ORIGIN - HOUND

A few feet away from the Spire, it stopped. It had been confidently walking to it, obviously with something on its mind, but as it got in range of the most intense of its radiation, it stilled. It had been here not long ago, of course. It preferred to stabilize some distance away, though, where it could still soothe the corruption like hot water on a burn but it never felt overwhelming. Now, however...it stood close. So close. But it had to, because that's where she was.

Master Vargas had used her name like a warning before. Dangling her very presence over its head like a cautionary tale, but that was before -

SAY IT. PUT IT INTO WORDS. We can't. We don't want to. THEN YOU ARE A COWARD! UNWORTHY, UNDESERVING!! TURN FROM HER, AND TURN FROM HIM, AND I SHALL DO THE REST! It was something it considered for a moment - why not introduce the sleepless to the beast? Go in swinging, as they said? But it didn't desire a fight or a spar or death by her maw, it desired, funnily enough, a conversation.

A conversation and a question. Maybe a few questions.

It had been too scared of the mere mention of her to do so before, but then it had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed. Something had settled over it that it could never take off. Something akin to acceptance - of itself, its power. Something similar, but not quite.

But this was also about spite. Because it could not imagine that she would settle for Master Vargas's cowardice either.

It growled to itself and its muscles tensed as it stepped forward. Whimpering within it, the broken thing curled up and hid itself in the recesses of its mind. GOOD. There was no place for it here. It approached that which it had been warned away from, and gripped all claws in tight fists as it snarled first, to announce its presence, spoke second to call her attention. "Draconua. Are you in there?"

@Draconua

And she answers that call for attention: Slinking from her den, blazing and haunted with a seething red Chaos of warning; not with specific concern for the nondescript whelp lurking outside of it (for she barely even knows the thing, so preoccupied she has been with either sleeping or razing the wilds of Pegasus in the hunt sustenance for her Oily pit) but for the ever-present threat that hangs over every encounter, as of late. One misstep, and this experiment is certain to be over; punishment to be exacted.

This is to say that Draconua is merely on her best behavior, not immediately lunging from her nest with teeth bared and snapping. She merely flashes her warning colors, spreading pitch-black, smoking wings wide and skulking forth with a grin as she appraises the thing now standing before her.

"You know me, but I do not know you," she rattles, prowling closer and moving to let her skull loom high over the familiarly-shaped beast. It cants to the side, haloed by the unlight of the Spire. "Should I care to? Does this one know the Sleepless Chaos?"

Teeth click together, eager and impatient. "Speak."

@V-Ruby-One

It tried not to shrink back before her as the Sleepless Chaos emerged from her den. It had not dared to step a foot within, and made to at least move back as she appeared. To see her in the distance is one thing, to stand before her was another. Her head alone was the size of its entire torso and then some. Fear crept in at the edges of its vision, but then the beast barrelled into its consciousness, something burned at the base of its brainstem, and it heard its own voice booming through its psyche.

WE DO NOT SHOW FEAR IN HER PRESENCE!! WE DO NOT FEAR!!! Its teeth ground in its mouth and it steeled its own nerves, looking up at the massive valkhound without fear, but also without aggression. It was not here for a fight. Because it knew it would lose. But this strange relative calmness from the valkhound made it pause. It had expected her to be aggressive, demanding, almost violent right from the get-go, but no...she stood almost defensively. That wasn't quite what it was, but it might as well have been sun instead of rain with what it expected.

"I know you," it hissed, crossing a set of arms across its chest. "By reputation. I'm surprised you don't know me." It gestured to the area beneath the Black Spire where it had slept not long before. "I was here not too long ago. He spoke to me."

It didn't know how to continue, how to break the ice between them when there was already a viciously large power imbalance. JUST SAY IT. SAY THE CRIMES THE MASTER HAS COMMITTED AGAINST US!! That wasn't going to go over well. Start with introductions, perhaps. This was a pleasant conversation between two very normal people in a very normal setting.

"I'm designated V-Ruby-One," and it spat the name like it was an insult. "But my name is Helion. You are...quiet. For what has been warned of about you." Its eyes shifted from the glowing wings to the Spire that stood behind her, ever-roiling, ever-churning. "I came to look Chaos in the eyes." It was treading on thin ice. It was almost an invitation for its death to come. But something reckless in it was spurring it on, as the beast clawed at the cage of its mind.

@Draconua