The Kingdom of Eridanus--such as it was--had been forced out and had resettled. Now, Oliver had--true to his word--set out on a twofold mission.

First, to find his father, and ask for his protection and second, to seek information on the one called Reji.

This had been slightly dampened by the fact that Orion and Polaris had been very much on fire. Oliver was deeply worried; it had been frightening to traverse Orion, and Polaris--well, that was where Black lived. When he wasn't there, he was usually in Cetus, or more rarely Pisces, but Oliver had no real way of tracking him at all.

He leapt and glided here and there, trying to skip slodging through the mud as much as possible, but mostly he floundered through it. He'd been hatched and raised here by his mother, a crow who spent half her life sleeping in her chrysalis, but Cetus, at least, was familiar to him. The Children of Rot were like a second family.

"DAD?" Oliver called, making his way to the offering pile. "Dad, are you here?!" Fear still thrummed through him.

What if whatever had set everything ablaze had also claimed his father's life..?

Black heard his son--heard the calls, heard his voice, muffled by the thick fog. He had no way of knowing how long Oliver had been searching for him, but moments later he was plowing at an awkward rush through the muck, barking.

"HERE," he bayed, and after a minute or two of awkward shouting and trudging through mud, they'd found one another.

The mastiff that emerged from the mist was not the same one Oliver had last seen: one eye was a blind milky-blue, one ear tattered, and burn scars criss-crossed his right flank like spiderwebs. Yet they looked like old wounds, and Black, as he came to sniff Oliver over, was very clearly more concerned about his son than about himself.

"You must stay here," he woofed, settling back to stand quiet as he found no trace of injury on his son. His thick tail wagged, the only sign that he was pleased by this; he was not a particularly expressive beast. "You are unharmed. It is good. But Raheerah is loose in the caves. I tried to protect a child. Two died. I must guard their stones. And you: are you guarding?" he asked, and it was, strangely, almost a demand.

This was not the father he remembered--oh, it was his dad, but the wounds-... Oliver's brow furrowed as he looked his father over, feeling no fear at his presence but worry for his state.

"Raheerah? The--dragon-?" He stepped back, after a quick nuzzle to his father's jaws, and sat down in the mud. Home sweet home. As Black spoke, though, his brow furrowed, and he felt his heart sink. "Oh, no-... Who died?" Fear gripped him. What if it was someone he had known?

His wounds are old, though. "How'd you get hurt, Dad? What happened to your eye? And your ear? -Are we safe here?" he added, looking around them worriedly.

His father's question took him a little by surprise, and he blinked back at him. He knew that their parents--Black, and Eve--had created himself and his sister White. And, for whatever reason, Black had always explained that the pair had been created to protect the caves and those within it. Oliver shrugged, a little; he'd always taken this task seriously, though he tackled it in his own way, and his father always seemed to approve of his methods. "Same as usual, Dad. I spread plants, I keep them healthy, I try to fix whoever I can. I can't really heal stuff, but... I can do my best," he offered, shrugging slightly.

Black was silent, for a long moment. His expression was distant, and puzzled.

"I think I created the dragon," he said, at last, slowly. "The Dog told a story of him to the Lamb, who was harmed. I do not know how he was harmed. A small, dark lamb; new," he went on, looking back to Oliver. "I spoke of the dragon, to take him from his wounds. His eye was destroyed, and part of his face."

He paused. What exactly had happened? He still did not quite understand. "There is a magic I have had, for a very long time, but I do not know its shape. I know its shape," he then immediately contradicted himself, "but not its purpose. A voice came to me and the world fell away. There was darkness. She spoke to me. She showed me how to use this magic. I do not know who she was." He paused, brow furrowed, puzzled at the memory. Now that he was saying it aloud, it made very little sense. But it had happened: he knew it had. "My eye was torn. My face was torn. As was the lamb's. But we were both healed. I shared its pain. It became not-as-bad. We were both wounded; and both healed. And then the dragon came," he added, and lowered his head.

