Nothing has gone wrong.

"Wait a minute. What're you tellin' me? When th' hell did ya have occasion to ever go to-- To Hell!?"

Raven's ears flattened and his tail gave a little wag.

"Wouldn't YOU like to know, weather-boy?"

"You often keep tabs on her?" He dared to ask. Alastor was under no illusion that the strange network surrounding Devang and all of her associates, Vox included, was an odd thing to him. He'd never once dared to tie himself so closely in to anyone for anything - with one singular exception. And even that was terse, at the worst of times.

"You can't mansplain anything to me, by the by. I am also a man."

Missing the point of that expression, perhaps, but Alastor found it funny all the same.

"Absorbing magic could be useful, though only if you do not accidentally absorb more than your skinny body can handle. I imagine that might make you explode or something equally unpleasant."

Just a hypothesis. But Alastor blinked once or twice at the other's final question, one ear giving a little twitch.

"The kind that kills people. But that is generally frowned upon in this day and age." Or, at least by those he was in league with now, certain that he would hear something about killing innocent parties if Charlie were to find out.

"..not magically," Lark said, a bit defensively. "...I live in th'same house as her, so y'know. I try to keep an ear out." In case nobody else was.

He snorted, then shook his head. "Nah, you're a deer. A demon deer. And I'm a cat. I've catsplained you."

Lark actually took a moment to think about that. Had he ever absorbed too much- yes. He definitely had.

"Uh- I don' explode if I absorb too much, I just get...leaky. I overflow a bit. But tha's why I also put th'magic into objects, to save for later."

Some got wasted in the process, but there was only so much he could do about that.

"Now- I ain't learned killin' magic. But believe me, if I could learn somethin' to kill a very specific sin, I'd be all over that shit."

He'd forgotten for the moment that this Hell ALSO had the concept of sins ranking above demons, so Alastor probably had a pretty good idea of the size of ask that was!

Lark huffed and crossed his arms. "Al...I'm jus' makin' conversation. Share what you want t'share, I'm not gonna fight yah for it. I ain't here lookin' for Radio Demon intel so I can use yah t'take over th'world."

He reconsidered however, tilting his head.

But then his eyes would settle on Lark, and he'd tug the man's head into position to force the eye contact.

"Any of them could have wound up with all sorts of conditions outside our control. None of us are God, Lark. We can't know or predict everything, and there's no amount of perfect behaviour that can prevent things entirely. Trust me." That was simply nature and the ineffable will of God and the randomness of the universe that René had come to accept.

"You are neither the first nor the last to have imbibed things that you strictly speaking shouldn't have, but also, you didn't know, and also it's something happening every day in many ways all over the planet. It is what it is. Besides, even if it wasn't from birth, any one can end up having all sorts of medical conditions happen at any point." He'd certainly seen the many and varied spectrum. "People lose limbs, get a hit to the head that goes wrong, there are illnesses and things that only come to light later in life, any number of things."

"You cannot live in a restrictive little box, or attempt to control every variable; it's simply a fool's errand from the outside to try. Absolute success is impossible."

He brushed his fingers through Lark's fur, soothing circles with the tips of his claws.

"You confirm with her what I'm allowed to do to the yard, and I'll see about setting things up. At the very least I can grow them at the farm and bring them over regularly." Lark and the children would get their berries in any case, he'd see to it.

Some part of him might always tell him that the relief was indulgent and bad, and he shouldn't let himself off the hook. Feel guilty forever, so you don't repeat your mistakes. Take responsibility. Things that boiled back into it's all my fault, to be proceeded by reminding himself it ISN'T, and the cycle continues.

But it didn't always cycle forever, and he carefully took a deep breath and released it gently, so as not to breath a full lungful right into René's face. This was a good stoplight.

He nodded slightly against René's hands. Yeah. Okay.

But he chewed on his lip, and hesitated again. "I've been thinking...about when the kids get big." He looked at René, and nudged him. "When you were younger...or, any time you've been alive. What do you think about uh- how much space does each kid need?" He felt a little goofy asking it, but it was an important question! "I've got three growin' children in one bedroom righ' now. It's about to be four. I mean...th'newest one will prolly stay in my room fer a while. Um- unless. You ever want her in your house. If uh- if Röka. Is okay with that."

She slathered on another layer.

While being reminded that Lark has been the one to find her and take on the trauma of that. Kept watching her own thumbs tap together and wrestle each other.

It was obvious. Even if Lark couldn't fully figure it out, or be sure of it until she said it out loud.

Lark's shoulders fell, and he rubbed his arm, looking away. "...Yeah, well."

Well?

"...Why not?" Because he had an idea of why not, but it would be rude as fuck to assume. Not everyone thinks like him. Devang doesn't always think like him.

And he wasn't willing to stop trying to know unless she had a better, less hide-the-pain reason.

