Pride was still concentrating on retaking his magicka. He had grown leaner, during this; rather than hours spent grazing and lazing, he'd been travelling between the caves, forgoing meals from time to time for his practice.

Despite his travels, he hadn't seen Azizos around--the last he'd known, his son had made a child and then chrysalized. He knew Azizos was still alive; he and Mercurius had both seen the shards of stone lying in the grove from their child's awakening. But past that-? He'd been closer to Azizos than to Arsu; Arsu was a gentle being but a daydreamer, half-present, half-not. Azizos was a focused, curious creature more akin to Pride, where Arsu was certainly Mercy's sort. But he'd not seen him, now, in a couple of cycles and that grieved him, some.

He hoped he was all right.

The stag focused on his magicka. He'd not seen Nassir or Amazon in some time, either, nor Luster or Reign or the rest, and he hoped they in turn were keeping up on their magic practice. If they were called into battle again, he didn't want them finding themselves falling short. But there was only so much Pride could worry about, at a time, and right now his own ability was what he had to focus on first.

Mischief lay idly atop the throne, her tiny white figure sprawled utterly carelessly across its huge stone surface. She watched Pride with bored amusement, lazily lifting one overly-broad hind foot to scratch behind her ears. He was aware of her curiosity about him--her humor at his constant work. She thought he should just relax, and maybe she was right... but after he'd practiced.

He drew his shield around him, then, to start off, focusing on the energy that drew inward, and glancing with amusement at Mischief. "It has to be done," he told her bluntly, smirking some.

@Azizos

Azizos, admittedly, could have been around more. He milled about Eridanus more often than not, loitered in Mercurius's grove, and sometimes made the venture to the Pillars for quiet contemplation. He'd not made any house calls for his other father in a while - not even after the meeting in this very cave. The lion-stag hoped it had merely been their constant missing one another. He had no motive to not drop in. Simple as that.

But, today was the day.

Blinking in from the starlit entrance to Tunnel M, the kirin peered around for smudges of ethereal white against the blue landscape. His legs were sore from clambering across unwieldy terrain, but it didn't keep him from bounding down the cliffs and towards the massive seat overlooking the whole cavern. Rest when we find Father, Azizos encouraged to he, himself, and whatever the pronoun equivalent of I was.

Sending out a pulse of magic (he's always casting, I'm sure) he clattered down the corridors at a rather leisurely pace. Moonlit eyes widened slightly at the response from the Throne, almost... deflective - but adaptable - in nature. A strange sort of magic certainly belonging to his father. With that assumption in mind, Azizos picked up the pace.

Pride - and dear Mischief - emerged into view, and the lion-stag bleated softly in greeting, "Father!" The cast clung to the stag's form, and he cocked his head with immediate curiosity, "hello - what sort of magic is that?" Always one to jump to interest, this one.

@Pride

Right. Shield in place, time to... The white stag concentrated, and with a flicker of magicka began to lift off the floor--floating in place. He-

-Pride blinked at the sound of Azizos' voice, and turned sharply, pale eyes widening. "Azizos!" he cried, surprised and pleased, and made his way quickly toward him, forgetting to maintain the spell--dropping to the ground and clattering over by hoof. Mischief, too, recognized the stag-lion at once, leaping down and bounding to him. Where Pride offered a gentle nuzzle of greeting, the hare instead leapt all over, trying to scramble onto Azizos' back in an apparent frenzy of excitement.

Pride glanced down, and perked a brow. "I think someone else is happy to see you, too. How are you? Where have you been? Have you been visiting Vivilene--I hope you have--ahh, this? This is a shield. Sort of-... omnipresent; it stays there, once it's up. It can repel an attack, though it seems to disperse after even a light hit. Repels the attacker, too," he added, clearly proud of this. "I think if you throw a rock, it might demonstrate--just don't do so up close," he added, smirking. Then, more serious--but still lingering close, still basking in his son's sudden existence--"But tell me... how are you? Your father and I found the chrysalis, we weren't sure what had happened. Did you simply sleep?" he added, hopefully.

@Azizos

Pride was... floating?!

Oh, and down onto the ground - Azizos didn't immediately acknowledge that, caught up in helping to close the distance between them. He eagerly accepted the nuzzle, nose against nose with a few tip-taps of his front hooves. His otherwise limp tail wagged fiercely at the tip, or was that his rear end... ?

