ORIGIN

"Gratia?"

The name echoed loudly over the piles of bones, shouted by a worried and disheveled looking red wolf. This was the last place in the caves he hadn't looked, and the last place he wanted to look. Past the misty tunnels of Orion, into a place he knew somehow had to be associated with some great evil. For now though worries about the abomination of black and orange were far from his mind.

He hadn't meant to, he should have stayed, sure he'd been hungry but he could have survived! Gratia, the herbivore he'd seen emerge, who'd clung to him like a duckling, he was supposed to watch over her to make sure she was safe. She didn't know what he was though. He didn't want to break her heart when she found out he ate creatures like her. So every few days he would sneak off to hunt, leaving her to fend for herself until he returned and all was normal again.

This time, however, she hadn't been there when he returned. It had been weeks now and he was still no closer to finding her than when he began.

"Gratia!" he cried out in vain one more time to a pile of bones before him, every drop of energy draining from his body as he did so. His limbs felt heavy, his heart pained as he was forced to face what he'd been avoiding all this time. He had failed, she was gone.

The wolf collapsed at the base of the pile, his eyes slowly closing. He couldn’t do this any longer. How could he be a guardian of the caves if he couldn't protect one person? Tormented thoughts such as these assailed the heartbroken Xireidi as drained of his energy he fell into a comatose state.

"The words I speak"
The thoughts I hold
And the self I keep hidden away

A fair distance away a single life watched the visitor, silent as the grave and intrigued by the perplexing display. Who was the canid that he had never seen before, and what was this obsession with the Gratia person? He'd seen something like this kind of behavior before; odd facial expressions, raised vocal tones, it was something foreign but intriguing.

The albino aye aye continued to feast upon the half-eaten grub in his grip as all of a sudden his target of attention stopped and fell to the ground. One more bite and Yuma leaned in closer. It wasn't moving anymore, why wasn't the canid moving anymore? Out of idle curiosity Yuma scurried out of his crevace to get an even closer look.

The wolf didn't respond at all, even as Yuma moved right next to it. Was it dead? That would be a good thing, dead things meant more bugs, and more bugs meant more things to toy with.

No, there was still wind in this one, and small specks of black forming all over its body. Strange indeed, he'd never seen anything like it before! The aye aye moved up toward its face and looked closely at its muzzle. More black, quickly forming a crust. Could he remove the crust?

Using his bony middle claw the aye eye scraped deep into the skin, past the slowly forming fragments. The canid started leaking red from where Yuma had scraped, not clear like many of the insects he'd been eating.

A thought crossed Yuma's mind, seemingly from nowhere but undeniably true. This wolf was sleeping, a special kind of sleep reserved for their kind. This was hibernation, but how long it would take... who was to say?

He would have to observe more, perhaps even see if he could try it himself. This would be so much fun!

The was no way to tell how much time passed in his fugue state. Days... weeks... cycles? Numbness had overtaken the wolf as dreams washed through his distressed mind. He saw his first emergence into Polaris, climbing out of a previously cracked gem cocoon and venturing out into the world. He saw his exploration of the tunnels and Orion, slowly growing string and learning to thrive despite a rocky beginning. He saw all the interesting individuals he met flash before his mind’s eye, including the charge he'd been searching for. The dreams grew darker as he saw the cavy all alone in Pisces, not knowing where he was and going off to search for him. The scene faded away as a mass of pure darkness consumed Gratia's form, radiating sickly neon orange as it did so.

Xireidi woke with a start, drenched in sweat. He couldn't move at all, and he too was consumed in a black shell. Panic began to overwhelm the wolf as he struggled to free himself. His previous training had been beneficial; the walls around him gave way with a loud crack.

The world around him was different. The single pile of bones that had been before him was gone and instead bones were piled all around him as though someone had placed him in the center of a morbid valley. Some of the bones were laid out in various patterns along the ground around him, much too orderly to have been by chance. The cave was warmer, to the point of being almost uncomfortable.

