[Jaykobell]

Thankfully, Ailys had reacted positively to his secession of the little one, and he remained unscarred. Ailys still didn't calm down enough to trust him, really, but Astrophel simply remained there, standing on all four, and waited for Ailys to say something about his little secret. But before she could really continue the conversation, her mate came along to save the day, revealing the third and last daughter.

As the two spoke and Ailys explained who he was, roughly, Astrophel took the opportunity to sit down comfortably. He listened carefully to their little dialogue, ears tweaking as he heard silly things and others. But the silly things were fine; the aggressive ones, the people who thought he was a scam, were really the ones that he disliked the most. Ailys and Hina, however, were simply confused and — understandably — worried about their hatchlings getting involved in something potentially dangerous.

When Hina addressed him more personally, he tilted his head and smiled sheepishly like a little puppy. "I'm not after either of you, or after your babies," he assured, tails warped around his paws to indicate that he was relaxed. "There's not much to explain," he admitted as he displayed a more neutral expression. "My aura is different because I am not a mortal; although I am closer to them than I am to deities and Gods. However, I possess the power to grant wishes to others. If your desire is strong enough, my powers can react to it and make your most desired wish come true." That was it, really. He wasn't a deity because that's all there was to his powers; he couldn't read minds or use telepathy or use elemental magic or do anything out there. He could just grant wishes, and only if the one wishing was really pouring his heart into it. "Recently, I gave the chance to couples to wish for a family of their own. The only requirement was to have a strong desire for children and for a family of your very own." He tilted his head again, this time showing curiosity. "Some people want a family very much, but they don't have the means or the opportunities to make it happen. That's when I came in; to make their wish come true. Therefore, I am a wish-granter."

With the monologue over, perhaps it would explain everything better.

[Shieba]

[The naming, it is finally done. o3o Hooray!]

Hina, who had never really known anything but her tribe, where there were no deities or gods or even just unusual mages, was rather curious but also a bit unsure if all of this could be true. "Ailys, besides that one time, I've never seen the mainland. Is stuff like that possible over there?"

"I suppose it could be..." Ailys sighed. Astrophel was very cooperating and while she was unsure herself if he really could grant wishes, it also was hard to believe he was out to cause harm. His emotions and aura said otherwise, too. "Though I have never heard of someone just...walking down the street and people getting their wishes granted around him." At least that was how Ailys imagined his powers must work. Unless... She started to make the connection. "Are you trying to say that it was your powers that helped us to get our hatchlings?"

"Huh?" Hina blinked at her mate. "You think? I mean it was kind of surprising that this merchant could get me this pretty rare potion and a room in this big house with the beds, but...I don't know. How could magic be at work there?"

"Maybe not that, Hina, but maybe..." She looked at Thalassa, her little black hatchling, and picked her up from Hina's tail to cuddle her. "She's so much like me, with so many crippled organs and yet she is healthy and lives. You must admit that this is some kind of miracle. That the other two are fine, too..."

"Hmm." Hina smiled at her mate and her child. "That's true." She turned to Astrophel. "So did you do that? Or is it simply a miracle?" While Hina decided that she was still not fully believing the Lucain, Ailys had a point - they had gotten far more luck than what life normally threw at someone.

[Jaykobell]

Surprisingly enough, both Placid were reacting rather well to his explanation. Even though Hina and Ailys were still doubtful of his words, Astrophel had rarely seen people react so... calmly. Save for Ailys's mild panic earlier, both of them were reacting very positively to his revelations.

He tilted his head when Ailys assumed about his powers. "They don't work that way," he corrected, shaking his head. "I don't grant everyone's wishes, nor do I grant bad desires." He got a bit more serious here, his expression darkening just a little. "A lot of people wish out of greed or selfishness. They want material things, they want to increase their wealth, they want to hurt others for their own sake. I have felt many powerful, truly magnificent wishes in my travels... but never would I let someone wish for another person's death — as I have felt it so many times before. I would never mess with fate and let you win the lottery for the sake of gambling it all." He sighed and looked at the two of them. "Very few know of my powers. I seek those with pure desires, and make sure to hide my presence to greed."

