ORIGIN

Aethril's eyes were not alone in searching the shadows as they travelled. Obieth's inherent magic had sharpened her own gaze--itself designed for picking through even the thickest shadows--and she had, with confident calm, looked through every one. There was a languid, loose grace to her movements that spoke of unconcern. She did not fear for Aethril. She walked as though this path, the path her new Hand chose, would be cleared for them by some unseen other Hand. But that Hand was her: she studied each crevice, ensured that none held lurking enemies (though what they would look like, she had yet to learn), stepped with quiet-padding paws alongside the clicking of her mistress's heels.

The eventual gift of Aethril's voice lifted her teal eyes in somewhat sluggish attention: she listened, but with a cat's indifference. Aethril was warning her not to pick a fight with a Master. She accepted this, though for a moment she debated how to answer. I will not pick a fight I can't win, was her thought, but it seemed laced with snark and in some sense, it was. And that was dishonest; she did not yet know her own power, bar to assume that it was unfathomably immense, as befit her design.

What she said, then, was a soft but confident "I understand," and she tucked Aethril's advice--command?--away for later consideration.

Then came more advice: on Overseers, on a Lord Dhracia--and Obieth tipped her head in light acknowledgment. There was the faintest flick of tail-tip back behind her; she wished to get past these formalities, these words, and move on to see what was behind this strange, pristine door. "I understand," she said again, almost sultry voice out of place on a mere cat. "Please, tell me: how will I know an Overseer, or Lord Dhracia? Or must they introduce themselves?"

Her words still came a little slow--she had to search for them, in the depths of instilled memory, but they were there.

It did not help that her mind was half-lost in rapturous wonder, still: held entranced by the soft voidlit gardens of Cepheus, the rustle of flower petals atop the well-kept trees, the rustle of white feathers on the water--and the scent, by now familiar to her, of fresh air, of fragrant blooms, of leftover tea and cooking. All of this had gripped her, held her, as they'd stepped into this cave and now--here in the palace--she luxuriated in its perfection, in its whites traced by pastel touches, in the sense of careful beauty all around.

But there was something distracting her about it, too. The doors were slightly too... arranged; the structure itself was too symmetrical. It left her, despite the beauty, slightly ill-at-ease and she rather wished to break something in it.

...She was not sure if Aethril would like that.

Dutifully, Obieth listened. She tried to imagine it: pinker skin, brown hair. It sounded... Interesting? Boring? She couldn't quite pick. The titles, however, caught in her mind--snagged like bugs in a net--and wriggled there. Obieth recalled Vargas so delicately asking if Aethril had a preferred form of address, and so she did add one question--no, two--to the little pause outside the door. "I must address them... by titles?" It was not reluctance in her tone, but a request for clarification. And then, after a moment's pondering she added, "How must I... be addressed?" Did she--Obieth--have a title?

She did not know.

She held concepts in her mind--swirling ideas without real words or images. The Black Queen. The Witch. Predator. Huntress. But none of those were her titles. Perhaps one could be-? If she could draw it to the surface enough to shape it, to put a name to the idea.

Ahh, but then the door swung open: and just a glance inside was a feast for her senses. The crisp, cool air. The silk that shivered, dangling, beneath Aethril's hand as she moved to the window to pull back the curtains. The furnitures--interesting shapes, if too Orderly for the Valkhound's liking--and the cloth, the thrown away crystals. All of it, she admired; even the mess only added to the beauty. It was... personal, that way. A unique touch, a story untold, a hint of things that had happened and things that had yet to come. And it smelled how she'd expected it to: she stepped a paw inside, and then another, lifting her head to inhale the soft scents of living, of blanket and air, of flowers outside.

This was what she had wanted, when she'd followed the traces of these odors to Aethril back in Draco. She had wanted beauty; and Aethril now delivered.

Obieth was pleased.

The lack of keepsakes was lost on her, for she had no life experience to prepare her to expect such things. Perhaps she never would; the life of a Valkhound was not usually one of neat bedrooms and knickknacks atop a dresser. And as a feline, undoubtedly Obieth would have never tolerated the latter.

Obedient, mesmerized by the beauty of the room but wary of its shadowed corners (checking, now by habit, for anything lurking or dangerous), Obieth stepped fully inside. She paced from one corner to the other, taking scent and learning the space. '...If you like it, ask for it.' She looked around. She liked, she decided, all of it. But 'the bed is mine' jumped her eyes directly to it, and a faint disappointment curled through her. It looked... comfortable; it looked like she wanted it, if only because now she had been told she couldn't have it.

Whiskered lips pursed around saber-fangs ever-so-faintly in feline disapproval. Should all things not be hers-?

