ORIGIN

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Deep in the heart of Cetus, at the edge of the black swamp, there was a light.

This light glowed steadily, with no hint of flicker, though the occasional faint rippling of marsh water lent it a briefly shifting gleam now and again.

Around the glow came, too, the scents of meat and decay--of carcasses, of decomposition, of rot. The combination of light and stench quietly attracted any number of scavengers: fish swam up from the Heart, nipping at bits of stringy flesh that dangled into the cold black, and rats crept quietly from the reeds to sniff around nearby.

What the fish could see, towering above the water, and what the rats could pick out just ahead, was a pile some two meters tall and three wide. Up close the stench was rancid, overpowering, even for the rodents--and was even more frightening when many recognized the carcasses of their own brethren strewn over the top.

It was a pile of bodies. Fish. Rats. Rabbits. Cave rats. A sentient, dismembered deer. A lizard or two. A few hapless cave bats that had been snatched as they dove low over the water, seeking their meals. Some were torn, some half-eaten, some charred beyond recognition. Many were entirely intact, whole offerings to some dark god.

The death-mound had attracted more scavengers, who had been killed and added to the pile, and it had steadily grown over the course of the last few weeks. The more who came, the larger the offering grew, and the more rats it attracted, like some twisted self-propagating flesh construct.

Even now, the reeds nearby quivered; whiskered snout parted long marsh grasses, and a thin, rangy rat slipped out. It sniffed, nose working in silence, then pushed forth into the small black channel of water separating the pile of flesh from the nearby clump of reeds it had come from.

It was swimming with ease--lithe, graceful and swift--and had made it perhaps halfway across the two-foot span of water when a nearby shape rose a couple inches higher in the water. At first glance it seemed to be a log: a floating piece of slimy black debris, nothing to look twice at. But then part of it tilted upward, splitting from the rest, opening a maw of teeth behind which embers smoldered and swelled.

Into the black marsh spouted a gout of fire, powerful and searing, its forked flames tonguing the air several meters away with a hissing roar. It lasted perhaps a second, lighting the dark marsh with bright hot orange light, and then it faded.

When the darkness returned, all that was left of the rat was a boiled, charred corpse, floating slowly on its side until it bumped up against the pile's base, where it swung slowly around and then came to a rest.

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The alligator lowered himself back into the swamp water, hissing steam erupting from his still-open jaws, eyes watering as he quenched the painful burning in his throat.

The triumph, the bloodlust, that went through him was a trickle, no longer a surging rush. He was growing older, and that energy was fading, his hyperactive bursts of thought, movement and speech growing less common. More often, these days, he was as he was now: cold, silent, slowly sinking back into the marsh.

He was no longer entirely sure, sometimes, why he'd wanted to be like Aquarian. He was still certain that the Guardian of Cetus was a dragon, and he was still sure that he himself would attain such massive size, but it no longer concerned him quite so much. He had grown only a couple of feet since his own hatching, and yet he was already a large enough threat that no natural creature in Cetus posed much danger to him. He was already a top predator, and he could lay for hours on end, mind empty and content in the cold black silence.

It was only when prompted--by, for example, the rats that came to the offering--that he would erupt into sudden, violent action, made perhaps all the more startling by his general stillness.

The fire still hurts.

The thought floated vaguely through his mind, and he pondered it. It did still hurt. He'd noticed that each time he let a dragon's blast of fire come pouring through his jaws, it scorched and burned his throat and mouth. He'd taken to keeping his maw open in the water before and afterward, to quell the worst of it, but he'd also noticed that it was getting slightly less searing as time went on. Maybe his throat was simply scarring; he wasn't sure. He just knew that when things were very close, he could snatch them in his jaws; and when they weren't, he could bathe them in fire.

And then, they were eaten--or added to the pile.

For the next hour or so, no more rats came; but Dragon could hear the constant swish and splash of fish nibbling near the water-end of the pyre. He slowly turned, pushing himself into deeper water, floating with feet tucked up toward the sound.

