ORIGIN

Her eyes had been open for what felt like weeks now. That is, if she knew what weeks were. At first, all she could see was an inky blackness, but as her eyes began to adjust over time, she began to make vague notice of shapes and lights dancing beyond the darkness, though they never stayed still long enough for her to register what they actually were.

She shifted. In her time here, in what she could only assume was her home, she hadn't realised until now just how claustrophobic it all was. She could feel something sharp pressing against her legs - what exactly that thing was she wasn't entirely sure of, but she was certain that it wasn't a good sign of... anything, really.

She tilted her head forwards. It hit the wall that contained her gently, before she shifted back as far as she could go (which wasn't actually that far) and she sent it forth against the wall. Cracking. Splintering. A blue light invaded her home, blinding her. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Crack. Splinter. Cold. Bright.

She found herself on the ground - a tiny white, wet thing had tumbled out of a white moonstone egg that contained it for so long. She felt dizzy - lights danced all around her now and cold air was sinking under her feathers, grazing the pink skin. She shivered on the cave floor.

She didn't want to get up. Her limbs felt frozen to the ground. Her head hurt and she could feel her limbs sprawled out around her - that was when a horrible thought hit her. Can I move them? It had only just occurred to her that perhaps these things weren't attached to her at all - but as she slowly shifted she realised that she had control of everything around her. Except the bloody lights, of course.

Slowly, the hybrid clambered to her paws and talons, grumbling quietly to herself. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling briefly, trying to collect her thoughts. She only took notice of the dog lying on it's chest once she turned around, letting out a startled bark.

The black dog had been guarding this place, lying here in stoic silence, so that he had forgotten how many days had passed. A month? Two? He had watched the shimmering moonstone egg grow and swell, shining, glimmering beneath Polaris's lights. What had started as the tiniest fragment of a crow's claw had become something the size of a small beast--and today, at last, it cracked.

He didn't know what he expected. He had pondered this for a long time, as Fisher and Fallah came and went. He knew that he was Black, a void, a dog. He knew that he had created something wtih the white sliver of stone, that he had given something to it--something of himself. Something of the void. And he was black, and the crow had been black, yet he wondered why her stone--and this one--were white. Did it mean something? Was this being one of bright, illuminating light? Was it purity and clarity, and burning righteousness, where he was the silence of the deep dark? Or would something even darker come from the rock? Something black, like he and the crow? Or was it entirely unrelated?

He had guarded it faithfully, and now it cracked. He tensed, lying on his chest and stomach, great pendulous ears pricked up and wrinkled face frozen with concentration. Pale blue-grey eyes widened, staring awed at the splintering egg, and for a moment he nearly stood. Nearly pulled the shards away, to help the thing within. But it didn't need his help, it seemed, and he slowly settled back on his stomach, staring in utter amazement.

For a moment, he merely stared, silent and unmoving. She was wet, and scraggly, and pink in places; she turned and barked sharply when she saw him, startled. He flicked back his ears only for a moment, and licked his lips, tail slowly wagging along the floor behind him. She looked like a dog, for the most part, but white--tiny, tiny, and white. What looked like feathered wings sprouted along her back, and Black felt his eyes shining with pride and joy.

"You are white," he woofed softly, and then he lay baffled, unsure of what else to say.

Abruptly, impulsively, he leaned forward instead, trying to lick the little White thing's head in affectionate greeting.

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The tiny hybird seemed to consider as the much larger, black dog as he licked the top of her head. White sure did make a lot more sense than the nagging voice in the back of her mind was telling her - repeating some strange word she couldn't be bothered to remember. "White," she repeated.

The creature's talons clacked against the cave floor as she made her way towards Black's belly, seeking the warmth from his fur. She croaked somewhat - a sound akin to the likes of a bird - as she lay on her pink belly and folded her tiny pin-feather-covered wings close into her creamy feathers, contentedly laying her head down on the ground with her back pressed against the hound's body.