He tilted his head at the little hatchling. "Your hatchlings are proof of the wishes I grant. Your desire for a family, despite your quirks, was pure and more important than anything else. I cannot tell you if your children would have survived otherwise... but in a way, you could say my powers have made sure that your children wouldn't die. They were fed by your desire to have children, and so, it was the power of your own desire that made sure your children would be born alive and healthy." So perhaps a little bit of a miracle was involved, but even Astrophel could not tell for sure. "I did also reserve the facilities ahead of time especially for the couples that were deemed worthy."

What a monologue. He never spoke so much, really, often settling for a quiet, slow conversation. "If you still do not believe me, then I am afraid there isn't anything else I can add." Miracles couldn't be explained, so it was hard to believe and to explain to begin with.

[Shieba]

"So the mainland is really that bad, huh?" Hina tilted her head. "I've heard such dark stories before, not only from Ailys. It's hard for me to believe them. Here, on the islands, the tribes live peacefully. We have leaders, but it's a position that exists because the Paragons want it to exist. Were they unhappy, they would simply stop to listen to the chief. There is no gain of these stones you have - keystones, I believe - involved. Those who can fight guard the clan, those who can fly far gather the food. It's a community. We rarely have problem with greed and when someone doesn't get along with someone else so badly, they simply move to another tribe or take off some time away on another island. Humans sure are strange." It was probably thanks to this kind of living that Hina was indeed reacting so calmly - she simply hadn't ever met someone who truly had the desire to do nothing but harm, so it was hard for her to imagine Astrophel as someone who would come to hurt her, Ailys or her family.

Ailys was a bit harder to convince, but the lack of anything dark in Astrophel's aura made his words much more believeable. She had yet to meet someone who could manipulate his aura to an extent that would disguise his real character. She petted Thalassa. "It's a nice thought...that our children are healthy because we wished so. Especially I was so plagued with worry..." She sighed. "It's hard to believe someone would have such powers as you claim, but I see how there is nothing you can do to prove it, but we also can't proof you are lying. It certainly is complicated enough that it seems really hard to invent...Hina, what do you say?"

Hina shrugged. "Well, if you can tell he's not evil and since he doesn't seem to want to cause any harm...I don't know. It means he's either really awesome or a bit crazy in the head, but he seems nice enough, so I see no problem letting him stay so far." She looked back at Astrophel. "You said you seeked us out? Did you want to check on what your powers had caused?"

[Jaykobell]

"Some humans are good at heart... but only very few remain. The purest ones are usually the children, but they often become tainted once they reach adulthood." And while it was a sad fact of the mainland, Astrophel did have a hard time believing that the Paragons here all lived in peace and harmony. They were such fragile concepts that it was nearly impossible to maintain them within a group. Perhaps it was because humans were truly that different from the intelligent forms of creatures in Evelon, or perhaps it was also because the Paragons lived as tribes. Almost everybody knew about everyone, so no one was labeled as a "nobody," and competition wasn't very fierce.

So while Hina seemed to believe his words — or at least, thought he was telling the truth more so than a lie — Ailys was still doubtful of what he'd said. He figured he was understandable; since he'd followed them through their desire, he knew about their characters and he knew about their beliefs. He tilted his head when Ailys mentioned that it was hard for her to believe someone could have powers like his. It was an intriguing belief, and so, before answering Hina's last question, he had to comment on Ailys's musing. "There are a lot of people in this world who possess strange, powerful abilities... I am not the only one who can grant wishes." He tilted his head and grinned just a little. "Someone needs to do the job, after all." Miracles and wishes couldn't ever come true — or even exist — if nobody was there to make them come true, right?

