She knew he no longer sat here - that much was obvious. She could see the thing from the distance, where once it was like a bloody red beacon against the dark walls, gleaming under the artificial lights. Now it was nothing but a gray speck among gray specks, just the shadow of where a temple once stood, among forgotten ruins thought of as nothing but ruins.

She had been avoiding it as if it was something she could deny. Where her master once sat, proud and eternal, in an age that was never supposed to end. Never could end. The rebels had only been a bump in their road. That was what she had convinced herself back then and what she convinced herself now. Perhaps if she tried hard enough, she could get things working again. Catalogue enough gembound and assign them jobs so she could Oversee.

Struggling for purpose. Desperately holding onto the past. What had the great Overseer Tectus come to?

She barely noticed herself climbing the steps to the Throne, but once she stood in front of it, it was like a finality. The affirmation she needed to know that it had all gone to ruin. Never would he have allowed his beautiful blood-red throne to fall into such a state. And he would never allow such...filth to mar its seat.

A large arm came up, claws gripping the skeleton, half-encased in stone. Whoever had dared to vandalize it would be in so much trouble. She wondered if he knew already, if they'd already been destroyed. Perhaps if he didn't, he'd give her the honor of doing it herself.

@Pride

Pride was picking his way around the garden, grazing here and there. It wasn't far from the throne, and it was hard to miss the giant blob of purple with its glowing turquoise making its way closer.

He was wary, alert. Someone's here, he warned Mercurius along their link, along with as clear an image of the distant figure as he could offer. One of the Forge, I think.
They were always... not trouble, exactly, but something to be watched with caution. Maybe they were here about the offer he'd given Vargas: a question of whether the Forge wanted to help reclaim Eridanus from Order. But it didn't look like Vargas himself. Maybe a new child..? Grown, before Pride had met them?

He picked his way over, the diamond armor that sheathed him gleaming, his hooves clicking delicately on stone. "Hello," he called out, his voice soft and fluting. "Are you with the Chaos Forge-?" He presumed, if nothing else, they were here looking for him.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Tectus

Her head swung around at the sound of hooves clicking against stone. Eyes narrowed as she took in the sight of the pristine stag, armored in perfect diamond, looking so proud and confident, and beautiful. UGH. She couldn't stand his type.

And what type is that? She asked herself, wondering if she was already putting this new generation of gembound next to the valkhounds and workers of old. No, no they were different. Completely. Different worlds, different creatures. These didn't answer to threats or shows of intimidation the way the old did - they did not know what they were supposed to fear anymore.

She snorted, releasing the skeleton to face the stag proper. "Chaos Forge?" It rang a bell - hadn't the vampire child mentioned something about it, related to Vargas? "Heh, no. Why, do I look like I am?" It was with the faintest sarcasm, and gave her the faintest hint of amusement. What gave it away, the purple skin or the oilstone? Did the Chaos Forge have the allegiance of every valkhound currently wandering the caves? That would be...unfortunate.

As for this one, she made a split-second decision to prod carefully instead of up-front as was her nature and instinct. She knew too little at the current time. "Is this your Throne? Quite an interesting...decoration you've put on it. If it was you who did this."

@Pride

No..? This was surprising, and Pride took a moment to consider. He shook his head faintly before replying. "You look related to them," he answered simply. "Master Vargas," and there was the faintest drawing-out of the word 'master' here, as if oh-so-slightly distasteful, "has quite a few children who look very like you." Their colors varied, that much was true. But they all bore that thick hide, the hooked claws, the glowing eyes and nostrils and that immense size. The Oilstone was a point in that theory's favor, too.

She'd turned her attention to the Throne, and he glanced up, then back to her as if disinterested. He took a few steps closer, coming almost into normal conversation range rather than standing at a distance. "No. It's a Throne long abandoned, though it has been used... metaphorically more than once." He studied her for a moment. "The 'decoration' is a warning. They are the bones of the last one that tried to threaten we who live in Orion." He paused again, watching her, pondering.

Why is she here? A newly awakened of them, the way Vargas was? Or a creation of some other Master? he wondered. And would she introduce herself..? "My name is Pride," he offered, tipping his head slightly to one side, watching her. Would she offer that politeness in return, or would she be brash and demanding the way Vargas had been, assuming respect while offering none?

