Shoal considered Oliver's words for a few moments, beak clicking briefly. "No," she replied. "I don't know many others, and I've only seen Eridanus once or twice." She wondered, if briefly, why anyone would even want a kingdom of.. plant-growers. Healers, she could understand.

There was a pause, after Oliver paused.

"I think kingdoms are meant to have kings," she croaked almost delicately, as though she were breaking horrible news to Oliver. "It's in the name."

She began evading Oliver's gaze when he declared her un-ugly, however. She glanced towards the pile as if expecting it to start moving, and then back again. With a vaguely uncomfortable ruffle of feathers, she said, "thank you."

She was grateful, at least-- she even liked being called tough. But it dawned on her, immediately, she'd never really spoken to anyone long enough to receive compliments, or to compliment others.

... err.

"I like your..." she fought for something, anything. What do the others compliment each other on? ".... face."

That'll do, Shoal, she decided with an inward nod, relaxing considerably. She ruffled herself out again, grounding herself, before speaking further. "Stories aren't worth a lot if you can't tell them, but I don't have many myself. You seem more likely those sort of things, and others to actually tell them to."

@Oliver

Oliver blinked, shyly dipping his head and lifting one winged forelimb to delicately, absently touch his face with his own claws. She liked his face! He was both pleased and embarrassed, somehow.

It did not occur to him that Shoal had just made that up on the spot.

"Thank you," he answered quietly. And as to the idea of--stories, and so on? He shrugged, a little, at that.

"I--don't know. I mean, I know stuff that happened in the caves? I know about--Aquarian and Raheerah, about Astraea, Tenzin--he's really nice!--and the Three Kings, but I never met some of them. But my dad told me a lot," he went on quietly. "I know some Gembound see the past--or the future, even--but I don't really know that many stories. I haven't been there for a lot of stuff and I can't see the past, myself. I mean, I can tell you anything I know but. I don't know that many Gembound because I mostly stay away," he trailed off quietly. And for good reason, too. Too many Gembound turned out to be violent maniacs, when you got right down to it. "I try to help anyone who needs it but otherwise I just--grow plants. I've been trying to make a garden in Canis," he continued. "There was a big fire in Eridanus and aside from the swamp-trees, here," and here Oliver gestured gently out toward the forest, such as it was--"there's no other real caves full of plants. Canis is pretty dead, full of bones so I thought-..." He trailed off a second time as he realized he was rambling, and shrugged a little, trying to close off the topic somewhat logically. "Well, it shouldn't be the only place, that's all. Just in case. What do you do?" he asked, then, curiously.

His father had always spoken of purpose, and though it'd been his mother who raised him, the idea of having a goal in life was second-nature to him. He was to be a guardian, and he'd chosen healing to fulfil that role--helping to purify water, to cleanse disease. His father, he thought, fought; he wasn't sure about other guardians.

The owl was clearly a fighter--that much he could tell; but what was it that she did?

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

@Shoal

Shoal nodded very dutifully, quite pleased that she managed to flatter the hybrid. This meant, clearly, that she was getting a grasp on social interaction. An exciting revelation, if only she had planned to actually keep going about this 'talking to people' route.

"Well," Shoal began, relaxing absently on the rock. She'd realised she shared some qualities with Oliver, at least-- he too, stayed away. And, likely, for similar reasons-- though Shoal hadn't had any violent experiences with greater gembound per se, she'd certainly heard stories. "Just because you haven't been there yourself doesn't mean you can't tell them. Stories are meant to be spread, and remembered. Everyone who tells them is doing what they're meant to."

And then it was back to plants, again. Shoal didn't quite understand why he'd really want to spread them and make more-- the caves, at least to her, seemed fine enough. The only concerning rooms she'd consider for 'needs more plants' in it, however, was Canis. Nowhere should have that many bones.

She didn't have very long to mull this over before Oliver was asking what Shoal did. To which, she didn't actually have an answer. Shoal had lived longer in her chrysalis than she had being actually alive. Perhaps that was what she did.

But when she said it out loud? "I... die," she blinked very slowly, and then was silent again. A wave of something she hadn't felt before washed over her entirely-- a feeling of grief --and her feathers fell a little flat against her own body. Was that... all she did? All she was supposed to do? She tried to fight off what had killed her several times over, sure, but every time she'd lost. Died. Sent back into the amber chrysalis, and then came back out with more scars and less feathers.

