Ever since the incident --- Mercurius casually having a mental break in front of his newly-emerged sons as a result of a vivid world he had meant only beauty in --- the storyteller had been quite a bit more receptive to the idea of "opening up" to Pride, lest things bottle up and the cork explode into a piece of integral framework yet again. Having outlets for visuals meant that Mercy needed to find outlets for what was simmering in the darker parts of his mind. As it turned out, repressing things wasn't the healthiest choice of coping strategies. While their fawn-cubs rested, Mercurius and Pride would stay just within earshot and talk. Sometimes, the former would tell a story or offer forth some detached recounting of his time beneath Hasira; other times, the latter would teach about some discovery he had made in his personal studies or in the Caves themselves. Arthritis made for quite a bit of enthusiasm about that.

That was besides the point, though, since the lion had eagerly awaited pseudo-night's fall. Eridanus's plants, curiously enough, seemed most receptive to growth during the night. They did not shed as much water, and instead focused on using their gathered light and resources to prosper. Perfect grounds for a magical lesson with Arsu. The child had a peculiar affinity for the growth of his own world, but seemed content with bits of whimsy and delightful reveries. Most of the lessons tended to devolve into story-telling sessions in which Mercurius tried to improvise morals and the core of his lesson in poetic words. After the first few, he had learned to prepare ahead of time.

When Azizos and Pride seemed to be gone (dismissed with a warm smile,) the pale beast nudged at Arsu's side with a cold, wet nose. "Come, falling star," he murmured, now reaching out with a paw, "the plants are waiting, and I doubt they'd want to miss out on a story."

@Arsu

The young one watched his other-father and his brother depart, himself half-asleep. It was lesson time, then. Another might have been jealous of Pride and Azizos' bond, or even curious, but Arsu was content. They were all family, and in truth, energy magic held no interest for him. He was happy to linger in the shadowed magic, listening to the quiet whisper of the leaves and Mercurius' stories. The lion's rumbling voice was almost lulling, and he often found his mind drifting off into fantastic worlds with his words. He held many vivid memories, now, of glades dark in the dim blue of night, of dew glistening crystalline at the tips of leaves, of the mysterious magic inherent in it all. This was what captured his imagination, and it was what kept him happily, even eagerly, learning from Mercurius--and not at all wishing to be anywhere else.

He stood, absently shaking a few leaves free of his shining white coat.

"Okay," he answered, softly. He was mild, gentle, but there was excitement in him. Others might have missed it, but it was there--clear to Mercurius, no doubt--a glint in his eye, enthusiastic energy in his step.

He wanted to ask which story would be told tonight, but he knew his father would begin when it was time. Instead, his mind wandering over all the possibilities (Will it be another place with strange colors I've never seen? Will it have ice and snow, or walls of fire, or trees as tall as the caves? Will it be a world in miniature? Will it be about creatures whose skin is scaled and spotted gold, or maybe great white rabbits like Mischief?) His mind was already scattered, his gaze distant but eyes wide with possibility, as he followed Mercurius to their lesson.

@Mercurius

For all of the little one's bleariness, Mercurius could easily spot that enthusiasm from a mile away. His sons were both subtle in their emoting, but had a variety of minute signals that betrayed their inner thinking; Arsu's somewhat bouncy gait gave everything away. As expected, he was excited about the offering of a story. Mercy, as always, was happy to oblige and fully prepared.

Carefully stretching out his hind legs --- 'ah, I've been waiting for that ankle to pop' --- and then his front, the storyteller murmured softly, "my story's going to be about light itself." A slight teaser, to get the already dazed Arsu's mind to perhaps focus in on one subject. Unwilling to give further details, Mercurius pushed out of the grotto and onto a worn path through the Maw of Mosses. Glancing back to see if his son, stark white (like himself) against the green, was still following, he prowled toward the heart of Eridanus: the Monarch herself.

Some cycles ago, there had been children of this sweeping giant, those who called her the All-Mother. Mercurius couldn't particularly remember if he had been familiar with any of the disciples, or if he knew the origin of all life they had believed in. Working strictly with the mushroom's name, he would have to improvise. Sparing one last check back toward Arsu, seeing if he was still present, the pale beast approached the Monarch's base. Once he was beneath its cap, he rocked back onto his haunches, rumbling, "this is the Monarch; some time ago --- long before your other father, even --- there were a group of Gembound who called her the All-Mother. I wasn't too close to them, or in cahoots, but I knew they believed her to be the source of everything in these Caves. Greatest of those things were light, and the gift of it."

