Azure's head was low. She looked as though she were slinking through Eridanus, trying to avoid attention or even detection, yet there was nothing predatory about her movements. Instead, there was a furtive miserable shyness to her, a tenseness to her body that spoke only of nervousness and fear, and deep reluctance. She may as well have been holding a sign that said "I AM AFRAID, AND I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE."

Were she a pet dog, undoubtedly her trainer would have had a lot to scold her owner on regarding socialization and proper introductions to the world around her, but Azure was, in fact, a bird-moose hybrid, and not a dog at all. Shockingly.

Every now and then, she called out quietly--half-hoping nobody would answer, and half-hoping someone would and get it over with.

"Mercurius? ...Uh. Lion? Mercurius?" and other hesitant, half-hearted variations. Pride had sent her to find him--it was the cost of her being allowed to live in Orion and not get locked up the way the rest of her family had. Or worse.

...Speaking of which: I really hope I don't run into Huckleberry. The thought was bitter, and grim. Her "brother," who was actually her--what, life-giver?--and who'd lied about it her entire life. The snivelling, weak-willed brat. She didn't truly hate much, but her contempt for him and his useless simpering when his family could have used him was strong. If only he'd spoken up. If only he'd grown a fucking backbone, and taken them away. But he hadn't, and her life had been hell--from the moment he'd apparently created her until she'd awoken and broken away from it herself.

This anger joined with the fear and reluctance vibrantly displayed in her sulking, slinking body language--so if and when she found Mercurius, her inner feelings would likely be blatantly clear.

@Mercurius

Mercurius wished he had the apparently-godly time management skills of Pride. The stag seemed to fit everything well into his daily schedule, with a clear-cut precision as sharp as his eyes.

The old storyteller, meanwhile, was entirely too content to let himself go limp in the current of life, and struggled to paddle against it --- at times --- when he wanted to do things otherwise; when things happened that were beyond his control and already in the past.

Moonset eyes flickered to the side, where Yew slept in the garden, and he sighed. Rocking up onto creaky joints, the lion shook himself out lightly. His tail whipped up through the air as he bowed, feeling his spine roll and churn with the motion. He needed to walk--- he needed to find Oliver, again. Talk to him, see how he was doing in the wake of that war that innocent eyes should have never seen, the push and pull of an infinite mass in an infinitely small space.

But, alas, just as he stepped out of his little grove, his name and numerous variants (some including his species) was carried by the gentle breeze --- in a slightly familiar voice. Rounded ears pricked forth, and he thought briefly to send nature's call through the wood, but... no. He trusted his own paws enough, and they carried him toward an odd sort of creature.

It was vaguely hippogriff-esque in nature, but carrying a foreboding sense of familiarity in the white marks along its cheeks and the rack atop its head. Mercurius's eyes immediately shifted to the eyes, sapphire-blue like the crown-esque stone--- "you're one of the..." His voice, soft and gentle, trailed off as his pace did. Hesitatingly, he continued, "you're one of the children. Cloud---" Perhaps they have forsaken the -berry name.

He bowed his head gently --- trying to appear the least bit threatening --- murmuring softly across the slight, respectful distance between them, "are you okay?"

@Azure

To say that Azure hesitated in return would be an understatement.

She stopped dead at far too great a distance, frozen in place as if shocked into statuehood. For a long, silent moment she stared, tense as wires, until at last taking a breath and forcing herself to speak.

Mercurius was large--intimidating purely due to size--but his demeanor wasn't aggressive. Still, she didn't want to be here, resented being forced into being babysat by an idiot family who'd done nothing but fuck her over her entire life. Thus a sullen edge twined with the tremor of half-suppressed fear lurking in her voice. "...Hey. Azure now. Azure's fine. Ehhh. I'm sorry to bother you. And don't--like. Imprison me, please. Pride sent me? Uhhh."

She hesitated, visibly, her head pulling back a bit and one forelimb shifting over the dirt for a moment, needlessly readjusting her stance.

"...I don't have anything to do with them anymore. I don't want to. I just want to live alone--well. With a friend. In Orion? That stag, he said we could live there as long as I talked to you, since... since the others had to do that too, I guess. And to make sure I'm not an insane murderer," she added bitterly.

