[open] is it still grave robbing if you only take bones?

[Abrus]

ABRUS

Abrus allowed time to continue to pass by him as he cycled between the now-familiar woods of the Forest and Chamber. He was still trying to learn how things worked here in Beqanna and the environment had been a much easier puzzle to solve, thanks to his affinities, than that of the population. It seemed peaceful enough, though he suspected that meant there was a bloody past.

He doesn't remember if there was a time where he had been good at conversation. He doesn't remember his youth, what he had been as a child, or even his parents.

Sometimes this is troublesome, but Abrus doesn't bother trying to delve into any of that. If he has forgotten something, he reasons, it was for a reason.

So any lessons on how to start a conversation have been lost, encouraging the grullo stallion to get creative.

It's late afternoon in the forest, the shadows under the trees growing cold as the sunlight begins to slip away. He finds what he is seeking by the base of a cluster of pines, the needle-litter sending up wafts of fragrant air as he disturbs it with his hooves. The branching, wooden antlers he usually sports are small today — and they twist and bend to avoid getting tangled with any branches as he moves about. His companion rests on a low, dead and broken branch of one of the pines — their eyes a matching glowing white as they share their vision.

Abrus does not need to see for this but he finds he wants to anyway.

He is not too deep into the forest, and finds that he is hoping someone will come along and wonder what he is up to as he reaches down into the soil with his magic and begins to tug on the bones he finds there, bringing them up to the surface.

[Limb]

His legs grow longer, muscles stronger, this second chance at life making a man out of him once more. The growth spurts make him sore. A yearling now, gangly and uncouth, he stands at fifteen hands high and finds little joy in his youth. The pangs of dull memory make every moment a guess. What's this? Who am I? A life-size game of chess. Waking moments camouflage as dreaming, and in his sleep Limb feels himself reeling, from present to past and morosely to the future, wondering: will this happen again? Is another rebirth just around the bend? And if so, how old am I, really? There is no proof that this is but my second life, clearly...

He might benefit from Abrus' reasons; to see memory loss as fated, not treason.

How lucky, then, that he stumbles upon the fellow, standing as he is here in the forest near the meadow.

"Oh, Hello!" Limb cries, his yellow eyes rolling in surprise. He'd been lost in thought as he slowly meandered, hardly present for the little lives he encountered; bugs and squirrels and flora, too, the leaves, branches, and roots. He'd passed it all by, head lost in the sky. This changes as he stands before the grulla stallion. Up his indigo spine, vertebra by vertebra, a sensation grows; not unlike when he reaches for the lowest parts of a sick tree (far beneath where the wind blows), where he whispers to the roots to stretch, suckle, and toil, for the water and minerals trapped there in the soil. But this present sensation changes, it deranges, leaves the colt splay-legged and scared; not scared--curious. Despite his rebirth's misgivings, the youth of this body and brain render him impervious: to fear, to common sense, to the potential danger of appearing graceless in front of a blind old magician.

But it cannot be helped. Limb steps closer. Gulps.

"You are touching the soil," he announces. "But, I can't figure out how..." Noticing the small crown of antlers atop the stallion's head, he bows. "What happens next? What--"

And then, from the earth, the first bone juts.