ORIGIN

The cub half expected the gembound to either remain silent and not understand him or to leap forward and tear him apart. Instead, the three-headed dog began to narrate a couple of sentences. Usui listened to the other’s reasoning without attempting to correct him. The lion felt that he was stronger than the puppy in front of him right now in more than one way but kept these thoughts in his head, being extremely unwilling to start a fight for now. Most of all, the boy felt it odd how the dog was almost whining for food…but at least it knew how to hunt. Baratheon huh. The lion cub gazed ahead as he spoke of how the lizard had stolen his lizard. "Well yeah I’ll get you some grub,” he muttered, empathy for the young growing within him. "Not because you’re stronger. It’s out of goodwill.” Having said that, the cub turned tail and vanished into the darkness.

The cave of Polaris held critters like snakes, and mice. The boy attempted to cast his magic to sense if lesser gembounds were present. His magic stuttered for a moment, then weakly stretched outwards across Polaris. Perhaps the golems were interfering with his frequencies. In his mind’s eye, the boy saw a pawful of mice scattered throughout the cave. He chose the one closest to the side of the cave, not wishing his hunting activities to awaken anything else. It gave off an extremely faint greyish-green glow which he followed dutifully. Walking past a bunch of crystals, Usui spotted a tiny grey furred body tucked into one of the corners. He lowered his haunches and with a growl attempted to swat at the mice. It ran away, and Usui gave chase to it with a couple more swats. Soon, one of his paws smacked the rodent down and he picked it up, half-dead, and trotted back to the dog.

Once there, he placed the terrorized, half-dead, squealing rat beneath his right paw and asked all three heads, "Which head shall I feed?”

All heads started to quibble for the grub, just as Usui had expected. He jotted this down mentally and took note of how the center head seemed more rational. He briefly wondered whether the three heads would all converge into a single opinion when they were older. Not much room was left for thought though for they started to bound forward with bared teeth. Usui immediately scooped the rat into his mouth and dodged the furry tumbling pile, pale green gaze bearing down upon them. "You say please.” Then, he pushed the rat to the middle head, and continued "and thank you.” What a tumbling puppy without manners! The boy sighed and, raising a paw to his head, rubbed his temple.

Just then, he heard someone approach – not too far off, yet slinking in the shadows. Leaving the three headed beast to its mouse, he padded silently to the corner and was surprised to see a sheep. The lion glanced back towards the three headed dog, then back to the sheep, his eyes urgent, tone hushed and projected only to the sheep, but rough. "Y’ need’a git’ outta here now.” Usui wasn’t so sure that one mouse was truly sufficient and he didn’t want this lamb being the next experiment.

Thankfully, the sheep listened to his advice. After casting a few looks at each of them, it moved away as discreetly as possible. Usui ensured that it had truly walked away from sight before swivelling his head back to face the three headed dog which was making an utter mess out of the meal. He sighed and padded back to Kerberos and watched it devour the last morsel of the shredded, now unidentifiable corpse. When all three heads were done and nothing but blood stained their muzzles, the pale beast once more turned its gaze upon Usui, who returned the gaze in a rather unimpressed, neutral fashion. "That’s all I’ve got,” he spoke to the expectant dog, his tone matter-of-fact. Now that Usui had gotten Kerberos’ attention once again, he decided to ask him a question, "Where’d you come from?” Usui gazed at all three heads curiously, very much interested in the history and mannerisms of this beast.

The lion shook his head when the puppy quipped that he wanted more. He might have felt like dropping some ominous words like “there is NOTHING left” but he didn’t want to upset the younger gembound, and so had proceeded with his questions. The heads gave him answers in terms of colours – red, green, orange, yellow. Green for his location with water, and red and yellow for the chrysalis. There wasn’t anything odd about Kerberos then, he was just like one of the other gembounds. Usu nodded, and mentally noted these things. The middle head questioned him then with narrowed eyes, like he was sizing him up. The lion was unperturbed by it, and merely let his pale green gaze fall onto the middle head coolly. "I came from some swamp. Hatched out of black. No big difference.” He had thought Kerberos, with his odd physical appearance, might have been the key to creation but it seemed highly unlikely now. He then looked around the area which harboured nothing much other than water. "What’s there to do here?” he asked, gaze falling upon the crystal river. He wondered if Kerberos was here for a swim.