ORIGIN

Kera did not want to think, speak of, regard, consider or what-have-you of the situation that just transpired about an hour ago. Kera thinks it's an hour. It could have been days or weeks. Kera did not know. Kera did not have a grasp on the concept of time at all; but her intention remained the same. She wanted to forget that it happened, that she lost and that she sustained injury from a bratty, flimsy little goose, and instead focus on exactly two things.

One, she also injured the damned thing, and would possibly stop it from injuring others so badly in the future.

Two, she was hungry.

Limping through the darkness with a broken leg and broken teeth was challenging enough-- Kera had to do something she hadn't even done before. She wondered, perhaps, if she had not tasted blood, would she have realised how hungry she was? She wondered if she had won that fight, would she have eaten the goose?

She considered. No. Probably not. The goose was flimsy and probably bad for eating. Kera did not need to eat something with that amount of negativity and aggressiveness, anyway. It would have been bad luck for meeting new people and trying to make new friends so that she could properly help them.

As Kera came to a river-- she assumed it was a river, she could smell the water --she could hear the gentle splashing of moving somethings below the water's surface. These certain somethings might have been like the goose-- flimsy, but fleshy and bloody. She needed something fleshy and bloody.

And at this point, considering her hunger pangs, she did not particularly care how small or fragile those somethings were.

It was difficult to try and wipe one burly paw in there when one other was broken. She lay on her belly by the riverbed and stared downwards into the oily-black, rushing water. With her weight on her stomach instead of her broken leg, she was able to perfectly-- damn perfectly, if she did say so herself --dip a paw into the water and pin a wriggling fish to the ground. With it trapped, her jaws bit through water and flesh to grab it in her mouth.

Blood. Flesh. Warmth, though it was lukewarm at best. She crunched down onto the fish with her broken teeth, ignoring the pain in favour of the sweet relief of tasting something good and warm (again, lukewarm at best) in her mouth. Her tail thumped hollowly against the ground as she scooted back and began to rip and tear into the fish, swallowing down chunks of flesh quickly.

Even someone like Kin-Kin needed to drink, her jaws parched after a lengthy sprint through Polaris. although the effort showed in her lolling tongue, it had been so long since she'd paid proper attention to her training as she'd used to, and whilst laps of Polaris had left an ache, they had also left a giddy feeling in her chest, which kept her paws high as she flowed down a familiar track towards the crystal river. Her cloak rippled, her blade clinked quietly, the sound of crystal singing against crystal, and her muscles stood out beneath sleek fur. The world around her was lit by a signature golden glow.

She was in prime, condition, today, and nothing was going to ruin the mood for her.

Kin-Kin came to the water's edge, dropped her head and lapped at the water for a long time until her thirst was fully quenched. With that done, she stretched her tired muscles and shook droplets from her whiskers, raising her muzzle to sniff the air. A familiar tang reached her.

Blood. And... was that canine?

She sniffed again, catching wind of a pleasant fishy aroma. Whoever was nearby couldn't be very far away at all. Without a moment's hesitation, Kin-Kin followed the course of the river, and mere moments of travel brought her around a bend in the bank, and she saw them lying, clutching their prize. Just a pup. She blinked, tilted her head, and grinned at them. It had been so long since she'd met a youngster, too; and that was one of the things she missed. The awe. The power. The praise.

Kin-Kin sauntered closer, taking a look at the pup, the look on her face lighthearted but bordering on some kind of concern.

They were lying oddly. Was there something wrong with them?

She took another sniff, which didn't tell her much.Kin-Kin settled back on her haunches mere feet away from them, lying down on her belly, glow softly brightening. "Hey, kid," she drawled. "You ain't looking so swell. 'Sup?"


" speech "

The fish tasted good. Better than expected. The warm, coppery blood made her forget about the pain in her leg as she tore into it, her white fur stained crimson. She did not hear the sound of gentle clinking on the ground, or catch sight of the soft glow near by as she quickly finished off the fish, tossing the flimsy carcass aside.

She was still hungry. It had been so easy the first time, surely it would be easy the second time. Deep crimson claws touched the waters surface before she was interrupted by a voice, startled, she looks over her shoulder.

