The dark was peaceful. Forgiving. Aster often found that, all too often, the lights were too hard on her eyes and it made it difficult to see where she was. Of course, it was difficult to see in the dark, too, but at least she could open her eyes without being blinded by an abrasive orb flashing around in her face.

Often, she'd try to sleep when it was light. She'd hobble her way to where the ferns in Eridanus were at their thickest and lounge in the dimmed light underneath them, her jaw nestled comfortably in the thick moss bedding of the cave floor and her curly fur being warmed by stray flecks of light that leaked in through the foliage above. It wasn't ideal, but it was better.

It was usually quiet-- just how Aster preferred it. She never truly learned her words properly; she never truly learned to interact with more than Pride, who'd often helped her hunt. She didn't so much need the help hunting-- hell, it'd been many cycles since her leg had twisted and unbroken. It didn't hurt as much as it used to in that time, and she could still use her magic to hunt, but it certainly hindered her movements enough that the help was appreciated. Aster also appreciated the rare company.

When Pride was gone it was just her. And that was quite okay.

She'd made friends with the trees. With the ancient, dusty boulders. With the silver-capped mushroom, with the streams and the ugly, bloated fish within them. They spoke to her, in some ways, if she'd been willing to listen. And listen she often did. They showed her flashing images and dark shapes, of some other gembounds passing by. Some young. Some old. None particularly familiar. Aster could never quite figure out what they'd been trying to tell her, but she appreciated every image and fleeting whisper all the same.

There had been times-- a time such as right now --when Aster's sleep was irregular. Times where she'd been too tired to wait until the lights turned on to sleep. Hunting with her leg, after all, was exhausting enough. She never quite learned her lesson either, for every time she slept while it was still dark, she'd be rudely interrupted.

There was a loud whirr before the orbs lining Eridanus switched on again. White light flooded the room like water. Aster, who'd been foolish enough not crawl under ferns to sleep, was jolted awake with a startled whine. Her eyes stung, but even as she closed them it still felt like the light was trying to squeeze under her eyelids.

It took her several beats to recover, several seconds ticking by until the borzoi managed to open her eyes again without instinctively whining to no one about it. But, slowly, recover she did. Eventually, the dog was hobbling across Eridanus with the pale light gleaming off her back, accenting every thick curl of black fur that ran down her spine.

She'd been close to her favourite place when she fell asleep. Two pools of water, side-by-side, near the furthest wall of the room. As the lanky dog came close, a soft whisper left her throat. "Hello," she greeted the Eyes, as she settled herself down on the space between them. The scents were ever-familiar, the sounds relaxing her from the glare of the light above.

The Eyes, of course, did not return the dog's greeting. But that didn't matter. Aster was happy enough to remain in the moss and the grass in relative silence, listening to the water rippling and lesser gembounds going about their business in the trees above. It's not like someone would interrupt her or anything.

Pride stepped down the incline slowly, picking along the path without any rush, taking nibbles from the foliage as he went. He was grazing his way down to the Eyes, with the idle notion of checking on Aster, should he happen to find her there.

He no longer had to look after her--she rarely asked him to hunt anything, capable enough with her own magic, now. But he still checked in, from time to time.

He'd told her of the children he'd helped to form. She knew--or at least he'd told her--a little of the Sinful Seven, though what she actually took from that was always hard to tell. Aster had always been... otherworldly, in a sense, as if her mind existed just aslant from the rest of the world. Askew. As if it partly dwelt, like Seers he had met, in a slightly different plane.

Pride didn't mind. She was steady company, kind and thoughtful, and he was glad whenever he saw her well. The memory of her pain still haunted his nightmares distantly, at times, and sometimes after such a night, he'd seek her out, fearing for her well-being.

Today, he was merely companionable, and as Aster came into view, he swallowed the last of his leaves and flicked his tail, moving into a floating trot. He slowed again to a stately walk as he came near, lowering his head down with its rack of silver tines, offering her his nose, for a moment, as if to sniff. The diamond plates at his back, belly, throat and neck jingled just a little, the strange glittering circlet around his throat dangling.