She didn't voice that thought, however; instead she drifted with light feline steps to the offered swathe of fabric. Nose touched it almost at the same moment as Aethril instructed her to, her own curiosity leading her to the same movement regardless; it was beautiful, and it smelled fascinating, and Obieth simply pushed her muzzle further into it. Her tail flicked up behind her, ears flattening back lightly against her head in approval, and she shoved her face alongside it, as if to imprint its scent upon her--or her own, on it.

"Yes," she answered, honestly, simply; and then, unaware if this were merely some dress Aethril was asking an opinion on, she asked: "Is it mine?"

It was an innocent question, really, and Obieth made--shameless, without any sense of rank--for Aethril's legs next, an idle coil around the calves and knees, if the Valkhand allowed such touch. A rub, velveteen; a cat's stamp of broad approval.

This place was to her liking, as were most things in it. Not the square things--the rigid things, parallel to walls--but she could fix that later.

Mental notes were made, categorized and set aside, all with a sense of absent duty. Her attention was given to Aethril's every word--but no more attention than was necessary to retain her instructions; the rest drifted here and there along the room, and finally to the cloth and Aethril herself.

Obieth--Aethril's guard--turned again as confirmation of ownership was bestowed upon her. Her indifference shifted as the realization, mild as it was, sank in. It was her first true thing: the first thing she had ever owned, the first owned, possessed, piece of property she could claim and defend. Her attention swept back to it with a flash of teal eyes, and jaws parted obediently as she was instructed to 'take it'--how else could she? Saber teeth pricked into the folds of fabric, the scent filling jaws and nostrils, and her eyes dropped half-lidded with pleasure. "Mine," she thought; and the word rang through her mind with clarion tones of power and satisfaction.

Another rumble of a purr swept through her, flicking her bone-ridged tail up a fraction, and she glanced around the room. Possessiveness stiffened her limbs as she sought somewhere to stow her prize. A corner was chosen, after hesitation; right side, upon entry, where she could watch the door without being at once seen by an intruder. Instinct guided this snap decision, not learned strategy; but it made sense to her, and with waddling steps--the rustling cloth gathered and dragging between her forelimbs--she made her way to it. Aethril's voice played background melody as she pawed it into place, and circled atop it--once, twice, three times. Head dipped, nostrils flared, lungs inhaled. She pulled the smell into her lungs again, roamed eyes over the blue and greens and purples, and then settled atop it, on her haunches.

"This is mine," she confirmed, lifting her gaze to Aethril's, and it was passive--peaceful. There was no challenge in it, nor real gratitude, simply statement. "This place," she glanced around her corner--"this cloth. I will sleep here." Close by her mistress, to protect her as she had been charged--and also because she liked it here. Aethril would have had to order her to leave to drive her off so soon. This was comfort, and beauty, and she luxuriated in it. Like any stray brought in from a harsh outdoors, she did not strictly know that she'd been lucky; but she knew a good thing when she was granted it, and she claimed it wholly as her own.

Still, her gaze strayed--that bit of what-isn't-mine-should-be-mine drifting through her--to the bed. The real bed, the large bed, the heavy comfortable plush-thick bed. She had but a swathe of fabric, and though Aethril offered her padding, she found herself curious as to what the bed would feel like.

Without any awareness of ownership, or perhaps of the displeasure her actions might invoke in her new master--without knowledge that she was pushing the limits of authority against a Valkhand--she turned and sprang for the bed. It was not meant as an act of defiance. On the contrary she hardly thought about it. She wanted to see what the bed would feel like underfoot, if it were hard or soft, or springy; and then her thoughts were to take her onto the other furniture, as well. To see the room from greater heights, from every surface. To experience and learn it as befit a Queen.

Paws pressed to yielding cushion, the texture of soft fabric underneath sending a thrill of pleasure through the cat. It hadn't occurred to her that just because something belonged to Aethril, she could not stand on it; and the faint edge in the Valkhand's tone brought her head up in some surprise. It was unexpected, and even as she listened to Aethril's words, Obieth studied her.

The upright posture. The clasped hands. The way the palace voidlight glinted off her freckles, and the cascade of skyshine hair. The rest of her mind paid attention to her mistress's orders, and these were not a work of art. These did not bring her a purring appreciation, as the aesthetics of the room had done, or even the grace and beauty of Aethril herself. No; as she considered her commands, Obieth considered them... unpleasant.

She did not want to get down. She liked this bed--the feeling of plush comfort underfoot. She wanted to curl up atop it, and sleep, and for a moment (as she stared at Aethril, listening, considering) it was clear that the words were being carefully weighed. For a moment, even, resentment of the idea of getting down was so strong that she considered resisting, though not in any truly thought-out way. It was a mere impulse. Against that urge pressed the realization that the rest of this place--its beauty, its comfort--rested on Aethril's word.

