ORIGIN

Bones skittered down from a large pile as like a flash of lighting in the void Yuma dashed across. His nocturnal eyes were accustomed to the conditions, and his intimate knowledge of the area around his dwelling protected him from most stumbles. He was here for... what was he here for again? He knew it had something to do with the piles of remains he had arranged into fun shapes around the area. Particularly one of the newer ones that he'd made where he put some non remains in.

The little aye aye slid himself down the pile and toward his latest masterpiece, which looked like a collection of dead rats encircled around a canvas bag with a deer skull inside. That thing had taken a while to get off the rest of the corpse, and longer still to transport it back to his home in that bag! Still, something told him that there was no need for the bag now, and perhaps it could be useful for getting more pieces from the now headless deer if he fancied going back and scavenging from it again.

With considerable effort Yuma managed to get the skull out of the bag and place it back in the center of the circle. His stomach pained him and growled angry noises at him as he did so. This was no issue though, for his art projects were functional as well as beautiful. With little effort the creature swept a claw down and grabbed one of the grubs that was feasting on a dead rat, consuming it in a single bite and taming the unhappy spirit which had taken residence in his gut.

Placing the bag aside and grabbing a second grub Yuma looked with fondness over his handiwork. It was nice, but missing just a little something without the bag in place. Perhaps it was too hard to see the intricate details in this darkness? An idea struck!

Yuma dashed over toward another pile where a bloated stomach rested, filled with some kind of black goop that had recently started appearing all over the cave system. He dragged the stomach over carefully and opened a knot in one side, drizzling some of the goop over the skull before tying the organ back up and putting it in its place.

Almost done, just one more step before his masterpiece was done! Summoning every ounce of creative genius in him Yuma reached out and tapped the top of the skull...

His forehead burned as a jolt of energy leapt from his finger into the deer skull. The black goop burst into flames, casting a glorious dancing light upon the circle of rats, the feasting worms, and the small aye aye. In a fit of deep satisfactions Yuma cried out a cackle of laughter like the wail of a banshee as he sat near the flame and reveled in his handiwork.

The initial thrill of creation died down quickly as the deer skull's flames lapped away. This was fun, and the actual act of putting everything in its place had been a wonderful use of time, but now what? His art project neither made interesting noise nor did it thrash about in a unique way. For now all the little aye aye could think to do was sit there, bloodied canvas bag next to him, and watch as the flames feasted upon whatever black goop they could find.

A noise behind him brought Yuma to immediate attention, just as uncertainty threatened to transmogrify itself into boredom. Its form was canid, but it spoke of things associated with...

Yes! That was right; he hadn't come back here to arrange fresh corpses into works of art. He'd come back to grab the bag so he could more effectively loot ancient corpses. Something about a floating hand monster in Polaris, but even now he was a bit fuzzy on the exact nature of the reasoning.

"Bird looks different." He noted to the visitor as he crawled around, taking a closer look. Perhaps he was in the creature's personal space, but if such a thought crossed Yuma's mind he took no action to correct it. "No matter; the scavenger hunt must begin! Follow me. I know a good place to start."

Just as he was about to rush off into the dark again, or more specifically toward the nearest pile of bones, a flutter caught his attention. Though it would take a second for his eyes to adjust to the dark after staring into the flames the silhouette of his actual partner was unmistakable.

"So the bird isn't different?" he noted with brief confusion looking straight at the winged newcomer. Perhaps he had jumped to conclusions before. That meant he had even more company for amusement, a thought which brought a grin to Yuma's firelit face. "Look! We have help to gather the stones. Isn't that wonderful?"