Venari considered his question. She didn't know what he did and did not know about death, but she could explain her understanding of it at least. Chewing on the subject, she thought for a moment longer, putting her words together carefully.

"Hm. For me, the feeling is that it would not matter. Another would simply take my place and my task; and perhaps, the Architects would revise my design, so that the next iteration of me may not fail again." She watched as he began to grow flowers at the mouth of the den. Smiling as he turned back to look at her, she nodded. "Thank you, I will take care not to trample them," she promised.

Venari gestured to him then, and shrugged as she said, "But you claim you were not designed, that your... parents, were your Architects—or rather, a lack thereof. You were just... created. Just because." She still had a hard time wrapping her head around it. That Oliver had no task, no designation, just this strange freedom. "Even so, if you were to die, and assuming your stone were still intact, you could live again. Not you, per se, but your stone anyway." That was the important part to Venari.

She crept forward to inspect the new life of budding flowers.

"Maybe it is different for us," she concluded. "Maybe your life is different than mine."

@Oliver

He listened quietly, attentively, his expression solemnly earnest. And when Venari had finished speaking, his head cocked slightly to one side.

"So you're-... your purpose?" he suggested, tentatively, as if to try and gauge his understanding. His brow furrowed, faintly, in thought. "So if you die... someone else will just, uh. Do the same thing?" He paused, thinking this over, and then tilted his head the other way before looking at the flower buds thoughtfully.

"Maybe we are different..? I feel like-... if someone replaced you, it wouldn't be you anymore. You're--more than uh, your purpose, to me," he added, but then paused, primarily because he was gradually coming to realize that he really didn't know much about Venari's purpose, but anyway--mostly to forestall questioning on that front--he hurriedly continued.

"I mean, I don't know exactly what your purpose is but even if you get replaced I'd still miss you?"

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

@Game Master CJ

Venari nodded to his question; at least, she assumed someone would replace her. That's what it felt like for her, anyway. When Oliver went on to speak about Venari as an individual, her eyes traced him thoughtfully. He said it wouldn't be her anymore, if someone replaced her, and she noted the pieces about him that might change if someone replaced him. Well, yeah, it wouldn't be her anymore. Her gaze drifted out into Eridanus as she thought. She was not particularly made to understand the idea of being an individual more than she was a part of a whole, a gear in some kind of system—but Oliver's words stirred something to life, something that had not been there when she had been created.

He'd still miss her, even if she were replaced. There would be a part of her, regardless of what came next, that would still be lingering in the caves. Her memory, bound in Oliver's thoughts.

Her body lowered completely, settling in to lay next to him as she rested above the flower buds.

Venari was more than her purpose.

A faint smile etched itself on her chitinous lips.

"Thank you," she said quietly, still staring out into Eridanus. Her purpose might not be too grand, and perhaps Oliver might be too soft to know it truly, but it still felt nice—an unnecessary sentiment—to know he felt that way about her at all.

After some time sitting silently, relishing in the endearing time she could spend with him, she turned to him solemnly. "My purpose is to Hunt," she started, her voice low and uncomfortable. "I am hunting a creature that leads a group that has failed in a task they were given—and not only failed, but seemingly have ignored it, and fled." Her head turned back toward Eridanus, her gaze escaping to the lush undergrowth. "This is what was told to me by my first target, Atinneas. But if my creator mentioned the group name, or leader, I have forgotten it," she continued, frowning. Surely it was mentioned to her, instilled in her as Atinneas was—an arcane moonstone?

She shifted, curling her legs beneath her. "Atinneas mentioned the leader believed in peace; I do not know what war was waged, but I wonder if they are like you, Oliver." Venari tilted her head down to look at him. "And if, like me, they were more than their purpose."

@Oliver

He settled down, taking the cue from Venari that it was time to rest, for a moment. And rest he did, feeling the aching of overused magicka wearing on him, some. He'd probably sleep well tonight, he thought, what with all this excitement. It was a companionable quiet, and rather than bothered by Venari's shape and... and many legs, he rather delighted in knowing her. It was maybe a little selfish, in a way, but he was happy to be able to say he was friends (maybe? hopefully) with such a strange and interesting Gembound.

To her "thank you," he offered only a bright, warm expression not unlike a smile; but her words, as she thoughtfully went on, slowly dispersed it.

Could it be..? It sounded an awful lot like she meant Rift. He felt himself tensing, a little--he wasn't really sure that it was Venari he was afraid of, just... the situation, really. Slowly, he went back over what she'd just said.

Leader of a group that had failed in a task they were given: check.
Fled and ignored it: check. At least, on the surface.
Believed in peace: double-check.