Cobalt eyes watched Mercurius closely, her whole body tensed as if to fly off at the slightest threat. She didn't like any of this; she felt like a trap was closing around her, like any second Gembound would come leaping out of the trees to attack and take her prisoner. Her eyes began to shift, darting over the trees and through the foliage, her breathing coming a little faster.

@Mercurius

"Imprison---" Mercurius balked, brows quirking in rather abject shock. His tail-tassel flicked once or twice in somber contemplation, before he shook his head gently, "why would I imprison you--- Azure?" The name felt softer, more natural than the unnatural sharpness and sound of "Cloud." That word had felt like it should not be spoken, that it should be lost to the true sky the Gembound had never seen--- only heard of. It had tied this poor child to a life she did not want, did not deserve, tied her to a suffering beyond words. He could empathize.

The lion listened softly, making eye contact where he could --- though Azure seemed to grow shiftier and more frenetic by the second --- and ran through the myriad of ways this conversation would wind up. Pride's sending indicated trust that Mercurius was already willing to give. The hybrid had already confidently shrugged off the Bloodberry name and seemingly broken ties enough to approach the stag who --- admittedly and justifiably --- never looked too kindly upon murderers, and particularly not of a moose-goose kind.

"That's good," he began softly, warm smile reaching his eyes with its genuine nature, as he rocked back onto his haunches with only the slightest wince, "that you don't want to be associated with them, anymore." After speaking, though, the lion paused. His jaw tightened with thought, brows furrowed. Eyes searching the hybrid's features slightly, he rolled down onto his stomach. Best to seem smaller, incapable of moving quickly.

"I know for certain that you were never really one of them--- you thought only to escape from the mess that was your... reawakening. Rift thought about sending his fellows after you, but I stopped him," Mercurius began, softly, "that situation was handled poorly, and I only wish I hadn't stood back so much." Moonset eyes glanced off to the side with a noncommittal shrug of his maned shoulders, "such is the past, now. You seem to be doing well now---" A pause, still hesitating. He looked up, genuine interest in his gaze, "and you say you've got a friend in Orion? What are they like?"

@Azure

Azure continued to fidget. Most of Mercurius' words seemed to pass over her, through her mind, like floodwaters leaving little remnant behind; she was too caught up in her own anxiety to be able to pay full attention to it. She grasped that he was praising her choice, that he'd helped her in his own way. She saw, too, that he was lying down--for a moment she tensed, expecting him to stop in a halfway-feline-crouch before springing, but he lowered himself fully to his belly and she relaxed just a little.

And as for Sirendipity... she didn't want to tell him much. She wasn't the brightest; she didn't think about how Pride had already met Dip. She just held some vague, but powerful, instinct to protect her friend.

Azure took a breath, briefly closing her eyes to try and focus her thoughts. "Lemme put it this way--I've met maybe three nice gembound my entire life, and Dip's been the nicest. The first was also kinda nuts, and you're the third--so far," she added, opening her eyes to peer at Mercurius, like a child implying solemnly that their adult was on a trial period, and should prove themselves well. "She's really young, and she likes making things." Then, as if prompted by some unknown guilt, or perhaps the silence, she blurted, "Her name's Dip." Instant regret, there--but at least she had managed not to describe Dip physically.

She hesitated, a moment, looking Mercy over again. "Thanks. For-... talking to, uhh. Rift. So are you like--the King here, or something? Why'd Pride send me to you?" The way she spoke implied no mockery--just curiosity about Mercurius's rank. Why was she sent to him, if not because he was a leader of some kind?

Her curiosity--and lessening anxiety (one couldn't really call it growing confidence, not yet) at not having been attacked yet--left her a little more relaxed in appearance. No longer quite so tense, her gaze was calmer as it rested curiously on the white lion.

@Mercurius

Mercurius seemed to be something of an expert of rambling aimlessly about seemingly unimportant things, as Azure focused in only on her newfound friend --- whose name was fairly unfamiliar to him. The hybrid recoiled sharply at her own name-drop, hesitating. In that slight pause, he quickly injected, "she seems nice--- kind. I can see why she places first in the niceness hierarchy." Genuine reassurances rumbling from his throat, the lion's gaze softened. I'd like to meet her, he thought briefly, but did not pry---

for the hippogriff-esque Gembound thought he might be a king.