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Tectus

Her eyes bulged. "CHILDREN?!" Her jaw snapped shut audibly as she tried to hold back a laugh and then promptly spectacularly failed. All pretense of trying to act clueless dropped immediately. "HAH! An Overseer with children! Things have changed quite more then I thought." He approached her, boldly, casually. As if she wasn't one to be feared and respected as if there was no respect at all. He didn't even have the courtesy to avert his gaze.

These children had no respect. It was...weird.

Tectus, as far as she could remember, wasn't one that demanded the same kind of respect that many other Overseers liked. If her workers were happy and productive, then they could treat her as they pleased. If they slacked or rebelled, that was when the tough guy gloves came out and she ground their skulls into the dust. But now she didn't know what to do - because obviously everyone was slacking now, everyone was rebelling, if things had fallen so far into the dirt. But what was there to enforce, what respect could be earned when her title meant nothing? When everything that had put her on a pedestal and given her rank was now a ruin, an antique, something lost to time?

A moment of indecision, and almost a twinge of doubt, ended with a quick shift from casual, cocky Overseer to something more formal although still authoritative, still intimidating, perhaps the way she would address a higher rank valkhound. She stood up taller, prouder, looming over the stag. "Pride. You will refer to me as Overseer Tectus! It was once my position to Oversee the guard of this cave, and of the work in the caves surrounding. I answer to the Master who sat on this Throne, whose Throne it will remain until its destruction. If you call Orion home, then you answer to him as well - and that means, by proxy, you answer to me."

A heavy breath, not quite a snort, released from her nose as her head turned just a little so she could peer better at Pride, eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Do you object to this?"

@Pride

She must know Vargas, he thought--if she knew him as Overseer. He listened, past this, still wary.

Irritation flickered through him as she finished.

"I will use your title, if you wish, but no... I do not think I will answer to you. I think it would be best," he added mildly, "if you find the Masters and speak with them." His tone was excessively mild, and he raised a hind hoof to scratch behind an ear even as he attempted to call upon a smidge of subtle magic. He felt the barrier slide into place, silent and invisible, and felt a little safer for it. Not much... but a little. He turned his full attention back to Tectus, letting out a soft sigh. "I take it you are... new. Freshly awoken."

He studied her for a beat.

"If you will agree to not attempt to be a forceful brute, I would be glad to explain how things have changed. If not..." Pride offered the faintest, graceful roll of shoulders.

If not, he had little more to say. Though perhaps she'd try to prove her claim. As much as he didn't want to be on the receiving end of those claws, he hadn't stood up to the likes of Astraea and Vargas to kowtow to a new 'Overseer' now.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Tectus

Tectus was silent for a moment as she glared at Pride. Oh, she wanted to attack him so bad, he spoke like a rebel. Refusing allegiance with her, refusing the fealty he was obligated to swear. But she had to admit that he was right in one regard - she was freshly awakened. Things were different and it was utterly terrifying. An Overseer, lost of her position, used to full confidence and unwavering respect, now with nothing but a hazy memory and a bunch of gembound that didn't know her name.

For a moment, her muscles were tense and it truly looked like she was going to lash out at Pride. Silence stretched until suddenly, one of her back legs kicked out, shattering whatever parts of the skeleton were exposed against the crystal. "That doesn't belong on the Throne," she stated, calmly, as if nothing had happened.

She raised her head back up, rolling her own shoulder back. "Fine, then. Tell me what you know. I've only just reawoken but you seem to be more informed then the last one. How long has it been? What happened here? Why are you calling Overseer Vargas "Master"? And why refused fealty?" A frown crossed her features, as best a frown could show on her monstrous face. "Because from what I remember, gembound feared death if they spoke to an Overseer that way." It was not a threat - a statement. Confused. She knew nothing else that could be between an Overseer and a worker. And that, apparently, didn't exist anymore.

@Pride

Rage rose in him, black and cold, and the urge to simply lash out with his magic in an attempt to utterly obliterate her for what she'd just done was immensely strong.