A single nod beckoned his son to take a seat.

@Arsu

Arsu followed his father along the worn path, and as they walked, he listened. But his gaze was elsewhere, and one might be forgiven for thinking he wasn't paying attention: silver-blue eyes regarded the world around him, wide, as his head turned from side to side. One might think, too, that it was the young lion-stag's first excursion out, given his apparent sense of wonder.

He had yet to gain the stately grace of either of his parents--either the regal precision of Pride's steps, nor the silky, subtle power of Mercurius' gentle movements. But his step was soft, in that he walked without a sound, each hoof carefully placed. It was almost as if he were afraid to harm the dirt, or the ferns. His gaze took in the dew where it glistened on the foliage. It followed the mist where it drifted low in a hollow that they passed. He paused (and had to hurry after Mercurius to catch up) to watch a bat that hung in a distant tree canopy, chewing on a fruit.

But Arsu was listening. He held the same sense of wonder toward all of his father's tales as he did to the world around him, and as they came to the Monarch's base, he paused as if in total awe, and spoke.

"The All-Mother? --It's a mother, then?" he asked, and even his voice was a soft middle-ground between child and adult, between male and female--vague, quavering. "Where did those Gembound go?" he added, curiously.

He came up alongside Mercurius, glancing to him. Though his own frame was almost as large as the lion's, now, his bulk was nowhere near, and his body was not formed for sitting back on his haunches as the feline's was. Instead he curled down, after a moment of taking in the sights around him, and lay in the grass like a deer.

Some might be insulted to have their stories interrupted--indeed, Arsu had every chance of unintentionally upsetting a storyteller later in life--but Mercurius had always been easy-going. He seemed to welcome questions, and his gentle, accepting nature encouraged involvement in the tales.

Then, his single, gentle request--one Mercurius was undoubtedly intending to grant, regardless: "Tell me of the light?"

@Mercurius

Mercurius couldn't help but smile at the lion-stag's childish wonder, taking in the glimmering sight of the Monarch. It was a respectable reaction, given it was possibly Arsu's first time seeing the goliath; he hadn't purposely shown the Evening Star before this, although Pride could have. Mercy nodded gently, peering up into the frilly gills of the mushroom, "like her smaller cousins, the mushrooms, and their spores, she gave birth to life as we know it — according to her disciples, it seems." As to their whereabouts, he couldn't be too certain. 'They could be long-gone, like many others,' he pondered, 'weren't they rather close to the Eyes? Or did they worship them in some manner?' His smile faded for the barest of seconds, an image of a leopard and doe cloaked in night. "Perhaps they are asleep, somewhere, in their chrysalides," Mercurius added softly, gaze trailing his son's descent to the ground.

Ah, story-time. Arsu was always quick to request — gently — that the story begin. Moonlit eyes blinked slowly, a careful gesture of acknowledgement. He dipped his head, spiralling horns briefly cascading through the air and against the edge of the Monarch's cap. "In the beginning, it seemed, there was no light, no darkness; everything was and wasn't," — a generic creation story, his tale would seem — "yet, came this very Monarch, this All-Mother. From her core — bright like a star, yet ever-dimming, too — came the lives of many. Ferns poured from her gills, spilling out into the world she had unwittingly created. Then came the mosses and the grasses. Trees sprouted from her base and scattered outward. Creatures, large and small, and fantastic beyond imagining burrowed out from her heart, escaping into the world."

"Yet, the world was dim, dark. The only light there was came from the source itself; and the creatures came to her heels and knelt. Heads bowed low, they asked only one more thing — she had provided them many boons key to their survival: plenty of food, drink, warmth, shelter — one more thing to carry them further into the world. They did not ask for rushing rivers or sweeping winds. No, they requested that she come with them, in the form of many. Quickly as they requested, offering their eternal service and protection, the All-Mother's heart burst open, scattering many orbs of light from within." Mercurius paused with a flourish, tossing his head to one of the many lights scattered about Eridanus, embedded into the walls and ceilings. "Many of the creatures took these lights and spread them around the world, while some remained behind, guarding their now-dimming Mother from any threat that may come. Some ran to the far reaches of the caves, shattering the orbs and consuming the light. This light clung to their stones, giving them their own glowing, star-like hearts. These are those who embodied the primal element of light."

