The Tower was quiet today. It seems everybody had been feeling the monotony, waiting for the next order. The Shepherd is not the kind of animal to wait. It simply does, and deals with consequences after.

But Shepherd now and the Shepherd then are separated by a long, stretch of time. Now he's waiting for something too.

Something internal, at least. He turned the Howlite in his claws, watching it catch light. Maybe he needed to will it into doing something? This wasn't just a rock, after all. There was something alive underneath. He could reach it. He could change it.

A warmth was growing from somewhere in his spine, flowing through his nervous system, travelling to where his atoms met the Howlite's. It was a gentle wave through him, also meditative-

No. He was better than this.

He willed it, and that warmth became a surging, hungry fire. It burned, but he would not waver. Not even when his Bauxite began to creep along his body. When The Shepherd was content with his work, when he finally dropped the stone from his talons, his chrysalis had already eaten its way up to its neck, getting to work swallowing his head.

The gem clattered to the floor, rested there, and began to take root.