Marrowbound Kingdom

A bleached white deer skull, filled with salvaged black goop, eye sockets burning with a flame that fed on the matter within, surrounded by yet another configuration of the same five rat corpses he'd used for the last ten projects...

The small aye aye's face was dimly lit by the flickering flame from within one of the darker crevices of the cave. In his right paw he held a grub that had wandered too close to the smell of rotting flesh and his other hand, blackened by scooping the tar-like substance into the skull, was occupied holding his head up in boredom.

CANIS RISES! JOIN ITS RANKS!

There was that strange winged cat-thing again, yelling at no one in particular like a madman. Another bite of grub, another twinge of hunger pain diminished from inside his form. How did anyone stand it in here? Was he so odd to notice just how little there was to do? The cave had been interesting enough at first as he had found novel ways to kill and unique ways to use the bodies, but most of the talking ones didn't even do that!

Of course they probably weren't even aware of the monotony. Talking ones, non-talking ones, every single thing in the cave except for him was probably an automation of some sort. At least that was the only good explanation he'd been able to come up with. They might look like they have thought and feelings and free will, but in the end it was just a ruse. If he punctures skin would they not all react the same way?

Even if that were false it didn't really matter. Should they be creatures of actual thoughts and feelings that wouldn't change that fact that their minds were completely alien to him. He was alone in a world that had lost all its charm.

CANIS RISES! JOIN ITS RANKS!

Actually...

Perhaps he was alone. Perhaps the small amusements his early days had afforded him had faded into dust. Perhaps he would always have to exist in this perditious state. That didn't mean that he had to give up completely on finding an anathema to his boredom. The others existed; the others acted as though actions actually meant anything at all. What would happen if he pretended to be one of them? To act only on inputs, spit out only the expected outputs, to perform tasks with the goal of finding the machinery of their action? It was a useless pursuit, but how much more useless was it than creating art?

A new emotion beat at the edges of Yuma's mind, a sensation he hadn't even considered for cycles upon cycles. Interest, intrigue, excitement! This was something new! Something that could hold his attention, if only for a while. Emulate and observe the others. See how much happiness he could make them display. See how their emotions worked and how they could be manipulated reliably. If he got too bored he could always move on to a different talking creature and either kill or abandon the old one.

With a start Yuma threw the last of his grub into the deer's flaming eye and jumped up to emerge into the lit portion of the cave, a black stain on the left side of his face from the tar. There! In the distance he could see the cat-thing land. They would be the first he would observe, the first he would follow.

It took a long while with his miniscule body, but eventually Yuma made it to the base of what was to be a gathering spot for this new group.

"Canis rises." he parroted in what he assumed to be a respectful tone, bowing briefly before looking up with unblinking red eyes and a much-too-wide smile, "And with it rise its denizens."

As Yuma stood there, hands just inches off the ground in the remains of his bow, more creatures approached. First a cat, large to him but paling in comparison to most of the cats he'd seen about. Soft noises could be heard from within its body, similar to the sounds that pain made from inside his own. Talking ones expressed not liking pain, even if it was just another sensation like hot or cold. Perhaps later he would kill something small to offer as a gift. Cats really liked eating dead things with bones... except for that one cat he'd met before, they seemed like they did eat bone creatures but didn't want to eat right then.

Next approached a deer, a non-talking one perhaps? Such a strange occurrence, but perhaps to the living-things here the winged cat's call had been mesmerizing. The deer had probably brought itself here to offer its flesh to the cat-king and go back into the void of nonexistence. The aye aye would have to watch, see how a siren's-voice cat took down its prey. See! Already things were getting interesting.

Lowering down into a crouched sitting position Yuma waited. And waited. The cat wasn't making a move? Was it waiting for more deer to come? When the creature did act it was not to bear down the weight of death but rather to... greet the deer? Vianne, it seemed, must have been talking deer like the young master of the mosses had been. He'd played around with humoring a talking deer before but never kept one under observation for very long. Yet another subject for his attention!

Oh! More speeches. The aye aye's gaze stayed fixated now on their host, remembering to blink once every few beats in an attempt to look more like the talking automations. From what he could gather from the words Canis was now to become a prison to them, and should they escape they would win the game and not be hunted down. He'd spent most of his life in this chamber so that wasn't much of anything different, but it could be fun every once in a while to try to sneak out.

He said nothing in response but simply looked from one audience member to the next to the speaker with split intensity and interest.