It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Alpha had searched the caves, high and low, hiding from other gembounds like a shadow. Never before had he been brought so low, and part of him wished for the caves to take him away. Had he been a less stubborn canine, he might have given up. Without his Omega, the world seemed daunting and overwhelming. Even as he grew into his own, he found an endless sense of emptiness.

His purpose was nothing without others by his side. What kind of Alpha could he be without others to call his own? The only company he had was his magic, and even that he had been shy to use in case it drew attention.

For now, he lingered in the quiet, cool cavern of Tunnel O. The humidity kept other gembounds from settling here, but the moisture also allowed for fungi to grow hungrily at his feet. Now an adult, he often took down cave deer in Eridanus, let loose his fungi upon the carcass until nothing was left, and then fled before anyone took notice. There were older, more powerful gems in the cave-- and he knew he had to wait until he had the prowess to take anyone on.

It was cowardly. It was wrong. The process itself made him feel sick, a bitter anger a constant in his stomach. There was a loathing that surrounded him like a dark cloud, his hatred poured inward on himself without someone to lash out towards. His fur bristled at the slightest of sounds, and his hunts grew into gruesome kills, practically torturing the wildlife.

He was never meant to be a lone wolf. It was destroying him from the inside out.

table and code © chelsea of ORIGIN

Nyx Dawnwalker put on your war paint

Nyx, for better or worse, lacked the natural fear of wolves. Where she retained the curiosity in her genes, she'd never grown into her destined fear of canines, owed to the fact that she'd been born among them.

Thus is shouldn't be surprising that she did not hesitate for long before approaching the wolf in the Tunnel O. Curiosity drew her in, experience stopped her before coming too close, leaving the other gembound his space to breathe, react, back away.

Thw wolf's white, thick pelt seemed unfit for the feverish chills of the Tunnel, but Nyx's short fur allowed her to thrive in the dampness of the air. She was taller than the cave deers the wolf preyed on, prouder too.
The crude set of antlers atop her head - twisted, gnarled branches of bone && dried blood - served to set her apart from most other deer anyway, gembound or not.

"Sadness doesn't suit you, dear." She said, her dark eyes gazing into the yellow ones of the wolf. There was a heavy sadness about him, regret, perhaps, or something comparably heavy.

"Listen to me."

table by lisa

@Alpha

Alpha reached out to his only companions, the sparse mushroom life that litered the floors and walls. His vision cut out as he closed his eyes, instead using his sense of touch to understand the world about him. For a moment, it was silent, and then in the next...

He felt someone. Something. He did not hear them, not immediately, but the fungi was disturbed by a force drawing closer. It was something large--

A voice beckoned to him and the wolf nearly leapt out of his skin, lips drawing back as he tore away from his magickal bond to the mycelia, his focus locking on to the massive beast of a deer immediately. This was no ordinary cave deer, but the urge to kill came to him like a wave of crimson bloodlust.

His ears laid back and he let his jowls and hackles down, snorting at the fellow greater gembound. "I'm not going to play pretend for your sake," he shot back roughly, rising to his feet and lifting his heavy ax-laiden tail.

"Who even are you?" He asked her-- judging more from her voice than from the antlers on her head. Something about them seemed unnatural, anyway.

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@Nyx

Nyx Dawnwalker put on your war paint

Between Nyx && the wolf, she seemed to be the only one with an inclination for being polite. Well, she'd tried.

"I wouldn't ask you to." The fallow deer said, her voice carrying indifference to the matter. She could be caring just as much as she could be ignorant, to her, they were but two sides of the same coin.

A lopsided smile appeared on Nyx face. "Didn't anyone ever teach you to introduce yourself before asking for someone's name?" She asked, though with amusement in her voice. The deer wasn't mocking, but definitely amused at the other's defensiveness.
One would think a wolf would act more suave when faced by a deer.

"My name is Nyx, dear. Would you tell me your name too?" Nyx inquired eventually, curiously watching the canine with her dark, knowing eyes. It felt odd to be the one acting all calm as a herbivore in the presence of a carnivore, but Nyx liked the feeling. It was power, in a way.

Maybe that came with the maturity, though. She was definitely older than the other gembound. How many cycles, she wondered.

"Listen to me."

table by lisa

@Alpha

The wolf sneered at the delicate doe's polite indifference, tipping his chin up at her. Just who did she think she was? The boiling anger coalesced at his paws was fighting for dominance over his urge to hunt the prey creature, torn between outright torture and an unending hunger that bit at his ankles. Yet Alpha did not consider for a moment, not consciously, to attack her. It was a fool's bargain to give her a taste of his power at the sake of his pride, at least right now.

Finally she gave her name, despite his attitude. Nyx. She also had the nerve to call him dear, but in spite of everything else pissing him off, he couldn't add that to the list. She seemed like the kind of gembound to just call everyone sickly sweet nicknames and act like a kind mother, and he couldn't manage much more than thinking it was obnoxious.

"I go by A," he announced, sternly. His true name, Alpha, hadn't seen use in cycles, and he wasn't about to give it out to a noisy stranger. "And anyway-- you interrupted me, not the other way around. If I went around harassing people, I'd have the decency to let them ask who I thought I was without preparing a whole lecture."

As much as he was a complete and absolute mess, he definitely appeared to be determined to look tough while being a disaster in front of anyone else. He held himself high, even as he waited for a response, not moving an inch in his dominant stance. His golden eyes were locked in that steely gaze; his muscles not tense nor lax as though he practiced holding himself this highly regularly.

What little pride he had left, he held it tightly, even at the expense of looking like a total snot.

table and code © chelsea of ORIGIN

@Nyx