The dog looked familiar, somewhat - in fact he resembled the darkness she had been staring at for seemingly weeks on end. Maybe that's what I was staring at, she soon decided as she drew her eyes up towards Black's face. She abruptly yipped; "Black!"

She was fairly sure she was correct in this statement - though she was unsure on where to go from here. She couldn't find the right means of communication to ask something along the lines of 'what comes next?' but she supposed it didn't matter for now.

White brought a damp paw to her muzzle, rubbing it against the creamy feathers.

The Dog stared at White as she curled against him, and widened his eyes slightly as she said his name. She knew him.

Immediately he decided that she must be some angelic being from beyond this plane, come to take mortal form. For what purpose, he did not know, and that immediately bothered him. After all, when he had hatched, the Wolf had been there to tell him his task. Wasn't it his job, now, to tell the White Winged Dog?

Solemnly, troubled more than he showed, he looked her over. She was nestled up to him and he felt that strange surge of protectiveness, and lifted his heavy head to glance around. He wouldn't let anything harm her, not ever. But no--they were safe. Turning his attention back to White, he pondered.

"You have a great future," he said at last, fully expecting the newborn to comprehend the words, and concept. "...but I do not know what it is. I will guard you," he promised.

His tail began to slowly wag again, sliding to and fro over the rock floor, and he laid his massive wrinkled head over the pup-chick--not on her, but curled over her, as if to engulf her in his protective, warm fuzz.

Then he waited, to see what wisdom this tiny angel might have to share.

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She didn't understand what Black was saying to her. For a moment, she thought he might be able to tell the future - but apparently this isn't true. People who can see as far to know it'll be great would surely know the details of the greatness of it. White squirmed a little. "You're big," she stated, looking up.

She lifted herself back onto her talons to hook her forelegs over Black's neck to look over him, wide-eyed. "Where are we?" she asked as she watched the room, a pink tongue slivering out of her maw to lick her slender muzzle.

There was a certain emptiness within her. Something she couldn't quite explain, but something she definitely wanted to fill and satisfy herself with. She stared forwards for a few moments before she turned, sniffing Black's ear before White yipped happily, resting her head on his neck.

She waited from a reply from the black dog, cropped ears pricked.

He listened, and pondered. Was he big? He shifted in position; best to address each thing that she said carefully, and with great thought.

"There are many who are much bigger than me," he explained, slow and rumbling. Heavy ears pricked, he watched her look around, faint fatherly joy swelling in him as he watched "his" "puppy" gaze wide-eyed in wonder at the world around her for the first time.

"They call it Polaris. It is not always safe. There is magic, here, and light. And a river," he added, as an afterthought. He immediately felt confused; was this too much information for a young one? Should he have mentioned the river--was it really important? Was he only going to confuse her?

A little worried, he quickly licked her head a few times, as if to clear out the words he'd just spewed. "It does not matter so much. I can bring you to see it all, if you want. But do not go far without me. It is sometimes dangerous."

He didn't say it in an ominous way--he wasn't aiming to frighten her, after all--but matter-of-factly. He only wanted her to know what was safe, and what was not. If he'd wanted to frighten her, well, he could tell her tales of Raheerah and Nemean, and the deaths of those that had fought in here, and the skeleton-things that had attacked near her chrysalis as she was growing and developing.

No, he thought; best to keep it vague. All she had to know was that she should stay close, so he could watch her.

He eyed her, wondering what she liked. Would she like to see the Spire, or the river? The crystals, or somewhere else in the caves? He could bring her places, and see--or just ask, and see what she said, perhaps. How she answered.

"If you want to see the Spire crystal, or the river, or the dam, tell me, and I will take you." Then he fell silent. She was his world, now. Everything she needed, she would have; but he did not know how to say that.

He knew only to watch, and listen, and wait to see what "his" "puppy" wanted.

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Magic! Light! River!

She didn't know what any of those things were, but boy was she excited. She didn't really think anything of the fact there were bigger things than Black around - they were just things to meet and be friends with - though even that thought was making her more excited.

