ORIGIN

White wings were carrying another creature along the stale winds of Orion not far off. His silhouette, pale against the starshot rock above, circled.

He'd noted the chrysalis, once or twice, in passing; it was hard not to, and his curiosity as its sheer size had taken him back here now and then. He happened to be nearing it now, by coincidence, and nothing more. He'd had no intention to come see it, really, but the memory of it drew ember eyes to the ground, to spot not Oilstone but the hulking strange beast that had at last emerged from inside it.

The wolf-dragon pondered this, and even from this height the creature's size was impressive. Hmm, he thought, and banked, forelegs tucked up against his chest as wings carried him back away again. It was a long, slow circle: a spiralling descent, one which brought him back in toward Equinox as if approaching a runway, low and gliding. His wings flapped--two, three times, body coming up short, dust pluming around him; and then he landed, some thirty yards away. His white form stood in silence, attentively facing the stranger, as his wings settled to either side of him.

For a moment Ember probably looked almost noble: pristine white, upright, his empty unblinking stare distinctly wolflike. But really, his head was empty: he was shocked, now that he'd drawn closer, at the sheer size of this thing. He could see, now, the blue fur and the patterned skin, the strange and almost unsettled hunch to its shoulders.

"Are you... kind?" he called out, at last, himself unsure. Was it a hostile being, or a friendly one-? And, perhaps just as important: "Are you okay?"

His voice carried soft, gentle and perhaps too unafraid, as he took a few steps toward Equinox.

Ember would not be much help on the definitions front, unfortunately; he simply assumed that Equinox knew what his own answers meant. But the questions thrown back did give him pause.

"Me? -Yes, I am okay. I am kind," he answered. It spoke; it seemed... reasonable, and so he drew a little closer, tail flicking up now and then where it was held out behind him. "I am Ember. I think you came from that stone-?" he asked, nodding to the empty chrysalis, even though the answer to that was fairly obvious. "But why are you confused?"

The answer hit him a moment later; because it is a child.

But... that meant that it would grow, no? And if this was a child, how big would it grow?! ...Was it a child? Or was it only someone who had been wounded, and slept the days away in a stone? He eyed the creature uncertainly.

"Is this your first time-... being alive?" It was an awkward question, but it would do the trick. He hoped.

Ember lowered himself to his haunches, listening and watching with a sort of dutiful attentiveness. It was lucky, perhaps, for later Gembounds that Equinox would meet, that Ember had been raised with a strict set of moral guidelines taught to him.

Assuming Equinox listened, really.

Ember considered the new (giant) creature's words, mulling over offering a useful response as if this were his new duty in life, himself. It was important to him, purely because he'd happened to be present; he tasked himself with buckling down and explaining as best he could. "I don't think there is anything you're... supposed to do. Whatever you decide to do, that is what makes you who you are, and you won't be judged for it," he said, and it was a faithful, almost word-for-word repeat of what Pride had told him so carefully, long ago. It was a mistaken context--said from parent to child; surely strangers might judge, but Ember didn't think of that.

"We find our purpose ourselves. I... make things," he said, after a moment's hesitation. It was almost more a decision than an explanation. He'd never really sat down, before, and asked himself 'what is my purpose?' But he most enjoyed creating, repairing; he gathered things up and either fixed them, or made something new from their remains.

But maybe creating didn't suit this one-?

"Some choose to... protect others," and again he was drawing from experience--Pride, and now Mercy: "Others... grow plants, and gardens, and... tend them. Keep them alive," he explained, each word carefully considered.

"Maybe you can... explore."

Ember hesitated, then; he'd been about to address the stranger, but realized that Equinox had not given him a name. But it had said it was new (and again, he marvelled, almost in horror, at how big such a child must certainly grow!), so maybe it didn't have one?

"Do you know if you have--a name?" he asked, and then--in gentle suggestion--"Maybe you can start with that."