Nahma watched the creature tear into the rat he’d provided it with, his many legs folded beneath him.

It had been a short journey to return to his lair, a comfortable section of tunnel he’d carved out a century or two back. Its comfort was due to the basalt floor, the result of cooled lava produced by volcanic activity from who knew how long ago. Regardless of its source, it was a crunchy and relatively light stone, a texture which allowed him to partially sink into it over the years. By now he had an imprint of himself pushed into the floor, which meant every part of his length was lying on the ground.

At any rate, it allowed him to both rest and observe the creature simultaneously. It had impressive teeth for something of its diminutive size, but nothing especially impressive. It was clearly tougher than most species Nahma had encountered, having survived a direct hit from an antenna. Granted, the strike had been more out of surprise than a genuine attack, but the creature was small and therefore weaker than the norm.

Nahma’s eyes narrowed. There was a chance, however slight, that this little thing could eventually grow to become a threat to him.

It overextended in the middle of a bite and fell over, a quiet screech slipping out of its tooth-ringed maw as it tried to catch itself. Nahma grinned at the sight, and it nervously retreated backward several feet with its grisly meal.

Well, it might have been too cute to kill for the time being, but it had killed one of his sheddings. They were extraordinarily tough and loyal to boot. Even though he had tens of thousands of them, their importance in his defenses and observation of the uppermost crust of the world, teeming with humanity and its adjacents, could not be understated. Losing one was hardly a major loss… but he felt that the newly named Bain should at least receive some kind of punishment for killing it.

With a gesture and a thought, Nahma yanked the mostly-eaten rat out of Bain’s claws, a single antenna forestalling its attempts to retrieve it, and ate the rodent.

Bain released a sound of frustration, fourfold arms swiping at Nahma’s antenna harmlessly. Nahma’s many eyes narrowed further. “You are a rather ineffective fighter,” He told it quietly. The rumble of his voice shook the ground, and Bain stumbled backward. Nahma didn’t catch it, allowing it to fall to the relatively soft rock unobstructed. Instead of catching itself, Bain’s arms got tangled up with each other, and it again collapsed. Screeching its infuriation, it scrambled back to its feet.

This thing was helpless, Nahma suddenly realized. Despite its physique, Bain had little to no coordination, and based on the simple fact it’d tried to attack him, it had no ability to determine the difference between prey and predator either.

How had it managed to kill a shedding?

Throwing its arms wide in a display of intimidation, Bain sidled around Nahma's head. Lowering its body, it jumped into the air and grabbed onto one of Nahma's carapace plates. Opening the center of its face, it slammed its inner mouth onto the edge and began gnawing away. It wasn't even leaving scratches.

Prying it off by the foot with an antenna and flipping it upside down, Nahma watched it scrabble and swipe at the offending appendage, still to no effect. It wasn't managing to do anything… but it was irritating.

He let it drop, and it hit the ground headfirst with a crack. Yowling loudly, it rolled into a tight ball, grabbing its head with all four arms. Nahma watched it curiously, wondering what it was doing. Did it have rapid healing properties? Or was it just reacting to the pain like a dumb animal?

There were many creatures crawling through his tunnels that were stupid, no more intelligent than a rat and certainly less edible. They were smart enough to avoid Nahma, but that was the respect of an inferior recognizing an undefeatable opponent. This thing wasn't even smart enough to do that.

It remained wary of him as it backed away, its shell pressing against the hard wall. Baring its teeth, it shrank down and continued nursing its head. Quiet whimpering came from the dark corner it occupied, its own matte black coloring reducing its shape to a mere shadow.

Nahma frowned, his mandibles clacking thoughtfully. So, it had survived a hit from him and was still well enough to eat, but he dropped it on its head and suddenly it was reduced to whining?

Looking at the wall beside him, Nahma inscribed a circle into the stone, dragging a claw through the rock as easily as a knife through flesh, and curved his body away from it. Rearing his head back, Nahma lashed both antennae forward in a blink-quick double slash, pounding into the wall.

It cracked, stone falling out of the massive rents he'd carved into the wall with the two strikes. Nahma grunted in satisfaction. At least he knew that he himself wasn't growing weaker.

It would be strange if he had been - there was no reason for his strength to begin declining when it had risen so smoothly for the entirety of his enormous lifespan.

However, if his strength wasn't the issue, then it meant that either the durability of Bain was inconsistent, or the creature's shell was designed to take much harder hits better and softer hits worse.

It was an odd contradiction to be sure, but Nahma would have been lying if he'd said he wasn't curious about the limits of Bain's curious protection. Regardless, he didn't want to kill it on accident, so he would hold off on hitting it harder until it tried to kill him.

Looking down, he found Bain silently staring at him. The little monster didn't move, although one clawed hand twitched as though it still wanted to rub its sore head.

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Nahma stared back at it. "Are you in need of something?"

Bain's eyes rounded as Nahma spoke, but it still didn't move. Opening its mouth, it hoarsely croaked, then looked surprised at its own voice. Tilting its head, it quietly made the noise again.

Nahma moved back to his groove and folded his legs underneath himself, intently watching Bain experiment with its voice. Had it never attempted to speak before, or had it simply never met anything it could try and talk to?