"As for your question..." And then, he turned to Hina. "I already know about your three hatchlings; the ones I sought out were the two of you. Just like how your mate can eat negative emotions... While I do not eat them, the motive behind someone's desire affects me. I only have a very basic understanding of emotions... traveling amongst others and feeling their desires allows me to experience countless feelings in countless amounts. Those with the saddest wishes break my heart... Sometimes enough for me to cry along with them. Those with the angriest wishes make me turn red... Sometimes enough for me to think about giving up on living beings. Those with the happiest wishes make me want to live to the fullest... Sometimes enough for me to say, truly, that I am 'happy.'" A very strange word which was very rarely used in these modern days. "So when I find people with pure and happy desires, I really want to meet them. It makes me happy that some people are truly grateful for the miracle that was given to them. That, really, is the only thanks I get... but it is a very powerful one."

When people were crying tears of joy, yelling hysterically, cherishing whatever had been given to them... That was his "thank you." That was when people were telling him "thank you so much for the opportunity."

[Shieba]

"That's true for our children as well." Ailys smiled. "Little Thalassa here doesn't understand she's eating negative emotions to survive and that they're normally a bad thing. Just a few days ago, there were two Paragons arguing loudly and it was really ugly, but Thalassa thought they were doing it to feed her and ran up to hug them all happily. It stopped the whole argument." It was indeed a sad thought that her little one would probably suffer from what she had to do just like Ailys did once she would be old enough to understand.

Hina gently nudged Ailys. "Hey, he's right. You are the only Halfling who's alive, so if you exist, there's no reason why there shouldn't be people fulfilling wishes. You told me so many odd things about the mainland, it doesn't sound all that weird in the end."

"I suppose so..." Ailys nodded slowly. Evelon was a strange land, after all. She had seen people on the mainland who had claimed to come from other worlds, so someone granting wishes was probably not all that strange to begin with. She sat down again, listening to Astrophel. "...That's true", she finally said after a short silence. "If this is all thanks to you...if my children exist thanks to your power and are healthy because of it...then that is more than I will ever be able to repay you." Had it been him who had been responsible for her meeting Hina, too? That seemed like a miracle as well, too. Though a little part of Ailys also wondered why it taken so many, many years of suffering for something good to happen to her. Well, she had probably been too depressed and full of self-loathing for pure and happy wishes...

Hina's thoughts seemed to go into the same direction. "Have you brought Ailys to me as well?" she asked Astrophel. "Everything that happened to me from the point I met her seems rather too good to be true. Yet I had not realized I even wanted a family when I found her." She sat down next to Ailys, putting Ilea back down now that she was sure that Astrophel had no ill intentions. Ilea used her chance immediately to get back to her new toys and happily made her way back to Astrophel. "Ilea!"

"He played with her before." Ailys suddenly had her hands full with her other two daughters who saw that obviously as the sign that playing time had started again. "Thalassa! Siang! Really, you two, calm down!"

"Oh dear." Hina smiled. "They have never seen a Lucain before and are probably all very curious." Hina was obviously unsure if Astrophel wanted Ilea to come close again or of she should stop her daughter.

[Jaykobell]

After explaining things and elaborating on them some more, it seemed to be the missing link to make the two Paragons understand Astrophel's powers. They seemed to believe his words now, as they realized that... indeed, Evelon was quite the cultural, versatile world. It was a relief that they'd come to trust him, however. Even though he could grant wishes, that had nothing to do with his fighting skills, which were quite... ordinary, for lack of a better word.

He smiled slowly when Ailys told him that if, indeed, this whole thing was thanks to him, that it was more than she could ever repay him for. And that, truly, was more than a lot of people had done for him. "I already told you," he started as he lay down again, now that the other two Paragons trusted him enough to not attack him, "the only thanks I need is this. As long as you cherish and make the best out of your granted wishes... that is all the thanks I need. It proves that you were truly pure in your intentions, and that the desires were for the sake of your happiness, and not for purely material or financial gain." And the two were, truly, cherishing their children. One of them had been born to Ailys's species, but that didn't stop them from loving her as much as her siblings.

