James trotted out the door and after Pride, ears perked up as he listened intently.

"So... magic's like a muscle?", James asked, "If you use it too long, it gets tired and it hurts."

The metaphor made it easier to understand, and he was finding himself lagging just a bit, like if he'd sprinted a good distance and taken a break. Not enough that he was out of commission, but he was getting tired, and it was something he had to watch, lest he hurt himself like Pride suggested he might.

James scrambled for a moment as Pride threw the stone, before trying to catch it before it hit the ground.

He ended up missing with the mental hand he created and watched the stone fall to the ground, ears drooping, "Aw..."

James looked down at the stone and then sheepishly back up at Pride, ears down, "... Sorry."

He kicked it back and looked up expectantly, waiting for him to throw it again.

@Pride

Pride laughed quietly, and shook his head.

"Don't say sorry. You've been more successful tonight than I have. Trust me, you'll have to get used to bloodying your own nose, tripping over your own magic, and so forth. It happens."

They were coming up on the Throne, now--distant, but it was a massive structure atop an elevated platform, formed of ancient red stone. Around it were crumbled ruins. Pride didn't mention it, yet--he'd talk once they were nearer to it--but for now he focused again on the game, on the training.

Again he lightly lifted the rock, lobbing it James' way, aiming to safely drop it before the foal if he again failed to grasp it. "Here you go," he warned, just beforehand--"Catch."

@James

James looked a bit concerned at the bloody nose part but reached out again to catch the stone, trying again. This time, he caught it, the stone drooping a bit before he lifted it back up.

"Did it!", he said with a grin, before dropping it and trotting forward, blinking as he stared at the ruins.

"... Woah,", he exclaimed softly, "... Did something happen here too? Was it a dragon?"

He looked up at Pride once again, peering at him with curiosity. His gaze shifted back to the ruins and to the massive structure above it.

"... What's that?", he asked, nose pointing towards the throne, "It's... big."

James took a few steps forward before stopping and looking back to see if Pride was following.

@Pride

"Good! Toss it back, if you like," he suggested.

His gaze then swept ahead, to where James was peering. "Ahh, that is the Throne. I think merely age wore it down; the same with the ruins where you've made your home. Dragonfire only blackened those, for the most part." He continued to plod along steadily, nodding toward it. "When the Seven formed, King Livius--formerly King Envy--chose that to be their throne. I do not use it; I simply steward the Seven in their absence. But this is where you may find me, much of the time--administering any duties that might come up which, admittedly, are few. If not I am often in Eridanus, grazing, as you found me."

Pride paused, gazing up at the stone structure for a long moment, coming to a slow halt at the foot of the platform beneath it. So many memories of this place, now. And the bones--atop its back, hung draped over its front and sealed there with transparent gemstone, was the skeleton of a komodo dragon. Those had their own, less pleasant, memories. "Do you wish to look around, or head back to the house, now?" he asked, glancing to James.

@James

James stared up at the throne and walked forward, eyes wide, "... Who was that? The skeleton?"

He stared up at the skeleton encased in crystal, both scared and curious. Wondering who it was, their history. Things like that.

"Can I look around?", he asked Pride, dragging his eyes away from the skeleton to look at him, "At least for a bit."

James returned to his side and stayed there, looking around at the ruins around.

"Does anyone live here?", he asked, taking a few steps forward, standing on the tips of his hooves to see as far as he could, to little success.

He trotted back and shook his fur out, trying to shake off the creepy feeling he felt as he stood under that weird skeleton.

@Pride

Pride smirked, a little, then looked up at the bones. The expression faded.

"The bones belong to the first creature that greeted me when I emerged from my chrysalis, at my first hatching," Pride explained. He took a breath. "I killed her. I will explain in as much or as little detail as you like--perhaps you might prefer to hear it when you're older, instead--but in short, she sought to turn newly-hatched children to her cause. For many cycles she persisted, wishing domination and destruction, manipulating, even taking hostages. Her bones now serve as a warning: that we, the Seven, stand between such creatures and the innocents that they would do harm."

...Realistically, anyone might have doubted his story. He was a stranger, still, to James in many respects; and here he was, talking about having killed the very first creature he'd ever met, though granted, later in life. His pale fur seemed almost a strange mirror of the bleached bones lying above.

He hoped it wouldn't put the child off too badly, but there was little he could do, about that; he simply waited, a small, sad shake of his head confirming that he did not see it as triumph, but as a tragedy.

@James

James trotted back over to Pride and pressed himself up against the other's side, looking up at him as he talked, quiet and listening.

"... That sounds... awful,", he said slowly, "I don't understand all that much, but you don't have to tell me. If you don't want to. If it hurts."

He looked back up to the skeleton and shuffled a bit, before leaning up against Pride, trying to provide what comfort he could, "... Maybe I'm best to talk to because I don't understand. I'm unbiased, that way. I haven't seen enough of the world to form a lot of opinions. All I've seen is kindness. Dragon, Khl-"

Wait, he wasn't supposed to tell anyone about him.

"-Khlorine,", he corrected, "Sh-she's nice too- and Titanite and Ari. My friends."

He nudged Pride and pointed off back home, "We can walk back and you can tell me if you want. It'll help you not mull over it so much. Focus on your legs rather than your words, and it'll come out."

@Pride

Pride glanced with surprise to James, and he'd have laughed--as it was, he very nearly did--at the foal's self-correction.

