Baroque had been keeping himself busy, working around the clock on various projects that made his stomach grumble until he had to stop. Perhaps it was normal for some bears to go and hybernate during these parts of the cave-- but he tried not to notice the creeping absence of his sisters and parents. He kept himself busy so he didn't worry. It was the only thing that kept him from losing his mind.

The poor once-boy, now full grown adult, spent his darker hours pouring over every inch of Pisces. He occasionally ventured out to explore other areas, but primarily, his paws sought answers. The history of Maji Walezi was a buffet of memories that assaulted the senses day in and day out, but he didn't care. Sometimes he though he should worry about getting lost in the stones and water dreams, but he simply pushed on ahead.

By now he knew everything that had ever happened in Maji Walezi. He knew of Cancer and Fisher, and of the battle that led his father to fight Cancer over his mother, though he didn't dare follow the memory. He knew of Dark's death, in the tunnel just outside of his home, and he knew Bevy's death from every angle. He knew of Kerberos, and his own brother's rage. He knew them like one would know the story of a book, and he memorized details of everything and spoke very little to anyone of the things he had learned.

The rest of his time was spent on a much more important project. He knew Maji Walezi's past, but now it was his turn to leave a mark on Pisces himself. The Warrens had been a place where grass, moss, and lichen had grown over time-- and this was where he spent cycles of time bringing in new life. Where once only rolling stones of moss lay, he now had built up a bed of rich soil. It had taken numerous trips to haul dirt in junky bags he had found, but he finally had what looked like a respectable garden. Already, he had found his mother's favorite flowers, and had planted their seeds-- it was hard work, for someone without magic of water, earth, or plant, but he pressed onwards,.

Already, the first few seeds were beginning to sprout. The bear-lion hybrid stood beside his garden now, watching it with fond eyes, letting the painful memories wash out of his mind with the peaceful quiet of his hardwork.

Pisces would be a lush, beautiful place-- full of life and wonder-- soon enough. Perhaps Maji Walezi had been born of bloodshed where trust had once been, but that didn't mean it had to continue. He would fix things, somehow. Make it right. Maybe it was a silly place to start: planting flowers... But it was what felt right in his heart.

Bevy had always wanted a real garden, just like this, hadn't she?

if i tried,
you'd probably be hard to find

OOC: The song she’s singing, for reference: The Earth, The Air, The Fire, The Water, Return

Despite the slow returning of Gembounds to the Caves, Macawi had never quite become her old, jolly self. Perhaps it had gone with age, or perhaps her time spent in forced isolation had been more of a burden to her than first she realized. Whatever the reason, the little coyote was no longer her young giddy self. Sometimes she could still conjure her old ways, but most of the time, she was quieter, mellower. She allowed others to speak more than she did. She did not hop about on happy paws. And Tangak — her constant Rainbow Spinner companion — was no longer shy and afraid of the world. Now he looked upon other Greater Gembounds with something akin to uncaring.

Still, even with these great changes to Macawi’s personality, she found it in her to sing quite often. Singing brought with it a smidgen of her old ways, and it made her happy. She would kind of sway with the music, her headdress beads and feathers clanking joyfully against her head and themselves. They would throw light-shadows against the Cave walls, being Baubled, and she would move her body in ways that threw her own shadow against the light, and she would laugh at herself.

It had been a long time since she had felt the cool mists of Pisces. She had no idea what had happened to the place in her absence. Many had died while she had been elsewhere. And though she had never been a member, the death of any Gembound was difficult for her. In an odd, naïve kind of way, she felt like everyone’s mother — even those older than her. Because she understood things that others did not understand. She padded through the entrance to Pisces, singing a rather haunting song — a chant really. One that, oddly, seemed to match Baroque’s mood, though she had no way of knowing such things.

