Earth, 1218 AD. Somewhere in the forests of medieval France...
It was night. Most creatures were asleep at this time. But then again, Plagg was not most creatures. Not that he cared, he thought, as he trundled through the grass. For all he knew, normalcy was a stupid invention of the humans they used to keep others of their kind from doing things they didn't like. Pathetic.
Plagg belonged the diverse suborder commonly known as Kwamis. They'd split off from the rest of the Squamata roughly 157 million years ago, developing ramrod-straight legs, warm blood, and incredibly high intellects. Kwamis had never been dominant organisms, preferring to hang around in the world's various ecosystems wherever they were needed. But with the humans steadily taking away the world's free land, hanging around could take on a very different meaning.
Plagg's particular species was known to the humans as Rot Whisperers. These were primarily nocturnal carnivores that hunted small game and scavenged the remains of larger animals. They had a particular affinity for strong smells, meaning that, should the humans ever figure out how to train a Kwami, a Rot Whisperer could be fed cheese and metabolize it no problem.
"Rot Whisperer" was derived from one of their main defense mechanisms: vomiting. The brown acid their stomachs produced was strong enough to dissolve bone within an hour and wood within two, and their mouths were laden with bacteria and archaea that were often fatal to humans. They were forty-nine feet long from head to tail, pitch black with green eyes, two horns behind each orbit and numerous sensory whiskers in front, four lanky legs ending in four-toed digitigrade paws, and a stiff, spine-covered tail for balance. Unlike that of some Kwamis, Plagg's lineage was flightless, but good luck trying to outrun one.
Plagg's stomach growled and he remembered that he needed to eat. He caught the scent of something small and furry, and the rustle of the air passing through his whiskers. He followed the trail to a little patch at the base of a common hazel. With his impressive darkness vision, he could clearly make out the outline of a red squirrel. Perfect. The unsuspecting rodent didn't even notice the incoming squared-off snout until the jaws snapped shut. With a muffled squeak, it died, and Plagg swallowed it whole.
But one squirrel alone was not enough for a creature whose daily caloric intake was on par with a three-person household. So Plagg lifted his nose into the air and sniffed again. Another smell, this one of a European hedgehog, drew him to the base of a service tree. After eating the hapless hedgehog, Plagg suddenly heard something rustling high above him, and the smell of something...
That smelled like him.
Plagg looked up and saw, in the tree, a family of Scarletspines resting in their nest. Scarletspines were bipedal, diurnal frugivores, and unlike Rot Whisperers they could fly, their forelimbs modified into wings and two more pairs of forelimbs used for manipulation. Their hips to their tails were lined with thick spines, one row on each side, and two sensory appendages hung over their eyes. They were bright red with black spots, warning everyone about the potent venom contained within their spines.
The nest held two adults, a mated pair of a male and a female, and six rabbit-sized tots. Judging by the length of the spines, the adults were the equivalent of a fifty-year-old human, and thus their clutch was likely the last they could have before menopause claimed them.
"Eh," Plagg said to himself, deciding to ignore them. Still, fruit trees were magnets for game. He decided to slink around the grove, hoping to find more squirrels, or weasels who'd come for the squirrels, or perhaps a deer or a particularly moronic cow.
Suddenly, he heard cackling. Turning around, his jaw dropped when a giant luminescent light purple...thing dropped from the sky and landed on the forest's edge. Riding on its back was a man, his true face obscured by a mask that only exposed his eyes and mouth.
"Ah, Scarletspines," the man smirked. "What a delightful find, Nooroo. Do you want to know something special about this kind?"
"Yes, master," the purple thing, which Plagg realized now was a Kwami, replied wearily. The Kwami was also six-legged, had a second pair of wings appearing from his chest, made of modified ribs, and his extraordinarily long tail had a fin at the end of it.
"A Scarletspine's venom can kill a bull with just one touch of the tip of the littlest spike. But the venom can be used as medicine, should it be combined with just the right materials."
"Master, you can't be serious! You'd be dead as soon as you got near them!"
"That is why I searched all over for you, my dear friend. I was so lucky to find you in that dreadful desert you call home. With your immobilizing breath we can capture them with ease!" Plagg had heard enough and ran to the nest tree. He picked up a rock with his teeth and flung it into the air, before striking it with his tail. It connected with the back of the female with a CRACK!
"OW!" she screeched, bolting upright.
"Mommy, what's the matter?" one of the nestlings, a female, asked.
The female peered over the edge and scowled at Plagg. "Nothing, Coxxi, just a delinquent," she growled.
"Another one?" her mate groaned.
"Yes, I suppose so," Plagg snarked. "But seriously, you guys gotta move your tails! Some crazy human's coming for you!"
The female's expression changed. "In that case, your misdemeanor will be forgiven. Come now, children, we need to leave."
"But Mommy, what if he's lying?" one of the Scarletspine's sons asked.
"Harmon, when you get to be as old as your mother and I, you know that Kwami never lie about humans." The male flew out of the tree and landed in front of Plagg, his family following suit. "Creed. My mate is Tikki, our children are Coxxi, Harmon, Psyllo, Damia, Vibid, and Megilla."
"Plagg. Rot Whisperers don't do the whole families thing," Plagg replied dryly. "Now let's go."
They ran. For animals meant to fly, the Scarletspines were very fast on their feet. Plagg led them out of the forest, though, for he was better at seeing in the dark. The rest had to follow his smell.
Suddenly, the world around them lit up light purple. They turned around and saw Nooroo guiltily looking at them, the man yanking on the now-obvious chains in his mouth. Nooroo only said one thing:
"I'm sorry."
Then he spewed out a mist that immobilized Creed on the spot. "Creed!" Tikki shrieked.
"Forget that! We need to keep us alive!" Plagg kept running, and reluctantly the others followed.
Nooroo landed and softly cried. The man, meanwhile, inspected his catch. "We got the male, he should have more than enough venom for us to milk. Oh, would you quit that blubbering? He's still alive!"
Nooroo stopped suddenly. "There was a Rot Whisperer there too," he said. "Don't you need one's scales?"
"An adult's, yes. But that one was an adolescent and won't be of age for twenty years." He sighed. "But we will find one soon. We must. Emilie's counting on us to save her. And if we stop death itself..." He man laughed heartily. "Then nothing can stop us."
At sunrise, Plagg was about to go to sleep when Tikki suddenly said "We need to find a human settlement."
"WHAT?! Woman, are you trying to get us killed and our spleens boiled into soup? Because that's a thing people do to Kwamis in Hungary!"
"We're in France, Plagg, we'll be fine. I mean...Nooroo was basically being forced to chase us by that man."
"Yeah?"
"So if we're going to rescue Creed and get Nooroo back to...wherever it is that his species comes from, then we're going to need to get on his captor's level."
"Will Daddy live?" Vibid, who was unusually tawny brown with white spots, asked.
"I think so. The guy wanted Scarletspine venom for some sort of medicine. And though he's an absolute psychopath I don't think he's going to kill your father," Plagg replied, "just take the venom he needs and let him go."
He thought some more, then turned to Tikki. "Well, I gotta admit, that man seemed to prove that humans can learn our language and that somewhere there are people who do know how to work with us. Your plan may be valid after all. Now try not to get killed by some Crusader or whatnot and let me sleep." He dropped his head, shut his eyes and snored exaggeratedly.
"I might need you to learn how to sleep when we do," Tikki grumbled. "Come on, children. We'll find something for our morning meal and then we'll search for a human willing to try something new." She flapped off, her children following after.