A purr rumbled through his throat. "I missed you, too, don't worry, Mischief! Here -" Carefully extending a magical grasp, the lion-stag lifted her up and placed her onto his back. With the hare astride him, moonset eyes lit up with a happy-teary smile, and he twisted over his shoulder to nuzzle her.

Back to Pride, yes. "I'm good! I've... been around, distracted by nothing -" and here Azizos's train of thought ground to a halt, "Vivilene?" Forget the shield for a moment, "... who?"

"Your father and I found the chrysalis ... did you simply sleep?" Oh. The hybrid shifted his weight to either foot, ears flickering back with uncertainty, "I think so? I... don't remember going into a chrysalis - just coming out." He squinted. "There was some... overly sweet fruit that I ate with a few others, including Attikias - he walks on two legs. A bird... some... brown animal." It was a rather muddled memory, for sure.

@Pride

Pride returned the returned-greeting with another warm, affectionate touch, then stepped back just a bit. He listened, ears cupped forward, eyes shining with joy at seeing his child. "I'm so happy to see you safe," he said, first, in answer to the rest; and then his mind sort of tapered off.

...So Azizos had no idea he had a child--and Pride had to be the one to tell him? Oof. He considered, a moment, whilst Mischief turned around and around before settling with a flop atop Azizos' back. How to tell him..?
"Ahh-... well. Well, it seems--yes, that when you, ah. Ate that fruit-... You'd better find Attikias, and speak to him. It seems you--well. Don't drop Mischief when I tell you this, but you fathered a daughter, Azizos."

A pause, and he focused on his magicka for a moment. He didn't expect this to work, really, but he had to try. -Of course, nothing came; and after a moment's focus he shook his head in some frustration. "My magic's been--changed; I'll explain more in a moment but I'll have to describe her verbally, I'm afraid. She's--purple," he started off with, his head tilting, a little; "Very kind, young, of course; and shy. She cannot speak--whether temporary or not, I do not know. She has--well, sort of... her other father's torso, and arms, head; but they attach, at the chest, to a body quite like ours. She lives in Eridanus, with her family--if you wish to seek them out, meet them," he explained. He'd gone looking for her again, himself, but not seen her around; he was fairly confident, though, that Vivilene was in good hands.

@Azizos

Azizos stared in the moment of consideration that followed (and briefly got distracted by the sheer softness - and lightness! - of Mischief on his back.) Oh? "Don't drop Mischief when I tell you this," the lion-stag braced himself, "but you fathered a daughter, Azizos."

His face said it all, but he breathed for good measure: "huh?" What happened that night?

Pride shook his head, but filled the speechless silence his son was dutifully providing. Purple, mute, literally half-deer and half-... whatever Attikias was. I - made a child with Attikias? Because that was the most concerning thing... and left him to raise her - wait - a family? "There... are multiple?" Did they not stop at one?

"Caves..." Azizos inhaled, then stared wide-eyed, "I don't mean to sound - um, not happy about it; but just... wow? I'm - overwhelmed."

@Pride

Pride gave a quiet laugh, and dipped his head. "I'd imagine so. I'd imagine 'overwhelmed' seems a weak word for the situation, even. But yes--she seems happy enough; she enjoys stories, and if you wish to bring her a gift I think she likes peaches well enough. And yes, she has family, though I've not met them."

He studied his son, for a moment, the shocked kirin-in-headlights look across Azizos' face, and then leaned down to touch his nose to the ground. He didn't think it'd work... but he wanted it to, damn it, and his focus was powerful as he concentrated. His magic, however, was not, and after a moment he sighed and shook his head. "I tried to... show her to you, and to make you a--stone version, alternatively." The white stag lifted his head, and then shook it, gently, a little grimly, at his son.

"I am fine, but something did happen. Ahh--there's a cave, a sort of... side-area, in Polaris. It was recently-opened, and the creature within spoke of 'transcendence.' I wound up tangled in a trial that it posed, and when I came out--well. I've been weakened, badly. I cannot manage magic that I could, before. But it feels, too, as though there's more potential there. I have been trying to train it back up, if that makes sense. Once I am there--I will make a small statue of Vivilene for you, but in the meantime perhaps you might seek her out, once you feel able to. I think she would appreciate knowing you," he added--and then, as an afterthought, "She wants to help others. She likes hearing stories."