"Aster," he said gently, by way of greeting. His voice was melodic, as always, and softly fluting. He lifted his head, glancing around. "Peaceful today, is it not? --Are you well?" he asked, though more with friendly affection than any real concern.

@Aster

As Aster slowly rolled over to rest on her side-- nothing more than a vague, curly lump in the grass --a new sound came to her ears. A muffled trot of hooves on moss accompanied with a rattle of armour and jewellery. A long nose lifted from the grass to sniff the air.

The scent was familiar to her, of course. It caused her to rock back upwards in an uneven swing, her head turning to the room and a long, brush tail swaying back and forth. She saw the pale figure approaching as she did, her mouth stretching and upturning into a doglike smile.

"Pride," was the soft-spoken reply. Although Aster still wasn't very good with speaking and formulating words, she at least knew the name fairly well. Her next words, however, were perhaps a little less coherent. "You are shiny."

Not that he wasn't, of course, but perhaps not exactly something you'd say in greeting.

The dog's nose briefly touched under the deer's jaw, in greeting, before her slender, ebony head turned back out to Eridanus. Peaceful. She mulled this word over for longer than one normally would, a slicked-back ear flicking upwards. "Yes," she eventually decided. "It is quiet. Peaceful. But the water still speaks."

She was quick to shrug this last part off, however, her attention held by Pride's second question; to which she mulled over, too. "I am well," the dog recited slowly. "The Leg is also quiet." The Leg-- of course, referring to the twisted hind limb --was seen as a different entity in Aster's eyes. Not quite a part of her. If it did not respond properly, of course, it couldn't be.

Therefore, it simply became another creature. Known as The Leg.

Aster had impeccable logic.

"How are you, and your..." a long pause occured, as the dog's mind rolled over, searching for the word. "...children?" Her intentions were kind enough, of course, but even an almost-year of existing wasn't quite enough for the borzoi to get a grasp on making conversation.

@Pride

Pride never took note of Aster's strange demeanor--or, at least, he never took offense, nor made mention of it. It was simply her, part and parcel of the strange being that was Aster.

"That is good," he softly trilled, looking over at her leg. That it did not "speak" meant, at least he assumed, that it wasn't hurting. "As are the children. They are both wishing to move off, now--to explore the caves for their own. Azizos has quite the clinical mind; Arsu is a dreamer, still, but that is not a bad thing. He will have stories to tell, I think, like his father, and Azizos may have a fine future ahead of him." As Pride spoke, he idly summoned up ethereal wisps of magicka--creating images of the two children, near full-grown now and elegant. They were as he, in a sense, but maned and muscled, standing tall with lion's tails and unicorns' horns. The image lasted only briefly before fading, Pride not too intent on forcing it to linger. He fell silent, for a moment; sometimes he rambled to Aster, though he wasn't sure how much of it she actually ever took in. But now he was debating whether to mention Charity at all. She was rarely happy, and her interactions--and moreso, her conflict--with her "momma" Envy were bordering, now, on tragic.

Pride thought better of it, and instead looked to Aster, his pale eyes placid. "What is it," he asked amiably, "that the water is saying?"

His gaze shifted down to the Eyes, silver meeting silver as he contemplated the stillness of the surface. He remembered how bitter cold--how unnaturally icy--the waters were, and he remembered the warnings of otherworldly dangers lying within.

If Aster heard them speak, then perhaps it was more than her strange interpretation of them. Though even if it was, he still wished to hear what she heard.

@Aster

The dog's ebony head dipped into a brief nod at nothing in particular. The Leg, of course, looked as The Leg usually does. Mangled and twisted backwards, where the paw doesn't quite reach flat on the floor. Her front legs curled under her as she rolled onto her belly, listening to Pride speak.

