a quick little number exploring with @Auré !
set in early september, not too long after the raid and the passageways' opening

ten days past, there was a cry in a storm, a call to arms, the summons they'd all been waiting for — and she was there, and then she wasn't. damask with her busted lungs, the best she could do was fly away wheezing and sound the alarms, spread the word for the real ones out there who weren't too pathetic to fight, huff it out for her father, her family. same day, another hour, the aftershocks came, as if all the caves were shuddering and relaxing after cycles of holding an overdue breath — but her, she knew better than to exhale along with them. couple days later, she was looking for intel on what had gone down ... and she finally got it. night after that, she couldn't sleep. woke up, couldn't eat. went to see auré, and for all the thinking and planning they were doing, preparing for the very faint possibility of some sort of danger, for all their ostensibly mutual uncertainty, she couldn't cough it up. that left a full week of eyeing the hole in the wall of their home — holding off until auré was ready, watching him oscillate and deliberate when he didn't even know — poring over her stupid little projects, forcing down food despite the invisible brick in her throat, squeezing her eyes shut until it stuck for a few hours' time because nothing's gonna help you sleep at night, you're damned if you do and damned if you —

... fast forward to the present, and the light at the end of this literal tunnel felt like some sick kind of joke.

taloned footsteps scuffed along the dusty floor, louder and heavier behind her than beneath her. with her father at her back, the accipiter advanced and cast around at regular intervals, tracing the carvings, the play of light within the crystalline planes of the passageway's sides. she wanted to trust this, marvel at the unabashed beauty of it, the world of potential waiting ahead of them, but ohh, no, you don't, not with your daddy around. gotta be cool, now, don't we? can't let him see your bleeding heart. you're the one who patches up his.

she drew to a halt. quicksilver eyes lingered on the yawning mouth looming before them, otherworldly and inviting. keeping her vision trained up ahead, damask waved her muzzle over her shoulder: hold up for a second. with a practiced flick of air at her stone, pulsing bodies of red thrummed into her senses. "it's a smaller room, i think." her voice cut softly through the silence, quiet as always. "no greaters, and not a lot of lessers. bats, mostly — not like any i've ever seen, solitary, very still. they shouldn't be a problem, but i'll remember their places and steer us around."

now she looked back in earnest, peering up through her brows. "you may want," she began, "to check one more time, before we go in. can't be too careful — right, dad?" chances were, he was way ahead of her, but it's awful nice of you to pretend he's confident enough to need reminding. just in case, yeah? just in case.

that's you. damask vita: professional pretender.

Ten days past, his daughter'd hailed him from the storm in Polaris, a stuttering in her lungs with the exertion. The moment the Caves themselves had been waiting for had arrived—but, there were enough Gembound there to fend it off. Aure'd watched from the fortresses as the beasts (was that a fair thing to call them? They breathed and lived the same as himself...) of the tunnel over yonder thundered off in that direction. I shouldn't risk us, he'd thought to himself, it's like Mom said. Others have it handled. When Damask came, the young King expressed as much to her. They're strong.

It was nice, at times, to think about the sheer force of will that the Gembound had.

Not long after the golem had been defeated, a tunnel broke open. Amaranthine lights bled into Canis from it. The Bone King hesitated to peer into it, for fear of... several things. What reared its ugly head was his deep-seated worry and fretting about cottony white. Even a brief glimpse of something resembling it had been enough to knot his stomach up a thousand times over. Secondary to that was adhering to his own suggestion that he and Damask venture together as one.

Reason one sublimated into reason two: the accipiter could take care of herself, Aure was sure, but...

... he just wanted to be sure, alright? At least for her first sweep.

So, yes, fast-forward to now: the Bone King plodding a foot or so behind a broad-fanning tail. Bright eyes flicked to and fro, taking in the sights. None of the carvings were as discernible as the graffiti back home, or that tunnel with stairs. A passing glance was enough to analyze them. The crystals refracting dim light were pleasant, at least. They assured him in the way that his magic had before setting foot in here; the way that his magic would before they proceeded.

