The cub half expected the gembound to either remain silent and not understand him or to leap forward and tear him apart. Instead, the three-headed dog began to narrate a couple of sentences. Usui listened to the other’s reasoning without attempting to correct him. The lion felt that he was stronger than the puppy in front of him right now in more than one way but kept these thoughts in his head, being extremely unwilling to start a fight for now. Most of all, the boy felt it odd how the dog was almost whining for food…but at least it knew how to hunt. Baratheon huh. The lion cub gazed ahead as he spoke of how the lizard had stolen his lizard. "Well yeah I’ll get you some grub,” he muttered, empathy for the young growing within him. "Not because you’re stronger. It’s out of goodwill.” Having said that, the cub turned tail and vanished into the darkness.

The cave of Polaris held critters like snakes, and mice. The boy attempted to cast his magic to sense if lesser gembounds were present. His magic stuttered for a moment, then weakly stretched outwards across Polaris. Perhaps the golems were interfering with his frequencies. In his mind’s eye, the boy saw a pawful of mice scattered throughout the cave. He chose the one closest to the side of the cave, not wishing his hunting activities to awaken anything else. It gave off an extremely faint greyish-green glow which he followed dutifully. Walking past a bunch of crystals, Usui spotted a tiny grey furred body tucked into one of the corners. He lowered his haunches and with a growl attempted to swat at the mice. It ran away, and Usui gave chase to it with a couple more swats. Soon, one of his paws smacked the rodent down and he picked it up, half-dead, and trotted back to the dog.

Once there, he placed the terrorized, half-dead, squealing rat beneath his right paw and asked all three heads, "Which head shall I feed?”

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

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Whatever "goodwill" was, it was getting the cerberus pup fed and that was good enough for him. His snake tail began to wag, each head settling down amongst his wide, creamy white paws while he waited. His ears twitched, listening to the sound of the hunt. It was long before Usui returned and the heads perked up, panting excitedly, wriggling on to his feet.

Kerberos, while having three distinct heads that all spoke to one another, seemed to consider himself one beast-- to be fair, they all shared the same body more or less. An injury to one ear could be felt through every head, although it was always sharpest to the closer head. Of course, when the lion came back with a half-dead rat and asked which head was going to be fed, this seemed to spark a loud, violent argument between all the heads. He was quite hungry, each and every last part of him.

"Feed!"
"Hungry, gimmie!"
"No, I want it!"
"Come on!"
"Toss it, toss it here!"
"Hey--!"

The heads snapped at each other, briefly, before pink and red nose stopped, blinking. Floppy orange ear sunk his teeth into the middle head's large, tall ear, but didn't bite too hard when it started to hurt. Instead, he just gently tugged at his own ear, making a fierce attempt at a threatening growl at himself. "Wait." "Food mine... Just eat?" At this, he finally let go of his own ear and nodded slowly.

Kerberos looked back at Usui with each set of eyes, lips drawing back. He was starving, you see, so he wasn't about to argue with himself for too long. Not when the smell of rat filled the air. Oh no. Instead, he lunged forward-- thankfully more interested in the half dead prey than the lion-- but, as per usual, Kerberos was horrible at pouncing. He stumbled and flopped in front of the lion, still a clumsy, awkward shaped puppy after all.

Today, Timby felt a little adventurous today. He wanted to explore the caves a bit and not to just stay in Orion. He wandered all the way from Orion(where he was born), through Tunnel I, and to end up here. He had no idea how he knew the other names he guessed it was another natural feeling.

He loved exploring, and as he walked he wondered what sort of things would happen here. Probably new faces and experiences. The closer he got the more excited he became! However, he got curious when he heard conversation already.

He stepped in the cave a bit and he felt energized. As if this cave gave gembounds more power. He also what he saw when he stepped in was a lion and a.. three-headed beast. He didn't step in any farther because he was terrified of this animal. Hoping it didn't know he was there.

All heads started to quibble for the grub, just as Usui had expected. He jotted this down mentally and took note of how the center head seemed more rational. He briefly wondered whether the three heads would all converge into a single opinion when they were older. Not much room was left for thought though for they started to bound forward with bared teeth. Usui immediately scooped the rat into his mouth and dodged the furry tumbling pile, pale green gaze bearing down upon them. "You say please.” Then, he pushed the rat to the middle head, and continued "and thank you.” What a tumbling puppy without manners! The boy sighed and, raising a paw to his head, rubbed his temple.

Just then, he heard someone approach – not too far off, yet slinking in the shadows. Leaving the three headed beast to its mouse, he padded silently to the corner and was surprised to see a sheep. The lion glanced back towards the three headed dog, then back to the sheep, his eyes urgent, tone hushed and projected only to the sheep, but rough. "Y’ need’a git’ outta here now.” Usui wasn’t so sure that one mouse was truly sufficient and he didn’t want this lamb being the next experiment.

