ORIGIN

He hated this place. He didn't know how he'd wound up back here--intellect was not his strong suit; he was spinning and snorting in the mud, red and baleful eyes glaring to try and find a way out. But his eyesight was not the best. Twice he'd charged what had turned out to be nothing more than a tree in the mist, stopping only just short of cracking his own damn skull.

Mud. Muck. Muck-lost. That's what he'd call it; Muck-lost. The state of being lost in the horrible muck. He could think of a choice word to rhyme with "muck" that would also describe his mindset, but right now he was too worked up (angry and a little afraid) to use it. Instead he spun again, cloven hooves sending a spray of black goop up behind him, a deep and lowing bellow echoing through the swamp around him.

As if in answer, a Hallowed Caller screamed above; the bull twisted back, leaping to face it, but--nothing came. What sort of place was this, where the forest screamed, and trees came out of nowhere-?

How could he get out?

The crackle of claws in bark was lost to him, but the voice interrupted his little rampage with a jolt down his spine. He jerked, twisting his head (with slow blinks and aggravated snorts, his tail thrashing to and fro behind him) this way and that.

No--it was coming from up.

The bull's thick neck muscles prevented him really looking up, all that well--he could toss his horns skyward, but holding the position was a strain. And all he could see, as he squinted into the branches, was--more branches. Misty darkness.

Was the tree speaking to him?

Hooves picked up--a tentative step, then (when the aggression roiled through his veins again) a more firm slap in the mud. "Let me leave!" he demanded, as though the speaking tree were somehow at fault for his getting lost in Cetus.

Slap-stomp, slap-stomp, slap-stomp, and the floundering bull shoved his horned head against the massive trunk. He wouldn't be able to move it--even shake it--but damned if he wasn't going to take out his frustration on it anyway.

"Muck--mud--DARK-" he grunted, thrusting skull against wood.

It wasn't doing much.

When the big thing suddenly thunked into the mud before him, he did try and charge--not the slow, floundering walk of a moment prior, but a leaping lunge pulled up just short as he grabbed control of his reflexes. It wasn't attacking him, it was talking.

A bunch of glowy lights wasn't a warning, to Abaddon--maybe not to anyone, really. They were lights. What were they gonna do? Illuminate him? He figured the thing was probably being helpful, like strip lights on a runway to point the way somewhere. Even though Abaddon had no idea what a runway was.

Abaddon turned, shuffling to peer, blinking stupidly in the direction indicated. "Which way? I couldn't find it!" he huffed, upset or angry, it wasn't clear. Then a wary glance, one he probably imagined was sly, was turned back to Carja--watching in case the scaly thing did attack. "I thought you were a TREE," he added, the rumble of his bass incongruous with the childlike confusion. Even so, his dim vision could barely pick out more than the helpful glowing in the dark; maybe Carja was some kind of scaly, flying tree-thing.

And he had thought as much. Voice, added to high branches, without anything visible in them? That meant the tree was talking. End of story. Logic: limited.

Abaddon paused, slowly... graaadually... processing all that Carja had said. Let it be known he was not a highly-intelligent being, articulate and quick-thinking--but nonetheless the conclusion that he slowly, irrevocably grinded toward was perhaps a fair one.

"I... don't know... what sort of tree talks," he began, blinking away and licking muck from his nostrils. Red eyes swung back toward Carja. "You are a fish... snake. Why can you talk?" It was a confused sort of challenge, but... a talking dragon made as much sense, to Abaddon, as a talking tree. Maybe less so, because honestly, he'd never seen a glow-in-the-dark dragon, before. Let alone how she'd mysteriously appeared out of the misty dark, like some avatar of Cetus itself.

As to her request for his assurance that he'd not attack, he stared dully, for a moment, again taking a moment to work through this thought. "If I am gone... I won't be here... to touch the tree." Another snort, another blink, dully, his tail still lashing at high speed to and fro behind him in aggravation--not at Carja, not now, but it was a volatile sort of irritation. He was lost. That temper was simmering on the edge of a boil, but right now he just wanted to not be lost.

Speaking of which: he had an answer to 'why are you here.' "Because I'm lost. I want to go to..." Dull eyes blinked as he tried, and failed, to dredge up even a single other cave from the morass of his memory. "...Somewhere else." There. Satisfied, he moved on to her next question: what was he?

He looked himself over. He didn't have the name for it--for cow, or bull; and so when Carja declared him a very wide horse, he figured that was as good as any. "A wide horse. With horns." Then he was turning, a slow and churning stomp in the direction her bright lights were indicating. It was clearly not easy for the bulky beast: his legs sank, stumbling him with every step, and it took great surges of muscle to propel him (in steps that shook his mass with effort) further on.

Her assumption that he didn't have as good night-vision as she did was accurate--in fact, it didn't go far enough. He didn't have as good vision in general; his, granted too his dim red glow, was generally awful. Carja was a big, fish-snake blur with lights on it, to him. The trees were monstrous shapes that clawed into the mist and vanished overhead. The mud was... mud. Everything else was a blurry unknown.

The following moments were ones of confusion. The dragon dragged a log before him, instructing him to step onto it. Yet she claimed that she would lead him out? Was he meant to stand, or to walk?

Baffled (never a good thing for his temper, either) he obeyed, pushing his forelimbs up onto the log. It was a precarious balance, and his shoulders shook at first--if faintly--from the effort of not tipping off it. There was no way his ton of bulk would be able to balance all four limbs on a log.

Luckily for him, however, she was underestimating him: his legs, despite his agreement that he was probably a wide horse, were nothing like a horse's. The limbs were brutally broad and strong, the wide hooves thickly cloven. His mass of muscles, though heavy, were more than strong enough to see him through. The mud's suction, however, was indeed a problem and for a moment he just stood there--front hooves on the log, dull red gaze swivelling to face Carja. What was the log for-? Would she drag it along with him on top of it? Was she strong enough to do that, with the mud below? Or was there another plan in place, somehow?

"What now?" he demanded, in between the thrashing tail and snorts of suppressed irritation. He was incredibly frustrated at being lost, here--if he'd had the sense to comprehend her initial question of "why didn't you turn around" he might have realized that this was his own damn fault. As far as Abaddon was concerned, it was some horrible trick of the universe at large that he'd somehow wound up here.

In reality, he'd wandered in, turned back shortly inside, and found that the tunnel mouth was already lost to him. Between the dim light, the mist, and his terrible vision, he was well and truly lost.

He studied Carja for a moment--the glowing lights and all--she lived here? "What are you?" he asked. If he was a wide horse, was she a winged fish-snake?