked before, he asked again--"Just how old are you, Mercurius?"

The lion, if he remembered, had claimed to not really know. Was it possible that he was an Elder..? Pride considered this with quizzical bemusement. Mercurius was simply a friendly type, harmless, and certainly didn't strike him as any sort of Elder--but... Just how old was he?

@Mercurius

"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."

@Pride

Pride listened--and when Mercurius batted at him, he responded with a gentle toss of his antlers in the other's direction, as if trying (and wholly failing) to hook him with the long tines.

Then he thought about what Mercurius had said.

How old was he himself..? Five cycles, ten? He wasn't sure, not at all.

"I haven't even kept track of my own age," he admitted. "Perhaps it's time to start doing so. And speaking of time-... I think it is about time we return to them." Another toss of his antlers, this one slight and aimed back toward the garden.

He gave Mercurius a friendly, thoughtful look. "They are wonderful, aren't they..? Come--let's rest."

With that he turned, pacing gracefully back through the foliage and toward the children. Now that he knew Mercurius's history--or at least a snippet of it, in summary form--things felt a little less urgent. Perhaps in time the lion would tell him more, but for now, they had a family to tend to.

exit Pride
@Mercurius

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.

;exit Mercy