The beast sat within the shadow that seemed to follow him wherever he walked. His glowing eyes were staring out at the cave of bones, blinking slowly as he considered. Thought as far as his simple mind could think, tried to work through what he knew, what he didn't know, what he felt like he should know. The first thing he knew: he had to eat. He seemed to be constantly hungry, preying on anything that crossed his path, no matter what it was, what sounds it made, or what kind of creature it was. What he didn't know was the distinction between what he should and shouldn't eat. That was clear.

And that was what he thought he should know. How to tell the difference. How did everyone else tell the difference? He had not understood what the predator before had said, but it had made noises at him and acted not like any prey he'd chased and devoured before, nor any predator that he scared away from his meals. And the ungulate that he had been hunting, it had not run. No, it had turned to fight, even when running was still an option. He did not understand.

But this was not the time for this. He was too hungry to think. The beast abruptly stood from where he was and called the darkness to thicken around him. He did not notice, in his focus, that, instead of the darkness expanding, the glowing on his chest grew brighter and many of the shadows thinned. He breathed in as he searched for his prey. Something was close. A rat, perhaps, those smelled like that, did they not?

He leaned forward, dropping his bottom arms to the ground to aid in his stealth as the rat was revealed behind a pile of bones. Thinking he was shrouded in shadow, he did not attempt to hide himself. Naturally, the rat caught sight of him quite quickly and scurried away before he even had a chance to prepare his lunge. He growled with frustration and stood back up. Perhaps he shouldn't think. It was just getting in the way.

@Siren

Serendipity wasn't sure what she thought of this room.

It must have been the one Laurel mentioned-- the bone-room --for it was, in fact, covered in bones. Piles of them, like there were piles of garbage in tunnel J, littered the room, and there was a massive pit of them in the near distance. A part of it-- a deep, instinctive part of her --told her it was wrong.

She had a feeling that she wouldn't find the Thing with Yellow Horns here, but it didn't hurt to look. This didn't seem like the right place for it, but you never know, right?

For a moment, the small humanoid spent her time walking along the circuit, carefully avoiding bones and murmuring to them-- "excuse me, sorry, pardon me" --as she went. She'd only gone in a wide circle, past the fortresses and the chamber and the long walls with things written on them, when she decided it was about time to go.

That was, until a rat skidded right by her feet.

Not that Siren was an opportunistic hunter or anything, but free food was free food, if she could catch it. She did notice a glowing, winged, sort-of-like-her-but-with-a-gross-face thing lurking nearby that must have startled the damn thing, but it didn't entirely cross her mind that he was trying to hunt it.

Channelling her magic she tapped out into her gemstone and a force came out of her feet and into the floor, surging for the rat and killing it in a clean, blunt strike. Some rocks around it had shattered and crumpled too, but the rat was too big to have the same effect.

Not that it mattered.

She padded over towards it, picked it up with a grunt one one hand, and drew her knife with the other. She glanced warily to the demon nearby, blinking. "Are you meant to be doing that?" She asked, bewilderedly.

@Azrael

Something caught his eyes. Something moving, something purple. Purple things were not normal, he thought. Brown and black and gray were normal. Not...purple. He didn't move as he gazed at it, watched it kill the rat that had escaped him. The glow in his chest was dying down to normal levels now, but the shadows did not seem to thicken around him. This displeased him - he felt exposed in the light, but he was too busy to concern himself with that right now. The gears in his primitive head were twisting and turning trying to figure out this new puzzle. Was this prey? Or a predator? It looked young, but it was still tall, almost his size. Perhaps, then, a predator, but it looked weak. No claws, no wings, nothing that made it seem like it was, in any way, strong.

But it had killed that rat. And he hadn't. Predator, then.

He didn't want to deal with another predator. Not after the strange four-legs-two-wings creature that had fought him off. He would rather hunt easier prey to sate his hunger. But as the need to hunt crossed through his mind, the mental conundrum that he was trying to work through returned: what was prey and what was not? The sound it made, the way it sounded was so familiar to the sounds that the ungulate and the four-legs-two-wings made. Perhaps that meant that it was something other then simply a predator.

This revelation was absolutely groundbreaking to the beast. Never before had he even considered there to be more to the world then the split of the hunters and the hunted. He wasn't going to leave now.

He didn't answer the creature's question, more out of a lack of ability to say anything then disinterest in answering it. He walked forward, a little slowly, eyeing the creature strangely. As he got close, one of his hands came up in front of him, reaching closer and the eye in the center of his palm opening, curiously gazing over the creature's body, as if looking for some physical mark that made her different from the other predators he encountered.

