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There was no shortage of work to be done anywhere on Vykeli, Ralir was quickly learning. Even in Homewood there were nouls who found their niches and contributed something to society. Ralir, though...well, he wanted to search the barrens, for his mother and uncle. But that was a long ways off for him. No noul could travel so far into the barrens and come out fine. He needed friends.

And to get those, Ralir had to work.

After a terrible experience in the bog, where everything was poisonous and you couldn't see anything, and careful reflection (the barrens probably didn't need more warmth - and while Ralir could help out in a more mundane way, it'd probably make more sense if he used the Gift that the Grandfather Tree wanted him to have), Ralir had found himself headed back to the ruins and their towering alien structures. That doe Krima had told him it was rare to see another noul out here. People didn't like coming out here to heal Vykeli. Wasn't that preposterous?

Okay, Ralir didn't exactly like it out here, either. Every hoofstep on this rusted metal rang out to announce his advent, and he was constantly aware that catbeasts and dire rats had come to Vykeli with the Others - and this had been their home, once, however badly they'd treated it. Those predators had to know this place better than Ralir did.

Still, Ralir was no duty-shirker. He'd argued with Father over it just this morning - perhaps Father was scared, but Ralir was not. And he'd be safe. He wouldn't go too deep. He didn't want anything from the Others: he just wanted Vykeli's flora to grow here again. Only he wasn't sure how nouls might ever accomplish that. These old structures could seem rickety and unstable, but they were all so much taller than a noul was, and they weren't exactly made of moving parts.

He had not ventured very deep into the ruins today. He didn't seem to have very long, anyway; nightfall was fast approaching, and a cool breeze drifted over his flanks as he pondered his latest find: a rectangular slab of metal cut into the side of one of those structures, with visible hinges - he knew what those were, from seeing objects brought back from the ruins - and a single horizontal strip of metal that jutted out around halfway up. He'd have to get on his hind legs, a little, to reach that strip - and it didn't quite look removable. Again, not that he was here to seek loot.

Ralir was, of course, new enough to ruins-exploration that he didn't know he was looking at what the Others might have called a door. That didn't stop him from kicking at it, though, producing a tinny clang that rung out in the area surrounding him. "I should have expected that would hurt," he muttered to himself, before seeming to remember exactly where he was. That sound had been a beacon of his presence here: just who might come calling now? His ears flattened themselves back against his head, and he swung around so that his back was to the metal structure itself. It seemed solid enough that no one was going to come out, if his kick was any indication.

Suddenly every sound seemed like a threat. The rustle of wind through this area's sparsely-leaved branches, the gentle groan of metal bearing weight, and even the incessant chirps of insects, who could not help but persist even out here, where the vegetation had long been drained of most nutrients by the Others' wasteful use.

The clang of hoof-on-metal. A doe's voice, forming words. Wait, no -

Aters were rare, after all, and Father had said, once, quietly, that they didn't always want to hurt nouls. And, well, really, it wouldn't have made sense for one to have that level of uncertainty.

Ralir didn't have to look far - there was indeed a doe approaching, a sooty buckskin with plenty of paint. Her horn was pale. Did he recognize her? It was a little hard to tell, in this light.

Well, in any case - he stepped forward. She was a little ways off right now, and he wasn't quite sure how easy it was to see him, in this dim light. "Here, noulja!" he called, raising his voice just a bit above conversational. "I'm Ralir, son of Kelus."

He said Father's name like it was something to be proud of. For some nouls, it was not - though for many others, it hardly mattered. Kelus was no one of note, not really, and what most people knew about him (if they did care) was that he'd been a promising adventurer, once, and now spent all his time in the Homewood, supposedly a sage - though one who preferred frightening, cautionary tales which didn't exactly instill confidence in his listeners, and thus was not very popular. He certainly didn't make waves, though, and honestly, that was the best for both Ralir and Kelus.

"I was just looking at this..." he turned, looking up at the rectangle again. "This," he said, as though he had any idea what he was examining.

When the doe spoke, Ralir's ears swung forward, and his tail swished carefully. That was a familiar voice...though he didn't need to think on it for long. She quickened into a trot, and stopped right up next to him. She was certainly more familiar now that she was close enough to see, with large swathes of paint and a subtle dusting of soot-marks all across her body. His eyes lit up, looking upon her cheerfully. "I do!" he said, though he was glad she repeated her name: he wasn't sure he'd have remembered that.

He gave a restrained laugh in response to her admission. "I was scared I'd attracted one," he admitted, coloring his tone with rue. "I keep - well, I'm more used to the Homewood." It wasn't as though the Homewood lacked predators, but they were certainly less bold, and smaller: there were far too many competent nouls, for a predatory lifestyle to truly take hold, though perhaps a dire rat or two could devastate a field of crops occasionally. Wasn't that why Homewood was considered a safe space?

