The fawn walked into Polaris, elk hooves clacking onto the floor with glass-like fragility while talons scrapped gratingly against the ground behind him. Click-click-click-ssshrrrrrrp! The rhythm droned on, hypnotic and ethereal. Holding high his head of antlers, Rafael cast flickered his dove grey eyes around him calmly, absorbing the the lovely sight of the cave lights and glimmering water. With a little chuff through his moist wet nose, the peryton walked towards the river's edge, one slender elk hoof placed gently in front of the other as he lumbered in otherworldly gait. Shoulders rolled with slick muscle while withers moved forward in a suggestive, rocking movement in sync with his pace. Rafael reached the edge of the river and bent his head forward, staring into the innocent child-like eyes that gazed back at him. The deer proceeded to dip his tongue in and trace circles with his reflection, moving in perfect motion with the faux peryton which stared back at him.

lol dont mind me while i steal all your threads...

----

Magdalena was beginning to venture out further and further. Expanding the number of individuals she had met and consequently tracked, she was growing more comfortable leaving the safety of Monoceros and exploring the rest of the caves. While she couldn't see their extravagant features, she did take in everything else about them. The unique smells of each cave room and tunnel, the feel of the air - damp, dry, hot, cold? - the texture of the dirt beneath her paws. She began to memorize the paths she took between the rooms, remembering how many footfalls it took to travel through tunnels and coming to recognize the types of bacteria that festered on each wall.

While Magdalena enjoyed exploring, she was less fond of doing so alone. That being said, it often felt like her groupmates were too busy to show the blind girl around. She feared aggravating or inconveniencing them in her newfound discovery of the world. Magdalena knew they had business of their own to tend to, so she minded her own. Besides, the blind girl hadn't encountered any danger yet. As far as she knew, despite the warnings of her companions, the cave was pretty safe.

When she entered Polaris for the first time, she could feel it. She surge of magic through the room, the tug on the internal fauna inside. A swell of energy. She tread carefully, hugging the walls but at some point had veered away to follow the edge of a river. Magdalena reveled in the noise of rushing water. It was new, and gentle. Melodic. Her lips curled in a grin. Slowly the long legged dog walked until she heard an indiscrepency in the water's movement. Another creature? Magdalena paused and sent forth her magic, probing for the other creature. She detected him and froze, slowly turning her head to the peryton on the other side of the river. Unfortunately, the blind girl was already quite visible. She said nothing, uncertain of what kind of beasts this room was home to.

(Finished)

A muted, swirling picture of the peryton stared back at him as he traced circles with his reflection on the water’s edge. Up, down, left right, one swish to the right for torture, one lick to the top for the kill. Then, his eyes looked up and he saw that his antlers had been blasted away, leaving two sharp, jagged horns in their wake, still decently sized and curved like the branches of a tree. Rafael snorted and pawed the ground, amused, then tilted his head left and right in an attempt to identify the various perspectives one might have of this new rugged appendage. The gembound was not utterly vain though and soon dropped the act. Deciding that he had enough of water for now, the peryton lifted his head gracefully and turned around, balancing his slender body upon sharpened hooves, and then his gaze fell upon a puppy.

Though fawn he was, Rafael had a taller and longer stature than this pale, blind creature. He walked towards it. Click, click, shrrrrrp! Dragging his talons behind, aggravating the metallic sounds that now wafted in the air clinging onto it with a shrill musk. The peryton tilted his head to the side, then the other, soft grey eyes making sense of this girl. Girl, yes, a sickly one, yet so…beautifully imperfect. He snorted gently, a huff of air released from his nose as he neared, feeling a sense of possession washing over him. The pallid, long fur tinged with a hint of pink coupled with her long fur and slender muzzle appealed to him very much. She was a dainty creature, carved of perfection and yet, reeked of bad blood.

"Nice….very nice, he commented, raspy voice like a hawk’s but with an elk’s melodious vibration, as he neared the ghostly dog, curving his body and circling mid-range around her, smirk playing upon his lips. Rafael shifted in then, attempting to bump her shoulder with his chest in a patronising, teasing manner.

