Wilder hopped back with surprise as Rift crashed into the forest in front of her, still dizzy from the spell's backlash. She had absolutely no clue that Rift had been following her at all or that she was even in the right part of Eridanus. "Uh, I'm sorry! I didn't know! Sorry, something went wrong..." She hobbled back and tried again, sighing with relief when the spell went easier this time. She willed to lift the bones from the ground, imagining them far beneath the surface of the soil, and a few moments later, the earth a little ways in front of her quivered and a single bone peaked from the surface.

"I was trying to get that!" she purred, trying to ignore the banging in her head. She staggered forward towards the bone and poked at it, wondering if it was the right one, if it once belonged to the brown creature she'd seen in her visions. "I'm chasing a story!"

Rift watched the cat strangely as she staggered around. Was something wrong with her? Was he wrong and something was attacking her rather then her doing the attacking? He stepped back as she stilled for a moment. He wasn't sure if he believed that she didn't know she was there How did she knock me out of the tree, then? but he reminded himself to be patient and wait.

The parting earth surprised him and he turned to see the tip of a bone peaking through. He narrowed his eyes and slunk around, looking from Wilder to the bone and back again. "A story? What do you mean?" He didn't think that just a bone equated to a story. After all, there were plenty of bones scattered around the caves. Plenty of bones buried in the earth. Giant bones within the fern trenches. And, of course, a whole room of them.

He watched, silently, confused, but testing his own patience.

She wrapped her paws around the bone, but she was small and physically weak and her tugging barely did anything to raise the bone any farther from the ground. She glanced over at Rift, but he didn't move to help her. That was fine, he was just watching. She didn't mind that. "Yeah, a story! Something happened here - I saw it at the eyes! This bone belonged to one of them...I think." She was still a little dizzy and didn't go into an explanation of what she meant and, instead, focused on calling up the magic Aure had taught her.

She reached forward and tapped her nose against the surface of the bone, closing her eyes, and the magic caused a shiver to run up her spine.

The world around Wilder faded. The pleasant odor of creek and peat--and broken branch--gave way first to the scent of the Eyes, and then to the strong metallic stench of blood. The birdsong shifted subtly, as if the time of day had been slightly different, and voices slowly faded in.

She could hear the crunch of footsteps on leaves.

An arrogant, elegant voice, deep and commanding. "They do not believe in you, sire."
A smoother, quieter voice--though still distinctly masculine--"And do you believe in me, Rezik?"
A pause, and then--"Of course, sire."
There was a scuffling. The brown creature came into view, then--walking along the edges of the Eyes, pausing to stare in. "This is the hard route, I know. We'll have to run. To hide. It won't be the same, anymore. We'll be hunted--all of us. But we won't be... subject to their cruel whims, anymore. We'll be free. ...We have to do what's right for our people, always."

The blue creature--its branching antlers like bushes or trees atop its head, its face strangely humanoid--stepped up alongside the brown. It gazed down at him for a moment. "Yes. We do." And then its face split, rows of teeth flashing in the orb-light.

The bite. The pain. The drowning, the panic. The dragging through the leaves. Weakening. Draining. Darkness closing in. Ragged breaths. He could barely stay conscious, let alone stand. He didn't have the strength to pull in air past the pain. His vision swam gray.

The arrogant voice came, dimly muffled past the thud of his own weak heartbeat. "They will hunt us down, and they will kill us. They will not suffer us to live freely. Your plans would have brought us only to ruin, N'chard."

He gasped for air. His breath rattled. He struggled to get out his final words, words said in the agony of betrayal, with the fury of defiance, of one facing great injustice with no way to save himself. "The moment... you return there... they will kill you for this..."

"They will never know what happened, my king. Perhaps an Overseer overheard you plotting. I do not know... you left on your own business, and I never saw you again." A pause. "I will take them back to the Ridges. There we will serve, and there, we will survive." The last of the words were muffled, near-lost, as a final rattling breath escaped the brown creature N'chard. He felt his limbs spasm and stretch, splashing in the creek--and then the world faded...

...into Eridanus, Rift beside her, the creek still trickling over the dirt.

@Wilder

Wilder faded out of the image far more serious then she'd been going in. Rezik and N'chard were their names. They'd mentioned the Overseeers....like Vargas, right? Did they have something to do with this?

They were running from something. Or, at least N'chard was. Rezik had called him a king. Hiding. From the Overseers, perhaps? She tried to put this puzzle into her head into a coherent story - at least, part of a coherent story. What she understood so far....

She turned to Rift, whatever she had come here in the first place to do at the back of her mind. "I think...these bones belonged to someone called N'chard. He was a sort of king. Maybe here, or in Pisces. There were Overseers then, and I think they were really cruel. They were supposed to serve the Overseers but N'chard didn't want to. He wanted his people to be free, even if that meant they were going to be hunted. But there was someone else with him, someone called Rezik. I think he was some sort of right-hand to N'chard. He thought...or knew...that to run from the Overseers would mean everyone would die. The Overseers wouldn't let them live free. So he killed N'chard and returned to the kingdom to lead them to Pisces - the Ridges, where he would wipe himself clean of his crime. They were going to continue serving the Overseers so that they could survive." Yes, that all sounded right. There were still a lot of missing pieces - what did the Overseers do that were so cruel? What did N'chard plan to do with his kingdom? Did they accept Rezik's word or was he branded a traitor? What happened to them after their king died?

She scuffed at the ground, glancing up at Rift for a moment before looking over at the bone. She didn't just want to leave N'chard's bones here...that seemed so disrespectful. She wanted to take it back to Canis and give it to Aure, maybe to make them a cairn of their own. But that, also, didn't seem right. She would make them one here, a small grave to remember the king.

