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WELCOME, [UNIDENTIFIED USER] !
> load file:THREADNAME.txt
Accessing document . . .

Shoving its way out of the chrysalis was an infuriating process. It was claws that broke free first, then its head, sending quartz chunks onto the jungle floor. Brother gripped the sides of the hole it'd made and heaved its bulk out. It was infuriated; no one was supposed to be able to kill a predator. This predator. Him.

But, he was better than most, yes. He'd re-emerged after being hunted, that made him stronger. Better than those he hunted, surely. It had to be.

Most importantly of all, he was starving. There had to be something to eat, to consume nearby. There must be. There had to be.

He would not die of starvation. He refused.

Nothing sparked. Instead, the gembound stalked through the jungle growth, hungry and clumsy. Determined to find a meal.

Save file ? ( Y / N )

Rex turned as he heard something crack. He hadn't seen the quartz chrysalis, even though he lived and roamed here. The jungle was so thick anyone could hide meters away and never be seen at all. But the crack and soft thuds sparked his curiosity. He didn't recognize the sound of a chrysalis gradually being broken open, or the sound of the pieces impacting the soft jungle floor.

He paced over, padded feet fairly quiet, though inevitably a few quiet cracks emanated from underfoot as he picked his way through the thick underbrush. What he found, after a few minutes, was... an empty chrysalis.

"Huh," he said aloud, head tilting this way and that in a birdlike manner as he regarded it. Then he looked around, trying to figure out where the probably-Gembound that had emerged from it--recently, judging by the goop--had gone.

After a moment he spotted the footprints. They were like his! Excited, and hoping to Kihan that it wasn't just a Squallfang (he was very, very wary of those), Rex set off down the path they laid out.

"Hello?" he called, head raised high and eyes wide in almost puppy-like enthusiasm. "Is someone there? I'm friendly, I promise!" (Because he'd learned that being the size of an elephant with teeth the size of bananas tended to put new friends off, just a bit.)

art by Gortys, edited by me!

@Brother (unless you want more chars to join, of course!)

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WELCOME, [UNIDENTIFIED USER] !
> load file:THREADNAME.txt
Accessing document . . .

At first, the spinosaurus kept soldiering onwards. It was hungry and needed to eat now. It didn't have time for friends, it needed something non-thinking to devour, or maybe a particularly annoying thinker to wolf down instead.

Then, it stopped dead in its tracks. Had that Squalfang just spoke? And more importantly, had it not eaten him when it had the chance? And why was it not the usual colour? Where were its frilly bits? It said it was friendly? This required much more thinking than his peanut sized brain and starved stomach would allow. Instead, Brother turned to look up at the odd Squalfang; moving closer through the jungle to squint up at it.

He tried, and admittedly failed, to not think about how much this creature would fill his belly and instead considered the large gembound for what he saw before him. Big. Oddly him shaped. And teeth, big ones. Perhaps it wouldn't miss those tiny arms, they didn't look useful and there was a bit of meat on them--

Brother shook his head, "Hungry." He grunted at the Strange-Squalfang.

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@Rex

Rex paused as the stranger stopped. He peered down, blinking: were they... a kid? He couldn't tell. The creatures of Lacerta tended to look much the same as hatchlings and adults, just... scaled up or down (with the exception of baby Devilbeaks, which he'd always thought were unfairly adorable).

He very carefully put his foot down (he'd been mid-step and didn't want to trip on Brother) and considered. "Hungry? Sure, um. Do you eat meat?" he hazarded. His yellow eyes flicked down over the spinosaurus's toothy snout. It looked like a meat-eater to him. He wasn't so familiar with fish-eating creatures, being land-based and all, but he looked up and around. "Hmm."

He tried to cast out his magic; he often used his actual senses, but this kid(?) seemed kinda desperate, so Rex sped up the process. The sound of heartbeats pinged, strongly off in one direction, and he glanced down with a kindly expression before setting off carefully around Brother. "This way," he said, confidently, and strode in exactly the wrong direction. His magic thrummed, completely misfiring, broken, sending him toward delicious nothing.

"I'm Rex, by the way. Have you got a name?" he asked, tone gently friendly. He kept his pace measured, trying to gauge if Brother was able to keep up.

art by Gortys, edited by me!

@Brother

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WELCOME, [UNIDENTIFIED USER] !
> load file:THREADNAME.txt
Accessing document . . .

He didn't consider himself much of a follower, or a kid. Brother didn't consider himself much of anything, simply a leader and a predator; a complete oxymoron of himself as he trotted to keep up with the larger Rex-The-Odd-Squalfang.

Brother grunted a sound that vaguely sounded like agreement or approval; truthfully, he'd never considered what his diet was supposed to be. He was hungry, he ate. The leafy foliage he'd seen sycthorns and pugnas eat simply didn't have much appeal. That, and he'd never successfully eaten a fish, that would require catching one, which he had not.

"Brother." Another grunt, this kid spoke with the same tone and cadence as a caveman.

Determined to be of some use, he reached for that same energy that let him hear the heartbeats of other. He really reached, but as he craned his head, he heard nothing but the footsteps of Rex, not even his heartbeat. Brother imagined Rex would have a big heart, powerful, that thrummed as heavy as his footfalls. He was starting to salivate.

Hunger had never felt so oppressive before; he'd had the patience to sit next to Sibling while it consumed whole meals before Brother would have a scrap. But now, he was certain it'd take everything in him to not snatch the meal and consume his sibling too.

