Arvid had wondered himself about powers, once or twice before. Occasionally he had pondered whether or not someone could force themselves to have powers. Through sheer might alone or some kind of experimentation, he wasn't sure, but it was definitely an interesting prospect. The dire wolf had never quite gone to the lengths that Ruven had, but he did occasionally find himself looking at a fire a bit longer than usual, wondering if he could somehow bend the flames to his will. Eventually, though, he had given up on dreams like that. Unless he figured out some sure-fire way to force powers into existence, the only way to get them would be to just... wait. So, while in the process of waiting, he had turned to other methods of making himself powerful. Not only himself, but his fellow wanderers as well, hence his experiments with poison-making. That had kept him pretty content for quite a while, so the subject of powers had honestly slipped his mind. Until now, that is.

The pup had just been wandering around that day, lingering around the Hall of Kings as he looked for anything out of the usual. Any plants he could bring back to his home, or maybe even a chip of those old statues that Sojourn had broken, to claim as a souvenir. He didn't stumble upon either of those, however. Instead, he stumbled upon Ruven, seemingly being harassed by several NPCs that seemed rather bitter about... something. A growl had left Arvid then, and he had opened his maw to shout at them and hopefully run them off, but his help seemingly wasn't needed. His eyes widened in shock as he saw Ruven manipulate the water that had been flung at him, tossing it right back in the faces of those that had thought themselves so funny. As the NPCs fled, Arvid made his way over, muttering with no small amount of shock, "Ruven... you know what you just did, right? You used an elemental power... did you know that you could do that?" Once again, the canine's multicolored gaze seemed to be gleaming with fascination, and excitement. Within mere moments, Ruven had been added on to the mental list of names that Arvid kept an eye on – for research purposes.

"they flip the siren, hit the lights" ✭ ── Much like Arvid, Angel often pondered the idea of having powers, if he would be graced with such a thing, and if there was a way to force them upon himself. Higher abilities seemed to run in his genetic lineage, his mother flaunted her ability to alternate forms based on the species of her current, ah, play thing, and he was certain that she was not the only one. And he was right, though he didn't know it, his grandfather possessed impressive abilities and one of his many half-siblings by the sea had just fallen in line with the gift to prod people's inner thoughts. For Angel, though it may have sounded egotistic, overconfident even, he was certain the question was not if, but when. A matter of waiting patiently, really, which he was very good at doing.

Sneaking around the Hall of Kings was his current objective when the interaction between Ruven and some npcs wielding their aquatic weaponry, frowning at the shattered and headless statues that Sojourn had made short work of. He still had not completely changed his stance on if the dead had any place in the Hall, being remembered and what not, but that actually wasn't why he was there. No, no, Angel was fueling his own ego by vividly picturing his place in the Hall, which was recently discovered to be fantastic free therapy to deal with the festering bitterness that was steadily growing with his mother's words and his own insecurities.

The sound of running and the voice of the direwolf pup broke his focus, stepping away from the shattered stony figures and greeting Ruven and Arvid at the top of the steps. From his vantage point, he could see the running, soaking wet culprits. It wasn't incredibly hard to put 2 and 2 together to figure out the story at hand. "Shame it wasn't something that would leave a mark. They didn't hurt you, did they, Ru?" A brief moment of aggression was followed by a sharp turn into obvious concern, perhaps a little too much given the seemingly harmless circumstance, but he didn't know, he hadn't seen it.

Many others saw fit to come over and comment on Ruven's new discovery, although Astraea was the one that particularly caught Arvid's attention. The canine rolled his eyes as he heard the girl's soft hearted words, and he pointed out, "It's not really harmless, if it put Ruven in a state of distress. From what I've gathered, powers are usually triggered by an unpleasant experience. You think his elemental would have suddenly manifested itself if he hadn't been being pelted with water in freezing cold weather? Frostbite is certainly a possibility – retaliating with something that could leave a similar mark seems fitting, at least to me." With every passing day, the canine found himself wondering if Astraea was truly fit for living within the Coalition. She had such a soft and naive nature to her... ultimately, he could see her either breaking and running away, or finally snapping enough to fit in with the rest of them. Either way, he doubted Aphra would end up caring about whatever she did – if Astraea fled, that just meant one less kid to bother with, right?

Shaking that off for the moment, though, Arvid then focused his attention back on Ruven, and Sojourn. She was going to teach him more about it, huh? That was certainly intriguing to the dire wolf, who wanted nothing more than to learn about powers, and what they came from. He decided to question Ruven himself, tail wagging faintly behind him as he spoke, "Maybe, at some point, you could come and test your powers at my home? Or, well, somewhere nearby, since I don't want anything destroyed... I think it would be interesting to see you push yourself – and I'd love to see how the elemental works up close." In this particular scenario, he hadn't exactly gotten to see much. He had just been nearby, looked up, and then the others were drenched. It was impressive to be sure, but not exactly something that he could extensively think on. He didn't really think that Ruven would refuse the offer, but even if the young male did, it wouldn't be too much of a loss for Arvid. It wasn't as if the scientist needed to stalk him in order to see his powers in action once more – he was sure a time would come when they needed to be used, for something like a raid, or another disaster situation.