What was this thing? It was like that cat, but its entire self was faintly illuminated.

She slinked around awkwardly, her leg dragging along painfully, to face the other wolf. It must have been able to tell that it wasn't working, or perhaps she saw the marks and torn-out chunks of fur. "I got in a fight," she said fairly indifferently. There was no point in lying, really, even if she didn't want to think too hard about it. She took a few moments, staring for a beat across at the glowing wolf, considering. She was not weak. She had to express this, somehow, and she did. "I won."

So much for 'no point in lying.'

"It was a bad guy. Deserved to get beaten up. I let him go because I'm not a bad thing like he was. He hurt my leg and it's not moving, but that's okay. I can still walk and I caught a fish." She nosed towards the torn-up fish carcass, mostly just bones and leftover skin that was too thin and tough to tear off and eat. She was still fairly proud of herself for it.

Turning back to the water again, tail thumping hollowly against the cave floor, she said, "I can catch another. Watch." She craned her head in, sniffing, paw barely touching the surface of the water.

As another slimy fish came swimming by, her paw lunged straight into the cold water, but she could tell she hadn't done it as perfectly this time. It thrashed and she lost grip on it for a split second, having to lunge forward and clamp her jaws around it before it got away. In the process, she must have moved her broken leg because it started to hurt.

She grinned through the pain and a flailing fish in her jaws, crunching down on it until blood spilled out. She turned back to the other, gently-glowing wolf and spat the fish back out in front of her to show it off. A pool of scarlet spread around it before it finally fell still. "See? It's not gonna stop me."

That said, if it kept hurting so much, it might stop her.

Kin-Kin listened, her ears pricking, her muzzle twitching in faint amusement to the pup's harrowing tale. "A fight, you say?" Kin-Kin grinned, feigning interest with a small wink in their direction. They looked at the small one's torn and broken body. their leg seemed to be the main cause of their grief, from the way they had struggled to turn towards them. "Sounds like you've had quite the adventure! Please, tell me more."

She grinned, glow brightening as they quickly proceeded, although Kin-Kin couldn't help but think that it was all a ruse; but what better place than this to weedle in one or two of her own fantabulous exploits she'd accomplished over her many cycles of life? "Mm-hm? how bad was this... Bad guy, you say? Kill for fun? Rotten to the core? I think I may have fought him before..." a spark of mischief came into her eye, and her glow flickered slightly.

She watched patiently as the little pup caught a fish with some difficulty, and appeared to examine it as the pup tossed it to the ground before her. "Good job!" she praised. "I think you'll need a little more'n just fish, though..."

She nosed the fish back towards them, peering at their wounded leg. On closer inspection, it was almost definitely broken. Kin-Kin thought to herself, wondering if there was anything she could do to help. Poor kid had no idea they were doomed, but maybe they wouldn't be, if Kin-Kin had anything to say about it. She looked down at the sword, held in place by tendrils wrapped around her foreleg, and that gave her an idea.

"Say, kid. I might be able to make things a lil' easier for ya."She pushed her muzzle into its slot in her sword, and pulled it from its sheathe, pushing the pointed crystal into a nearby patch of moss and dirt. She showed the pup her crystal-wrapped forelimb, glistening with rainbows in her limelight.

" speech "

Kera took the time to bite into the fish when it was nosed back to her, eating this one a little more slowly than the first. She grimaced faintly upon the other wolf wanting to hear more about the fight-- though she supposed that if she truly didn't want to think or speak of it, she shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. A pink tongue swept across her jowls.

"Rotten, I think," she said after swallowing a few bites of fish. "I think it was the same age as me-- I only came around recently. He was really mean and full of hate. I think they'll kill for fun some day. I don't know." She was quietly solemn as she spoke. She did not know what was wrong with the goose, persé, but she did know that it was probably unnatural for a creature to be so full of genuine hatred and aggression. She knew it would probably end badly one day, but if it were to end badly for the goose or for some other gembound out there, Kera did not know.

"Maybe I taught 'em a lesson. Maybe they won't attack people at random anymore," she offered further, before taking another bite out of her fish and then nosing it forward. Her stomach was still tiny-- as was the rest of her body, really --and she found that her hunger faded as soon as it had been brought on.

