ORIGIN

The tunnel was quiet. Peaceful. It seemed empty, the dust of ages settling slowly down its brightly-lit walls.

It was only a faint drumming, at first, that disrupted this--but the drumming abruptly erupted into a full percussion of slapping feet and scratching claws on rock, and heaving gasping breaths.

An alligator, dark-skinned and thick-scaled, half-grown, came galloping around the corner from Polaris, bouncing off the rough wall of the tunnel before finally slowing and turning, mouth agape. His pupils were dilated into wide, round black spheres, and it was his panting that was loudly audible.

He looked back behind himself, tail curling in a u-shape as he turned; the crow on his head shifted to keep her balance.

"BAT?" called Dragon hoarsely. "Tal'at?" He took a couple steps back toward Polaris, hesitant--if the creature hadn't made it out, he'd go back for him. He tried to think fast.

"I'll fly back out there if he doesn't come out," said the crow. Her breathing was still quickened from diving down onto the alligator's head, though it sounded faintly like whistling than actual breathing.

Carefully the crow crawled down onto Dragon's snout so he could see her, nestling down and staring into Polaris. With a sharp squawk, she spoke. "What do we do if Usui and Ghanyarah found nothing, or they got attacked and they're too hurt to continue?"

She was worried for them-- or more specifically the komodo dragon. Now that she thought about it she didn't even particularly care for the lion at all. At length, she sighed and twisted her head to peer at Dragon, head tilting to one side as she waited for a reply.

Dragon shot forward purely by instinct the moment he saw Tal'at flailing, smashing into lights and falling from the air. He leaned down to try and rather delicately scoop the bat up, assuming he didn't flee--though he wouldn't bite down, wouldn't close his jaws. It was an almost automatic maneuver, something he did without thinking, the way an alligator would lift its young in its mouth.

The grip he was trying to get was the sort where the bat could then crawl out and join Eve atop his head, or... well, he could just stay in there, if he wanted. If even Dragon managed to snag him up.

Regardless, a moment later, the alligator quizzically tried to speak--whether there was a bat in his jaws (and thus, carefully) or not.

"...Nothing is following," he answered softly, peering down the tunnel the way they'd come. The rock-creatures--the not-heartbeats, as the bat had phrased it--seemed to be either lost or too slow to have pursued.

Still, Dragon waited, peering back the way they'd come.

He left the planning to Eve--the little crow was smart, after all, and maybe she'd have some idea of how to proceed from here. For the time being, Dragon simply watched their backs.

Eve flinched a little as Dragon lurched forward after Tal'at, looking up at the bat. As the alligator held the orb-face in his mouth, the crow approached the edge of the gator's mouth to lean down and carefully grab Tal'at with her beak, pulling him up to sit the bat next to her. She lifted a talon to gently pat him.

"... Well," began the crow, looking out to Polaris and then twisting her head around to look down the tunnels, climbing up onto hat-position on Dragon's head. "... Good. We're safe here, I think. It looks like we're the only ones here."

The crow chittered thoughtfully. She wasn't sure where to go from here - especially if Ghanyarah and Usui were still searching - and if they were hurt, there was the agreement to find the other group, so surely they were fine. She looked down at the snout of Dragon and Tal'at with a sigh.

"We could look for the collar and food at the same time," rasped the crow. "Eridanus is pretty big. They might be still looking and they're not hurt or anything."

The bird looked around the caves almost critically. "I've seen fruit before. They're this crusty-thing that's usually a circle," she said. Spotting a rat, she began to fly over to it.

Now, Eve wasn't a great hunter - she preferred to wait for others to leave scraps of carrion behind and eat that instead; but even that couldn't excuse the events that then transpired. As the rat saw the small crow flying over, it quickly scuttled into a nearby hole in the wall.

Unfortunately for Eve, she didn't see that coming. As the crow dived for the rodent, there came a loud thump followed by a pained screech, the crow lying amongst her own fallen feathers with her wings sprawled. She didn't look like she was planning to get up any time soon.