Welcome to Gaia! ::

Emain Ablach didn’t mind the forests or their depth. It was homey, somehow. Even the dirt felt soothing under his feet. It was a distant reminder that he had yet to visit his wonder, but he wasn’t concerned about that now. A call for help had been sent out, and he’d answered it.

If he could help other people, maybe it would start making up for what he’d done.

He listened attentively to her talk about the three tribes, the constellation Sagittarius, and the sphere in front of her. When the starts began to shift and moved, he’d jumped a little. Though, really, he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Seeing a message displayed seemed kind of tame for things at this point.

Was he ready?

As ready as he was going to be, he guessed. At the sadness in her voice, he offered a murmur of sympathy. “I’ll help any way that I can.” He looked back toward the sphere. “But what do you think it does?” Had he missed that part? “And what do you need me to do?”

Even still, he rested his hand lightly on the sphere.

Emain Ablach was nodding along with her right up until the point where he noticed the ephemeral man-horse taking aim at him. He was perfectly willing to help her with the challenges, but the first step seemed to be not getting shot in the a**. With a shout, Emain Ablach threw himself to the side.

He did have a shield, he remembered belatedly, rolling to his knees and bringing it up between him and the hologram. With a glance spared her way, he hurriedly shifted so that he could put himself and the shield between the centaur and her.

“I don’t suppose ‘I come in peace’ works very well?” He didn’t want to take his eyes off of the centaur, but he was going to need some clarification, here. Was this like a video game? Was he supposed to rebound the arrows back at the centaur? He didn’t have a bow to fire them back with.

He spared a look back where that very much corporeal arrow had ended up.

He could wiggle it threateningly, he guessed?

Emain Ablach shot her a wry grin over his shoulder. “Yeah, I think we can manage that.” Looking over his shoulder didn’t last long before he had to duck his head behind his raised shield again. At least she was unhurt so far. Keeping her that way was the plan.

He wasn’t the tallest man around, but luckily she was small.

“If anything, it’ll be a lot less stressful to use the shield than try to dodge them.” He moved from his knees to a crouch and then to an awkward half-squat on his heels. “Alright, stay behind me, then.” The shield was only so big, but he could use it and himself to keep her safe, and the shield would protect his vital parts as long as he stayed hunched.

And hunched he stayed, keeping as low a profile behind the shield as possible. He would still have to duck his head and keep an eye on the trajectories if he didn’t want to get shot in the face or legs, but it was progress.

“Slow and steady, let’s go.” Don’t get shot in the face, don’t get shot in the a**, don’t get shot in the d— well, just don’t get shot at all. They could do it. As long as the centaur—duck duck duck!—didn’t start trying to land trickshots…

‘I’m going to jump for it’ had been a very scary thing for him to hear when the ‘it’ in question was a centaur dedicated to the singular task of turning them into pincushions. He was glad she was agile enough to pull it off! Emain Ablach knew first aid well enough that he could probably stop the bleeding, but that wasn’t going to do much good against an arrow or three.

But she landed the jump and that was all that mattered, and Emain Ablach let out the breath he’d been holding. He got to his feet as soon as the centaur disappeared and moved to rejoin her. But the next phase of things cut him off.

The winged horse appearing suddenly caused him to take a step backward with a shout, and it suddenly taking flight didn’t help things. He did see the rope! And he supposed that it was probably for lassoing the winged horse. But he wasn’t a cowboy, and he didn’t think the senshi was, either.

Nevertheless, he picked up the rope and looked up at the target as it flew around them. He did know his way around knots, at least, and he started immediately tying one end of the rope into a large slip knot. “I hope you’re ready to yeehaw our way through this one.”

If the pegasus started divebombing them or firing lasers as it flew around, he was going to be upset.

“Under any other circumstance,” began Emain Ablach as he tracked the winged horse around, “this would be cool as hell.” It was still cool as hell, who was he kidding? Her question did get him to glance her way for a second and, for a second, there was the debate as to how blunt he should be about it.

He opted for, “I do macrame and one of my partners was a boy scout.”

The less TMI, the better.

Now, could he actually do anything with the makeshift lasso? Again, he wasn’t a cowboy, and the bright flash of light almost blinded him with the horse, but Emain Ablach was going to give it his best shot. Whirling the rope around his head, he flung it toward the winged horse and was gratified to see his best shot resulting in it at least hitting the target.

Even better, the rope managed to catch a toss of the horse’s head and go over more-or-less completely. The rope snagged on an ear, but Emain Ablach hurriedly flicked his end of it and that got the loop to finish going over before the winged horse could toss it off. Then, he pulled carefully, firmly but not so firmly that the knot would slide up to choke the horse without some effort on the horse’s part.

Now, depending on how strong the horse was, he might need help pulling it down from the sky—

Oh.

A riddle.

For a moment, Emain Ablach wished that Diryas were there. He liked riddles. Was good at them. But then the moment was over, because Emain Ablach didn’t have time for wishing.

“Uh, well…” Surely if he thought about it, he’d be able to figure out the riddle himself, anyway. He murmured the riddle aloud, repeating it back to himself, glancing at Urania to see if she had any ideas.

The last thing he wanted was for them to be run through with that horn.

‘The prosperous believe we smile upon them.’ Something about that phrasing in particular caught his attention. Smile upon… Well, ‘God’ and ‘heaven’ were what he was most familiar with, but that was certainly not what the unicorn meant. Especially not with the ‘we’ included, there.

Another glance toward Urania as he ventured, carefully, “…Stars?”