"As time rises and falls, and the Mother ages, magic has mixed and split into many different sects; the creatures — now like us — could never truly master one element, but hold influence over many. I believe that we are capable of bending magic to any whim we desire. At its heart, though, we embody light — and the shadows that come with it. Anything that lives or once did, holds light within their heart." Now, for the lesson he had meant to teach; Mercurius reached out to his magicka, hoping to muster up some glowing element for himself. Regardless of if he was successful or not, he continued, "some of us are closer to our hearts and roots than others, capable of drawing this light out into the world." He smiled, standing and approaching Arsu, "light is good for chasing away shadows and darkness, for guiding you where you cannot see."

With a cold, wet nose (yet again) Mercurius nudged his son, beckoning for him to try to conjure up some of his own light.

@Arsu

Arsu's head swivelled, and he watched the Monarch, rapt, as his father spoke.

Some of the story entranced him--and it showed; his gaze lingered unblinking on the vast being, his ears swept forward as he watched it. Yet at times, the spell seemed broken, and he looked to Mercurius with a faintly furrowed brow--seeming more troubled, by something (if only faintly) than inspired.

When his father nudged him, rather than attempt his magic right away, he spoke. His voice was not the soft, rapt one that he usually held, but betrayed instead a thread of worry.

"That one--is that one true? It isn't true, is it?" He never could tell, from either of his fathers' stories, how much truth they held. But he had the impression that some were more true than others, and something about this one bothered him. He didn't like the idea that the creator of all was stood here, silent to its creations, and lightless. He did not like, either, the idea that her creations had abandoned her--nor that the lights themselves might be aware, somehow. It seemed to make the world more uncertain, and less beautiful than it had been a few short minutes ago.

He liked the idea of such sacrifice--it made for a good story. But the rest... He didn't want the world to be that way. Something about it struck him as wrong.

But Arsu was dutiful, at least, and bowed his head after a moment to concentrate, despite his troubled heart.

A shimmer flared around him, at first only a faint white sheen--not golden, like the orb-lights, but a colorless, cold white. It was beautiful, in its own way: ethereal and pale. Pure.

He looked over his own flank and back, surprised, and then back at Mercurius. "...We are part mushroom?" he asked, in a half-worried, half-awed, small voice.

@Mercurius

The tale seemed to captivate Arsu for a moment, amusement blooming in Mercy's chest as he spoke. While his voice didn't falter, he noticed the few times where his son seemed to be troubled by the story, particularly towards the end. Where he had expected enthusiasm, the lion-stag offered only a worried statement, brow furrowed. Mercurius laughed softly, rocking back onto his rear with a wave of his tail, "I don't know if this story is true, Arsu. The Monarch is most certainly older than I am—it was just like this when I came to this cave for the first time, if you could believe it." The sweeping giant had been here for as long as he could remember, standing at the heart of Eridanus. "I don't truly know the origins of anything, not even of fate."

Had he told Arsu about the Ancients? "There are those in the caves far older than I am, who might know what is true and what isn't. I don't know their names but there is a great bird of ice at the bottom of the waterfalls and an enormous serpent at the swamp's heart. There is a stag like your other father, brown with a red stone in his forehead, that wanders where he pleases." Mercurius furrowed his brow, attempting to think of any other elder Gembound he may know of. A beat. 'No, I'm not going to tell him about the Shadows. They will not help him,' he decided, exclusively to himself.

"We might be, but that is not wholly bad. Part of us may be water, and another may be fire—our souls or will, perhaps—and yet another be part thunder and lightning," Mercurius began again, hoping to reassure the young one, "but uncertainty is what makes the world so beautiful, Arsu; because, in the midst of all of the chaos, the things that make sense are so pure and satisfying."

With his son still lit up, bathed in pure white light, the storyteller placed a gentle lick on his cheek. "Very good!" Like glistening snow—'when will that return to Eridanus?'—Arsu shimmered and glowed. "This is just one way to give light to the world," Mercy rumbled, settling down flank-to-flank with the lion-stag, "I am by no means a master of light and all that it can do, but you can create companions to guide your sight, or you can give your imagination a fleeting body to run in. The lights around the garden are all simple pebbles that I have baubled, enchanting light into their very being."

@Arsu

Arsu listened, uncertainly. He took in every word that his father said, considering it carefully, turning it over in his mind before even trying to make a judgement on it. That was the problem with being so young: he had so little context. It took him awhile, even, to figure out why he felt... upset, by the story.

At last he spoke, looking away again, out into the wet, cool jungle.

"...There's something about... our 'creator' being--here, visible. Mortal. That would bother me, I think. Ahh... I figured we came from some... mystical, powerful place. Maybe it's that... I don't know where we go when we die. No one does, no one I've asked? And I don't think I'd like it if we just became a mushroom," he added, brow furrowed as he stared up at it.