She clung to one word in particular. Dreamer. It swayed and rolled this way and that in her thoughts, prying at it, deciphering it's meaning and the tone Pride used to say it. Dreamer. It is not a bad thing.

Before the dog had more time to mull it over, icy eyes were taken by the wispy images of Pride's children. She pushed herself up, slowly, to hobble and wander, eyeing them from a distance and sniffing the air where the images once stood. "Stories," she murmured distantly, wide eyes staring at nothing in particular. "I'd like to hear the stories, if they travel. If they... approach."

She turned her head back to Pride, ears flicking again, before the slender dog wandered to the edge of one pool. Quietly, methodically, she settled her nose against the very surface of the crystalline waters, shutting her eyes.

Aster's mind slipped down, down into the crystal cold depths.

Time slipped away, the present bleeding to the past, and she peered up from the dark to the surface high above.

She rained down; she was mist. Water shifted, changed, and moved. But in the Eyes, there were faces--staring, but vague and indistinct, lurking in those waters. They drew closer, the darkness clouding closer; a shape shot skyward, between her vision and these strangers--from the deeper waters toward the shimmering light above. As it broke that mirror edge, the water rippled and shattered, and with it the memories. A blink, and Aster would be returned to the here and now.

There was no fear. Aster had felt fear before, but what she was feeling was not fear. Her mouth opened and shut several times while she was within the Eyes, trying to find the words to tell the faces she saw, trying to ask them who they were and what they needed.

Alas, nothing left her mouth.

When Aster opened her eyes again they were, if for a moment, glazed over. She turned her slender nose skywards, as if expecting to see that shape still shooting upwards, past the trees and the ceiling above, into whatever lay beyond the caves. She forget that Pride was even there, waiting.

Though, not for long. Eventually, the borzoi slowly turned and settled back down into the grass, distantly, mulling over the shapes and the faces in a relative silence, long enough that, for a moment, it might seem like she'd been rendered completely mute.

"I think," Aster began, her voice soft but still perhaps alarming as it broke the silence. "The water is asking for help." Another long silence, as Aster thought over the very words she just said. And then, a nod. Confirming. Yes. The water was asking for help.

"Something lingers. Many somethings."" She cast another glance into the pool of water. "Many, many somethings. Faces. Strangers. They wish to... go. Leave. Free." At this point, Aster was merely saying words that connected, unable to get across exactly what she thought, what she saw.

She went for a method she knew better. "I can show."

@Pride

The stag inclined his head, silver tines tilting. "Do so," he agreed, flutingly--and then, in a gesture of amiable good will, attempted to open a link to Aster's mind himself. He felt it flicker into place--gently, with a familiarity like coming home.

I'm here, he thought to her, directly to her mind. Show me, if you wish. I can see.

Ahh, but his magic had improved; sometimes, it was the easiest way to communicate with Aster, as stunted as she found physical language to be. It rarely did her thoughts justice. But he could not recall if he had ever linked to her with this more powerful form of his spellwork, before. He supposed that it hardly mattered.

Idly, and in a friendly fashion, he showed her briefly of his forming of his armor: summoning gems from the rock, shaping them, placing them onto his own body by use of magic. He showed, too, their usefulness in theoretical battle--a few claws slashing off the stone, leaving white hide untouched.

Then he settled back to wait, curious as to what she had seen in the water--or what she'd thought she'd seen. A distant memory flickered up through his mind--perhaps visible to Aster. A fawn--spotted, young, newly-hatched. A single amethyst antler perched atop her head as she peered earnestly toward him, and in his memory, her mouth was moving. "Faces," she was saying, and there was a flicker of imagery. He was viewing the fawn's thoughts, in this memory. Two faces, peering down into the water--jumbled by reflection, or by magic. Cats, perhaps. But they had been here--the fawn performing much the same magic at nearly precisely the same spot. And she, too, had spoken of faces.