It took a few minutes for him to see it, but sitting right in front of him atop one of the walls was a small creature of some kind. It didn't more an inch, even to blink. At first glance it looked like it had a large injury on its head, but the streak of red was too shiny to be there by accident.

"Hello?" he asked with some hesitation. Waking up in a place like this would have been off-putting enough, but this circumstance really put him on edge.

"The words I speak"
The thoughts I hold
And the self I keep hidden away

"It awakens." the aye aye spoke aloud to himself. One blink. Two. Other creatures, he had learned, appreciated seeing him close his eyes briefly, though the reasoning eluded him.

Yes, the past few cycles had been much fun. He'd spent a countless hours and days rearranging the bones around this thing's rainbow black shell. He'd imagined all kinds of reasons for its strange actions. He'd even gone out and observed the rest of the cave to see if he could learn more about this individual that it had been screaming to. In the end he had determined that something called Gratia had done something horrifying to the wolf and it had come here to gain revenge.

Sadly there was no Gratia here to exact revenge upon, which would likely make the wolf unhappy. Yuma had seen another wolf in the caves, had seen it kill and consume a lesser being. That wolf had seemed happy with this action, so Yuma had decided to do something nice for this shell wolf.

It hadn't been easy but Yuma managed to do the same, taking out a lesser one and dragging its body back to these bone caves. He'd hidden them behind the bone wall he was sitting on so it would be a surprise when the wolf woke up. Unfortunately it didn't take long for the creature to smell bad so the aye aye had had to do it again and again every few days. He wasn't very good at it, they fought harder than insects, but he had amassed a large collection over the many weeks, including a few that had been so big he'd had to drag them back in multiple trips!

Only a few were good at this time, but the wolf would only need to consume the freshly taken lives of a few, right?

"Wolf of stone." He continued, slowly rising from his sitting position, "I have prepared a feast for your return."

The wolf was showing some peculiar expressions, but soon he would surely display 'joy'. Yuma turned around and beckoned him to see what had been prepared.

Xireidi really wan't sure about this. The monkey-looking creature was staring at him with eyes which pierced right through him, as though he weren't actually there. Now that he'd had a couple moments to gain his bearings his sense of smell had kicked in to overdrive. Something was extremely wrong here.

Despite his reservations and not even knowing the creature's name the wolf stepped out from the middle of his shattered shell and toward the wall before him. The piled up bones weren't meant for his weight and many slid out from under him, but within a few short seconds he made it to the top to witness one of the most horrifying scenes he's ever laid eyes upon.

There before him arranged in dozens upon dozens of piles of varying size and states of decay were the remains of other gembounds. Whether they were lesser or greater, there was no way to tell, but the stench alone was enough to make him reel and almost lose his footing.

The ghastly creature seemed to be excited about this display and led him from pile to pile, many with bones large enough that they might have been... no he couldn't let himself think that way.

The final pile farthest away from where he had awaken appeared to be the freshest. It consisted of a skunk, a rabbit, several mice, and a few detached hooved limbs that looked slightly older than the rest of the creatures in the pile. Their pelts... their faces.... their eyes... these creatures had not had peaceful deaths. In fact even amidst the stench of the area he could tell that they had been alive and in pain a very long time before finally finding peace.

"This... this is wrong." he gasped, trying his best not to breathe in the fumes. "What kind of monster did this?"

"The words I speak"
The thoughts I hold
And the self I keep hidden away

Strange, the wolf's behavior was not at all what Yuma had been expecting. Here was all this food and all it could do was look around with a weird expression.

Monster seemed like a strange term, but it did refer to an imaginary being of great power, right. It was a compliment to offset an expression of dissatisfaction; this must have been a very kind creature. With this realization Yuma placed a large grin on his face and looked directly at the other.

"I am sorry I did not provide these bodies to your liking. It took me a long while but this was the best I could do with my current skill."

Perhaps though the wolf was not hungry, or he would have rather had one that was still squirming. Bugs tasted better when they were still slightly alive so that might have bene it.

Still there was still a possible way to make it feel better.

