ORIGIN - smile because you want to

@Kerberos
backdated to early july
wind chimes reference :"] ...

a soft, acoustic arrhythmia resounded in the northwest corner of orion's reaches. woodwinds might've sung something like it, but this was more the space in between: the hollow music of rods in suspension, stirred into motion by the breeze. an attentive set of claws had whittled them into shape, strung them together on tendon cords with a clapper at the center. nearly perfect. nearly.

cut to: damask, studying the wind chimes with critical intensity. carver and carving rested just at the threshold of an open-faced room, nestled high between the cliffs and the tunnel into canis. it might've been a watchpost once — small, yet sound in its perch against the wall, some ten feet square, about the same distance over the floor. she'd blown away most of the dust, but it still needed a great deal of renovation. "make a space for yourself," her father had said; and (sure isn't much of a job) she'd committed herself (not doing anyone but you any good) to the task.

whatever it takes, that it? to keep you busy. keep you distracted. not a place to live, kid, let's get that right — it's a place to get lost.

two weeks, on the dot. two weeks since that conversation. the accipiter withdrew from her work, brows furrowing. she would not make a wreck of herself like that again — lose control, make auré worry, say ... something she never should've. to that end, she was sort of trying to take care of herself, or at least her (sick, weak, not-right-it's-just-not-right) body: feed it, clean it, take it for walks, put it to bed. a slight shake of her head, and damask leaned in to give the chimes a nudge. they swished and murmured in reply. that's nice. very ... nice. she sighed, eyelids slumping down to half-mast, and prodded at the knife in her ribs: please? a spark. she hummed in her throat and fiddled with the dial, fine-tuning it until she found the right station; and just like that, the instrument fell abruptly into silence, all canceled out. slide and slide — in and out. further, further, up, down — ... (cut the spell,) quiet. heart seizing like a fist in her chest.

a gust of wind smacked into the chimes, sent them clattering. damask rocked back onto her heels, staring them down as if they were the towers of a bottom-up citadel.

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Kerberos was chilling, as he usually did, at the entrance to the tunnel that lead to Canis; the big gateway. He was the gatekeeper, after all. He kept an eye on who came and left, at least when he was around and not sleeping.

... But there was a strange sound in Orion, today. He spent a small amount of time listening to it, until curiosity got the better end of Kerberos's three thick skulls. His paws drove him to the cliffs, and he clambered his way with all the subtly of a clamoring crowd, until he had dragged himself up to one of the strange structures that made most of Orion feel like a ghost town. (Canis, by comparison, was cozy and homely, very lived in, even if most of those living there were dead bones.)

The smell of Canis was here, weirdly. Of dusty feathers. That was the first clue for Kerberos to latch on to, and eagerness entered his step as he trotted up to the entry way of the structure, peering around for the source of the sound and finding it in a strange creation of wood and string.

"... what is that?" He woofed softly, ears craning forward. It was just a piece of things tied together and hung, but it made a pretty, musical sound all the same. Only one of his heads remained particularly interested in it, however, as the other two craned down to peer at the white and black feathers of a FRIEND.

She smelled indescribably of Bonebound, and she had the cute little features of them, too! Kerberos vaguely recognized her, and after a moment a name clicked into place. Damask, Aure's daughter. He had never run into her before this exact moment-- but he figured everyone in Bonebound knew him, the big three headed dog was kind of hard to not recognize. So immediately he assumed friend - and - friend, and swooped forward, his one upright head nearly knocking into the musical wooden hangy-downs.

"Hey there!" He greeted with a swath of affection, nose and floppy ears swinging forward to greet with an affectionate snuffle (and likely, would come with a slobbery lick, too--) "I like your thing! Where did you find it?"