He blinked, surprised, when the little pale hatchling ran up to him, the baby immediately seizing his tails. He let them droop to the ground so that Ilea could latch on to them. "It's all right," he assured both mothers, moving his tails just a little bit to entertain Ilea. "Children are naturally curious. As long as they play gentle, I have no problem with them playing with me." Biting and clawing from baby Paragons, though... yeow.
"As for your question from earlier, however..." He turned to Hina then, to answer her question about whether or not he had had a role in their meeting. "I am, in no way, responsible for you two meeting one another." He tilted his head at the two. "When you have someone to care for, life becomes worth living. You realize that you are not alone anymore, and that there is more to life than simply waking up and going to sleep. Happiness, ultimately, cannot be found... it can only be made. Your happiness depends on you, and you alone." The main reason why so many humans were so unhappy and tormented. Money, while useful nowadays and necessary, really, could not buy happiness. "When you are with someone, you want to devote yourself to that person... You feel alive. It is natural for us, pets and humans, to be social and to live among our brothers and sisters. When you realize that you are now part of someone else, and someone else is part of you... You feel alive, and life takes a whole different color."

[Shieba]

"We will make the best of this miracle for sure. I never thought I would ever get the opportunity to have a family of my own, so this still seems like a dream sometimes...I have known so much despair during most of my life that I will never forget the worth of the happiness I found now with my mate and my children." Ailys, despite the struggles of the hatchlings in her arms, gently nuzzled them.

"I heard so much about the mainland from Ailys, but it still seems so weird to me." Hina tilted her head. "People have children there for financial and material gain? How strange. I only know what 'financial' means because I read about it in a book anyway. We have no weird glowing stones with symbols here. They make no sense to us. We trade with the other clans sometimes, but only fruits for fruits or other things of equal value. No one here would trade a fruit for a stone." She chuckled. "Well, little Siang would, but only because she loves to play with stones."

She took Siang from Ailys to help her mate with the two children. "Ilea will always play gentle and the other two here would never mean harm, either, but they are stronger than normal hatchlings, especially Thalassa. She could probably tackle you to the ground by just wanting to hug you, so it's probably better if they stay away." Though the two little ones certainly seemed to disagree. Seeing Ilea play so happily, they still wanted to join in. Hina put Siang down, hoping that the hatchling would find the forest ground with all the roots and leaves interesting enough, but the child seemed determined to check out Astrophel and started to avoid her mother's hands trying to keep her away.

Ailys had her own hands full with Thalassa, though she didn't mind the demon strength of her child since she had her own, after all. "What you say about relationships is very true. This is how I feel about Hina." She smiled at her mate, who returned the gesture. "You seem to know quite a bit about love indeed. Do you have a mate and children of your own?"

[Jaykobell]

"I'm glad," Astrophel replied with a bright smile when Ailys assured him she would make the best out of this miracle he'd granted them. That, truly, was the best thanks he could get. "And I hope they will bring happiness to you as much as you are giving them your own."

He proceeded to comment and answer the questions one at a time while letting the pale little hatchling play with his tail. Since the other two were too strong to control their strength, he could understand why the two mothers were keeping them close.
When the comment about love came around, Astrophel suddenly fell silent. His ears twitched, and he didn't answer right away. After a short silent moment, he smiled slowly... the smile almost forced. "I'm afraid not," he admitted, the smile slowly fading to a more neutral expression. "I like children, but I don't think a mate is possible for someone like me." A half-God half-mortal Lucain granting wishes, with a toddler's understanding of basic emotions? If Astrophel could actually feel love for himself was a different story. He could explain his understand of it, but he couldn't necessarily feel it. "This also somewhat ties in with what people say about the mainland... Relationships are very difficult to find, and maintaining them is even harder." Money, jobs, children, politics, religion... and overall, just life itself. It was hard to live with someone else nowadays, and most youngsters preferred to stay away from it. "So no... I'm afraid it is my fate to remain alone."