Ahh, shit.

Oliver cleared his throat uncertainly. It didn't even occur to him, yet, that that might have been why Venari was in Monoceros in the first place; it also didn't occur to him that this might be some vast manipulative test to check his honesty, or something. It wouldn't have mattered, if it was, because he didn't even think to lie. Earnest, fully believing that he could help solve what he saw as a misunderstanding, he spoke up softly.

"Umm... That sounds like it might be Rift? And us," he added. "If it was Astraea? Who asked us to find, uhh... Reji?" He hesitated, briefly, and then hastened to add--"If it was, we found the Hive stuff, and we got everyone together to fight it. I don't know what happened to Reji, though." Oliver hadn't been there for the battle--and he was graciously offering a "we" rather than an "I." The others had most definitely fled, and hid, in Monoceros, but on their behalf he (being the best-suited for scouting, at least, of them) had found Mother, and warned the rest of the Gembound so they could act on it.

Somehow, he worried, though, that for Astraea, that hadn't been enough.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

@Game Master CJ

She felt her eyes narrowing as Oliver spoke, offering information and, she assumed, withholding more. Venari didn't recognize the name Reji, but it they had conquered the goal, then indeed she was not entirely sure what their crime had been.

"Rift," she echoed, committing the name to memory. She was meant to be a terminus for most, an end; she was the herald of a snipped timeline. That's what she felt deep down, anyway. And that being that was okay, it was her job and her purpose—but if Oliver were a part of the group, she frowned.

"So, you completed some task, at least," she clarified, looking out into the lush wilderness of Eridanus. Hmm... was that not enough? Slowly, her attention returned to the winged creature.

"Well, alright," Venari decided, peeking toward the basket she had set down at the mouth of the cave. She desperately wanted the subject to change. She was fine dropping it and never picking it up again, at least not with Oliver. "So, what kinda stuff do you gather in the basket?" she asked, having noticed small baubled rocks or seeds in it before—was there stuff in Eridanus he could gather before the trip back?

But it didn't settle well with her. She shifted, and after a short while, sighed.

"Sorry," came her voice finally, rubbing her scythes in a newfound habit out of anxiety. "Initially it was my intention to hunt you—your group, but I am no longer... upholding that contract." It had seemed, anyway, that they had completed a task, yes? Enough for her to agree the contract was null. "However," she looked back to him, "if you ever wish to form a contract, I will accept without question."

Venari did not think there were many creatures, if any, Oliver might need murdered. But you know, just in case, the offer was on the table.

"So, do you wanna go pick flowers?"

@Oliver

((im sorry for the wait but thank you for being so patient with me ;___;..))

For a moment, he thought she would not elaborate--that maybe she'd debate it, or had accepted his explanation; and anxiety fluttered in his heart. Venari asked of the basket, instead, and he blinked and looked down, and struggled to wrap his mind back around that topic.

But then she reversed, backing up again to talk about Rift, and the Kingdom; and Oliver blinked back up at her with wide and worried eyes. Worry was quickly displaced, however, by rising gratitude: she had been sent to hunt them (oh) but she would stop, now (oh!)! Oliver blinked, and broke into a broad, happy smile, his ear-tufts flattening back and his bird-dog tail feathers doing their damndest to unconsciously imitate a wag. They rustled behind him (distracting him, briefly) and he blinked and dipped his head a little bashfully.

"Oh! Um, thanks--for not hunting us," he offered, brightly, a little lamely. And then he blinked back to his basket, smiling. He'd already offered her his help any time she needed, so... it was time to explain, it seemed, the basket.

"I bring--in the basket, I mean, uhh... Dirt, a lot of the time. You know how Canis and Monoceros haven't really got a lot of dirt? They're lots of rock, like, and not a lot of plants, so I bring some soil in, basket by basket. Sometimes two baskets at once!" he added proudly. "And then I use it to carry seeds, and flowers, yeah-! We can pick flowers-... What color do you want? Or colors-! And I can regrow them after, so it doesn't kill the plants..." For a moment he babbled happily on--about what flowers he knew, and where they could get them, and maybe where they could be planted--as he picked up the basket and hobbled just outside the cave.

Then he glanced back, falling silent for a moment, eyeing Venari with that smile lingering on his face; he looked thoughtful, behind it. "I hope we can stay friends for a long time," he said, abruptly; and then turned toward Eridanus again. He passed one clawed 'hand' out over the buds he'd grown, and a brief spark of magicka had them growing, opening--not all of them, but a few, their colored heads bobbing toward the light.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

(Oliver exits here with his new BFF ok)