It felt like that was all she did, however. "I..." she murmured, but fell flat. She had mentioned, with the bobcat, that many greater gembound spent most of their existence trying to figure out where they were, hearing stories of a surface, and what the purpose of their existence was. Was Shoal's just-- to get killed? Over and over again?

The owl breathed raggedly, wide-eyed. Perhaps that mouse she had taken from the pile was too rotten, because it suddenly felt like she was about to throw it back up without fully digesting it. Amber eyes searched Cetus briefly, for anything, before settling back on Oliver.

"... I don't want to die."

@Oliver

Oliver blinked.

The change in the owl, though subtle, was dramatic--the feathers, the widening, searching eyes, the uneven breathing. He felt terrible, almost at once, and quickly hastened to reassure her.

"If you--if you went back into your stone you don't die! You didn't die. Don't die, yeah," he went on absently, but he was already fumbling with loose stones in the mud below, plucking up a small pebble.

He washed it briefly in the thinner water that sat in his own pawprints in the mud, where it'd risen; then his magicka flickered up and he cupped it carefully between his taloned forefeet. A moment later it was glowing--a soft golden-white, and Oliver looked up with his deeply-concerned blue eyes, almost frantically offering up the baubled stone.

Somehow, he thought, this might help.

"Take this--for you. It's a light," he added. Never mind that Shoal was an owl, and could see in almost pitch-darkness. Everyone liked lights. They were comforting. Warm. ...Sort of. "But maybe if you stay with friends you won't get--well, hurt, anymore? You can stay with me, if you like. Or there's other groups of Gembound out there--a family in Canis, and the secret-searching ones here in Cetus, and there's a bunch in Orion too. And the Kingdom," he added. "There's always been families, I think--they come and go--but they look after each other, at least. You don't have to do it all, like, alone." He paused, and then--more quietly--added, "I'm sorry you kinda-died a lot."

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

@Shoal

Shoal was unsure if she really understood-- or even heard, for that matter --what Oliver was saying. She tried to control her breathing, half-instinctively taking deeper, steadier breaths.

She didn't know what he was doing, nor did she really notice the baubled stone right up until he was offering it out to her. Shoal blinked very slowly, staring at it for a few moments. It was enough to take her mind off dying, at least.

She reached out with a scarred talon, the feathers ripped away with thick rat-bites and claws, and took the rock, long nails clicking against it. The sound was almost too delicate to have come from an ugly, burly owl. She inspected it, blinking, though did indeed find there was some... comfort, in it.

She didn't need it, in the practical sense that it was a light, but Shoal felt as though she needed it emotionally. "Thank you," she rasped quietly, holding the stone between her toes. "I... don't really have friends."

She'd never really bothered to make any, at least. The owl took another shallow breath and looked around. The groups-- the families --sounded interesting, at least. "What do they all do-- do they all do different things?" She asked. "I could find them and find out for my own, I suppose. Your kingdom in Eridanus, however, doesn't sound like my type of thing."

Plants. She meant plants. Plants were not her thing.

She took another glance around Cetus for a moment, thinking, before speaking. "Will they require things of me?" She asked. "I don't know what they might have me do and I'm not sure what I'm capable of." Except dying a lot. Or 'kinda-dying' a lot. "I could fight but that's about it."

She paused, however. Slowly, she nodded to Oliver's last words, ruffling her patchy feathers out briefly. "I'm sorry," she said, but what she was apologizing for was fairly unclear. She blinked, then almost as if correcting-- "Thank you."

@Oliver

"You don't need to be sorry?" Oliver offered, uncertain as to why she was. He still felt... well, bad for her. "We can be friends, if you want."

He eyed the stone in the owl's talons for a moment as he settled back onto his haunches. He hoped it helped.

He thought it would.

