Through the thick foliage and down the paths of the the Maw of Mosses, Wilder ran as fast as she could. She wanted to get this over with quickly. Perhaps it would have been smarter to dreamwalk Rift, but considering that she didn't really know the exact location of the Kingdom of Eridanus, and that she and Rift had never had much of a relationship before, she figured it would be better to talk to him in person.

However, that point of not knowing where the Kingdom was....that was important. She'd gone all the way through to the end of the cave and found herself right at the wall, where two crystalline pools stared up at her.

Dragon had mentioned them before - The Eyes of Eridanus. She didn't know much about them, only that they were somehow important. Significant. They held a secret. Perhaps....a secret she needed to hear. Maybe it was untimely to do this now - she should tell Rift and leave, but now that she was here, curiosity overwhelmed her. Perhaps it held an answer to one of her many questions. Even if it didn't, she could, perhaps, discover something new to bring to Dragon - prove that she wasn't dead weight, nor that she was just a foolish kid anymore.

I miss being young. Aure's words rang in her ear. She frowned. She did too...but as of late, it had become harder and harder to deny that she wasn't a kid. She was an adult and was expected to act like one. She needed to be useful. Otherwise, what good was she?

She sat at the edge of the right pool and reached forward with one of her paws, gently dipping it into the water. Magic stirred in her body and her cheek began to glow a faint pink. She closed her eyes and willed the past to move through her like water over rocks.

The water was bitterly, unnaturally cold, and as its ripples stilled, new reflections gazed back. Even through closed eyes, she would see it.

Two creatures, side-by-side, peering into the water. Their jaws moved, though their words sounded muffled, as if far below the water. One was elegant, tall, blue and four-limbed, with strange antlers rising like branches--reaching for the trees above. The one beside it was muscular, brown and spotted with grey--smaller, but stronger.

The blue creature seemed to nod toward the water; the brown leaned forward, confidence in its posture, authority even.

Trust.

The blue jaws snapped open--impossibly wide, lined with hundreds of pointed teeth.

A scuffle. A strangled cry. A splash. Brown body, and blood, floating in the pool.

The blue flanks heaved, and the brown was pulled from the water--pulled out and dragged away through the leaves.

As the vision faded, two voices whispered clearly. One, deep, angry:

"He betrayed me..."

And the other, elegant, arrogant:

"He betrayed us all."

It felt as though there were more to this story, though it would be left to Wilder, if she so chose, to try and uncover it.

@Wilder

Above the cat, high in the trees, Rift watched. He listened. His colors blended in so nicely with his backdrop, that his slow slink from the higher branches down to the lower ones wouldn't give him away if she looked up. His gaze was locked at the cat, the little kitten he remembered from the Olympics. The one that had destroyed his tree without a second thought. Someone like that didn't belong in his forest. And she didn't belong here at the Eyes.

But, for now, he watched. He wanted to know why she was here. Why she was dipping her paws in those strange pools. If she would speak or do something. He'd be watching her.

She was surprised at how cold the water felt against her paw and she flinched, pulling it back, but the vision had already begun. She watched it play out with confusion, straining to hear the voices, but they were too muffled for her ears to pick up. Not until the two whispers, almost like they were sitting right next to her. She was so surprised that her eyes snapped open, but nobody was there. Just empty space. And the Eyes. Her brow furrowed with concern. Who were they? How long ago had it happened?

It answered none of her questions, though, but she wanted to know more. She was far too curious to stand up and just...walk away. So she focused again, dipping a paw back into the water, despite the bad vibe she was getting from the pool, and tried to will the memory to be clearer. Tried to direct it back to that vision, so she could know more. What was this betrayal?

A shining piece of Labradorite. A chunk of white Howlite.

One had dragged the other away. Which one had been which..? Where had they gone?

This knowledge came in flashes, in fits and starts and half-incomprehensible pieces. With it came shards of vision, old, not all of it by the water's edge.

The blue creature and the brown, sharing a kind glance, and friendly words. The trees swaying overhead. The same trees, seeming jagged and dark, vision jerking as a body was dragged beneath. A cluster of ferns over a shelf of stone, water trickling along beneath. A last breath, the final exhale drifting away along with the creek.

@Wilder

As Wilder came out of her vision, she blinked. It...hadn't really been much of a vision, though. But it was a hint. There was still more to unravel from this story. She had forgotten, for now, that she had come here with the intention to tell Rift about Blackberry. She was immersed in her searching now, for the truth of this little tale.

She closed her eyes, wondering if she'd seen those places before. She didn't very often come to Eridanus, but there was plenty to search. She wasn't going to wait around these pools now, chasing after memories that were elsewhere.

So she turned and bounded away into the forest, wholly unaware that Rift, in fact, was just above her, following her movements with a watchful gaze, just as curious as she was about what she was doing. She spent some time searching, sniffing, although the only thing she could smell were plants. She couldn't exactly sniff out the traces of memory.

When, eventually, she did find the place, she at first was unsure if it was the same thing. It didn't look exactly the same - more overgrown, but the stone shelf, the sound of water, the ferns...it was all there. Hopefully she was right.

Wilder stepped forward, pressing her paws into the soft earth, wondering how many people had been here across time. How long ago had that first vision taken place? How long had such animosity festered between the two? Had they once been friends or were their fates always destined to end in blood?

She closed he eyes and let magic flow, the tips of her paws the anchor between herself and the past she wished to reveal.

It was more muted, here, the vision somehow more... faded, more distant.

A brown figure, hulked and left in the dirt, half-hidden under the ledge. Ragged breathing. Blood, leaking into the soil.

The vision shifted. Now there were bones, half-sunk into the peaty earth. Distant sounds and movements came and went, the passage of many years. Some of the bones were carried away--gnawed to nothing by the cave rats--and others were lost beneath the dirt.

There seemed to be a whisper, now, from the buried bones--but its words were too unclear.

@Wilder

Wilder's eyes blinked open. This was where the brown one had died. Where their bones rested, far beneath the earth. At least some of them did. Perhaps if she pulled them up, she would know more. Bones, after all, where far more direct then the general vicinity of where something happened. She remembered what Aure had said during the binding ceremony, about the spell that all those part of the Bonebound knew. "It allows us to see into a creature's last moments, to see what befell them." Now she only needed the bones.

She was growing excited now, so close to uncovering something. Even if it had nothing to do with her oddities or any secret that Dragon cared about - she cared very much about it. She tried to focus, to reach down deep into the dirt and unearth something - the bones, hopefully! But as she tried to direct her magic into the earth, it instead went flying up, into the trees above her, pulling at the branches. There was a large crack as one of the branches snapped and a loud screech. Pain exploded in Wilder's head and she stumbled back, meowing with protest as a large mass of green came falling out of the sky.

Rift followed the cat as she headed off into the forest, curious as to what she was up to. She hadn't spoken a word since she'd arrived and the only thing he'd seen her do was dip a paw in the eyes. He had half expected something terrible to happen but when it did not, he trailed behind and above her, mainly to make sure she wasn't doing anything wrong.

She stopped at a spot some time later and he crouched on one of the branches above her. He was still hard to see in the trees, but she seemed preoccupied with something else. He leaned forward, trying to hear if she was doing something, when, all of a sudden, the branches around him began to bend. It was too late to react as the branch he was standing on snapped. He involuntarily screeched as he fell, scrambling to try and grab onto anything else, but he couldn't get a grip. He fell from the tree and flopped onto the ground in front of Wilder.

Immediately, he scrambled to his feet and whipped around, a low growl in his chest and a stern expression on his face. "Okay, how long did you know I was there?"