ORIGIN - HUNTER, HUNTED, OR CONFUSED CLOWN-DOG?

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The Valkhound stalking along the river's edge in Pegasus probably looked impressive, at first glance, if a little sickly and silly-colored. But he had spikes, glowing bits, all the requisite things that marked him as a creature of chaos.

In reality he was sort of... lost. He'd had a bit of magic training, but really wasn't sure how to hunt. Thus far it'd been cooperative, or scavenging. He knew Pegasus was where he was allowed to go look for prey, but how to find prey? How to identify it? Those things eluded him. He'd not been taught those.

As a result, Timir was sort of... meandering. Ambling, if you will. Perhaps, from time to time, simply trudging as he realized the futility of teaching himself to hunt.

There was no prey visible. There was grass, trees; there was a river. He'd been told to look for "deer," and in his hungry state, hadn't thought to ask what deer looked like. Things were so much easier when I thought we could just eat rocks, he mused, lifting his snout to the wind to sniff for hints on how to proceed.

A battle, or training, for anyone who wants it! Anything goes but please don't chrysalize him, he has a war to train for...

Pegasus was so big! Rather than the cramped quarters of the tangled root tunnels that had led to the Carnival, this was the most open expanse of light, water, and meadow that Larkspur could even imagine. She darted through the air, making daring twists and turns at dizzying speed. The wind against her face, rushing through her feathers, was the best thing in the world. The orb-light caught on the barest hints of green-blue iridescence on her wings, throwing glimmers of color at anyone watching.

The first time she passed over Timir, she missed him entirely. He was just a blur on the ground below. The second time, he seemed like a familiar blur. Wandering--lost, even? Larkspur twisted sharply and dove down, pulling up just in time to alight on the branches of a riparian tree. She took a moment to catch her breath--that had been quite the thrill!--and then spoke.

"Hi!" She spoke loudly and clearly, in case this Gembound had trouble seeing her. He was very big, maybe a hundred times bigger than Worm! She didn't know. But he wasn't bald, and his mane was iridescent and very pretty. "My name's Larkspur. Were you looking for something around here?"

@Timir

Timir froze for a beat, blinking (with one forelimb held midair, caught mid-step) around. It took him a moment, examining the spot from where he'd heard the voice. The riverside tree--had that spoken to him? No, it--Oh!
He put his foot carefully down, confused by how TINY this bird was. As if he was afraid he'd crush her, despite being a few meters off.

"I am... Timir. Hello." He was Valkhound, but not Chaos, at least; he didn't immediately have the urge to attack a stranger, or something. Mostly he was still trying to figure out--"How are you so small?" he blurted, and stepped closer, peering up at her.

But she had asked him a question, and obediently--oblivious to the fact that not everyone in the world outranked him--he answered. "I was hunting. I don't... eat those who talk," he said, reassuring as he could be (just in case), and he politely did not add that she would barely be a mouthful, anyway. That seemed like it might be rude.

@Larkspur

How? That was a good question. Larkspur didn't really know, and he would've asked Timir the opposite himself. "I don't know!" he answered cheerfully. "I came out of my rock this way. Never seen anyone as big as you! Is that normal?"

Hunting! Larkspur knew hunting. Except his version consisted of flying through the air at top speed to catch bugs, so he wasn't quite sure how Timir would manage it prowling along the ground so slowly. "Do you need help?" he offered kindly, in case Timir was having trouble. Oh, but- "What do you eat?" It seemed highly doubtful that bugs would fill him up, being so big. Unless he ate all the bugs in Pegasus, in which case what would Larkspur eat?

Timir's reassurance may not have placated someone like Worm, but Larkspur was the type of child who hadn't even thought about needing it in the first place. "Oh yeah," he said blithely, "It'd be pretty weird if my lunch started talking to me in my mouth, wouldn't it? Although--" thinking back to the bouncy ball in the Not Dog that Larkspur and Worm had shared-- "Maybe the carnies would think it's funny."

@Timir

...Was it normal?

No, but Timir had hatched in the Chaos Forge alongside larger creatures, and been trained by one about twice his size, so he wasn't deliberately lying when he said "Yes. I think so?" He huffed a little, licking at his teeth in a feral sort of manner, and winced at Larkspur's other question. "...Small animals," he admitted, which was really rather embarrassing. "I can eat big ones, though. I just can't find them," he hastily added. "And I don't know how to... kill them." He was generally a rather laconic sort, so language wasn't really coming smoothly to him yet.