Logic said she should have spoken out, asked for the creature's identity, speaking the phrase that had been with her since her emergence. Maybe then she would have known that he was a stranger for sure, or that he was a possible danger to her - perhaps his words would have betrayed his motives, and she'd have the chance to run. But run where? How? She realized that she was blind in an unfamiliar cave; a stranger just as much as he. The rocks beneath did not know her paws and the lives would not reel back and forth at her presence, only quietly persisting, knowing her as an observer. Magdalena's nerves tensed as suddenly she felt him move, leaving the place she had detected him at, and she struggled to follow him. A light clatter of hooves - and then the slow, cutting groan of sharp talons against stone. A sound that made her hair stand on end.

Magdalena's head slowly swiveled, tuning in to the sound of his feet against the ground and trying desperately to understand what the beast was. The footfalls sounded of Nemesis, of Fire, but the agonizing scraping of claws made her think of the birds she sometimes heard exploring Monoceros. His voice rang out, grating against the air and twisting her insides - sly, but not like Louie. Dark. Foreboding. Her ears twitched slightly, that long, sloped muzzle of her pointed downward while her blind eyes struggled pinpoint him. As he moved, she moved in turn, curving her body away in the direction she found safest.

Then he suddenly swept in close. She felt the brush of his hide against her fragile chest and jerked backwards, away from the thing. Her haunches curled beneath her as she leaned away and her head tilted to the side, but in all truth, Magdalena didn't know how to defend herself from such an apparent threat. She felt the churning in her chest, and out of instinct, she coughed -

Post-Roll Edit:
A light, gentle break in the silence, expelling a quiet cloud of life. Whatever, whoever he was, she would know him. Do to her what he may, she would know him.

________________

This place was strange to him. Glowing lights and the gentle rush of water, and the shuffling of strange stone-things beneath a vast crystal far ahead.

He wasn't sure he should be here. He was seeking the thing-that-had-run, and secondary and related to that, the lion-called-Usui, who could perhaps aid him in deciphering the carvings on the walls. The walls that had spoken to him, and shown him shadowy creatures, dabs of squabbling ink that built and carved and fled.

These thoughts ran through his mind, broken at length by a sound.

Voices. The dog paused.

He pricked up large and pendulous ears for a moment before padding onward, heading toward them. They did not sound loud, nor hostile. Perhaps they would know where to find the thing-that-had-run, or the lion-called-Usui. In any case he did not intend to interrupt, not yet; and as he saw creatures near the edge of the water, he paused some distance away to observe. There was a thing with feathers, and talons, and long slender legs. It was brown.

There was another thing, one of fur, pale, and it, too, was borne on long, slender legs.

Black waited, silent, watching and listening from a distance. It wasn't out of caution so much as instinctive politeness; he would see what they were doing, and then he would choose a proper moment to approach.

________________

The moment his shoulder rumpled the tassel of fur upon her chest, she shied away as though she had been prodded with an electric rod. Rafael brushed past her smoothly then turned around, talons clicking onto the ground, eyes rounding with empathy like an innocent dove. He clicked his tongue in a tsk tsk tsk manner and gave a gentle toss of his head as he followed after her patiently, slowly. He had all the time in the world. He could wait. The fragile girl had backpedalled on slender legs which quivered beneath her sickly body and the peryton knew the dangers of having contacted her. Even touching her might have unforetold consequences, and so, he flapped his wings twice, sending gusts of whatever bacteria which he envisioned could be released from the girl’s wet nose back towards herself.

Rafael shook his body then, shoulders to withers twitching and convulsing in a smooth ripple of skin and sinew like he’d been attacked by flesh-eating fungi. No scars remained but he remembered the pain, so sweet and delirious at the same time. "Ooohhh” he shivered, and straightening his torso, shifted in towards her. “It hurt?” he rasped, then attempted to nuzzle the slender cheek of hers before withdrawing himself into a civil distance from her, squaring his slender frame before hers a metre or so away. He blinked a couple of times, slowly, revelling in every twitch of her muscle, every line of tension and anxiety traced over her delicate, beautiful features. Rafael feasted his eyes upon this dessert staring blindly right past him. “Rat or cave deer?” he asked genially, and tapped his hoof upon the ground.

Her cough was returned to her with a light gust of air. Out of nervous instinct, she made the move to try again, unable to accept that he had known of her intentions or that she could possibly fail. He was a threat to her, and she wasn't going to let him get away unscathed.