"What have you been up to out here?" Ralir asked, unsure whether his own work - more curiosity or anything - could truly be considered a legitimate effort to heal anything. "I've - er, I don't really know how to work this thing," he confessed, for his own part. Was it supposed to 'work'? Hinges usually indicated moving parts, after all. He turned to the rectangle again - it was carved into a larger structure, though Ralir wasn't sure what he should expect. This couldn't be art, right? It wasn't very attractive.

Ralir nodded. It wasn't his first venture out here, but he couldn't call himself experienced, either. "I was out here a few days past, helping someone clear the area out." Krima had been nice, and she'd chosen a relatively thankless task, at least in comparison to the gleeful looting that some nouls engaged in out here. Ralir couldn't deny that some of what the Others had left behind was useful - or pretty - but the thought of relying too much on it filled him with suspicion.

He cocked his head, thinking about the task that Ysalone and this mentor of hers had set themselves to. "I don't know if I'd want to learn about the Others," he admitted. Hadn't they destroyed Vykeli in the first place? Whatever they "knew", it didn't seem like it was all too beneficial, no matter the things they'd managed to create. "But - I think it's important to know enough to dissuade them from coming back, and the Ruins are as much a part of Vykeli as we are. They deserve to be returned to their roots, too."

His tail swished unconsciously as he spoke, looking up at the structure next to them. It was far from perfectly smooth; other than the rectangle they were standing next to, there were other squares made of clear glass dotted along the sides of the structure: windows. One of them had a few missing panes, though it looked like Ralir hadn't noticed it, too obsessed with the uniqueness of this door. "But I guess you and your mentor are probably doing the right thing. I don't know enough about the Others to even think about how I could...penetrate this." He'd heard that the Others' structures were usually hollow, and filled with objects, like someone's den - only that sometimes the objects they kept didn't seem to be sentimental at all, or at all conducive to good rest.

He wasn't here to get at those objects, of course - but they'd probably still need to be cleared out before someone could begin the work of re-seeding foliage in this area.

Interesting was a word for it. Ralir wasn't sure himself. Could the ruins ever really be claimed by nature, when it was nouls who'd make it that way? Wasn't it nouls like himself and Ysalone who chose what was resurrected here?

Still. Ralir did want to see this land lush and vibrant again, like his home. "I think...remembering the past is important," he said. He wasn't sure how best to do that, though, and he wasn't ready, yet, to engage in some kind of philosophical discussion about that. That was the kind of thing his father did, with his oldest friends. Ralir barely knew anything, by comparison. He gave Ysalone a little smile, though, which looked a little more relieved when she followed his subject change.

"That is what I'd thought," he agreed, but his head whipped around, more genuinely surprised, when she pointed out that there were other points of entry. He trotted over, looking back over at her. "I can't believe I didn't see this," he said, sheepish. "Do you think - "

Ralir had reared up onto his hind legs to get a better view. He didn't really understand what was going on in here; there were an awful lot of wooden trinkets here. Most of them seemed to be about as tall as a grown buck, though Ralir couldn't tell what they were. There were a lot of dust-covered flat surfaces, books (Ralir did know what those were, though he couldn't always read the Others' tongues), and a wall with a large black square upon it. "I'm..." he said. What was he supposed to do now?

"I think I'm going to head inside, and then try to secure a less precarious passage in and out." That was something Ralir at least had an idea of how to do. He wasn't sure how to treat any of the Others' belongings. He tilted his head. "Er...did you want to come, too?"

"I'll see you inside, then," he nodded.

It took quite a bit of awkward wriggling, but Ralir had no qualms about embarrassing himself with stakes like these. He'd like to get this thing open, anyway, and Ysalone would have to put herself through the same trial eventually.

He ended up falling into the room, though it wasn't as though he'd had a chance to retain any dignity in this venture. He shook himself out and waited for Ysalone, sniffing out the new location - it was dusty, and he'd probably do well to bring some sort of cloth covering the next time he stopped by the Ruins - and turning on his heels. There wasn't much of interest for Ralir now that he was inside - a lot of colorful pieces of paper on the wall, some small objects...he wasn't here to find loot, but none of this looked like it'd be helpful if it came to fending for himself.

It wasn't until he managed to orient himself facing the same way he'd come in when he noticed it - another of those rectangles he'd seen before. It was ajar this time, though, with a large amount of linked metal objects jammed into a circle set at around eye level. "Ysalone - look!" he said, heading over to nudge it carefully.