@Azizos

"I'm glad Attikias is taking care of her - not that I think he wouldn't," Azizos murmured, locking away the knowledge of peach-love (who didn't like a nice peach?) for future consideration. He was still overwhelmed, but a sticky, warm feeling started coalescing in his gut. Fatherhood, he named it, and tucked it away for later. "It's okay, Father - I'll see her soon enough." Dipping his head, the lion-stag smiled gently.

It wasn't like Pride to have such a poor grasp on his magic, though, and the stag acknowledged it. "Transcendence?" Azizos bleated quietly, following along, "what did this... trial entail? Was it the same as Hydra's are?" Worry pushed his brow down. His father seemed alright otherwise - "where... did your magic go? To the creature?" Cautious questioning was the lion-stag's method of voicing his concerns, apparently. "But - potential? Like... more power, once you... regain your footing?"

"She likes stories." "Well, I might have to steal one from Mercy, then," the kirin laughed mildly.

@Pride

"I'm sure you will," Pride answered warmly, to the whole 'I'll see her' thing. There was no trace of judgment for all the absentee fathering in his tone. He tilted his head for a moment, studying his son, thinking; then, a little tentatively, offered--"If... you're uneasy about it at all, or nervous, rather--I can always bring you, introduce you to her? Set it up, perhaps, if you think the surprise might be a lot." It was gently-said, as the stag had no idea how Azizos might think, about such things.

Ahh--but he was asking about the trial, and Pride shook his head, a little. "Initially, I only entered to investigate. We'd opened the door, and all its rings; this was some form of... puzzle-lock, I suppose. When I went in, I think this creature--a large, black, spined owl-beast by the name of Emuh--believed me to be there for a 'trial.' I had little time to protest. He is... Hm. How to describe this? He is in a small cave, very small, but large enough to cause... troubles. He seemed to manipulate it, the very reality within, and I am fairly certain that his own powers must be quite strong. He seemed to create creatures from thin air--or perhaps they were illusions, I do not know; and the rock shaped into spines, barriers, even crevasses beneath my hooves. I had to gather an object from a ledge, across a step drop, over which there was only a thin bridge and upon which waited a number of aggressive creatures; then I had to maneuver through falling stone and past barricades of rising rock to place that object... a glowing orb, atop a small pedestal. Then it ended," he added, with a light shrug. And thank the caves for that.
"I don't know where the magic went. I know that I felt drained. Imagine... a deep hole, I suppose, filled with water," and he vaguely remembered having made this metaphor before and finding it lacking but could not, for the life of him, remember its better replacement; "And the water has been drained out of it. But you can feel that the hole has been dug deeper, and once the water refills, it will be more than ever. Does that make sense-? Though it is... not an amount, so much as power. I feel the knowledge of another magic itching at the back of my mind, but I cannot yet unlock it," he went on. And he had tried; caves knew he'd tried. With a sigh, he nodded down to the rock, picking one at random. This he lifted, hovering it idly between them, and in a dour, somewhat self-deprecatingly humorous tone, went on: "So I've been back to square one, for the time being. Practicing the simpler magics, and wisps, and the like."

@Azizos

"Oh, no, I'm not... nervous about it, or anything -" he started, ears swiveling to twelve o'clock, "but, if you think it's... a good idea, I don't mind. I could ask Attikias, too. Her father introducing her other father might be best... ?" Vivilene lived with the elf, yes? It seemed reasonable that she'd be most comfortable with him.

Azizos paid rapt attention, moonlit eyes glimmering with barely restrained curiosity and (of course) awe. Powerful enough to casually shift the very fabric of reality, rather than suggest any change. The cave, too, locked behind a puzzle that required magic. How many places in the Caves are just like that? Hiding behind a precise cast? "And then it ended." "Just like that?"

Regardless - "another magic... I see." Rather, he didn't, but he could echo the sentiment. "Something like... availability, maybe? Easier to reach for magic, once you climb back up... ?" Contemplation aside, though, Pride'd already suggested the best course of action for restoring his hold on magic.

Well... the lion-stag didn't want to disturb Mischief, but perhaps he could help. Moonlit eyes fixated on the rock hovering between them. A smirk spread on his face. The stone hovered a good foot or so higher, spinning in place as it did. "Simple might be best? We could... practice together?" You could practically hear the sly wink in his voice, an idle request to play catch with his father - with stones in lieu of a baseball and some mitts.

@Pride