ORIGIN

Warrior rolled two oversized eyes upward, again.

"Black-? Cool--yes, my stone was black," he said, then squinted. "At least, I think it was." He stood quiet, short-haired foal tail swishing once or twice, as he listened to V.

Smelling and tasting? Bizarre; but maybe he could help? Warrior lowered his head again, plodding forward with his nose down, nostrils flared--careful for any sign of another spider about to leap out, but sniffing for anything... alive?

He hesitated, dropping his nose lower, sniffing with loud, warm huffs. There was a-... something, near, a-...

He followed the strange, small, warm scent, and came to a halt a few paces before a scrubby bush. "Um. In there?" he asked, uncertaintly--and then, in a sudden fit of heroism, stuck a hoof into the bush and jiggled it about.

No spiders launched out at him, at least.

Warrior watched quizzically as the snake coiled her muscles and sprang, with little warning. Her fangs snapped out, and she lunged forward, biting--the bush?

The colt stared, quizzically. Have I been eating grass all wrong? he wondered, worriedly. Was he meant to sneak up on bushes-? Had he run the risk of being counter-attacked by the foliage at the river's edge?

...Had he escaped out of sheer dumb luck? Had the bushes just been... tired?

"Um," he offered, and then hesitated, uneasy at the idea of his own near-miss. "I thought. I mean-... Is grass dangerous?" he blurted, staring.

The foal turned, peering down at the bush for a long moment.

Why-... He squinted at it, and then turned, following V onward.

Lucky nest of baby Quillmice, anyway; Warrior didn't think to sniff further, instead following the snake exactly the wrong way from her prey. It was probably for the best--to see a baby mouse swallowed whole would have been rather the moral dillemma for him.

"Oh," was all he said, though, somewhat confusedly. He trotted, for a moment, to catch back up--and fell in line beside V's slithering, peering around alertly as he did so.

And looking up, too, often--never again would Warrior forget to look up.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything you can eat. Have you tried grass? How do you know you don't eat it?" he asked, curiously. It didn't occur to him that anything didn't eat grass. He wasn't aware of just why the vulture and the spider had come after him.

The world, he thought, was just a rather strange place.

The foal plodded on, watching--everything, yes, but mostly because he didn't know what he should be looking for. He stayed, therefore, vaguely alert: watching for danger as they moved on.

"...It is scratchy, I guess," he agreed, after some consideration. "At least, most of it is. And pretty dry. And it has sharp edges. But the stuff by the water was nice--softer. Um. Bunchier?" he ventured, wondering how to explain the difference between soft, round clusters of water foliage and the long, sharp points of desert grass.

"You're different than anyone I've met," he told his sister, companionably. "Everyone else" (which, it should be noted, consisted of exactly two other sapient beings) "was bigger, with--four legs, and fur." He squinted, vaguely, as he recalled the camel he'd met--and then winced as the scabbing wounds around his eyes tore, a little, at the gesture. And managed to refrain from a second wince when the first one also hurt.

He took a moment to gather himself against the pain, which was, by now, a constant; and he plodded along dutifully beside V. "But then the spiders and things--the scor... scorpions. They have a lot of legs. But you don't have any?"

Prime observational skills again on display, the colt eyed V sidelong, curiously. "You have nice. Uh. Skin? Though. Scales? It's very... They're very... pretty." He scrunched up his face, trying to think of the words--and winced again. And then winced at his wince.

A moment again passed.

"Like-... little jewels. Hey, maybe your whole skin is rocks!" he exclaimed, with sudden inspiration. "You know, like my head? But your whole body! Tiny gemstones!" The foal swivelled, cantering and spinning so that he could walk backwards alongside V for a moment, peering down at her wide-eyed.

And then, in a phrase that would be devastatingly rude in other contexts unknown to the little foal, he blurted--"Are you hard?!" He half wanted to lean down, to nose velvet muzzle over scale and see if her body was like a thousand tiny emeralds, or if she was soft, like fur, or something else entirely.

Again he spun, now back to face the other way. He'd drunk, and eaten, where V had not; childish energy rippled through him, and he danced a little caper along the stone.

Warrior didn't know what she meant by "clear," and he didn't have time to ask; he couldn't puzzle out what "invisible" might be, or the concept of it, or the fact that she meant mice, in time for her next comment. His mind was still wondering how or why grass would have no color when she asked him to test her texture, and so he pushed it out of his thoughts and leaned down.

Arched neck curved, velvet muzzle brushing her scales, and he squinted in thought for a moment.

"You're, um..." Another pass, just to reiterate his first impressions... "...Scratchy? Like a little rough, but not hard. Soft maybe? But not completely. It's like... Grass, almost," he offered, with an epiphany of sorts. "Grass is kinda sharp and stiff," and had Warrior known anything bar rough, dry Hydra grass, he might've thought differently, but alas; "but it's not hard, and it's bendy, too. It's only scratchy if you poke it from the wrong angle. Your skin's like that," he explained. It was interesting, all told, and he found himself puzzling over his own fur, for a moment, leaning around to poke it with his muzzle.

"I dunno if I'll get bigger. Or if you will. I had my legs and fur already, though, when I came outta my rock," he explained. "I was already soft?"

With a shrug, Warrior turned back to V, blinking--ready to follow her onwards, again. He'd sort of lost track of where they were going, or why, aside from "V is hungry," but that was fine by him. He had nowhere else to be, and he hated being left alone.