ORIGIN

The one-eyed vulture's head popped up from behind a rock on a ledge higher overhead the moment his name was called. That single eye blinked, then fixed down on Alpha, and the tiny kitten-creature beside him.

"Ahhh, Orthoclase-Alpha! How very good to see you!"

The vulture spread his broad wings--some ten foot wingspan or so--and leapt, descending to Alpha's feet in a brief glide. Then those wings folded, his single eye--and the gemstone one--regarding the child with warm enthusiasm. For a moment he wondered whether the child was meant to join them, or as a subject for his tests--but surely Alpha would not have brought him the former. Still, it would be prudent to ask. "For testing, yes? How excellent! Does it have a name?"

Doctor tilted his head this way, then that, shuffling around Vivianite with a vulture's waddling walk, wondering which tests might work best on this one.

I so rarely have youth to test on. Perhaps a test as to how early injury affects growth-? Do broken limbs change adult potential, I wonder-? Will early illness make an adult undersized-? These are things to know.

Doctor beamed.

As best a vulture could, at least.

He folded his wings neatly behind him, pulling himself up a little straighter, and offering Vivianite a benevolent look. "You are my first real test subject, little one; and so I shall call you One, at least until the Overseer returns. Perhaps if he knows the name of your gemstone we can extend that, hm? Now--I am Doctor. You're going to feel a little pain, but it won't last very long, yes? And it will be for the good of all-" he turned to Alpha, here. No point in delaying, in drawing this out. Best to get the hard part over with, and he could explain further as the child--hopefully--recovered.

"Thank you, Orthoclase-Alpha. Would you do me a favor, please, and break the right front, and right hind legs? -You may take a rat, or some water, if you're hungry," he added to Alpha. Accompanying this was a nod up to the ledge, where upturned, half-buried skulls served as both water bowls and potted plant holders. Herbs grew there, and water lay stored in the heat; a few rats, spines broken, lay paralyzed on the rock. "None of them are diseased, currently."

He paced away a little, to give them room, and continued speaking. "More control subjects would be better, of course, but we make do with what we have, yes? Ha. Well, breaking one side--that will tell us, as it recovers, whether an early break causes issues later on. Stunted growth, slow movement, compared to the other side. Important information for the Overseer's tests, designs, and so forth, I should think..." Doctor rambled on, waddling up to his rats to check them briefly over--leaving Alpha to, hopefully, the dirty work.

Doctor watched, flinching just a tad as the actual crack of bones resounded through the tunnel. Muffled, yes, but still those of a child, still something to wince at.

Alpha, though--Doctor glanced to where the beast sat, like a good dog having earned its treat, and waddled over to him as the child writhed in agony. He'd let that wear itself out, while he looked over the Sentinel. "Thank you, thank you. Very much thank you! And you are good, yes-? Any aches, any pains, injuries that need my... attention?" he asked, sending a brief flood of strengthening prokaryotic energy Alpha's way.

Then he hobbled back over toward the child, head darting this way and that as he looked 'One' over.

"Painful, I know. But it passes! We will spend time here. You will heal, yes? We will see what happens. It is to help others," he assured Vivianite, "Hard to see now, I think, but you will."