Vivilene's brow began to furrow just a bit, something halfway between worry and confusion reflecting back on her face. She didn't mention it out loud, but-- what if he just doesn't like Pride? She couldn't imagine it, disliking your father. Vivilene loved Attikias and he was her best friend, and she looked up to her grandfather in much of the same way.

Her ears flickered back. "I can, um-- meet him?" She offered. "Maybe I'm-- overthinking it, and... he does just... need someone to listen for a while."

She wasn't very sure, and this sudden uncertainty ate away at her. At least, she might feel a little better about her suggestions if she'd talked to Temperance a little, which in itself was a simple task, for most people. Vivilene, along with worrying if Pride was the issue, was also beginning to worry if her poor communication skills would also make it worse.

Pride's praise found its way to her ears and, briefly, she perked up. Vivilene was soon shaking her head as well, pushing down a few stifling thoughts. "I think I get it from you," she said playfully, gently teasing, but a more serious answer was following it a beat or two later.

"I think I just.. know what it's like," she murmured. "Sometimes, there's just, um... no reason, why you feel a certain way. Sometimes you just feel like-- like people are expecting bigger things from you, and it-- it doesn't... matter, if they are or not. It doesn't matter if you know it's in your own head. It just is."

Mischief recieved another few pets as her hands comfortably found her fur to knead and massage gently, mostly unconsciously. "Setting... goals, for myself and-- and making little plans helps me. So it-- it might help him."

"But, um-- thank you," she smiled weakly. "I think I am proud. Where, um-- where does Temperance stay?"

@Pride

Pride tilted his head. "I don't think you're overthinking it all. I think it's a wonderful idea, and I'm going to try it," he said softly. But her explanation--that sometimes she felt as if she were failing, somehow, even if she weren't--made sense to him. He nodded a little, thoughtful, then looked out over Orion. "Perhaps that experience will give you a good perspective, then, yes."

Mischief remained contentedly motionless, bar the twitching of nose and whiskers (slower, now, as she half fell asleep). Pride eyed the hare for a moment, then Vivilene. "You have a way about you; a kindness. While I thank you for the compliment," and there was light humor in his tone, as well, "your empathy is purely your own. It's a good thing," he clarified. "Temperance, if you're willing to speak to him, is often here in Orion. Usually around the Throne, though I think he ventures to the cliffs now and then," he added, reminded of the cub's little misadventure there. "He may be with Mercy, or with his brother, Ember."

There was another one--Ember. Ember was doing well, but had a strange aloofness to him--the same as Fireheart had had. Pride hadn't really connected with him; maybe it was time to give it another try?

Lost in these thoughts, he turned his gaze back outward, every line of his body clearly saying, thoughtful.

@Vivilene

Vivilene nodded, hair bouncing, and she smiled gently. She kept Mischief a little more still in her arms now to let the hare fall asleep in peace, barely adjusting her position on the ground to make sure she was comfortable enough to keep still without disturbing her.

"I think you're kind," the hybrid said carefully. "I don't think you should--"

An elongated, but gentle pause. "--discount it?" It was entirely possible-- and Vivilene very much accepted this possibility --that she was biased. People generally seemed a little more careful around her (not a bad thing) and particularly family; Pride was her grandfather, and there was no telling what he was like to other people.

That being said, it was still difficult for her to imagine him being nasty to other people. It didn't seem like Pride.

With quiet cheerfulness she said, "I can ask Mercy if he's seen him. I can try to-- um, talk to him before I go and talk to James-- unless you want to-- to talk to him first?" She didn't mind; and she didn't want to impose over any plans that Pride might have been setting aside for himself.

... actually, she wasn't very sure where Pegasus was-- but! She could deal with that issue when she came to it.

"What's Ember like?" She asked, finally, a little more conversationally.

@Pride

It occurred to Pride--in the back of his mind, behind the more pressing thoughts--that Vivilene's speech seemed smoother now, now that she was focused, intent. Maybe it was just his own perception but her stammering seemed to have lessened. He determined, however, not to mention it; best to keep it (he thought) a non-issue. He didn't want to make her abruptly self-conscious.

Instead he thought over her words themselves. "No, I--don't think I need speak with him first. However," he added, with a concerned glance her way, "I'd prefer it if you don't repeat any of the details I've given you. Vague is fine... you can tell him that I told you about him. Either of them, actually. But I feel they'd imagine it a bit of a betrayal if they knew just how much I'd said. I won't ask you to lie, of course, but--be delicate if you can?"

It wasn't clear what he was asking, exactly--the basics sure, but the truth was that even he wasn't sure what exactly he wanted. He didn't want to lie to them, to hide things from them, but at the same time having someone who was (to them) a perfect stranger turn up knowing all of their personal troubles seemed... rude?

Pride shook the thought away, and focused on Vivilene's more conversational question. "Ember is more... hm, both quiet and single-minded than his brother. Little seems to trouble him. He finds something to focus on, and focuses, and seems happy enough. He doesn't talk much, but he never seems miserable, the way Temperance is. He explores, and listens, and practices his own magic. He seems fairly kindhearted, beneath his quiet." I need to spend time with him, he thought, again. He'd been focused so much on Temperance that he'd neglected training time with Ember, really--or just together time, at all.

@Vivilene

Her eyebrows lifted close to the burr, a little confused. It seemed rude to her to walk up to a stranger and announce that she knew all their issues, but Vivilene certainly wasn't a liar either. But if Pride didn't want her to lie, then obviously it wasn't a lie at all to be delicate?