Indeed, he was a step ahead of Damask, as she'd predicted. Aure stretched his magic out as she flicked a muzzle over the sholder. Where she saw smears of red, putrid whites clung to the broad, flat floor ahead. A tapestry of mycelia spanned as far as the eye could see—he squinted, focusing past it. No dense clusters lay ahead. If the room were larger than it apparently seemed, I might have to look again.

For now, he offered a slight smile and a soft chirp, "it seems alright to me." Ears pricked forwards, then back. "Nothing... erm, came up for me, either." Can't be too careful, alright. "We're good to go," the hybrid gestured with a wing, then lowered his beak with another half-smile, "lead the way."

@Damask

@Auré
heads up for ... uh ... um. ddddissociation? hhhh let's call it that

consider the coast: clear, and her spirits sunk a little lower. you were kinda hoping it wouldn't be, weren't you? ... of course not, of course not ... okay, how's about we just think about that scenario for a second. her eyelids shuttered in a blink, and auré's face became a skew of horror, eyes flown open, ears and crest slicked back and trembling. is that what you want? is it, damask? that'd be just fine, just as long as it isn't your fault, just as long as your conscience is clean? the image flickered away, leaving a soft, oblivious half-smile on his lips. she rearranged hers into the same. you coward. as if your truths are someone else's to tell. as if anybody ever made it that easy for you. she broke away and set her gaze before her, through the encrusted arch enticing them inside. "lead the way," her father was saying, and a hint of trepidation (cold feet, hm?) flared alive in her chest, because gee, that'd make you the first one in there, wouldn't it? huh. that can't be right. must be some mistake. but she put one foot in front of the other, again, again, approaching the threshold, and ... drumroll, please! ... crossed it.

an impossible expanse opened up all around them, a kaleidoscopic world, all angles and amaranth. formations rose and fell from above and below — crystalline equivalents, almost, to the chambers' stalactites and stalagmites in canis. autopilot kept her feet going as she lifted her head, eyes floating up, left, right, and left once again. the ceiling soared over them, illusorily infinite. shafts of light planed back and forth in its indiscernible depths — it could've been a few hundred feet up, or it could've been miles. "wow," she murmured, because with him around, you've gotta say at least something. her gaze went low. hardened. flickered. she lifted it and set it dead ahead. are we not gonna talk about that? no? no? no. not so much as a thought for the upside-down blur walking beneath her, its every move a swimming copy of hers ... nor for the twin that pushed into her periphery, slipping sharklike and distorted through a jagged, glassy wall that stretched up and up from nothing alongside them. they weren't shadows. they were reflections. boy, oh, boy, the whole damn room is made of mirrors. that gonna be a problem for you?

no comment. she gritted her teeth.

forget the beauty, forget the spectacle, forget awe and wonder and whatever rush the place had invoked — all of it was melting into malaise, and the upright double was — gaining on her? it was the wall, its gradual curve: a few minutes' walk ahead, it ran into their path before it petered out. this course was not sustainable. she'd have to steer them around, yet harried as she was, all she could think was away. what you need is a distraction. "hey, i've been meaning to ask," she began, veering off in a sudden swerve —

and oh! hello, hot stuff!

a black-and-white figure ducked into view, spotted her, and froze, brows drawn into a tight furrow. its feathers rippled and wavered as it pulled around to face her, but once it went still, the image was clear, unclouded. it hovered in place, staring her down. get a load of her, damask! lookin' good! hahahahah! the stranger took a step back. its features weren't frowning so much as they were falling. heh, heh ... pretty as a picture, even down with a case of the blues. but she's flimsy. delicate. breakable. better be careful when you ask her to dance, kid; drop her on the floor, and she'll shatter like glass. oh, those eyes were almost lifeless, and she was dying to just disappear, pulse kicking up for all of a second — but the knife in her chest was twisting, spitting out magic, and the figure she was facing shimmered with light: bluer blacks, whiter whites. it seemed to ... crumple, somehow, looking halfway between crying and burning. its nose flared and squeezed in a tiny snff. pathetic. all at once, its eyes narrowed, muzzle twitching in an infinitesimal hint of a snarl. she tightened her grip on her stone, and the colors died down in forcible measures, hot flashes and chills rolling in turn through her skin. that thing in the mirror? it wasn't her. it wasn't her.

you're right. it isn't.

in the time it took to rip herself away, damask had already straightened up and wiped her face clean of emotion. she sought out her father — found his eyes ... settled there. cold snap. heat wave. cold snap. heat wave. stifled shivers plucked at her features, her feathers, narrowly contained.

you're fine. that didn't happen, got it? you are fine, you piece of shit, and you're gonna look it, sound it, you're gonna feel it.

