[Indigo]

Clink. Rattle. "Oh, Pe-et! Food!"

In the corner of the temple, invisible to all but the most curious of visitors, a Skycracker Kuhna stretched and yawned. He blinked sleepily in the half-darkness of early evening, tugged at his worn collar to make sure no one had tightened it, and made his way across the floor to the metal bowl the monks had filled with cat food. He sniffed at it, sighed, and began to eat.

It wasn't that Pet didn't like his current circumstances, exactly...but they were so boring. Oh, yes, a few people sometimes wandered in here, and when they did they usually gave him a scratch behind the ears if they happened to spot him. And that was exactly the problem. He was, no matter how much he tried to delude himself, just a pet, and he would never be treated as a rational person capable of thinking of much more than food or sleep. He didn't even have a real name, only the demeaning moniker of "Pet", and he could no longer remember the name he'd had when the monks had taken him in. They kept him chained to the wall on stormy nights or when large groups of people came in, thinking he might be startled and run away--as if that could ever happen.

All he wanted was an adventure. Was that too much to ask? He wanted to get out of the calm silence and stillness of the temple, to run, to explore, to fly! And he couldn't even make a little attempt at flying, with no one to teach him how. No one understood what he wanted when he scratched at doors and windows in silence, afraid to speak after all this time in case he'd forgotten how. He wasn't sure he could even make understandable sounds in any language, really. He'd been at the temple since he was a young kit, and had never spoken a word in all that time, even though it might have gotten his needs fulfilled faster.

At first it had been out of childish fear, thinking that perhaps the monks would throw him out again should he say something amiss. After a few days that had turned to respect, having noticed that most visitors never said more than a few words to his devout rescuers. That had lasted until he'd gotten old enough to be restless, to feel the need to explore. Then he'd been silent out of defiance, in an effort to dash their hopes that he was old enough to make noises apart from those created by his breathing, thinking that this would make them set him free. Who wanted a defective Kuhna?

But he'd been so very wrong--the monks had continued to care for him, now partly out of pity for his supposed mute state. And for a while his defiance had lasted, before it turned to a new kind of fear. What if he'd actually become mute, his voice dried up from years of disuse? He knew he'd been able to talk before, because he remembered conversations with his parents. But perhaps he'd been silent for so long he couldn't speak anymore.

And so he remained in the dull temple, eating his cat food because it seemed to make the monks happy.

[Indigo]

Oh, yes. Of course. The first time he'd been let out of the house on his own, and he was lost.

It was his own fault, he knew. He's been startled by a large predator out there in the jungle--not scared, mind you, just startled--and instinct had, unfortunately, taken over. After his mad dash for safety, of course, logic had reasserted itself and was trying to come up with a way out of his current situation. He talked to himself as he thought, in his own strange language, clacking and clattering his teeth as quietly as he possibly could and occasionally miming something or other for his own benefit.

Such was the way of a Mimebones such as Cli-kctr-asct-rct-clip, known in non-Chombones languages as Claptrap. Born without a tongue, as he supposed many others of his kind were, he had a fairly simple time communicating with other types of Chombones, who all knew the clicking speech of teeth as well as the strange, garbled words of their kind. Talking to members of other species had proven more complicated. In addition to a simplified form of his normal clattering, he also mimed those concepts that he could, and occasionally was forced to write out his intentions. The latter was used only in the most drastic circumstances, as Claptrap was somewhat illiterate. Of course, once he was allowed out more frequently, he would probably be able to take classes, which was the logical thing to do.

Although he'd been living in the house for a while, he had as yet been kept inside while the others who called the place home got used to his odd language. Now he'd been allowed to leave and had decided to explore the wilderness, because it made sense to learn the territory. What if one of his newfound friends got lost somehow? And he'd gotten lost, of course, as has been said. He cast about for somewhere, anywhere, he might find a map or directions. Finally his eye sockets lit on the temple, standing there so unexpectedly.

