Oliver missed Venari.

There was no real other way to put it; in his circling around and around the caves, helping everyone he met, he hadn't had time to visit existing friends.

He'd taken his basket, and spent time picking flowers and plants that he had grown over the last few cycles. He didn't snap the stems, though; he'd carefully plucked them up by the roots. Now he looked them over.

He had the ones that helped with pain--the brilliant red poppies Vivilene had shown him. They made him drowsy when he nibbled them. Then there were the bright white flowers with slender cups for petals, and the tiny sapling of a fruiting tree.

Oliver doubted that Venari ate fruit, but the tree smelled good, anyway.

He had taken a couple of his baubled stones, too--nothing too special, but he thought she might like the thought. Then he'd set out for Eridanus.

Now he was clambering his way up toward Venari's den, huffing a little; the basket was over one hand, and he half-wished he could just shapeshift and fly the rest of the way. But that'd hurt like hell, and he wasn't actually sure the basket was small enough to carry that way, so on he trudged.

At last he'd come within shouting distance of her little cave, and he paused there to catch his breath. He kept politely a ways back as he called out: "Venari-? It's Oliver! ...Are you there?"

@Game Master CJ

At first the sound of scales sliding against each other whispered its way from her cave, then the busy skittering of her legs against stone as she worked to turn herself around and uncoil, releasing herself from sleep to greet the voice outside. Might it have been another, she would have been upset, but she was always warmed by Oliver's presence. As her long neck rose in the cavern's entrance, her eyes narrowed and the middle eye popped open; she was silently reading him, suddenly suspicious of the extra—other?—conflicting magic swirling to mix with his own.

"My, Oliver," she greeted finally, lowering herself to view him in a less opposing way. "What has happened? Your light... sparkles with something else," Venari ventured, though did not have an answer for a question she wasn't sure how to ask.

@Oliver

When Venari rose up, that third eye opening, Oliver--instinctive, by nature--dropped down a little lower. He watched her, his eyes wide, not unlike a puppy unsure if it were about to be scolded or praised; ear-tufts first flattened back, then half-raised uncertainly.

But then she seemed to... if not approved, to accept, and he gave a dip of his head as he started forward, the feathered tail sweeping as if trying to wag itself. "Hi," he began, voice soft; "I found a stone. Uh--a lot of us did, I think," he amended, setting the basket down while still a few yards off. "It was--pinkish-purple, and yellow? And it was granting wishes. Like-... I knew it was? Even though it didn't say anything," he added, his usual gentle rambling paired with a glance up, scrunched-nosed in thought, to Venari.

He plucked one of the plants out, still in its ball root; she'd preferred the lights, he knew, but he held it up nonetheless. "I brought plants that--do things. That help if you're hurt. And one that's just pretty," he added cheerfully. "Anyway, the--rock? It turned me into an owl," he went on matter-of-factly, eyes back on his basket as he picked the few baubled rocks out. "I wished to help people and--at first it gave me a compass but then it turned me into an owl. It hurts so bad I went back into my rock and--well, I woke up with mine different colors?"

He stepped up, holding up both hands: a baubled rock in one palm, the altered gem on a finger of the other hand. Its green-black was thinly streaked with purple-gold. "Oh--I brought you these, too." For a moment he hesitated, as if worried about something or other, but then he pressed on, peering up at the face between those mandibles. "So-... Are you okay? How have you been?"

@Game Master CJ

Curious as his words were, Venari listened to them intently, puzzling over the mystery rock as she idly looked at the things he lifted from the basket to show her. If it hadn't been for Oliver, she would not have found pleasure in the little things, the meaningless and temporary lives of plants and flowers; but she was grateful for him, because for some reason, it gave her great purpose to tend the tiny lives they planted before her den. A stark difference to what she was created for.

"Can you turn into an owl still?" she asked finally, peering down at his paws as he held them up, delighted at the baubles. One long claw reached to brush them, gently touching the veined onyx to see if it felt any different. Nothing like she had ever come across, anyway. She shuffled to look through the basket, delighted with his choices of plants and baubled goods.

