ORIGIN

There.

She just needed to remember. Remember why she was doing this. Remember what mattered. Chaos, her children. The honesty of her master. Her purpose. Its army.

It was not sound this time, but sight. The deer. Likely not the same one, she would know if she was thinking- it was a male, this one. Still, it was a deer and Tema was blinded by her visions, swirling smoke surrounding her, caressing her. The deer stared, and she swung, a trail of iridescent swirls following her claws through the air. A glimpse of what she could be, should be.

Laughter. From somewhere, from everywhere, all at once. The deer turned and she ran with it, stumbling, confused. It rejected her more with every failure, and now It laughed, taunting her every wobbly step on her injured leg. It ridiculed her misplaced claws, chewed her out for every step the deer got ahead of her. The deer was laughing. The trees were laughing. The ground beneath her feet was shifting, trying to counter her every step and send her tumbling to the ground again. She needed to keep up. She needed to take it down.

With one desperate lunge as the deer tried to swerve around an obstacle, she did it, barely catching onto a leg and only just managing to hang on. It got a good kick in on her, leaving one eye bruised and her paw even more sore than it had been before. Running on an injury was not the best move, she realized as the pain caught up to her. It was crazy what kind of things the power of Chaos could help you through if given the right motivation.

She ate greedily, scarfing down most of the deer before remembering what she had hunted for. It was almost like she had a second stomach for oil, craving it no matter how full she was. If it was there, it was hers. A compulsion. She left what was left of it to rot, this time actually resting her injured paw and trying to gently clean her face of blood and dirt. She didn't expect prey to be of any use in a fight, but that hoof made her rethink the idea, if only for a moment. She'd be feeling that for a few days, and she could only hope that when the time came, she was still able to provide. There was no telling how It would react if she showed up at the altar looking like this.

She lapped up the oil once it was ready, relishing the burning feeling as it crawled down her throat. She could practically feel it fueling her, empowering her with something stronger than the caves had given her. What kind of magic would it gift her? The idea was sickening. Magic was a cheater's way out; it was using the caves, not your own raw strength. Maybe it had its benefits, but she would just be happy to rid herself of the caves' influence.

Satisfied, finally, Tema aimed one last irritated strike at a nearby fungus-ridden fern patch before she headed back to her den. She would need the rest.