m for 'mmmmkera can't stop swearing'

Fuck me.

Kera's bones creaked as she pushed herself up to stretch, groaning and tilting her head down and forward until she heard a distinct click from somewhere along her spine. There have been worse noises to come from Kera's body, however.

She had, these last few cycles, done very little. There were no geese to murder, or geese-spawn, nor were there lights to turn back on. Kera's life had, in fact, mostly been consumed with raising two delinquent children to be good gembounds, and not... murderers.

Shockingly, raising pups not to kill people was fairly easy.

At least, she hoped they weren't running off and killing people. It had been some time since she'd seen either Mars or Halo, but she wasn't going to try to restrain either of them into staying in her den forever.

The massive white wolf shook the sleep from her bones before she shoved by the rubble in her 'den,'-- a half-crumpled old hut in Orion --and moved for the exit with a heavy yawn. She stood under the doorway and lifted a hind leg to itch the heavy, spore-ridden pelt clinging to her skin.

Perhaps she'd hunt, or drink, or make lights.

Who knows. Not Kera. Even so, she was content to stand under the glittering mushrooms surrounding the doorway for the time being, staring bleary-eyed into Polaris.

Ahh, yes. A peaceful morning with no murder-geese, death, or killing. Just pleasant lights and itchy fungus.

The silence was broken by a soft pattering that grew rapidly closer, turning into a loud clatter, and then a cave deer shot past--followed closely by a massive, spiked violet shape that hurtled down, slamming into one half-crumbled building, careening off and charging down the alleyway after it. Just across from Kera, dust and pebbles rolled at the monster's impact.

Out of sight, around the corner, the behemoth vanishing as if it were never there. There was a scuffling, frantic bleating, a crack--and then Vargas reappeared, pacing back around the corner with his head raised in curiosity. He practically towered over some of these structures, and he held the entirety of the cave deer in his hook-toothed jaws.

He came back to Kera's house, and stared at it. He stared at her, too, unless she'd moved. He then spat out the deer, which fell broken-necked onto the rock at his feet with a little puff of dust.

"Interesting lights," he observed, then leaned back, as if examining Kera's sense of exterior decor.

@Kera

Kera lowered herself down to stretch out again, heaving a yawn. Everything was absolutely fine, until the familiar scuffling of hooves came close. The wolf drew herself up a bit, turning her head to watch as the deer moved past. And then an unfamiliar fucking monster ran right past as well.

She blinked, watching the stones skitter in front of her vision for a moment. Then, she stepped a little further from her den and peered down the street. She couldn't see, but she could certainly hear that it was a successful hunt.

Maybe it's time to go back to sleep, Kera decided, turning to move back inside-- though she didn't even get to go in before she heard the violet creature returning and stopping in front of her house. She turned, quizzically, blinking up.

Kera would have liked to say she saw weirder. But she hadn't.

"Well, yeah," she said. "They're mushrooms, they're special. They bring light." These were, in fact, the requirements to be a lightbringer, after all-- you had to bring things that also brought light. Like mushrooms.

"Interesting face," she offered in return, turning and sitting back down in the doorway. She had a feeling that, for now at least, this was going to be a thing. "Do you want a light?" She then offered.

@Vargas

Vargas snorted at the--insult? Compliment? ...Blank statement?

"It was created this way," he responded simply, eyeing Kera. Had she been? He didn't think so. She had the look of the... new things; in fact, she looked something like a pale, adult version of the obnoxious cub he'd put into its place back in Polaris.

He scrutinized her for a long moment, and then eyed the fungus. He remembered the most recent trial--the two Masters that were awake--and he eyed the glowing mushrooms again, thoughtful. Does it realize..? Is it one of theirs?

He shuffled, lifting the deer with one clawed limb, taking a large bite and tearing it free. Blood splattered down his jaw and chest as he flicked his head back in a bird-like fashion to gulp down what he'd bitten off. An acidic-green, glowing tongue lashed out to lap some of the mess away, and Vargas--between that bite, and taking another--spoke.

"Who are you? I do not recognize you; you are one of the new things? You are scarred," he added. He wasn't demanding; his voice held authority, but it was more idle talk. He wondered if she were older than the rest, given the heavy scarring. He wondered if perhaps Astraea, or Nemean, had set her here for one reason or another.

@Kera

The term 'created' did not, in fact, clue Kera in that this one particular gembound was not like the rest. Instead, Kera drew up the conclusion that Vargas was created like how she created her own children. What the fuck did this thing's parents look like? She wondered, tilting her head.

