ORIGIN

Instead of giving Odyssey the response they craved, the creature below said nothing, averting their eyes from them and looking around the cave. As if they were ignoring them. As if they were ignoring Odyssey, the sweet and beloved heir of the Merrymen, the great prodigal child of the fox and the hound. Their brows furrowed slightly and their lips followed, twitching down into a displeased frown. "Hey! I asked you a question!" The red hybrid barked, their voice a little louder, a little more impatient. Then they lashed their tail and turned their head away, moving along the ledge that criss-crossed the wall. Their paws churned with purpose, their legs carrying them briskly down the trail until it had led them to the dusty ground where the wind tugged further, beckoning them into the twister that raged eternal. Odyssey would have plunged into that spinning vortex had it not been for Mother's warnings, and so they skirted around the grasping, the pulling, aiming their path towards the youth.

Their pace had picked up, eager to close the distance, until their swift jog finally brought them up to the side of the maned wolf. Odyssey gazed curiously at the creature, lime eyes rolling up and down, across their body to the gleaming gems sprouting from their hips, to the cool red eyes planted deep in their pointed face. Odyssey walked an arc around the creature's side to come to a halt before them, cocking their head up high while their nose pointed indignantly down at the leggy canine. "Well? Answer me! Or I'll have to answer for you!" They scoffed, lashing their tail impatiently. Truth be told, conniving Odyssey already had the fate of this beast formulated in the forefront of their brain, and found themselves hoping they wouldn't answer if only so they could act out their insidious plan.

Instead of giving Odyssey a response, the pup only stared at his paws. Odyssey narrowed their eyes and shoved their nose in closer, administering a look of curiosity and mild affrontedness, wondering just what was so intriguing about their toes that he had to stare at them instead of looking back up at Odyssey. Even so, no such response was given - no explanation, no excuse, no answer for why they were here. Their fate was ultimately left up to Odyssey and once they realized that, they were satisfied to let the maned wolf pup stare at the ground. For now. Their lips curled into a mischievous smile and a huff escaped their lungs, raising their head higher. "Fine! Leave your fate to the Merrymen! Of which I am one, and I decide... you belong to me now!" The child scoffed, leaning back on their haunches with a wide sweep of their long, stringy tail behind them.

Odyssey then stood up straighter, bouncing forward as they circled the child. "That means I get to name you, too. What kind of a name do you want? Ugly? Poobrain? No, no, it has to be something elegant. That's the way Mother likes them." Odyssey rambled, admittedly swelling with arrogance at this point. But the maned wolf child didn't seem to be resisting, so... "Odyssey, Illiad, that's mine and my brothers' names. Your name is a reflection of your true self, you know. It'll be a reflection of me, too, so it must be beautiful. Odyssey, Illiad, Magdalena, Cassio, Homer... Othello," The child listed off names birthed from the top of their head until finally they had encountered one that tasted sweet on their tongue. At this point, they had rounded back to the boy's front and scrutinized him, searching for some semblance of expression.

"What do you think? You like it? Of course you do. It's a lovely name." Odyssey snirked and turned their shoulder to the boy. "Come along, Othello. I want to show you to Mother!" They instructed and took a bold step forward, only to stop and glance back at him, expecting him to follow.

Odyssey had said he was leaving. Iliad wasn't bothered by it so much, I mean he was a lot smaller and could move around easily compared to his big lumbering gait. It never upset him, he only took it as one of the many facts of life just like he was blind. Only recently, had he descended the many platforms and come to the ground. Down here, he was a lot more vulnerable but he was unaware of his size and appearance. The only thing he truly knew was he was blind and mute, two crucial things to making an impact and surviving within Origin. Louie had already seemed ashamed of him, crushed at the thought of having to raise a damaged child.

Nose brushing the ground as he wriggled it back and forth to catch the scent of his brother, he first overheard the words spoken over the top of the twister that was pulling him towards the centre of the cave. Almost connected by string, he could follow the direction this invisible line was pulling him, only through bumping and pressing against the various rocks in his way. It was the only visual he had to go off, a pink ruler that shrunk with each step. A compass within his head to get back to his kin.

