Pride made his way over slowly, delicate white hooves picking up high to step over the scrap metal littered here and there. Ember had left them around; he was "working on them," though he never seemed to make anything with them, and certainly hadn't ever produced a real project of any kind.

Pride didn't mind. As long as the child was happy, he was happy for him.

Ahh-... There. Pride came to a quiet halt.

The child--growing, now, and promising enormous size--was half-hunched studiously over a large, flat stone. Atop the stone was one of his greater prizes: a helmet, not suited to his head but to something entirely alien. The thick crack that ran down one side was familiar to Pride, and the padding that had once lined its interior was long gone. He was fairly certain that the helm was formed of dragonscales, but he couldn't be sure.

Ember had spent a great deal of time cleaning this helmet--slowly washing and wiping away years of grime--and trying out different linings to try and pad it. Dirt had been one attempt, and Pride, though he'd raised a brow, hadn't said anything. Rock hadn't worked. Dried grass and tufts of his own shedding puppy-fur were now being packed carefully in by white claws, Ember's flameglow eyes fixed on his work. He was oblivious to the stag's presence, and Pride took the moment to study him.

Fireheart was strong in him. He was white, sharing his stone-giver's eyes, general features; but the dragon Dread was clear in him too, with spines and wings and heavy tail. He was still a cub, or was that a hatchling?--with oversized limbs and childish proportions, his eyes and ears far too large for his face. But the concentration in his features was entirely adult. There was no frivolous play, with Ember; he was slow and steady, his thoughts and words not stupid but rarely given without forethought.

Pride, despite sharing no true magic, stone or "blood" with him, loved him. He was alone, more often than not. He sat alone. Didn't speak all that much. Was he all right? How was he feeling..?

Best to simply ask, the stag decided, judging his staring a waste of precious "father"-son time.

He stepped forward again, picking his way closer. "Ember?" he asked, quietly. "Am I intruding?"

Ember glanced up from his work (if one could call it that) with bright, clear eyes. They were not excited to see Pride, exactly, but he seemed to accept the stag's appearance with the same stoic politeness that he greeted almost everything.

"No. Not intruding," he answered, quiet, and then looked back to the helm. Firelit eyes travelled over the scales, tracing them, mapping them for the hundredth time.

Then, abruptly, he looked back to Pride. "Is Temperance okay?" he asked him.

It was his only general concern, outside his work: his sibling, beloved to him yet clearly Ember wasn't quite enough for them. Temperance sometimes seemed to not want him close, which didn't put him off--the cub hadn't been outright rude, and he in turn never turned the leopard-hybrid away. He simply went back to his own work, and left Temperance until the cub wanted his company again. But that didn't stop him from asking after them, at least.

Ahh... hell. How to answer that-?

"He's all right, last I checked," Pride responded, amiably, but the leopard-hybrid's well-being was an uncertainty in his mind.

That wasn't why he was here, though, and he drew closer, peering down at the helm. "You're still trying to fix that one?" he observed, and glanced over the too-large child. "May I ask what fascinates you so much about it?"

He cast his eyes out over the rest: the scattered bits of twisted scrap, none recognizable, really, from the next. Perhaps it was only that the helm was the only thing of recognizable shape, and make.

Emberglow eyes regarded Pride steadily. Temperance was all right. Good. Satisfied, he tucked this information away, and looked back to his helm.

For a long moment, he didn't speak; he obviously considered the question deeply, instead. When he did, his words were slow and thoughtful. "Its scales remind me of mine," he began, "And I think... someone spent a long time making it. I feel bad letting it lie... and be broken. I want to fix it again," he told Pride quietly, casting his gaze up to the stag. There was none of Temperance's uncertainty there. There wasn't even the question, or asking of permission or approval, that an average child might display. Ember was simply certain of his task.

His large forepaws settled around the helm, and then repositioned: one inside, one just outside, the crack. He was gripping the metal itself, and for a moment he concentrated deeply.

Heat flickered up, then flared, shimmering in waves before him. Ember winced, a hiss escaping him, the smell of burning fur strong in the air--but he pressed forward, too. The helmet creaked a little closed, the crack narrowing. It wasn't perfect--it wasn't fixed--but the gap was barely visible, at least.