He had heard the lion tell him he needed to get out of there. He looked at him then the beast and back at the lion then got out of there. However, he knew he couldn't run quickly because the beast would probably hear his hooves clacking while he ran. And he didn't want the risk of being chased.

So he just quietly slipped away..

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

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It was, as luck would have it, the lamb's lucky day. Not a single head noticed the lamb, nor even Usui, because now he was scrambling at the rat and fighting with himself over it. The rat was tossed to the middle head, but that didn't stop the others from fighting over it. Teeth gnashed at one another, growling and barking-- it wasn't long before the half dead rat was very dead, torn to pieces between a tug of war between three sets of angry muzzles. Blood soaked the white fur of the beast, more wild animal than proper gembound-- it seemed like, somehow, though he was larger and more dangerous than the prey animals here, he was stuck somewhere between the intelligence of a lesser gembound and ones like Usui or Timby.

Not that he would understand that in a million years. His tail swished as the dog, through his angry fighting the poor rodent was devoured in the messiest way possible. Bones crunched in his teeth as his attention slowly drifted back to Usui, tail swishing, energy renewed. He was still hungry-- his hunger had no end, as far as he knew-- and he dropped the remains of the splintered bones to the ground. He sat up, licking his bloodied lips, and continued to wag his tail.

"More!" "More?" "More now!"

Thankfully, the sheep listened to his advice. After casting a few looks at each of them, it moved away as discreetly as possible. Usui ensured that it had truly walked away from sight before swivelling his head back to face the three headed dog which was making an utter mess out of the meal. He sighed and padded back to Kerberos and watched it devour the last morsel of the shredded, now unidentifiable corpse. When all three heads were done and nothing but blood stained their muzzles, the pale beast once more turned its gaze upon Usui, who returned the gaze in a rather unimpressed, neutral fashion. "That’s all I’ve got,” he spoke to the expectant dog, his tone matter-of-fact. Now that Usui had gotten Kerberos’ attention once again, he decided to ask him a question, "Where’d you come from?” Usui gazed at all three heads curiously, very much interested in the history and mannerisms of this beast.

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

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"Want more," was the curt, frustrated response that Usui received immediately. His tail lashed, anger bubbling up in the oversized pup. However, it seemed like the other heads had actually listened to the question, and although the middle head nodded to agree with red-nose, it seemed the farthest head was actually considering it.

Tilting his floppy eared head, he woofed softly, "Green. From rock... The rock was red, yellow?" He asked the other heads, although he only got a snarl in response from the opposite sided head. "Hard, red, yellow. Broke in pieces."

Orange and pink nose slowly turned to Usui, grins on his muzzles. Red nose snarled and went back to prodding and messing with the mess of blood and bones at his paws. "Came from green place, across the water." The place could really only be described as green. Everything was green where he hatched, overwhelmingly so. Maybe that's why he had left. He was more of the red meat kind of gembound, after all.

"Where'd you come from?" The middle head asked back, eyes narrowing like he was considering eating him again. Which, to be fair, Kerberos was constantly doing with everyone he met.

The lion shook his head when the puppy quipped that he wanted more. He might have felt like dropping some ominous words like “there is NOTHING left” but he didn’t want to upset the younger gembound, and so had proceeded with his questions. The heads gave him answers in terms of colours – red, green, orange, yellow. Green for his location with water, and red and yellow for the chrysalis. There wasn’t anything odd about Kerberos then, he was just like one of the other gembounds. Usu nodded, and mentally noted these things. The middle head questioned him then with narrowed eyes, like he was sizing him up. The lion was unperturbed by it, and merely let his pale green gaze fall onto the middle head coolly. "I came from some swamp. Hatched out of black. No big difference.” He had thought Kerberos, with his odd physical appearance, might have been the key to creation but it seemed highly unlikely now. He then looked around the area which harboured nothing much other than water. "What’s there to do here?” he asked, gaze falling upon the crystal river. He wondered if Kerberos was here for a swim.

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

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Swamp?... Kerberos had no idea what the heck a swamp was but it didn't sound fun. He shared a few glances with himself, but then his eyes spotted just where Usui was looking and the pup let loose a (small, high pitched squeal of a) roar, moving between the lion and the water.

"No!" He snarled, tail lashing so violently behind him that his whole body swayed with the movement. "No water!" He snapped, baring his teeth. "Cold. Water bad." The dog lowered into a bow, or perhaps some kind of stalking crouch, ears laying back on each head as best as they could.

The large white dog seemed determined to keep Usui out of the water. Perhaps it was because he had lost his lizard food to the water... Or maybe, he was actually trying to prevent Usui from getting hurt. (It was likely the cerberus didn't want his mean being ruined.) Still, he seemed quite determined to keep the cub out, either way.

"Anything but water. Okay?"