Welcome to Gaia! ::

He hadn't seen what started the small little squabble, attentions on the little lit bugs lighting their path (he wanted one), but Waits had heard the aftermath and passed a bored look to the pair of them. Typical really in the company of his sibling and suspected he was the cause and the start of it all; how tempting it was to flick Lurks on the side of the head. Nothing much would come out of it besides his own satisfaction, not like Lurks would be obedient or offer an apology.

At least it ebbed though when the strange Sage brought them into a larger room, carvings upon the walls and ceiling. Important carvings from the looks of it, history and story. His eyes flicked all around even as she spoke and explained what their possible tasks could be while they visited. There were many possibilities, he gathered as he drifted towards one of the walls to touch, some seemed a little more extensive than others. Maybe. Small efforts could be applied to each of them perhaps. (Destruction was out of the question, a shame really. There could be interesting results from that). Waits traced a finger lightly against one of the ornate carvings.

When she made her departure, he picked his head up and watched in almost awe. A neat ability. "Farewell," he called out delayed and almost bored sounding. And then flicked his eyes to the other two, one of which seemed to be making introductions of itself. He waited until his brother was done with his little prose.

"Something That Waits," he offered dryly, of course not going into an extensive explanation like his kin. Nor seeming to rebuff Lurks' stance on his intelligence, such brotherly love right there. "Waits is fine, its shorter. I prefer you not to call me stupid, thank you, and I shall call you by what you request." Well, until he just shortened it or found something more fitting.

Hm. He still seemed to be at an impasse of which task to take on.

Lurks Beneath squawked indignantly, stomping a bony foot against the sandy ground. "I do not! I will not! I would never betray the Mother, who I have known a very very long time, much longer than Qarah. Years and years, and then more years."

He gathered up all of his scarves (again), and rolled his eyes. Of course the strang- Qarah, and Waits would get along. They were both stuffy and not at all believing of his natural abilities.

"I will be the gentlest," he announced, proud, "and pet them and feed them and call them stupid. I will find the original, too, and play very very gentle."

And with that, he skittered off, dropping onto all fours to crawl along the ground, his wings fluttering gently behind him as he went searching for the one that the stupids were copies of, determined. A mass of shadowy bugs freed themselves from the Scavenger's mouth and bones and arms, covering him in a soft cloud of shadowy darkness, dimming the orange of his scarves and the blanched white of his bones.

He looked and he looked until he found him, chittering softly to himself at the find.

"Hello," Lurks whispered, "hello."

Lurks watched very carefully. This one did not wander freely like the others, or chase bugs, or do much of anything except talk.

"Oh," he said, some shadowy bugs peeling away to reveal his half-skeletal face and ember-glow eyes, and some curiously fluttered to rest upon the man's temple, soft and dry and cool, barely there at all. "That is very very nice of you."

He took a seat before the man, cross-legged, too close to be comfortable for Taym, and if he moved, then Lurks followed, staying within touching range. Lurks had not been lying when telling Qarah that he was stupid: he did not know many many things, especially when it came to doing anything to humans that wasn't hitting or striking or cutting them.

This one looked as though it did not need any of his help.

"Are you a very very nice human? Is there something wrong with your talking-space?"

Lurks would show Qarah. He would be the gentlest.

Lurks watched with a curious interest. It acted like a pillbug when afraid, curling up in an attempt to be nothing at all.

"Oh," he said, not fully grasping what the original meant, realising it was an insult but unsure of how to parse it. It was direct, but with no quantifiable rhyme or reason. "Well, that is a no then! Well, that is okay, I think. There are plenty of stupid ones to be nice, and maybe you are more interesting because you are not."

He tapped his skeletal fingers against the ground, impatient. "What is it that humans need? I do not remember. Did you know that we exist because of fear, and consume fear, and are fear? The air here has none at all, and yours is not so much that it can be good to eat."

A look of realisation struck his face.

"Ohhhhhhhh."

Humans did not eat fear, probably, and that meant the original needed more than what he had right now, which was nothing. Lurks reached out to gently caress the original's hair, smiling widely, with a manic look in his eyes.

"What do humans need to consume?" he asked, innocent ignorance in his voice.

With no argument, Lurks continued to mimic the motions that the Mother had done unto him: somewhat absent-minded and erratic head patting, tugging skeleton-bone fingers through short, short hair.

"Oh," he said, smiling, understanding now. He had seen signs for a well, scrawled in the haphazard tongue of his Clan upon a wall, and one for an orchard as well. "Water! I see now. I see, I see, I see. The Mother said I cannot kill you, and they were afraid I was going to break you. But I know better. I can be nice, even if you are not very nice, because I like toys."

Re-cloaking himself in shadowy bugs, Lurks Beneath skittered away once more, vanishing into the darkness.

Why hadn't the original just said so before? Humans were even more stupid than he was.

It was damn near enough to make him cry again, and doubly so at the sudden, unexpected ultimatum. Not that it was a hard decision, not when the fruit was spilling rivulets down the horseman's bony fingers. He shouldn't eat it--he shouldn't take it at all and maybe whatever it did to him would be more horrible than what would happen to him if he didn't eat, but after a long, agonizing few seconds he snatched at it as if afraid that the offer would be withdrawn entirely.

He ate rapidly and with hard, jerking movements, a starving dog bolting food lest it be stolen away by a lurking competitor, and he watched Lurks over his hands with nervous, fearful eyes. It was gone in a matter of seconds and he was licking juice and remnants off of the inside of his wrist, and he'd started shivering again. <******** you," he said again, and maybe it was a strangled sort of gratitude. It sounded like it. He wrapped his arms around his knees, withdrew back into the corner halfway behind the pile of dead men's coats, and he rocked back and forth again, avoiding looking at his captor and tense as though he expected at any moment to be struck with something even worse than what he'd already endured.

Waits just sort of stood there during the tantrum, unphased by his brother's choice actions. Used to it really. He blinked dully and said not a word until he was done. And then left, skittering off to where he had mentioned he would go.

Hopefully he didn't have to speak up about Lurks sharing if he came across anything interesting. Maybe it remained one of those unspoken things.

"He will be fine," the brother finally spoke up, "Lurks is always very good with bringing presents undamaged." He on the other hand, "I will try since he thinks very fondly of her." And he really did not wish to upset his brother nor disrespect the Mother in any way, especially not after discovering she truly existed.

"Do as you wish," he informed Qarah in a bland manner before he too set off to explore the temple. Not without dragging two of the humanoid creatures though. Maybe to teach them something but mostly just in case of heavy listing.