ORIGIN

"Little angel, little angel..." it murmurs to itself, clicking its claws together absentmindedly as it wanders through the core with a mouthful of flowers.

It does not know what an 'angel' is. It cannot know what an angel is—but it woke up with the word in mind, and as far as it's concerned, it is an angel.

"Little, little, little..." it whispers, mouth thick with the taste of sap and stems. It likes the way the golden fluid oozes from the flowers when it breaks them—but it is being extra-gentle with this bundle of flowers, despite the way porcelain teeth dig into them from a jagged mouth, because the flowers are not for it.

The flowers are for the Spire.

What is the Spire? It, too, does not know. It has taken to calling it angel, too, muttering, murmuring; it does not know what the Spire is, that monolith of crackling rock and ozone, but it knows it is magic.

It knows it is afraid of the Spire, that towering, looming thing. It did not know fear, before it met the Spire. It knows fear now; feels the tremble in its chest when it stands before it, as it does now, wildflower bouquet tucked behind teeth.

There is already a small collection of little offerings before the Spire; rocks, mostly, in varying degrees of shininess. It bows its head down to the stone, bending crest-legs nearly flat against its back, seeming—being so small against the skystone light.

The flowers touch the ground, roll out of its mouth; exoskeletal plates fold back and it skitters away a few steps, eyes locked on the stone.

"Angel, angel, angel..." it whispers, soft and nearly drowned by the Spire's crackling.