And perhaps that was why he'd taken a while to answer... maybe he wasn't all that satisfied with that sort of destiny. But, ah, what can you do?

[Shieba]

"They already do", Hina assured him. Even with her hands full like at the moment, she still enjoyed every moment with her little ones and was so happy to be able to raise them together with Ailys. She had the best family she could think of and she knew Ailys felt the same.

"You shouldn't say that", Ailys gently said when Astrophel explained that he had to remain alone. "I thought that about myself as well. That someone like me, someone so abnormal and different, couldn't find love, didn't deserve love and maybe even couldn't feel it - I am half a demon, after all." The memories were all but pleasant for her, but they also now seemed so strangely far away. It was, indeed, a miracle that she was now where she was. "And see how it worked out for me in the end. True, it's far away from the mainland, but I know from experience that there is diversity there as well. I lived in caves and forests, swamps and cities alike, having to hide and still be near creatures to eat emotions alike. Yes, relationships are hard to find, but if anything, the mainland is huge. And about maintaining..." She smiled. "Well, if I can do it, so surely you can, too. You just need to find the right person and it will work. Who knows - if you can feel wishes like you say you can, you might just find someone who, with a pure heart, wishes for someone to sweep her off her feet and if you check her out, you might find yourself wanting to be that one."

Hina snorted. "My mate likes listening to the romantic tales of the older women, or so it seems. Still, she's right." She shook her head. "She was such a depressed wreck when she came here. Don't be one, too. I understand that being different is difficult, but since everyone is different from each other, things have to fit sometimes. As easy as that."

[Jaykobell]

He wanted to smile at their comments... but deep down, Astrophel was used to the harsh truth of it all. Not only that, he couldn't help but feel like their understanding was too... simple to really help him. "Some things happen because some people make it happen... That is to say, miracles," he reminded, tilting his head. "My duty is the only love I can have. I have to do the work, and only I can do it." He couldn't imagine himself, truthfully, simply sitting with someone and raising children. That was the problem; while he didn't want to remain alone, he couldn't foresee the idea of leaving the job... And he couldn't maintain both; it was either the job or a mate. "Even if I live off desires... I cannot maintain both. I couldn't have a happy family if I have to be away on duty all the time." It was a generic scenario of the mom raising the kids alone while the dad was away making a living. And quite honestly, he wanted nothing to do with that sort of soap-opera, melodramatic setting...

"If I hadn't granted your desire to have children," Astrophel continued, his expression darkening a little, "maybe all three of them would've been stillborn. You didn't want that, and you don't want it now... And neither do I." Because he didn't know them didn't matter; he could feel Hina's and Ailys's feelings, and that was enough for him to understand that much. "Do you understand? That is why I have to focus on my duty and do only that. I have an important task, and it has to come before my own desires."

[Shieba]

Hina tilted her head, a bit confused. "Be away? Do you have to be near the ones who make the wishes and then with them all the time until their wish is fulfilled?" She frowned. "I got the potion for our mating here, the merchant got it on the mainland somewhere, then Ailys and me went to the mainland and then took our eggs back to the tribe. That sounds like a lot of work to grant a single wish..."

Ailys nodded. "That indeed doesn't sound like anything anyone can handle alone. If it is this way, there surely must be others like you who share your line of work. And if there can be some distance between you and the ones who get their wishes granted, what makes you unable to do so while being with someone?" She looked at her hatchlings. "I was alone for so long...and I am so happy now. No one should be forced to be lonely, especially not because of who or what they are."

