ORIGIN

The pin-feathers covering her wings were beginning to blossom into beautiful, pearly-white blood feathers. She wasn't very sure what exactly they were for - from what she had seen from her dad, Fisher and Caravaggio, she was the only one who had them.

She didn't mind that, though. What currently bothered her was what was beyond Polaris.

Sure, she could have asked her father, but she felt the need to daydream about it instead. Ever since she had found an exit from Polaris, leading into Tunnel H, she made a new daily ritual (the first one being 'stare at the Spire'), to stare out at the cold, snow-covered tunnel.

She didn't dare step into it. The cold always hit her as soon as she sat down - it forced her to puff up all stupid-like just to preserve body heat in her feathers. That's where she was now, in fact, fluffed up like an orb of white feathers with sanguine eyes staring off into the tunnel.

She could go in there.

She knew she could.

What was stopping her?

The hybrid's head turned to look around. No one was around, that she could see at least. She looked back into the tunnel, slowly getting to her feet. She took one step forward, then another, and then a third. The snow was half an inch in front of her paws.

She lifted her paw and set it into the snow. It was cold, it shot chills straight up her leg - she turned and bounded back into the blue lights of Polaris, sliding back onto her haunches. At a distance, she continued to watch the tunnel carefully.

She looked down at her paws eventually, lifting one to gently lick at the pink paw-pads to warm it back up.

Tunnel H was cold. And slippery. He'd already almost slipped at least five times on his hooves, built more for dirt and muck than ice and slush. Still, he could see some sort of entrance ahead - it had to be home, right? After all this travel, he'd finally decided that Isi must have gone back to Cetus, considering the swamp had become as much her home as it was his. Still, Czernobog moved slowly, infected wounds making him tense and cautious. He wouldn't be much of a help to anyone if they got any worse, and right now his priorities mostly consisted of finding Isi and not passing out in the process.

So far, so good!

To anyone not familiar with the boar, he would probably look absolutely horrifying at six hundred and fifty pounds of wiry hair and muscle, jowls hanging open as he panted for breath, damaged lungs acting up from the cold. The tunnel was so chilled that his breath created tiny clouds, and the beast slowed almost to a halt, staring down his snout in fascination at the smoke. Little ears pitched forward, and the pig nearly slipped and fell again in his distraction, squealing in fright as he tried to right himself. Just as he did, he turned his gaze back to the entrance ahead - and stopped, stock-still.

"Baaaaaaaaaaaaby?!" A bright, skin-stretching grin stole across the boar's face, and Czernobog let out a veritable song of happy snorts and grunts, disregarding the slippery floor and darting towards the white blob of fluff at the end of the tunnel. "Baaaaaby!" He didn't think to look closer at the creature until he was sliding to a stop at the entrance to Polaris, panting, the grin on his face dropping like a stone, replaced by an uneasy, overtly false smile. Czernobog blinked once, twice, only a few feet away from the... not-his-where-was-she child.

His eyes burned.

The boar sat back heavily on his haunches, staring down his snout at the baby. "...chuuuurn?" Snuffling, he wagged his tail just a bit - a baby was a baby, even if it wasn't his baby, even if the plants kept up their whispers that he'd never find his again.

The pup-chick's sanguine eyes widened as she caught sight of a giant, 650lb boar charging down the tunnel. A part of her told her to scream for help and run away, but she found that her limbs - both canine-hald and bird-half - did not respond to her brain's frantic commands.

Fortunately for her, the big pig skidded to a stop just a few feet away from her. She was stunned - it looked nothing like the friends she had already made, though she supposed it did hold some resemblence to Caravaggio.

It took her a moment to find her voice, the sound almost foriegn to her. ".. Hi. I'm White," she said, blinking as the boar sat down. She was somewhat afraid to approach - he looked sick and injured.

She squawked slightly, more to herself as she lowered her paw back onto the ground. "Are you okay?" she then asked - though if he were to say no there wasn't really anything she could do about it. She wasn't a healer and she didn't know any healers - in fact, she didn't even know healers existed.

But that was okay. He'd probably be fine.

Czernobog huffed out a breath, sniffing at the pup-bird for a moment longer, before leaning back, tilting his massive head to one side. Hi. White. "Whiiiiiiite," the pig repeated, blinking solemnly, as if saving the word for later. And then she squawked, and he startled, hooves tip-tapping on the ground as he shuffled in place, taken aback. "...haaaat baaaaby?" Black-brown eyes narrowed, and he wondered, grunting. She kind of looked like a hat. A white hat. That squawked like a hat. Maybe she was a hat, like the other pup-bird?

Okay? He snorted, head shaking like a dog removing water, ears slapping against bristles. "Chuuuuuurn okaaaaaaay," the boar confirmed, although the assurance was a bit tainted by the fact that anyone could peek into his ribcage and get a stellar look at his lungs. "Haaaaaat?" The question probably translated to are you one of Eve's children? Then again, he might just have wanted some new headwear.

@White