ORIGIN

The elongated sapphire stone had been set inside a gaping mouth, teeth scything either side of it at the time. It had looked like a tongue. A sleek blue shape that rooted itself at the back of a long-dead throat. The gemstone built itself up over the course of the cycle and now filled the immense mouth of what-had-been; the skull could have been ursine in nature, or maybe draconic, but either way it accommodated the growing chrysalis without issue. Once the sapphire had grown to encompass the upper mandible and touch the upper teeth which barred against it, the creature should have risen and broken free. The dilatory nature of this hatching could have been due to the alien life that brewed within; perhaps the neonate was aware of the danger inherent to the caves, or somehow knew it was not destined for an easy life. It had been placed high in the fortress wall and then abandoned, after all.

It took another twenty-four hours before the first crack resonated through the chrysalis. Pieces of sapphire scattered across the bones below. Some would be rooted to those teeth for a while, but the important thing was that a hefty segment had come loose. A chunk of the skull's sphenoid cracked with it, and as those fragments fell like pachinko marbles in to the lower reaches of the fortress there came a shimmering blue dust with it. A thick ursine foot had wedged itself in the resulting hole only to withdraw a moment later, feeling the draft. The newborn shifted within its confines and sniffed that air, nostrils wiggling in the manner of a rodent's scheming.

It turned around again and with a thrust of those hind feet, felt the satisfying crunch of the barriers around it. The skeletal framework around the chrysalis destabilized immediately, leaving the newborn to leap and scurry. It was remarkably rodent-like but equally simian: as it emerged from the chaos and the bones fell away to pile far beneath, they held on to a disarticulated femur that sat branch-like a few meters off with a long black tail.

She heard something moving before the voice came; she heard many things, actually, now that her ears were not stuck to her head or bent out of shape, as they had been. They were big ears - wide at the base and dished, with a membrane of thin veiny flesh covering them. They were expressive things, like her eyes. When she heard the approaching steps of something beneath her she turned to peer down from her roost upon the femur, wrapping her tail around the shaft to keep herself rooted, and pivoted those ears so they could funnel sounds more acutely.

Those eyes of her's saw a golden shape getting closer. More importantly than that, there was a vibrant shape decorating the front of it. A stone. It looked a lot like the sapphire sticking out of her haunch but with a paler color to it, however it gleamed with a similar energy, and so Striga was tempted to come closer. The sound of her limbs catching on bones, of talons scraping and her body skittering - would grow louder as she clamoured from her perch.

When she reappeared she was upside-down. Her tail curled in-and-out of a large skull's eye sockets. Her hind talons were hooked in to the gaps of the skull's smile where the teeth were missing. She stared without any semblance of shame; her large eyes bulging as they took in the sight of the creature. It looked a lot like her but it was golden, rather than black. Its fur looked soft (whereas her coat was coarse with hair instead).

"Hello." She mimicked back at the thing. When she blinked it looked like her eyes might burst like berries. Her forelimbs were tucked against her body, but now that she had the creature's attention (and they were very close to one-another, albeit on different planes) she reached out with one of her pronged feet and tried to touch the stone on the creature's head.

Boop!