ORIGIN

Many hours had passed. Aster still lay wounded at his side, asleep--or so he assumed--her leg broken, but relatively set, at least. She slept the deep sleep of the pained and the recovering, and he had remained dutifully awake, silently watching. Every moment that ticked by brought him through a cycle: a half-drifting off, partially lost in his own thoughts, only to be jarred into fearful startling by some twitch of light or distant clatter of rock. They were helpless, here--two children alone, one injured, no guardians to protect them. They were not in any shelter--they were in the open on the bare rock.

The stress was wearing on him, and he was growing very weary. Pride knew he could not stay awake forever. And beyond that, he knew, too, that Aster would need to eat. He knew that she ate rats; he knew that she would be hungry, when she woke. Beyond that he wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. Did he risk going off and trying to learn how to hunt on his own, and leave Aster behind, wounded and defenseless? Or did he lay here and drift off, and leave them both sleeping and exhausted, and she without nourishment?

At length he stood, legs shaking, and stretched. A gentle nuzzle downward, and quiet words: "I will try to find you a rat, so I can sleep and you... will need to keep watch, if you can wake." The words were carefully-chosen, exactingly precise; the young fawn then stepped away, unsure if she'd heard his warning.

There was little she could do if awake, regardless, other than call for help, he supposed. He would have to hope that if she was attacked, she would have time to call out, regardless. He wasn't about to shake her awake.

Quietly, he slipped away, his hooves tapping a soft patter on the stone as he trotted off toward the nearby boulders where Aster had done her own hunting. He found that their odor--the scent of rat urine, and fur--was strong, and he could tell where it was stale, and where it was fresh and rank. He spent some time nosing around the boulders, grimly dutiful in his task. At length he spotted something dark between the stones; he froze, staring at it for a moment, nostrils flaring.

Rat, or rock?

There was one way to find out.

With a flare of magicka and a snort he tried to sieze on the object, to leap back and pull it from beneath. He found, to his disappointment, that the thing was just a rock--and a rock firmly lodged to the stone underneath it. He stumbled back a step with the effort before letting the magic fall away, exhaling and looking around for other potential prey.

For a long time, Aster slept. She didn't feel the throbbing, burning pain of her leg when she did and she almost forgot that Pride was even there. For a long time, Aster was at peace.

Eventually, however, she began to stir. She shifted and all at once the pain returned-- not as bad as she remembered, granted --but it was still there. She let out a soft groan, turning her head briefly as she felt Pride come closer, speaking.

Rats. Keep watch. Aster had to take a moment for her half-asleep brain to catch up and figure out what this meant, but Pride was starting to move away again. Tiredly, and unable to form a sentence, she nudged at the fawn's face before he left and turned her head back around to rest on the cave floor.

Hearing the tapping of hooves fade into the distance, Aster slowly opened her eyes and stared off blearily into the distance, at nothing in particular. Rats. Keep watch. The words tumbled a little uselessly in her mind as she made a failing effort to translate them.

As she began to wake up and became more aware of the throbbing pain in her leg and the fact that she was alone, unsheltered, and unprotected, the borzoi rolled onto her belly with a grimace and looked around Polaris, quietly alert.

More time. More scenting. More listening. He could hear a faint scratching, now and again, far beneath the stones--and had anyone been watching, it would have made a strange picture indeed. A white fawn, painted starkly against the dark stone, prowling head-low along the stones. He was clearly hunting.

Eventually, after half an hour or so had passed, he decided to change his tactic. He crouched, and at a point where he could see light beyond and beneath a gap between the boulders, he waited. He waited there, his magicka coiled, for a long and silent while, until his legs began to cramp from inaction and he began to doubt that the odor was rats at all.

When he saw a brief shadow flit at the edge, he at last, exhaustedly, released his burst of energy for it. It went skittering out, and he went clattering after it, springing into awkward, sore-legged action to give chase. It was still rolling over the stone when he ran over it, hooves cracking bone, and he had to turn, skidding and scrambling and falling, to give chase back the other way.

His teeth caught in its tail and he shook it, hurtling it against the boulders as it shrieked, tasting again that strange and coppery blood drip onto his tongue.

It took a few moments for him to harm the rat until it had stopped moving, and faint pity stirred in him but was soon enough quelled. This is what Aster ate; and she was injured. He had to hunt in her stead.

