ORIGIN

The call was one he didn't recognize. It sounded... distressed, perhaps, but too large to be one of the smaller prey beasts that might survive predation in this particular cave.

Vargas abandoned what he was doing at once in favor of striking out in search of it. "Hello?" he called out, six eyes narrowing.

Which, if this were a horror movie, would have been foolish--yelling toward the scream in the dark--but in this story, the Chaos Forge were the monsters in the shadows.

His magic found her first--the red dots flaring up in his vision at the call of magic. He quickly filtered through them, dismissing this one as too small, that one as too high up--and this one as just right. His pace quickened, his Master's powers reaching out to join it. Oilstone, he recognized. And--Chaos. One of theirs, then.

Good.

He found her crawling from her chrysalis, and he recognized her at once: the mute but attentive Valkhound, creation mostly of Astraea, who'd been missing for some time. Sleeping? Eyeing her shattered chrysalis now, he could only assume so. That, or wounded, but--...She can make sound. He mused over this for a moment as he came to a halt before her. Her silence was not that of the throat, then, but of the mind-? Had he known that already? He could not remember.

"Vjira," he greeted, a polite and pleased rumble. "Have you been resting, or did someone harm you?"

He did not really expect a response--but if someone had harmed her, fought her into her chrysalis, and if she suddenly spoke--for the first time--to name that someone, he would move to hunt them down.

As Vargas waited, he scanned Vjira over. She looks the same, at least, he noted at last--no deformities or bizarre mutations, no additions tacked on by a magic that always sought to correct for last time's mistake. The way she simply repeated her sound, too--a strange purr that put him in mind of a growl--made him think that it hadn't been anything traumatic.

He nodded down, then found himself somewhat at a loss. How was he to proceed with someone who could not speak? Simply demand that she get back to work, and go his own way? ...Stand there, looming, or follow her around for awhile to ensure she was all right? Or-...

He hesitated, thinking.

Maybe I can teach her to speak, he mused, thinking of her screech moments before--if that had indeed been hers, and not a bat or something startled by her emergence.

"Are you hungry?" he offered, head tilting. Maybe if he could get her to go along with him, they could hunt together, and he could try to get her to say a few words.

Even if she only parroted them, it might be some start. It was possible she'd never really learn speech--but it'd be irresponsible of him not to keep trying, when he could.

He moved off, as if indicating she should follow him into the dark of Draco.