ORIGIN

After hunting and resting, Aster was on her feet and hunting again, standing perfectly still near a wall. Only illuminated by the distant glow of the spire, she waited. And waited. Until faint movement caught her eye, a rushing shadow moving across the cave floor.

The borzoi's gaze snapped towards it immediately, bristling, as she began focusing quietly. With the kyanite gemstone glittering against her forehead and the back of her mouth, the rat lifted up off the floor, and then was violently bashed several times into the wall before the spell was released and the rat fell to the ground with a low thump.

Aster stared, and then moved to the juvenile rodent to begin eating. After getting in two bites, she recalled Pride, the white deer she had met and shown magic to, and that doesn't eat rats. Had he ever even tried one, she wondered?

Perhaps it was best to find out. Licking her muzzle, the dog bent down and picked up the rat by the tail, stalking away to the glowing plant where she had left Pride, half-expecting him to still be there, and dropped the rat down, looking around with wide, unblinking eyes.

Pride had quickly curled up and gone to sleep, exhausted by his expenditures of magicka. When Aster returned, one of his ears flicked but even then he awoke only slowly, blinking around and then up to her, nostrils flaring lightly at the scent of blood. This sent some distant, instinctive alarm singing along his nerves, but he did his best to ignore this and push slowly up, to sniff at what the black dog had brought him.

He took a cursory lick, and then a quiet crunch of meat and bone into his mouth, trying it. His wild cousins were likely opportunistic, eating what they could and when they could, hardly turning up their noses at a source of protein and calcium. It tasted just fine, even good, but two things struck him at once. First was the warning that this would give him stomach upset--another instinctive flash through his mind. Second was, again, the idea that there was simply something uncouth about all of this.

Delicately he lifted his head, having taken one single bite of the still-warm rat, and looked to Aster.

"I believe that I... could eat it," he said thoughtfully, "but perhaps it is more meant for... you. I feel it is not-... quite right," he added. The word he sought was optimal, or perfect, but it didn't quite come to him, and so he made do.

"Thank you. I will rest; you may keep... the rat."

Graceful and polite, Pride curled back up, tucking his head back against his flank and wondering at the taste of blood, and how much it differed from greens. Nothing struck him as immoral, or odd, exactly--he knew however that he would not need to hunt, and so he put the idea calmly from his mind.

For a time, Aster did what Aster did best. She stared. Not particularly at anything, though her face was turned to Pride, she simply peered through him. Eventually, and slowly, the dog lowered herself down onto her belly.

She chomped into the remains of the rat, slicked-back ears flicking, while staring unblinkingly at the resting deer. "Is it... bad?" She asked carefully, picking this final word out after a moment of consideration.

Not that it particularly mattered to her, of course. She would still eat it and she would still hunt. "Used.. magic," the dog then added, voice just above a whisper. "Need more practice. Learning."

With this, she went silent, and cast her large eyes to the ground to resume eating away at the rat, quietly crunching through fur and flesh for a while.

Pride lifted his head once more, peering a bit blearily at Aster. He considered her words and then pushed up, shaking himself out and toddling a few swaying steps toward her.

"It was not... bad. Only not right, for me, I think. Leaves, grass, taste better." The metallic taste of blood still lay coppery on his tongue as he considered. A brief, pink light played over his coat as he stepped closer, one of Polaris's many crystals bathing him in brief alpenglow relief as he approached Aster. "We can practice, if you wish. Reseda, and I. We fought. A false battle, a mock-fight. To test. It is good to know... how to use the magic. When. To have to focus on moving... the enemy... the magic, all at once," he offered.

For a moment he closed his eyes, considering, then reopened them, their silver-grey irises glinting in the pink and blue lights. "You may strike first, if you wish it... We will stop whenever one... asks. Yes?"

Aster lifted her head, peering after Pride as he stood up. Swaying- she wasn't sure if it was from exhaustion or just waking up, but she took a moment to listen to what he said.

Slowly, she too pushed herself up. A fake-fight would give good practice, yes-- though she didn't like the thought of having to get into a real fight. Aster struggled enough with speaking and comprehending things as it was-- she worried, vaguely, that a fight wouldn't go well.

Regardless, the dog slowly blinked and nodded. "Yes," she repeated distantly, quietly. "Just... 'stop,' when the fight is to end."

Aster gave a little nod at this, sighing, and began to focus. With her gemstone glittering, a soft blue glow visible around her eyes, inside her mouth and on her forehead, time began to drastically slow down between the dog and the deer.

Pride waited, for a moment. Nothing happened, at first, but he thought he caught a glimmer of magicka rippling from the dog. He focused, and--briefly bowing his head in both respect and concentration--called upon his own. He knew, himself, that the magic within Polaris was chaotic, sometimes a strong current at at other times barely a trickle.

He found that fluctuation working against him, now, the tide of magic flowing low, and his grasp on it snatching, slipping, missing. His spell grasped nothing and he felt as though his heart itself faltered as he swayed forward a single, staggering step, blinking.

To Aster, it might merely look as though he had stumbled, unless she--as he had--could sense that he had tried, and failed, to cast a spell.

Aster was mostly unaware, more focused on her own magic than whatever Pride was doing-- and even with his movements, she was fairly certain that, like the rats, he would be delayed a few seconds. A few seconds that, hopefully, she could do something with.

There was no glimmer and swell of magicka this time; indicating to her that her spell had failed. With a gentle huff, the dog stared with eyes that were too large for her face directly at Pride, waiting for his turn.

Pride blinked. There was little point, now, in trying to focus on creating another double. He could try and throw her back; that was enough, and then, should he have time, then he could create a nice, confusing duplicate. That would be best, really: for her to stagger up only to find two Prides in two different directions, giving him even further time to work.

More rapidly, this time, and abruptly more confident as he felt the swell of magic within him, he lowered his head. Flickering power passed through him--not a surge, not a roar of magicka as he had hoped, but it was something, and he put it to good use.

The shockwave flared out from him in a flash, hurtling toward Aster, Pride's aim being to simply send her flying. With it went dust, and pebbles, and rocks, in a crackling blast all around him.

For a moment, his ears rang, but then he could hear them, clattering over the floor as they rolled to a slow stop.

At first, the dog was not entirely aware that she was sailing through the air. In fact, she only came to understand that something wasn't quite right when she hit the ground with a hollow thump.

It hurt-- but it didn't seem to break any bones. She didn't bother wasting time, however, as she turned her crooked muzzle over to stare at a clattering stone landing next to her. Gemstone shining, illuminating the cave floor blue very briefly, the rock lifted, and then was lobbed over at full speed for Pride.

Although she didn't aim to hit or cause any serious damage, she did aim at around centre-mass, either at his legs or at his chest. With a rock.

Pride was half-focusing on his next spell, half-facing Aster, when a rock went thumping heavily into the side of his chest, just above his elbow. He staggered heavily, glancing back at it in some surprise, then sharply to Aster.

It hurt.

He shook his head with a sharp snort of pain and surprise, taking a strong inhale of breath past what would certainly be a bruise beneath his pale fur. She can throw things? As can I. I will show her.

"You can use that... more directly," he said, even as he called up his magicka, as it swelled more powerfully within him.

An ebb and a flow. It will ebb, next, and I will find it weakening-... One more cast, I think, and then it will weaken.

He aimed to lift Aster herself, to throw her to one side, off her feet--not too hard, but enough to hopefully disorient, to stop any spell she might herself already be casting.