ORIGIN

Seeing Bayo's tongue stop mid-lick almost confirmed his dislike of the idea of grooming himself—and worse, letting someone else do it. Why would you want shit you want to wash off be in your mouth? Even though Bayo said using water would make him wet and cold again, Ein shrugged. Better than using his tongue, and besides, he was already wet and cold.

'Grooming's faster once you get used to it.' "Mm," he hummed a small reply. Yes, it seemed like it would be, but Ein wasn't interested in trying it right now. Maybe never, honestly, at least not without this supposed water method. The jackal pup followed Bayo, with still a bit of distance between them; when Bayo called out, Ein closed the distance to inspect what the other had found.

Ein came up on Bayo's left side—so that he could see him, although Ein was not aware he only had one eye where, normally, he would have two—and sniffed the water as the other drank it. Hmm. It seemed passable. It wasn't perfect. Truth be told, Ein had no idea what he was expecting or what he was hoping for, but it was definitely better than licking the goopy shit off of his fur.

"Thank you," he said quietly, eyeing Bayo with gratitude.

When Bayo was done, tail wagging, Ein carefully stepped into the pool that the collapsed roof made. The water was colder than he thought it might be, but it was refreshing. He waded in and crouched, making sure to get his entire, albeit small, body under the water. Once there, it was a trial and error sort of deal to figure out what worked and didn't work when it came to cleaning himself. Brushing and scrubbing with his paws seemed to work the best, and although it was awful, using his tongue for harder to reach areas.

After he felt relatively clean, he stepped free from the pool, to its opposite side, where Bayo was not, and shook himself as dry as possible. His fur was puffed and spiky, but clean.

A single wave of his tail betrayed his cool composure.

Aaaah... clean. He smiled quietly to himself away from Bayo. Yes, this felt much nicer.

Ein turned when Bayo asked if he felt better, and he simply nodded as a response—but whether Bayo saw it or not was unknown, as the other was sniffing about at the water. When Bayo moved past him, Ein turned again to face the other's direction, but did not immediately follow him out of the ruined house.

Hmm... food? Ein hadn't thought about it until now, but when he did stop to think about it, he did feel pretty hungry. Slowly, he stepped from the doorway and watched as Bayo sniffed for signs of food; but it wasn't long before Bayo said there wasn't anything nearby.

The ruins. He found himself looking at the abandoned buildings again. Were there other places that would be the opposite of this? Ugh. He hoped so.

Out of curiosity, he tried to see if he could pick up anything in the shadows. But the entire place was dark and dim where the stars did not reach.

"Mm, that's fine," he said after a while, stepping out into the lane and looking back up to the ceiling. "I think I will... explore, a little." A quick glance to Bayo. "Have you been other places?" If Bayo knew areas like this did not have food, then he had been to places with food... right?

A cave called Canis. Ein tucked the information away and nodded to Bayo's words, but if there was the potential for the cave to be dirty, he was definitely not interested in going there despite the secrets it might hold. He especially did not want to go any places that were so caked with debris that there were still lingering footprints from a long time ago. What did that even mean? It sounded awful.

He followed Bayo's nose toward the tower and squinted with his single eye. How... far was that? Depth perception wasn't exactly a concept he knew about, but apparently his sucked. Ein really didn't want to get dirty again, though. The pup followed quietly behind Bayo until the other's body stopped suddenly, and Ein crouched out of instinct. Was it fear or just a reaction to something unknown that caused him to crouch? He'd have no idea; he was not even entirely aware that it had happened.

But Bayo crouched too, carefully moving around whatever he had seen and alerted Ein to be still. Easy enough. Ein's head turned slightly to keep watch of Bayo, curious as to what his plan was; briefly, he tried to see what Bayo had seen—a small furry creature? What about in the alley behind it?

For a moment, the alley lit up in a strange underlight, in a way that Ein would not have been able to describe, but there was nothing in the alley except a dead end. Which, of course, was Bayo's plan but Ein had not yet caught on to that.

As Bayo circled away, he gave quick orders to Ein. At first, the jackal pup merely tilted his head. Oh, he didn't want to participate—

Bayo launched toward the rabbit, yapping up a fine mess, while Ein remained where he was with a look between confusion and amusement. Until the rabbit bolted toward him. Aah... He felt his back arch and the fur along his spine stiffen. His lips instinctively pulled back to again show off his little teeth. Fuck around and find out, rabbit.

But the rabbit cared only for one thing. It hopped over him and made a clean escape, with Ein ducking out of the way. He was unsure what to do—was that his fault? Nah. He wasn't ready. He didn't even want to be a part of that. He turned a sour eye toward Bayo and frowned with a snarl. While that was embarrassing, it also hurt his pride, but he wasn't going to say anything. Instead, he was content just to give Bayo a stinky look.

Bayo looked hurt, defending himself by saying he was just trying to have fun. He went on to say Ein was weird, and asked the jackal what was wrong with him. As Ein was thinking over his answer, Bayo barked up again, claiming he did nothing wrong.

Ein shook his coat out and relaxed his fur, then exhaled a quick sigh.

"I just wasn't ready," he defended himself, eye tracing the path of the rabbit down a separate alley. "Let's try it again." Anyway, if Bayo could do it, then it was probably easy, right?

His single eye squinted into the darkness as he crawled forward, sniffing; but again, the night vision bloomed, illuminating all of the hidden secrets the next alley held—including the rabbit.

"It's down here," Ein whispered, glancing back to Bayo. "Round two? Same plan?"