He struggled against it, showing nothing of it on his face, though internally it was that dreadful battle for self-control.

"No," he said at last, just as mild, though there was hatred in it now. "I think you've just proven yourself the brute. That does belong there. You could repair it," he added, "but until then, I think we're done here." That was all he said at first, staring at her.

He didn't want to fight, exactly. He also didn't want her attacking the rest of the crystal-settled bones. He would have liked--genuinely liked--to answer her questions and perhaps ease her confusion; even moreso to bring peace rather than conflict, which seemed inevitable otherwise. Yet her violence irked something primal in him.

"Do not damage it again," he added mildly, "unless you want yours added to it."

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Tectus

She seemed to have stoked something in that gembound with such a little act. Were they so easily shaken? What being had fit to put them into the world so weak and stubborn? She snorted, one ear twitching with the mild annoyance that a single show of superiority had completely closed off their conversation. "Brute? You have not seen brutes. You are lucky it was me that woke up and came here, and not one of the others. I will be repairing nothing. The Throne is not yours." She once again lifted her nose and regarded Pride with three of her eyes. "However much things have changed, I am duty-bound to protect my Master and his assets. And skeletons of the unworthy are not and have never been welcome on his Throne."

And with that she shifted back towards the throne and slid down, turning her haunches out, almost dog-like in the way that she sat in front of the Throne. She even casually set another forelimb over the other. "Then if we are done, I shall wait for my Master to return and ask him." Her eyes were still trained on Pride, fully expecting him to lash out, if he had that sort of a temper. She almost hoped he would - it would give her a chance to flex her muscles again.

@Pride

He almost laughed, at that first. Haven't met a brute. She didn't know the half of it, but it almost--almost--lightened the mood.

But Pride was, well, a prideful sort. His immediate surge of anger at all of this pushed him toward simply lashing out, and that was an impulse he had to restrain. It was a messy, confused sort of fury; that of old injustice and hatred of tyrants fusing in utterly ironic chaos with personal ego. There was some lingering melancholic part of him that knew his son was dead. That he himself was now chosen as a guardian against precisely these forces, and that he'd never see his son again, in any form of afterlife. Or Nassir, or any of those who'd already passed. That part of him had to pause, to struggle to focus and remember what it was he was meant to stand for. To extricate that--that noble protector he wished to be--with a tyrant-in-the-making.

Pale eyes shifted to the throne itself.

The fury that had set ringing through his ears was fading, but the cold anger had not. He could think past it now, though, and he wondered: what would that deer, the one he wished to be, do right now? Tectus was... being reasonable enough, if she was freshly awoken. She hadn't attacked him, and no doubt she could have, easily.

But the Throne.

The Throne.

His tone changed, by the time he spoke again. That faint melancholy leaked through. He sounded thoughtful, speaking to himself, and not to Tectus at all. "It's certainly a symbol, isn't it..? One of tyranny, one of abuse. One of an old era. Before our time." Is it threatening to return? He considered this. Considered the massive meeting not far from here, Astraea's coldly furious words ringing through the Forum.

His gaze shifted up to Reseda's bones.

She'd served as a symbol for long enough; but that Throne still stood, and it was a greater symbol still. Tyranny upon tyranny.

"I think it's stood for long enough," he mused, brow knitting. He gathered up his magic, that silent unseen swell of power that rose from all around him, burning through his diamond. He turned, walking away, and for a moment it seemed that that might have been that. When he was some distance off he turned back.

His gaze flicked to Tectus. He'd almost forgotten her there, so lost was his mind on the Throne and its symbolism. Ahh. He didn't want to harm her, all else aside. And he gauged that he was far enough, now, that she couldn't reach him if she judged his intent. "Step aside from the Throne, please," he said, and gave her just a moment before unleashing the white-hot magic gathering at his gemstone.

He would melt the Throne.

He would destroy it; turn it to burning plasma and nothing more. No more symbol of a fallen king, there to be picked up, propped up, by a returning monarch. He was careful not to spread that fire farther, to lash it toward Tectus, or toward Livius's long-dormant chrysalis.

He cared not for the bones atop it, though. No doubt they would fall into the fire, and burn.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

@Tectus