He suspected, rather strongly in fact, that it was Khloros the foal meant. "I thought you were about to say Khloros," he said, with some amusement, looking up and nodding to the Throne, and its cloak of bones. He didn't mention the black horse further, just in case he was wrong--but Pride had been there when the poor beast had awakened from its chrysalis, when Astraea had... hunted him, for lack of a better word. It had been he and Mercurius, and the unicorn Ayr, who'd spirited him away to safety.

Anyway--on to other topics.

"It isn't that it bothers me, and though you may be good to speak to due to your innocence--an insightful point, by the way--that would hardly be fair on you." He turned, and began the stately walk back to the ruined domiciles. "It would be wrong, I think," Pride went on thoughtfully, "to lay all my problems onto a child simply because you haven't got the experience to parse it. In any case, as I say it isn't that it bothers me--it's that I fear it may disturb you. I do not want you to fear the more... negative aspects of this world, nor do I want you to think of me too poorly, as selfish as that may be," he added, with a more humorous, gentle glance James' way.

"But if you wish to hear it, well, I will tell you the tale in its entirety. It is... one of two major reasons that I determined to forge the Seven as protectors." Which was true-... He wasn't the creator of the Seven, but he had changed them from whatever Livius had made into what they were now. Which wasn't, given their low numbers, saying much--but it was better than before, at least.

@James

James dipped his head in shame and nodded slowly, "... Yeah. I was. He's nice! He told me not to tell anyone that I met him-"

He was scared Pride was going to hurt Khloros because of his stupid mistake. So far Pride turned out to be nice, but where did that kindness end, hm? He didn't know.

"I want to know," he said, "And I think I have the whole, 'fearing the more negative aspects of this world' thing down, but thanks."

Who knew this little colt could be so sarcastic? He, of course, wanted to know more. He wanted to know the character up there, her skeleton frozen in time, what crimes she'd committed, what happened that made Pride of all creatures wary to tell the story.

I mean, he was a child and all, but how would he learn if he wasn't taught? At least, that was his reasoning.

@Pride

Pride burst into surprised, good-natured laughter at James' little joke, and shook his head. "A fair point," he agreed amiably. "And yes, it'd be wise to refrain from mentioning him. I am aware of his... situation--a strange one, to be sure."

He strode along a few moments further in silence, cheer fading as he pondered how to tackle the story of Reseda. He began to speak more solemnly, after a moment, words punctuated by the clicking of eight small hooves.

"The bones belonged to a large lizard named Reseda. She was... ambitious, power-hungry. But like a few other monsters these caves have seen, she lacked empathy. She didn't grasp basic emotion. She wanted only for herself, and any feelings she pretended at were but hollow echoes, imitations of what she thought she ought to display. She was an imposter among feeling, sympathetic creatures," he explained, and some part of him briefly asked--and you? He pushed that swiftly aside; of course he wasn't the same.

"Her great desire was to be a 'king,' though of what, she did not think through. She wanted others to bow before her. She wanted fear, and obedience. Power."

Pride clicked his way along, staring distantly off toward the buildings, his gaze lost in memory. "She began to find chrysalises close to hatching, and she would wait. And when the child emerged, she would tell them how special they were. How much she wished to help them, to teach them, to train them. She began to name us, calling us the 'sins;' she named herself Greed, and another Envy; there was a Lust, and a Gluttony. I was, and still am, Pride. She took me to Canis--to a soothsayer there, a seer--and tried to make me think that this creature, a hyena, was mad. That she had to be killed. She tried to urge us to violence; to train us to be her soldiers. In the end, it proved that her manipulation was as clumsy as her formless ambitions. She did not truly know how to go about her task, and her attempts at misdirection were fumbling and, quite frankly, insulting. The rest of us cast her off. Livius led us--that is our King, the King of the Seven, now, formerly the one called Envy."

"More than once, we ran into direct conflict with Reseda. She would rail and rant at Envy, demanding to be made king--not understanding that if no one wishes to follow you, you have no power at all, in the end. And no threats that she could make would change that."

Click. Click-click. Click. Hoofbeats echoed across the rock in a moment of silence, Pride glancing to James. Thus far he'd been speaking calmly, matter-of-factly, leaving little out; but now? The end of this tale was... gruesome, at best. He wasn't sure how much detail to give. He decided to be honest, at least; but there was no need to go into the... the worst of it, really.

"Her downfall came when she tried to take our smallest member hostage--a close friend of mine, Amazon. A very tiny lizard, long-sickly and very brave, for her size. She came into Orion with the lizard captive, and told us that unless we knelt before her, she would kill Amazon. I don't... know what she expected; did she really believe we would follow her, forever, over one single, isolated threat-? She was a fool. And she died like one. Livius and myself both struck at once. I incinerated her gemstone in a flash of white, and that was that. Anti-climactic; but her story was never going to have a good ending. Not the way she told it," he added, with a grim shake of his antlered head.

He glanced, again, to James, slowing as they reached the habitations. "That is part of the reason we formed the Seven--to stop those like Reseda in the future. And there have, sadly, been more like her; it is our duty to make sure that none fall prey to those like her. Or rather, mine; only yours if you choose to take up such things, in the future." Pride nodded firmly. For now, James was the protected; perhaps, in the future, he would choose to be a protector in turn.

@James