ORIGIN - Fus Ro- (AW)

Scarborough was only a few days old, but he was already aware that something which came easily to other living souls was a problem for him, and it rankled his young sense of intrinsic justice. Walking, for what few Gembounds as he had interacted with, was automatic-- just a matter of moving your legs in the right order. Scarborough had been born with front legs, but instead of backlegs were smallish wings, too small to hold him, with all the instincts of back-legs and none of the strength required. His life thusfar, short as it had been, had consisted of all the learning and wonder a normal newly-hatched gem would experience, and the added frustrating challenge of trying to learn how to move in and with a body that had the instincts and build for one thing and the actuality of a vastly-different other. It made him a frustrated, internal child-- but also a stubborn one.

And a stubborn child wasn't about to be defeated by something like biology.

There were many issues, he'd yet found, but one of them was the way Canis itself was-- littered with bones, with walkways created by creatures wth legs, not heavy creatures that had to drag themselves on the ground. The floor was littered with small bone shrapnel, chips and partial bones and even whole bones of things so tiny that Scarborough could barely wrap his head around it. Moving over them made them crunch underfoot, dragging across a belly already rubbed raw-- literally-- by having to be dragged across the ground, creating more damage than the ground itself would cause. To an extent, that was unavoidable-- but Scar could do a little.

And he knew this, instinctively, but he'd yet to try it.

It was magic, sparking at the back of his mind; he'd never used it yet, didn't know the name of it yet, didn't understand it as a formalized spell or ability. But he had this feeling, just luring there, that if he reached inside himself and smashed it down along the ground that maybe, maybe, it would help this challenge slightly.

And Scar wasn't the sort to leave a theory untested. On a whim, feeling the urge to explore and not about to let frustrating facts of biology stop him in that goal, he summoned that energy inside himself, that seemed to power himself, and brought it down against the ground with a smash of one huge paw on the stone-and-bone-covered ground.

Unfortunately, the theory didn't work as well as he'd hoped. He could feel the magic racing out, but not enough and not far enough; the bones in front of him rattled slightly, but didn't jump out the way like he'd been hoping. It felt like more of a blow than it should've-- he was young yet, he knew, and his attempts at things wouldn't always be successful and thus shouldn't be used to measure his worth, but those were things he knew logically and the dismay at the failure had nothing to do with Logic and everything to do with the brutish and uncontrolled swings of emotion true to youth. "Damn," he said to himself, sinking down on his front paws in dejection.

Now he felt more trapped here than ever~

Remedy hadn't realized there'd been parts of her mother rescued. She hadn't realized it at all. Fact was, she'd forced the event out of her head. She'd avoided Pisces, or for that matter, even leaving Canis since returning home. That wasn't to say she didn't think of it occasionally, most usually when on the brink of sleep, just in time to push her happy dreams away and turn them into terrors. She too-often woke in a panic, had fallen from her ledge twice now. Today was one of those days. She'd been sleeping peacefully on her ledge, when suddenly, her heart felt too tight and she woke with a yelp of alarm but it only served to become a screech as her body slipped off the stone and she scrambled to keep herself up. She'd caught herself at an awkward angle, too low to climb back up with only the tips of her claws on one front paw holding onto the ledge. The rest of her clung to the stone wall as best as she could but it wasn't enough and she gave up on climbing back up. Instead, she opened her wings and lifted into the air with a few powerful down-strokes.

This was how she started her day. The hybrid circled the cave a few times as she often did, exercising those wings in the dead air, but on a third round, she noticed a glimmer of light. This brought her around to hover for a moment. Below, a strange creature struggled across uneven stone. At first glance, she saw Kerberos in it. White fur, brutish arms, big.

But those feathers... the wings... and she could almost feel it. Familiar. Like Deja Vu. She circled closer. The scent was familiar too. She felt her heart skip a beat as realization set in. This was a Bevy child. This was a sibling. Her sibling. A new brother or sister- brother she guessed by the shape- and she circled twice more before coming to land on a cropping of stone beside him. Her expression was one of shock and excitement. Upon seeing his struggle, however, it fell into concern.

"You're stuck." It was a statement more than a question. "Where are you trying to go?" She crawled down the rock to stand at eye-level with the cub. "I can help you." She stopped there and sat. "We're family, I think... so I shouldn't leave you like this. My name's Remedy."

@scarborough

Scar had been settling in for a good, dour mope-- not yet ready to attempt his theory a second time, since it did draw energy from him, and he could not be sure that it would work at all. Only the sound of footsteps made him flick a wide, low ear, and lift his head curiously to fix four eyes on an approaching hybrid, who was just similar enough to give him pause.

Red feathers. He hadn't met anyone with red feathers except himself, yet, and he'd been told one of his parents had red feathers, was a bird, but she was dead. And this stranger didn't really look exactly like a bird-- more part bird, like him, but more bird than he did too. But it was the stones, really, glimmering in the light, glinting red and green-- horns, for her, and a large spike jutting from his back, for him-- that confirmed the familial suspicion. Certainly others could wear ammolite, they were not the sole proprieters of that, but was it so likely that he would happen upon a stranger with the same stone, the same red feathers, and a scent that was just a little bit like his? There was only so much you could stretch random circumstance... right?

But still, he looked uncertain, because everything involving Scar at this moment was uncertain. He couldn't even figure out how to walk.

"Yes," he answered, obviously self-conscious and glancing int he direction in which he'd been attempting to go, "I am stuck. But I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go." 'anywhere but here' was a good start; days old, but already mobility had become a huge problem, competing with a desire to see the rest of Origin, or even just the rest of canis, and not be relegated to occupying the same few feet of space or taking an hour to go a distressingly short distance, after which his underside would be raw at best. He didn't say that, though; mortifying enough to be stuck here, and to need help. Other children, he was sure, were more independent than this, and he desperately wanted to be too. "I just wanted to see-- to test--" he shrugged, not having words for what he'd been trying to do, and finished lamely with, "The bones were in the way, and I thought I could push them away. With Magic. But it didn't work."

And he couldn't be sure that it would, that the magic would even do what he'd wanted it to do.

But Remedy herself presented a different problem, and a more internal one, one that was far less hopeless then the question of moving around was. This problem had answers, and Scarborough had already found that indulging curiosity was a pleasant distraction. Thus, with the slightest hesitation, he perked his round ears forwards and introduced himself, "I'm Scarborough. We're.. family? And that's why we've got the same stone and feathers?" it was a question that sought confirmation, though she'd already given it.

@Remedy