"Thank you for bringing these, Oliver. Shall we plant them?" she asked, curling her neck around to see him. "I have been okay. Bored, with no contracts. I feel forgotten. But that does not mean I am idle," Venari hissed, gesturing behind her to her den. "I go and collect lots of interesting trophies, though none I have found are as unique as your onyx has become." The tone was almost threatening, but Oliver was in no danger.

@Oliver

Oliver gave a little nod, and looked around. "Where do you want to put them?" he asked, settling the rest of the rooted plants on the grass.

As for the trophies-? "I'm sorry you've been bored. And sorry I haven't visited; it sounds... bad to be forgotten. I didn't forget you," he hastened to reassure her. He'd just-... been in a rock. "I can still become an owl but-... I've only done it once." It was a quiet admission. "It hurts, uh--a lot. But I can fly better and--hear really well? And see better in the dark." He glanced to Venari. "Do you know a lot about magic-? Do you know why that'd--happen, what sort of magic it is?" If it were even magic at all.

"Why's my stone a trophy?" he went on, and managed to refrain from apologizing for all the questions. That'd probably just annoy her, he guessed, though really he wasn't sure. "What kind of trophies do you collect?" It was an idle question, a friendly and companionable one. He didn't have any trophies. Not that he knew of, at least. Oliver wasn't really the "trophy-collecting" sort but Venari-... well.

In retrospect he feared to wonder what sort of trophies she did collect. And though he didn't say it, he did think it: I'm sort of glad she hasn't had any contracts.


It meant no one had died.

Well-... not by her hands, or--mandibles, at least.

@Game Master CJ

"Hmm," she hummed, shuffling through the small garden to weigh areas less traveled. "Maybe here, along the path I have been trying to form. If provided one, creatures will walk on a path." That's what she seemed to have noticed, viewing lessers in her freetime. It saved her flowers and the lives of those that walked across them. "What does the helpful plant do?"

Mandibles lifted in a smile. "Oh, not that you had forgotten me, Oliver. My purpose was for contracts, and I am all out of contracts." But to his questions, she shook her head. "I would not know of your affliction, but it sounds useful if you were to practice it. With more time, the transformations may become less painful the more your body can adapt and ready itself for them. My eye, for example," she said, opening the third eye again, letting it stare at him as it fizzled and popped with bright orange embers, "was difficult to use when I first woke up, but I was in the midst of my first contract, and I could not set aside the time to bother with it. Later, on my own, I spent time with it so that the burning would subside, and all of the information that it is not blind to was overpowering—but if you spend time with it, you will learn to accept its pain as the wisdom it does provide you."

She pointed at him with a skinny claw leg. "Even unknown to your other self, you benefit from it like you have said. I think you should suffer its learning period and take control of its full scope."

"And because it is veined with unknown magic to me, I find that valuable. Of course, I would not take it from you unless you suffered... an unfavorable end," she said, though it was not sinister. "I like to collect interesting-looking stones, or ones that seem strong. Would you like to see some?" The offer was only available to Oliver. She trusted nobody else to share her prized possessions with.

@Oliver

He peered at her little path, and smiled. As she began to speak, he crouched and began to dig little holes. "They dull pain and make you sleepy, which... it's good if you're hurt and need to rest, but you don't want to go into your stone." Of course, from what she was saying about the burning eye--which sounded horrific, by the way--Oliver doubted Venari cared all that much for pain.

In fact, as he glanced up, he paused; he realized that she sounded a lot more... wise, a lot more mature than he remembered. Not that she'd ever been childlike, exactly, but--this was advice, and it was good advice, too. Sometimes, Venari had struck him--him, of all people--as naive in some ways; right now, though, she was speaking from experience.

...Huh.

"...Thanks. That sounds like it was painful. I will, then--I'll practice," he answered, trying for a smile, though the very idea of forcing more transformations drove a cold stake of fear through him. He tried to push that away and focus, though, patting dirt atop the second flower's roots, settling it in.

"I'll--sure, I'll look at your trophies? Thanks," he said, though it was just a little subdued. He was interested because she was interested, and in truth it sounded neat, but--there was always the fact that they were Gembounds who had died. Maybe not by Venari's jaws, but death was always sad, to Oliver. Almost as an afterthought, he glanced up at her again. "You can have my stone when I die," he assured her, easily, friendly. He didn't really mind.

