ORIGIN - aw, rats

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It's probably the third-- mm, no, the fourth time he wakes up. That's when he gets the unceremonious boot.

He'd opened his eyes, the first time. His paws had scrabbled against the crystalline stone. He'd squirmed-- hadn't wanted to get up at all, really, no, no, five more days, ugh. The neophyte had fussed and whined until, having thoroughly exhausted himself, he could easily return to his warm, deep sleep. Pure bliss.

He doesn't bother with it this time. It doesn't seem worth the effort, and that's probably the biggest mistake he could make.

He blows off whatever awareness is trying to get his attention. He deliberately keeps his lids shut tight, and refuses to even so much as twitch. The walls around him tremble with barely-restrained fury, like a parent pushed too far. Or maybe he's just running out of space-- things definitely hadn't seemed so tight, last time...

The chrysalis suddenly cracks! and Opie emerges, shrieking in pure and righteous indignation.

He spills out onto the floor, looking very much like a drowned rat. Spitting mad, he scrambles to his feet and vainly attempts to shake off... whatever it is that's matting to his coat. The effect is somewhat ruined in that, literally soaking wet, he can't weigh more than a pound.

"YOU!" he snarls, whirling around to face the source of his aggravation-- the shattered stone fragments littering the floor. "YOU... STUPID ROCK!" Hissing viciously, Opie takes his revenge by pouncing on the various shards and biting them.

They stay offensively whole between his jaws.

He drops them with a screech. Crouches. Stares at them, hard, willing something to break. He feels something build-- a rage, a terrifying energy that he can use to send these stupid pebbles flying into the endlessly hungering void!

Nothing happens.

Opie screams.

Pride hurried toward the sounds-... The rather alarming sounds, if he were honest with himself. It sounded like someone was bullying a very small animal. He heard cracking, snapping, hissing, and then a high-pitched, angry scream.

When he came in sight, therefore, of only one tiny creature, he faltered to a stop in some confusion. His tine-branched head swivelled this way and that, but he saw no attackers--and upon studying Opie for another moment, he realized the young one was probably newly-hatched. It was, after all, surrounded by the shards of (what he assumed was) its gemstone; too, its fur was slicked down, dark with wet.

"Hello, little one," he offered, the gentle lilt of his voice and the pristine shimmer as he swept back into motion deeply at odds with the little one's soaked screeching. "Are you injured-?"

Pride didn't know if the young creature could even understand him, yet; to that end he attempted to project the meaning behind the words, too, straight into Opie's mind. Polite, he didn't try to eavesdrop on Opie's own thoughts.

He did leave the link tentatively open for a moment, in case the child did wish to respond but found its words unsuited; Pride might perhaps at least over"hear" the poor opossum's intent.

Bold, benevolent, he added: "Do not worry; you are safe, here. I will protect you." While not particularly egotistical, it was certainly one hell of an assumption--that the child would need protecting.

That the child would want protecting.

That the child might not actually attack him outright.

@Opie

He had been considering snapping up the pieces with his tiny teeth again, on the off-chance that it might actually work this time, when he's interrupted. Which, rude.

He skitters back and regards the-- not-him with blatant suspicion. Although merely minutes old, Opie finds it rather dubious that, whatever this thing is, it just happened to hear his raucous shrieking and care if he was... injured. Quite frankly, he's not sure what that is, but it's all very questionable; if you ask him.

He scrunches his nose. The not-him's meaning had become abruptly clear, but Opie still doesn't get it. Not really. It's too antithetical to what he's trying to accomplish — the complete and total destruction of these dumb shards — and, as such, he doesn't particular care, either.

"Do not want 'safe," he says, with a rather impressive amount of exasperation for something so tiny and pitiful-looking. "I want these stupid... broken rocks to--" here he trails off into an indecipherable scream of hate.

Opie doesn't have the words to express 'be ground to cosmically irrelevant dust by my hand' quite yet.

Having worked himself into another rage, he lunges for the shards. Maybe he really will bite them again, after all. Maybe he'll tear them in half, and then keep gnawing until they agonizingly cease to exist. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He hisses. The swelling tide of energy peaks-- and the shards go flying, not particularly far, but with enough force to cause them to at least chip and crack.

Opie stares.

@Pride

Pride's pale eyes widened a fraction.

This child was-... was angry. Angry, to an extent he hadn't seen in a very long time. It concerned him, for more reasons than one, and he dared step a little closer, peering down. "You have my magic," he observed gently, letting the link between them slip shut. "The same magic," he clarified.

Then, he looked to the scattered shards. "Did you get harmed in some way?" Had the child been trapped in its chrysalis, perhaps?