He paused, tail flicking like a cat's. "I could use help. Maybe. But--how can you help?" He peered up at the tiny bird, trying to imagine it clamped to a deer's back, gradually pecking through the flesh. Gross. "Oh. My name. I am supposed to be... V-Chaos-Nineteen," he corrected himself. It was belated, but he kept forgetting he was meant to be a number now.

Also: "What is a carnies?" That seemed... important? Maybe. Timir didn't know. And he seemed in no hurry to rush off, content to stop here and talk awhile. Or maybe it was just taking all his baby-in-a-big-body brainpower, right now.

@Larkspur

The big creature's declaration of his size as normal earned a mental shrug of acceptance from Larkspur. He gave more thought to the question of hunting. He'd never had trouble killing his food before; it either died quickly or was already dead. "Why can't you kill them the same way you kill small animals?" he asked. "I usually just eat them or shake them around a bit. Works pretty well."

How could he help? That was a good point. While Larkspur killed the bugs he ate easy, he didn't know if he could help with anything big. Oh, but--his name is V-Chaos-Nineteen? That's kind of a mouthful--had trouble finding them too, didn't he? Larkspur could help with that. "I can fly around and look for some big animals for you!" he offered cheerfully. "It's a lot easier to see from high up. --Can I call you Vee, by the way? Or Nineteen maybe?"

Ah! Carnies! "They're the foxy guys that run the Carnival," Larkspur explained. "In the tunnel that goes out from here. There's food and really fun rides and lots of screaming sometimes. I didn't scream," he added.

@Timir

Oh, this was... a lot. His brain was still fairly baby, and now ideas of shaking giant deer-bison to death, flying, and Carnival... foxy guys were all roiling around together in there. Timir had to stop and try to parse it all; he was probably gonna have really weird dreams that night.

As for his name, he was quite non-committal as he answered, because he didn't really care. None of those things were, in his mind, his name. Hell, Larkspur could've named him something else entirely and he'd have gone along with it. "Sure. Vee or Nineteen or... whatever." He paused, thinking, and carefully set aside the topic of foxy guys and screaming, for now, aside from to offer Larkspur a nod of certain approval. Not screaming was good, right?

"If you can find something... I can kill it? Maybe. I will try to shake it. Do you eat..." 'meat,' he started to say, but the bird had just told him he did, right? Unless the songbird hunted for sport. "I will share, if you help? We can... cooperate," Timir tried out. That sounded like a good idea? Maybe?

@Larkspur

Aw, V was so agreeable. And big. Maybe Larkspur could call him Big V—didn't that roll off the tongue quite nicely? Anyway, they could work together to kill something big and then share it! —Big V would probably have to do most of the eating, Larkspur mused.

"Sounds like a plan!" they agreed cheerfully, with completely unearned confidence. Without further ado, they took off, darting through the air above the meadows to search for big animals they could kill and eat together. (The word 'together' was used rather loosely here.) What animal would he like, Larkspur wondered? Larkspur ate small agile insects like themselves. Worm liked not dogs that were wide and soft like him. Big V was.... big and sharp.

Oh! Look! A group of conveniently big and sharp animals grazing just over there! Big V was going to love this. Larkspur swooped back with a cheerful trill. "Found them! Right this way." They darted off in the direction of the Big Sharp Animals for Big V to follow.

@Timir

Timir blinked as Larkspur pretty much, to his eyes, vanished. They were so tiny but so fast, and their size against the vastness of Pegasus just left him blinking after them.

He felt abruptly rather alone in the expanse of river-fed meadow, standing there with wind ruffling his mane in the sudden silence.

When they returned, he felt something like relief, and was only too happy to lurch into a quick lope to follow.

The Big Sharp Animals in question did give him pause, though. Larkspur had said to just... grab and shake, and in his experience that was right. But could they grab him, first? They did have lots of those pointy bits, and he studied them for a moment, then looked around, squinting, for his tiny guide.

(he's too inexperienced so he's gonna go for this either way like an idiot but did you have meadow deer in mind)

@Larkspur

Larkspur lead Big Vee to the Big Sharp Animals, then alighted on a nearby shrub in the meadow, waiting expectantly. They thought that he'd simply rush up to the crowd and grab one of them, then come out the other side already swallowing it—that was what they did with bugs, anyway. But he was hesitating, looking toward them quizzically.

"What is it?" they asked, studying the deer the same way Big Vee had. Hm... are they too big for his mouth? Now that they thought about it, they were proportionally bigger than bugs for her or not dogs had been for the big bald cat. "Are they not the kind you wanted to find? I can... look for something else."

@Timir responded on Discord but yeah when I wrote the post I was thinking of meadow deer! But Larkspur has no idea what they're called so they can always be retconned to something else big and sharp, lol

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