@Siren

"Uh," Siren offered magnificently as Azrael came closer. In turn, as a clawed hand extended towards her, she craned her neck back until her chin was touching the soft edge of the yellow sarong around her shoulders. "Hello."

In that moment Serendipity decided; he was either mute, stupid, or a lesser gembound.

... or maybe all three?

Didn't mean one couldn't be polite, at least, and this one wasn't trying to eat her. Serendipity instinctively pulled her best, Most Polite smile as she got to the familiar work of skinning the rat. She put the knife away onto the makeshift belt around her waist, and clamped her other hand over it.

Both hands flared up with golden flames-- and for a while she stood there with the skinned rat smoking and smoldering over, cooking. It smelled nice, at least-- and when she could no longer bear the heat, she peeled her hand away, ripped off a thick haunch, and set it neatly into Azrael's palm.

"Food, see?" she explained, as she ripped off the second thick haunch and placed it there too. Serendipity then got to work on eating her share, watching the animalistic gembound with dimly-lit eyes.

"I'm Sirendippity," she said. "Or Siren. You got a name?"

@Azrael

His inspection of the creature seemed to garner little fear. Perhaps, then, he was correct - some creatures were different. They were beyond their instinctual pattern. This deeply disturbed Azrael - everything he'd known in the past few days of his life was completely turned on its head now. And also, the most important question - which was he? A simple predator? Or something more?

He lowered his palm, the eye within closing and he crouched down curiously, watching closely at what this purple thing was doing. Why was it tearing the skin off the rat? What was the purpose? Could it not digest it? Did it not like the texture? He watched a little sourly as it was simply discarded. He liked eating the skin.

The hands around it confused him further. He recognized the smoldering magic that he had used against the four-limbs-two-wings, but this thing was not attacking her. It was quite dead. He grew increasingly concerned as a strange smell wafted from the meat and the surface turned a dark color. Why was she doing this? Why not just eat it as it was?

As she handed over the first haunch to him, he reached out a clawed hand and watched as she placed his shares within them. Curiously, he lifted one of the pieces with his second right arm and sniffed it. It still smelled like rat, just...a little different. But it did not matter. It was food. His jaws opened wide and in a single bite ripped off half of the meat, crunching right through the bone, and the second, only seconds later, consumed the rest.

He did the same thing with the second haunch before licking his palms clean. Still hungry. That was not enough. He eyed the skin that Siren had dropped and one of his arms suddenly shot out and grabbed at it. He ripped it into chunks, devouring it in three separate pieces, licking off the excess tufts of fur from his lips once he was finished. This all happened in the span of about twenty seconds.

He stared down at Siren, as if nothing had just happened, wondering if there was a way to thank her for sharing her meal. He had not met predators before that willingly shared in such a way. He considered for a moment, trying to remember the sounds she had made, a rumbling in his chest beginning as he tried to replicate them. "Foooood," he grumbled. A pause filled with the same deep-toned humming. "Ser...end....ip...itee."

@Siren

There was something absolutely ridiculous, Serendipity found, about the way this thing was staring her while she made food. It reminded her of Dread in a way, except Dread would have started yelling something along the lines of 'what are you doing' by now.

Well, Dread would have been placated by the fire, but that was far from the point.

He seemed to be eating his share fine, at least. Half a rat wasn't enough for her either, but there were plenty of rats in the caves. She could probably find another if this thing were even worse than she was at hunting and--

Oh.

Oh he's eating the fur.

Serendipity's brow furrowed as she watched, for a moment. "I mean," she began quietly. "You could do that. It just smells bad if you set the fur on fire and the smell doesn't really go away for a long time." It was pretty disgusting, really-- and the food didn't cook with the skin on it, either. It just sort of went on fire.

And then, the creature was speaking-- which meant it was probably just stupid. Which, in Serendipity's mind, made a whole lot of sense. She nodded quietly to herself. "Yeah, rats are food," she confirmed. "You cook them and they taste a lot better, and they're easier to eat. But big things like dragons, or things with sharp teeth, can just eat them raw. I got weird teeth and raw stuff is too chewy."

The chances that Azrael cared for Serendipity's ramblings were slim-- but ramble she did.

"Yeah, Sirendippity. Or Siren. Or Dip," she said. Dip was likely easier for this thing to say, anyway. She turned, wandering further into Canis with a yawn, rubbing the remains of rat juice off her hands, leaving the bones in the pile. "C'mon, let's find more food."