Now the source of the glow came into view: a body, half-rotted, with some bones extruding here and there from the flesh--yet the entire thing was bathed in a gentle golden-white glow. Beside this grotesque thing lay a small, glowing rock--and near this, in their own little pile, several items that were not meat. A handful of gems, most starved of their magic and lying empty and dormant; a few shards of hatching-egg he'd found here and there, varyingly empty or flickering with magic as did the gems. A light-orb he'd tugged from a cave tunnel ledge, after a great deal of clambering over boulders to get to it, lay dark and silent behind them, and beside that, a golden collar attached to a tattered crimson cloak.

There were other parts to the offering, of course, but these things made up the bulk of them, and Dragon was proud of it so far.

Soon he would call upon Aquarian, Guardian of Cetus; he believed in a vague, impersonal sort of way that Aquarian was his father.

Dragon made his way around to the fish, and submerged himself; most scattered at even his slow approach, but he knew that it would be only a matter of time until they returned.

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Something was glowing faintly the curved shore, some fifty yards away. Dragon turned himself very slightly, eyeing it from his position just beneath the water, with only eyes and nostrils protruding from the surface.

What was it?

Maybe something to kill. Maybe something to eat.

He slowly began to slide his tail to and fro very slowly beneath the water's surface, leaving hardly any wake over the black. Soon he was in a swift glide toward the glow, not even considering that he was arrowing toward a strange light in the same way that the now-dead creatures had come to his.

The alligator could see, as he drew closer, that it was one of the strange, hairless deer--the bioluminescent ones--of the cave. He had only run into a handful, and killed very few, and immediately he decided to try for this one.

Down he dipped, submerged entirely in the dark swamp's water, until he'd slipped up just beneath the small deer. He could see its snout where it broke the water to drink; he could see the dimly-glowing lights along its length. He positioned himself just beneath, with the instinctive skill of millions of years of predatory evolution, and then--in a thunderclap spray of water--erupted with gaping jaws.

The deer barely had time to begin to spring away when teeth clapped shut like a trap around tender flesh, and a fraction of a second after the alligator had lunged, he was already sinking back under the swamp with his prize clamped firmly in his maw, leaving only empty silence and rippling black water in his wake.

Beneath the water, though, as he turned and dove down, the deer was struggling. They were small creatures, but he was not yet full-grown, and it was still something of a fight to drown it. Sharp hooves lanced along thick armored hide, and he winced and twisted away.

But no animal that needed air could both fight and struggle for very long, while all Dragon needed to do was cling and sink, limp. Soon enough the deer, too, ceased all movement.

He came to the surface, nostrils breaking through so he could breathe once more, but still he didn't release the deer's neck, nor did he drag it back to the pile--not yet. He was a dragon (alligator) and he was therefore of infinite patience (if only Dragon knew of the fiery temper of true dragons!).

Instead he lay in the murk, his kill growing cool in his jaws, ensuring instinctively that it was truly and completely dead.


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He'd lay silent, mind utterly blank, in the cold black water for several hours.

His thoughts jolted back into being abruptly, with no real cause except the passage of time.

Dead. Move on. Put it in the pile.

He was hungry, a little, but that could wait. This prize was a good catch--one that belonged prominently on the outside of the mound of death. The alligator suddenly began to move, the floating log in motion once more, turning and gliding toward the shore. It took a few minutes of dragging and turning, his head twisting, to position and reposition the lesser gembound deer's body--its bioluminescence fading--on the front of the pile, legs splayed downwards so that it almost seemed to just be leaning there, resting.

When he was done, the alligator slid backwards, his growing bulk falling back into the cool marsh with a splash.

What now?

He swam to the muddy bank, climbed on and backed up, lifting himself high so that he could look over his offering with a critical eye.

Not good enough. Can't see it.

The long reeds obstructed most of the pile--which was good, because while he'd been building it he was small, and he'd wanted to keep it wholly hidden from other Gembounds.

Mm. Maybe it can be seen better from the water? Aquarian will be coming from the water.