"how have you been?" she said. a little too much stress on the you. "really been, i mean," she said. "i didn't want to pressure you," she said, "but ... we should have done this sooner, and it's been a minute since you gave me a straight answer. i want a number on a scale of one to ten."

now swallow your own hypocrisy and say, "honest."

No sooner than he was able to tear his eyes from the crystal-drenched archway were they blowing wide. Up ahead, there's the money shot—a glistening vault far exceeding the likes of the preceding tunnel (or even Orion; imagine that!) Whatever smarmy twist of anxiety was gnawing at Aure loosened in an instant, keenly distracted by total infinity. Rubbed-smooth stones littered where there spines of quartz were not; duplicates of himself gamboled in their facets, every angle showcased in picture-perfect exposure. Gold-rimmed pupils focused in on a particular one, and a face white as an unknown moon—and so weary despite his youth—peered back at him. There was the most meager quirk to his lips.

Seeing it, he stretched it wider, and he echoed the sentiment from up ahead: "wow."

For a moment, blessedly unaware, the young King was just a bit enraptured by the clarity of his own reflection. It, along with a faux splash of monochrome, strode alongside them. Clean, smooth strides, halting only in half-steps; and, only when his thoughts happened to brush again orderly malice. All clear, he supplied by way of reminding himself, each time. After his most recent self-assurance, he tacked on a breathy "wow, indeed."

It intersected with Damask's cut-off speech, and Aure tore away from ogling (not really, he'd assure you) his backscattered self. Carmine locking onto quicksilver reflections—there was no use staring at her back—nearly milliseconds late. Her limbs twitched minutely backwards, and it distracted him from catching every little microcosm of a shifting expression. There's one face—blink!—and there's another. Once more, and it's all wiped clean; and, the raptor's heel-spinning to regard him like there'd not been a… shift amid her feathers (did I imagine… ?)

Oh, who was he to deny her latching onto his molten, gooey eyes?

… and to point out the stressed syllable.

Aure hummed softly, and clenched his beak at how indifferent the noise came. It was a low, harsh kind of thing. He tried again, and sprinkled a little verbiage into it, "one to ten, hm?" Subconsciously, he skimmed over the notion of pressure or straight answers. He'd not dance around the answer, not like he was halfway to prancing about, checking himself out in the mirrors (what was wrong—)

Tail feathers swaying in a steady rhythm with the rest of him, the avian padded to his right—Damask's left—and paused again. A set of claws scrubbed at his collar, more out of an itch than shooing away anxieties. His head twisted away from her for the briefest moment of time, taking glancing snapshots of the room yet again.

"I think," he began, voice distant with the way his chin was fully bared to Damask, "I'll say an eight." Aure set himself back into an A-pose, meeting quicksilver again; "feeling alright, but not a hundred percent. It'll… get better, the longer we're in here." Sigh. "This cave is... quite a sight to behold."

A wing, half-unfurled, gestured vaguely before him, indicating in the other's direction. His crown dipped just so, and he punctuated with a soft "and you?"

Note the lack of honest—however unintentional it was.

@Damask

@Auré

look it — check. sound it — check. feeling it, though ... even for damask, that wasn't so easy to fake? sure it is. let's spell it together: F for the fire she couldn't feel in her nerves, and I for the ice; N for nothing to see or hear or fret about, and N for everything is ... ? fffffine.

see? he believes it. so should you.

and auré's blissful ignorance was all that mattered. with effort, the accipiter kept her feathers from shimmering and her breathing from stuttering, holding it steady as that final word took leave of her throat. a quiet hum emanated from her father's in response, too harshly. she didn't like that. "one to ten, hm?" more an echo than a question, but damask nodded anyway.

