ORIGIN

Oliver eyed White with wide eyes, then slowly looked up, raising one paw tentatively to touch the base of the Spire.

"I don't know what... 'died' means," he replied softly, looking at White again. The stone felt warm, tingling, filled with power. It hummed beneath his taloned feet. "It is peaceful."

Oliver said this in agreement, then sat back, a little fluff of black with ragged quills jutting out from the back of both long forelegs. It was peaceful, for sure: quiet, humming, calm. Just the faint song of the crystal thrumming over the rock.

"I'm from... a swamp?" he explained, tentative. Was that the right word? "It's dark, and wet, and it smells bad. It's great."

The little tail wagged, a bit. The smells were great to roll in, and despite his mother's protestations, he often coated his baby furfeathers in rancid mud. The joy of it was glorious, even if preening and grooming his coat afterward became a chore. So he usually gave up on that, leaving it to the poor crow to deal with. The fish was good, and he blended in with the swamp, so that he felt safe in the marsh's shadows.

Here? Not so much. There was light everywhere, and no cover, and the smells were rock and burning, so it would be difficult for him to hide.

Instead, he'd be exposed, here; but White seemed to be faring well enough, and anyway, she was right. The Spire was peaceful. So he sat, quiet, peering up at the stone for awhile before he asked questions of his own.

"Are you from here? What's Dad like? Mom's nice. She likes shinies, too. ...Do you?"

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

White nodded and slid down onto her chest, lying watching Oliver and the Spire. This thing was too much of a nerd to take over her relationship with dad. She watched the Spire for a moment, ears pricked.

She didn't know what was so great about a dark, wet, bad-smelling swamp-thing. To her, it sounded exactly like Eridanus - the place Caravaggio said sucked and she shouldn't go there, ever, because she'd get all dirty. White didn't particularly care for cleanliness, but if it made her friend happy she might aswell have some standard of hygiene.

She supposed, maybe the swamp-place wasn't as bad as Eridanus which is why Oliver liked it. She tilted her head a little as her brother continued talking. "Dad hides a lot," she said. "But he's nice. He says he's just watching me because it's dangerous and stuff. Why is mom so small? I like pretty things."

She pondered for a moment. She wasn't still too sure what a 'shiny' was, but if it were something like the Spire she supposed she had an eye for it. 'Shinies' must be something her mother says a lot to refer to things like the Spire. Soon, she nodded. "I like shinies."

Melooodramatiiic.

For awhile Black sat in silence, paws tucked beneath him almost primly, rolling the word around in his head. Was Aquarian melodramatic? At length he shook his head a little, as if to clear dust from his fur.

"His warning came true. I do not think he exaggerates. White is..." and here he paused, gathering his thoughts. She was his pride, his new purpose, an angel. How could he put that into words?

"She is purity. A white fire, yet tempered. Bright. She is kind, without malice; she is intelligent. Curious. She is bold. She is perfect."

He stated all of this matter-of-factly, and without pride so much as admiration. It was clear that he doted on the puppy, but what wasn't clear was where she got these traits. He himself was reserved, aloof, and had trouble putting his thoughts into clear words that others could understand, as if he were on another plane of consciousness altogether. White was very grounded, very open and friendly with others, forging bonds and brightening their lives.

She sure as hell hadn't gotten that from him.

Was it possible that it was the crow who possessed these traits? Perhaps White had Eve's personality, but infused with the enthusiasm of a puppy, rather than the caution of a carrion bird.

Either way, Black seemed to have finished speaking, and instead sat staring, and offered a question of his own.

"What shall we do with them?"

________________

Oliver smiled, a little, stubby tail wagging a bit.

"Mom...? She's a bird. I don't think they are big?" He thought about this. All the birds he'd seen--from the Hallowed Callers in Cetus to the few songbirds that dared the tunnels--had been quite tiny. Tal'at--he thought Tal'at was a kind of bird, but he wasn't sure--was equally small.

"Why is Dad big? How big will we get?" he added, as an afterthought, looking down at his fluffy puppy body. He was still tiny, and plump with youth, with no hint of what adult size he might, or might not, grow into.

After a moment he eyed White. So she liked shinies, too? Like this--this Spire thing, here. He looked at it again, wondering what it was for. What it did. In a moment of playful nonsense, he sprang toward it in a clumsy puppy-tumble, planting birdlike forefeet on it and licking the smooth crystal.

Lost in his sudden burst of playfulness, and suddenly overjoyed at the idea of having a father, a sister--family--he turned his energy on White, bouncing and springing toward her, instead. It was friendly, but it was still throwing his little weight flat at her, trying to tackle her in a sibling sort of sparring. He had forgotten his earlier fear, it seemed.

He had a sister.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}

The hybrid shrugged dramatically. "I dunno. Maybe it's a surpise," she suggested. She looked over towards the dog and the crow, barely making the black figures out in the distance behind them. She wondered if dad would keep growing.

She shuddered, somewhat. She wasn't sure if she wanted dad to get bigger. She turned back to Oliver, opening her maw to speak, though all that came out was a startled squawk as she was shoved over.

Was this an attack? Why was he attacking her? Was this is plan all along?

"Why?" she squawked, wide-eyed. They would be pathetic last words, but important last words nonetheless.

Black had been about to protest, to correct her; he didn't expect to control them, to use the children. But Eve seemed to have understood his meaning after all; she spoke of where they might raise the two.

"I will ask her where she wishes to live, then."

Then the crow was asking him something else--something that made so sense to him. Who was he with...? What did that mean? For a moment he thought perhaps she referred to mates--the idea was there, in his mind, as if he knew what it meant without ever having thought of it before. Then he wondered if perhaps she meant with a master. Who was he with...?

Matter-of-fact as always, and plain in his meaning, for once, he spoke.

"You ask, 'who am I with.' What does this mean?"

He wasn't sure, but she made it sound like something important--or at least someone everybody had. Maybe she meant his friends? Was he 'with' Fisher, and Fallah...?

________________

The crowdog peered as his sister cowered back, seeming afraid, more than anything.

He was both puzzled and immediately ashamed--he didn't wish to frighten her. Leaping back, he peered down and slowly flopped to his rump.

"Um. Play? Haven't you ever played before?" Granted, his own idea of play was to steal things from Mom, or to pounce on her and bound off giggling into the swamp (soaking her feathers with swamp water... she was patient), but he just assumed that EVERYONE knew how to play.

Now, he was embarrassed, and worried. He hung his head, guilt flooding him.

"Sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, I'm sorry," he mumbled, tufted ears pinned back, and blue eyes fixed on the rock below.

He'd known his sister less than an hour, and he--the SHY one--had already scared her. Great.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}