"Um--I'm not sure what all of them do, but I know who they are, at least. There's the uhh--'Sinful Seven'--I dunno why they call themselves that but they live in Orion. When the Bloodberries attacked their king and a white deer from them came to fight, too. But I don't know what they do. Canis is--the Bonebound. They're kinda just--family?" He shrugged, a little. From what little he knew of them, they were fairly nice, all in all. "They've been around, off and on, my whole life. That's-... um, forty cycles, around that? I don't think they fight, though. So maybe you can ask them what they do, they probably won't make you do stuff." Ahh, yes. 'Doing stuff,' every owl's bane.

"Then uhh--the ones here, the Children of Rot? They just look for knowledge. If you hang around this meat long enough some will probably come here and you could ask them more. The Kingdom's more about just--protecting everyone, I think. In case more Bloodberry stuff happens." ...Though now he really was wondering why it was called a "Kingdom."

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

@Shoal

Being friends with Oliver would, in fact, fix the 'no friends' issue. Her prior suspicion that Oliver was trying to lure her into some form of trap were mostly forgotten about. Even if she knew, the irony of this would likely be lost on her. "Okay," she agreed quietly, then paused. "What do friends do?"

Briefly, she glanced at the rock. She'd need to find a gift for Oliver, too. She would have frowned, if she could, thoughtfully. She placed the rock down against the rock below her and stuck her talon out again, concentrating.

There was a quiet flow of magicka that coursed through her, from the back of her head and all the way down her chest. Ice formed into her talon, watery for a moment, but quickly freezing over. While she did this, she had to do some quick-thinking-- what would Oliver have wanted?

... he seemed interested in plants?

The water jittered, half-frozen, and then began to form small petal-shapes, layer by layer, the bottom-most layer freezing over before more water was summoned on top of it. This was repeated many times, the petals getting smaller and smaller until they were all sort of frozen together in the middle, but the rose-shape was unmistakable. Shoal inspected her work, and then handed it over.

"It's for you," she clarified. "... but it might melt, unless you keep it somewhere cold."

At first, in response to the groups, the old owl grumbled. It wasn't so much that she was afraid of Doing Stuff as much as it was she was afraid of being asked to Do Stuff she Couldn't Do. "I'll talk to them, I think," she said, looking around. "I like Cetus."

There was a long enough pause that might have implied this was the end of her thought. But she did like Cetus. It had good trees for perching in, and it was always dark. Bright lights-- like in Eridanus and things --hurt her eyes sometimes. She preferred the dark. Regardless, however, she continued speaking.

"I'll wait here, for a while, until one of the-- Children, arrive," all these groups seemed to have really odd names, to her. The Children of Rot made-- sort of sense, at least. Especially if this giant rot-pile was essential to their.. beliefs. Shoal was unsure if she could be considered a child, however.

The one with a king wasn't called a kingdom, and the one called a kingdom didn't have a king. This was confusing, but she did like the idea of protecting people. "I'll head to Eridanus next, then Orion, then Canis. I'd like to speak to all of them, I think-- none of them are.. fighting each other, are they?" She asked, a little warily. "They're just all fighting these Bloodberries?"

@Oliver

Oliver seemed to beam with joy at this whole 'friends' thing. "Oh, well--you care for each other, I think." He thinks. Not exactly confidence-inspiring. "You look out for each other, help each other, and make sure you're both feeling okay, and--gifts and things, protection. It's like family, I guess?" He paused as Shoal began to form the ice-flower, scooting forward a little to peer at her working, his eyes wide. "Thank you! I'll try to keep it somewhere cold," he said, awed, as he carefully took it in his talons. Oliver was very unlikely to make it to the ice tunnels in time to preserve the gift, but he didn't realize that just yet. "It's beautiful. Um. No, they don't fight, I think? They're all pretty friendly. It was just the Bloodberries and I'm not even sure they're a--a thing, anymore?"

Oliver turned his full attention to the icy rose, for a moment, turning it carefully with his claw-tips. It was beautiful--the ice glittering in Cetus' dim light, and boy did he like shiny objects. The half-crow of him, really. At length, his expression happy and open, he looked back up to Shoal.

"Uhh--if you are wanting to look for them, well--you could probably find 'em pretty fast if you use your wings. Just--yell for Dragon, I guess, and if you see fire that's probably him answering. He's a big, uhh-reptile. --If you see a crow tell her I said hi. She's my mom. Is there anything I can do to help?"

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

@Shoal