@Game Master CJ

Huh, it dulled pain? She inspected it briefly and nodded, tucking the information away for later. Oliver was sweet enough to suggest it in a way that seemed like it would help for an injury, but Venari heard it for more darker reasons. Like keeping someone from entering chrysalis if she needed information from them...

Well, anyway, he seemed to take her advice to heart. "Yes. If you fear you will enter chrysalis again from the attempt, you may do it here. None will dare approach you if you need to sleep," she offered, and this time her tone was sinister. "And we will make sure to cultivate the helpful plant—what is it called?—in case you need it, if you would like to practice here." And in truth, she would be interested to see what he meant when he said he could transform into an owl.

But he indulged her offer to see her trophies and she chittered, turning in a wave of legs toward her den where she rose up to the highest shelves that housed her glittering collection of things. "I hope you do not die, Oliver, but if you did, your stone would not join the others on my shelf," she said, speaking as she picked through a couple to bring down and show him. She looked down at him sadly in a rare squeeze of her heart. "I would have to make it a nice place in the garden." And while she couldn't express this to him in words, it was because he was her friend and she could never see him as a trophy.

Her clawed legs spread a couple of stones before him, and the somber moment had passed. Her face was alight with the joy and pride she felt displaying these to him.

"This one is just cool," she said, pointing to a spiky, clear tourmaline. It was like a droplet of spring water.

"And this one looks the strongest when I look at it with my eye," Venari went on, pointing to a shiny chunk of sugilite. Its deep purples were shined with lighter areas, like a nebula.

The others lay before them unmentioned, but each unique in some way. Sword-like alexandrite, chipped tooth-like zicron, and a sphere of marbled howlite.

@Oliver

Oliver blinked up at the offer, his expression lighting up with joy. Venari was--just so nice. He was reminded of how kind she was, how honestly caring, beneath that... admittedly very hard and spiky exterior. He wondered, for a moment, if he had any better friends and honestly-? He couldn't think of any.

Venari's my best friend, he thought, and he was okay with that. He couldn't remember if he'd thought about it before, and even this thought was fleeting, because he was looking at her stones. "I might practice here," he murmured, eyeing them over, but his mind was already half on them.

It was sad. And beautiful; each stone was genuinely pretty in its own way. The Howlite reminded him a little of the palace in Cepheus, which he'd mostly seen in passing--marbled and shining, stark, if rather sad-looking. The Tourmaline put him in mind of the icicles in the tunnel that twisted up toward Fornax--clear, sharp, pure. The Suglite, though--at first he looked at it and thought it was pretty, yes. Purple, cloudy, like--well, Oliver'd never seen a nebula before; he rather thought it looked like magic.

But it looked... sad, somehow. Well--they all did. But this one most of all, lonely somehow. And that's what they were--weren't they? All the lost stones; to him they didn't seem like trophies.

They seemed lost, alone, and... well, not forgotten. Venari remembered them, at least as stones. But what about the people they'd belonged to? It was like walking through a mausoleum, looking at shelves upon which sat quiet ghosts, ghosts that could never talk or tell their stories but were instead confined to these gems forever.

He reached out, a little sad, as if to touch one, though he stopped just short.

"They seem... sad. I mean--they're beautiful," he hastened to assure Venari, blinking up at her. "But they seem so lonely. I wish I could help them," he added, in a wistful way, gently moving to tap one finger to the suglite.

Venari will probably think that's silly, he thought, and his ear-tufts briefly flattened back. "It's a wonderful collection."

@Game Master CJ

Of course Oliver would be the type of person so say a whole ass rock looked sad. Venari, third eye still open, let her vision hover over whichever stone he seemed most enthralled with. It happened to be the sugilite, and although she had just been charmed by how he felt bad for them, she was surprised to see a reaction from the sugilite itself. As he touched the latent stone, she thought she saw his magic reaching out to grasp it, and in turn, the sugilite's dormant life reaching back, the two of them twisting together in unseen secrecy.

"I think it heard you," she said after a moment, the pupil of her third eye focusing in on it. "It reached for you when you touched it. Do it again. Pick it up or something," Venari suggested, utterly entranced by the strange reaction. She had never seen the sleeping magic of a host-less stone react to anything.

@Oliver