Huckleberry was, of course, completely oblivious to Eve's attempts at getting him to divulge information. He had never talked so openly about his family before. Of course, the only people he ever talked to were his family so it wasn't exactly a hot topic of conversation. He was calming now, however, suddenly and without prompting, but he wasn't complaining. He let himself slide to the ground, his talon-ended legs out in front of him.

'We live in a tunnel out of here. There's grass and moss and we were all hatched there! Well, me and Baneberry and Elderberry at least. It's a very important place to Mama. She always talks about it being 'our place and no one else's'. She said that she died there and came back to life! We sometimes travel, but only when Mama or Papa want us to go somewhere. We're allowed to go wherever we want, but she says we almost must return home. Because we're a good family, right? A good family!" Her ears raised with happiness, her eyes bright, so happy to finally be able to boast about her family.

"A cow? What is a cow? I don't know all the names, we haven't been very far! Only here. Polaris!" She didn't need confirmation from the bird that this cave was, in fact, Polaris. She believed Mama with every ounce of her being.

@Eve

Either Tunnel O or Tunnel N, it seemed. Eve briefly preened the feathers on her chest, thinking. There was no mention of a mist or a general humidity, so Eve would take a better gander at Tunnel N. It was still bad-- N was the tunnel connecting Polaris to Orion, Canis and Monoceros. It meant that the Bloodberries' victims were likely travellers moving from Polaris to the south-west quadrants.

The crow grumbled quietly for a moment, thoughtfully. Travellers like her own children. She should check in on them more often, just in case, but she was fairly positive that Black wouldn't let anything happen to them.

'Dying and coming back to life,' also worried her. "A revival?" She asked, peering down again. She had no idea, in truth, what it was supposed to mean. "I mean-- how? Did someone take her stone and fill it with magic? Do you know what happened?"

"All families are good families," she then replied. Unless families had a murdering, stone-wearing matriarch. "You have a big family, too. That's good." Bad. That's bad. More of them could be murderers.

"A cow is uh..." she paused, thinking. Gemstone glittering, she summoned fleeting, shifting images of yellow-gold white, concentrating on them for a moment. They morphed and moved, forming the faint outline of a bovine a few inches away from her face. "They look a bit like this. They're huge. Fat. I don't know why my daughter likes him so much."

Another croaking grumble, and Eve dismissed the glittering lights. "There's a lot of other places. Canis, with bones. Orion, with-- glittery things? Lots of shinies. Eridanus is green. Pisces has a lot of water in it, but it's also pretty shitty. Too wet." Said the crow who lived in a swamp.

@Huckleberry

Huckleberry thought about it for a moment. She tried to remember what Mama had told the family about how she came back to life. "No...she said she was killed, really bad, and then she went through hell and came back! Papa was there the whole time and when she died a pretty gem formed around her and he waited and waited and waited and waited and then she came back out, all new and better! Papa always waited for Mama. I don't understand that. Why does he wait for her? Why does he go somewhere else?" She did not, at all, understand the implications of what she had just said and moved on without a second thought.

He peered at the strange light display, realizing that it looked vaguely familiar. "That kind of looks like Papa! But not really, Papa isn't as fat." His words were blunt, but honest. Blueberry did, in fact, look a little bit like a cow, but leaner, strong, and definitely bigger.

Huckleberry wondered what these other caves would look like. Canis with bones? That sounded like fun! But so did glittery things and shinies! Mama had mentioned Orion sometime, they just hadn't been there yet. They were barely hatched, after all! Green and water weren't so interesting, though. His ears perked as he imagined what the caves looked like. "Oooooh, I want to go see them! But Mama doesn't like traveling and the others aren't interested either. Papa doesn't go anywhere without Mama so I guess I'll wait for them." His ears drooped as he realized he wouldn't be going to see the caves that Eve had told him about. Probably never. Tears came to his eyes at the sudden despair that was shaking him. He covered his eyes with his claws, not wanting the bird to see his crying, although it probably made it a lot obvious that he was, now that he had done it.

