ORIGIN

Desire looked down at the green strands that stood all around her body. She lowered herself to the ground, feeling the blades against her scales and flicking her tongue to smell them. I like these. She turned her head to the half-crushed, red insect dropped before her. Ew. She didn't want to eat it, anyway, but she would try. The little python stretched her neck to flick her tongue out towards it, withdrawing at the pungent, starchy scent. "No," she said, gaze returning to the horse. "It smells bad."

Bringing herself to the ground again, she smelled the grass. She didn't want to put it in her mouth, but she wanted more of it. "I want a grass," she declared, rasping in a hissed mimicry of the one she'd first heard speak. The desire was great, and she slithered among the grasses, longing deeply. As she thought this, she felt a tingling and pushing between her scales. Twisting her neck around, Desire watched as green shoots poked up between alabaster hide. They grew no farther, but she was overjoyed. She swung around to face the shadow. "I have a grass!" she said so breathlessly it came out with a hiss. She looked back at her garden-body. "Grass," she whispered.

@Khloros

Khloros watched. He caught the faintest hum of magic from the snake--or no, hum was not the right word. A feeling. A warmth. Something. He peered more closely, his ears pricking up.

"Is that your power, then? To--create--a grass..?" he asked, his rasping voice holding a mild and curious tone. That could be interesting. Had he ever known anyone who could grow plants..? Booker had, hadn't he? Or--no, those had been mushrooms--but it was the same thing, he thought.

"Do you eat it? I eat grass. Does it taste good to you?"

Khloros peered, eyeing the snake over. It would not have been his first guess, but then again, it certainly hadn't liked the beetle.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Desire

"I think so," she whispered, still awed by the grass. It must be her power, right? If the shadow thinks that is what a power does...The little snake looked up. "What is your power?"

She thought about his second question. Her tongue flicked out to smell the grass, and she liked the smell but, again, didn't want to put it in her mouth. "No. I like grass, not eating grass." Maybe she was supposed to eat these things? But she didn't want to. Desire looked out over the grasses. Something rustled leaves in the vicinity, but she couldn't yet smell it. She looked to the shadow for guidance.

@Khloros

Khloros considered only briefly, before giving the same answer he always gave.

"I carry death," he responded in his rasp. "There are a thousand thousand tiny lives in me--in all--and I can sense them, these 'friends,' and speak to them, and move them. Here."

He leaned down, giving the softest exhale of warm breath, trying to bolster Desire's health just that little extra bit. If it worked--and he felt the power surging almost chaotically through him--she should feel stronger, bolstered, very healthy.

"I can make one feel stronger... or sicken them, and bring them death, to stop their pain," he explained. "That is what I do; I try to stop pain. But you do not seem to be in pain. You are only--new."

He then looked around, thinking.

"Perhaps you eat fruit," he suggested.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Desire

A thousand thousand tiny lives. She imagined it as best she could, but how many shadow-things could fit inside another shadow-thing? She could picture only three or four Khloros at once, and still it made no sense . "Oh. A lot." She was more confused that anything else, and could not understand the sheer numerical value or the concept of lives besides hers and his.

Following this, Desire tried desperately to grasp his second explanation, though her confusion had been so deep she'd only heard part of it. But - what she felt ...that explained everything. A rush of energy, of joy, of - health! She felt like she was of many lives, bright and shiny on the inside and out and so -
A rustle in the grass. Again. The magic coursed through her and she shot forward, little jaws stretching wide and snapping shut on something soft that squished and then crunched . It was warm, something leaked out where her rows of sharp teeth punctured the flesh. It wasn't moving, so she let go and pulled back to observe. It was something furry, but it was wet and red. What was it...?

Khloros ambled over, ears pricked up--at first he thought she was fleeing from him, but he could see her slender white form paused just inside the grass. He leaned over to peer, and caught the faint scent of blood.

Desire was tiny, but the creature she'd already killed was smaller. Khloros considered.

