Ravage picked his way across the rock, grimacing as he carefully avoided the white threads of Order that had settled here. It wasn't easy, especially given his gangly teenage body--huge, but lanky and with those messy proportions one gained somewhere between adorable cubhood and powerful adult.

He'd learned to use caution when navigating Canis--not only to avoid the fungus, but to stay beneath the notice of the myriad drones and scouts that the Hive had sent here. His mother had been perhaps overly stringent in drilling in the dangers of it all, so much so that the lessons had left him fidgeting with boredom--but now, alone, he found that her words had imparted a sense of trepidation that lingered.

The drones mostly left the actual residents of Canis alone. The danger, Giggle had explained, would be in doing something that pissed them off--so such lessons as 'look around you before you start burning mushrooms,' and 'don't go biting the giant ice-looking bugs' had been the most important. Secondarily had been 'also, you're descended from Chaos Forge and you look like a Chaos Forge and Order hates Chaos Forge so watch your butt.'

He was being careful, then, or at least as much as he could without magic to warn him of a Drone's approach. He scanned and sniffed, ensuring to the best of his abilities that he was alone, before summoning up his smoldering magic.

Ravage winced (that shit still burned) as smoke poured up from around his paws. Hastily he pressed it to a nearby clump of fungus, and watched with satisfaction as it blackened and withered into ash.

As to why he was doing this--well, his mother had told him in beautiful detail of what Canis had been like before its infestation. Her opinion of the Hive was one of disdainful disgust, mockery in it. This he'd sort of adopted as his own, as children did.

This, then, was satisfying. Black lips peeled back in a hyena's grimacing grin as he studied his work. And a flick of his ears assured him he was still alone; he'd notice any approach except, perhaps, those of owl's wings... or cat's paws.

@Tourmaline

And Tourmaline's paws were as silent as could be. Like Ravage and their mother, she shared a hatred of the infecting touch of Order. It had been too long since Tourmaline worked on cleansing these grounds, and so she returned to this defiled grave, slipping between patches of sticky fungus.

The stench was foul, and could get overwhelming quickly. Best to work fast.

She'd decided on a spot, and was ready to focus on her magic, when the smell of burning reached her. Someone else was clearing the sickness. Pricking her ears and focusing, she searched with her magic for the other Gembound, doing her best to not give either of them away to the enemy.

Let's see here...

@Ravage

Safety. That's what there was: the reassuring emptiness of privacy and peace. Not a single stone sparked nearby--no mice or rat in its burrow, no bird perched overhead. Nothing with a stone, at least--nothing but Ravage, shuffling about just out of sight.

@Tourmaline

For once there was comfort in silence - Only one stone revealed itself to her, likely the one working to cleanse the bones. It would be good, then, to work together, just as she had with Legion before.

Tourmaline would be careful to avoid the white clinging to everything as she slinks closer to Ravage, and that is when she finally sees him. Even if she hadn't known there was no one else around, there was no mistaking that this was the one working against Order, deep black against the white.

I shouldn't get too close, she thinks cautiously. Ravage wouldn't know if she was Ordered or not, not at first. So she remains a distance away, focusing her magic into her paws the same he did in his. Charring her feet was not the most pleasant experience, but destroy the fungus was more important.

As the Pallas cat cleared a patch, she'd finally speak up, "I see you also wish to fix the damage done here." Her voice is soft and calm, hoping her words backed by her actions would convince the larger Gembound she was an ally.

@Ravage

He startled--a jump and a half-spin, wide glowing eyes darting around until dropping low, lower--and settling upon the Pallas Cat. Instinct tensed him for a moment as his predator mind said "FOOD?" in capital letters branded over his brain, but then he blinked and relaxed.

And hesitated.

Food--that'd be easy to deal with. But chitchat, with a stranger? There was a lot of good to be said about his upbringing thus far, but one of the poorer points was that he was quite over-sheltered. Giggle was a protective mother and hadn't exactly encouraged him to go out and meet other Gembounds, so this was relatively new territory for him.

Ravage belatedly processed what Tourmaline had said, and nodded. Ears flicked back, tongue lashing a little nervously at black muzzle as he looked around. "Yeah. Yes. Uh-..." He looked back to her, and then his attention fell on the patch at her feet, and he blinked. Awkwardness gave way to enthusiasm. "Oh! You have the same magic?" he blurted, padding over with the heavy thuds of a teenage hyena's gait. "Ravage--I'm Ravage. You can call me Ravage, I mean. It's my name," he clarified, proudly, belatedly realizing that maybe he was really fucking up this whole "new introductions" thing. After a moment he shrugged that thought off, and turned away, nodding into Canis as a whole. "Do you live here, too? This stuff's everywhere. Mom says it didn't used to be like this," he added, glancing back with bright eyes.

Was Tourmaline old enough to remember that time-? Could she tell him about it, too? Or maybe she had stories of other places.

He looked down again, and in a brief moment that looked vaguely like anger, began to deliberately stamp and trample around the fungus. Smoke curled up from his paws in thin tendrils, and lips peeled back from thick fangs, a wince twistsing his face with pain. But he worked nonetheless, seemingly determined to clear his family home from the mold that grew throughout.

@Tourmaline

She gazes into Ravage's green eyes, watching him carefully. Luckily though, he doesn't make any moves, seemingly trying to process everything like Tourmaline is.

Small comforts, at least. There was Order to burn to ashen nothing, something for the two of them to band together for. "You mean the fire? It's not the magic I was born with, but you can still learn others, with practice," she explains, sliding easily into the position of a mentor. "My name is Tourmaline. Nice to meet you, Ravage."