The old storyteller laughed, a soft, gentle sound that shook his shoulders. It was most certainly not aimed at her, though he raised a paw to cover his muzzle somewhat bashfully. "Ah, no---" he sniffed, then sighed, "no, I'm no leader. My presence isn't--- nearly as commanding enough to be one." His ears flicked back, a clear sign of his natural submissive behavior. Mercy bowed his head slightly. "You're welcome, Azure."

As for Pride's advice and invitation, Mercy wondered. Perhaps--- to see his judgment on it? Passive, emotional, not nearly as analytical and clinical as the stag's? (That wasn't to say that he was cold and lifeless, by any means.) The lion rumbled softly, moonlit eyes drifting away from Azure in thought and mouth opening and closing with words unsaid. "He may have just thought we might get along," he began, softly with a bit of a mirthful glint in his gaze, "though I suspect he has other interests at heart --- such as ensuring you've truly gone off your family's path." Mercy turned his head toward the ex-Bloodberry, searching and appraising quietly with simple glances, "I can say that I believe you have--- as you stand here completely changed."

Call him foolish and overly-trusting, but Mercurius had faith --- which was in quite short supply in these caves.

A pause. Waiting. Then, somewhat out of nowhere: "would you like to hear a story, Azure?"

@Azure

There was a strange, cold sort of heat in Azure's voice--her eyes narrowing just a fraction--as she answered Mercurius' comment about her having changed.

"I don't know if I've changed. I don't know how you'd know, either, seeing as you never knew me. If you mean this?" she added, glancing down at herself, gesturing with one clawed forelimb, "I couldn't say if that'd have much of an impact. I heard Jayberry's still alive, still an asshole, but totally different-shaped too." Was it resentment..? Nobody had ever known her; how would they know if she had changed? The world had cast her aside, locked her down in a hell she knew nothing of, and nothing outside of. There was certainly bitterness there. She was nothing but a stranger, a tool, a broken weapon, a topic. Nobody knew her as a person--except Dip, perhaps.

At the thought of her friend, she took a breath, closing her eyes, then reopening them. She studied Mercurius for a long moment, not, at first, answering his question.

"Okay, but why you?" she pressed. She folded herself down, finally relaxing into a sphinx-like position (though still a few feet from Mercurius, and still tensed to move if needed). "Like, I don't get it, why would they hand me over to you to talk to? Why'd they put you in charge of my idiot... 'brother' and my sister?" she went on. Keen blue eyes studied him closely.

What circumstances, what events, had led Mercurius to be the one to whom they turned for these things? What did they see him as? She was intensely curious about this; thus far the only roles she'd known were those of "murderer" and "king"--oh, and "blacksmith" now.

She was young, yet, but to her Mercurius didn't seem to fit any of those categories.

"You can tell me a story if you want," she added at last, her tone and expression inscrutable.

@Mercurius

Mercurius winced slightly as the hybrid spoke, misinterpreting his words to hold a disparaging tone, a note of resentment that wasn't there--- and it wasn't any fault of hers. He should have been clearer. He shook his head lightly, rumbling softly, "I don't mean physically, Azure--- I mean in the way that you carry yourself." A pause, reminiscing. "I remember seeing you in that cage, afraid, uncertain; different than you are now, more open, willing to enjoy what life has to offer, if warily," the lion sighed softly, "your wariness is not unfounded, and will serve you well, I hope."

Then, the hybrid was asking about him, looking for answers that Mercurius wasn't sure how to properly place into words. Even after all these cycles, coping was still a tad difficult; no amount of optimism could fully cure the scars left behind.

Offered story forgotten, he offered an old one: "because I've suffered, too. I'm not going to say in a similar way or attempt to empathize with yours --- we can't possibly compare our traumas, no matter what it is. When I was born, I was approached by a red stag that had lost his brother. He took a single glance at my gemstone, and thought I had stolen it from him, and cursed me for my sharp teeth and claws. In all his grief, something broke, twisted him into believing that all carnivores were evil and should be servants unto death. Through war and terror, he made others believe this, too--- he made me believe that. I was not to use my teeth or claws except to tend to plants, to eat berries and serve him." A pause, breath sharply taken, "I still don't do anything but eat berries and tend to plants, but--- not for him, anymore. I can't possibly even think of drawing blood and hurting another like he did me. Like his---"

Belladonna flashed into his mind briefly, and his eyes grew glassy, "like his allies did, even if they freed me, in the end; even if I tried to help him see through his pain and fury."

