The demon sat on a pile of bones, one hand beneath his chin, the others relaxed on his legs as he thought. His eyes were closed so the only thing that stood out against a sea of dark fur was the glow on his chest. It could easily be mistaken that he was asleep.

But he was not asleep. Never before had so many thoughts been pounding at his head. So many complicated thing to try and comprehend in such a short amount of time. It really wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be a simple predator - a hunter, a loner, living for himself and caring not what his prey thought of him. But now...knowing that prey could create sounds that meant something, that they could communicate with each other, regardless of their species, that they could think beyond that of simple predator and prey...incredible, despite how they vitiated what he thought he'd already known.

He had come to the realization, some time ago, that he was also one of these blessed with intelligence as well. Just...a little slower in coming on. It was a hard fight against instinct, but his mind finally won out. He could speak and think and do beyond simple instinctual needs - did this make him, what others called, a Greater? He quite liked the sound of that.

Now...why he wasn't picking up language as fast as everyone else was beyond him. But he was, at least, picking it up. His speech was fractured, warped, more repeating things he'd heard then anything, but if he wanted to get something from the Collector, he needed to master his language. Not just for that, though, he refused to be some kind of creature to laugh at, to be ridiculed for knowing too little of the language spoken. Yes, he would dedicate himself to this.

And, of course, try to remember to eat only rats.

Ischium was in an amazing mood.

A family, he had a family! Well, he already had a family, but this one lived and breathed, had flesh and blood and fur! He still loved his bone and magic family, of course, but this family was great too!

Chatter was held carefully in his teeth, the rat laughing "Easy, Itchi, easy! You're gonna knock my teeth out of my skull!" and the coyote laughed around his skull, eyes bright as he apologized, voice muffled, "Sorry, Chatter! I'm just so happy! They talk to bones too!"

The rat snorted, "I know, I was there." rolling his glowing eyes. But he was happy for Itchi, too. Sure, he couldn't talk to his friends, but if Itchi was happy then Chatter was happy. And so were Bronx and Amma, too, even if they couldn't travel out with Itchi.

Something drew the rat's attention, and he paused--"Itchi, you see that?" The coyote's ears perked, and he turned his head, seeing the big dark... thing, tilting his head to the side, "Itchi!" and straightening it up when he remembered his precious passenger.

He had never seen something like this before, and Itchi was incredibly curious as to what its skull looked like. It had horns, so maybe like Amma's? Curiosity driving the coyote, he trotted up to the Demon, having little in the way of a sense of danger, calling out "Hello! Hi, what are you?" around Chatter.

@Azrael

Something was approaching. He could smell it and, a moment later, he could hear it. Talking. Not to itself, to someone. Oh, perhaps a pair or a group. He was not at all concerned by the possibility that they could be hostile and shifted from his thoughtful pose, head lifting to sniff the air, all four arms resting on his legs.

The canine came closer and he was confused. There was nobody else. Nobody but the dog. He looked around, trying to spy someone - perhaps they were hiding in the bones, slinking by the wall...no, there was no one. Just him and this dog.

And a rat skull.

He realized all of a sudden that the dog was carrying the skull of his one and only source of food. Immediately, he grew jealous. He was hungry! He wanted that! It wasn't like it could even eat the bones, only he could eat bones! Or, at least, that was what he had observed so far. He wanted to grab it from the coyote's jaws, but he was a little too far. He stood slowly, stalking down his small bone pile to get a little closer. "Hello," he repeated. "Is hunter." Not exactly what Ischium was asking, but he didn't really have anything else to define himself as.

@Ischium

The beast was bigger than him, and scary looking, but Ischium had never met an aggressive Gembound, and so he had no reason to fear. He offered him a friendly wag of his tail, watching as he approached.

Carefully, he set down Chatter, sitting down beside the yellowing skull. "Hello!" the skull said, and Ischium's tail thump-thump-thumped.

He furrowed his brow, and tilted his head, no longer having to worry about Chatter falling apart. "A hunter? I've never heard of one before, are you something new? I'm a coyote! My name's Ischium, but most call me Itchi or Ischi, and this is my best friend Chatter!" he tapped the rat skull carefully with his paw. "Do you have a name yet? I can give you one if you don't, I'm good with names!" He furrowed his brow thoughtfully, "You look like a Fluffy." Ischium nodded his head decisively.

@Azrael

Azrael sat down as the coyote sat down, not really sure why they were doing that. He eyed the skull, but tried not to make it too obvious that he was focusing more on the bone then the dog. It was talking a lot and he didn't really understand some of it but he tried. He was just really hungry.

