Not

The white raven has.. lost his way for most of his life. Not knowing who to approch, unable to find out what had happened to his Queen, the other Eye... or anyone from the Court. His feathers are singed, stained and dirty despite his best efforts, and he's been seeking the white snows of a cave he's overheard of to clean himself fully... for the first time since his hatching.

From Leo to Ursa, cursing the sand and the heat and the general misery of his life, he pauses only occasionally.

Red crown and pink eyes stark against the occasional white flash of his feathers, and his white feathers just as startling against the volcanic stone and molten lava... he decides he's tired of looking dirty, feeling dirty can be dealt with later... so he focuses and pulls at his magic.

The sight of a bird just... sitting in the snow was a little startling. Ananke studied him, for a moment, from a distance. He looked... bedraggled; a little ragged around the edges, feathers stained and split. Her whiskers twitched and she sat up a little, ears twisting forward to listen, but she caught no sign of speech.

Is it a Lesser, then-? she wondered, although admittedly, most Gembounds didn't simply talk to themselves. That was more an Ananke thing... and even then, only because she had a hivemind she so of absently tended to chatter to.

She herself was crouched easily nearer the exit to Ursa, basking in the warmer winds that blew past here. She didn't like the hotter sections all that much, but living in the bitter cold all day, every day left her sometimes hopping her way to the tunnel for a little bit of a vacation.

And now, she'd found this strange bird out here.

Useful, maybe? she queried Mother, tentative, and the warm response was that of course he might be; anyone might be, and those with wings, doubly so. So Ananke buckled down to test the waters. She sat fully upright, now, so that she was fully visible to him, forepaws hanging midair, heartbeat picking up a pace as she wondered if he might be dangerous. Then she called out.

"Are you all right, there? -Do you have a moment to talk?" she called out, voice soft but ringing with carrying conviction. And then she wondered, a second time, if he actually could speak at all.

@Not

Not

Ananke would see his bedraggled feathers seem to shiver, like stone behind the heat of the lava nearby, and then turn white- a beautiful stark white, well kept and clean, before he turned his head to eye her with one eye... Is that a windhopper? No. A Greater, like him... someone who he might be able to empathize with, had he the urge to.

"I am... alright, not wounded if that is what you ask," is his reply, voice scratchy and rough from disuse. His gemstone beak and crown gleams with a star in the lavalight, and he opens his wings to flutter closer to Ananke, hop-tapping a few times and tilting his head sideways, then up and down as he eyes the rabbit.

"I have time to talk, and to listen," he adds cryptically, fluffing out his feathers and visibly cringing when one drops."What can I call you?"

The raven seems cautious, but confident at the same time- the visage of a small Gembound who has lived alone for far too long, for better or worse.

@Ananke

She watched him come, eyeing over the shine of his beak (gemstone?) and the single falling, tattered feather. She wasn't sure if birds were usually so ragged. She'd not seen all that many close up, before, and this one looked... almost ruined.

-Sick?

The thought brought only mild curiosity, rather than alarm, and she settled her paws primly beneath and just before her. More concerning was the fallen feather. She eyed it for a moment, that single out of place piece tugging at her irritation, drawing on that part of her that was Order, demanding to be put back where it belonged. She had to fight the urge, distracted; and perhaps if the feather had truly meant to be reattached, she'd have lost control and tried it. But some part of her knew that it was fallen, gone, dead now; that it didn't belong put back.

Just lying there, though...

She forced her pale gaze back to Not, nose bobbing as she considered. "If you'd like to speak, I'm happy to listen," she offered softly, and then--with a rare touch of humor--added, "I certainly have the ears for it."

Then she tilted up her chin, a bit, in a slight acknowledgment. "I am Ananke," and she paused, again looking over Not. "And you-?"

@Not

Not

At first trying to ignore the feather, he can see the other glancing- and then forcibly looking away from it, so with a small movement he picks it up with his foot, and then bends to pass it to his beak, before flicking it towards the nearest lava stream with some practiced accuracy. Whether or not it goes in is up to the dice.

Not feels part of him roil- how dare someone be so blatant about staring at his fallen feathers, he himself is far more interesting!- but he manages a soft sigh to force that irritation away, and address Ananke, and offer a small chuckle at her humor.

" Well met, Ananke, my name is Not. Like the word." he awaits her reaction to it with some hidden mirth, its been quite a number of cycles since he's done something like this.

A small sideways step as he manages to find a spot in the ice that doesn't quite make his feet numb, and the glamor fades slowly as he speaks, feathers showing their dingy color once again and he scowls.

"Pardon, but... do you mind if I try and get these stains out? A consequence of my beautiful feathers being what they are is that... well. They are difficult to keep beautiful." Almost without waiting for an answer, he begins to use the snow to his advantage- scrubbing at adhering dust and grime with only moderate success. "I'm a bit.. rusty in the socializing department, I've been alone so long. Through my own choice of course, nobody quite.. fit who I was looking for after my old Queen fell."