this was what she liked about numbers: they were unequivocal. he could add a tally mark to the truth, sugarcoat it or explain it away — (wouldn't you?) — but there was no mistaking the figure itself. when it came to words, his definitions differed from hers, as did their respective interpretations of his psychological well-being. her appraisal? just a wild guess, but not the greatest. nah, who're you kidding, kid. that's not a wild guess. it's not even a guess. all right, fine. ever since he'd taken his test, fallen asleep, and woken up weaker ... he hadn't been himself, wary of strangers, jumpy in crowds. and you know exactly why. he still hasn't got the juice to fight the one thing he's so afraid of, worst comes to worst. no chance of that happening, though, right? right? oh, yeah ... wrong. and with that, a fresh wave of dread, followed by another lance of pain. the flashes and chills were dissolving into something more like pins and needles. auré took a step sideways, and damask reciprocated in the other direction, suppressing a wince at the consequent static that fizzled through her legs. far more of import: the way her father fidgeted, hesitated, cast his gaze elsewhere. she didn't like that, either. oh, give him some credit, though. always assuming the worst, aren't we? haven't you realized that whenever you're wrong, your own pessimism is the reason why?

he opened his mouth, and she was already forecasting what would come out, a couple words ahead of him. "i think i'll say —" a six. "— an eight." see? told you so. for a second, she couldn't help but feel a sliver of doubt — and yet, and yet, she had to trust him, had to trust him, and ... if he'd been lying, it would've shown in his face, turned towards her once again. she listened in attentive silence as he elaborated — an acceptable, believable answer in all, if more than a little vague in how he phrased it. when he remarked on their environs, it was less a change of subject than a natural shift. she hadn't missed the distracted stops and starts in his cadence as they walked, nor the breathy note of enchantment in his voice. he seemed to ... really like the place. at least somebody does. "quite a sight to behold," he was calling it, and on that, at least, she didn't disagree, so — "yes." there's your cue to go and let him behold some more. she angled her eyes into the cave, away from her father's unfurling wing —

"and you?"

well, well, well! that's your favorite question! damask inhaled, looked back at auré, and set down her foot; she'd only just begun to lift it. a set of black-and-white pinions fluttered up to her chest, reflecting his gesture, playing along. "me?" she let the wing fall away and shuffled it back into place. a thin smile tugged at her lips on command, understated, ironic. with a tinge of humor: "ah, you know me." not that answer's maiden voyage, is it? ... and ever-so-slightly quieter, sliding into silence: "i'm just the same as i've always been."

yeah, just the same. exactly the same.

you know what he sees when he looks at you? a scared little kid, something fragile, something weak, you saw for yourself — and y'know, he'd still call you darling if he weren't trying so hard, probably still calls you that in his head, but not out loud, not anymore, and why's that, huh — ? because he respects you, because he's a decent father, so why don't you be a decent daughter and — (her smile was fading, twitch by tiny twitch) — and respect him too, damn it? eight out of ten, he says, and is that really so hard for you to believe? here's the best chance you're gonna get, and he's not just your daddy, not just your best friend — he is your ████, damask, the ████, so — she bit down on her teeth. so treat him like it. starting right now. let's go.

all at once: "listen, there's something you need to know."

a dark haze of forcible composure came over her features, broken only by the shifting headlights of her eyes — a trace of anxiety in the tension around them, a jitter in her pupils as they switched from facet to facet of his face.

"it came back, dad. at the raid, out of the golem, after i left. i don't know how it went down, what came after apart from the tremors, whether it's an isolated incident or it" — (yes, you do have to finish that sentence) — "isn't." somehow, somehow, her voice didn't tremble, tightening only faintly at the very end. off another tongue, the words might've sounded sort of ... crowded — yet damask pronounced them cleanly and levelly, all precision and professional remove. the same went for these. "i didn't catch word until yesterday." oh you FILTHY LIARFAKERCOWARDPRETENDER — "it's not enough information, i'm aware, but i can find more. i will find more." ... as if that makes it okay.

there were a dozen ways she could've finished — are you all right?, i'm sorry, please don't be upset ... a dozen empty, impotent offerings. no. you know better than that. instead: a breath. she drew it in like smoke off a cigarette, chest and shoulders rising. the breeze whispered into her ribs, dancing around the still-smarting jasper seated inside, courting it, soothing away the last of its temper. something like a ghost seemed to ooze up from the floor, something like fingers — she could see them in her lowermost periphery, feel them crawling up her legs, tendrils of a magic she knew all too well. hello again. tufted ears shivered over her hackles. always coming back for more, are we? the ensuing wince was too strong to stifle in its entirety. she blinked, hard — glanced off to the side ... and when she dragged her eyes back where they belonged, there it was: a silvery-white light, manifesting just in front of auré.

