ORIGIN

In the dripping, cold expanses of Canis, where bone shards litter the floor and the osseous smell of bone hangs in the air like dust, their dryness mixing with the mineral-tinted humidity of the cave, there are shelters stacked up high from alien remains, a remnant of a long-gone time. The cave feels empty, empty and alone—the drip-drip-drip of water running down from stalactites provides an unsteady, quiet background noise, like the last few drops of lifeblood from a corpse—

—and it is this cave and these fortresses that Marrow transverses towards, cutting across the cave and making her way towards the shelters of bone.

Although the cave is mostly barren—and this part of it is no different—one of the impromptu shelters in particular seems to have begun to be taken over by small, creeping, winding plants. Green weeds and vines spread out around the entrance to a shelter like a particularly sporadic front lawn, twining around the base of the bone fortress, seeking to crawl ever-higher despite their small size.

I haven't been here in a while, Marrow thinks, rare warmth shining in her eyes.

These fortresses were where she stepped out of her chrysalis for the first time, long ago. These fortresses were where she met her first Gembounds—where she was taught to hunt, and where she taught herself about the bones when she returned here to wander.

Her slow gait speeds to a brief trot as she makes her way towards the particular fortress she's marked as 'home', tilting her head back and letting magic soar through her gemstone.

Time for some housekeeping, hm?

New sprouts bloom beneath her hooves as she ducks her head and makes her way inside the little shelter, greenness rising between the cracks of the stone and seeming to grasp at her hooves, reaching for the source of magic. A smile curves across her face—ah, it's good to be home.

The inside of the shelter is sparse, compared to its slowly-greening outside, but it has the appearance of something that has been lived in. Bones are laid upon the floor, reminiscent of most of Canis, but instead of the scattered, haphazard corpses that litter the cave outside, these are neatly organized in rows, ordered by ascending size, from small, needle-like bones that must have belonged to fingers or toes at some point, to larger ones, alien clavicles and femurs and skulls.

Marrow nudges at the bones lined up towards the smaller end of the collection, nose twitching as she takes in their familiar scent, eyes veiled in the glassy shadow of her gemstone. They're certainly wonderful things, the most intact she's discovered so far, nudging through the remains scattered about Canis, but…

...mm. She has a vague design in mind—something insectoid, spider-like, reminiscent of the arachnids she had watched skitter about in the forest cave's undergrowth and over its trees—but most of these just aren't *right.* Maybe the two of the smallest could be stitched together to serve as one of the limbs, but…

...she takes the bones she's decided upon gently beneath her teeth and moves them to the center of her shelter, then turns, trotting out of the shelter with purpose.

She thinks maybe a hand could do the trick…?

She finds a little bit of what she's looking for not strewn across the cave's stone floor, but in another shelter. She nearly passes it by at first, too—scanning over the shapes of bones for the one that would fit just right for this project, she isn't quite thinking about the myriad fortresses surrounding her.

That is, until she catches the familiar jointed curve of a finger outlined in one of the walls as she brushes past them, and pauses, looking over her shoulder.

Yes, that is, indeed, a hand. Like many of the remains scattered about the cave, it bears only faint similarity to the other specimens of hands she's come across; there are the central bones leading to a point, and the one finger that juts off from the rest, shorter and smaller, but the fingers seem to have three joints instead of four, and are quite longer than most she's seen.

Still, it'll do—it'll more than do—if only she can figure out how to get it out of the wall in the first place.

Collapsing the fortress itself is out of the question. Even putting her own personal reservations aside—these fortresses are sturdily-crafted, having stood the test of time, and more importantly, she considers this area her home, and it wouldn't do to destroy it so haphazardly—she'd risk chipping, cracking, or outright destroying the bones by doing it with such brute force. And the fortresses really are sturdy; one strong shove of a hoof would hardly do it.

Perhaps if she wound a few vines through the spaces between bone and pulled?

Her magic takes root gently, slowly—pulling on the seeds she knows lie dormant beneath the stone of Canis and coaxing them upward. Marrow watches with head slightly askew as the sprouts begin to emerge, winding up, up around cream-white bone, stopping just short of the hand she's going for.

Hm. Not enough—one more cast…?

Her eyes flutter shut in concentration, head lowering to the level of the plants; she takes a slow, shallow breath, lets it out, and tries again.

"There," she murmurs, feeling her magic take hold and begin to encourage the little saplings winding around bone to grow, grow, rise and take form despite the barrenness that surrounds them, the corner of her mouth tilting up in an impending smile as she knows even before opening her eyes again that it's worked.

And, indeed; opening her eyes and letting herself take in the fortress reveals a myriad of small vines, stringlike and winding, curling their way around the closed fingers of the skeletal hand she's after, in an imitation of a handshake.

