ORIGIN

In his quest to search the caves, to learn them, and to find Lesser Gembound in each, Pride had neglected Cetus. There were others, too, that he had yet to visit--Fornax among them--but this one was the most important, he felt, to have evaded his notice.

The hyena Giggle had spoken to him of her own familiar, of its ability to weave in and out of what she called "void," whatever that might be--and he knew now that the birds came from Cetus. So now the white stag wandered, a ghostly figure in the thick mist, his lower legs already coated with black from the swamp water. The place simultaneously put him on edge--anything could be anywhere, predators all around--and soothed him with its quiet shroud of fog. It was a natural cloak that could work for a prey animal--or against it, hiding a predator from sight until it was too late. This kept his instincts in a strange sort of nervous lull, calm yet alert to a danger he would never, regardless, be able to see.

It was only when the lights came that his mind had truly sharpened, one slender foreleg lifting, his ears fanning forward alertly. A fear, that of the unknown, of impossible things in the darkness, thrilled through him. What... is that? he thought to himself.

Quickly, he ran through the creatures he knew to live here. Birds, and spiders, rats too--all of these lived in most caves, and likely here as well. But none glowed. Deer, though... He'd seen a deer or two in Eridanus with bioluminescent markings. They had, to his understanding, been hybridized with some creature or other from here--from Cetus.

Perhaps those were lesser Gembound, ahead? Deer, like himself, but flashing and glowing in the darkness?

Pride picked up his pace, stepping swiftly after them, but they seemed to forever be out of reach. Soon enough he'd given up all attempts at moving hidden, instead splashing clumsily after them in bounding leaps through the black swamp water, letting out a stag's call into the fog behind them--hoping to call them back.

But they did not slow, and he followed blindly, deeper and deeper into the marsh.

The strange will o'wisps led at last into a misty clearing, and here Pride stopped, turning to look about him with wide, pale eyes. Were they friend, or foe..? Whatever they were, this place sparked with magic, and he flicked his tail as he circled to follow the strange lights. He hadn't yet spotted the others, had they even entered the clearing yet--his focus was, thus far, wholly on the glow that had lured him here.

This was his swamp!

...Well, it was his father's swamp! The alligator considered it his duty to keep track of all that transpired in Cetus, and more importantly, to ensure that any thread to his Children of Rot was immediately identified, and steps taken to defend against it.

That said, survival was his goal above all else, the keyword to existence, and so he was not so swift to charge blindly after this lights. It had been bad enough last time, with the screaming trees, and so he waited until he could hear others moving forward through the mists. None were his Children, and so he followed in silence, at first, drifting along through the marsh in the pitch-black.

When he came at last upon the source--a clearing ahead, dry land that seemed as filled with fog as the rest of Cetus and yet danced with the strange ghostlights--he paused out of sight, a soft hiss of suspicion escaping him. He slipped back a bit, lowered down into the muck, not quite entering into the clearing itself.

He stayed hidden, instead, hidden in the black and watching, a feeling of unease filling him. For once he did not bellow a challenge, or blast flame into the air--no, he would wait, he would see what would happen, and he would only set it on fire if it proved to be a threat.

Let it be a surprise to the strange lights, if he had to attack; let them be unaware of his lurking flame.

Pridddeee...

He paused, one hoof held still midair, slicked black with mud up to the knee. He'd entered the clearing, a white and ghostly shape of his own in the shifting mist. Ears flicked forward, body tensing. What is that, murmuring my name..? But then came a familiar sight--the tiny hummingbird Charoite, peeping his questions.

Faint relief swept through the stag, and he relaxed some. Obviously it had been the hummingbird quietly calling him by name--he hoped--and not the swamp itself speaking to him. He turned back, spotting the strange dog--with its strange language--and he bowed his head in greeting to both of them. He thought he caught a faint scent of another, nearby--perhaps Selena--but over the stench of the swamp it was difficult to be sure.

"Hello--it is nice to meet you, I am Pride," he said to the dog, and then, to Charoite, with more warmth and less formality--"And it is good to see you again. I am glad that you are well. Yes, I was following the lights--foolish, perhaps, now that they have vanished. Errant magic..?"

The stag mulled this over, then looked forward.

In the trees beyond the mist, something was moving, something large and dark. He again tensed. His voice dropped quiet, a soft and urgent warning. "Something is out there."

Dragon settled lower in the mud, his dark eyes narrowing some. There were others, here, speaking--others he didn't know, strangers to him. None of them were Children (he had no idea Septiezal was nearby; had he been, he'd have been pleased that the snake was hidden as well as he was).

He could see something moving in the distance, in the mist--heard the quiet warning of the white deer. Slowly, he shifted his magicka to his hide; he was already almost impossible to see, but he attempted to deepen this even further, to mottle his hide with darker patches to break up his outline even more.

It didn't matter much--he was half-submerged, regardless--but it couldn't hurt.

Probably.

With no way to tell if his spell had worked, he merely lay there in silence, waiting.