Rounding the corner, he could feel Odyssey clear as day. But there was another presence here and he couldn't quite get a reading on it. Rather than cast out to touch and read the bacterial signals, he instead transmitted one singular message towards the stranger. One that would be injected into his brain... Try as he might to grab onto the consciousness of the odd canid, he couldn't do it and in frustration he huffed. Maybe there wasn't someone there after all and he was just imagining things.

Resorting to his only other means of figuring out who this was, he spoke to Odyssey, "Brother is there someone there? Who is it?"

When I speak.

When I think.

The child really had delivered a smile in response to the name Odyssey picked out, but Odyssey's attention to their facial expression was fleeting and shallow. Soon enough, they had begun to turn away, intending to charge all the way up the ledges back to where they were pretty sure Mother was. Their footsteps were bold and determined, stamping across the dusty ground, their ears upright and curious. When they glanced back at Othello to make sure he was following, they felt a surge of pleasure when indeed the maned wolf was trailing behind, then set off again. Already they were beginning to wonder what Mother would say, whether she would be pleased or dismayed to find that Odyssey had made such a grand decision and claimed another creature as their own. It would be another mouth to feed, for sure; another life to guard, but Odyssey was fully prepared to take that burden.

They heard the steps of the canine behind cease and turned to inspect just why Othello had paused, but in that moment had heard another set from nearby. One ear twisted away and the connection inside their chest tugged and ached, pushing them towards the other end of their link. Towards the other mind, the other voice, the other heart that beat so in time with theirs. Odyssey turned their head without the chance to see first what Othello was up to, and there they had spotted the approach of the molefox, their casual smirk quickly replaced by a bright smile and a small waver of their long tail. "Yes. Another Gembound, a newborn. I found him and named him. Othello." Odyssey informed their sibling, prancing boldly back towards Othello.

"Isn't that a nice name? Won't Mother be proud?" Odyssey added as they walked, before their gaze had landed on the peculiar, fleshy little bulb that sprouted between Othello's paws. "Oh?" The hybrid clipped, interrupting their own stream of consciousness with a curious leer at the mushroom. "What's that? I've never seen that before. Did you make it? Illiad!" Odyssey beckoned, throwing their gaze back to the molefox and summoning him over to investigate the weird white plant thing. Maybe Illiad would know what it was. Maybe it would be easier to relay the image... but Odyssey waited, stepping aside and allowing space for their brother to investigate.

Comforted by the slack in their mental connection, the boy drew his back end up underneath himself as he sat down. Tail stretched out behind him, the eyeless wonder just stared over the tops of the pair in front of him, a small grin on his compressed mole morphed snout. Iliad listened as Odyssey spoke, his voice sending waves of good feeling down to his paws and he felt his whole body relax at the familiar voice. Nodding along to what was being said, he quipped back at Odyssey, "Not if you brought another mouth home to feed brother." He too smirked slightly but it was in a good natured manner.

But he moved onto commenting on something else, something tangible but that he couldn't see and Iliad felt the corner of his lips curl down slightly at being unable to feel it. Maybe, it would be covered in bacteria and he cast out to call upon the world in which his whole family roamed in, but again he was denied the opportunity and he pouted. "I didn't make it brother." He shifted a bit to try and move closer, his joints and muscles creaking as he did so as movement was a cumbersome task and he didn't like moving such short distances because of it. Not sure if he should stretch out to feel it, he placed his paw beside Odyssey in case he wanted to rub it over his skin. He still wasn't entirely sure what it was, as neither of them had bothered to explain. But he would be patient and wait for an answer.

When I speak.

When I think.

Othello frowned as the molefox mentioned that "mother" wouldn't be too thrilled about another mouth to feed. What did he eat? What was there to eat? Whatever it was, he hoped he liked it and that there was plenty of it to go around so he wouldn't be a bother to this "mother".

The mushroom at his feet garnered attention from the two and his whippy tail wiggled behind him, though he still wasn't sure just how he made it. He did make it, right? Do mushrooms just haphazardly grow? He didn't think so, or the place would be covered in them... and to be honest, there wasn't another plant for a good few meters, if at all. Odyssey seemed more excited than he would've guessed, but he followed the two out when the fellow canine requested to go show this interesting skill to their "mother".

"Speech"