"Excuse me, I can argue about much more than just that."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because it is not in my interest to perform for children as though I am a circus animal."

"Deer wouldn't make a good circus animal."

Clucks his tongue, clears his throat, and tugs on his furry lapels.

"Well. Technically you came from th' OTHER hell than th' one I think yer talkin' about. Which I guess is a lot worse than Alastor's in a few ways. Not as many bars an' casinos, that's for sure!"

Anyway.

"It's fine, they can't see me." Raven shrugged, looking away, not super concerned. Other interesting things to think about.

Although. He probably...shouldn't have told Worth he went there.

Hm.

"Dad will freak out when I tell him YOU go there."

That Lark missed the irony of them both believing that the other had room for mental growth was comical, but Alastor decided to say nothing to that fact, prompted to give a good-natured roll of his eyes. The cat man was not necessarily worth debating.

Instead, he turned his attention to the mimicry of fire magic, glancing at the other's while it shifted in saturation and hue, though Alastor had a hard time seeing much difference between the shifts himself.

"I would be more impressed if I could process the color changes effectively, but I'm sure other people will find that and your ability to adjust lighting to be more illuminating than I."

There. Have a pun for your efforts.

His head tilted, however, at the mention of 'scrying'.

"I can't say I'm familiar," Alastor replied. "I'm not necessarily certain what good it would do me, even if I did know how to do it. Anyone I need to keep track of is rooted effectively into my network." Of souls. Of contracts. He did not need to scry for that.

He didn't MISS it, he just didn't agree it was a thing! Because Lark KNEW he had room for mental growth, he just wasn't sure what direction to grow necessarily. Except that his growth shouldn't be getting MORE close-minded. Hmph.

Lark shrugged, unsurprised that Alastor was unimpressed by the colors (because of course he was!), but he WAS surprised that he made a pun!! Lark barked a laugh and popped his hands onto his hips proudly. "Yup, I really light up the lives of them easy-to-please color-seers!"

As for scrying, he waved it off. "Oh, no reason, jus' didn' want to mansplain scrying to you or nothin'. S'jus' one of th'more useful things I can do, I guess. Helped me check on Dev when she was missin' a while back."

But that wasn't cool enough! What else was there? "I can uh- absorb magic like a sponge and then squeeze it back out? Like a sponge?"

Gross way of saying that, and completely unhelpful. Like, what? What does that mean, Lark?

He did tilt his head down at the admission, but it was hardly like they could do anything about it. "I'm sure it'll be fine in any case." René had seen all manner of people born in all manner of circumstances, and certainly plenty born before the advent of modern pre-natal diagnostics and guidance. "Probably be mindful of it, but this late in the game, I don't know that it'd have all that much of an effect." And what with magic being involved, he didn't know how that could complicate matters. Still. It was hardly like it'd change anything about how they'd care for the child, when they came.

"...It's just...frustrating." He hadn't meant to get serious, but here he goes. "With th'first three, I uh- I didn' know for a while, and I was drinking, and uh...everythin' else. And now Raven has t'deal with CH. On top of everything." Raven was perfect and he loved him, and was getting along well! But it was still a disability that Raven didn't HAVE to have, that Lark felt very responsible for.

"I feel like no matter how hard I try, there's always a blind spot. Or some stupid thing I do that I shouldn' have." Blind spot sounded almost too forgiving when he should have simply used his brain.

Whatever. Fine.

René's scoffing got a grin from Lark, and he got his arms around René again and gave him a squeeze. "Nah, we can eat berries! Best I can tell, we ain't got cat dietary restrictions really. We jus' try not to eat too much dairy." And anyways! He started quietly chanting, "Be-rry time, be-rry time. Th' sundaes I coul' make with home-grown berries, René!"

His top priority, sundae toppings.

However- "...I bet Dev would LIKE havin' home grown tomatoes, actually. For pizza?" He wasn't sure how practical fresh tomatoes were for pizza, maybe that was taking it too far, but it seemed like the type of thing Devang would be at least mildly supportive of. Maybe.

Would be funny if he learned Devang didn't like tomatoes.

Lark wasn't sure that was an accurate assessment of René, but it maybe was of Lark. And that was some optimism! Lark could get there someday, he's not hopeless!

"Oh yuh, Dev is shovelin' th'stuff at me, tryin' to get me to chill th'fuck out. I got weed fer days." He was joking, of course, but just to add; "Y'know yer not supposed to do weed pregnant? Cuz I didn't know that!"

As the other parent of the incoming child, René deserved to know. Even if it was presented as a joke, and even if it was just once, and the baby was probably fine.

"Um." Lark had to think for a bit. He gave an obligatory snort about zucchini and cucumber, but he really had to think about this. "Well- I dunno a lot about plants. The kids liked tomatoes when they were little. Uh- some kind of berry? Can you grow berries here? Or jus- y'know, anything that smells nice."