(~3 Cycles after Epidemic: The Water)

Result this thread: Purified 1 Pond

He returned sometime later without Prata, his concern for the pools of Pisces still heavy on his heart. Tenzin's lagoon had not been tainted, or if it had been attempted at, it was too cold to keep; but the pools were thick with disease of some kind, and Rohan did not know the cause or the source. There were few, here and there, that had survived—to him, this meant perhaps they could be cured. That whatever had sickened them was by design, but he could only assume. Still, rotting fish bobbed on the surface. There were even several ponds that had soggy rats laying at their edges.

The pale wolf frowned as he reached the first pond, staring into its murky and clouded waters. What had done this? Would could do this? Why would something do this?

"Ah, Great Pisces..." he breathed, wary to touch the water at all, "Purify."

The water rippled, shimmered, but the disease was strong. Perhaps it had been here too long. Worms or... something of the like squirmed beneath the surface, exciting themselves within the muck. His ears flattened.

Rohan could do nothing for a moment, questioning whether or not his intentions were just.

Closing his eyes, the wolf called upon himself and his natural element. This was the right thing to do, was it not? This was not the true form of Pisces. It must be corrected, put back to its natural order...

His heart steadied.

Yes, this was the right thing to do.

The chill the air graced him and he knew: this was the right thing to do.

He opened his eyes again, the opal glowing in one socket, and his natural eye staring down into the muck. "Purify," he repeated, pleading. He would not leave until every last pond was cleansed. He had vowed this to himself.

Again, the water shimmered, and this time the murky surface broke away to clear water with surprising flourish. The dead bodies that contaminated it were expelled, their stones sinking to the bottom; and the water was clean again. Rohan breathed a sigh of relief, his opal glittering with success.

"Pisces," he greeted the water. "I will redeem you."

Valiantly, he glanced toward the next diseased pond, ignoring the number of them; it did not matter how many infected there were. He would purify them. He would save this sacred place.

Ah, but what a great deal of energy it would take. He already could feel the wane of magic from his stone, the pull of it from his body. At this rate, he would be a tattered mess. Rohan wobbled and sat humbly at the pond's edge, shifting all the way down to his belly until he was staring down into the clear water with one bright eye. It was, perhaps, cleaner than it ever had been.

He was not fearful of it now. Though he was not a child of Pisces, he was here to help and to aid it; and the magic had indeed worked as it had been blessed upon him. So he drank from the cleansed pond without hesitation and was refreshed, the water crisp and cool—ah, yes. There were no fish in it now. Perhaps they would return later; their stones rested somewhere at the bottom anyway, and would find magic again.

Rohan drew back his head and closed his eyes, shutting his vision and his stone away, and took a deep inhale. The stench of the other rotting ponds was lingering in the room still, but the freshness of this one was promising. He would need to rest after each purification if he wanted to try and do this without harming himself greatly, it seemed. So the wolf meditated, letting the roar of the waterfall lull him into a passive and empty state.

Aid me, Pisces, his mind echoed into the void. I may not be able to do this alone.

Rohan was a being free of time in his moments of meditation. Slowly, the world went quiet as the waterfall turned to white noise and then silence. His weight lifted into nothingness and he was floating, free, empty; there was an expanse before him, but he did not know it. Breathing. Silence. Peace...

He could hear, perhaps, the breathing of another. Deeper. Farther away—or was it close? Cold. Ancient. Its eyes of ice hold him, regard him, the image behind facets of glaciate. It vanishes into the emptiness.

The air is hot. Eyes of fire smolder before him, eyes that are, at times, his own. This is a being that is a part of him. They are together, but it is alone. Rohan notes this in its eyes now, the fires dancing and sparking into the vastness; they might always be together, but there is a part of his brother that will always be alone, and Rohan shifts at the water's edge. He might never understand.

Light dancing of soft paws. He is greeted by the sparkling sapphire-eye of his son, and in the void, can see his own opal-eye opposite, as if they are in play. Rohan had come to treasure strange things while locked in Fornax, such as Leon's chrysalis piece; but this was different. This sapphire is something he is proud for and will live for. It turns, the feline's green eye catching his conscious for a moment before climbing into the emptiness and leaving him to the silence.

Tenzin had seen the calamity that had been wrought upon his ponds. It was not his place to interfere with the children, but if this one chose to act on its own and correct that which had been wrong against him, then he would steer the child in the direction. But Tenzin knew this child, and knew that he was not a seeker of violence. Still, there was a start to all things, and he could appreciate the effort the Gembound was putting in at all.

An icy chill grips Rohan, the eyes hidden behind faceted glaciate return; and then he is plunged into the diseased pond, looking up from underneath the water's surface at two white-green glowing eyes. They are haunting and vivid, wavering with the murk and rippling pond scum—and then they are gone.

He returned from his deep meditation. There was another that meditates here and watches all, and Rohan was unsure at first if, perhaps, he had been shown something by the other. The eyes he had seen last were unknown to him, but his suspicions may be correct then: that this was indeed unnatural.

"I do not know," he whispered, opening his eyes slowly. His gem glowed weakly, energy still low. "I will seek for you." The wolf glanced briefly toward the lagoon but his priority was still to purify as many as the ponds as he could at this time.

He rose gently, pushing away from the cleansed water to stretch. It was unclear how much time had passed for him then, as it usually was, but now he was ready to try again. He would pick another pool to purify at random now, but was indecisive at first, taking a step in one direction and then another. Rohan twisted an ear, annoyed with himself that he was stuck on such a silly thing.

facepalm me trying to make any decision tbh, there was an attempt but it never works

Perhaps... he was overthinking it.

The silver wolf sat and looked downward, trying to consider what Prata might say in this situation. Rather, what he might not say, and instead might do. Simply just go in one direction or the other, would he not? Why was it a difficult thing for Rohan? The glowing eyes he had seen flashed in his mind and he shook his head. Ah, distracted. Even a more silly excuse than just being indecisive.

He shook his head again, this time for being disappointed with himself. No, he could not be distracted at a time like this. He needed to focus so that he could purify as many of the ponds as he could during this visit. He glanced up and to the left. Prata's sapphire. Left.

With confidence, Rohan moved toward the next pond, slowly summoning his magic within himself. The lightning opal which sat in his right eye socket gently began to glow, mustering the magicka that remained. When he reached it, this one too was speckled with the masked but silvery scales of dead fish. His ears laid back at the thought that another Gembound might have actually done this on purpose, but that had been his suspicions all along.

But lo, he was not a creature to harbor illness for others.

His paw splashed with purpose into the shallows of the pond, muscles in his shoulders twitching uncomfortably at the grime. "Purify," he pleaded. "Be free of this disease, Pisces."

The muck squelched between his toes and the glowing eyes from before glared back at him from the water's scummy surface.

His paw curled back, but he could feel worms digging in between the softness of his toes.

Why? What force of nature compelled a being to do this?