Backdated to a week or so after dark hollow.

Aure didn't particularly remember coming here.

His talons were scuffling against rock and air, tempting gravity as he laid at the edge of the path. There was hardly a chance of him accidentally careening over the edge - and he was high enough that his wings would save him. He was just here to feel the breeze and its following stillness; and to think.

He contemplated, at times, what his family might be doing; or, maybe, what he'd eat. Aure would look behind himself once or twice, peering into the mouth of his father's cairn and pondering what he must think now, if he even could. But, most of the young King's thoughts mulled over the future. They were more chaotic than the others and forced him to worry his beak and wing-claws. It was usually a nip or two, but enough.

Giggle and he really ought have a conversation, but... Aure wanted to gather his thoughts, first. Approach this as best as he could on his own.

Most of the problem was Astraea's approaching of them and subsequent entrusting with a task, or else. That else portended an inevitably the hybrid would have to come to grips with, regardless of their success or failure in protecting their charge.

The mere idea that another Trial would occur - that another would go on and more Gembound might lose their loved ones, family, like they lost Vinnie (oh, Vinnie.) - was enough to make Aure want to curl in on himself and hide away beneath the half-preserved wings of the late King and never again come out to face the music.

Aure pushed off, wings flaring out at once and carrying him to the gull.

Rezik had gone and returned, and Eythan gifted him with giving absolutely no attention in return - except to deliver apparently "too dry" of grasses and "mangy" rats. For a survivor, he was awfully picky and arrogant... and apparently terrible at tattling. Astraea hadn't come for the gryphon in a blaze of fury for his words, so he could rest easy at night after the first two days. It could still come and bite him in the ass later, that much Eythan was aware of. Saying the equivalent of do it, pussy to your assigned charge wasn't an ideal dialogue choice.

So, the gryphon hadn't really mentioned that part to the rest of the Bonebound, only that the deer-creature wasn't the most conversational type and apparently could just stuff his face full of rats. He hadn't delivered anything they already didn't already know, and Eythan wasn't about to start bowing down and kissing his hooves to make him recognize 'kindness.'

So, catch-up out of the way...

Eythan picked at a few bones as he walked by, finding motes of dust flying up into his face with every one. He really ought just start looking at rat carcasses. That'd work out a lot better than trying to sift through the graveyard for fresher bones and hoping that they belonged to just a lesser. He was not the kind to suddenly change his ways. So, on he kept looking -

Until Aure went soaring overhead from Azazel's cairn, and Eythan felt a strange drive to follow.

So, he did, right to the point the wyvern alighted by Vinnie's cairn and simply stood there, at a strange loss.

They never did go to find Vinnie's bones. They never could.

There wasn't a trace of the gull here to say that this cairn was his and his alone. Not a single echo of his being laid here; not in the fungal blooms, not in the various gemstones, not in the open-mouthed painting along its back wall, haphazardly scribbled in blue, bio-luminescent spores. They'd long since lost their glow. The cairn was dark.

Aure heard the soft fluttering of wings, but they held back some, hesitating. Uncertainty was clear in both of them - neither of them knew what they were doing here. The wyvern hardly glanced back before pacing the circumference of the cairn, leaving incandescent caps in his footsteps. He traced his path a few times until they formed an imperfect circle.

And, guiltily, he wept towards Eythan, "I miss him - I wish I knew him better and I miss him."

He'd not known Vinnie as more than a loud-mouthed bird that came along with Aure when the young King returned from his childhood surveying of the Caves. Of either of them, Eythan knew the noisy bird the least. But, he'd been Bonebound. He'd been family, as little his presence had been to the gryphon. There was a hole in the quilt, never to be patched.

Eythan might not mourn Vinnie as much - but the space the bird had occupied once.

The gryphon watched silently as his brother paced the length of the cairn and back, and again. There was hardly any sound but the scuffling of talons as Aure walked and as Eythan sat down - nonverbally offering a shoulder, which was taken quickly.

"I know," was all he could return after a minute spent at a loss for words and a minute spent not offering the comfort needed. One enormous wing unfurled, wrapping around the wyvern as he approached and pushed hard into his side. The two weren't much for affectionate gestures towards one another; it was a mutual agreement reached after coming to the realization of just who's blood was on Eythan's claws. For the better, then.

But, now - Aure needed it. Needed it sooner than he could go find Giggle and seek it.

The young King's cries were muffled in the fur of his shoulder, and Eythan couldn't find any more words.

How could he?

All of the Vitas before Aure weren't raised with their hearts readily available.

Aure couldn't find the heart to hesitate when Eythan offered his side — the young King (oh, he was so young wasn't he?) so desperately needed the physical contact that he couldn't immediately find his mother for. He didn't say as much, too caught up in his sudden onslaught of feeling and misery to make the gryphon seem like he was second choice.

The silence he offered, though… that was good. Space to think once he found catharsis. There was a quiet understanding shared between them.

And it stretched on and on…

… until Aure managed to stifle his sobs enough and ran out of tears to cry. His head thrummed with dehydration and he felt exhausted enough to sleep then and there.

But, Eythan was already here and already open to just talk at.

Aure started, quietly ("don't, don't talk. Just listen, okay?") from the spotted shoulder he'd slicked over. It shrugged lightly, an indication to continue. The wyvern nodded, raising a wing to smear at his eyes and stare out towards Vinnie's cairn. "Rezik is okay, he's okay — but, I'm so worried and afraid and… terrified that it's going to happen again. That one of us is going to go into Hydra and that they're not going to come out. That someone will come for him and kill him when none of us are around to stop them. That Astraea will demand that we go — or that something worse will come our way."

The wyvern sniffed, "I don't want to lose any more of us. I know it's a fact of life but I don't want to lose any more of us. Not completely… not without leaving anything behind."