Hina picked Siang up again and held her close. "...Yes, maybe they would have been. Maybe we would have had nothing but sadness then instead of the happy life we have now. But I am sure there are so many people out there who have wishes and you can't possibly grant them all or watch over all of them. I was raised and trained in a way that would make me a good addition to the tribe; a good leader even if something should happen to my uncle and father. Caring for the tribe is one of the main points of my life. But that doesn't mean that I don't have the right to have a life besides that." She smiled. "No one of the tribe would want me to make such a sacrifice for their sake. Can you not imagine that those who have their wishes granted would want you to be happy, too?"

Ailys smiled at Astrophel. "You have given us much. It is the way of the tribe to give things back in return." She glanced at Hina. "Think we can wish for his happiness as much as we wished for our own?"

Hina grinned. "Thinking of cheating his system, my love? Sounds good to me. May be worth a try."

[Jaykobell]

"A... Ah...?" Astrophel smiled confusingly at their little dialogue. Cheating his system by wishing for his happiness? How... very cunning of those two females, really. "You are rather... special," he added as he tilted his head curiously. He was, quite simply, very confused. No one had ever... went so far as to try to "cheat the system." That was amplified by the fact very few believed his tale to be true. "Ah... Others take my line of work as well," he admitted once he'd recovered a little bit of his composure. "I work in a team or three, myself included... We each grant a different kind of miracle. Ultimately, wishes are all the same, but they are driven by different feelings..." So of course, if Astrophel could only grant sincere desires, someone had to grant the desires that were driven by something else, such as selflessness.

He shook his head slowly. "I appreciate your... cunning diversion," he started again, "but I am not unhappy. Things will never be perfect, and one cannot have everything he wants. I have... to come to terms with that truth." He took a deep breath to avoid sighing openly. "Have you heard of Cupid, the one who brings love to others? Others benefit from the love he gives to them, but he himself cannot love anyone. I am in a similar predicament... I cannot give up my duty to satisfy my own desires."

[Shieba]

[Late reply is late and full of crap philosophy. I just had to reply to another philosophical reply, so I somehow couldn't stop myself now. Sorry. D=]

Hina was a bit amused by Astrophel being so confused. Ailys had clearly managed to throw him off track a bit, which was probably a good thing and something that should be pursued. She really sometimes had too little patience with overly depressed or sad people and while Astrophel said that he wasn't unhappy, 'wasn't unhappy' was still so very different from 'being happy' or even 'being content'. "If you work in a team of only three and that for different feelings, the point remains valid - you are resposible for your kind of desires alone and surely, to cover the whole mainland, you must be able to grant miracles over quite some distance. Surely enough to raise a family of your own."

Ailys smiled at Hina, knowing how subborn her mate could be when she wanted to make a point. She herself had spent night after night on the mainland before, pondering the nature of her own, abnormal existance and life in general, so she was used to a bit more philosophical approach to such things than Hina. "You are correct that things will never be perfect, but the craving for 'more' is in everyone. 'More' means something different for each person - power, riches, love, family, whatever. Someone without the craving for more, for change, is doomed to die, for stagnation always means decay. You seem to think that your duties make you and the ones of your kind so different from everyone else that your wishes for 'more' are worth less than the ones of others. That's probably understandable, since you are someone who grants such desires. But that's not true. You have special powers, but so do I. Here, with the tribe, I learned that while I am a Halfling, I am, however, also still a Placid. I am not that different. And neither are you." She gently caressed Thalassa. "Thalassa here is as much as my child as Ilea is. Yet Ilea is free from my dark taint while Thalassa is full of it. They are different and yet they are not. I believe the same holds true to you compared to other Lucain and as such, you have the same rights to have your own wishes and desires fulfilled as everyone else. So it's very right that someone should try to cheat your system for you if you can't manage to do it for yourself!"

Hina stared at her mate. "Since when do you hold speeches? That was so deep! Dear goodness, you still think way too much! That can't be healthy!"

Ailys chuckled. "Sorry, my love. I sometimes can't stop it, really. And I'm just trying to help, just like you."