Around an hour after he had left her, the white fawn returned to the black puppy carrying a rat by the tail, head and his own tail held high as he dangled it, his gait a near-prance as he tried to avoid it plinking into his chest, with distaste. This he dropped at her feet, and then knelt and lay beside her, sighing.

"I have brought you," he stated, as if she could not see it for herself, "a rat. How are you feeling?"

The minutes dragged by as Aster lay on her belly, staring off, waiting for Pride to return. As time went on, she felt weight return onto her shoulders. Her eyelids dropped until she lowered her head back to the cave floor, drifting off.

Her slicked-back ears flicked as she heard Pride somewhere in the distance-- an hour later, though Aster had no sense of time --and she opened her eyes to see a rat falling just in front of her.

"You have brought me," she repeated, amusedly, as if Pride was also unaware. "A rat. Thank you." She lifted her head to sniff at the rat, going quiet.

She was fairly impressed that Pride had managed to catch something, but she didn't realise how hungry she was until she took a tentative bite out of the rat. The puppy took large bites after a few moments, crunching loudly and eating quickly. The rat was gone in under a minute.

Licking her muzzle, Aster lowered her head to the floor again, watching Pride wearily. "I will... hunt you a plant," she offered, not entirely sure if this is how it even worked.

Pride waited as Aster consumed the rat. He stared blankly when she offered to hunt him a plant, then laughed quietly, briefly, a tinkling and musical sound.

"Later, then," he agreed softly. "But not now." He looked around. "We are still without cover--and I do not know if you are... thirsty? Need water?" He glanced back questioningly at Aster, then out around Polaris, thinking.

"So far... in my experiences with it, magick will do anything you can force it into doing... Or perhaps, ask it, to do?" He let out a soft snort through his nostrils--a thoughtful noise, rather than mocking.

"Do you think that I can ask it to hide us, and bring you water? To... shape it that way?" He turned a little, hoofbeats clicking softly on stone as he thought about how to handle this. He didn't want to drown them, no; he couldn't call upon a deluge of water. And they were on flat ground, so he couldn't surround them with any--nor was he sure that would even work. He had manipulated existing objects--but creating something, from nothing? That, he was unsure would work.

He shook his head and thought, further. What about... rain? He could try to make rain, it would cover them and also provide something for Aster to drink.

Pride nodded to himself, and focused, lifting his head high and looking around them. A brief, humorous glance back to Aster, and he spoke: "I will try to change the weather. It might look sad, but it isn't. I will try to make us warm if you get cold." He then looked forward once more, and concentrated.

...Nothing. No magicka, even. An ebb in the variations here? He would have to wait, a beat, and see. Perhaps Polaris was simply too dry? He didn't think so. "...In a moment," he added.

Pride approved, it seemed, of her offer to hunt a plant. The puppy nodded a little, more to herself, and shut her eyes. "I can... try to move," she offered in a near-whisper, speaking slowly.

She considered this next point for a few moments, eyes shut and paws close to her nose. "Perhaps," the dog said at last. "But if not, then... moving... things? Making cover by moving rocks and stones, or... moving water, closer."

The borzoi lifted her head to stare after Pride as turned away, blinking very slowly. She had no idea what weather was, and she had to take a very long moment to test this word in her own mind, trying to figure it out.

At length, she shifted. "Have you done it before?" Aster asked, looking around briefly. For a moment, nothing happened-- she took to assuming that Pride had tried something and failed, but she did not verbally mention it.

"The river is close," she said. "I can.. try to get up. To walk. We can try to find shelter?"

Pride considered this.

"I have never done this. If it does not work at all then--we can try to move. And move rocks. They are good ideas. But the water here, it is hard--to reach? The banks are very steep. You would fall in and... I do not think you can get out as you are."

He turned his gaze back to the cave at large, and concentrated once more, focusing heavily on the idea of rain pouring down around them. If it did work, they could at least move in its cover. Slowly, he felt a shift in the air; his magicka welled up and thrummed from him, and he felt a tremble in his body as the air grew a tad cooler. When he opened his eyes, there was no rain: but there was a thick mist, a fog sheening through the air, and it was difficult to see very far.

