ORIGIN - order and decay

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Of all the things for Anubis to have said, 'I'm sorry' wasn't one that Giggle would have predicted, Bone Seer or no. She blinked, surprised, and quickly plodded over to offer a gentle nudge at his shoulder.

"No, Anubis, bones!--You did nothing wrong! That's what it does. That's why it has so many victims," she added, quiet, making the point at once and clearly: you are not alone. She stood close, a presence that she hoped offered comfort, though she didn't loom. She didn't think he'd appreciate that, looming. But she... well, she made herself available, that was all.

"-You okay?" she asked at last, genuine concern in her tone. It hadn't looked pleasant, at all--at least he'd had enough of himself left to speak, afterward, so he probably wasn't seriously injured, but it hadn't looked... great.

And how bad's the--whatever it told him? she wondered. She fretted, a little, that it might've tempted him too far--that he might go to it, later. But then, most who were broken free tended to be grateful for it, didn't they-?

She cast about for something to comfort him--A wisp, maybe? but no, "light" wouldn't be a source of comfort to everyone. Maybe a banana-? Something magic to take the taste from his mouth and--no, the magic didn't cooperate there, either. Giggle sat down, sighing briefly, her tone apologetic, guilt striking her hard. "Maybe I shouldn't warned you more, uh, seriously than I did. Stay here as long as you need."

@Anubis

Anubis shook his head, claws gripping the stone beneath him. He was angry - angry at Mother for fooling him, angry at himself for falling to it so quickly, and angry at Giggle for cutting it off before he had a chance to finish. But he was also grateful to her for snapping him out of it - how would he have had the sense otherwise?

But he was still so intrigued. Deeply interested in the being behind the fungus, the Mother as she called herself. In Order and its purpose and the cycle of life and death she had shown to him. Those feelings of belonging and joy had faded quickly away, but the offer she had given him was still tantalizing and oh so delicious. He had half a mind to return to it, to infect himself again and accept her offer...but no. The rational part of his mind once again butted in. She could not be offering this without a price.

Nothing was free.

He looked up at Giggle and nodded. "Yes. I am only frustrated with myself. For being so quick to allow her in. And...for my actions. I lost control." He looked over at the half-devoured fungus and his lip curled. He really had just gone crazy for a moment, hadn't he?

He found himself wanting to talk about it, to tell Giggle about everything she'd offered him, and his desire to return to her. But how much could he even tell her, without saying too much? How would she react when she knew what bloody plots he had already carried out and those in his future? He stood up and shook out his pelt, as if shaking off fleas.

Anubis made the decision to tell her...some. Be vague. "No, you warned me plenty. I simply did not listen and was not...fully prepared. She offered me something - I like to study things, life and death, how we die and what happens after. She promised to help me. Give me all the resources I need. Connect me with like-minded gembound. But I know she was lying - or if she wasn't, it would come at a cost." He shook his head, steeling himself and saying, with confidence, "I won't go back."

But...did he really mean that? He wasn't so sure himself.

@Giggle

Giggle listened solemnly, intently, and when Anubis had finished she gave a sad little huff of a laugh. "The cost-... from what I can tell, is assimilation. It gains everything that you are, and that you know, and your service--feeding it, protecting it, whatever. And you get a bunch of other slaves that are working to the same cause." She didn't mean the Lessers he had seen--nor the fellow "researchers." She meant others feeding the fungus, protecting it. "It's strength in numbers, at the cost of free will."

She was silent for a moment, then, staring thoughtfully at the younger jackal. "If it's life and death you want to know about, you're already in the right place. That's the domain of fungus and bones--and this shitbag 'mother' aside, that's my domain." She offered a brief, thick-toothed grin. "If you ever have questions about that? Ask."

The hyena spoke with all the confidence of one who had thoroughly bullshitted themselves into believing they could talk to bones and spirits.

@Anubis

Anubis nodded and, to be honest, he didn’t quite see the fungus and the hive behind it, particularly, as evil. Perhaps there were some that would enjoy this loss of self if it meant safety and numbers, belonging as a piece to a whole. Anubis would sympathize - he was content being a separate entity, watching the wheel of existence turn. He did not need to be a part of anything. He didn’t need friends or enemies or allies. He only needed himself.

And death, of course. Life and death would always be with him.

That is, perhaps, where Mother would fail him. She could never let him be alone.