“The Earth, the Air, the Fire, the Water,
Return, Return, Return, Return.
The Earth, the Air, the Fire, the Water,
Return, Return, Return, Return.
Ah-ay, ah-ay, ah-ay, ah-ay, ah
Oi, oi, oi, oi.
Ah-ay, ah-ay, ah-ay, ah-ay, ah
Oi, oi, oi, oi…”

It was a different sound, one that echoed through the watery air of Pisces as if a ghost were singing it. Macawi did not stop singing it, seemingly lost in the trance of the sound, but she did quiet it down when she came across the large bear-lion. She gave him a smile, eyes crinkling, but she continued singing all the same. She witnessed the piles of dirt, the seedlings, and sang to them, willing them to grow, though she had no Plant Magic. Even plants could enjoy music, after all.

"Speech"

Words: 458 @Baroque

Baroque was startled out of his quiet habits, big blue eyes turning to land on the strange, clothed creature that was singing all sorts of things. If anything, it only reminded him of how his mother's songs hadn't touched his ears in a long, distant time. Awkwardly, the big bear-lion shifted from slouching on his paws, obsidian scrapping behind him as his tail swished.

"Um, h... hello?" He tried not to interrupt, feeling terribly perturbed by the sudden intrusion. "Can... Can I help you?" He inquired, rising to his feet. His instinct told him to protect his garden, and he had to stuff down the growl that wanted to come up his throat. He was never a violent sort, but he was incredibly defensive.

"Do you need something? Uhm, careful-- I just planted these, and, I'm not sure how they'll handle..." He raised a paw to rub at his opposite elbow, blinking and trying to shift his fringe-ish mane from his bright, cerulean gaze. He didn't recognize her, though he might have known her from his childhood-- distantly. His family knew many folk, and unfortunately, he had been too long trapped in the past to really make sense of faces of the present.

Regardless, it wasn't every day that someone came over and broke him from his routine.

if i tried,
you'd probably be hard to find

@Macawi

It didn’t take long for Macawi to realize that she was making the creature uncomfortable. Unfortunately, that seemed to happen a lot. She’d given up trying to feel indignant about it. She knew she was weird, and that not everyone was as… you know, openly strange… as she was. She stopped her singing and just sat there, smiling faintly at the boy (the grown man, but still a boy to her) for a moment. “Macawi will not hurt This One’s plants, do not worry,” she said, her voice soft. And from atop his perch, Tangakwenu gave a peep of assurance, even though the lion-bear probably wouldn’t understand him.

The coyote looked around for a moment, taking in the waterfall, the mist-covered walls… “Macawi has not been to Pisces in a long time. Not since before the Caves fell into a deep sleep and all the Gembounds seemed to go missing.” She took a deep breath, inhaling the moist air. “It is good to be back.” Curiously, she bent her head down and examined the pile of dirt before her. “This One made a garden? What sort of plants are in it? It must have taken a long time to get all the dirt in here…”

"Speech"

Words: 207 @Baroque

The inactivity that had plagued the caves seemed to be waning off, once again fellow gembounds was beginning to roam the caves and Quintus could not help but feel relief. All this time he had spent time alone, wandering around the caves in hopes of finding out the whereabouts of his family and friends but to no avail obviously. The sight of other gembounds excited him despite the fact that all of them were strangers, wonder if anyone's in Pisc- It was just then that the thought of actually visiting would come to his head, without hesitation he would make his way to the Waterfall Room.

With the pace he was trotting in, it did not take very long to reach his destination and instantly the familiar scent of two individuals would make their way to his nostrils, could it be! The excitement was evident in his facial features and the canine like way his tail lashed, despite how eager he was to advance forwards and find out who these two individuals were, the Songcat would advance forwards catiously.

With age and experience, it seemed that the once hotheaded boy had grown a tidbit wiser or perhaps paranoid. It didn't take too long for his eyes to register the frames of the expected gembounds but he would familiarize with only one, the chubby bodice of his brother managing to bring a genuine smile to the lion's face.

As quickly as the smile had shown up in his face, it would be replaced with a deep frown at the sight of the coyote. The sight of a stranger so near to his kin made him uneasy despite the fact that she did not seem to be hostile and the fact that it so happened that he actually knew her. Without any hesitation, Quintus would make his way in front of his now larger little brother with ocean blue eyes narrowed and teeth bared,

"Back off weirdo."