the wisp wasn't as monstrously impressive as her first, (the one she'd cast for wilder,) but it also didn't need to be. half a step back, and she coiled up tighter with her tail 'round her feet, guiding the light in timid little nudges of intention. it slow-danced around its recipient in a porpoising circle, then returned home, just opposite his breast where he could've went and held it. a glowing little gift — not like the one she'd carved out of wood, intangible, fleeting, yet ... rich with meaning, all the same. if she couldn't tell him it'd all be okay, she could at least sort of show it, a message in the magical bottle of a winking, bobbing wisp.

and all the while, she clung for life to her father's soft-boiled eyes.

"Ah, you know me." Auré couldn't chase off the smile before it formed in all its vague sadness; exactly the vagary he suspected was on its way, oxymoronic as expecting was. The young King shifted his wing away from half-mast, snubbing the look off his own face.

"Same as always," he echoed with practiced ease – there was no bite in it. This was merely the same song and dance, "same as always" as Damask had so delicately placed it. A distant answer to a question he wished he knew how to reword so as to change the ever-marching arrow of fate.

His lips quirked upward with a sigh halfway to wistful. Moving on, he thought with a feeble little heart. An aborted laugh puffed from the hook of his beak and he started to turn back to the hall of mirrors – o-oh?

Oh.

So fluidly did the accipter before him zip up her tux, knit her fingers at the edge of the table, catch his eye moments before they wandered and held them tight in their algid depths — not to convince him, but to let him know. A card flicked from that weave of digits and feathers, and on its face was some simple scrawling: It.

Damask had no need to give It a name. Auré knew Its name well.

A sterile white festoon in the flooded warrens. Magic that was willed to take hold and thus denied its path. Whittling cries and teeth gnashing at thin air as skin broke and splintered to make way, make way, make way. Wrought-iron stink of decay and Judas offering Christ a kiss for thirty pieces of silvery Order. Order, Mother, Beloved, Family, Information, Network, H  O   M    E .

"Don't."

The word came on a wobbling wing, somehow so clear despite the rattle of a hare in his chest, hindquarters seizing against ribs that were just so tight against his lungs. Auré gasped for breath like it was a lifeline, and it was the mere reminder that he'd checked, checked, checked already that kept feather-bound knees steady in their unsteadiness.

"Damask, I– love you too much f-for… for you to even think of –" The corner of a wing scrubbed at the margins of one eye, both of them hooded and warped by a peculiar shine. Gilt irises stole a passing glance at his own reflection — clear of the rotten shine of white save for his own face, untouched, normal despite the hairline fracture of glass sheets moments before the latter half of a wave strikes it — and homed back in on the littlest, most precious scrap of light.

Auré let out a shaky breath as the wisp took its lazy route around, comfortable in its lack of sapience; and he uttered the copper and verdigris flicker of his own into being. Its glow shuddered and pulsed with the twitch of nitrogen-ridden air filtering out, and it lagged behind in a delayed loop around Damask. Bounding past a curled tail, it briefly snuffed itself out and darted to reappear at its silvery companion's side.

Another breath, and the young King tried to take his dearest's gaze as one would a hand. Brows pressing down on scarlet and gold, he shook his head. "Please, don't go looking for my sake," he muttered; but was that the father talking? Or was it the reclusive Bone King, showing his face at last? A steely edge lined the request, nearly forming it into a command, but — it was desperate.

Desperate, Auré knew that this child of his would go to the ends of the earth; that, come Hell or high water, Damask would dig her heels into the earth, sink Caniform teeth into the meat of knowledge and spit it out at necessity's call. No modicum of doubting the raptor's capabilities existed within him, and that was what echoed so violently to his terror. Despite his best efforts, a shiver roiled through ferrous plumage.

A promise — like the one she offered — was a dangerous little thing.

"Will you promise me?" he asked.

@Damask