Personally, Xanti thought the sacrificial lava pits were beautiful. Orange, yellow, red swirling together like a molten hell. The cheetah often liked meditating here because of this beauty. Even if Vayu was the god of destruction, seemed he had an eye for aesthetics.

As the doctor padded into the cave, however, xe sighed. Not alone in this sacred place, then? Dead Eye. The oddball who stared at the wall and mumbled to himself. Xanti could understand sitting still and doing nothing for hours, because that was meditation. Xanti could understand restless insanity, because that was Vale. But Dead Eye appeared neither enlightened nor insane, and Xanti didn’t like not knowing the peculiarities of how another’s mind ticked.

“Paying respect to Vayu, Dead Eye?” Xanti asked. Xe glanced at the supplies for the old man’s dentures, but politely looked back at Dead Eye.

And then, perhaps not so politely, grinned. With a tilt of xyr head–pointing one horn dead straight at Dead Eye’s white eye–Xanti asked, “If that eye’s giving you trouble, I can always remove it for you. Surgery is one of my specialties.”

As xe waited for the reply, the cheeetah straightened up. Stopped pointing that horn unsettlingly at Dead Eye’s, well, dead eye. And realized, out of the many eyeballs xe has eaten in xyr life, xe’s never eaten a blind eye.

Would it taste that much different? Probably not, but now xe was curious.

The cheetah’s right batwing fluttered. But that was the only reaction Dead Eye’s oddness elicited. Neither insane nor enlightened. That left quite a few options, and these were only the first three Xanti considered: martyr, fanatic, philosopher. Dead Eye didn’t seem like any of the above. But, then, was Vale what insanity looked like? Was Xanti what enlightenment looked like? Assumptions led to defeat.

Xanti blinked. “Eh, your body, your choice.” Then a shrug. “But if that eye pops? Starts losing its spherical shape? Leaks fluid? Swing by the doctors’ caves. Trust me, you don’t want an eye infection seeping into your brain.”

Then, at Dead Eye’s gesture to his mouth, the cheetah barked out a laugh. The laugh was almost a perfect triplet. Then, xe shook xyr head with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t dream of ruining your dentures’ rustic artistry. Why, a person’s teeth is one of the first things a stranger notices. If we change your teeth, people might not recognize you anymore.” As xe spoke, a shit-eating grin wormed its way onto xyr lips. 

“Seriously, though, I’ll help, but you’ll have to pay me. It’s not a skillset I’ve needed to develop, so the payment will have to account for the relevant books, the acquisition of materials, the cycles of trial and error… my time’s not cheap, old man, and fixing your dentures is a long and boring project.”

Xanti blinked thrice at Dead Eye. A slight grin as a thoughtful look in xyr golden eyes. In xyr mind, calculations on the question of what was a Dead Eye. Those barbs about personal appearance and boundary poking wouldn’t have received a chill reaction from most. Redirection to a known safe topic? Excellent conflict management, conflict deescalation skills.

Meteor would be interested in this sort of assessment. Not many Descendants had the right traits—or even the desire—to become an inquisitor, but having one alongside Vale for Vayu? That would hit the right chord with the balancing of creation and destruction after the volcano shook up the status quo.

Xanti tilted xyr head. Blinked and refocused on Dead Eye’s single usable eye. “Today, I’ll be sacrificing my most valuable thing to Vayu: my time.” A slight grin.

Personally, Xanti didn’t believe meditation (or, as xe liked to think of meditation, doing nothing) was a sacrifice. Watching xyr own mind as observer and observed, without judgment and with awareness… that was a daily practice which paid for itself with astonishing results. As a doctor who relied upon mental magics, Xanti found meditation invaluable.

Then a slight wavering of that smile. Maybe xe should dump xyr mother’s body into the lava pool. That bitch didn’t deserve reincarnation. But, well, that would draw weird attention from Dead Eye and the rest of the Descendants, wouldn’t it? Maybe xe’d just feed the bones to Vale. The inquisitor could shapeshift into a vulture that’d eat ‘em if xe asked.

Another blink. Then a shrug. “Time isn’t flingable into the lava pool, unfortunately, so who knows if Vayu appreciates my sacrifice… but, hey, I can’t compare myself to a paragon of piousness like yourself, Dead Eye.”