The fawn considered. "This is not... what I had in mind, but it will do? It is cover, at least. And there might be enough for you to get--some water. Do you want to move back, into cover? I could go down to the river. Bring water up in my fur, at least, if you are thirsty. And I can move rocks to hide you."

His placid grey gaze turned back to Aster, and he made an important realization of self: he was far calmer and more confident when he had something he could do to change the situation. To aid. When he was helplessly staring at her screaming he'd been lost. Now he felt... not-lost.

But what of Aster? He eyed her over, trying to imagine how she felt. She must still be in pain; was she afraid? ...Should he ask? It might only make things worse.

I do not think you can get out as you are. Aster felt an instinctive grimace, at this, shifting again and then turning her head to the sound of running water with a frown, quiet for a moment.

As she stared off, however, her vision seemed to go... blurry. It was suddenly a little difficult to see, and it was cold. Perhaps this was it. Perhaps she was finally dying. Is this what death was supposed to be like?

The dog shivered and whipped her head around towards Pride, half-fearfully. Her fur was getting wet and heavy-- which for all she knew, was what was supposed to happen when you die --but Pride didn't seem concerned at all.

It took her a moment to realise what the fawn was talking about and what had actually happened. Her mouth hung open for a moment as she lifted her crooked muzzle, sniffing the air. She wasn't sure what she expected-- but it did smell like water.

"What... is it?" She asked cautiously, before leaning over and taking a bite out of the air. She wasn't entirely sure what she expected from that either, however, but she did taste some water in her mouth.

"Don't risk..." she paused, frowning, thinking. "... being stuck, in the water." Drowning had been what she was looking for, but the word did not entirely come to mind. The dog shifted, moving, hauling her front-half up to sit back on her haunches.

She felt pain as her leg shifted-- not as much as it had hurt when she initially broke it, but enough where it was uncomfortable. With a stifled whine, the dog shifted and tried to sit properly without moving the limb too much.

Her mouth hung open again, for a few moments, thinking. "We would be... safer, with cover," she said quietly. "Move closer to.. rocks, at least.. so we can move them, if it is too-... if it hurts too much."

Pride listened closely to Aster's words. Moving closer to the rocks was wise; it would take ages and certainly draw unnecessary attention to haul boulders about, even if he was doing so via the mind. Somehow, he didn't think that casually floating stones drifting through an unnatural mist would go unnoticed.

Right-... I need to find a place before moving her. He looked around.

"It would be bad to... wander around injured to seek a place. Give me... a moment to find one." Still weary, he turned, forcing himself on, trudging off to the boulders nearer the Spire. There were some studded with crystals, and some that still smelled of rat. They could hunt, there.

It didn't occur to him that the rats could be dangerous, particularly for an injured gembound.

He paced around a particular hollow between a few of the largest, and decided that it was a decent spot to hide. He then hesitated. The Spire... is magicka. Others may come here. Find us, harm us. But... the cave walls are too far for her.

With a sigh, he paced back to Aster, pushing his way through the mist--realizing with an unpleasant start that he had almost lost his way in it. He hurried on, trotting, and felt relief flood him when he caught the scent of blood. He followed this, appearing back out of the mist as a pale ghost as he drew nearer.

"I have found a place. I will try and help you walk, or even--carry you. I do not think it is good to try and step on that foot, yet." He fretted, briefly. He was unsure how broken legs worked--maybe it was healed now that it was in the right place?--but he feared taking the risk of it just snapping and twisting again.

"Be careful," Aster mumbled as Pride turned and left the cover of mists, taking a moment to snap her jaws at the fog. "Don't get... lost."

She heard the clicking of hooves move away and the dog made a fair attempt to slowly push herself up from her haunches and onto all fours with a grimace. Trying to put weight on the broken leg proved to be nothing but unnecessary pain.

With a breath, Aster shifted and began limping around in a circle, around the blood and the bones of the rat. It took a moment before she got into the right rhythm, of remembering to keep weight off her leg while she moved. The first few times, she instinctively moved and pushed the paw to the ground, only to experience sharp agony crawling up her thigh.

By the time Pride returned, she had managed to get the hang of it. She stopped, leg lifted a bit off the ground, and nodded. "Is it far?" The dog asked quietly. "I can... move, but it is.. painful, and.. I am tired. I do not know how long I can walk for."