He'd been practicing his speaking skills lately. Like, a lot lately. Remembering words that Dip had spoken and sounds that the four-limbs-two-wings and the ungulate had made. Repeating them, discovering their meaning, stringing them together into very basic sentences that, at the very least, had some meaning to them.

He hadn't yet left the bone room - why would he? The pickings were good, with plenty of rats to choose from, and it was small enough that he would run into people to talk to. He found that he liked talking with people, even though he wasn't yet very good at it. Although instinct demanded he be reclusive and lonely, he seemed to gravitate towards company.

But now he was alone again. He mumbled to himself, repeating words to get the feel of them stuck in his head, before he stopped, realizing that he wasn't really sure where he was now. He snorted, his nostrils flaring as he glanced around. He hadn't yet been to this part of Canis. "There?" he called into the emptiness. His eyes raked over something odd, then. Carvings on the walls, markings of some kind. Hadn't Dip said something about this?

Curiously, he stepped over, reaching forward to touch the wall. How strange. For a moment he wanted to cry because this was obviously yet another language he had to learn. Was the language of sounds and noises not enough? Now he would have to learn how to read pictures and paintings and carvings on the walls?!

"WHAT MEAN," he roared at the wall, as if expecting the stone to give him some kind of answers. He looked like he was ready to start smashing the rock in his frustration.

It wasn't exactly the most coherent way he'd been called upon, but the Collector wasn't one to judge.

There was a creature standing before a particularly carving. The carving was one that featured himself, and it was one that he'd been summoned to once already in the past few days. So when Azrael started his huffing and toddler-level word-belching, he neatly appeared behind and a few yards off to one side.

"Ahhh, yes. 'What mean.' An excellent question," he agreed.

A long, robed arm swept out, claws extended, to point to the nearest carving--featuring him. "This one is about myself, being captured in a stone. And that one," he went on, sweeping his arm to point to another, "implies that the Masters consume... well. Fecal matter. It is hardly a polite artist," he added, and folded his arms to eye the carving in question thoughtfully.

He didn't seem to know, or perhaps to care, that Azrael might not comprehend everything that he was saying--or even most of it, really.

@Azrael

The voice behind him scared the beast enough to have him whipping around with a high-pitched yelp. He talons came up, ready to fight someone off, but the thing that stood before him showed no hostility. He did not catch the slightly mocking tone, but he at least understood the words he had said repeated back to him. He slowly forced himself to relax, but he stood in an almost half-crouched pose, in case something did happen.

Had Dip seen this before? Had she encountered this creature? Was that why she had led him here? He narrowed his eyes, following the claws as the robed creature pointed at the wall. "Captured. Stone," he rumbled thoughtfully. How was one captured in stone? Perhaps like a very large stone egg. Or maybe a hollow wall with a boulder over the entrance. His eyes followed to the second drawing. "Masters?" There was a word he had not heard yet before and sparked something...almost like disdain in his chest. Masters were those that ruled over the masses, those that claimed control and he did not like that thought.

He turned his head back towards the robed creature, glowing eyes merely slits in his face. "What you?" he huffed. "How stone captured?" The effort of speech was, at least, there.

"I am the Collector. They captured me by using my own magic against me, rather cleverly. I have many magical things; I trade, you see. Tasks for... gifts." One clawed hand extended, gesturing; an instant later a glittering, topaz-beaded necklace appeared in one palm. Then he tucked it away, back out of sight--perhaps just demonstrating the concept of "gifts."

@Azrael

His top hands wrung together while the bottom ones hung limply at his side. He considered this for a moment before nodding, understanding. He had said the words "magic" and "capture" together - they had captured him with magic. That certainly seemed possible - after all, Dip could make the ground shiver and he could bring darkness and light. There were stranger things that could happen for sure.

He flinched and leaned forward as the topaz necklace appeared, grunting loudly. That thing was shiny! It wasn't prey, of course, and it wasn't something that could help him hunt, but it was pretty and he wanted it. "Gifts?" he rumbled. "Want. Want gift." Another guttural huff. "What to trade?"

The Collector had learned, from long experience, that there was a sort of minimum mental capacity required for usefulnes. At least, usefulness to him. Some very young gembound, capable of speech but too naive to understand what he was asking of them, were of use to him.

This one was not.

It had already killed other Greater Gembound children, so he couldn't ask that of it. And anything more complex wasn't liable to be understood, or carried out.

"That," he therefore responded, "is something we can discuss... when you are older. Return to me when you have mastered language, and we can perhaps work out a deal, hmm? And you can decide what sort of things you might like..."

He was tempted to just ask the kid to punch himself in the face for the necklace, but that might tip him off againt other, later, better prizes.

@Azrael

He glared at the Collector, frustrated that he was refusing. "What?!" he growled. His claws flexed at his side, but the very small part of his brain that was sensible held him back from doing anything rash. The Collector was, after all, right. He had not yet mastered language. He could barely piece together any words at all. He grumbled for a moment, not wanting to admit that he was so far behind, but eventually, with wounded pride, he submitted.

"Accept," he rumbled. "Master language. Come back. Collector give gift." Perhaps he had misunderstood that mastering language wasn't guaranteed to give him something, but at least his primitive mind had figured out that learning language would get him something good, even if it was a step towards getting something good.

So he lumbered off, wondering if there was someone that would be able to teach him. Or perhaps he could find Dip. Or simply learn it himself.

*exit