His light, gradually, faded, and he kept on speaking. "I'd like it better if we came from the light, or the wind, or mist. From darkness or from some kind of other world we can't even see. Not something... plain and visible that can't help us, after." His words didn't quite express what he wanted, and his ears flattened back in sad frustration, head lowering. He wasn't the most articulate of Gembound--he'd always been raptly quiet, listening, instead of speaking. While that still had time to change, at the moment, it was not doing him any favors.

After a beat he realized he'd let his light dim, and he focused on bringing it back, brow still furrowed. His heart was not at all in it, yet the light answered nonetheless, a faint and steady pure, cold white.

He looked up to Mercurius, at least a little reassured by this--by the fact that the magicka, at least, seemed a solid companion.

"So-... does everyone have light?" he asked Mercurius, curiously.

@Mercurius

The storyteller was patient, providing reassuring silence as he waited for Arsu to digest the information, to come up with his own conclusions and how to voice them. Mercurius mourned, quietly, that he couldn't have taken the children out more, to see the caves and many of its denizens. Their other father had led them out a few times, but the excursions seemed to be always short. It was a safety thing, he was sure; and, Pride had a group to tend to, despite how odd his friendship and ties to them seemed. Absently, the lion stretched, hips sore.

When the Evening Star finally spoke, Mercurius offered only a listening ear. The young one fretted about mortality, about the creator being present rather than an unseen force like magicka or an omnipotent entity beyond the caves. He seemed particularly stuck on mushrooms. Mercy shuffled a little closer, lowering his head so that it rested just above his son's; then, as a good father would, he offered reassuring licks between the lion-stag's glimmering diamond horn and silvery tines. Arsu was clearly upset, frustrated, and it pained the father to see this; he should have considered this story, more. The young one was always quite empathetic, far more so than Mercurius believed himself to be, at times. "It's alright," he rumbled, purring slightly, "I understand."

"Immortality's a lonely thing, I believe," he mused, tail shifting so that it wrapped around Arsu's, "invisibility is even lonelier — imagine that you were never seen, never known." Moonlit eyes paused for a moment, spiraling horns tilting through the air as he peered up into the Monarch's cap, again. "Her heart was a powerful place, full of stars and light and beauty. Maybe, just maybe, she offered it to the creatures so that she would always be with them, so that she could live and breathe alongside them." As to what was after death… "I don't think we become mushrooms, little one. We could become magicka itself — you came from your other father's stone and my magic, after all — and repeat the cycle of life. Magicka never truly disappears, and neither do we." Mercurius had seen death, had seen terror and destruction; but he wouldn't have it that life ended with just that. Some Gembound would have escaped purgatory, by now, to warn the others about waited.

His head bobbed, a gentle nod and nuzzle, "indeed, everyone carries light in their heart. Everyone has a fire within their eyes, within their soul. Water runs through our blood and earth gives us flesh and form. Some of us just seem predisposed to any of these elements, or some beyond those — your other father is an expert of energy itself; you've seen him carry things about or throw them. He holds white fire in his heart, too." Mercy chuckled softly, 'and I am but a simple farmer,' knowing the sentiment wasn't exactly true. "I seem to be attuned to the plants themselves, I understand them and I nurture them."

Perhaps it wasn't by choice, initially, but he had learned to see the good in his affinity. Protect the earth, and it would offer security — emotional and physical.

@Arsu

Arsu kept watching the Monarch uncertainly--and most of Mercurius' words simply seemed to make him more troubled, his expression growing more and more clouded and dark. At last he looked to his father.

"When you said you don't know if it's true--that you do not truly know the origins of things--where did you hear this tale?" There seemed to be a kind of urgency behind the words, as if he very much wanted to hear a particular answer, though the young hybrid didn't say which answer he sought.

Even the words of others having light, and fire, and water--something about this seemed, too, to trouble Arsu. He shook himself, once, as if trying to shake away a disturbing, errant thought.

It was only at the mention of nurturing plants that he seemed to calm, somewhat, only a little of the tenseness leaving his frame. He leaned his head down, nudging the dirt.

"I like that better," he murmured, pale eyes lingering on the soil. A few stray seeds began to sprout, coaxed upward by the young hybrid's natural magic--breaking through the surface, extending upward, reaching for the dim light overhead.

Arsu closed his eyes and pressed his nose very lightly against the nearest green stem, as if to comfort or reassure himself.

@Mercurius