As she chats, her magic flares up again, and her paws sear another track through the fungus. It's not the first time Tourmaline has done this dance, so the pain is a bit more bearable.

"I live in Polaris, not here. But your mother is right, that it wasn't always like this." Idly, Tourmaline wonders if she knows whoever Ravage's mother is. Probably not. Though that can wait, for another time. "It was quiet, here. The bones kept secrets, but they didn't choke and entangle like the threads of Order. It was safe, at least compared to now. Canis, the room of the bones and the dead."

She hangs her head. "Now it's just a room of rot and sickness."

@Ravage

Tourmaline. Ravage took a moment to roll this name over in their mind. "Pretty," he said, at last--the way one might (forgive the irony of this metaphor) admire a pretty stone. And, because "nice to meet you" was an unknown phrase to the hybrid, he gave his response a personal twist: "Cool to meet you too." Sounded good to him.

He listened, as he pressed paws to another patch of fungus. He winced, hissed and let out a low and rumbling growl at the pain that seared his paws--but more white curled away into black underfoot. He half-limped along, leaving ash in his wake.

"You say that so poetically," he answered, when Tourmaline had finished--and there was dark amusement in it. It wasn't admiration, unlike his note of her name being pretty; but it wasn't insult, either. Just an observation made with very little social grace. "But that's basically what Mom said, too." He paused in his thoughts, noting to himself that he really needed to increase his social sphere. Everything came back to 'mom,' and that felt... embarrassing, somehow. He didn't know why, but it did. "You don't like Order, either? -What's Polaris like?" he added, a blurted question, again oblivious to such niceties as 'giving someone a moment to answer your first question before launching a second.'

@Tourmaline

She chuckles some at Ravage's personal spin, one that's amiable and lighthearted. Though watching Ravage wince in pain makes her mirror it somewhat - "The magic hurts less, the more you use it," she offers, unsure if it was something he even wanted to hear.

She'd follow alongside Ravage, in their serpentine along the tracks of bones. Her magic stays steady too, even despite the pain. Maybe I need to practice more myself...

"Forgive me if I'm too wordy... Just tell me if you'd rather me get straight to the point," she tells him, glancing away for a moment. Between that, and the way Ravage mentions his mother again - He's younger than I first thought, isn't he?

She shakes the thought away, since he is asking more questions. "Order... I'm not fond of it, no." But she'd smile as he asks about Polaris. "Well, it's bright. There's glowing crystals and patterns, and all sorts of colors in the rock. And in the air, you can feel the magic - It gives you a spring in your step."

@Ravage

He glanced to her, surprised, then looked back at his paws. "It does?" He'd been practicing with the bones, with Giggle, so much so that he'd sort of neglected his native element. And it was something she hadn't mentioned to him. Maybe she doesn't know? That thought was... worrisome. He'd never considered, before, that there might be a lot his mother didn't know. (Sheltered, indeed.)

"Wordy?" he considered, padding over to another patch of mold, one that rode the bones like little white teeth. "Nah. It just sounds like-..." and here he paused, paw midair over his target, trying to think of how to put his thoughts to words. "Uhh. Poetic." He hesitated, realizing he'd already said as much--but he didn't know such words as 'enchantress,' 'prophet,' 'witch.' He glanced at her, black muzzle wrinkling in consternation. "...-Magic?" he tried, then shrugged hulking shoulders. "Not a bad thing, anyway."

Paw pressed down, a wince and backward rotation of his ears again signalling the lingering pain that scorched the pads. Black smoke curled around his paws, the little fungal fruits melting at his touch; a tight, quiet growl of pain escaped him. He listened to Tourmaline, letting her words drown the worst of it out.

"A spring-?" he asked, at last, after mulling over all she'd said.

Ravage then stepped back, looking over his work--at the black, dripping streaks of burned mold--before turning his full attention to her. "It sounds--pretty?" he half-suggested, unsure, but again without any real approval or disapproval. 'Pretty' didn't seem to be good or bad, to him; it just... was. "So why'd you come here? You don't like Order, you came to get rid of it? Can I ask why? Uh-..." and here he faltered, hesitating, again searching for his words. His youth, again, was fully on display, his inexperience leaving him both ignorant and somewhat graceless. "If you came here from--there, glowing-crystal-place, you must have a good reason to want it gone?" He watched her intently. Giggle had been clear as to why she didn't like the stuff, but she didn't seem to hate it. To her, it was an irritation, and she looked down on it. Was it the same for everybody else-? This was one of Ravage's first opportunities to find outside opinions on something, and he relished it.

@Tourmaline

She nods to him, "It does." It takes a moment for Tourmaline to add, "And most magic gets easier the more you practice." Repetition is something Tourmaline finds herself doing a lot.

She doesn't mind the younger Gembound's bluntness - it means he's being honest, for one thing.

The flame in her feet sputters some, weakening even has she attempts to concentrate on it. It makes her frown down at the floor, less of the fungus curling into ash then on the passes before.

But as Ravage asks her again, she looks back up to him. Tourmaline's voice is quiet, in case something could overhear. "The Order... I was here when they took this place. They ki-" she pauses, remembering this is a kid, with a concerned mother out there somewhere. Maybe avoid the morbid talk. "They put the whole over the individual... which alone isn't a bad thing, but the House of Order does it to an... unsettling degree."

She doesn't know if Ravage would understand that explanation, but... the image of one Praetor bowing for its execution by another was still etched in her mind.

@Ravage