Mercy drew another breath, to punctuate his past and soothe his racing heart. "I suppose you've been sent my way because I might be able to understand you; placed in charge of your kin because I might be able to help them in a way that I couldn't the stag. I--- I wish to help you and any others who come my way. Good is becoming something of a commodity, and I'm just one old man."

@Azure

At first, she bristled even harder. She'd known what he meant. She'd meant emotionally, too--and damn it, she'd been afraid! She was still the same Gembound! She-...

But her protests, not yet feebly uttered, fell silent. Never mind his brief attempt at a compliment; his demeanor had suddenly changed. Instead of in control, instead of calm and collected, he seemed abruptly, somehow, vulnerable. Weak and afraid, though only the faintest touch of it, as if through memory. She felt herself in sudden kinship with him, and as she listened to the vague story--and the promised horrors that lay beneath Mercurius's glossing over details--she felt herself calm, her anger bleeding away.

The white lion, with his shimmering moonstone, wasn't some controlling beast. He was a victim, as she had been, as so many had been--and abruptly, with emotion thick in her voice, she answered him with a question. "Why is it such a rare commodity? Why is everyone so shitty to each other?" It was the earnest question of a child--a child in an adult body, one who'd been raised with only grim violence and no understanding of the world. It was the question a child had never had anyone to ask, and now, at last confronted with someone else who seemed to understand, a question that blurted from her beak as if of its own accord.

There were depths of sorrow and anger in those few words, and a sense that Azure would wholly accept whatever Mercurius' answer might be; that it would shape her worldview for many years to come.

No pressure, Mercurius.

@Mercurius

Mercurius was, briefly, distracted with tracing the phantom scars along his body --- healed long ago, hidden by his chrysalis — with a sweeping gaze. Marks across tender white hide yellowed with age, in the shape of tine-gore and hooves. Legs, sides, face. Signs of abuse that would forever be ingrained in his memory, only to be coped with (it wasn't my fault, he didn't understand what he was doing) and left to the past; even if the present had a funny way of interacting with such a concept.

Moonlit eyes snapped up — then his head — at Azure's question, unexpectedly calm but so earnest. Hopeful in a way only a child could be for an answer to all of the universe's secrets, the unexplored chasm of Gembound sociology. For an answer that Mercurius well and truly had to stumble around for.

To say that Gembound were simply cruel and bitter by nature was a lie: there had never been a time where he thought to even wound Vazi — hell knows he even tried to save him from the inevitable death his actions would cause. Not for the first time, he thought, I hope he found peace in the end. He was, hopefully, reunited in death with his brother. Even if there was nothing after life. Mercurius's gaze trailed to his paws in his silence, again, eyes half-lidded in further contemplation. Perhaps — perhaps the heart was bitter, alone in a cage of bone and flesh, speaking loudly against lungs and simply ignored. No, no. It wasn't the heart, it wasn't the Gembound, not the mind, not the blood. No, no, it was — oh, how it was.

At last, he spoke, a soft confession whispered just loudly enough to be heard: "I don't know. I don't think I ever will. No one will." Mercy tensed up, immediately well aware that this was not an answer Azure was hoping to hear — the mind had a funny way of hiding what specific answer it wanted, even when faced with such an existential little plight.

He sighed, began again with pure speculation, "what I know, barely, is that we — all of us — exist in a cycle, whether we like it or not. Society feeds society, the snake eats its own tail, you see. Evil doesn't exist in this world, not in a pure state that we would know of — what does exist, I think, is the broken, the lost, the hopeless. Perhaps, in cycles long before us, someone was hurt, broken beyond comprehension, and they turned to revenge. And another, another who witnessed that found themselves turning to revenge. Viciousness was rewarded, thought to be a means of protecting oneself from whatever the world had to offer. Perhaps, then, society forgot kindness, forgiveness."

Mercy itched at a forepaw with his other idly, eyes fixing upon Azure with a mirrored earnestness, "I remembered kindness, even when the stag and his friends would wound me. I never once thought to hurt them or turn against them, even if I had the ability to. I learned how to forgive — though I can never forget — and... I'd like to teach others that, to preserve what little good is left and nurture it like a flower."

He shifted, revealing a spot of ultramarine: a delicately-fragranced flower with five petals and a white star in its center.

@Azure