He held it, as it cooled, and looked to Pride again. "The scales don't react to heat," he informed him. "I wish I knew what it was from."

Ember looked back to the helm again, examining it, lupine snout shifting up and down in a slow, methodical way not at all wolflike. Then, he looked back to Pride. "I'm sorry," he said slowly, blinking; "Did you come for something?"

It seemed a genuine, quiet question--not a dismissal, but a check; did Pride need something from him..? Was he being rude in ignoring his 'father' in favor of the helm?

Pride listened, ears pressed forward. It was strange, a stag raising the children of predators--this one, a half dragon, half wolf, would have had either parent (in nature, at least) striving to consume him. But now it was answering to him, quiet and polite. He dismissed the thought with a flick of one ear, and stepped forward. "May I?" he asked, and at a nod from Ember, he lightly pressed his snout to the dragonscale helm.

As he cast his magic out, he spoke. "I just came to see how you were doing, Ember. I don't feel I spend enough time with you. I wanted to ask if perhaps you'd like to do something, together. To hear a story, or to hunt for food, or practice our magic--it's up to you," he explained, gently.

"And those are good reasons," he added, though Ember didn't really need the reinforcement. "It's admirable, wanting to preserve something that took a lot of work to form. Just a moment-... I'm trying to see into this armor's past, for you. Maybe we can who wore it; or who made it, hm?"

Silver eyes slipped shut as the magic took hold, rather powerfully; and he concentrated, waiting.

The cave shimmered, and swam away. Away, to a place not too far from here: the center of the forum, blood already soaking its gray sands.

It seemed that Pride were standing in the center--like the blood-soaked air was trickling into his nostrils, the roar of a crowd pressing into his ears. Monsters and alien shapes crowded the stone stands. It was enough to send a prey-beast's heart racing.

The iron gates lifted. Out of one end: a heavy-set beast, a strangely-shaped head, low-slung and six-limbed and all densely-packed muscle. It was hues of tan and yellow splashed with violet, and the enormously broad head fronted the whole body in an impossibly wide, tooth-packed grin.

Out of the other: a more lithe creature, but no less wicked; long and sleek and winged, vivid violet-pink and stunningly draconic, but all spines and alien jaw and many acidic eyes. It looked like Vargas, if Vargas were thin, and a dragon. It looked like Chaos.

As they charged to confront one another--one barrelling through the sand in plumes of dust, the other taking roaring wing--a final thought would lace Pride's mind: the scales were identical to those of the dragon-beast, but the helm would have fit its opponent.

@Ember

Ember looked at Pride, studying him for a moment. There was no real feeling in it--he was as calm, as distantly subdued--as ever. But he was noting to himself that Pride's shade of white was somehow different from his own. His white was... a grey-white, a blue-white, a cool soft white. His own was a yellow-white, as if firelit--both pure and pale, but his reflecting the glow of his eyes and the hue of his gemstone. He was wondering how that could be--how two whites could be so different--when Pride spoke.

The wolf-dragon flicked his ears, looking back down at the helm, pulling his hands away to allow Pride to touch it. "I'd like to practice," he decided, voice quiet--but that wasn't all. The idea of a story had immediately sparked his interest, his creativity. "And a story, too. If there's time. Please."

I was, again, a fairly empty delivery: soft and calm, without much emotion in it. The little cub seemed dulled, but he was content enough, and his attention was already drifting back to his "work."

@Pride

Pride almost didn't hear the child, so strong was the scent of blood and the roar of the crowd in his mind. It was Ember's voice that trickled in, that called him back, that settled flicking ears and widened eyes, and flaring nostrils.

Orion. He was in Orion. But--so had the fight been... Pride glanced around, reassuring himself for a second that he was here, in the dim dark, and not on the sand of an arena floor before a bloodthirsty crowd. But how-... How do I explain this to him-? He glanced down at Ember, so quietly patient and earnest.

As was his custom, he fell back on honesty, though... delivered gently, with none of the gruesome details. "From what I can tell, these scales... were from a creature of Chaos. One of the old Master's creations, I'd wager. A dragon-type creature, but violet, with green eyes. I believe it fell fighting in the Masters' arena, and its scales were fashioned into this, for the victor." He spoke with quiet sorrow, really. The creature--the dragon--had been ugly, but none of the creatures deserved such a fate.