He turned his gaze upon some of the scattered shards, and cast out his magic toward them. He was careful to keep the magic from the child--really, this was a foolish use of it, but nobody had ever accused Pride of responsible use of extraordinarily destructive magic. A shimmer shrouded the cluster of shards farthest from Opie--and then faded. Though it wouldn't be immediately obvious, he'd weakened the very physical structure of the stones, the bonds holding their atoms together at the most basic level.

Pride looked to the child.

"You should be able to destroy them now," he offered gently. Maybe Opie just needed to get it out of his system?

@Opie

Opie casts dubious looks from the not-him to the hateful collection of shards. He's not entirely sure that what they 'have' is the same-- because he hadn't made them sparkle. He'd thrown them with sheer rage and will. Probably. He definitely didn't make them look pretty and innocent, at least. Not like the not-him.

He slinks towards the scattered pile — muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, "woke me up" — and gives it a curious sniff. They smell exactly like nothing, which, somehow, makes Opie hate them more.

With a last glance at the not-him, (one that promises a painful death if it's only leading him on), he locates a particularly aggravating looking rock and bites down-- hard.

Crack!

Opie splutters, spitting out the pieces of the stone-- the many, many pieces. Whatever the weird... shimmering thing was, it apparently worked. The shards were easier to destroy.

It's not a long list, but that might just be his new favorite word.

He squeals. It's equally from contracting paroxysms of joy and giving into the last of his anger. And there's enough of both that he sets upon the cluster like a starving dog on a bone-- there's no efficiency in his ruthlessness. He also trips over himself quite a bit, squeaking in surprise every time. It's all very ridiculous, really, but it is pretty cathartic.

He's not sure how long it takes-- but, when he's satisfied with the carnage, most of the crystals had been reduced to a chunky sort of powder. Panting from exhaustion, he ends up laying on top of some.

Opie's less upset by their proximity now that they're all destroyed.

@Pride

Pride watched, the father's indulgence in him warring with the guardian's concern that this child might grow up to be a monster.

Let it be said that, first of all, Pride had known many very small monsters: size didn't matter to magical power, and he knew that.

Second, however, he had never seen an opossum before in his life. He had seen tiny hatchlings grow to immense sizes. In Pride's mind, Opie might grow to be thirty feet long, weigh several tons, and still be filled with rage.

He hoped that this wouldn't be the case--on either front. Maybe now the kid would calm down, now that the rocks had been punished for... (Pride looked over the shattered shards) whatever they had done?

He cleared his throat politely and stepped forward. "I'm terribly sorry. If it's any consolation, you can always go back to sleep," he suggested, tone gentle. "-In the meantime... Are you hungry, little one?" He turned his head a little, lowering his nose toward the floor, again calling on his magic.

A banana--albeit a freakishly tiny one, though that perhaps wasn't a bad thing given Opie's size--popped into existence, shimmering, and fell to the rock before him. Pride pressed his teeth in and tugged away some of the peel, then stepped back, nodding to it.

"My name is Pride; if you're hungry, those are good to eat." He didn't bother explaining that they were magic, and should be tasty and nutritious even if Opie were some sort of terrifying carnivorous monster child.

@Opie

Go back to sleep. He gives the not-him a baleful look. It's not as though he hadn't tried-- which was what landed him here and awake in the first place. Admittedly, though, he could probably use a nap. Gnashing minerals into atoms with your teeth was rather tiring work.

Wait-- "am I hungry?" Opie's ears prick, his attention now caught. The word itself doesn't actually mean anything real to him, yet, but it does tug at his stomach; as instincts tend to do. Is that what hunger is?

Come to think of it, something really has been gnawing at his insides since he came out, hasn't it?

Curious, the joey rolls to his feet, shaking some of the glittery dust off his pelt. He sneezes (once, twice) before scurrying over to the strange thing that Pride had made him. The logistics of it aren't exactly intuitive — it was not-there and now it is-there, and that's his whole scope of understanding — but it does smell really, really good. The latter is, obviously, what seems to be the most important thing at the moment. At least as far as the discerning opossum is concerned.

Having only tasted pieces of broken rock thus far, Opie's first bite is understandably cautious. It's immediately apparent, though, that this is something entirely different-- and he falls in love instantly.

With a deeply contented snuffle, he settles in before continuing to eat. He's not exactly sure why; call it a hunch, perhaps; but he feels this is something he's meant to savor slowly-- that food should be enjoyed as much as a long and peaceful sleep. Vaguely, he wonders how much of this he can do at one time before it becomes impossible. It might be fun to try.

Shortly thereafter, it occurs to him midbite that he does not, in fact, know what he is consuming, or how he could possibly find more of it.

Opie's mouth quietly closes, while he internally calculates the best way to ask his incredibly important questions with an extremely limited vocabulary. "What is--" here he paws at delicious strange thing, "that you did?" A beat. "Can I do it?"