@Eve

She'd heard about this. "She didn't die," Eve squawked matter-of-factly. "When we get hurt really bad, our magic kind of takes over and we go back into our gems for a while to recover. I've saw it happen a few times. They come out fine, afterwards, like nothing happened."

She supposed it made this situation odd. Eve had retreated back into her chrysalis once or twice, too, but she never thought she had died and she was fairly sure she didn't 'go through hell.' Though, she hadn't been wounded either-- merely, she went into hibernation.

"How old is your mom?" She asked, head tilted. "And-- no, I don't know. Love, maybe. I'd wait for my children if they were stuck in a chrysalis, because I love them, but I don't think that's the same kind of thing that compelled your dad to wait for her."

It was a bizarre thought to Eve, even. She wouldn't wait for Black if he went into his chrysalis again-- but she'd be following her children like he did in his place for a time, making sure they were alright. It would be strange to not have him there, looking out for them.

She might wait for Tal'at, if he did. But perhaps he was already in a chrysalis and Eve just hadn't found it yet. She didn't know. The bird looked over Huckleberry again, thinking.

"Well, you could go on your own?" She suggested. "What's stopping you from going out and seeing everything for yourself? It's a good way to learn the caves, and to meet new people."

@Huckleberry

Huckleberry shook their head. "No, no, no, Mama said she died and went through hell. Mama is always right. She definitely died." Of course, they would always, always! believe Mama over a stranger. Although, Eve didn't really feel like a stranger anymore.

But the word love came back and Huckleberry thought about it for a moment. If Mulberry went into a chrysalis, would Huckleberry wait for her? No, definitely not. They wouldn't be able to stand waiting there. What about Mama? Probably not, they were just too impatient. Did that mean that they didn't love them? Huckleberry shook his head visibly at that. Of course he loved his family! Perhaps it just was an emotion he hadn't yet fully understood.

But at the mention of travelling alone, Huckleberry suddenly leaped to his feet, a sudden onslaught of fury pouring through his veins. How could Eve suggest that he would ever travel alone?! Did she want him to die or something? "No way! Mama said we're not ready, that we'll die out there alone! She trains us all the time but we're not ready! Do you want me to die? Does Eve want Huckleberry to die alone? Because Huckleberry WILL NOT DIE! No no no no no, Huckleberry won't go alone, never!" He glared at Eve, as if she were going to question his decision.

@Eve

Eve slowly shut her eyes, exasperated. "I'm not saying your mom's lying, I'm saying she misunderstood because she never got told what it actually was," she replied bluntly, then opened her eyes and looked down again.

The hybrid was shrieking at her, now, and Eve had neither the time or patience to sit and listen to it. Huckleberry was being a brat, and Eve only knew one way to deal with brats. She began casting, but as her gemstone glittered it sent a short, painful shock up her foot and leg. The crow swore, quietly, eyes snapping to Huckleberry.

She'd have to do it the old-fashioned way. The crow opened her beak and let forth an ear-splitting shriek directly into the hybrid's face. "SHUT UP," she bellowed shortly after, at maximum, migraine-inducing volume. "You're being STUPID."

"You're ALREADY out alone, you're ALREADY away from your mom, and if I wanted you to die, I wouldn't be sitting here TALKING to you," the crow squawked angrily, directly into Huckleberry's face. "If you're gonna sit and yell at someone, at least think about what comes out of your MOUTH before you do!"

With a displeased, albeit much quieter squawk, Eve fluttered further up to a taller rock, staring down and hissing quietly.

@Huckleberry

As soon as Eve squawked back, Huckleberry stared up at her with shock. What had just happened? Had she lost her temper again? And then she noticed Eve's displeased face and she realized that she had done it again.

