ORIGIN

At last, there was life.

A chrysalis rested at the foot of the wall, pale blue and largely translucent. It was neither very large or particularly interesting, and one could be forgiven for walking by it frequently without giving it a second glance. Inside, black fur could occasionally be seen pressed up against the walls, rather wet and slimy. Really, the time for the little one nurtured within to hatch had come and gone quite a while ago, yet the chrysalis remained intact. Lately, that fur had been pressed far more frequently- constantly now, in fact- as the creature within outgrew the narrow confines of its cell without ever bothering to break free.

But all things must change eventually. Those who fight it will only end up prolonging their eventual fate, often with little victory to show for it. Such was the case here, for a little pup who was so loathe to change his environment that his shell began to crack open from the pressure of his growth. The walls that held him gave way like a dam, dropping him harshly onto the stone floor as if in exasperation. He yipped as he hit the ground, oversize paws trying to find purchase for a moment before he came to a rest splay-legged on the floor. He glanced around his environment for a moment, more pitiful than curious, before his attention turned to other matters at hand.

Almost immediately, the warm fluid on his coat began to betray him, cooling rapidly and pulling the heat from his body. The pup curled into a small ball, shivering, entirely sure that this existing business was a terrible misunderstanding. A single eye peeked out, looking wistfully at the broken shards of the chrysalis, as if wishful thinking could put it back together.

The pup had really gotten into a pitiful state by the time Reseda arrived, merely a few short minutes after Sloth was unceremoniously dumped onto the cold floor. He didn’t start when she began to speak, perhaps a function of her soft tone, though something deeply engrained in his mind voiced concerns about this giant creature. Still, she didn’t appear to be interested in eating him, so the pup resigned himself to the notion that perhaps, she would help him. Anyway, he was pretty sure at this point that being eaten was preferable to being cold.

And so, it was a doleful stare from pale blue eyes that met her as she approached. Perhaps it was a function of the extra time that he’d spent bundled in his chrysalis, but as the pup listened, he slowly began to understand her meanings. Awake, in particular, caught his attention, and he ascribed it to this unpleasant mess he found himself in. He looked at her intensely for a moment, still working out the words piece by piece. A name? Did he have a name? At once, an unfamiliar sound wavered to the forefront of his mind, and he let it spill from their into the chill air. “Acedia,” he stated, except that as it left his mouth, it didn’t sound that way at all. Rather than any recognizable word, in fact, it sounded like a drawn-out cross between a whimper and a grumble. Frustrated, he whined softly, looking at his paws as he stretched out gangly forelimbs one by one. They were a bit… sore, really. Stretching felt nice. As he began to acclimate to the world outside, he began to relax, allowing himself to examine the possibility that it wasn’t quite so bad. Blinking, he turned his attention back to the stranger, resting his head on the ground as he did so.