ORIGIN

Garnet-Delta's fur prickled as it slipped down into the one of the off-shoot tunnels from Orion. It never liked travelling too far from its home, its pack, but ever since the start of the freezing Trial, it felt a desire.

Both its stone-giver and life-giver had entered the freezing tundra; this, no other of its hatchmates would experience. None of them had been raised with love and care, no parent had been a nurturing force, so it wasn't as though Delta was missing them, per say.

It was more... The notion that both of its parents were being tested; and it too, felt the desire to prove itself. This was the farthest it had ever been from home (and perhaps, it should have spent more time exploring, but it was not a large and powerful creature, and the notion of Dragons and their fire was unnerving.) The tunnel it found itself in was freezing cold, enough to make the sparse fur on its coat fluff up and its wings press flatly to its rib cage.

The young one scrambled over rock and ice, wincing at the sharpness that pricked at its paws.

Before long, its senses had picked up on the faint trail of a heartbeat-- a small, rat-sized object scurrying about the ice. It could hear it next: the scratching of ice. Conscious of the own noises it made, it began to step more gingerly.

Claws retracted, it moved with a diligence, testing its weight before putting its pad completely down, inching around to one of the icy ledges. Not a single sound. It made sure not to slip.

And there: just underneath the ledge it had crept up to, was the rat. Fat, inky black, digging away at the snow to uncover a small cache of well preserved food in the ice.

It held its breath, not wanting even the mist of it's exhale to alert the creature.

It had a single, solitary goal in mind.

It knew it was capable of more with its magic. As it crouched, silent upon the ledge, it knew it could kill the rat in an instant-- a well timed bite to the back of its neck, the back of its neck that it could see just in front of it.

But Delta was here to ameliorate its magic. The thing that would give it the edge in battle, when its small, fragile size would fail it. It could sense deep down that it knew what it was capable of, but it was one thing to experiment on rats with broken legs under the Doctor's deranged care, and another entirely to do it on something with fight in it.

It reached out.

As it saw the circulatory system of the rat in its mind's eye, suddenly it had sunk its claws into that system. It's heart beat only because Garnet-Delta forced it to, and with a twitch of its whiskers, it caused the rat to stop digging.

It made it stand on two legs and look up at it's controller, two beady black eyes meeting the blood red gaze of it's captor. It wasn't smart enough to understand, Delta assumed. But its lips quivered with amusement at the fear it saw in the prey's eyes.

No no, Delta thought, be still. You don't have to fear me. Was this what it felt like, to be a Master? It wondered. The winged feline-creature shook its head, and turned its attention outward while keeping its grip tight about the pitch rat.

Further along the tunnel, down in a crack in the ice, Delta could sense another creature. A long, lengthy snake-- big, probably as long as the dragon-hybrid itself. It had never seen a Frostbiter (and thankfully, this one was young), but it knew snakes could be dangerous. Eyes gleaming, Garnet-Delta directed the rat toward the lesser predator.

It watched with delight as the rat scrambled toward the crack. Clueless to the impending threat, it watched as the snake posed, ready to strike as it heard the rodent come close. Delta forced the rat toward the hole, guiding it to bite and scratch at the snake, but before the rat even reached the entrance to the crevice, the snake darted out.

One quick bite, and Garnet-Delta's hold on the rat was gone with a crunch. The rat tried to dart away, stumbling into the ice, but the snake attacked again, and began to devour the dying creature.

It would need a different approach, then.

From Delta's safe position, and with the rat distracting the snake, it considered its options. It didn't need to rush headlong into danger like it's prey had. It was more clever, more powerful, than a simple lesser.

It dug its claws into the ice of it's ledge, and pulled magic from the lump of stone in its throat. The ground quivered, and small shards of glass jutted out from the ice and snow.

One of the spurs blistered out from inside of the crack, causing the snake to writhe painfully. It's mouth full of rat, all it could do was try to retreat further into the rock.

But Garnet-Delta was not done with the snake. It didn't want to lose the rat it had won, and it wanted to take home the prize of a brilliant kill. It tried to take hold of the snake in the same way it had the rat, but it's stone protested, a stinging pain of a muscle being overused causing it to huff.

It slunk down from it's perch, tail flicking with annoyance. The snake was still struggling to free itself from the glass, twitching involuntarily. The smell of blood was sharp in Delta's sensitive nose, and it unsheathed its claws as it stalked forward.

The snake, rat half-swallowed, and squirming with agony, did not seem to look up as Delta approached, steps quiet with fury.

Garnet-Delta crouched down, watching the snake try to half-hide in its hole, gulping down the rat. It had limited time to react before those teeth would be able to bite it, but... That gave the dragon-cat an idea, arrow-tipped ears pinned back against its head.

If it could control blood and stone, could it also make poison? It seemed like something it could imagine Vargas doing-- and so, it tried. Its fangs tingled as its gem protested; its magical energy was growing spent.

But if it could bring home a snake that rivaled its own size, a venomous danger that practically killed a pitch rat in an instant, then... Well, it would be a mark of its first Trial, won.

Picturing success before it had happened was just as likely to jinx Delta as it was to exalt it, but whether or not it would taste victory was irrelevant. It was something to focus on: an inspiration. It believed in itself, for a fleeting moment, as its muscles bunched and it waited for the perfect moment to lunge.

Delta dove into the crack, forepaw crashing down on the head of the snake, pinning it down so it couldn't even try to bite its assailant. Its jaws snapped down on the snake, its venom rushing into the lesser.

The snake's thrashing grew wild, almost uncontrolled-- it threw itself against the jagged ice and stone and glass, blood splattering against Delta's black mask. It held the prey's face firm to the stone, and withdrew it's teeth so that it could stare down into the darkness at the dying animal.

It felt... Powerful. It controlled every aspect of the interaction, it controlled when the lesser's lived and died. It understood the purpose it had, the purpose the Master's had given them. The importance of Hierarchy, and of the Trials. The strong and powerful survived. The strong and the powerful oversaw. They ruled.

To even be apart of that grand scheme... What a wonderful thing it was.

Garnet-Delta took a deep breath as the frostbiter's thrashing slowed, and eventually stopped. It watched the life drain out of its body, and was tickled by the way the pitch rat, half crushed in the creature's throat, held some small scrap more in the end.

"You see that?" Garnet-Delta whispered, as it sunk its claws into the snake's throat and split the underbelly scales apart, spilling further viscera on to the floor. It eased the rat free from the throat, ears twitching at the sound of the rat's weak, rasping breath. Where it had been bitten, its skin had turned deep, sickly purple under the black fur, and stiff. "You play for the right Master, and your life is spared."

Looking down at the pitch rat, it was clear the thing would not survive. Its body was mangled, bones broken, and it had succumbed to shock. Its breathing was growing fainter and fainter. But did it not feel better, dying in a place where its glazed eyes could see light, rather than the darkness of being eaten alive?