"Starving." He gruffed in Rex's direction; as if a single word could express the complexity of his hunger.

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@Rex

"'Brother?'" Rex repeated, bemused, with a friendly glance back (as far as his muscled neck would allow, anyway). "That's an interesting name! You have siblings, or something?"

Rex was aware that plenty of Gembounds just sort of adopted a name at random. He, himself, had felt like a 'Rex' and so he was. But 'Brother' was specific, to him: it indicated a relationship to another, not something random but built off of a family link.

The poor kid (tentative designation, in Rex's mind) was starving, though, and Rex squinted a little and paused, looking around and sharpening that magic sense he'd used. Almost at once he recognized his mistake, or maybe the creatures he'd been tracking had just... moved?

"Sorry. Let's move faster. This way," he said, more softly.

Now he showed that part of him that was predator--not to intimidate, but to truly hunt. He dropped a little lower, moving fast and smooth, his padded feet creating chunky but surprisingly soft thumps on the jungle floor. His head was held low, his body more stiffly alert as he pressed forward. It was something small--devilbeaks, maybe, or pricklebacks, but if he could get a couple at once, it would (he hoped) keep the spinosaurus fed.

He drew nearly to a halt, then pushed forward ever so slightly, so that his snout pushed through the fronds and perforated leaves. "There," he breathed, intent on the sight ahead, though if Brother was the sort to act first, it seemed Rex was still assessing the situation.

art by Gortys, edited by me!

@Brother

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WELCOME, [UNIDENTIFIED USER] !
> load file:THREADNAME.txt
Accessing document . . .

The first question seemed to inspire a rare urge within Brother, the urge to talk. Despite the hunger souring his mood, he nodded. "Sibling. Love Sibling-thing. Has many shapes. Sibling very hungry."

They weren't eloquent words, but it was certainly the most it had spoken willingly, without a sense of needing to. But, it was true. He did love his sibling, even if it was greedy. He was greedy too. They were perfect siblings.

Brother first watched Rex-The-Odd-Squallfang as he dropped low; he'd seen some of the other wildlife on Lacerta do this. Something must be close. The spinosaurus followed suit, perhaps unaware that his brightly coloured sail poked far above the foliage -- after all, nothing else on the island that needed to hunt had a sail. There was nothing to learn from.

He followed in Rex's steps, unable to hear what the Odd-Squallfang was hearing. For now, the larger gembound was his guide as he followed in his much larger footprints through the jungle. Yet, as patient as he was in the following, the moment the signs of food came into sight, he couldn't help himself any longer. He was starved.

Breaking through the foliage, he snapped at the first thing that moved. Jaws snapped shut on air, once, twice. Then, they snapped onto something with flesh and fur. Something he could eat. So overcome with the relief that he wouldn't starve, he hadn't noticed his catch was a prickleback. He took one big bite before a strange, odd-tasting sensation hit him.

The fur- he'd bitten into its fur.

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@Rex

Rex lurched out closely after, wincing in pity as he closed jaws for one of the Pricklebacks, himself. His jaws had slammed shut, just about instantly crushing the life from the thing, and he lifted and shook it for good measure. He then stood tall, turning toward Brother--and his little golden eyes widened as he realized what Brother was doing.

He spat out his Prickleback and lurched toward the Spinosaurus, and to Brother it might've appeared aggressive for a moment: like he was lunging for Brother, or Brother's kill. But he spoke an instant later, and the alarm was clear in his voice. "Oh sh-oot, no, don't eat it right away! You gotta pull the fur off! Like-" and thankfully he turned away a little, instead of grabbing his jaws for Brother's own kill. He pinned the Prickleback under one foot, and with a pinch of his front teeth, and a horrific rip, pulled much of the dead Lesser's hide away to expose the muscle beneath. "Trust me, you don't want that in your mouth. It sticks," he added, wincing.

He tore a bit of the meat (of his own kill) away, gulped it down, and kicked the rest of it to Brother gently. It seemed to him the Spinosaurus was a lot hungrier than he himself was, and he settled back, little arms working idly at the air, as he made conversation and waited for Brother to eat. "A sibling, huh? They look like you? I guess you hatched here, yeah?" he added, friendly. So much of the caves seemed so much... smaller than Lacerta's beasts could be.

art by Gortys, edited by me!

The ground, very softly, thumped.

Then, it thumped again.

How strange.

A single call--distant, fluting and musical--drifted through the jungle. It wasn't clear what had made it: it sounded like the Sailfins, only... much, much deeper, plunging beyond the audible register partway through and leaving them with infrasound rumbling in their bones.

@Brother

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Brother made a wretched hacking, trying to get the fur out of its teeth. Surprisingly, he didn't seem upset by Rex's motions or words; no, this was a learning experience, and he'd come here to learn. He had to, to survive. "Yeth--" Brother lisped as he stuck his tongue out and scraped the fur from it with his claws.

"Not like me. It has not eaten me--" Yet he paused, turning his head this way and that. Then, no matter, it didn't seem important for now -- not to mention he was still starving.

He turned his attention to the now-skinned prickleback. Wolfing it down as if it were the only meal he'd ever had. Yet it did little to settle his hunger, even as he tucked into the most nutritious parts of the meal. His stomach still ached for something, for what?

Perhaps the sounds of calling would be a more satisfying meal. Brother looked towards Rex, trying to meet his gaze, then looking in the (admittedly wrong) direction of the noises.

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@Rex