She was even offered to see all of it. A tongue lolled out as her father licked the top of her head and she scrambled to hobble back onto the cave floor - that was when even more places were mentioned. A spire. The river. A dam.

She had absolutely no idea what any of them were - but her little heart was threatening to burst out of her chest with the excitement. The river sounded nice, but the dam was definitely a thing she had never heard of before. The spire sounded great.

Was there enough time to see everything? How much time did she have? Could they see everything? She sure didn't know. "The spire!" she squawked. "What's a spire?"

Black stood, carefully making sure not to topple White over. Then he shook out his coat, so that all the dust and pebbles flecked away. He looked over the shards of the moonstone chrysalis, now littering the ground, and felt an odd pang--he'd no longer be watching over this egg. He'd been tethered here, its guardian, for months; and now he was simply walking away from it. It was nothing, now--his charge, his "daughter," was now his responsibility instead.

"Come, then," he rumbled kindly, and then turned and began to slowly pad along toward the Spire. He paused and glanced back, to make sure White was keeping up okay; if not, he could carry her. Just--he wasn't sure quite how. He eyed her over and decided that he could carry her by the scruff of her neck, though he wasn't sure why he thought this. It was instinct; he just didn't know that.

Black watched for a moment; she was stumbling over her own clumsy hind bird feet, but she didn't appear to be struggling, just uncoordinated. Best to go slow, then, and let her learn to walk. He paused, and only took a few steps at a time, guiding the newly-hatched hybrid up toward the Spire. It was visible, not far off: tall and gleaming, shimmering pale blue.

At length he paused, tail wagging briefly as he stared up at it, then looked down to White.

"Do you see it?" he asked.

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White had decided, as she took her first few actual steps, that walking was a difficult thing that should not be fucked with. She tried many different ways of walking: paws first, followed by over-sized bird feet - which didn't really work and stretched her belly a little. She tried doing that backwards, talons first and paws second, but she almost fell onto her face. She eventually found success in moving with a paw first, then a talon, then paw, and working like that.

Eventually, her father stopped after a few minutes of this torturous practice. Her ears flickered somewhat as she stared at the blue light, eyes wide. "I see it," she said quietly. "That's the spire? What does it do?"

She managed to hobble forth a little more, only about a foot or two away from Black when she decided she was fed-up with the dumb walking thing and sank down to sit on her haunches, watching the lights in a relative silence with her ears angled towards Black as she waited for an answer.

The Black Dog watched his... daughter? learning to walk, and waited patiently. He had nowhere else to be; she was his task, and he had all the time in the world.

Where was Fisher, anyway? He felt like Fisher should see this. And Fallah, too. He wasn't sure why, but he vaguely wanted to see them, wanted them to see White.

Ahh, but she was stumbling; he paused again, licking his jaws idly as he waited. She didn't ask to be picked up, didn't whine or mewl; she seemed focused on learning, trying different methods, and so he simply observed.

She is independent. She is resourceful. She is strong.

She was displaying her character traits with surprising clarity and rapidity, and these traits, he thought, were admirable. Not that he was here to judge, no, but perhaps admirable traits were to be expected of an angelic being?

Now she was speaking again, asking him of the spire. He swung his heavy head to peer up at the distant crystal, thinking.

"I do not know," he admitted after a moment. But he could tell her what he did know. "It has a sense of great magic. An enemy--a dragon--claimed it. There was a battle here, where many were harmed, and some died. A fight over the Spire." He was still speaking slowly, trying to keep his words clear for the young one. She seemed able to speak, but he wasn't sure how much she could grasp just yet, so he kept it as simple as he could.

He turned and padded to her; she seemed tired now, and without asking, he made to gently pick her up by the scruff of her neck and carry her onwards. If she complained or resisted, he'd put her down; otherwise he'd pad right up to the base of the Spire, and spare the newly-hatched pup her clumsy feet.

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