Aure couldn't take building another cairn from nothing.

Eythan sat, quiet, withdrawing his wing just a little and resting it on top of his brother; he was listening for sure, but a feud quietly ran through his mind. The gryphon'd found the bones (at least in some capacity) to be wrong about Rezik. His idea of kindness had been groveling and perfect service.

And, apparently, Eythan had thrown that right into their charge's face.

The gryphon swallowed, selfishly grateful that Aure was in too much of a state to notice. His beak came down, snipping at an overly large ear, "I'm gonna say words real good now, alright?" The head pushed into his shoulder nodded. "We'll all be okay. That first Trial was just a fluke, a thing that caught us off-guard." Way to be the voice of reason when you've, perhaps, ruined your own life. "We will know what's coming, whatever it is. We'll leave something behind."

Trust Eythan to be a blunt voice of reason, slamming a cleaver straight through the breast of whatever ailed Aure's brain. Sometimes (and only sometimes) his method of brute-forcing every problem that came his way actually worked.

The wyvern sniffled again, coupling it with a sharp inhale, ears flickering forward as (forced) optimism came into view. It was all about looking on the bright side, but not without ignoring the darkness. Shadows made lights brighter, or some poetic nonsense like that. "We know - we know this time, yeah but..." Aure closed his eyes, talons scuffling against one another as he made to break from his brother's side, "it isn't like we can break off our legs or wings before we go. Dad's bones and wings were left behind and he helps Mo - Giggle with her seeing, sometimes. There wasn't anything left of Vinnie in Hydra. There wouldn't be a single bone to remember either of us by."

Aure made a spirited gesture with his wings, tail slashing through the air once as his voice grew stronger, steadier, "it isn't like one of us can just take a bone out before we go - and, and... if Astraea says two of us have to go and that we have to pick - I'm going. I'm going." Ears pinned back, eyes narrowing and showing just how strongly he'd decided about sentencing himself to potential death, "it's - it's what Dad would do."

His eyes kept darting off in the direction of the late King's cairn.

Physical body parts were hard to just safely hack off or remove for ritualistic purposes (especially without advanced medical practices and technologies, of course) --- Eythan could grant his brother that point. But, that wasn't the only thing -

The gryphon coughed, backtracking at Aure's determination and the sheer finality every bit of his body language implied. It's what Dad would do, he balked, standing up slowly and impulsively deciding to start shitting on their old man then and there. "Just because Dad was a self-sacrificing idiot doesn't mean you have to be," Eythan spit, harshness filing the words to an edge he wished he'd taken to the old King's throat on that fateful night, "we might need you to volunteer yourself to die so we don't have to, but - come hell or high water, I'm not gonna let you think that's the only way that's gonna affect us."

Wetness pricked at his eyes, and Eythan gulped, sighed, and took a less emotionally-charged stab at it, "look, Dad was a fool that thought he had to kill himself for the ones he loved to show it." Maybe the coot took that too literally. "You're allowed to put it on someone else to go to Hydra and you better feel bad about it and have a guilty conscience, because not havin' it is worse than tearing yourself up. But, it's not gonna come to that, Aure, because you might not be Dad, but you are a damn good King. You aren't some disposable snot of a Lesser."

Aure's brows flew up in abject worry, glassy eyes growing more lucid in preparation to defend a man he'd never met, never would meet. Rational thought dictated that Eythan had leagues more experience with the inner workings of their father's mind, but he hadn't needed to go at the ghost with the proverbial cleaver. "You -" he chirped, but the gryphon mowed over him with a compliment to his leadership ability (which he sure didn't resonate with his mental state, but, y'know.)

"Don't be so harsh on Dad - not for trying," he called, gesturing again and shifting so that he was standing front of Eythan and staring into bright eyes, "you know that he didn't know he could ask for help. I don't -" Aure's feathers flared in weary exasperation, "I don't want to be just like him, Eythan. I just want to be even half the king he was."

He tore his gaze away for a moment, thoughts set once more on the worn-smooth and cleaned bones that sat overlooking Canis, "half the king, without destroying myself. I want to give and give, but at least I know that I need to - to take, sometimes." Aure clipped in the last part, abrupt enough to counteract the opening of Eythan's mouth, "if - if it takes sacrifice, then I'll do it. If it doesn't, I won't. But - a legacy's not enough. Memories other have of me isn't enough. I - I want to leave something if I go, even if I might come back."

Hydra's sentence hadn't been final for some. Some came back and continued as if nothing happened, as if there hadn't been deaths and as if nothing was worse, now. Maybe they'd moved on, accepting it as a fact of life - maybe they'd simply forgotten about that noisy bird (and that snake.)

"I'm not blamin' him for anything that happened except for him refusing to be open unless you -" Eythan's gaze flickered down to his claws, and he swore he could feel something slick running down his forearm as he inspected one set, "unless you really pushed him and - he was always ready to just let himself go. It's not his fault, but it was unfair." The sensation of strong teeth around his neck reminded him, "he didn't have the folks you've got around you. I didn't have the folks you've around you."

The gryphon extended his arm, giving his little brother a playful smack on the beak, "you're your own kinda king, Aure. You're doing great, I promise you that."

But, the young King was still fixated on the notion of leaving something behind - even as strong a flier and as well-versed in magic as he was. Aure still fretted and worried, looking for a tangible thing to leave on the cairn or watch over the Bonebound from. It wouldn't be his own bones, but Eythan still offered, "you could... make something. Someone, even." His ears tilted forwards, eyes staring up from beneath white dots as he tried to gauge the wyvern's reaction before continuing, "leave a piece of your stone - or your magic."

"You'd be - you'd be a good father, Aure."