She also knew, in the back of her mind, that Blackberry's attack hadn't been at all random-- she had invaded the poor bird's space and woken her up. She asked (albeit very unkindly) to be left alone, and she hadn't. Perhaps Kera's own loss was nothing but her own fault. Not that Kera would ever admit to that out loud, that is.

She was grateful for the conversation to move away from it, however. She watched with curious pink eyes as the wolf in front of her removed the strange, crystalline weapon and started to show off the crystal tendrils curled around their leg. "It's very pretty," she offered. "What's your idea?"

She wasn't entirely sure how-- or even why --this creature would be willing to help, perhaps other than faint pity. Perhaps it knew what she was thinking, or perhaps it had watched as she lost a fight against a fat bird.

Perhaps it saw her bite a rock.

Damn.

Kin-Kin winked at them. "Well, I'd say ya did good, kiddo," the she-wolf drawled. "Better to kick the fight outta them whilst their young. I'll leave the little ones to you, and I can take care of the big nasties, eh?" she examined her claws, thinking about her many fights with Imperia over the cycles. Not that she'd ever killed them, or... well, done any kind of harm, really. She always won, and that was about it. Not that she wanted to, really. Sure, Imperia was a nasty piece of work, but Kin-Kin liked them; or, more accurately, liked the thrill that came with their repeated clashes.

But this pup didn't need to know that. As far as this pup was concerned, she was the greatest hero these caves had ever known. Which, obviously, she was.

She grinned as the pup commented on the crystalline tendrils wrapped around her foreleg, and once she was sure the pup had had a good enough look, she sat back on her haunches, tail causing her cloak to rustle slightly against her back.

"I use the crystals here to hold my blade. You've seen that, yes?" Kin-Kin twitched her muzzle towards the crystalline object protruding from the dirt nearby. "Now, I'm fairly sure that that leg of yours is broken. I may be able to use more of these crystals to hold it so it can heal better. Make it easier to walk on. Ya feel me?"

Kin-Kin raised her paw again, whisking her tail from side to side.

She barely even knew this kid, but she was about to set them straight for perhaps the rest of their life, and give them one hell of a good show to boot. Who says she'd make a bad parent? Kin-Kin, personally, thought that she'd make a great mother; but that level of commitment sounded like a bore.

" speech "

The big ones. Kera wondered if she'd be able to take them on her own. She wondered if she'd even be able to take other things her own size after getting beaten by a singular, very angry goose. She wondered why she was letting it bother her so much.

Eyeing the wolf quietly, nose working, she wondered how many fights this one had been in. She was bigger than Kera was, probably older-- so, likely many, many more fights than Kera had been in. Licking her jowls, she asked, "How many fights have you been in?"

It was better to ask than to assume, perhaps.

The faintly-glowing canine could have probably taught Kera a thing or two-- but Kera did not want to admit that not only did she need teaching, but that she had lost. Needing to be taught meant admitting defeat. Kera would not, under any circumstances, be defeated.

Pink eyes flicked towards the sword. "Do you use that? In fights?" she asked with faint surprise. It looked sharp, and it looked dangerous. It was probably capable of killing something, if she got in a fight. Kera was not sure if she could bring herself to kill someone in cold blood.

Unless they were truly evil, perhaps. What made someone truly evil?

Kera did not know.

The pup turned her gaze back to Kin-Kin, blinking. "Feel you-- Okay? I think so," she said, faintly bewildered by the other wolf's use of words. "What does it mean, broken? It's still here." Kera wasn't sure why she associated "broken" with "gone." Perhaps it was the image of something snapping off and no longer being a part of something bigger- Kera's leg, after all, looked wholly intact, even if the bone itself were broken under the weight of a very fat goose.

Inspecting her leg, Kera frowned. "How will it help? How do you make crystals?"

Kin-Kin thought, her ears flicking, in response to the young one's question. Putting an exact number on it felt... far less impressive, and in truth, the she-wolf had probably only truly fought five or six times. Three with Imperia, and never once seriously. Once with a monster roaming Fornax, and once, hypothetically, against a small, sparky little monkey who... well, hadn't stuck around long enough for a true victory.