His thoughts came slower than they'd use to, grinding into being like icebergs splitting and crashing down from a glacier, rather than the quickfire words that had raced through his head at hatching. He was slower, now. Bulkier. This was even clearer as he turned for the water, movements sluggish and powerful rather than swift and light and whiplike. He dragged himself into the marsh and swam out, turning once he was a couple dozen yards from shore.

He could see the light of his offering, but not the pile--not well. He snorted softly, and began to swim back, a bit more quickly.

Need to clear the grass.

Dragon swam back, and floated until he was nearly still, coasting only slightly sideways before the pile. The long grass in front of the pile was anchored underwater, so he could not easily trample it, and would have to force it down by other means.

Fire.

The thought came mild, distant, and yet it still sent a faint but familiar thrill through him. His nostrils began to glow as his magic gathered, the flame stoked higher as he prepared to incinerate the grass. Finally, he dipped his head briefly, filling his maw with water and gulping it down--coating his throat with protective wet cool--and then belched out another roaring flame that crackled over the reeds before him.

The pile, the lake water, the alligator's ridged skin and slit-pupiled eyes--all glowed a dull orange-red, eerie and otherworldly, as he worked.

The flames lasted only a few moments, but it was enough; the fire wilted and burned the grass until the stalks crumbled away, leaving only charred and broken remnants.

Dragon submerged his head once more, the hissing threads of steam pouring upwards as he soothed his burned throat and maw yet again.

He winced.

Still hurts.

He sighed through his nose, gently, and drank a few gulps of the water down before lifting himself, waddling and swimming over and through the reeds to trample their burnt remainders down.

Then the alligator again turned and swam, and this time, when he faced the shore, he was satisfied.

Can see it. Aquarian will see it, when he comes. When I call him. It is clear.

And it was clear: the offering and its glow now had no grass to obstruct it. It would be easily visible for Aquarian, when and if the sea monster rose again from his depths.

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Dragon had tamped down the grass at the front of the pile, and now set to work on the rest. He'd intended to trample it, but it wasn't as easy as he'd hoped; the thick, flexible reeds were more like wire, and sprang back up moments after he dragged himself through. He turned, snorting softly.

...Fire.

The thought came simply, and maybe fire wasn't quite called for but Dragon, of course, disregarded that thought at once. Instead he focused, stalking back toward the bushes in a high-walk waddle, belly raised well over the sloshing, muddy ground--the last thing he wanted to do would be to burn his belly doing this.

He focused again, and this time summoned his fire to his blood, gritting powerful jaws as the searing heat coursed to his extremities. Smoke began to emanate from his feet, and though his eyes watered, he felt skilled enough now at controlling his magic that he kept it well in check, rather than burning his own flesh.

The heat scorched through his feet, quickly dissipating into the water below--but not before charring the stalks of the reeds as he stomped them down all around his offering pile.

It took some time, and all the while the quiet splashing of his feet, the crashing of the marsh grass and the hissing of steam played soft symphony. Eventually, the entire area around the offering was laid bare, flattened into the mud and muck, so that the meat pyre and its accompanying glowing treasures were obvious for all to see.

He lay back down, pushing off and floating backwards above the deeper portions of the marsh, letting his spell fade as he observed the pile from different angles.

It looked better, now. It looked...

Impressive.

Then the alligator floated, for a time, just resting at the surface, admiring his work as he recovered his strength.

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He was hunting, again.

The plan was to lay in wait outside one of the nearby cave rat burrows, if one could call it a burrow--a place he'd found where several of them lived beneath the tangled swell of the roots of a marsh tree. There was dry land inside, where it sloped upward; Dragon could probably have fit in there were he still a hatchling, but at that point he could barely handle one cave rat. Should he be ambushed now by many of them, they could still hurt him, but one against one he should be fine. Still, it meant that instead of crawling into their home to take them all, he'd have to lay in wait outside for them to approach.