Perfect, nailed it.

fun fact, baby opossums actually do 'sneeze', usually at their moms. ~~opie's freshly discovered love of food is probably his new mom.~~

@Pride

Pride watched, pleased at least that the child was being fed. Opie wouldn't starve to death, at least not right away, then.

As he waited, he lifted a hind leg, scratching with broad strokes of a hoof behind one ear; he set this down with a click as Opie finished. The question had him pausing, thinking. "Yes," he settled on; "It's magic. We can all learn different kinds; but I have known many to learn how to call the fruits. It may take time," he warned, trying to keep things simple--because learning how to summon bananas was a fickle magic, and one that seemed to come and go at the whims of the caves.

"But I think, for now, your magic is the same as mine. It isn't all that good for finding food, but... if you eat meat," (and even a long examination of Opie's tiny, fuzzy form gave no clues to him--what did this one naturally eat?) "this magic can help you to catch prey. But," he went on, his tone gentle but stern, "it can also be very dangerous. When I was a child, a friend of mine hurt her own leg very badly with that magic, and I had to hunt for her for weeks." He still remembered her--Aster--the black dog, curled with her shattered limb as he went out to retrieve dead rats to keep her alive. "It's a very strong magic, if you can master it."

He concentrated, for a moment, studying Opie closely. "Here--try this," he offered, and cast out a little thread of magic, attempting to magically imbue Opie with that terribly scientific attribute of "bounciness." "If you can learn this magic, it can help you travel very far, very fast--to find food, or to get away from danger. Jump, if you can," he suggested.

And he readied himself to catch the opossum, should Opie somehow get into trouble.

@Opie

What is that? What's Pride doing with their-- thing? They must, the newborn decides after some careful scrutiny, have a good reason to look so ridiculous; that just made sense. Puzzled, Opie tries to mimic the strange movement with his own rear leg.

Ahhhhhh. That's why.

He lets out a happy-sounding snuff, and proceeds to itch himself so thoroughly he nearly topples over. This was nearly as good as the... fruits.

Pride's suddenly firm tone gives him pause. He feels an almost immediate urge to argue for the sake of simply doing so-- mostly that he would never be so stupid that he would actually get himself injured. He doesn't quite have the words for that either, though. "How do I do that?" he demands instead, with the specific sort of defiance only children can readily muster.

Here. Travel very far, very fast. Find food.

Opie considers this gravity of this notion with all the seriousness that's warranted. He's disappointed he can't make the fruits or their tasty peels now-- but Pride seems to think he can do something soon to get more food anyway. Something with their magic. The strange energy he'd used to throw the stones, or that Pride had used to do... whatever they had done with them afterwards that let them break on his teeth.

Jump.

He blinks. What good would that do?

But then, he hadn't thought much of Pride making the shards glitter, either. And now its sad, dusty remains were stuck to the floor-- where they belonged. And his pelt. Opie wasn't glittering, exactly, but Pride had done some kind of magic to him too. Something to help; he was sure of it now. Why else would he make fruits? That seemed logical enough to him.

Suddenly determined, Opie wiggles his rump in preparation to pounce. If this was to find more food, he concludes, only his most elegant and powerful leap would do. He meticulously plans his movements; the optimal amount of tension to put into his coil, the right time to release, and the best method to land; nothing less would suffice.

Once satisfied with his complex arithmetic, he released all of his stored energy into a scurrying little hop. And then, after landing, proceeds to fly upwards several feet... before gently falling back towards the ground a second time, far more surprised than hurt.

Opie's resulting scream of terror could pierce the very heavens.

He springs to his paws, his fur standing on end. The motion has far more bouncing than he feels it really should."ARE YOU TRYING TO DESTROY ME?" he screams accusingly. "YOU... I'LL BITE YOU!" He releases a soft, tiny hiss-- to really drive home the raw intimidation of his threat.

@Pride

Pride blinked, and quickly scrambled to catch the child--with his magic, of course, not with his hands. But Opie was already on the floor again, puffed up and hissing. "You're all right!" he hastened to assure him. "No, no; I'm not trying to harm you. Look," he suggested gently, turning his magic on himself.

A moment later, Pride turned sidelong to Opie (he didn't want to spring straight at him, which even Pride had to admit would be terrifying). He tensed, then jumped, and began a series of brief but graceful leaps across the rock. They looked effortless, floating, like some sort of weird deer ballet; and he turned to peer at Opie as he performed it. "Do you see-? Good for travel," he tried to explain. Good for someone with tiny legs.
He came to a halt, hooves clattering as he caught himself, and turned back toward the opossum. "-Alternatively, I could simply... carry you to find food?" He remembered, then, the poor kid's desire to just... go back to sleep, and amended his offer with a second. "Or-... I have a safe place you might rest, if you prefer."

@Opie

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