The wolf's tail swished, ears twitching. "Too many to count," she said as she bowed her proud head, as though lost in memories and reminiscing. Kin-Kin still took pride in having never once been defeated by Imperia- a seasoned fighter, and even killer. She'd even met with the caracal's daughter, and heard tales of their cruelty from their first-hand experience. And yet, there was no bitterness on her part, at least. The pair had even shared a word or two, lazing after a long silence, and the ever-surprising decision not to fight, for once. Kin-Kin also knew that Imperia hungered for a victory, but she also knew that she herself would never turn down a fight.

She was jerked from these thoughts by the youngster's question, and a wolfish grin came to her muzzle. "That's right, kiddo! And you ain't gonna be seein' anythin' like it anywhere else!" again she winked, pride showing in the glitter of her eyes and every inch of her stance. "But usually, it's enough of a deterrent for the bad guys just lookin' at it. Can you see why?"

She chuckled at the young one's confusion but decided not to elaborate, her tail thumping a couple of times at the ground. She took a moment to consider the answer to their question. "See, we're soft on the outside but we gotta be hard on the inside, else we'd not get anywhere. Broken means that the hard bit has snapped, like if you pull a stick off a tree, or just bend it too hard... it's still there but it won't work, you see."

She stood, and approached to take another good look at their leg, nosing and peering carefully until she could work out, roughly, where the break was. "Trees can't heal, but we can. I'll be just giving it a little help, making sure it doesn't stay like that. Keeping it straight. Maybe you'll even be able to use it to walk better, 'cause then the weight won't be on the leg." Kin-Kin decided that a demonstration would be the better way to show them how she created her crystals. The answer, of course, could be given in a single word, 'magic', but that wouldn't be nearly so impressive.

Kin-Kin backed away from the pup and placed her paws firmly apart, the glow dimming around her to leave them in relative darkness as she transferred it to the earth beneath her paws. She closed her eyes and focused.

I took some time, but the earth between her paws began to softly glow, crackling and crunching with a sound like someone stepping on shards of glass. The ground receded, creating a small circular crater, until left in the centre of the hole was a mottled quartz crystal; not the prettiest, but relatively clear, and tinted with the slightest violet hue.

Kin-Kin nudged it towards the pup. "That's how."


" speech "

Kera found herself, albeit only briefly, doubting the wolf's answer. Too many to count? Could they not count? Kera sure could-- Kera also knew how many fights she had been in. One. Perhaps it was not a lot, but if Kera was going to be this injured after a fight, it might as well be similar to 'too many to count.' Everything was too much to count if you could not, in fact, count in the first place.

She said nothing on that particular subject, however, though she did briefly consider if the wolf had been in a fight at all, but glancing over the sword again as it was pointed out, she realised that someone who didn't fight, probably wouldn't haul a sword around with them.

She could see why it scared off bad guys.

Kera wanted one.

She watched the other wolf for a long moment as she spoke, thinking in silence to herself for a beat. Soft on the outside and hard on the inside didn't make much sense to her-- why couldn't she be hard everywhere, or soft on the inside? Surely, if she was going to be injured, she should be able to see it with her own eyes?

If she were hard everywhere, she would be injured less. Perhaps. How is it that the hard part got injured? Rocks are hard everywhere, and Kera knew you couldn't injure rocks. Kera knew this every well, in fact, and she pondered it for a moment while her tongue brushed against the broken teeth in her maw.

Had Kera seen a tree yet? She did not know. She knew what it was, in her mind, but she couldn't picture it. She supposed it didn't matter. She was better than a tree, she knew that much. "Okay," she said. "I see," she said, but she did not see at all.

The wolf pup did not actually understand until Kin-Kin stepped back. For a time, nothing happened-- it only got darker and Kera had to scoot closer to actually see what the wolf was doing, but it was a bit of a shock when she heard the ground beginning to move.

She grimaced. The ground parted, almost like it was yawning, and she scooted forward, closer, to see what the thing in the ground was.

It was pretty.

"That's-- it? It's pretty," she repeated the thought in her head. She liked the colour, at least-- it was different from her own pink gem and the pink thing-she-hatched out of.

She liked it. "Will it go on my leg? To keep it straight?"