Despair hit her like a wave and she crumpled to the ground, crying and covering herself with shame. Again, she had done it, AGAIN! Mama had always said that the bad would be punished, so maybe that meant she had to be punished too? She was being bad. Her gem flashed angrily as static shocks began to run all over her body. She stiffened for a moment as her muscles seized up and pain flashed through her before she relaxed and continued her crying, punishment over. "I-I am sorry, Eve!" she moaned. "Yes, yes yes I am sorry so sorry! I am away from Mama because this is a cave of safety, Mama said! I should not, not should not have been so very very mean, I am sorry! I will be quiet."

But he couldn't get himself to be quiet. He just continued to cry from everything. The self-hatred was coming back again as he realized that he could potentially lose his only friend outside of the family. This one chance that he had and he had lost it! Lost it! LOST IT!

@Eve

This was getting increasingly weird.

If this was how the children of a serial-murderer and an apparently peaceful fat cow-thing was going to act, it might be best just to kill them and put them out of their misery, but Eve wasn't entirely sure if that was her call to make.

She wasn't even sure what Huckleberry was doing, now-- hurting itself? She was fairly sure that wasn't supposed to happen. "Stop doing that," she squawked grimly. "That's just gonna make shit worse."

"If your mom thinks Polaris is safe, then she hasn't been around that long," she went on. There had been so much that happened here-- the golems, Raheerah, the raised dead. Anyone calling Polaris safe seemed bizzare to her. "There was a time that this place was full of fire for cycles and cycles, and it only went away when we fought a gigantic fire-breathing dragon on the Spire."

... which was also dangerous. Eve saw it shock Dragon a fair few times while he was trying to climb it. The crow shook her head. "It sounds like your mom is really uneducated about the caves. Why? Didn't anyone teach her?"

@Huckleberry

Fire? A fire-breathing dragon? Wasn't that her friend though? Huckleberry was confused, but she decided to go with it as her crying suddenly cut off. She stared ahead and tried to think about this. Did anyone teach Mama? She seemed so old compared to her. But Mama talked a lot about travelling alone and all of her victories. "Mama learned herself." Her voice was level now, even, but emotionless.

"Mama doesn't say much, but Mama traveled. She says that everywhere is dangerous, but this cave is big and lots of room. Safest place." She looked up at Eve from where she lay, her eyes totally dull. "Mama just is. She is Mama. What do you know about the caves that Mama doesn't?" She moved her eyes until she was looking at the little bird, blank eyes, completely complacent now.

@Eve

Once again, and even by Eve's standards, this was getting weird. The crying suddenly cut off into nothingness and for a fleeting moment, Eve wondered if there was... something else there. Something controlling, perhaps, and taking over this thing's thoughts, emotions, actions, words?

Was it their mother? Looking through their eyes, collecting information like the crow was doing? The bird hesitated and ruffled her feathers. She would have to curb the information she was spewing out in favour for getting information out of this thing.

"The safest place is probably Orion," the crow squawked. "Though maybe not, anymore. The caves change a lot." Nowhere, likely, was safe. Eve knew that Polaris was gaurenteed to be the least safe place out of all of them, however.

"You can't-- learn, by yourself," continued Eve. "There's lots of ancient gems out there, like Astraea and Tenzin, and even ones like me have been around for so long that we've gone into hibernation twice since we first emerged."

It was strange. A part of Eve wondered if Huckleberry's mother was taking actions out of some misguided instinct to protect her children, but surely it must have been known to most that Polaris was exceedingly dangerous. Unless... Nemean?

The crow stared down at Huckleberry, for a moment. It would make sense. Nemean, teaching new gembounds that Polaris was perfectly safe, after endless cycles of fire-breathing dragons, of the dead rising, of clouds covering the ceiling and threatening to shock the gems below. Nemean liked to be a murderous asshole.

Maybe it was all conditioning...? "Did your mom ever meet a tiny flying cat?" She asked.

@Huckleberry