"You were looking for a Gratia, right? I don't know who that is but I know it looked like they made you feel bad. I killed a lot of things for you, so I can help dig through the corpses and see if I can find Gratia to prove that they won't ever bother you again."

Had the essence behind Xireidi's magic had time to wake up it would have likely directed him toward some smart remark about this little creature completely missing the point of his statement. To think though that this monkey was responsible for this entire field of death? There was surely more to it than was immediately apparent. Why did it think he wanted this?

Then the other started talking about Gratia.

The confused wolf snapped to immediate attention. His head lowered and stomach dropped as the creature kept talking... and talking...

"Demon!" he shouted out in a fit of rage as he sprung forward teeth bared. No, this thing was no monster. Monsters were savage, destroying without thinking. This could be nothing but a pure-blooded demon, weaving intricate scenes of horror and evil while trying to pass it off as righteous. He had to destroy it, had to silence it before it slowly and painfully took away more innocent lives.

"The words I speak"
The thoughts I hold
And the self I keep hidden away

Yuma tilted his head at the wolf's sudden outburst and lunge. It was slow and unskilled though and the little aye aye was easily able to fling himself upwards onto the creature's back.

This time it had called him a demon; another strong creature but like the title used before often associated with antagonism. Perhaps the wolf wanted to play hero? If that's what he wanted perhaps it would be fun to play the part of a villain for a while. Hopefully the wolf would be strong enough not to die on him too quickly and end the fun.

"So you have discovered my true nature?" the aye aye lied, slightly lowering his vocal tone and speaking in a whisper directly in the wolf's ear. This would be fun! "I am Yuma, servant of the great..."

Who would he pretend to be servant of? Demons always had to have some higher power to associate with to make them sound more intimidating. For the past few cycles he'd been playing around with this fiery red wolf encased in some dark gemstone. Perhaps he could use that to make up a scary enemy.

"horror of void and flame, whose very name is beyond your comprehension."

That sounded good! The final phase though would be to put some force behind his words. Not enough to kill the wolf, just enough to make him react in an amusing way.

The wolf yelped as his lunge missed completely and suddenly the little creature was on his back. He was stiff, out of practice, and beyond that the monkey moved more fluidly than any prey he'd had to take down before.

Even as he struggled the other clung tight and began whispering in his ear a name and a...

Xireidi stopped for just a split second. After all this time and no one else recognizing it he had been starting to think that the shade that had been haunting him since birth might have been a glitch in his mind, that perhaps his magic of revelation was wrong on this one. But here was an admitted servant of the very thing he feared. His dream flashed before him of Gratia being swallowed up by the powers of the unknown evil, and now proof that it had been symbolic.

Gratia was gone, and it was Yuma's fault.

A deep physical shock permeated the wolf's body, causing him to tense up and yelp in pain. He could feel small lines of burnt tissue form along his back where the demon clung. He had to get through it! This was his chance to start to turn things around and actually help protect the cave.

As soon as he was able to use his muscles again Xireidi jumped up high into the air and turned himself so he would slam his charge's murderer into the ground.

"The words I speak"
The thoughts I hold
And the self I keep hidden away

Yuma grinned ear to ear as he felt the hulking creature buckle under his attack. A few weeks before and he wouldn't have had a chance to put up a fair fight, but now he'd faced off with plenty of large gembounds. Strategy was simple; find a cave deer, drop on it, shock it, and slash it until it's too weak to thrash too much. It would be disappointing though if this opponent proved to be just as easy to take down.

Just as luck would have it the wolf indeed did have a trick in mind. The aye aye clung on with a blank expression as the two of them flew high into the air and the world around them spun around, making the floor appear to be above them.

The landing was unpleasant, and caused Yuma to lose his grip on the wolf. A crack and sharp pain in his chest indicated to the aye aye that he had sustained damage of some kind. It wasn't the first time, it wouldn't be the last. Pain was an interesting feeling, not one he really desired to experience too often but one often associated with new situations.

The aye aye righted himself and looked straight at the wolf with an emotionless gaze. The game wasn't over yet.

With claws designed for climbing the primate leapt forward and reached out for a chunk of skin.