She tried to lift a nearby stone, but she was growing weary from the magic and it didn't lift. So, instead, she got behind it and started pushing it with all her tiny might so that, at least, there'd be a marker.

Rift listened to Wilder's story, a little interested, but he didn't see how this had any relevance to today. He had no idea who these "Overseers" were and, as far as he knew, the story didn't need retelling - it had happened countless cycles ago. Still, he had to admit, hearing of a story in the ages past was mildly fascinating.

He watched silently as she struggled to move one of the rocks towards where the bone still stuck out of the ground. He called for the roots to lift and help create the little grave, or for the grass and branches to push against the rock, but nothing answered his call. So, instead, he got next to Wilder, and added his strength to the rock.

With their combined strength, they managed to get the rock to sit just behind the bone. As Wilder went off to collect smaller pebbles, he lifted his front legs and pushed against the top of the bone until it sunk back into the ground, brushing dirt and grass back on top so it wasn't exposed.

He watched as Wilder decorated the small, humble cairn with little rocks and pebbles and, for a moment, he wondered if he was wrong about her. To be kind to those that had passed, even those that had passed long ago...maybe he had misjudged her.

They stood in silence for a moment, only the sound of birds and the gentle waving of leaves in the trees above making any sound. He glanced towards her, the little black kitten that he had thought was cruel and thoughtless and wondered if all the others that he had judged so harshly were of the same caliber. "Where to next?" he rumbled with a small nudge.

The little cairn wasn't as nice as the one they'd built for Vincenzo, but it was at least something. Better then a forgotten memory buried deep within the earth. She was silent for some time, thinking on what she knew of the king, wondering what kind of person he was, what about him had driven Rezik so far to murder him in cold blood. She flinched when Rift's voice invaded her thoughts and she looked up. "O-oh, um..." she thought for a minute, thinking back on what she'd seen before. She didn't think there would be use in finding the path that they'd taken to get to here from the eyes...but Rezik had mentioned the Ridges.

"Pisces," she decided. "Rezik mentioned that he was taking N'chard's kingdom there. But first..." She closed her eyes and flattened herself against the ground, trying to search through the earth for any faint glimmer of magic. After a moment, she sensed it - deep within the earth. Faint, but definitely still there. "Oh!" she cried suddenly, bounding over to the place where she'd sensed it. "Here it is! His stone is still here! It's down there," she patted the earth above it with her paw.

Rift nodded, but internally he was a little disappointed. He wasn't going to leave Eridanus right now and go all the way to Pisces just so he could watch this cat run around after forgotten memories. But he could do one more thing to help in this search. He padded over to where Wilder was standing and willed, again, for the roots of the trees around them to reach down and bring up the gemstone that sat for so long within the earth.

And this, it seemed, the trees were all too eager. The earth below them began to shake and the tree next to them began to shiver wildly as its roots uncurled and reached down deep. After a few moments, the roots came up, breaking the earth between them, holding a chunk of labradorite in its grip. It held it out for Wilder to take.

"There you go," he purred. "Hopefully that's the right one."

Wilder flinched and crouched when the earth began to tremor, her claws unsheathing to hold onto the ground. Her eyes widened when the roots appeared, offering the labradorite for her to take. That was it. That was N'chard's stone! "Oh! Thank you! Thank you so much!" She took it in her mouth and looked around. Was she going to carry this all the way to Pisces?

No...her eyes fell upon the cairn and Wilder immediately stepped forward, shifting around some of the pebbles and digging a bit into the earth to lay the stone with what remained of his bones and his memory. When she was done, it didn't look like anything had changed, but she felt much better about the grave she'd made.

She turned to the cat, her tail flicking happily behind her. "Thank you, Rift, thank you! I might come back for it someday, but for now it can rest fine with his bones." She patted the top of the rocks happily before turning to bound away into the forest.

When something stopped her. Why had she come here in the first place? It wasn't to dig up the lore of N'chard and Rezik...

She turned, remembering now why she'd come all the way out here. Her ears flattened back. "Oh...Rift...uh, there's something I needed to tell you. I came to find you because I needed to tell you. But please...please! You can't tell Pride or Envy! It's really important they don't know." Of course, she had no idea that Rift would even listen to her demand and she wouldn't blame him if he did tell, but she couldn't walk away without trying. "It's Blackberry. She's still alive. I found her in a cave and helped her because...she was hopeless and lifeless and she regretted everything she's done. She different, I promise! She's changed. When Pride tried to kill her, she went into her chrysalis and I took her to Fornax, all the way in the back, so she wouldn't be disturbed or wouldn't disturb anyone."

Rift was not prepared for the information that Wilder presented to him. He stared at her, dumbfounded and shocked into silence for a moment that his enemy, one of his worst enemies, was both still alive and this idiotic kitten had helped her.

He had no way of knowing if she was being honest about helping her, but the way she had acted today, the kindness she had for the dead, maybe it was just stupid idiocy and ignorance. Still, this was not good. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, controlling the anger that threatened to boil over. He had celebrated the goose's death. The Kingdom had been happy and relieved that she was gone. He couldn't tell them. No, if Wilder was being honest, which he very much liked to believe she was, then Blackberry would not bother them. Perhaps he would tell Sebastian so he could be on the lookout.

"I will return to my Kingdom, then," was all he said to Wilder. He gave no hint of a reaction, no emotion, nothing but a small nod as he opened his eyes and stood. He bunched his muscles and leaped onto the nearest tree, already formulating how he would respond to this news, what he would tell his brother, if he would tell Pride against Wilder's wishes. He needed time to think about this.

*exit