The vibrant stranger spoke in a gentle voice, referring to herself in a curious third person that made Baroque's ears twitch. His eyes danced across her decorated body, wondering the story the trinkets could tell him, but held back. "Oh, that's... Um, yes, I... I wanted to... Leave my pawprints... Uhm, well, just... J-just flowers, for now..." He watched her with a quiet nervousness, unsure if she was being true. It would take so little to ruin everything he had worked towards so far, and Baroque had never quite gotten over his crybaby shyness.

Abruptly their conversation had been put to a sudden halt, a roar ripping through the air as a blur of dark brown pulled between him and the stranger. The warm fluff and rippling muscle gave off the unforgettable scent of Baroque's big bro, and with bleary blue eyes he blinked up at his adopted brother.

"N-no, Quintus, it's... It's quite already, really," he stammered, reaching up a paw to touch his brother's shoulder. Before he made contact, however, a sharpness lashed out at him through the bond his father had given him as a child. It had been so long since he had felt another's mind brush his, but he knew immediately that this wasn't his father's strong spirit. He could feel panic and terror shred across his heart-- the feeling of death on his doorstep, and in his mind's eye he felt a lightness, miles away. He could hear the light, gentle thoughts of his own mother turned dark and grim.

Tears blurred his vision and he choked, stumbling back and withdrawing within himself. Immediately he tugged at the link, reaching out across the caves, finding his very concious split from his body and come to a hault at Eridanus. The bright green world was vivid red, the stench of blood thick in his senses. Back at home, he simply stared into nothing, tears racing down his cheeks.

Mom? M-mom, are you there? What's wrong? Mom!

He threw the words to her mind as a frantic, scared child. There was nothing he could do but touch her mind, try to give her comfort. Was this where she had been, all this time? Where was his father?

I-it's gonna be okay, mom! I d-don't know what's going on, but it's going to be okay! I'm here, I'm here with you!

if i tried,
you'd probably be hard to find

@//Macawi

Macawi sat and listened politely as the large Gembound talked about wanting to leave his pawprints… Leave his pawprints? Well, he was certainly big enough to — oh. Perhaps he meant it metaphorically? Yes, that made much more sense. Macawi chuckled to herself at her foolishness. “Flowers are a wonderful place to start!” she said encouragingly, and gave a nod. Tangak peeped indignantly on her head, readjusting himself after her nodding. She said, “Hush, little bird,” in a mockingly annoyed, fond kind of way. Then she bent down to examine the dirt pile more closely. “This garden must be fairly new, yes?”

And it was right then that a brown blur tore through the misty air and skidded to a stop very close to the coyote, glaring at her angrily. She straightened up again and blinked at the snarling lion as if it were a fly. He called her a weirdo and insisted that she back up. Macawi, who was not the kind to take shit from others, looked at him calmly. “Macawi is not doing any harm, she promises. Now, if This One would kindly back up himself, then perhaps Coyote and he could have a conversation about manners?” She lifted one eyebrow at him, and Tangak peeped non-stop at him from his perch, feeling very affronted.

The large boy, Baroque, whose name Macawi had not yet learned, came to her defense, and she smiled. “There, you see. Macawi is harmless. Is This One satisfied now?” She peered around the large brown lion to smile appreciatively at her new acquaintance — and furrowed her brows at his off expression. “Are you alright?” she asked… No response… and then tears began to fall from his eyes… He seemed to be staring into nothing. Macawi knew then that Something Was Happening, but she couldn’t tell what. So she sat and continued to gaze concernedly at the boy… He was… Somewhere Else… in his mind. And she knew better than to disturb him.

"Speech"

Words: 330 @Baroque @Quintus

As expected, his little brother would feign as everything was alright and it just made the lion even more agitated than he already was, he's too good for Origin Cave. All this time and Baroque did not seem to have changed a tidbit, he still believed that everyone around him had good intentions and it was precisely what made the hybrid so special in Quintus's eyes. Then again the Songcat was more than aware of how vulnerable a pure soul such as that of his brothers was which was why Quintus saw fit to take responsibility and protect his little brother from outside elements when his own parents could not, he never was as independent as his sisters.

