ORIGIN - Ignition

It was only time before the chrysalis he had called his home for the longest while became too tight and constricting for his liking. The comforting warmth that had surrounded his being became unbearably hot and uncomfortable, a sudden stifling heat that forced the innate desire to be free to surface from the depths of his sudden consciousness. Lidless eyes stared blankly into the dark, vaguely opaque surroundings as the nameless serpent slowly came to. Slit pupils flicked to and fro, and there was a sudden surge of energy that he hadn't a clue what to do with.

Besides, of course, letting it out in the only way he knew how.

Muscles all along his frame contracted and relaxed, causing his body to push outwards as he attempted to breach the crystalline wall of the chrysalis. Scales pressed, and scraped, and rubbed as his head twisted and strained against the barrier. For a moment, it seemed as if the walls would never give way. Then, without warning, the walls of his sanctuary-turned-prison shattered under the pressure he exerted (forcing him to tumble out) and the stifling heat gave way to a chilling cold as the air struck his wet scales. A shiver trembled through his now prone body, bronze eyes flicking to and fro distrustfully at the strange new world that greeted him. As his senses, now online, began to bombard him with a myriad of information that the newly-hatched babe couldn't even begin to comprehend just yet, he gave a distasteful hiss. On instinct, he coiled up upon himself until he was no more than a ball of scales with the tip of his nose and tail poking out of the pile. Blinded by his own coils and distracted by the information overload, he merely sat and subtly trembled.

Actions. | "Words."

Snake (Mary Keim)

He'd heard the cracking, though he wasn't old enough to know, yet, what it meant. He plodded, on foot, toward it; the vulture was still ignorant of many things in this world, the glory of flight among them. Speech, too, unfortunately was rather beyond him; he had the instinctive grasp of a few words, but it was hardly eloquence. Yet perhaps that wouldn't matter; not if the other newborn was equally young.

What mattered was that he appeared: a hulking-postured chocolate-feathered bird with one keen, dark eye and one clouded gemstone. His head twitched this way and that as he pushed quietly through the foliage, seeking the source of the cracking--and there it was; tiny, barely a large worm in size, yet Doctor recognized it at once as a snake. His first meal, after all, had looked startlingly similar: a small viper of some kind who had perished to a rat, though its venom had, in the end, done its work. Doctor had merely found it already dead, but now was startled to find another so similar, so soon. Perhaps, he thought, though more in impressions and ideas than elegant words, the cave is quite full of these snakes? Sharp eye glanced over the gem at the back of its head.

He had no desire to eat it, or to harm it, and his prior experience--brief as it had been--had already taught him to be wary of some innate power that these snakes held to kill their enemies with only a bite.

The vulture's approach, then, was cautious--a tilt of his head, and a circling to stand a bit away from it, but watching. Perhaps this was the same snake, somehow reborn..? But he had eaten it. Could that be?

Words. He could do those; the impulse struck him, an instinct, and he tried them out.

"Did you," he asked, carefully weighing the sounds of his speech, "die?"

A strange question to be greeted with, perhaps, but Doctor still wasn't quite sure how things worked. It would be nice if the creature had died, and then returned to life--though it made him wonder if he, too, had perhaps somehow perished. If so, he didn't remember it--perhaps the snake wouldn't, either.

"Be careful," he added, by way of friendly advice (and still carefully recalling and enunciating each word), "of rats."

@Maltoor

Understandably, the serpent had trouble sensing the newcomer's approach until he was already quite close. It was then that his scent, and his heat, dominated most of the other information flooding him. As if a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood, he latched on to it. Blinded as he was, the boy was yet to learn of exactly how large the other was just yet. The mystery did not remain such for long, however, as the heat the pits along his nose sensed drew the little serpent's head from his coils like a moth to a flame. The light blinded him for moments before he was once more granted vision, bronze gaze honing in upon the large form that radiated such heavenly heat.

Oh. Oh dear. He shrunk back just a little with a small, fearful noise and tried, vainly, to hide amongst his own coils. It was only moments, however, before curiosity, brought about by strange, foreign utterances, enticed him back out of "hiding" (as pitiful of an attempt as it was with only six inches of himself to work with and a third of it being composed of his head and tail). That wasn't to say that he no longer found the avian's superior size daunting, though. Indeed, viperine eyes regarded him with just as much, or perhaps even more, caution as he regarded the reptile.

His words, though he'd no idea what a word was, swam through the boy's head slowly as they were processed. There was no true comprehension of what had been said, but scaled lips parted anyways to return the gesture.

"...die? rats?" Hopelessly, the youth parroted the spoken words of interest with no clue as to their meanings.

They rolled off of his tongue like molasses, heavy and cumbersome as he attempted to comprehend their meaning and purpose with a gentle tilt of his head. He understood, by nature's design alone, some aspects of life. Such as movement, and hunger, and thirst, and even how to breathe. Innate functions and sensations that he knew by necessity rather than having been taught. It was hard, after all, to learn within the sturdy, protective walls of a chrysalis when one's consciousness was in a dormant state such as his.

Actions. | "Words."

Snake (Mary Keim)

@Doctor

The vulture watched a little warily as Maltoor moved, but when it coiled back away in obvious fear, he felt somewhat reassured. Never mind that fear could drive one to strike--this snake appeared, at least, to be cowering, not threatening.

But it knew nothing of death, nor of rats. Perhaps that meant it hadn't died--or didn't remember dying, at least. Ahh, well; a mystery for another day.

Doctor looked therefore to the present moment. Here he was with a tiny, fresh-hatched snake--one he did not intend to eat, given that it was quite alive, and this was the only other speaking creature he'd thus far met. What a waste that would be! No, he set himself to trying to get to know it, instead, curiosity flickering within him at a dull burn.

"Rats, yes. Maybe you eat rats. But--they are too big," he realized, sounding out each word carefully. No, this thing was tiny compared to rats. Perhaps it would eat bugs? That's what he'd begun with, after all.

After a moment of staring, deep in thought, he added--"Stay. Wait." He then turned, not actually watching to see if the snake followed him or not--and cast about with his claws in the undergrowth, overturning leaves, sticks and other detritus. Eventually a few beetles bolted, and he snagged one up in his beak with some difficulty, nearly falling as he did so--but he crunched it so that it ceased moving.

This he brought, after turning back again, to Maltoor. He laid it a small distance from the snake's gem-glittering head, and backed up; the bug's legs were still waving slowly, mindlessly, though it was as good as dead.

"This?" he asked, carefully. Was this food also too big? Or perhaps snakes ate something else altogether; perhaps he'd gotten the rat situation wrong, before. Maybe the snake had been minding its own business, eating leaves, and the rat had been the predator? He wasn't sure.

He wasn't really sure how to find out, either, with none of them being particularly fluent in language--so he'd have to experiment.

@Maltoor