Only before she could focus on mustering up another culture, his voice rasped against the silence, raking unseen claws against her already quivering heart. Her head shifted slightly and her blind eyes struggled, trying to find him, trying to fixate on him, as if she could fool him into thinking that she could see him - the attempt was pathetic, paltry even, as she could not isolate his form. Whatever bacteria she detected, it was in him and it was everywhere else, confusing her already on-edge mind. His question, It hurt?, no, nothing hurt, she was not weak. She was not vulnerable. But she was, and her shoulders quaked while her lips very slowly began to pull back in a reveal in clenched pale teeth and pale gums.

When he moved forward to nudge her cheek, she didn't know what to do. The nerves that fired in her brain told her to snap her teeth at him, and so she did, turning her head slightly in the direction from which he had come and clicking her teeth into the air. She missed him, of course; but it was a warning. And if he decided to try her again, then a promise. She did not like the way he approached her, or spoke to her, or made her tremble. Her tail coiled defensively between her haunches, and his question was again met with silence, and a defiant snarl that very carefully crept its way onto her lips.

________________

He could not hear the words, but he could see their effect; he could see the graceful white dog coughing and cringing and snarling, the larger stranger bumping her and circling.

A guardian first and foremost, Black decided that now was the right time to approach. He padded forward, heavy and expressionless, speaking as he approached.

"The Black Dog seeks the one known as Usui. Does the White Dog, or the creature-which-troubles-it, know where the Lion-who-Knows is?"

As he spoke he approached close, but not too close, pausing perhaps two feet from the pale stranger, eyeing her briefly but curiously. Her pink gums and bright teeth were bared, and he shifted his gaze to Rafael, blue-grey eyes piercing but his own wrinkled face utterly stoic.

"Does the white dog require aid?" he added, large head tilting slightly to one side.

It didn't occur to him to even worry about danger to himself; he was no hero or knight, but his purpose and duty was to protect, and he was merely an embodiment of that duty, in his mind--no real and personal being. Were she to respond yes, then she would have what guardianship he could provide, regardless of all else.

Of course, there was still the matter of finding Usui.

________________

Rafael clicked his tongue impatiently when the girl bared her fangs at him and he shook his head. "No, no no. Rat or cave deer?” Once more, the question which he’d glossed over would hang in the air. Before he could get a reply, a black dog emerged from the shadows. The peryton tilted a head at him, gazing at its stoic features with pale eyes. Rafael pawed the ground and snorted, casting his glance from one dog to the other. That’s what they were, all dogs who belonged to a dumpster. Genially, he got up and tossed his slender muzzle in the direction of the black dog."I do. See, I am offering her rat or cave deer and she refuses to eat a morsel. You should feed her, she’s emaciated. Poor creature.” He chuffed and, shaking his head, then stepped gently away from the white dog, hips swaying in perfection with arched haunches as he took steps towards Black, elk hooves click-clacking deliciously against the floor. Rafael didn’t bother casting a backward glance at the shivering white creature. He’d had enough fun today. The tease was always the most thrilling. Once things escalated and died down, the fun was entirely gone. No, he was content to keep today’s events as they were.

The peryton drew nearer to the dog. Usui? Hmm…lion. That’d be a rather worthy opponent he believed though he was not intent on engaging in battle unless provoked. "No lion, no Usui. You should get moving.” Rafael nodded towards the dog, dismissing him, then went back to the river to lap at some water.

He was persistent, repeating his question only to receive yet another snarl from the blind dog. She curled her tail between her haunches and tried to follow the sound of his clacking hooves, listening, twitching her ears, until another creature had revealed itself. She raised her head and instinctively swung it in the direction of the third, wavering for a moment before she pinpointed him and pointed her nose towards the massive voice. The white dog, the creature that troubles it? Magdalena could only assume that he was speaking of herself and the beast that harassed her. He spoke of Usui, that was a name she recognized - he was looking for Usui. Magdalena could help with that. Anything to get away from this creature that stalked about her.

At his question, Magdalena was torn. She nearly leaped at the chance to say 'yes, help me', but the strange beast spoke first. He replied in short temper that he was trying to feed her, as if Magdalena clearly knew what he was talking about when he asked her rat or cave deer; she huffed and shook her head slightly, and as he moved closer, she stepped away. After the peryton advised the dog to move on, Magdalena moved forward. "I know Usui. I can take you to him." She answered with a tilt of her head. When she met the lion, she'd infected him with her own brand of bacteria; it helped her to track him down later. Though it might not be so useful if they were in different rooms, she could only hope that he was here in Polaris, and she could feel the tug of his cultures.

Even if he wasn't... at least it would get her away from this thing.