He wandered inside, enjoying the coolness of the air compared to the heat outside. There were several monks here, he found, and as he gazed around the temple, two of them came up to him. He did his best to communicate with them, resorting to his minimal knowledge of Morse code when his chatter confused them, and growing frustrated when they still failed to understand. Now, if ever, he wished he could speak normally.

[Indigo]

Pet tilted his head back to swallow the last of the cat food. He appreciated their feeding him, he really did, and he never went hungry, but the stuff was incredibly hard to eat. He had chipped more than one tooth on the flat discs of kibble, as one or two of the monks called it, and the crumbly bits that were the smallest he could get them down to caught in his throat and made him cough. Occasionally they brought him a chopped-up fish, a variation he was grateful for, although they seemed to have trouble cleaning it properly. Still, he could handle a few entrails if it meant something chewable.

He shook his head at the monk who inquired if he wanted more--though he never spoke, they had gotten the idea that he could understand spoken words--and looked around for something to focus his attention on. Generally, when not eating or sleeping his boring days away, he would fix on one particularly interesting object and make up stories about it until he got tired, bored, or hungry. As his eyes passed over several statues he'd used for his entertainment many times before, he saw a curious creature stroll into the temple and look around.

It looked a bit like a Kuhna, he thought, at least in body, although it was completely covered in black and white stripes, and its ribs appeared to be sticking through its skin. Its one tail was bent at a sharp angle and looked, overall, as if it had been broken and the end chopped off. The creature's spine was on the outside of its body, and its head was basically a massive, sharp-toothed skull with pointed ears. Although it had no eyes, only the sockets, it nevertheless seemed to be taking in every detail of the temple.

Pet was suddenly desperately curious about what this thing was.

As he watched, a pair of monks went over to it and began talking to it, asking it what it had come for and if they could be of service. The thing nodded its skull, then began clicking its teeth startlingly loudly. At first it seemed to Pet that the clacks were random, but soon he realized that there was a pattern to them, though he couldn't imagine what it could mean. Occasionally the creature would act out something or other. At one point, all its fur stood on end as it ran in place. When the monks failed to understand, the pattern of its noises changed, until finally Pet could see that the monks and the creature were both getting very frustrated.

Figuring there was nothing to lose, he ran up between them and looked questioningly at the creature, hoping it could tell him what it was.

[Indigo]

Claptrap was by now quite irritated at the inefficiency of his communication, and he was trying to figure out how one spelled “directions” when the Kuhna darted between him and the monks. It was a…he tried to remember the name of the breed. Oh yes, Skycracker. It looked rather pathetic, and there was a leather collar around its neck, with an ominous metal loop attached to it. What on earth was such a lively type of creature doing cooped up in a temple like this?

The Kuhna looked up at him with a question in its eyes. Perhaps it had never seen a Mimebones before, or perhaps it simply thought it could help him out of his confusion. Either way, it seemed to be just as mute as he, which was an anomaly in his experience. One or two of the Kuhnas back at the house never stopped talking. This one seemed very confused, and if its expression was anything to go on, slightly frightened of something. Possibly Claptrap was such a new experience that he was mildly alarming. He had never considered it before, but he supposed he must look like some kind of demon to one who had never seen his kind before; some type of animate cat skeleton, even. Clearly he needed some form of explanation.

He thought for a moment, then managed to mime writing understandably. One of the monks dashed off and returned with a piece of chalk, which Claptrap used to write unevenly on the floor: what iz this koona doong here?

The monks read his (doubtlessly misspelling-filled and awkward-looking) sentence, and then smiled. The one who had gotten the chalk said calmly, “Oh, this is just our pet Skycracker, er…Pet. That is his name, I mean. He has lived here ever since he was a young kit we found on our doorstep, so to speak. He is mute, much like yourself; has never spoken a single word. We are sure he can understand speech, though, and maybe can read.”

Claptrap nodded, understanding. If the Kuhna had been here that long, he probably had never even heard of a Mimebones, which explained the confusion. Logically, some education was in order. Claptrap took hold of the chalk again and wrote, with great effort: helo koona. i am a mimebonz not a deemin. what iz yur name?