'Cause a good song never dies
It just reminds you of where you were

@Damask

@Kerberos

look alive, kid! damask's ears flicked and pivoted, refocusing on: a clamor of scrabbling nails and massive, massive weight, drawing closer with no signs of stopping. feeling caught, huh? feeling a little stupid? the bird of prey swept up to her feet, eyes gone wide, jaw gone slack. blood crept hotly into her face. what were you doing? who did you think you were, damask? she tossed her head again. it didn't matter, didn't matter, someone — was — coming. this wasn't supposed to happen. the place was set too high for most to reach, and at too steep an angle for the likes of, say, alpha; so who was it? ... take a guess. she cast around, cast around, just as (ah, of course) the first of three enormous heads swung into view. "hey," she began, let's talk about this —

only for a pale, wet nose to dive past the threshold. she reeled back into her wings and slipped away, briefly airborne — but not fast enough to escape a glancing blow, barely shy of a lick. the contact shivered through her feathers, and with a sharp, reflexive intake of breath, she summoned her stone, balling up the air like paper. just enough to press her assailant into slow-mo, keep him from stealing any more space. she did a double-take; the building had a doorway hollowed out in the side, but cool it. that won't be necessary. she'd recognized this would-be stranger in seconds, yet she'd only ever seen him in pulsing red, spotted from afar and avoided accordingly. he was friendly, part of the bonebound, but here's the thing: auré had described him as ... affectionate. exceedingly affectionate. slobbery-affectionate. back then, that choice of words had made her stiffen; now, it made her want to wilt. the timing was not good. that's what you get for putting it off.

"kerberos," damask said, feigning a trace of pleasant surprise. answer the question. "i made it, actually." it came out like a confession. why was her face still on fire — ? she glanced at her claws, every one worn down to the quick. then, she switched to her company and finally to her ... thing. it looked like a flimsy toy now, just a few sticks strung together, faintly alarmed in their near-miss notes. heh. and for a second there, you were really, truly enamored. she swallowed. open and shut: "thank you."

the accipiter inhaled and looked back up at kerberos, allowing her magic to relax around his heads. "it's damask," she clarified. "i'm auré's —" his what, exactly? certainly not his next of kin. "... he's my father."

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Nose bumped feathers and then was immediately enclosed in solid air as Damask scrambled back. Kerberos quickly got the hint (though, a moment too late) and tried to pull his head back, but even moving backward was like molasses. A tiny whine caught in his deep chest, as he glanced between each of his warm eyes. He raised a paw into the solid air and tried to paw at it, two-thirds of his conglomerate brains completely overwhelmed and distracted by the affair.

But, hey, this was why having three heads was better than two. The middle scarred head, and the most trapped of the trio, focused in on Damask's scrambling escape, the most calm reaction of the wind-muzzled faces. "Yooou maaade iit?" He woofed slowly, ears straining to perk in the solid air. It felt like being shoved underwater, though he could still breathe just fine. Super weird! The sensation faded in the next second, and his head snapped up comically (with a pop of one of the vertebrae in his neck) to bonk into the contraption with a rattle. "oops," he apologetically shrunk his head down.

To his left, one paw smacked his far head, stone clunking on his skull. His right head erupted in a whining yawn, before shaking out his ears in a bewildered fashion.

But the central head had not lost the plot, at least, which was all that really mattered. "... it's so pretty," Kerberos continued to praise, ears twitching to catch every tinkling, wooden clink of wood. "Hi, Damask!" He remembered his manners again, and taking a deep breath, the synapses between all three heads fired in unison, and six intense eyes all locked in on the much smaller raptor. "It's nice to meet you!"

Because nothing said friendly gentle puppy more than a eight foot tall, three-headed hell hound who's leg was just as thick around as Damask's entire body, with absolutely no sense of personal boundaries... But, admittedly, he did step back a bit from the entryway and the pretty, musical trinket. His jaws parted not so much to reveal teeth but to let loose three panting tongues, and his tail (what you could see of it, from this angle) did wag with all of the happiness of a dog being called a good boy.

If nothing else, it was obvious that he had taken no offense to the retreat, and the magic bubble; and it wasn't even that he was oblivious to it... But he was entirely, and completely, good-natured to the point of just taking it completely in stride.

'Cause a good song never dies
It just reminds you of where you were

@Damask

love is stored IN the @KERBEROS !!