Pride found himself peering raptly at Aster, fascinated as to what this might mean--as to what they might both have seen.

@Aster

It'd been a while, but the connection was familiar. Easier than trying to figure out how to use her tongue, and how to pick through the right words. The borzoi's shoulders slackened as she settled her head down. "Here," even in her mind, the indication was soft, barely-there.

And thus, she showed Pride what she'd seen within the eyes. The churning, shifting water around her, the faces that stared, coming ever-closer alongside inky blackness, and finally, the shape crashing to the light from above. Even as this memory played out Aster was picking it apart as if it were a video player; rewinding and looking closer at the faces. "None of them are familiar," she thought. "But I can't make them out correctly."

And then, the theories. "Were they others who'd fallen in? Were they pushed, or otherwise taken by the Eyes? Are they the Eyes themselves?" She half-rambled-- even in the form of a mental connection, it was evident she was trying to pick through every possibility that could think of. "I think they need help, but I also think that it could be a trap. Tempting others to join them in the Eyes. Is this from the past? Is it the future? Is it something that just occured now, both unseen to you and me? I do not know and it concerns me."

But, eventually, the frantic thoughts faded and the mellowed back out as she watched the summoning of gems and rock with some interest-- "shiny," --picking through this memory as well. Rewinding. Inspecting. Ever perceptive, looking at every detail. And then, a sense of admiration. She studied Pride's spellwork and then the battle, the claws scraping stone and how it worked to defend him.

It was fleeting, but for a moment-- perhaps enough for Pride to see --she wondered if armour would have protected her leg.

"Where did you learn? Can you take them off? Is it uncomfortable?" Came another flurry of rambling questions. This was, afterall, the only way she could comfortably voice them. Show interest. Learn. Pride had seen much more of the caves than her, after all.

@Pride

He let the link fade--easily, as it did not not matter so much now, and the magic was difficult to maintain. He leaned back, feeling a twinge at Aster's unspoken question--her leg--and then somewhat grimly turning his mind away from that. She was asking how he'd learned. About the armor's comfort. If it could come off.

"It is magic," he began by explaining, and then felt a little foolish for doing so. Hurriedly, he continued. "I have been learning that magic will do whatever you will it to. It can be shaped, directed; I taught myself to form and create stone. This armor was designed to be comfortable, though being without is moreso, of course." He glanced over his shoulder, jingling it a little--it was hard, brittle even. "This was not my first attempt. I failed many others. It hooks into itself--I can maneuver it into place, either with my body or with magic, as well."

He fell silent, his mind shifting back to the Eyes and all she'd said of them. He leaned forward, ears pushing forward, his own pale muzzle dipping to touch its surface. Silvered eyes slipped shut as he tested his own magicka, reaching into the past.

For a moment, he thought he'd left their link open--he was seeing the same things, again. Faces, though a distant sense of dread washed over him. The way they lurked in the dark, leering forward--they seemed outright sinister somehow, or at the very least, ominous--and he realized that his visions were clearer than Aster's had been. He saw, too, the shape more clearly as it rose from the depths--a reptilian Gembound, moving with a speed fuelled, perhaps, by fear as it fled the dark below. He saw it scramble from the waters, and he peered back for a moment himself--back at the Eyes--and, for the briefest instant, he felt... unwelcome.

Startled, he dropped the link, and pulled his head somewhat sharply away. He pushed back up, and away from the waters, pacing around Aster to lay back down in the moss and grass a few feet away.

"I have taught myself to see the past, of things," he said carefully, puzzling over what he'd seen. "I looked into the Eyes and saw what you saw--so I can say with fair confidence that what you saw was in the past. But I saw a little more," he added, glancing worriedly to Aster. "I do not think it to be friendly, nor asking for aid. Something--the thing deeper, that came up--it was fleeing those faces. I do not think they were kind." Pride mulled this over, and then looked back to the still silver pools.

Just what was this water..?

@Aster