ORIGIN

Acheron paused at the 'dragons' question, eyes widening a little as she peered upward. Her quietly clicking hoofbeats stopped. "Um," was her initial answer, which wasn't very telling by any means. But she hadn't been told whether the dragons were still here, and Poltergeist's question had her immediately and deeply worried. "I don't... think they're here, still?" Her dad'd have told her... right? "But maybe we should... stay in the shadows? Just in case."

She pressed on again, one ear flicking back to listen to Poltergeist speak of ghosts, of souls. She'd never heard of that, and almost at once she peered back, a new idea forming. A hopeful idea, and a nervous one. "The dead... hang around?" she asked. Nobody had told her this, and... her mind had gone immediately to her now-dead stonegiver. The one her lifegiver had called "a hero." "My... other dad, he died. Could I--find him? Can they talk?" she went on. Even a touch--the brush of nose to nose, an acknowledgment that he lingered... Acheron'd never thought about it before, but she latched onto the concept with a budding sense of hope.

Maybe he wasn't totally gone, then? Maybe not gone from this world after all, but still here, just... in a way she couldn't see?

These somewhat grim (and entirely inaccurate) thoughts were swept away for the time being, though, at the sound of skittering close by. At once, Acheron turned, a shimmering dome raising before the pair in practiced fashion. If something lunged for them, it'd hit the barrier... but for now, she leaned closer to Poltergeist, and whispered. "What is that? -Do you smell anything?" she asked.

She pondered, eyes on the stone, then let her magic drop. "Probably harmless, then," she said, willing it to be true. If it were just a little mouse, it'd be fine but those rats--some of them were as big as she was, twice as mean and hunted in packs.

Pale eyes cut to Poltergeist, considering. "Do you eat them?" she asked, already backing up. She didn't--mostly by choice; she'd found she could eat just about anything and had stuck to plants, for now. But if the cub was hungry, she didn't mind helping him catch some food. She just... wouldn't look at it, that was all.

The other part of her slid back to their prior conversation. She wondered if her stonegiver'd been... unhappy. She imagined so; she hadn't been told the details of it, though. Maybe he hadn't.

She set the idea aside; she could ask her family later on, and see if they knew more. For now, she waited to see if Geis wanted to press on with exploration--or go hunting for a meal.

"Be careful," she urged, alarm sudden in her voice. A faint sense of adventure stole over her--this might be a challenge! It might become something new and exciting!

A shield flickered up, faint and shimmering, and Acheron crept forward alongside Geis. Just in case, she thought. But he was quick, agile; one pounce and crunch and he had his meal. Just little ones, she confirmed to herself, half-disappointed and half-relieved. And--the odor of blood hitting her nose--just a little sad for the critter.

That thought was taken, though, at the mention of Poltergeist being a 'fox.' Acheron hadn't heard the word before, but that innate, faint knowledge of words lingered. She peered at him, even as she turned to push further into the ruins as he suggested. "What's a 'fox?'" she asked, then laughed briefly. "I mean--it's you, but is that... your shape? Or does it mean someone who eats mice?" she went on, curious. She assumed that he would know, just as she'd hatched sort-of-knowing what deer and dogs were. And she looked him up and down, too. "Does that mean you're only one--thing? I'm... half deer and half dog. Does that mean there might be others that look just like you?" It was curiosity and nothing more, but Acheron now wondered at the image of a dozen others identical to Geis wandering the caves--Gembound she simply hadn't met yet.

And she wondered, too, if that meant there were nobody else like her. She wasn't sure if the thought was one to be proud of, or one to make her just a little lonely.

She was the first he'd ever met? Acheron blinked, peering sidelong at Geis. "I didn't know that! You speak very well," she praised. When she'd first hatched, her words had been stumbling, confused and without context; it'd taken her a few days and a patient parent to get her to Geis's level. Maybe he was right, and different Gembound had been granted different levels of knowledge.

She eyed him up and down, though, thinking about the concept of foxes. "You look cool," she said, at last, in a sort of neutral praise. The shades of his fur and the fluffiness of it was just fun to look at; by comparison, Acheron thought herself rather scrawny and gangly. Not that it mattered much to her, but still!

Acheron turned, threading farther into the ruins, nose lifting to pick apart the scents within. "It smells... musty," she observed.

At length she crouched a little. "Let me see if I can see anything interesting." A flicker of magicka, and she sprang--a normal little jump--but hit the ground and bounced. It still wasn't super graceful--she flailed a little, twisting midair like a cat--but her ears pricked up as she sailed high into the air and peered downward.

A moment later she'd scrambled safely back onto the ground, and turned back, squinting. "I see something shiny, a little ways in! A couple buildings past here," she said, excited now, eyes bright as she peered to Geis.

She peered at him sidelong at the "cute" remark. She didn't really understand any subtext behind the word, even if she understood there to be some--joke or no, it just made her vaguely uncertain, maybe borderline uncomfortable. But it was washed away on Poltergeist's laughter, and she shrugged it off, moving to equally buoyant humor instead. "Damn right I am," she retorted, and gave one last bounce before the magic faded--shorter, a display of prowess rather than a search for shiny stuff.

As for her horns-? "I think they're antlers," she answered easily, pushing past a pile of old ash and cinders that'd wound up pressed into the alleyway by air currents. They stained her tan legs black, matching her coat a little more, but she didn't notice. And as Geis raced off ahead, shes raced her voice a little so he'd still hear her, even as she sped to an ash-muffled clicking trot to keep up. "That means they... fall off, sometimes," she went on, struggling to remember what her lifegiver had told her about them. "And they might get really big with a lot of spines. Spikes?" What was the correct word? "Tines" didn't occur to her. But she'd seen how big a stag's antlers could get. "I sort of don't want them that big. They look like they'd get caught in stuff," Acheron admitted, nose scrunching up.

Her head came up, and she peered around as Geis led them past the buildings, into another area of the ruins she'd never seen before. The place was dim, crumbled, and the yawning black doorways and windows ominous. "...See anything yet?" she asked, nervous and hopeful both.