"We didn't really have the chance to do introductions," she grunted, her tone somewhere between sarcastic and apologetic. Most of them, if not all, had been strangers to her. There hadn't been friendliness, but they'd somehow all become comrades in the chaos. Darkness and shadow and oblivion -- Sora pushed the thoughts abruptly from her mind, before she started to spiral.

She saw the dog about when Pride did. Red stone, bright and like... well, fire. She regarded it for a moment and raised her chin as much as she could (not much). He'd saved her brother. Probably others. Who knew what would have happened if he hadn't been there to light the torches? She certainly didn't. It had been through a miracle that she'd been able to get the last one going, anyway. It stood, grim and dark, in her view. Her eye shifted towards it.

Sora was quiet for a few moments, remembering the choice she'd made. How close she'd been to dying. Then, she was snapped suddenly out of her stupor by Pride, and she looked back at the skeleton he'd discovered. "Orenstein," she rasped, turning to approach it. She frowned -- his stone was so small. She'd hoped it would have taken up more of his skull. Could she even get it off? Sora swallowed and simply nudged the top half of the skull into her basket, letting it rest on top of the other contents. She'd deal with it later.

At Pride's question, a chill ran through her. "... No," Sora said, her voice distant, "that'd be all of them. There were only three torches." She did the math in her head. "... That means somewhere between three and five of them are gone, for real." She sighed. "Owlface, Kini-yolotl, and a feline sort of thing with a skull on their head. Then, Vargas said he'd be looking for the stone of a black dog and a six-legged crab lady. She was the littler Vargas's stone-giver."

She gestured with her nose, her voice still distant and somewhat cold. "If we keep following the loop it'll take us back to the entrance."


@pride

Pride looked back at the wolf's bones one last time, the stone at his feet. He concentrated on it, on lifting it with magic instead of in his teeth, to settle it in the armor at his back.

'We didn't really have the chance to do introductions.' "Understandable," he murmured, his mind only really half there. Most of the rest of what Sora said wafted through him, passing by his attention, only in part registering. Words, things he might 'realize' a few moments later, when his mind had come back around to the present. But 'littler Vargas,' after a brief delay, first clicked into place and then jarred him from his thoughts.

His gaze swung around to regard Sora with surprise, pale eyes blinking. -'Littler' Vargas? Does she mean--Orthoclase-Alpha..? Does that mean its mother died?
Damn.

Pride wondered, for a moment, if he ought to seek the creature out and offer his condolences. Or would even care-? Had it had something to do with this, perhaps?

The clinohumite was now settled in place atop his back, at least; and he shook the thought away and focused his gaze ahead. "I don't know most of those you've mentioned, but I'm sorry for their loss. And... it is a shame, but I do not sense their stones," he added, grim sadness toching his tone. He looked around, the blinding light flashing off his pale antlers as he squinted against it.

Warrior lived here..? He chose to live here? Why? he wondered, puzzled--though, hadn't the horse said he lived up in the ravines, where it was safer? More pleasant, too, perhaps.

"Lead on, then--this way, was it?" he asked. The loop--it went back this way? Caves, but it was hard to see past this flashing light across the water and the sand. It burned his eyes, his fur... he didn't like it here. He was half-torn between his suffering in the heat, and trying to mourn those whose stones they were retrieving--and he wasn't all that sure he liked how insistent his body was on taking the priority. It felt... sacriligious, somehow; but perhaps nature simply insisted on survival, even when those around had fallen.

He would mourn them properly, later--and forever; he would never forget them. And as for Sora--"I hope these stones can bring you and your friends some form of closure... for what that's worth." It was quietly-said. There'd be no bringing them back--and they still hadn't found a few... but it was all, for now, that they could do.

@Sora

Sora watched Pride, but could not read his mind. If she'd been able to, she'd have warned him that Alpha got violent when Elyon was mentioned. Her eyes shifted, downcast now -- it did not surprise her that their stones were gone. Between the sands of the marsh and the various carrion feeders of Hydra...

She sniffed and started down the new path. But after a few moments, he was offering her condolences. She wondered idly if he was just being polite, and then if the distinction mattered. "Thanks," she grunted, pausing and glancing back at him. "... Same to you." She didn't add that he was lucky. She didn't think she needed to -- he'd have figured it out by now, she was sure. He was smart enough. Half of her departed family was gone, forever.

"Let's go," she grunted, heading towards the exit. "If you'd like, you can come with me to Pisces. You look like you're overheated."


/exit sora, unless there's a reason she can't i suppose
@pride

He did not think of himself as lucky. He wasn't thinking of himself at all, at that instant--only Nassir, Fireheart. "I'll certainly accompany you," he responded. He might have thought it odd, later, that Sora didn't thank him for coming with her--he'd assume her brief thanks now was in regards to his remarks--but perhaps she was only overwhelmed by other thoughts. He certainly was. And anyway, he'd had his own reasons for coming. "Then I will take Nassir, Fireheart--what remains--and that dog's stone, back to Orion."

Softly-said.

And there was little more to say.

exit Pride