He eyed the helm for a moment, the long-dusty scales now polished somewhat clean; was it healthy for Ember to be viewing this as someone's beloved work of art-? Was it appropriate for him to treat it as valuable? It was a blood token, a prize of vicious triumph...

Pride shook his head a little, turning to glance off across Orion, light catching and flashing across the pale tines of his antlers. "What do you say you and I head to Polaris, then? I can tell you a story along the way. I'll tell you about your stonegiver," he decided--it was about time, really, and he could spare the details for the time being, as he'd done with Temperance. "And we can work on your magic in Polaris. Practice, there. Magic's stronger there, but more chaotic, so it's a good place to test ourselves," Pride explained.

He glanced down at the pup. "Unless there's something else you'd rather hear about?" he added, politely.

Ember looked at his adoptive father, and then back at the helmet. He seemed to be contemplating--and he was, but nothing particularly complex. He was just slowly churning over Pride's words.

When eventually he looked back to the stag, he came also to his feet: wings and limbs steadying his weight, long and already-heavy tail laid on the ground behind him.

"Okay," he started, agreeably; "That's okay." As in--he was happy to hear about his stonegiver. Ember never seemed to really make decisions for himself; he just sort of went along with... whatever, content and mild.

He carefully took the helmet in his forelimbs, and lowered it down under the shadow of a rock. He didn't want it stolen, after all. After pushing another rock in front of it (he'd find it later, knowing to follow his own scent, and where to stop) he made his way up alongside Pride.

"We can go now," he told him, quietly.

He did not comment about the dragon, or its fight. He'd simply thought it over, imagining it as best he could--which wasn't very well, truth be told--and settled it into memory. Maybe he'd wonder about it later. Maybe he wouldn't; Ember's imagination tended to be a little dim, if wildly curious.

A faint grimace half-crossed Pride's face, but a stag wasn't made for such expression; it was therefore subtle, at best. He turned, inclining his head and leading the way with quiet hoof-falls, but his worries were brimming up.

Ember was too quiet. It was like nothing was going on inside his head; he never offered opinions or asked many questions, and never made decisions on his own. This wasn't lost on Pride. He had his singular spikes of impossible attention, where he'd focus on something to the neglect of all else, but he never seemed... unhealthy, or unhappy. He still ate, drank, slept; he kept himself clean, at least for a child. But was he happy..? Why was he so quiet?

The stag glanced down and back, and considered; he'd need to find a way, he decided, to try and coax a little more out of the pup. Just to make sure that he was okay. For now, though, he pushed his mind to the 'story.' "Your stone-giver was named Fireheart," he began, as they walked. "And he was a wolf, a white wolf." Pride paused in his speech, at once stumped: where did he take the conversation from here-?

Long ago, the wolf--unbeknownst to Pride--had reflected that the white stag was rather self-absorbed. It wasn't something that had bothered Fireheart. Pride had answered his questions readily, after all. It was just that Pride hadn't asked all that much, in turn, bar his own age. This self-centered-ness, as accidental as it had been, left Pride with only fleeting impressions of the wolf--no real intimate information to pass on to the only child that would ever come of him. He had to fall back on what he did know, but--very belatedly--he was finally reflecting, realizing, that maybe he should've gotten to know the wolf a little better.

"He was, first off, very well-spoken and very brave. Intelligent, sharp-minded. I was recovering from my Trial--that's a... sort of magical test, it temporarily weakens you but grants you new knowledge, I think, if you succeed. And I had done, and was practicing in Pisces when he found me." Pride glanced down, and saw Ember peering up at him--alongside him now--listening with that blank attentiveness. "We introduced ourselves, and he told me he was just learning magic--like you are, now, but he was a little older than you are, then. He didn't know a lot but what he did know, he was good at. And I sent him to Dragon to learn."

Again belatedly, Pride realized that perhaps he should have gone to Dragon--not Dread--to revive Fireheart's stone. The alligator had, after all, taught Fireheart a lot of what he'd known, and there'd been a connection there. The thought kept him silent, for a moment, as they walked.