(ooh.) she sat back, finished, floored. (now, that hit a nerve.) all of a sudden, her throat was aching, full of what she had and hadn't said — stuck on that pause, the words that could've filled it, the ones that had in the insidious noise of her head — (rest assured, kid, he's gonna notice, he's gonna say something, there's no way he won't —)

"hi, damask! it's nice to meet you!"

three mouths opened in a set of wide, lolling grins, all tongue, no teeth.

wh ... ? damask stared, then blinked, brows relaxing from furrowed to not — recalibrating. "you, too." it took a great deal of effort to punctuate that sentence with something other than a question mark.

she'd never seen a look like that, never known a face (faces, plural!) could be so profoundly benevolent. even the kindest soul she knew — gotta quit it, quit thinking about him, let him go for just one second ... was more temperate than this. she had to make some attempt at a smile in return, honest or otherwise; it would've hurt not to. the result was imperfect: thin, forceful, slightly uneven. still, it was the best she could do. and the hound's little whine rang out in her ears. it'd been small, no pain, no real distress or offense, but ... i did that. another breath, almost a sigh. "i'm sorry about that."

he'd complimented her — thing, again. silver eyes wandered back in its direction. just a minute ago, she'd wanted to drop the subject, and yet: "it's hollow, see?" she sidled a little closer to what she'd made, subtly appreciative of the distance restored. "the wind makes it move, according to chance; the weight at the center strikes the rods at the perimeter; and the whole thing ... sings." a dark, slender muzzle came up, gave the chimes a musical push. with every word, a soft hint of confidence eased in further. "someone taught me how to carve when i was younger. this only took a few days of shaping the wood, drying the sinew, and putting the pieces together. just an idea. nothing to be very proud of." somehow, though — if you listened real close — her tone implied otherwise.

then, damask hesitated, skimming the narrow arch of space between the entrance and kerberos. keyword: narrow. he'd withdrawn a few steps clear of the roof, but that didn't leave him a lot of room on the ground. and here she was, talking up her creative process or whatever it was, sweet as he was he probably didn't even care about all that stuff — "i'm sorry," damask said, quickly and quietly. said that already. she suppressed a cringe and waved around the corner, towards an open stretch of rock along the wall outside. a sort of ... yard, maybe? only about the same square footage as the building itself, but hopefully not so uncomfortable for him? she coughed a little. "why don't we — ?"

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Damask returned the polite greeting, and behind Kerberos a snakish tail flipped back and forth with enough force to cut the air, whissh whissh whissh quietly rising up behind him. One, floppy eared head tilted with confusion at the apology (what was there to be sorry for? He had already forgotten the potential transgression) but the other two seemed even more oblivious... really, happy to take the apology in stride, regardless.

His attention was quickly diverted, eager to focus on the oddity that Damask had crafted. He listened, eyes wide and curious, watching with full attention as she nudged it. A happy whine bubbled up from one of the throats, his body wiggling as his paws shifted underneath him; a dog wanting to play. If such a thing could be called a toy, the toy excited him. "Can I try?" He asked eagerly, lowering his heads down on to his paws and peering up at the slowly settling chime.

Just a little push-- don't break it! The dog's central eye blinked shut as the shockwave rippled through the air, ruffling fur and feathers and pushing the wind to knock the wooden piece clinking with song once more. His heads shot up, grins and lolling tongues panting and whining, wiggling about the dancing pieces with total and complete excitement. Enraptured. He didn't want to break it so he didn't touch it, but the jingling toy was so mesmerizing.

He had almost missed her second apology in that moment, but his heads stopped, his wiggling body falling still for a split second. "Oh!" He woofed, as she inched around the corner to the open ledge. "Good idea!" He shuffled along the wall, and then with a tense of his muscles and a push, huge claws scrambling, he hauled himself up on to the ledge beside the outlook building. His haunches hit the floor as soon as he hit the top, shuffling into a tight sit at the edge so there was still plenty of room for Damask.

"You should be very proud," Kerberos insisted then, his seemingly short attention span not letting the humbleness slide. "I couldn't do anything like that. That is really amazing. Like Bones's paintings, have you seen those? You made something! That's so awesome!" His tail slapped against the wall underneath him. "Yeah!"

'Cause a good song never dies
It just reminds you of where you were

@Damask