"I think," he offered, after some reflection, "that you do not eat fruit."

He eyed over the mouse, snorting softly, mind briefly drifting along the lines of life, death, and snakes. He had a vague memory of another, once, another creature white, with red eyes--she had been a servant, too, of the plague. She had also spread illness, and called another creature her god, and she too had half-remembered now-meaningless names.

Was this creature also a bringer of death? Or merely a natural predator?

He wasn't sure, but whatever the case, he was at least fairly certain that she would not go hungry.

And that she would not need to eat apples.

"A mouse, I think," Khloros said. "...It might take you time to eat it."

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Desire

Not fruit. This was not fruit. Hm. Not fruit, a mouse. She stared at it with a ruby eye. "Is it...living?" she asked, after a while. She remembered him saying that some creatures ate other "living things" - but not ones that talk. "Can it talk?" Desire looked to him for reassurance, not knowing the significance of  alive or dead or never living at all. Living things were her and the shadow. Was the mouse at her feet among the living? She did not know. She was a snake, and living. The shadow was living. Was he called a shadow? Or another name? Hm. There was too much she did not, and perhaps could not, understand.

@Khloros

Khloros peered at the little snake. She clearly did not understand the difference between living and dead, sentient and not, inanimate and animate.

Well, this was her lucky day, because she was speaking to a living, self-declared emissary of death. If anyone could explain it, Khloros could. ...Probably.

"Things that are alive," he began carefully, "are plants, and all the things that can move. Plants... cannot speak. Grass cannot speak. Plants do not feel pain. And of the things that can move, they do feel pain, or fear, and other things. They can get sick. Some can speak--some cannot. Most of these very tiny things cannot think or speak as we can," he added slowly, nodding down toward the mouse.

He was saying this all very slowly, but he realized that even so, he might be overcomplicating things for the snake. He took a breath, and tried to simplify.

"So there are plants; and there are gembound that cannot speak; and gembound that can. You, you eat living things that are not plants. It is up to you to choose if you will eat those that can speak, or only those that can't. Most would be angry if you ate the ones that can," he added, making his advice as impartial and as complete as he could.

He peered at the little one, giving her a moment to process, before he spoke further. "You, you eat by taking life from the things that are alive. Then, they become dead, like that mouse there. And then, you eat it. Once it is dead, it does not think anymore, and it can't feel any more pain. Do you understand all of this?" he asked, carefully.

I don't think I'm making it quite simple enough; but then, are life and death ever simple..?

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Desire

The shadow spoke for a long time, and there were many words she could not understand the meaning of, but she took what she could. The green things and the warm things were alive, but the green things didn't feel, and the warm things did. Dead things didn't feel, and weren't alive.
The mouse was dead. It had been alive. Something felt heavy in her heart, and it came up her throat and she didn't like how it felt. Desire looked at the mouse. "When it stopped being alive," she spoke slowly, hoping that what she could understand she had misunderstood,"did it...feel pain? Does stopping the being alive make pain?" She thought about falling out of the chrysalis, and hitting her head, and these were not pleasant feelings.
@Khloros

Khloros eyed the snake, and then the mouse, then the snake again. He sighed through flared nostrils.

"Possibly. But it died very quickly, so I do not think all that much."

He then spent the time to fold his long, thin legs and lower himself to the moss again near to the snake, thinking. He was remembering the weasel not too long ago--the one who hated mice, despised them, thought them weak. This creature seemed more compassionate than that--or perhaps Desire was merely curious. Still, it reminded Khloros that there were other ways to feed--as he'd explained to her.

"If you can only eat warm things, then there is little that can be done, except perhaps through your magic. I can feed from the little-friends; perhaps you can find a way to use your magic to take life from grass, instead."

He wasn't sure that it was possible, but it was worth a try, he thought--if, that is, hunting even bothered the little one. Still, a desire not to cause pain--that was admirable, he thought to himself. If he wasn't misinterpeting, that was.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Desire