ORIGIN - The Prisoner of Perfection

Backdated: June 1st

Bacchus had caught a lesser rabbit, a quick and simple kill. He had promises to keep, after all. He simply hoped this was a promise he could keep.

He slinked into the prison, keeping a wary eye out. If whatever Anubis had seen was out and about, he would simply drop the rabbit as a distraction and then make a run for it.

The leopard knew when to cut his losses. He only hoped he would not have to, that the daughter he had claimed still lived.

And as the voidlights of the garden came into view, it became clear that she was alive. His perfect child, she was still here and living.

Some of the tension eased from the leopard's frame. This area of the prison was safe, at least for a given definition of 'safe'.

He dropped the rabbit. "It is me, my child. I brought you food, as I promised," his voice was full of warm joy at seeing his little cub.

@Shadow

She had spent-... some time, here.

Hours?

A day? More?

She didn't know. She'd woken then slept, dozing, and eventually had stood and tottered about, lost in the pitch dark. Her magic had come to her then, for the first time, and she'd wreathed herself in the faintest silver glow. It hadn't been much--it had barely been anything at all. But it had let her see the wall just before she walked into it, and spared further pain to her little nose.

Shadow did not know this world, nor the rules of it. She didn't know what to expect, or do. She only knew the dark, now, and its dust, and a gnawing at her belly and dryness of her tongue.

When Bacchus came, she didn't hear him, or see him. Her light had by then gone out, and his padding was quiet enough... and there was no light to frame him. Only his voice startled her. And then, the smell: the tang of blood that spoke to that grumbling in her stomach and promised to ease it.

She hastened for that smell with clumsy steps, ears pricking up, silver eyes now wide. "Food," she parroted softly, and bit for the soft, furred flesh of it.

It took her a moment to learn to eat. To tear a bite weakly away, her puppy's jaws and muscles pathetic in comparison to even a rabbit's muscled body. And then she was lapping thirstily at blood, blinking as she sought a word to put to what she needed. "Thirsty," she managed, and looked up hopefully, blindly, toward Bacchus. He had brought her here--made her safe, he said--and now had brought her food. Could he help her further? Would he?

She had no reason to think he wouldn't, and every hope that he would.

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@Bacchus

His daughter spoke, parroting his word, and Bacchus could not suppress his easy joy at hearing her voice even if he wished to. Which he did not. Then came another word, a question of sorts.

If Bacchus was a different sort of soul, perhaps this question from his dear daughter would have been enough for him to give up his plan. So far as he knew, after all, the one true source of water was the droplets falling into the center of the garden, and that was a precarious position to get to, to say the least.

"There is water, dear heart, but it is not easy to reach," Bacchus informed his daughter, voice gentle.

"I will tell you where it is, but may I have your name first, sweet daughter? I am your father, Bacchus," he introduced himself, voice warm.

Best to have a name to remember her by if the plants did her in.

@Shadow

She tipped her runt's head to one side, listening. The part of the wolf cub that--in better company, or even alone--might have begun to find her strength, her courage, now instead shrank away in the face of her guardian and protector.

He knew how to help, and how to provide. He would care for her. She didn't need to risk herself, then; she could trust him, follow him, and he would teach.

She chose, in her utter lack of experience, to do so. Her blind, silver blink up at him was just that: trusting. But a name-...

Shadow looked around, seeing nothing in the absence of any light. There were only a few things she knew. Gemstone chrysalis, and choking. Dust and darkness. So far, the darkness was the only good of those things, if one did not count her adoptive father himself. It seemed to shroud, to protect, to hide away the potentially bad things... if there were any, and instinct shied from that question.

"Shadow?" she offered at last, looking back to him. It was tentatively spoken, a little broken--only her third or fourth word, if that--and she hoped it was a good choice.

She waited, to see if he'd approve, even as she quietly dipped a head in deference to her own hunger, nibbling at her meal.

@Bacchus
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"Shadow," he repeated, his voice a rumbling purr in tone. "My dearest little Shadow," Bacchus added, in the same warm, content tone.

He did not speak at first, letting her enjoy her temporal satisfaction of hunger with the food he had brought. "There is water in the center of our garden, but it is not easy to reach," Bacchus begun as she seemed to slow the sounds of chewing.

"Plants are living beings with few senses, even if different in many ways from you and I. It is not uncommon for them to lash out in ignorance, and our plants within garden is especially defensive. They were alone for a very long time," he explains.

"They may hurt you, my dearest little Shadow. But within our home, there are far less dangers than beyond the darkness. This is the best place for you to be, especially while you are small and vulnerable," he gently informed her. And it was the best place for a child, at least in Bacchus's twisted mind.

"When you feel you need water, simply be careful, dear one," Bacchus finished his words.

And when his daughter was larger, when she begun to ask if the world would be safer beyond, then he would give her siblings to 'protect', asking her for aid so she would stay.

One day his children would leave, though. He was not fool enough not to know this. When they realized his twisted truths, they might even kill him. He was aware of the likely results of his actions.

But he did not want them to leave, his love like the thorns that adorned some of the plants, causing harm and poisoning the being touched. He would delay that fate as long as possible.

@Shadow

She listened, large ears swivelling, and her head came up after a moment. She seemed to think, blinking, her tongue lashing at the blood on her muzzle, though the only thing visible in the dark were those silver irises.

She'd not seen the garden, yet. She wasn't sure what one was. The distant voidlight had been glimpsed but she'd remained dutifully in the darkness, where she'd been put. So-... that begged the question: "What is... 'garden?'" Her words were halting, unsure. And instinctively, as she fumbled with language, she recognized that her question wouldn't give her the right answer. She struggled to find the word. "Where?" she blurted, at length.

There--that was right.

So there was water... and plants, that would hurt.

She made a note of this, not fully understanding most of it, but struggling to commit it at least to memory. As she looked down toward her meal again, she remembered the faint magic she'd drawn up, before. It was frustrating, at least a little, trying to find the food with nose alone. She tried to call that magic back up again, and it came in a silver glimmer that wreathed her body. It provided just enough light for her to see the meal beneath her, and she went back to it with a puppy's singleminded intensity.

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@Bacchus