ORIGIN

He had not left the bones behind yet in his life, not until this day when he'd discovered for himself a hole in the wall. A very large one. Large enough for the biggest of creatures to pass through and his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Through the wall he went into a tunnel that even put him, the great brutish beast, on edge. He sniffed at the air, his stomach rumbling. There were no rats in here. Nothing at all. Perhaps he should turn around and leave. Go back to where there were lots of bones and lots of rats.

He almost did just that, turning back to the entrance of Canis to begin a new hunt when a crack resounded off the walls, echoing in the horrid emptiness of the tunnel. He paused, his head turning back, nose flaring as he tried to detect what had made that noise. Perhaps it was too far down for him to hear...?

He snorted to himself and turned, too curious to leave the noise alone. He was hungry - perhaps it was a baby rat he could snack on. Or something else, not-rat, that he could eat. No, no no, he could only eat rats! Everything else was off limits.

He approached the place where the source of the noise had been and noticed a mound of dark fur. Looked like a rat so far! As he approached, though, a strange noise began whispering off the walls. He flinched and turned towards the stone, huffing with confusion. The walls could not speak! At least, not in Canis! Was that just a thing in this tunnel or what came after it? Or perhaps the black-fur-thing had made the noise.

He turned back and approached, crouching down as he got near. Glowing eyes raked over the new-hatched creature and he realized a moment later that it was not a rat. He could not eat it. But, perhaps, this was a chance to prove to the world, to himself, that he was more then he thought he was. More then a simple predator - he could think and feel and be gentle. He did not need to eat everything in sight.

He squatted next to the newborn, four arms resting on his burly legs. "Hello," he rumbled. "You...are new. Predator, prey, or...more?"

The not-rat didn't answer his question initially. That was fine. Perhaps it could not speak. Perhaps it didn't know yet. He still did not fully understand how to speak either. It would probably just take time. He was about to say something else when she did speak, but it only confused the poor creature more then he was before. He shorted, shaking out his mane. "Not...understand. I am me, not you." Was she deluded in some way? Perhaps she wasn't very smart. That was probably the most likely option. Did that mean he could eat her? The four-limbs-two-wings had said that he could only eat rats because they were not intelligent. Well...if she was not either, was she open for eating?

Better not risk it.

His brows furrowed and the glowing orbs narrowed to slits as he observed the pup. "I...thank. You like...how I look?" He snorted again. "Many fear. Many see evil beast. But you like. Why?" It didn't really make a lot of sense to him. None of it did. He was a simple creature of simple understanding and all this "not everyone is prey or preadator some are something more" and "only eat rats because rats do not speak" and "I cannot eat this wolf because she talks and is not a rat even though she is not intelligent." Not that he was really one to judge levels of intelligence.

The beast was growing mildly agitated, more out of impatience then anything else. The wolf was being ridiculous. "I am me. You are you. This is what correct." His words came with a sense of finality - there really wasn't anything else to it and he would not discuss it further. He wanted to be nice, yes, but he did not have the patience to deal with some of this.

Concern flickered across his face. He was scary? One of her arms reached out and turned back, the eye in the palm opening to observe himself. He really hadn't taken to doing that before, but he did not know what was quite scary about him. He was dark, yes, and he lived in shadows, but did that make him scary? He lowered his hand as the pup began to make strange movements. Out of curiosity and misunderstanding, he replicated her actions, wiggling his arms and patting his horns. Were they something special? Not really - the four-limbs-two-wings had horns. They had wings too. He hadn't yet met anyone with as many limbs as him, but surely there were others. As for his stone, well, he looked down at it, tracing the cracks. He still wasn't sure what that was for but he had once tried to tear it out and it had caused him so much pain that he had stopped.

He paused and looked up. "Fear?" She was speaking...as if she wanted to make fear. A rumbling in his chest began as he wondered. He did not like fear. Not even in the hunt - fear made the prey run away and it was harder to catch them when they were afraid. However, fear was good for competition. The scarier predator got the most prey. But he had to remember - there was more then simply predator and prey. And fear made anger and anger was bad. He did not like to be afraid and he did not think that other would like it either. It was, perhaps, the first empathetic thought he'd ever had, but it passed him by without importance. He shook his head. "Fear...bad. Fear not needed to make. I don't...want be feared." He paused. "Do you?"

He didn't understand this pup. He didn't understand why she was laughing, why she looked so amused. He had not laughed before - not because he did not find things funny, but there had been little in his life to laugh at at all. So far, it had been mostly hunting and trying to learn to speak. And trying to understand things. So the strange noises she made made him a little uncomfortable, but some instinct inside of him said it was okay. That this was normal.

He set his arms down as she did the same. He sat cross-legged in front of her, letting his folded wings fall back behind him. "Make...fun?" He tilted his head. "Fun. It is familiar. I...not speak good," he admitted with an embarrassed twitch. "You better. Tell me...what fun mean?" Perhaps it was too much to ask a newly hatched, but she seemed to have a better grasp on some things then him. She could speak better, she knew words, so perhaps she knew the meaning of them as well.

He considered her question for a minute. "Others. I meet...some. Four-limbs-two-wings. A prey that speak. Dip. Itchy. Many rats. I eat rats." He glanced down the tunnel, wondering if there was more down there. If there were more rats and more things to speak to. For a moment, he considered just getting up and leading the wolf that way, but he couldn't smell rats...and he was too hungry to adventure right now.

He considered, thinking back to the imitation he'd done of the wolf, to the laughing. He had not experienced any sort of special emotion when doing those things...was that wrong? Should he have experienced this so-called "fun" at that time? Should he have been enjoying himself? It wasn't that he wasn't enjoying his time, it just didn't feel particularly special. He was talking to this pup and that was pretty much it.

He remembered Dip asking something similar. Asking what he did for fun. And his answer had simply been "hunt" because, really, he didn't do much else. He had a feeling that he should be doing more then eating and thinking about his next meal. Well, he was - he was making friends and learning. That was "fun", right? There was a thoughtful rumble in his chest and one of his claws came up, stroking at the growing beard beneath his chin. "I want know what is fun. I hunt. Not many else. Hunt is fun?" Was that really a question to offer a young child, one that'd never hunted before? Probably not.

But there was finally something he could answer with certainty. "Yes. It is good eat rats. I eat only rats. Rats not smart - you cannot eat things that are smart! Or can talk. Bad to do. Rats only ones not smart." This was, of course, completely untrue, but the demon was none the wiser.