They were not stupid creatures, Lesser Gembound or not. They couldn't speak, but they could understand when they were being picked off--even regular rats could do that. He intended to bait them out with a scrap of rotting meat, but knew once a couple had been attacked, no more would dare approach for some time.

He'd have to strike well, and kill quickly, or he might lose his chance.

The alligator was gliding up along a channel through the marsh, toward the Groves. In his jaws he clenched a scrap of flesh--half-rotten and wholly unidentifiable. He was barely visible, dark armored spiky skin against the black water, and mostly submerged; he moved slowly, practically just floating along, leaving no wake.

Once he'd arrived near his destination, he carefully lay the meat down on the shore opposite the rat den, then nudged it into place.

His preparations complete, he sank back beneath the water (bar his eyes and nostrils) to wait, closely watching the darkness beneath the rats' tree.

It didn't take long for whiskered snouts to begin appearing, sniffing toward him. The cave rats were huge--a foot or two long, shaggy and dark, with long, crooked yellow teeth. They were vicious things, and he had scarring across his snout and over the back of his neck to prove it. He'd nearly lost his life to one as a hatchling, in one of his first hunts.

Even now, he'd have to use caution; those teeth could inflict serious harm, very quickly. For the most part his natural armor would protect him, but he'd have to worry about his eyes, at the very least, or perhaps his tongue.

The cave rats came and went from the entrance of their den, so that sometimes he could see the glint of rodent eyes, and at other times only empty blackness. When one finally approached, it was from behind the den, and he almost missed it; he only saw a ripple in the water, and then the back of one arrowing toward him.

He drifted forward, submerging, feeling the fire in his belly blooming up. He waited, patient, and the moment the rat emerged from the water--the moment it began sniffing and nosing at the meat, but before it could snatch it to drag it off--he lifted his head only slightly above the surface.

With skill and precision born from great practice, he launched a thick glob of steaming, burning bile--not bright fire, so as not to alarm the other cave rats--which landed sizzling on his target. The rat got out a single squeak, leapt into the water and kicked several times, then went still. He was relatively certain he'd heated its brain so quickly that it had died, and likely (though this mattered little to him) with hardly any suffering.

To him, it meant that the other rats hadn't been alerted. This was good.

He slid forward, lifting his head enough to take the rat in his jaws, and submerge. He held it for a time, instinctively waiting to be sure it was dead, before swallowing it down whole (it was very large, even for a growing alligator; he had a lot of growing to do).

This one was mine. To sate my hunger. The next one will be for Aquarian.

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It didn't take long for another rat to emerge--not by the standards of an alligator's patience, anyway. The other rats may have heard the squeak, but there'd been no screams and they smelled no blood, and so they must have assumed that their friend was eating the better part of a feast without him.

At least, that's what Dragon figured. Perhaps it was only the smell of the meat he'd laid as bait that tempted them out.

This time, two rats came, rather than one. One was behind the other, and he found himself glancing between them to try and choose a target. Both were large, scraggly things, with large teeth, sharp claws, and bulging, beady eyes. Both had wire-like whiskers, very long, and both were approaching the meat at about the same speed--albeit from slightly different angles. One had circled up behind the den before swimming downstream toward him; the other was swimming directly across from it.

Dragon raised up in preparation, the fire boiling and rising within him again. This time he'd try to engulf them in a torrent of true flames. He'd never tried striking two creatures at once, before, and should they dive into the water after being ignited, he imagined he might miss out on a kill.

But he made the attempt, regardless. One cave rat rose up out of the water and shook itself briskly, then sniffed quickly over the meat; the second leapt up onto the bank alongside it a moment later. Dragon's parted jaws slowly raised out of the water.

A blast of fire burst from his maw, quickly singing the fur of both rodents, and burning them badly. One squealed and leapt into the reeds, the other instinctively tumbling back into the water and arrowing for its den.

Dragon turned, quickly rushing into the reeds after his wounded prey--and snapped it up in his jaws before it had gone very far, shaking the burnt and trembling creature quickly to death.

