ORIGIN

The dingo blinked at the serval kitten's words, then rolled to her feet. She shook the dust from her fur and--tail wagging--started off toward the ruined stone structures not far away.

"Hungry? Follow. Rats," she explained curtly, her tone easy-going.

She trotted along at a slow and easy lope, glancing back once to be sure the kitten could keep up--or at least see where she was going. At length she began to sniff and snuffle around the edges of one of the crumbled shelters, poking her nose into cracks beneath the stone. Instead of waiting and lurking like a cat, preparing a sudden ambush, she hunted like the dog she was: trying to find and flush out a rat so that she could chase it down, snatch it up and kill it.

But most of the rats--if even there were many beneath the stone--didn't respond; they curled back, hiding in their little dens. Only one scurried off, and it was halfway around the shelter by the time the dingo noticed it. She gave chase and dove, but her paws and teeth hit dirt and not flesh. She sneezed and shook herself again, glancing back at the kitten. Perhaps he'd have more luck, if he even wanted to try? The rats were a little large... maybe too large for a kitten. She wasn't sure.

The dingo sat, watching the kitten as he made his first kill. Then she sat, tail slowly wagging. He seemed proud; she gave a little yip of approval.

"Good." She wasn't sure what else to say--or, for that matter, do. Instead she simply sat, apparently intent on watching the serval kitten eat.

She wondered if he'd want water, next.

"Zevruu--thirsty?" she asked, tilting her head rather sharply to one side.

The dingo waited, watching the kitten eat. A couple of times she half-stood, then sat back down--tempted to take the food, then reminded that it wasn't hers. Her instincts battled with newfound logic but in the end, logic won out and the kitten finished his meal.

Then he answered her, and with a brief wag of her brush tail, she stood and turned. She led the way down a slope of stone to where a puddle stood, then paced around it, lowering her own head to lap at the water but leaving a place open for the serval to join her, too.

She didn't speak further; once she'd finished drinking she sat back down, glancing around and licking her dripping, pale jaws, as if losing interest in the young kitten. She certainly seemed a fickle creature--if not outright rude.

The dingo had eaten earlier, and wasn't all that hungry. Now she'd had something to drink, too.

The kitten didn't seem to be doing much of anything. It was boring, to her; it followed, it did what she did, and she was still a puppy in many ways, with a puppy's short attention span. She just wasn't sure what to do with it; it didn't play, it didn't speak at her much at all. It drank and then just stood, licking its lips. She'd showed it where to get food, and water; in her mind there wasn't much left to do.

Feral sighed through her nose, then turned and loped to one of the strange crumbling structures. She lay down within, curling up; whether the kitten went to sleep or wandered off, she seemed to have already dismissed all responsibility for its well-being from her mind. Snout tucked beneath bushy tail, the dingo closed her amber eyes and drifted off to sleep.