ORIGIN

Delta contemplated the rat's death as it had the snake's. What would it feel like when it was mangled and broken, pushed to its absolute limit? Being realistic, it knew it would face difficulty in the future. It wanted to believe it would always be ahead of everything as it had in this instance, prepared and ready to take control of the situation...

But it knew its station. It knew that the Overseer ruled it, and the Masters ruled the Overseer, and it would be very easy for it to end up at the feet of its betters like the rat at its own paws.

As it thought, its magic slipped free unbidden, like second nature.

A biting cold grew from its shoulder, agonizing and numb. Its body felt twisted, and suddenly it found it difficult to breathe. It did not actually feel much pain, only because it's brain was overwhelmed with two feelings: urgent, rushing panic, and helplessness.

Garnet-Delta, the powerful hunter, crumpled on top of the two corpses, and convulsed involuntarily as its magic ran a rampant fever dream through its system.

It knew, quite quickly, quite intimately, what dying felt like. It felt like its insides were being turned to liquid, its gem burning... And... It felt like a quietly spreading spiderweb of numbness. There was nothing it could do but accept what was happening. A growing cold, exhaustion took over where panic struggled to keep it surfaced.

Garnet-Delta returned to itself when the rat was finally dead. It swallowed, and pushed the rat away from itself, inhaling a sharp breath. It took a moment to shake off the sensation. Its morbid curiosity was sated, and it was left with a queasy feeling.

Still, it would need its strength. It could not mourn the death of something so insignificant, not to the point of starving itself. With a grunt, it began to eat the remains of the rat. Waste not, want not. The lessers were here to be eaten.

That, and it would be easier to carry just the snake home. The rat would just be extra weight and finagling.

It still felt queasy, all the same. It ate what it could stomach, and dug a nearby hole in the snow, burying the rat as the lesser had buried its own cache of food. It buried the rat's corpse, and sucked in a breath. Its stomach kept lurching.

Shaking its head once more, it wrinkled its nose at the snake it had left in its hole, twisted like a curled spaghetti, head flipped upside down, chin up.

Delta reached its paws into the hole, carefully around the broken glass the thrashing had left behind, and started to drag the snake out of its hole. The thing was heavy and long, longer than it had expected from what it had seen from it coiled up in the crack.

Garnet-Delta shook out its wings, feeling the cold once more. The snake's body temperature wasn't much better than the snow and ice, and it was starting to get stiff. With a grunt, the cat-dragon grabbed it in its teeth and began to drag it.

It would be quite a long way to go with something this heavy. But a bit of adversity was something to grow stronger with, and Garnet-Delta reveled in the challenge.

It dragged the creature through the ice and snow, stubbornly determined to bring it back. Maybe it would not impress anyone; but it was proof of a victory won. It's own, self made Trial. It didn't need to impress anyone but itself.

... but it would be really nice if Vargas gave it a word or two of approval.

It was getting used to hauling the weight. It continued to push itself, its magic, as it went, keeping an eye out for more snakes hiding in cracks, or other rats and predators that might try to steal its well earned prize.

Its magic picked up on signatures of creatures well beyond, and with ease, it avoided anything that could cause it trouble. Before long it had reached the entrance to Orion, the sparkling quartz welcoming and the warmth of the room enough to give it newfound strength.

It was time to go home.