His eyes flicked up, however, when Giggle told him that she, not Mother, held the answers he craved, ears flicked tall, eyes narrowed. He had figured she’d know some of what he was looking for, but fungus wasn’t all he looked for. ”Well, I figured you would - it’s part of the reason I came to you. But I’m not only looking at the cycle of death and rot. It’s…rebirth I’m most interested in. Dying…and coming back. Is it possible? Is there some kind of life after death? Is death the end, or is it something that can be transcended - defeated? Are these the things you know?”

@Giggle

She studied him for a beat, then settled on her haunches, thinking. "You go straight for the throat, when you hunt knowledge!" she observed, with a bark of amusement. Her gaze then travelled as she considered her answers: over the ring of fungus, and the bones. She nodded to those.

"You see here the remains of the dead. I have never--in all my cycles--had someone come to me and say, 'those were my bones.' I have been in the void; I have friends who have died. But never that. If you want to avoid death-? Sometimes your stone may save you. I have seen that happen... the gemstone rising back around your body, healing you, until you hatch weeks later, all over again. Still an adult!" she added, with a sharp glance back at Anubis to punctuate that point. "And if you do die... another can push life into your stone to create a new child. But it would not be you--it would be half you. That isn't where we go when we die."

Giggle took a breath. She knew how the rest of this sounded, and well, she wasn't really sure Anubis would believe her. There wasn't much she could do about that, though. She only had her conclusions--the ones that she had come to; it was all she could have. "But you know how there's magic all around us? In the fungus, in the air, in the water. And everyone has a touch of that. When you die, a part of you lingers. I don't think it's a part that still has a name, and thoughts. But it's a part of your magic, and your intent. When I reach for magic, or I ask the bones for wisdom, it's the bones that answer--a thousand echoes of the dead. They're faint. But they're there."

She eyed him solemnly. "There may not be a way to avoid death. But you can speak to the dead... and they may warn you of what's to come. I read the bones, when I look at a decision, and what to do... and they have never, ever been wrong." She nodded slowly, firmly. "That is the guidance of the dead."

@Anubis

Anubis listened carefully, but critically, as Giggle explained death to him. He wasn't quite sure he believed it all or if she even truly understood everything. He had suffered the healing chrysalis and it had truly felt like dying. Although...he guessed that he did not know what dying felt like. He put that thought aside - he would have to test that someday. Perhaps find a way to be a part of someone, share their experiences, and feel the moment of death.

He nodded along, wondering, too, if the child hatched from a stone would remember any of its previous life. If it carried those memories along with it, or if it was like any other fresh child. Another theory to test. Another facet of life and death unexplored.

Anubis's tail curled around him, almost cat-like, as he sat himself again. "I...see." The last bit was incredible and the hardest to believe. The memories around them, intentions left behind? Magic was real enough, of course, to leave a mark, but is one's being echoed upon the cave after death? And they spoke...to Giggle? Only Giggle? Or had she just found a way to speak to them?

He glanced down at the bone pit. "Are you the only one that can do this? Speak to the dead?" His head tilted a bit. "What do they say about me?"

He needed to learn to speak to the dead, to have that sort of magic the Giggle had. The magic of mystery, threading the lines of the world and the mind. There was so much he could learn.

@Giggle

The old hyena cracked a yellow-fanged grin. "Well-... let's find out," she answered easily, and made her way over to the pit. Her body went rather still, for a moment, as her gaze swept the pit; a moment later she'd stepped in, delicately lifting the slender-snouted, pointed-tooth skull of what might have been a small fox or a coyote from the bones.

She spared Anubis a brief, empty glance as she passed him, trotting up the path and to the ledge above the pit; and here she sat, setting the bone down, for a moment. Her magicka--still weakened--flickered up nonetheless as she looked down to study the jackal, deep in thought. Whatever she saw, she kept to herself for the moment, instead lifting the bone back up in her teeth. Tell me of this one, she asked the bones, in her mind. Not his future--but who he is.

Then she lobbed the skull downward, and leaned out to watch its fall--and its clattering into the pit. She stared, fascinated, for a time--slowly picking apart the wealth of details this reading had to offer her.

"The bones say..." she began, slowly, with a dreamlike quality born of deep focus. "That your past held power. Like... a return. Perhaps whoever held your stone before was like you, or was strong... or it might be the magic that brought you here, or a purpose. And as you are now now, I see you on a journey--a difficult one. One that puts you in conflict with others. The bones say that you are trying to advance yourself... but with troubles. Destruction works with you," she added, and there was clear surprise in her tone at this, as she glanced to Anubis. He did not seem the 'destructive' sort, to her. "Chaos, the powers of such things that would... normally work against us. Such things aid you! But mindless violence, unnecessary violence, will work against you instead. It is as striking out, and wounding yourself on a barrier: you will come to harm, if you are not careful, by your own actions. The bones warn of this path, Anubis: that you will lose, perhaps allies, but... I think children." This troubled her, deeply, and her brow furrowed as she glanced down at the jackal again.

