Somewhere near the tower lay a howlite chrysalis. Over the course of the last cycle, it'd been growing nearly two feet tall. Inside was something soft, fluffy, wet, growing and growing until finally its limbs had been pressed up against the walls of the streaked stone. With an instinctual, lazy stretch, the white-tipped limbs pressed into the walls and the stone crumbled, leaving the gemling inside to come tumbling out with a wet splat.
She whined first. The lights were much too bright, the air was much too cold, and the floor was much too hard. But eventually, she slowly got up to her shaky paws and stood for the first time, blinking one eye at a time at the orbs hanging from the cave walls.
Looking at the crumbled chrysalis around her, the creature had her first cognizant thought: that she'd much rather be back in there than out here. She'd really guffed this one up.
The Shepherd hadn't known it was a father until right now.
It'd chrysalised shortly after giving life, and was barely aware of the fact. Then it was time to fight the Unbound Champion, which'd taken up the rest of his brain. That ended terribly for him.
And then he'd been knocked back into his chrysalis and plunged into a dream - he had not dreamed before - where he was trapped in a world of crackling red and black. He'd ran until his feet bled, unable to leave, unable to stop the hissing waves that shot through his mind and burned veins into his vision.
When the Shepherd emerged, the neonate growing in the base of Tower was the last thing on his mind. His muscles ached with electricity. He had hibernated, but he did not rest. He couldn't anymore. Dreamless sleep had been usurped by something else.
His pacing around Orion was interrupted when he spotted the Gemling. At first, his prey-drive, ever powerful, had flared at the sight of the small, defenseless mammal. But moments later, it disappeared entirely, replaced by... Well. I have no fucking clue.
The Shepherd was never paternal. But he wasn't sure what to be instead, looking at this tiny wet thing that undeniably contained some part of him. He could kill her while she was still small, eliminate the competition. He could dump her on someone's doorstep, far away from his territory, and let her fend for herself. He could keep her close, nurture her to share the niche - no, too far.
In a past life, this would be a lot simpler for him. Now, burdened by something he couldn't understand, he stood and he stared.
Howlite, for her part, also stared. There wasn't much denying the family resemblence, either. Though, she couldn't quite see that. She shuffled closer, unknowing that most might have been eaten and never seen again. She gave the Shepherd a sniff, and then crinkled her snout and bristled her wet fur like a bottlebrush.
Like he were stinky.
In fairness, everything was stinky. After spending a month developing in an egg, everything smelled very intense to her. The kitten shook herself off after that, spraying amnotic fluid all over the cave floor as she tried to dry herself off. "I'm hungry," came her first words.
It was odd seeing his face on something that given any other circumstance, he'd eat in an instant. The Shepherd stood stiffly, letting the Howlite investigate him. He was still, but the nostrils hidden behind his teeth flared.
His own snout (the true one) pulled back, unsure of what to make of the ugly mix of Tectus, himself and prey. The meat was wrong, polluted. He couldn't eat her.
But what was left to do?
"Then eat something." The Shepherd turned, and skittered away, gone as quick as he'd arrived.
exit (not intended as an end to the thread hes just peacing out. because he sucks. )
For a moment, she watched him leave, still blinking blearily in the dim light of Orion. Eat something. With her mouth, presumably. The kitten turned, big batty ears lifting as she glanced up the tower, and then around the room. Eat something. She tried a rock, first, giving it a curious lick-- and no, that wouldn't do. A plant next. Better, but not great.
Then, something skittered out of the brush, fat and yellow. She slipped her weight back, front half bowing forward and her butt in the air, tail thrashing, and pounced for it. The rabbit was large and floppy in her forepaws, and though her mouth was biting and her claws were thrashing, it wasn't until she stung the thing that it fell still.
And then, the creature still alive but paralyzed, she ate it.
Not that Bauxite had come back to praise her for it, of course. In the time it took her to crunch the rabbit down, he was no doubt long gone. Howlite licked her pink paws. Whatever.