@Azrael

There were a lot of noises this time and the beast completely gave up on trying to follow them. Not that he had even really understood anything from before, only replicated what she was saying. Apparently, though, it worked, since she made even more noises. Trying to work through body language and how she was pointing to the rat carcass and how she repeated words, he attached the particular sounds to things - "Food" referring to the prey and "Serendipity, Siren, and Dip" referring to the creature herself. "Dip," he rumbled. She was right - that was easiest for him to say.

But she left most of the carcass untouched - only the meat had come off but there was still perfectly good bones and such. Both right arms came out and grabbed the remains, thinking that, perhaps, she could not eat them either. He stood as well, holding the bones in his hands and devouring them quickly, disregarding the loud crunching noises that eating bones made.

Once again, he ate fast and was done in less then 30 seconds for the whole thing. One last swallow, but still...he was hungry. He followed Dip, although his mind was telling him to "leave" and find his own food, food he didn't have to share. But at the same time, she had hunted for him - he wanted to return the favor.

However, the darkness seemed to be stubbornly clinging to its ideals of predator and prey - a predator was out for themselves, after all, and hunting for another predator went against that logic. And so, he stayed as he was - a monster, but a very visible one.

@Siren

Serendipity nodded along helpfully-- "yup, Dip!" --as she wandered along the circuit again, bare feet padding against the cave floor. She was still careful to avoid the bones strewn across the room, but she had a feeling that whatever-this-thing-was cared very little for them, considering he snapped up the rat bones with a series of unpleasant noises.

She missed the weird donging of Laurel.

She missed Dread a bit, too-- but this thing seemed quite similar to him. She would have preferred the dragon, who could at least speak to her, but Siren refused to let her cheerful mood falter. It wasn't exactly long, either, before a rat came clattering from a pile of bones, skidding across the circuit nearby.

Tapping into her magicka again, another force came out, spiralling along the cave floor. It cleanly sliced what femurs and fingerbones lay in it's way and it cut through the rat's spine, crushing it with an unpleasant sound. As it lay down, limp, Serendipity went to pick it up.

And then, meticulously, the still-warm prey was handed off to Azrael. "You like things with skin and bones still on it, so maybe you should take this one," she explained. Half to be nice, half because she didn't quite feel like skinning it right now.

And off she continued, wandering the circuit, looking for more food.

@Azrael

The demon watched with curious eyes, raising one of his hands to see with a third eye as well, as Dip snapped a rat's spine with what seemed like not effort at all. Not even a touch. Magic, perhaps, similar to the like of his darkness? Interesting, but he was still determined to pay her back for the food she offered.

As she offered the whole rat to him, concern crept over his expression. This was one-sided. It was not fair. She was hunting and giving to him and he was giving nothing back. That was not how it was supposed to be. But still, he was hungry so he reached forward and took the rat with both of his right arms and proceeded to bite of its head.

He made quick work of the whole thing - not a single piece was left uneaten and as he walked he licked the last of the blood off of his hands. It was time, now, to make up for this hunt, and the last one perhaps.

He made a low, gruff sound, almost like a chuff, and looked away from Dip. His nostrils flared as he breathed in, his chest glowing stronger for a moment before his whole body was suffused in shadow. Something caught his scent and he stalked away, walking on four limbs towards the source of the smell. Another rat, but this time he was going to catch it. He was silent as he approached, in enough shadow that the rat could not see him. And when he pounced and bit down on its neck, it had no idea he was even there.

He stood and returned to where he had left Dip, offering the rat over to her. Another thought came to him - she had been making strange expressions at him, baring her teeth but it wasn't in a hostile manner. The edges of his mouth twitched for a moment before he grinned, revealing rows of sharp teeth and long, long canines. It was a start.

@Siren

It seemed darker now, somehow-- had the lights gone out? --But dark enough that she couldn't see where her new "friend" had gone.

She knew he'd taken the rat, and she heard him eating, but where he was was a complete mystery. There was no sign of the remains of the rat, either, but at least she had a vague idea of where that possibly could have gone. She shuddered. No one should eat hair, man.

She could have sworn she heard him moving away, but if that was the case, then nevermind.

Serendipity looked down, tracing the faint outline of bones on the ground. They should be in the ground, surely? Who ran things around here? Who was keeping them above ground?

Staring at bones was enough to keep Siren both occupied and in the same place long enough for Azrael to return with a rat. She smiled quizzically at his expression and took it with a "thank you."

Meticulously, as she always did with food, she skinned it-- tossed the skin to Azrael --and then planted her palm over the carcass. Her hands lit up with fire, piercing the brief dark, as it cooked the rat-meat through until it started smoking. Then, she ate.

"So, uh," she said between bites. "Do you live here? What do you do for fun? Talk to bones?" Probably not that, she realised not a milisecond later, given that he didn't speak at all.

@Azrael