"That is what the dead say. My own warning, then..." And here was her interpretation, perhaps slightly... off; "if you feel yourself driven to fight, be wary. Avoid it if you can! I do not know why that path is laid out for you but it does not bode well."

As she stood, pacing down, she went on--revealing what she'd seen in her flashes of magic. "I see, too, possibilities in your future. In one, you are laughing, content with someone. In another, I see you alone, wandering a cave of green. And in a third, with a large... cat. Yellow, and black. Be careful of cats, Anubis."

Dark eyes cut to him as she reached the bottom of the trail. "They are traitorous bastards."

Racist advice: imparted.

@Anubis

He leaned over the edge of the bone pit, watching as the bones scattered, eyes following each movement with interest. He tried to see what Giggle was seeing, tried to understand what she was telling him, but the meaning of the bones was lost on him. Perhaps it was something that took time and practice to truly understand, not unlike magic. He turned his attention to her as she read them, ears flicking with interest.

A feeling of importance swelled in him at the reading of his past, holding power. Did that mean that he was a vessel of greatness? That, in a past life, he was someone of note? Well, perhaps that power had fallen into his paws. He would work to own it, grow into it. He was destined to be as powerful as she said, he was sure!

He was not surprised that destruction worked with him. He was finding, in his line of experimentation, that there was violence and ugliness. Destruction of life. death, and rebirth. A cycle. Destroying, creating, and destroying again. He understood this, he studied it. It worked with him - this was clear.

The warning concerned him - as any warning would. He would keep it in mind, although he was sure he would be okay - he, after all, was not a violent being. He did not bite or scratch or kill violently like the pig that had attacked him, or like the beasts that waged war. No, he was just a researcher, that dabbled in life and death.

He nodded to all of what Giggle told him, ending with a silent, "Thank you," both to her and to the bones, if the dead were listening.

He chuckled, the first bit of mirth from him in some time. "I will...keep it in mind. I haven't encountered any cats...yet. But why not? Are they not just gembound, like you and me?" Surely this deep mistrust had been born somewhere?

Would her visions come to pass? Him, laughing with someone? Content? This was doubtful. But she had more power then him. More knowledge. He wondered if, one day, he could hope to surpass her. A lofty goal, but he was not a stranger to ambition.

@Giggle

At last, Giggle turned her attention back to the white fuzz encroaching on Canis. She spoke to Anubis as she returned to work, a grunt and then sharp, dry laughter ringing across the pit. "I tried to give the benefit of the doubt. But every cat I've met has turned traitor. They are very... shallow, selfish things," she explained, with a glance back at him. "Even the ones I count as family." Eythan-... she'd take care of him, as best she could, but he'd killed Azazel, lied about it, gone into hiding-... She could only hope that her influence steered him true.

And he was only half cat!

"They'll say one thing, then do something else behind your back, then stab you in the back, if you aren't careful!" Giggle paused, grudgingly, and glanced back; little puffs of white mold drifted away before her. "I did meet one cat who wasn't terrible," she admitted, in a grumble, "but I haven't seen that one in cycles. And it's any size cat. Little cats. Lions. Big, spotted cats. Just don't trust 'em, Anubis--trust me when I tell you."

If he asked for specifics, she'd offer--but there were so damn many stories there. From simple snide rudeness by those she'd once helped, to outright betrayal--and that, more than once... her natural dislike of cats had only been vindicated by experience and time.

@Anubis

He almost wanted to chuckle at her judgment. Not that he'd ever met a cat before, but he wondered if it was really every cat that was like that. Betrayers, untrustworthy, etc. etc. But, then again, she was older and wiser and had seen much more then him. So obviously she knew better, probably.

"I trust you," he assured her. "I'll look out for them." His eyes followed the white spores and wondered if Mother had any cats with her. Did She know about cats being untrustworthy as well?

"Who was the one that was not so bad?" It was casual curiosity this time, not followed by any of his usual sinister thoughts. No followup of maybe he could experiment, maybe he could learn, maybe he could this or that. How strange, Anubis wondering for the sake of wondering.

@Giggle

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