Either way, it was exhibiting slightly more intelligence than previously, and Nahma found himself more interested than ever. Monsters were hardly uncommon this far down, and while he was the uncontested king of the tunnels, Nahma knew he wasn't the largest creature in them. They were as varied and multiplicitous as rocks, coming in all kinds of intellects and strengths and sizes. More often than not, they stayed far away from him and his sheddings, but one or two occasionally dared to come closer than the rest in an attempt to challenge him. They didn't usually taste all that bad.

Bain seemed… childish. It was capable of defeating a shedding, a feat Nahma was going to investigate later, but at the same time lacked the present intellect to recognize a greater threat than itself. Unless, of course, it was experience that Bain lacked.

Which, now that Nahma thought about it, made quite a bit of sense. Bain’s shell held the faint sheen of borderline infancy, and while its mouth had many teeth, there was plenty of space for more to grow in.

Unfolding slightly, Nahma poked it with a leg, and it hissed at him. Startled by the sound, it repeated the noise, trying to raise the pitch.

“Can you speak?” Nahma asked. It was very much a rhetorical question, as Bain was obviously incapable of speech at the moment, but it would prove helpful if the creature was at least able to recognize individual words.

Bain retreated once again, hunching over and flaring its claws as it backed away. It seemed that the sheer depth of Nahma’s voice was enough to activate fight-or-flight in the tiny monster. He was thousands of times its size, after all.

Granted, almost all of him was out of sight, but what was visible was plenty threatening.

Nahma lowered himself to the floor once again, watching Bain gradually calm down. It was inexplicably amusing, wondering what it would look like from an exterior perspective. Such a pitiful creature trying to intimidate a larger one of a higher scale.

With a thought, Nahma called a shedding into the tunnel. The dull-minded offshoots were neither intelligent enough nor powerful to warrant their own wills, and so Nahma bent the weaker ones under his control. They were eyes and ears, and that was all.

Bain flared its claws at the newcomer, backing itself into a corner as it tried to watch both it and Nahma at the same time. Ignoring the small monster, Nahma brought his will to bear. As the shedding watched Bain dull-eyed, Nahma wrote a command in their minds and linked it to the shared memory of Bain's appearance.

Do not hurt this thing, unless it hurts you first.

A simple enough dictation, one that left little room for miscommunication. Even Goodest and his army of elites in the Deep would most likely receive the message, although the odds of them ever meeting Bain in person were low to say the least.

The shedding was still staring at Bain, a barely visible dribble of saliva dripping out of the side of its mouth. Bain uneasily scooted further down the wall, closer to Nahma.

Pausing his thoughts, Nahma dismissed the shedding, watching it burrow into the ground, and stared at Bain. "What are you capable of?" He mused aloud, eyes narrowed.

The whim that had made Nahma keep the small creature was fading rapidly, and he was already beginning to reconsider the prospect of attempting to raise the thing. Any number of issues could be raised at a moment's notice, all of them valid, with very few advantages or rewards to be had in favor of keeping it.

His train of thought broke as he realized Bain was watching him. It seemed more at ease now that he wasn't moving, and inched a little closer.

Nahma suddenly had an idea. Closing almost all of his eyes, he went limp. Bain perked up, head tilting sideways.

Several silent seconds passed. Neither monster moved.

Nahma waited as time ticked onward, the barely audible rumblings of the distant city above making itself heard. The tiny creature before him refused to budge, eyes transfixed upon Nahma's visage.

Finally, Bain dropped to its hands and feet, warily approaching Nahma. Nahma watched it with one of the eyes further back on his body, curious to see what it would try and do. His own considerable bulk blocked the only exit, and it knew it couldn't beat him (or even harm him), which meant its options were limited.

Sneaking forward, Bain skulked between Nahma's armored legs, finding a spot next to his body. Slowly, cautiously, Bain pressed up against Nahma's side.

It was the furthest thing from what Nahma had been expecting, but he still didn't move. What in the world was it thinking? Did it even recognize Nahma as the same creature that had pummeled it into the ground? Or was it trying to get itself into the good graces of the most dangerous creature in the room?

Curling its claws inward and squatting on its legs, Bain keeled over and scooted further under Nahma's legs.

Nahma found himself spectacularly confused for the third time in his long life. Bain literally could not be in a more dangerous place, short of sitting in Nahma's open mouth. It could have chosen any part of the cave to lie in, could have chosen any outcropping to hide under, but now he could feel its warm back pressing against the softer flesh under the edge of his carapace, out of sight of the eye on his side.

He lay there for a short while, waiting for it to do something, anything, but it never did.

Finally, he lifted his head and peered over at the small creature, wondering if it was trying to claw out his insides starting with the skin. It would have been impossible for such stunted claws to break through his softest spot, but he couldn't help but wonder what it was going for.

It was curled in a tight ball, eyes shut tight as its side slowly rose and fell with its hoarse breaths.

It was asleep.

Nahma stared at it, then shook his head and laid back down in his imprint in the basalt floor. The thing had to be insane. It was the only conclusion he could come to.

A signal twitched Nahma's antennae, and he listened.

I have seen the image. What is it?

Nahma pondered Goodest's question, considering the words he would use, and then gave the shedding an honest answer.

I do not know.