ORIGIN

The images flashing before Morpheus' eyes were familiar. They saw the darkness, the cracks and the flooding light, and a face. Not the stranger's face, but a face that looked similar to it. He saw the affection in that stranger's eyes and the discomfort boiling within their belly.

They saw something else, fleeting and barely there, a bubble of doubt. They weren't sure where exactly it came from, but it was something that was held within the stranger before him. Marigold, a voice said. My daughter.

They thought they understood as their eyes flashed and they saw, clear as day, the snake hybrid once more, still in the process of cringing away from their touch. They did understand. They were fairly certain of it. "You are Lost," they said. "They have midguided you, and so you are Lost."

She was more immediately confused than anything else. "Lost," she repeated quizzically. She was fairly certain she understood the bat-dog's words, but only to an extent it seemed.

She recalled how uncomfortable her father's words had made her, and she supposed it made a little more sense. Eventually in fact, she nodded. "Lost," she said, gazing at the other hybrid. "Who, you?" Independant words. She didn't like to stray from words that hadn't been said before.

She was unsure why. It was a strange thing.

They found it strange how most asked of them who they were. Morpheus knew it was easy to find out who they were; but they had not yet found themselves. "I am Morpheus," they said with a horrible, rasping voice - as if their throat had been damaged by fire and smoke. "My purpose is yet to reveal itself to me."

The bat hybrid tilted their head. "Patience is a virtue. It will come in time." They weren't bothered by their lack of goal in life - everything would show themselves to them in time.

They just had to wait.

"Are you hungry?" they asked. "You were hunting." Their head tilted the other way as they stood, looking around quietly with ears jerking.

"Morpheus," Marigold repeated. She watched the thing that named itself Morpheus stand up and instinctively, the hybrid lifted herself back up onto her paws. She noticed that the thing-named-Morpheus did not have front paws - rather something like the fingers of a monkey, with thin skin between them.

She shrugged it off immediately and a word came to mind that her father had said upon being questioned about hunting. "Hunger," she said. "Do you hunger?" She wasn't quite sure what it meant, but it had resulted in food before.

Regardless of the hybrid's answer, Marigold began to walk off, wheezing and hobbling across Polaris.

Amused, Morpheus was quick to follow the creature he dubbed as Lost. She didn't appear to be lost in the general sense, but she most definitely was Lost.

It didn't make much sense to them, either.

As the hybrid hobbled along they gazed at their new 'friend's' body - long and snake-like, thin. She wheezed. They did, too. "I hunger," they said simply. "Have you hunted before?"

They were met with a side-ways glance. "Yes," Lost said, tongue flickering out. Morpheus nodded slightly, pricking his ears up.

Marigold turned her gaze towards Morpheus as they spoke. What a stupid question. Of course she had hunted before. She had hunted them down, after all. "Yes," she said. Obviously she had.

Well. She had hunted, but she hadn't actually caught prey yet. Regardless, it was time to hunt. She flicked her ears up and pressed her snout close to the ground, tongue flickering out.

Slowly, she lifted her head and looked at Morpheus. She wouldn't admit it, but she couldn't smell or hear anything. "Do you see?" she asked - a test. Sort of.

She had asked if he could see, not hear. To which, they could hear nothing but the soft wheezing that came from both their own and her chests. They shifted briefly and looked around.

They caught sight of a pack of rats - perhaps three or four, scuttling across the cave floor. Was that what she meant? "I see," they said, looking towards the hybrid curiously. "Over there?"

Her tiny plan had worked, it seemed. She quickly caught sight of the small mound of scuttling rats Morpheus had managed to spot, and she nodded. "Remain," she said. A new word she hadn't used before - but one the other hybrid seemed to understand. They nodded.

And then she was off, quiet and quick, tail lifted off the ground to keep quiet (but also for balance purposes) as she headed towards the small pack. Upon arriving by the rats, she sealed silent. Her tongue flickered out as she gazed upon the fat, disgusting creatures. She shifted somewhat.

She went for it. She jumped into the pack and every single one of them scuttled off in a different direction. A guttural growl left Marigold's throat as she began to give chase to one of the fleeing rats - uncaring for where the rest of them went.

It was hard. She stumbled and she wavered as she ran, tail lifted high and cat-like. She was gaining on the rat however, and before long she was close enough that if she reached out just a little more, she could touch it's tail. She winced slightly as she put her weight entirely into her back legs and made the jump for it's back.

She had landed down on the rat and immediately bit the back of it's neck. The rat struggled - though not for long. Within a few seconds it went completely still. She paused. She watched. She got up.

She looked around before she bent down and picked up the rat in her jaws, turning to begin walking back to the bat hybrid with the fresh kill.