The Valkhound would have to give up the bed. With an incline of her head she dropped down, a light spring of muscles beneath black velvet and the subsequent soft thump as her paws struck the palace floor. Eyes cut up toward Aethril, head still low in apology, though it was more calculated (for her own future comfort) than guilt. Why should she feel guilty, after all-? "I am sorry," she suggested, a faint beasty cunning in her as she studied Aethril's face for a response. Was she doing well-? Was this the right response? Her new master's feedback would tell her. "It is... not my bed."

A tragedy.

Then she stalked the other way--her back to Aethril, to the bed--and tried for the dresser, instead. It was still merely the curiosity of one exploring the room, but calculating the leap would be hard--and for a moment her leopard-sized body stretched, all cord and sinew, as she leaned up to press forelimbs as high as she could go. Forgotten, for the moment, her mistress; now she sniffed at the dresser, gauging the space between floor and ceiling, and the gap between the ceiling and the dresser top.

The black Valkhound returned to her haunches: tensed, and for a moment it would be clear what she was about to attempt. Then her muscles coiled and unleashed, springing her upward--for the dresser top. But she had misjudged, and came up slightly short, her weight landing too low along the edge to finish the neat landing. Claws raked at the wood as she scrabbled to pull herself up, then failed, and fell; what little velveteen fur she had bottle-brushed outward, pipe cleaner hairs on end as she gave in to gravity, dropped and turned and hit the ground. Saucer-round teal eyes spun to regard the dresser as though it were a mortal enemy who had bested her--and she looked to Aethril for explanation, or for help. And she moved away, too, gaining ground on this wooden fiend, bone-studded tail held low behind her.

"Why did it do that?" she asked, plaintive and resentful of this piece of furniture; "I don't like it." Pleading gaze stole back to the dresser, turning wary as she regarded its looming breadth. Would it leap for her-? Or was it inanimate completely; how had she so badly misjudged her jump?

Realizing how foolish she felt, she shook herself briefly and stalked away and toward her bed--all of this within the space of seconds--as if it had never happened.

As if she had meant to happen.

Aethril's little sigh, the untwisting of her fingers, the loosening of shoulders--it wasn't lost on Obieth. These facts were neatly pressed away, in among the garden of memories that she was now so quickly cultivating. This had been the right response, then; but why was Aethril relieved, and not simply pleased?

Curious.

The rest of the Valkhand's words sifted in among her other thoughts as she courted furniture disaster, but they were noted down. As black paws slunk back to swirled cloth (mine, she reminded herself) she glanced up at her mistress. There was almost confusion, curiosity in her. What did it matter if Aethril was in her space-? She enjoyed the touch, after all--the hand that coursed light fingertips over velveteen fur. That was... enjoyable.

"You may come into my space," she told her, a distant purr. Why wouldn't she? She had no need to draw boundary lines. In her mind, everything was hers, after all; everyone was already in her space. In her entire world.

But not the bed, she remembered, eyes cutting toward it, and for a moment she paused in her movements. 'I'll ask you if you'd like to come onto the bed,' though--that was promising, and she looked up to Aethril again. The offered pillow she took between saberfanged jaws, and this was pleasant--something about the give of the fabric and the cushioning nature pleased her. It was half comfort--she could lie on it, curl up on it, purr--and half strangely satisfying. Something about there being something small and squishy in her jaws-... It lit a fire in her gut, a faint and churning pain she hadn't noticed gradually developing.

This, she found... distracting: fascinating, but it made it rather hard to focus on what Aethril was saying. The musical notes of the Valkhand's voice were not lost on her, and she did make a mental note not to destroy the clothing hanging in the dresser. Not that she would. They were beautiful, and she paused as she was momentarily taken by the curling glints of their rainbow.

Carefully--trying to think past the new gurgling in her stomach--she focused on what Aethril had said. She was halfway perched on the half-forgotten pillow, and likewise half-upright, almost lying down, but she froze there as she repeated back a few chosen words. "This is mine. I will not... destroy your cloth. I would like to visit a--balcony," but what was a balcony? "My-..." The Valkhound turned, staring quizzically at her abdomen and flanks, and then up to Aethril.

Eating, her subconscious whispered, but she did not quite yet know how to apply that knowledge. She did not know what hunger was. The ideas were trickling back, percolating again through that pre-programmed subconscious, but they hadn't quite arrived in the here-and-now. And so she tried the word out, albeit... wrong.

"-This, is eating me. What is it?" she asked, and looked to Aethril for her answer.