ORIGIN

The flash of red and the distant, tiny bit of movement on shore drew him. It was the only thing to really break up the monotony of the horizon, so maybe it was something worth investigating?

He spotted the second flash of movement--something small, pale--farther along a moment later, and a faint sense of urgency struck him. What if there was... something he needed, over at the red thing, and this other thing was coming to take it? Or what if he needed to eat the pale thing?

That faint, instinctive prod sent him paddling harder for the shore, the first taste of Chaos on his tongue. A low and guttural growl escaped his chest as he struck for shore, as claws finally found the gravel beneath his feet. The strangers' voices were distant, not easy to hear over the rush of surf, but they only added to his desire to get closer, faster.

Manticore might have surged from the sea, intimidating and looming, except the sudden extra weight on land took him by surprise. The Valkhound went down face-first, a stumble into the beach, and struggled to right himself.

The innate urge for destruction as he'd surged for the moving targets was both intensified and totally thrown off by the faceful of gravel. He was frustrated--and anger boiled white-hot in him, for a moment--but then the perfectly calm, friendly voices jarred him from his initial instinct.

He pulled upright, and hesitated, eyeing these two far smaller creatures as he steadied himself.

The small, partially upright thing--the one that'd come from the red stone, he thought--was hopping closer, unafraid. It asked... if he was okay. Something about the mundane joviality of the creature seemed to demand something other than violence in response, but Manticore had no instinct to tell him what he should be offering.

Gears turning in his mind jarred shut at this puzzle--if not kill, then what?--and were further jolted by the feline's camaraderie. His attention went to Mossie, his voice--a gravelly growl--came forth not with aggression but with utter confusion.

"...Is it?" he rasped, still standing there with trembling forelimbs, dripping Fornax's seawater. "...Walking... I mean. Is it... hard?"

That seemed... like an oversight, somehow. Especially if--as this creature said--they were meant to do a lot of it. Whose oversight, he did not know.

Manticore looked to Spinnaker, then blinked and shook himself, cat-like. He nearly lost his balance again, but at least most of the water went spraying off in all directions. Then he steadied himself again, blinking in ultraviolet confusion at the smaller Gembounds.

"Yes-... I am, all right," he decided, though it was still with confusion in his voice; why did they care to ask that-?

I think I am all right, he amended to himself. Honestly, he wasn't sure.

Manticore just sort of loomed, standing towering over the other two with limbs part splayed as the water dripped from his hide.

His mind was a confused tangle, all these new sensations and thoughts overwhelming. That innate urge to destroy was a constant, powerful distraction--or maybe the little creatures and chatting was the distraction-? That seemed more right; he should be destroying things. But-... They did keep distracting him; Spinnaker's question had him huffing, tiger-like chuffs escaping him. The sounds weren't friendly, though--they were thoughtful, confused, with a threading through of growling. "...I did not always swim," he settled on, glancing over his shoulder with a catlike twitch of his draconic tail. "I have only just..." What was the word-? Or phrase..? "Come out of a stone," he settled on.

Glowing eyes cut back to the small cat who was now offering him a piece of stone; and in sudden, almost childish anger he tried to take it. It wasn't anger at Mossie, exactly, but at... existing, and falling down, and the constant buzz of Chaos in his mind.

He tried to take the pebble, and destroy it. Except... he couldn't, even if Mossie let him have it, he couldn't--it was too tough, too small. All he did was hurt his fingers.

Maybe there was a lesson in there, somewhere. If there was, he did not immediately learn it; instead he dropped to his haunches, huffing a second time.

Eyes cut to the bird, then the cat. "What are you?" he asked them both, without demand in his voice--mere curiosity, now that his devastation (of a pebble) had been thwarted.