He picked out some words from the thing's speech and was able to understand that it called itself a "Coyote" but it named itself as "Itchi". Strange. Why have two names? Dip only had one - Dip. The Collector only had one - Collector. Whatever, he wasn't going to complain. It wasn't his name after all. "Fluffy?" Was that supposed to be a name for him? Why Fluffy? It was kind of...cute. He didn't like that. He wasn't supposed to be cute - he was a predator. He hunted, he ate and devoured. He would not be seen as cute.

He gave a harsh snort, his head shaking a bit. "Not Fluffy." He'd come up with a name. EVentually.

For now, though, he was hungry.

Without warning, one of his arms shot out and grabbed the rat skull sitting beside Itchy. He brought it up to his mouth and immediately tried to bite down, but before he could properly crush the skull in his jaws, his tongue touched the surface and he immediately pulled back. Old. Inedible. He snorted again and dropped it, not really caring if it was damaged or not, merely assuming that it didn't mean anything to the dog. "Hungry," he rumbled.

@Ischium

The massive thing didn't like Fluffy, then. "Okay, not Fluffy. Uh... Wings? Scratchy? Glowball? Wait--?!" he let out a high-pitched, screaming cry as its arm jolted out, grabbing Chatter, the rat-skull crying out "Itchi!" pleafully.

"No, please! He's my friend!" he sobbed, but already Chatter was falling, and the coyote lunged forward, managing to grab the top half of his skull in his mouth. The jawbone went bouncing, and Ischium barreled over to grab it before it could be lost, carefully setting Chatter's upper half on top of it as best he could, hunching over his friend.

"'m okay..." the rat muttered, feeling vaguely queasy. The coyote whimpered pitifully as he looked up at Azrael, feeling betrayed as he asked, "Why did you do that? He's my friend!" but the monster was already answering, and he sniffed, "You could have asked, I could have helped you get food."

@Azrael

He was greatly surprised when Itchy suddenly screamed out and he immediately stood, wondering if someone was attacking of if he'd seen something strange. But his sudden dive forward to protect the skull gave him an answer...and not one he understood.

He watched him as he hunched over the bone, sobbing. What was the deal? He'd never actually seen anyone crying like that before and was a little freaked out by it. He made a deep, uneasy sound in his chest and shuffled back a bit. "Is bone," he pointed out. "Friend? Is bone!" Bones could not be friends. Bones were not alive.

Maybe there was something wrong with him. Did that mean that he could eat him?

He abandoned the instinctual thought a moment later. Itchy might be weird, but he could think. He was not allowed to eat people that thought. He could only eat rats. Still, he was very confused.

"No need help," he retorted, gruffly. He pointed at the rat's skull. "Is rat bone. Rat food. How friend?"

@Ischium

Ischium pressed his nose against the top of Chatter's head, sniffing as he checked over his brother. His tongue darted out to lick over the dry bone, taking in the familiar, dusty taste, shaking himself off. "He's my bone-friend," he agreed with a whine, "My brother, just because he's bone doesn't mean he's not my brother."

He pranced in place, jittering all the while, yipping "He's bone, you don't eat bone! I'll help you get food just don't eat him!"

@Azrael

He grew a little agitated by the lack of explanation. He'd asked nicely for some kind of answer, but the dog had responded with nothing that made any sense. Bones could not be friends. Bones could not be brothers, not that he had any idea what that word meant. "No. Bone not live. No understand. How bone friend if bone not live?" As if to demonstrate that bones were not alive, he reached to his side and grabbed a random skull from the floor of the room, holding it out in front of him. "You live?" The bone did not respond.

Even so, he waited a moment before holding it out to Ischium for a moment. "See? Not live." He dropped it, the old, fragile skull shattering as it hit the ground. He crossed one of his sets of arms across his chest, the other grabbing his knees as he leaned forward. "I eat bone," he retorted. "New bone. No old bone. Don't need help," he repeated. "Hunt easy. Watch." He got to his feet and hopped down from his little perch and crouched, his large nostrils twitching as he scented the air. There was a rat nearby. He could smell its warmth. As he stalked forward on four limbs, shadows began to expand around him and darken until he and a small area around him was completely shrouded.

A moment later the shadows lurched and there was a high pitched squeal as he snagged the rat. The shadows melted away, revealing the demon clutching a medium sized cave rat. He marched back over and sat himself down where he'd been before and bit down on the rat's head, biting it clean off, skull and all, crunching quite loudly, demonstrating to Ischium that he could, in fact, eat bones.

@Ischium