ORIGIN

He did not know that naps could be had out of the crystal, which felt like an amazing contrast to the general dreadfulness of the immediate world, but that was the least of his concerns at all. There was surely a word that was not as—as undignified as scared, because he was the opposite of an indignant, yes, he was a very dignified pangolin and such pangolins did not feel scared. How embarrassing would it be to be scared? What did he have to be scared about?
It is not fair, I don’t think, that we wake up and are so scared all the time.
Oh, well. What shame is there to diagnose himself immune to it? What is said, is said, and that is it! It is a solitary concept! Not for him to have!
Fear was not to be shared. Complaining is much more malleable than cowering. Fear means insecurity, and confident, well-meaning boys like him do not cower! And besides, what more can one fear than change? It comes like stone shrapnel against a vein, severe, pumping fervour against cold, unfeeling earth. It cuts and mauls and leaves you there. It changes and changes and expects you to change with it, and if you do not choose to, it will choose for you. How crumby—he just got here! And he has already been knocked about by the crudest of zephyrs and scared witless by some half-scrawled pictures and have nearly been burnt to a crisp by a wolf and her strange, worrisome relationship with fiery things. He thinks she ought to ask around about it before she hurts herself.
What better way to learn than to talk?
If they were not the last. But now he doubts it more than he ever has.Everybody likes Eridanus. And how lovely of a prospect that was. Everybody.
“How keen. Another thing we need—how many things does one thing need to live? I thought the crystal was enough.” He scrambles up, leaning heavily against a wall to push his paunchy body upright. “But perhaps I’ve discovered why I feel so faint, so… dizzy. Hate the word, dizzy. I thought it was the Dizzy Tunnel that gave me such a condition, right behind us, there. Have you been? Dreadful place, don’t go. You say they like—erm, Eridanus, yes, that was it. I’d much rather go there, where it is nice, than… the Dizzy Tunnel. Aptly named, I promise you. I awoke and I said, ‘this is unacceptable! Quite so!’ and I thought that I must name such a horrible place, lest I forget it exists, and then wind myself up in yet another headache—also aptly named—of a dilemma. And so, I said, ‘yes, you will be called the Dizzy Tunnel so I will never forget about it!’ and that was that, I suppose.”
Reservations forgotten, he strides ahead, tail swinging. “Say, have you heard tell of the cave a tunnel over? Also quite dreadful, don’t go—and that is where the Dizzy Tunnel is. A dreadful place in another dreadful place. I have come to think they gather. Me, I was born there, and if I can say any such thing about any such cave, it should be the one I was born in. Oh, you should have seen it—or, rather, no you shouldn’t have—”
And the pangolin did not know, yet, that most everybody—for there was an ‘everybody’ to speak of—has seen and experienced Monoceros. The sweeping rock and terrible, lashing winds. So, he continues on through the tunnel, steps quick and words quicker, of the most interesting banding on the rocks, and the most dreadful of tumbles he took, and the most esteemed Dizzy Tunnel in all its aptly-named glory.
The pangolin, most regrettably, does not know that wolves eat meat, and does not share his sudden craving for insects with six legs and four wings.
The pangolin, most graciously does not recall the tearing teeth and the strong, lithe legs, built for the hunt. Because if he did, he would surely keep from telling the Not-Wind—the Anala—about his tied affairs, all with his neck and back exposed. He would be back in his ball, rolling all the way back to the abject awfulness of the Room of Howling Wind, Monoceros.
But the poor, indecent, pudgy little pangolin—Waffles—was none the wiser. And so, on he walks and on he waffles.