She followed his gaze to her collection of Friends, and then looked back at his face for a moment, even after he spoke. Maybe he was some kind of dragon. Fused with...

... caves fucking knows what.

"I'm Kera, the Lightbringer," she announced, as she often did. "I brought light back to the caves when they'd gone out." Because the one thing you should always do when introducing yourself to new people is remind them of your life's greatest achievement.

His other question, she couldn't quite answer. She lifted her shoulders in a vague shrug, furrowing her brow. "Fucked if I know. I'm not new new, but there's probably others out there way older than I am," she offered. She took a brief glance over herself, then added, "I've gotten into a bunch of fights."

She realised with this statement, however, that there weren't actually a lot of other gembound out there with scars. She knew of a few, but not many. Even this one seemed relatively... clear-skinned? She thought?

Maybe they all just went into their chrysalises instead, when injured. But who wouldn't want sick-looking scars?

@Vargas

Lightbringer? Well, that narrows down who left her here, Vargas decided. She had a name, too, not a number, but he wasn't sure if that was down to her being younger--none of these new creatures had names--or being higher-ranking than the usual.

"Ahh, one of Nemean's? What is your rank? I am Overseer Vargas," he added. He tore off another chunk of deer with his teeth, still holding the entire thing in one hook-clawed hand, and gulped that down, too--all the while eyeing the mushrooms idly.

"And no, I do not need--lights. What removed the lighting?" His head lifted, and he seemed to study the orbs high above. "And how was it returned?" He tore off a piece of deer leg with one clawed forelimb, then offered this out indifferently to Kera.

May as well eat, while she talked. Friendly conversation and all that. "On whose behalf do you fight?" Defending Nemean's pride, perhaps? Vargas snorted; that would keep one busy.

@Kera

Kera slowly tilted her head. At this point, she was mostly unsure what Vargas was actually talking about. She didn't know what an Overseer was, or what they were meant to do, but she certainly knew the name Nemean.

"No, uh," she began, eyeing Vargas up. If he happened to be a friend of Nemean's, she didn't feel like offending. That might lead to Kera being the thing's next meal. "I don't work for Nemean. She was the one that turned the lights out, before. I don't really work for anything or anyone."

The wolf spent a moment lifting her hind paw to itch absently behind her ear, thinking. "I like to keep the caves-- y'know. Relatively safe, at least from other Greaters. There was this goose and her murder-children running around just fuckin' murdering everybody, so I fought some of them before."

She lowered her foot again, watching Vargas eat for a moment. She was half-surprised to find a deer leg being offered towards her, and she reached out to take it with her teeth, ripping into it to chew. Once she swallowed, she spoke, "Nemean shoved somebody's stone in there," she explained, about the lights. "The generator, I mean. So we had to yank it out, and once we did the lights went back on. I don't know why she turned them off, though, but they've stayed on since."

For a moment she leaned slightly back, thinking and chewing on venison. "What's an Overseer?" She asked, with a mouth full of red meat.

@Vargas

What a strange twist of events, Vargas thought to himself, mostly absently. She was sort of accidentally working for Nemean, then..? Certainly at the fairy's design. But why would Nemean stick a stone, of all things, in the Generator? Why turn the lights out at all? Almost as soon as he wondered, Vargas mocked himself for even asking. A test--more likely, her own amusement.

He had to admit, it was a little funny.

He didn't say any of that aloud, though. If Nemean hadn't said anything, then it wasn't his place to say. "I'd thought some great feat of magic on par with our own work, but removing a stone is--... It perhaps took investigation." It wasn't really an attempt at complimenting Kera--just-... He wasn't quite sure where to go with his own thought. Yup. She'd moved a rock. Good job, Not-Overseer. Speaking of which-...

"An Overseer," Vargas went on to explain, though paused twice in the doing to gulp down hunks of meat. "is a creature designated by the Masters or others of high rank for--" Gulp, swallow--and then he pointed a deer's foot at Kera for emphasis as he finished--"overseeing."

Vargas was aware that this did not explain everything, and so--after another bitten-down hunk of very fresh cave venison--he went on. "The Masters' wills are enforced; rebellions are quashed; hiding rebels are hunted down. Tests," he added, and here he took yet another bite of muscle-meat, "are administered. When I was last awake, there were none of you wandering so freely, and without numbers. Now you have all come alive of your own accord, I suppose; you have names," he added, with emphasis. It was hard to tell exactly how he felt or what he thought about it, but it was certainly something.