Not like she, the deer with hooves, knows what a handshake is, much less how to replicate it.

No, instead she's pacing from side to side, looking over the winding tangle of vines she's wrapped around the hand, trying to discern the most delicate way to make the vines pull it out of the wall. She thinks the palm area is the most sturdy… perhaps she should pull from there, first?

Well, there's only one way to find out.

Carefully, carefully, she reaches out with this more advanced magic, guiding the movement of vine and leaf with equal, slow movement of head and hoof, swaying a little in focus. Creeping, curling plants move in tune with her, wrapping around old bone and tugging, ever-so-gently.

Even though the plants move well enough, the bone hardly moves an inch, only slightly budging as she watches.

Hm. That's unfortunate; she was hoping she would have to use less force for this project, not more… if she overcompensates, Marrow thinks she could risk shattering the bone.

Then again, there is always the opportunity to find another hand. It's not like there's a shortage of materials here in this cave.

Here goes nothing…

She overcompensates. She overcompensates.

In all fairness, it was to be expected in at least some right. The movement of plants is still a magic quite unfamiliar to her; and with her magical energy flagging from the use of so much of it in so little time, she should have expected a sudden magical surge. One last hoorah from her own magicka, if you will.

Still in all fairness, she did not expect the plants to aim at her.

She's simply trying her best to get the hand out between its interlocking prison of other, myriad bones, attempting to muster the required amount of force to extract it for use—

—and the vines wrapped around the fingers and palm pull at it, pull at it, pull at it, and rip it free with a clattering tug of force, rattling the fingers against the wall it came from as it finally comes free with a tremendous wrench of force.

With reflexes characteristic of her species, she at least manages to dodge the hand being thrown at her—unfortunately, that leads it to crash into a nearby rock wall. She doesn't have to look behind her to know it's damaged; she's heard the crunch of bone enough times to recognize it.

Hm.

Shit.

As she trots over to the fallen hand, her eyes confirm the worst of her suspicions; most of the fingers are cleaved neatly in multiple parts, and most of the chips and cracks transversing over its ivory surface mark it as unstable. Certainly unfit for construction.

She shakes her head and takes the pieces that are big enough for her to hold between her teeth, picking up the remains to put in her bag. On the bright side, they can be ground down to form a paste later, for adhesive purposes or otherwise—

—and, not to be prideful of her own magic or anything… but that was certainly a throw. Perhaps she'll have to practice the offensive capabilities of that particular spell later—it seems fit enough for the job.

With a slight bounce in her step and the shards of an unfortunate hand rattling around in her woven satchel, she turns to trot away, eyes searching for more bone… perhaps a piece slightly easier to retrieve, this time.

Marrow smells it before she sees it; that oh-so-recognizable sweet smell of rot, creeping up her nose and into her lungs. It's so very different from the dry, distant smell of bone—while skeletons simply lay there, quietly inviting those around to partake in their presence, corpses are… different. The newly dead seem almost to cry out, long after their vocal chords have stopped responding—reaching out with dripping blood and black, iridescent oil in a plea without words.

She has tasted blood on her tongue, but not decay—she does not leave her kills uneaten for long enough for the process of decay to start, burying those bones she's not interested in taking on instinct.

She's certainly never felt it on her hooves.

She raises an Oil-slick hoof up to face-level, tilting it in the dim light, watching iridescent patterns dance on its surface. Shining, gleaming; such a pretty thing, for something borne of death.

When she sets her hoof back down, it clicks against wet bone. She tilts her head at it, considering; she has been looking for bone, has she not? Perhaps one of these…

...or, perhaps, not. The smell in her mouth, of twisting rot and decay, speaks to a primal instinct inside of her; somehow, she gets the feeling it would be a poor choice, to truly taste the oil on her mouth.

Perhaps once she has a method of cleaning them, or carrying them without drinking that oil…

...something twitches and squishes against flesh, and Marrow's ears prick up, swiveling slightly.

Oh? What was that?

She stands stock-still for a few moments, head tilting this way and that as she tries to pick up the sound again. Was it a one-off thing? A trick of the ear, perhaps?

No, no—up ahead, she hears it again. Some unfortunate bat lies at the end of the trail of black ichor; or, well, she thinks it was a bat, from what's left of the death-twisted wings. She meets its red eyes with her own cloudy ones, notes the ivory specks of its teeth stark against shining black, and—

—sees the body shift.

Oh.

Now this is far, far more interesting than some bones, hm?

She steps forwards, heedless of the way her footsteps now drip with the stuff of decay, unabashed curiosity shining in her eyes.

"What are you?" she hums to herself, sounding almost delighted at the unlawful twitching of something that should not be shifting at all anymore.