"There was a bird, in bright blues, with pink stone. The Dog spoke to the dragon, but it ate them both," he added, matter-of-factly.

Black then paused, glancing around slowly, as if to make sure that Raheerah wouldn't simply materialize on being discussed a second time. When no roars or shuddering flame erupted from the swamp, he looked back to his son.

"I have collected their stones. They will be returned."

Oliver listened, shifting place, confusion taking him here and there as Black spoke.

Now, he knew his father. He knew that Black was, at the best of times, not the most coherent of Gembound. He knew that he had his... his way. His own mannerisms, his own speech. It had left Oliver--between the esoteric hound, and the completely awkward, screaming crow that was his mother--rather atrophied when it came to social interactions.

But from what he could puzzle out, three things had happened: a wounded lamb had turned up, Black had used some sort of strange magic (guided by a... voice?) which somehow both combined and healed their health, and then the dragon Raheerah had just. Eaten the lamb.

Oliver squinted.

"He ate them?" he asked, quiet, sadness threading through him. He'd pity anyone, for just about anything, but children getting eaten by a dragon was well up there in "pitifulness." He felt brief relief that it was no one he had known, and then guilt for feeling that, and then shook the thoughts away.

"Raheerah wasn't in Polaris. I passed through here, on the way here. It was on fire, though. Orion was on fire, too." He paused, uncertainly. "I came to ask you if you knew about someone named, um. Reji. Master Astraea came to us in Eridanus and said we had to find her, and kill her, or else he'll put two of us into Trials. He said she's a danger to the caves, something about. Uhhh. Fungus?" He hesitated, uncertainly. "I thought maybe you could come to us, and help guard us but. If Raheerah's back, I don't know if that'll matter, now." He paused, and then leaned in to sniff and look closely at the black dog's wounds. "They're scars. They look old, but they just happened-? What was the magic?" Oliver asked, frowning.

That would be useful for a healer to learn. He wouldn't mind some scars, of course, if it meant saving someone's life.

Black was always all-business, and took no offense whatsoever at his son launching off into a new and matter-of-fact topic. It was how he'd taught him, after all.

He hesitated. What if I call the dragon, again?

But he didn't think--given the soft murmuring he'd heard the first time--that that was what would happen. He lay his trust in his memory of the gentle voice, and closed his one good, and one blind, eye.

"Feel it. It is like this," he rumbled, reaching the magicka for Oliver.

It came strong, a flood, a flow; neither of them were wounded but he could feel their strengths washing into one another, like two tides testing. He held with it that intent to mend, to nourish, that the kind voice had shown him. "I believe it takes wounds into yourself."

He did not need to warn his son to be careful with it.

When the last of the magic had drifted away, leaving its sparkle (which hadn't done much) glittering unseen between them, he spoke again. "I have not heard of this Reji. But I must not leave the stones unguarded. Perhaps your allies might come here. They would be well-hidden," he mused. "But I will listen, and if I hear of Reji, or of Fungus, I will act."

He didn't say how he'd act. He'd have to decide that when he knew more.

"I'll let them know. Maybe they'll come here, I don't know." Oliver then paused, going quite still as Black's magic rippled through, briefly binding them. He shivered: he'd felt it, felt it flickering briefly through his body.

"...Whoa," was all he offered, at first, sitting back on his haunches. He knew the... the shape of the magic, now. "I--think I understand. Thanks, Dad," he added, softly. "That's--that's good for a Guardian to know." He reached it back, tentatively testing it--its shape, its power, its purpose. He could feel the link flicker back open, as if tendrils of magicka tested over his body, his limbs, his very vitality.

Then he sat silent, for a moment, lost in thought and feeling as it faded. His father rarely spent words, and Oliver knew he'd have little more to say. "I'll ask around about 'Reji,' then, and then check the other caves, but be careful, okay? Please," he added. There was no 'I love you,' his father wasn't a particularly sentimental type. There was only a brief nudge from Black, a rumbled agreement and a promise to remain near here with the stones, and then Oliver was half-bounding, half-gliding deeper into Cetus.

exit Black & Oliver both