He clambered back through the reeds to the water's edge, but the rats were now nowhere to be seen.

He grunted and laid the corpse down where he could easily retrieve it, and then dropped down into the water once more.

This time, though, he wasn't going to be waiting; he'd go to the den himself, and see if he could dig out the wounded rat.

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He dragged his way up to the den, but aside from the occasional skitter within, it was silent. He could smell burned flesh inside, but the entrance was far too narrow for him--a burrow-hole between two tightly-bound, thick roots, barely wide enough for the rats, let alone a young gator.

He snuffled at it, thinking.

Even if I burn them all alive in there, some will be stuck, and I won't get them out. I can't fit. I need to get them to come out.

He thought about this for awhile, and then another idea occurred to him. If alligators could grin, he would have grinned. First he made his way around, digging and scratching and sniffing--but there appeared to be no other ways in and out. Maybe there were tunnels, exits farther off, but he couldn't find them.

At length he returned; he crept closer to the den, pressing his softly-armored flank to the opening of the den, and concentrating. His heat welled up inside of him, and after a few moments, acrid smoke and the stench of charring flesh began to billow forth from him. Where he was pressed against the den, in it went--filling the air inside of the rats' home with thick and choking smoke.

It was only when he felt them scratching at his side--which, granted, did not take long--that he pulled away, gasping as he released the painful spell's hold.

Three rats scurried out, and he watched--once he'd spotted the wounded one, slower than the rest and limping, he quickly gave chase.

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The alligator crashed through the brush, shoving aside reeds and long grass as he chased the wounded rat. The others had scattered, far too fast for him, but this one was his quarry anyway. He could practically gallop, for short distances; he was still young enough to be fairly swift, and in any case, the rodent was badly burned.

It wove a crooked pattern, even as it limped, trying to throw him off--and he pursued, bullheaded in his chase. Suddenly it turned, fangs bared, hissing a challenge toward him--and for a moment he nearly felt pity at the fear and defiance in it eyes.

Instead of closing with it (which might have led to a nasty bite, or to it simply turning and running once more), he opened his own maw, trying to again summon the superheated bile that he'd used while hunting in the past. He looked like something between an alligator and a spitting cobra as he reared back, gathering his searing magic to launch toward his prey.

Two things happened at once, though: he found himself choking, a bit, the repeated use of magic without a rest having drained him. Second, the rat--recognizing his open maw and the flickering, growing orange glow within--turned and bolted once more.

DAMN IT!

Gulping down the searing bile with a grimace faintly visible even on his reptilian face, the alligator charged after the rat once more, renewing the chase.

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Dragon found a nasty surprise waiting for him over the next grass-tousled hillock of mud. The rat scurried forward, hopping weakly, and he charged after it, tiring from the chase. He crested the bump of ground, unable to see what was on the other side--and then found himself sliding down facefirst, unable to scrabble to a stop, into a clotted mass of writhing bodies. It was a hollow, a large and surprisingly dry pit in among the grass tufts and little muddy hills, and it was filled with cave rats.

Rats!

Alarm filled him at once; this must be another den, and the wounded rat must have bolted here from fear. He doubted--he hoped--that they weren't intelligent enough to have set up their own ambush.

He fell into them heavily, most of them scattering with squeaks of alarm. His thick, heavy tail thrashed to and fro, sweeping several away from him as he turned, jaws open to confront the nearest: the wounded rat, huddled against the far, curved dirt alcove's wall, with several others frantically sprinting around it. A few hissed at him, and he felt rather than saw several more begin to circle, thinking about attacking this invader rather than fleeing.

He let out a rush of hot, shimmering air, finding it difficult to call up his magic fully; instead he let the brief burst of searing heat blast toward the rats, spinning quickly as he did to keep them at bay. Meanwhile, his eyes searched the bank he'd fallen down from. He wasn't sure how the rats got in and out, but for the most part, it looked too steep for him to escape.

And judging by the littered bones exposed by the rats' retreat, likely from past Gembound dying here trapped, it was.

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