It was only moments after Oleander had left the cave that the goose made her decision. She couldn't help it - the answer was just below the surface. A resounding yes that echoed through her, unlocked by only a few more moments of thinking deep. It didn't matter if she didn't feel worthy. It didn't matter if she was scared - this wasn't about her, this was about the life that could be and had been. She had a chance to bring it back without fail.

She raced out of the tunnel and into Canis, just managing to catch sight of Oleander's retreating form. "Hey! Wait! Sorry, I...I made my decision!"

Oleander

Melt all your art and drink the paint

Oleander looked back and smiled at the sight of the goose. She turned and trotted over, eyeing the blue stone against her chest. "Do you want me to bring it back to life then?" That was a big decision to make in such a short span of time, but Oleander was happy for it. This was a good thing that she could do - add it to the list of things that people might like about her, make her seem like a better person.

When the goose nodded, she nodded as well, straightening up. It occurred to her, in that moment, that she didn't really know...where the Merchant was. Did she just call to him? "Uh, Masked Merchant?" She called into Canis and near the Tunnel's entrance. "Are you around here?"

@Game Master Dark

The Merchant's slow, shuffling gait became audible a few moments later. Step, drag, sweep, as feet pulled along the rock, as the battered robe's frayed edges slicked along the stone. Bones clattered in his path as he pushed from the tunnel into Canis proper, though his strange three-holed face (mask?) stared, lightly tilted, at the waiting Gembound.

He came close, towering far over either of them, and then stopped; and there he stood, waiting in silence, for an explanation. A hot wind, carrying the dust of Hydra, coiled and drove out around him, flattening fur and feathers as it passed.

@Nameless

Nameless nodded and then reached over, trembling a little bit and suddenly uncertain. A selfish uncertainty - she was giving up something precious to someone who was essentially a stranger. But something even more precious will come of this. Resolve hardened, she used her beak to slip the stone out of its bindings and hand it over to Oleander, setting it on the ground in front of her and then shrinking back a little as the Merchant appeared.

She didn't know who he was and felt a profound sense of unease with this situation. Was it so wise to trust these people who she didn't know?

Oleander

Melt all your art and drink the paint

Oleander watched the Merchant appear, and gave him a small nod, this at least genuinly respectful, even if it was out of fear of his power. She'd seen him turn those stones to dust with just a touch and she'd felt his power when he'd given her to her chrysalis. "Ah, I wanted to use...the reward I got? From the Trials. I want to give life to this stone right here." She nodded towards the apatite sitting on the ground in front of her.

@Game Master Dark

The Merchant knelt, without a word. One strange, clawed hand lifted, palm-up, to display the eye... or was it a stone?--in the hand, which stared unblinking at the Gembound. This then lowered over the apatite itself, claws lying splayed across it.

The Merchant gestured, then, for Oleander to draw close... presumeably to use her magic, though what might happen with his aid had yet to be revealed.

@Nameless

Oleander

Melt all your art and drink the paint

Oleander got closer to the Merchant as he splayed his claw across the stone, ignoring the goose's flinch, and prepared to send her magic forward into the stone beneath her. She leaned over and, if the Merchant permitted it, would rest her muzzle on top of his hand and let magicka flow from the tip of her nose.

@Game Master Dark

The Merchant's hand rested there, Oleander's magic flowing through and added to the brief, sharp surge of his own. Through the filter of Hag-treho.

When he stood, and backed away, there was a life growing in it--and the stone quickly took root, as they do, to fuse to the stone and to grow. But the Merchant--now turning away, now sweeping in silence back into the hot winds beyond the bones--had left his own touch on the gemstone.

___________

This child, when hatched, will bear a voice much like that of the Masked Merchant's: halting and raspy, often a scratchy whisper rather than a boom.

@Nameless

She watched carefully, concerned, as they performed their magic, silently. She was frozen, there, in time, until the Merchant stood and backed away, leaving back the way he came that Nameless crept forward and poked the gemstone carefully. It didn't move, taking root exactly where she'd placed it. The life had taken.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting when it actually happened, she didn't know what she would think, but she wasn't expecting the sudden surge of emotion that gripped her and held her frozen there as she gazed at the stone, the one trinket of the life she'd led before, filled with magic and growing, bearing a new life within. Before she knew it, tears were running freely down her eyes as she stood and curled herself around the gemstone taking root against the stone, neck arching down to rest against the side, body trembling violently. She did not regret this - no, how could she ever regret this?!

She didn't care, anymore, that she'd once been a murderer. She didn't care that the stone had once belonged to the moose that had tried to destroy the world with her. She didn't care about any of that in the moment because all that was important was that she knew she'd been waiting for this. A long dormant emotion within her - the love for Blueberry that would never die, no matter how far down the path of insanity she'd gone, no matter how distant her memories were now...that would never leave her and now he was coming back to her.

As she sobbed and rejoiced over this new life, she looked up at the zebra. "Thank you," she spluttered through her tears. "thank you thank you, thank you so much I can never thank you enough for this. I don't have a name to give to you but please I want yours so I won't forget what you did for me." And when she passed her name to the goose, she only cried harder and thanked her more before curling around the gemstone and letting the joy consume her and wash away all the worries and fears she'd been carrying until now. They could wait a while.

*Exit

Oleander

Melt all your art and drink the paint

Oleander leaned back and nodded at the Merchant. "Thank you," she whispered as he walked away before looking back down at the goose.

Oleander may be heartless - quite literally, her heart was obsidian - but she had the decency to step away from the goose as she shared this special moment with the gemstone, only giving her a small farewell and her name when she asked for it. "Oleander." She watched for a moment more before turning and walking away. "I hope we meet again sometime - you and the little one." Not that it was that important to her.

*Exit