Mit Livs Eventyr [RWBY]

No creature remembers how it was born, but that is especially true for the likes of you. It's so long before you even attain the concept of Memory, longer still a solid grasp of the concept of Time. Hunger comes next - there was a certain drive that could be mistaken for it before, but it was automatic, as thoughtless as breath. Now it is a Desire, a Craving. You find yourself yearning constantly for your next meal, and in doing so form the concept of 'Tomorrow'. Tomorrow you will find more prey. Tomorrow you will find carrion not too badly picked-over, Tomorrow you will find a fox that barely escaped a trap with its life, Tomorrow perhaps you will find a sickly rabbit too weak to flee. Pain follows soon after - the burning, tearing agony as one of your betters bats you away from its prey when you get too close, and the gnawing pangs as you begin to starve. You Fear that perhaps you will die, if not now then Tomorrow, and in doing so one more concept nestles itself in the formless recesses of your mind.

You are patient. You lack the capacity to be impatient. You feed, slowly and surely, clawing your way up the chain of nature. You grow stronger every day. The first time you taste the flesh of your own is an act of opportunity - you find one in the woods, weakened and wounded but still clinging to life. You do not hesitate. You do not know why you would. Its wounded bellows are quickly silenced as you dine on its shadowy flesh, as you draw scraps of Want and slivers of Desire into yourself. You become More from the consumption in a way you cannot place, for you lack the words. All you know is that you crave the sensation, more prey to fill the hollow inside. You hunt, and you hunt, and with every link you climb you change. Soon enough you are no mere scavenger, no cowardly carrion-eater. You are a predator. You are not one, but many. The shadows beneath the canopy are yours and now, now it is all but the greatest of your own kind that bow to you.

One night, you Dream. You have never Dreamed before. You suspect you have never even slept before. You Dream that you are somewhere you have never seen before. There are no trees to block the sky, midnight black without a star to be seen. No roots to bind the soil, shifting and gritty and grey as ash. You stand at the edge of a lake bigger than you have ever seen, so vast that it touches the sky far in the distance, dizzyingly deep and dark as the night.

Something rises from the deep to greet you. One of your own but... greater. Far, far greater. It is only small and slim, the size of a hunter, pale as alabaster and draped in something to cover and protect its soft skin. But even you, dirt beneath its feet that you are, are not simple enough to be fooled. You have seen its kind before, a pleasant lure held outstretched to tempt prey into the dark. You have done the same many times. You know without looking that a cord of shadow connects the beautiful lure to something far below the waves. Something dark and old, with a concept of Hunger that would swallow yours like a grain of Dust.

It speaks to you, both close enough to touch and incomprehensibly distant. It touches your mind, cobbled together so painstakingly after so long, at last evolved enough to its words. It speaks to you as a subordinate and you obey. It speaks to you of a Purpose, and the concept takes root within you. You roll it around, consider it like a shiny stone. Purpose. You have a Purpose. It is like Hunger, or Survival, but... not. It is important, more important than you can understand. All that matters is that it be fulfilled. That you do your Duty. You nod silently, obediently. Of course you will fulfil your Purpose. Your Purpose is paramount.

You leave when you wake, and you travel. You venture beyond your hunting grounds, beyond the forest itself. Tomorrow becomes Tomorrow becomes another Tomorrow until at last you see your destination. A forest built by prey, the trees towering tall, wrought of steel and glass and stone, teeming with morsels, but you cannot feed indiscriminately. Your better's voice weighs heavily on your mind - there is only one type of prey you are permitted to consume, just one, and more will be revealed to you. A precious reward, a feast for your aching belly. You flit through the shadows between pools of unnatural light, swarming your way up sheer surfaces thick with handholds and outcroppings. A small opening cracked ajar, as if beckoning you. You slither through like smoke, barely nudging the pane of wood and glass, and spill down to the ground within like oil. Rising, scanning, catching the scent. Your quarry is close. It is so, so close that you can already taste its perspiring skin, smell its ignorant contentment. Closer you flit from shadow to shadow, peering through a crack.

The prey has its back turned. Soft and helpless like the master's lure. You open your many-fanged maw so wide that your billowing form splits in two, and swallow it whole.

You swarm up the chain as your mind spirals down, down down. Sight, sound, every sense, shut off in an instant as you plummet forever in a dark pit where Tomorrow cannot arrive. Pain behind your eyes, shooting and stabbing, making you groan- a voice? But you had no voice. You reach out and grasp hold of- of-

Shivering. Shaking. You have form. You have shape. You are... Something. You grip the cool, smooth shape before you and force yourself to rise. Hunching over it to support your weight - you have never had mass before. Chest... moving. Breathing. Breath. Lungs. Heart, pulsing, pumping. What is this? What has happened to you? What are you? The pulse races - is this how prey feel Fear? You force your new head to rise and you see

You.

Glass, but not glass. The world behind it is the world you stand within. The thing you see moves with you, matches you. Is you. Thoughts, words, concepts, swirl and catch in your mind like a flurry of falling hailstones. Names for the things you see, that you now have. Lips parting in silent shock, bright blue eyes blinking. Yellow hair. Skin, soft and weak and pale. The glass -mirror- fogged by the lingering steam of its... shower. You slowly raise your hand and touch the glass, as if you could reach through the mirror and touch your unfamiliar reflection. The fog spreads from your fingertips, obscuring the prey -boy. Youth. Man?- before you. You blink once more and-

"What?"

A voice. A voice with words. Your other hand goes to your throat, fingertips tracing the harder bulge beneath the flesh, bobbing as you swallow.

"Hhhh... aaaa?" you say experimentally. You feel your throat buzz and thrum. "I. Am?" You have words. You have a lot of words. The prey you killed knew more words than you knew existed. And now you know them. You know more and less - hurts to think, hurts to comprehend. Concepts should be simple and slow and defined. This is messy. This is confusing. This is wrong.

The new body's heart begins to slow. Settling into a steady, rhythmic thump. Your hand trails down to your chest as you feel the beat, feel the thin traceries of blood flowing beneath the skin. Is this how it feels to be solid? How do prey stand it? It is almost deafening.

You stay... calm, whatever that is, and you peer deeper into the mirror. Peer past the bright blue eyes of your reflection and into the prey's mind, into the half-digested thoughts and memories settling in your gut.

Your body's name is Jaune Arc, and it was meant to go to school tomorrow.

[ ] Explore this 'body'. Do your old abilities still function? Can you still divide? Can you even still feed? If you cannot, that will be a... Problem. Best to discover one way or another as soon as possible.
[ ] Lie down and attempt to Dream. You have done as your greater commanded, and your mind is more complex - for better or worse - than ever. It -she- did promise that more would be revealed to you once you had consumed the indicated prey.
[ ] Explore the prey-made forest. It is nothing like the one you left behind, full of such strange and curious scents and sounds. Perceiving these new things with new senses could help sort through the jumbled concepts the prey's mind, enhance your understanding.