@Ananke

It took her a moment in contemplative, slightly confused silence to realize their name was Not, or something like it--she could not read, of course, so her mind thought it must be something parallel to the word but different, like Nought, or the like. "It's nice to meet you, Not," she said softly, still studying him.

His fling of the feather into the lava was a relief. Out of sight, out of mind--or more accurately: burnt to a crisp, no longer out of order.

"No," came her answer to his question, with a light and polite shake of her head. "By all means. I know what it is like to get something on your coat," she added, with the faintest nod to her own white flank. A queen? she wondered, watching him preen. "You had a Queen-?" she asked, and her voice was all polite curiosity. "And she fell..? Would you like to talk about it? It sounds interesting," she added, "but of course, if it is painful..."

Ananke paused, and left the rest unsaid.

@Not

Not

Some more scrubbing at himself, and he pauses, head tilting back and forth to let his gem glitter like his eyes, the latter more with curiosity and something else than the light. "My... old queen. She's long gone. She was there when I hatched, claimed me as her eyes along with another, but she fell at the hands of... someone, near that large structure in the Cephus cave. She failed what we stood for. Mischief, sure. A bit of fun, here and there," he seems to be overly contemplative, and pauses, looking at his wing while lost in the memories.

"We... were supposed to be something like a family. Heh. A bit of a joke, what with everyone fending for themselves, and being so weak they couldn't sustain themselves alone let alone together. We gave each other names... purpose. Sort of. I do miss that, gave me something to do with my mind and my preferences, new eyes to look at and pry into the minds behind." His feathers flex, then, and he flicks his wing off to the side to clear some snow that had settles on him away. "It's only painful because I had thought she could do better. That we could all be better than that, but I suppose I was... Egh. Wrong."

The raven is clearly disgusted at himself for having been wrong, but he shakes himself off. His cream white feathers now actually look their color, but are still split a bit at the edges and bent in others, which he visibly seems to distain as he picks at them.

"What about you though, Ananke? Hopefully you have a more... fulfilling story than me?"

@Ananke

Alone, she would have felt as though she were foundering. Not was presenting a perfect opportunity, yet she hadn't really tried her hand--er, paw--at real manipulation yet.

But she wasn't alone. She was never alone, not really, and Mother's influence in her mind guided her on what to say, how to react, though admittedly a lot of it was genuine. "I'm sorry to hear that," she offered; "it seems like it would be very disappointing, to have expectations like that... something to plan your future around... and then simply have it taken from you. I suppose I might be a little angry, too, in your situation," she mused, and wondered if Not had been at all angry.

Then she shifted back a little, on her haunches, as if thinking over Not's final question. Her paws passed through her whiskers a few times, neatening her face, before she settled back in and spoke. "I almost feel bad in saying it, but... yes. I found a family, myself. They are less... self-centered than yours, I think. They help one another, work together for combined progress--we all benefit when we work together. There is no... infighting, and no failure," she added, the last word empty of inflection.

Then she took a breath--intending to extoll all the virtues of Order in the universe--but Mother stilled her voice, for now, and Ananke settled back to let Not speak first. She had to see how he'd react to this, first--the idea of a family--before deciding where to go from there.

@Not

Not

His feathers ruffle when Ananke sympathizes- at first he thinks it's pity, but when she mentions rage, he had a moment of realization. She... actually gets it? It takes the wind from under his wings for a moment, and he also flounders for what to say, blinking a few times at her in mild shock as she continues. A small shake of his head like flicking off a snowflake. and he focuses back in.

A... family? Thats a load of lesser bones. But... a purpose, and no failure... sounds up my alley. he is looking at her thoughtfully with one eye.

"Don't ever apologize for the good things you have," he offers, after a moment of thinking. "Hold onto it with all your paws, or someone else might take it... as for that group.. they're not my family, no. And no longer my Queen." his tone is almost bitter, and he glares at some snow off to the left as he speaks, but he isn't tense... he's more... considering.

A moment of silence, and he closes his eyes with a deep breath, and then looks back at Ananke. "I... won't ask where. Or who. But... what are they like? What do you guys.. do to stay out of each other's feathers and fur?"

@Ananke

She sat up, again, and groomed herself a little, here and there--getting rid of this stray patch of snow, or that bunch of fur out of place. Her white coat was, as always, kept pristine but as Not finished, she settled back in; the keenness of her gaze showed that she had been paying attention to his words regardless.

"That's good advice, I think," she told him softly, with a tone of faint praise or admiration. "If... you ever wish to talk of your Queen, I would not mind listening. Sometimes it helps lessen a burden to speak of it," she went on, with a gentle fervor to her tone. She'd known of this firsthand; her fears, unloaded to Mother, had felt as though they'd become feather-light.

"As for us-? Well, we are family--not by blood, but still; we go about our own business, but there isn't much fear of staying out of one another's... feathers, as you say, or fur." The very idea of avoiding her family seemed strange to her. Why would one want to do that-? "But these caves--we stick together because of Chaos. Do you know of it-?" she asked, her tone deceptively mild, her eyes almost innocent as she looked to the white bird.

@Not