To this day, Quintus remembered the first time he had met his little brother and to this day despite the fact that he had grown to dwarf him, Quintus still saw the same figure that had been struggling to come out the chrysalis. Strangely, the much smaller coyote named Macawi did not seem to fear him and she had even dared to disregard his warning to her whilst the noisy creature sitting on top of her head was just asking for the lion's temper to explode. "You can shove that stupid bird on your head and your manners up your-" The sudden concern over his brother would stop the lion from finishing what he wanted to say, of course he is alright, why wouldn't he be?

Instantly, the Gembound would turn around to face his brother and the first thing he would see was the strange facial expression he was making and those more than familiar tears of his. Such a sight caused the lion's heart to skip a beat and he could not help but stand there and watch for a few seconds, the one word running through his head being no! Quintus would extend a limb forward in an effort to shake his brother back from wherever he was, the current state he was in managing to stop the lion from thinking straight for he feared the worst, I'll not lose you too.

With a guttural snarl, the lion's head would snap back to where the stranger was, his expression even more ferocious than it was just a few moments ago. "What did you do to my brother!?" It was obviously the only reasonable explanation to Quintus's distraught mind and who could blame him, the lion did not know what to make of the coyote's strange mannerisms.

His mother was there. Baroque could feel her, the wind brushing his-- her-- fur, the thick, sickening smell of copper. The panic was thick in the air, a wordless snarl on the air, but his vision was scattered, broken, as suddenly something hit him-- his mother-- muscles reacting, a fight breaking out. The hybrid was crying on the outside, but on the inside, he screamed to his mother,

I'm here, Mother! I've got you! Stay strong, dad--
Dad'll, Dad'll come! Just hold on!

Blood soaked Baroque's paws, drenching his fur, the smell enveloping him. There was pain, too-- a great deal of pain, more than he could handle. A choked whimper came from the boy's mouth, his claws digging into the fresh dirt beneath his paws. If it was the rich soil of Eridanus, he couldn't tell the difference. It felt like something was choking him, breathing coming hard and impossible in his current state, until...

Quintus' claws grasped at his thick fur and shook his large body violently, sharply. The magic snapped in that instance, severing not only his connection to his mother... But he no longer could feel Leon, either. They were both gone, and his blue eyes refocused on the scene, tasting salt and snot on his snout, his vision blurry and stinging. His ears twitched forward, focusing on his brother's words.

The jaunty coyote had done nothing wrong, but how was Quintus to know? The hybrid trembled, staring between the pair of them, trying to find the words. "B-bro... I... I think something..." The vision, the sensation had been so real... And now, he was empty and hollow and there was no comforting embrace of his father to fall into, to ask. He could feel nothing, shock setting into his system.

"Something attacked mom, I... I lost..." He stumbled over the words, fur bristling along his spine. "I can't find mom or dad. They're... They're just, g-gone..."

if i tried,
you'd probably be hard to find

@Macawi

OOC: Jafar is on absence right now, so I'm exiting the thread. <3

Macawi completely ignored the lion’s stupid ranting, focusing on the other Gembound’s face. The coyote wasn’t normal, and therefore had no sense of danger in terms of pissing other people off. This lion could have swung a paw at her and killed her in an instant, and such a thought never even occurred to her. All she cared about was the hybrid behind him, and the look on his face, and the tears streaming from his eyes. She moved closer to him, studying him, afraid for him because he seemed gone from the regular world. The brown lion shook him, trying to get his attention, and then immediately turned back to her, getting in her face, snarling and demanding to know what she had done to his brother.

“Macawi did nothing to no one, you stupid Gembound!” she snapped back. “Pay attention to your…” His eyes opened. “… Brother.”

He began to speak, to the one who had snapped at her, and she felt she wasn’t supposed to be there. Quickly, she backed up out of their way, but did not leave the room. She was still concerned for the boy, and she wouldn’t leave until she could be sure he was physically alright. But she wouldn’t interrupt what seemed to be an important conversation. Even Tangak seemed to feel the gravity of the situation and remained silent atop her head. Macawi stared at the ground from where she sat in the background, waiting.

After a few more moments, however, the coyote felt severely out of place, and she quickly left the room, melting into the mist...

[Exit Macawi]

"Speech"

Words: 243+ @Quintus @Bartos