... whatever delicate entailed?

Vivilene was a little concerned, and that might likely flickered on her face. "I won't say anything," she murmured regardless-- and realised a beat later that there was a possibility that she really wouldn't explicitly say... anything.

The hybrid tried to gently shake it off, and she lifted Mischief a little in her arms to smooch the top of the hare's head before leaving her to doze off again. "Single-minded?" She asked quizzically in the meantime, unsure of the definition.

Ember sounded nice to her regardless, however, but-- "He sounds a little like, um, a friend I had," she said, smiling, but her tone was a little sad. "I think they-- they liked being alone. But I'd give them fruit and they seemed to really like that."

The implication here being: you should give your kids some fruit, homie.

@Pride

He shifted in place, a little, more easygoing and less tense. The topic had changed. Vivilene had moved it toward conversational instead of serious discussion, and he was subconsciously relieved. "Single-minded means... he tends to focus on one thing, to the exclusion of all else. And he's determined with whatever it is, stubborn, but in a good way. Once he decides to do something, he will get it done no matter what. He's taken to toying with metals and gemstones, though I think he doesn't really know what to do with them as yet--he's just a creative type. He'll find his way," Pride added, and he was confident enough in this. Ember hadn't chosen a focus, exactly, but he was slowly plodding through possibilities with a calm, unhurried demeanor. He didn't seem frantic, or upset, but rather studiously intense.

"I imagine giving someone food would help," he said, to the latter bit, and there was a little humor in it. "Everyone likes gifts, I suppose. And food is good. I remember you bringing me fruit more than once," he added, with a humorous glance to Vivilene.

He looked to Mischief, then, content in the hybrid's arms. "She likes you," he said simply, gently, fondness in his gaze.

@Vivilene

"I like her," Vivilene said carefully, smoothing out Mischief's fur underneath her fingers. The hare didn't seem like most she'd encountered-- they usually ran at the first sight or sound of her, though she certainly understood why they would. It must have been terrifying to be so small around big things.

She listened quietly to Pride, and promptly decided that most of her siblings were quite single-minded, too, though there was some sense of awe in that. They seemed to know what they were about and stuck to their morals and standards. Vivilene wished she were that sure of herself, most times.

The hybrid smiled a little. "Everyone likes fruit," she said. "I think you... liked grapes, the best. My friend liked watermelon." The Orthoclase had liked watermelon so much, in fact, that it ate it until it threw it back up everywhere and Vivilene had to take it to some water to let it take a nap. "I try to... remember, everyone's favourites. I try to find them, if they-- don't have favourites."

A simple cause, but a noble one, if you wanted Vivilene's opinion. It wasn't too much about gift-giving itself as much as it was-- just giving people a nice snack that they liked. Vivilene wasn't too much in the way of gifting, not like her father was.

Her ear flickered back and her hand went to her satchel. From it, she took out the only item that was actually in it; a cylindrical sort of wooden tube with an opening covered with a clear glass dome. Whatever colour it had originally been was long lost to Vivilene's memory. She painted over it with her little sister's paint whatever she felt like, and this time it was predominantly pink with yellow striping.

Pink and yellow being the colours Anastasia had been working with, of course.

It was extended towards Pride, the glass facing him. "My dad gave me this," she explained quietly. "You look through it-- I think it's... magic? It's called, um-- a cal-eye-de-scope."

@Pride

The conversation, it seemed, had wound from more serious and intense concentration to idle chitchat; and Pride was fine with that. He enjoyed spending time around family, and even just companionable friends. He didn't do it nearly enough, truth be told. Perhaps if I lived in Eridanus, he thought--but wasn't it true, too, that he and Mercy were filling Orion now with new life? A family of their own?

He thought, then, about fruits. And that was a relief, to lie there chewing idle cud while imagining grapes and oranges and apples and melons. His ears flicked forward at the mention of the Orthoclase--one he hadn't seen in a very long time. "Oh, Orthoclase-? The big, ahh--yellowish one? Did you--get along with it?" he asked, curiously. He'd threatened the Orthoclase, but also tried to get along with it, after it had (deliberately or not, he still wasn't sure) scared the hell out of a young James. He assumed it was still lurking back beyond Canis. (Pride didn't get out all that much.) His question, though, was a careful one too; if Orthoclase-Alpha had threatened Vivilene he didn't want to remind her horrifically of some trauma. The idea that it had overeaten melon surprised him, though; he'd assumed the thing to be purely carnivorous.

Maybe Vivilene's fruits were magic-?

"It's very kind of you to remember their favorites; where do you get them all? The fruit, I mean." Did Attikias deliberately cultivate some, or was she gathering them up, or creating them with magic? All he could do were bananas. If she was creating melons out of nothing, that was impressive.

Melons, so far as Pride knew, were rather large.

Ahh-the Caleyedescope was being offered, and he turned his head to peer in. He looked a little silly, given that his eyes were on the sides of his head: he pressed the side of his face to peer one silver, slot-pupilled eye in.

There were bits of pink and yellow light, refracted in fragile shapes that seemed to shift with his little movements. "That is beautiful," he remarked, reminded at once of Thalia's shimmering magic, the one that set little rainbows to dancing in her hands. "Did Attikias make this?"

His ears swept forward, curiosity evident (though of course he couldn't hear the thing), and he held quite still as he studied the colors.

@Vivilene