"So, tell me--Kera? Lightbringer; what do you do?" He waved the half-eaten deer carcass about to indicate Orion as a whole, looking around, as if gesturing to the world at large. "You--numberless horde--you are simply spawned, and then--what, wander around and eventually die?" Vargas sounded a little baffled by this.

It was the sort of question liable to spark an accidental existential crisis; but he knew his purpose, at the very least.

@Kera

Kera slumped down, one foreleg over the hunk of meat as she spent a moment or two chewing and swallowing, half-watching Vargas as she did. He didn't seem particularly impressed, but Kera supposed when you're that size, you could just reach all the way down into the generator.

"Well, yeah," she said. "I'd also just hatched at the time. And it was underwater. It might be easy for you, but not a pup. Everybody was moping around miserably in the dark, too." At least, this is what Kera percieved. Blackberry had been angry, and Giggle had been a little too happy when she showed her lights.

She listened to Vargas, albeit a little quizzically. She knew of the Masters-- particularly Tenzin and Astraea --and she knew some of the others had some doubts about their true intentions. Kera supposed she did as well, but only about Astraea. He didn't seem entirely right.

Kera gulped down a strip of deer meat. "So, everything's different now?" She asked. "Why? I mean, if there's a need for Masters and Overseers and ominous wills and shit, why not-- I dunno. Reinforce them? If we need numbers and stuff, why aren't we getting them?"

Luckily, the wolf did not, in fact, have an existential crisis. Kera knew her place, too. She knew she'd die some day. She knew most were destined to just wander and then die. That was life, really. "I guess," she said a little nonchalantly. "I mean, everybody does different stuff, you know? Some people just do fuck all and eventually keel over, or are killed, and some grow plants and shit, and some set fires. There's gembound in Orion--" she waved a paw up towards the Throne "--that sit around and act like they own the place, making themselves up to be kings and shit."

Shaking her head, Kera gulped down another few scraps of meat. "I just like defending the ones that can't defend themselves, and making lights. Everybody's different, I guess." She eyed Vargas for a moment, dipping her head down to tear off more meat from bone. "So what are you supposed to do, if there's no Masters' will to enforce?"

@Vargas

Kera had a lot to say--and many questions. Vargas spent most of it gulping down deer guts, listening half-absently.

"It would be easy for me," he agreed indifferently, missing Kera's point by a mile. "So it was a proving?" -Then again, hadn't the wolf just said she didn't know why Nemean put the thing there?

No proving. No, likely still amusement. Vargas gave a soft "hrmph" of amusement at the idea of Nemean turning out the light just for laughs, again.

"Everything became different when I slept. Many of us slept! But I am awake, now," he added, and leered down at Kera with a blood-streaked grin. It wasn't actually meant to be a threat. "All of that..." and here, he waved around the last scraps of hide and hoof, before tossing them aside; "Doing nothing, or pretending to be kings--that will end, soon enough. There is still the Masters' will to enforce--Hydra is open for trials, again. The first has already taken place."

Would it be time to do another, soon? Vargas half-wanted to set one up just for his own amusement--but he had to wander the caves, some more, get the lay of the land-... Or rather, understand the new 'culture' these creatures had built up, first. He couldn't go "imposing the Masters' wills" until he understood what, exactly, their wills were--and what sort of beasts they were imposing on.

"It will take planning," Vargas went on idly, without actually giving any of that away. "I do not think most of you new creatures would survive the old ways for very long. Two died almost at once in this most recent trial." And was that... a good thing, or a bad? He really wasn't sure. Weeding out the weak was good, but if they were all weak, they'd have nothing left to work with.

And as for Kera...? Vargas eyed her, for a moment.

He sort of, vaguely, felt that he ought to commend her on her initiative. If many of the "Gembound" were indeed just doing nothing, then assigning and carrying out a purpose, particularly a difficult one, was at least a little... good. Not impressive, not... great. But it showed potential value, at least.

He calculated, in his mind, what she might be able to do. Something older than the rest, scarred and used to the strangeness of the caves; perhaps he could make use of her. Not in a terribly official capacity, no, but she might be able to earn some favor with this work. "Do you want a job?" he asked, abruptly, licking the blood from his claws.

Vargas was unaware that the sort of work he might offer might run rather counter to what Kera usually considered appealing.

@Kera