He had waited until all was quiet again to slip after her. Once the warriors had left and the chrysalis were left strewn across the battlefield. He'd watched her leave in the midst of the fighting and had waited for his moment to follow. This was it.
In his apprehension, he'd forgotten Aati, left behind where he'd been watching. That was okay, he would find a new one soon after this, although as he made his way through over the bones and rocks, he realized that it might not be so simple a task. What had once been a dusty and dry cave, muted browns and gray, was now infested with white strands and blooming fungus. Webs creeping across every surface, almost crystalline in appearance. The few lessers that flitted across his path had eyes blank and white and the same mycelial growth that had fallen like snow from the dragon's wings consuming their body bit by bit.
Things had changed. Dramatically. And Anubis wasn't sure what it meant, for him and especially the caves.
He had not seen Giggle for a long time. Not since he was a child. But he knew that she knew...things. What things, he wasn't sure but surely she understood more then him. Perhaps she could explain what was happening here.
It would be a good starting point if this deemed interesting enough to research.
Approaching the place where he'd seen Giggle disappear, he looked around, softly calling out,
Giggle was 'working' when she heard the jackal's call. Her head came up, her dark eyes squinting as she sought the owner of the voice. Her mind wasn't all here, just now: part was off with Omen, who was circling as sentinel in a wide area around the bone pit. Though, Giggle could tell that she'd missed someone, because someone was here now, calling her.
The other part of her mind was still getting used to the presence of Kerberos along the link. She sent him a brief, affectionate greeting, then called out toward whoever had called her, her masculine voice rough with weary strength.
'Work' was keeping Mother's filthy bullshit far away from her bone pit, and her own flourishing crops of fungus. Giggle kept rings of mushrooms around her bones--hallucinogenic, defensive, bioluminescent--to keep herself and her bone pit safe. She was, even now, carefully and selectively stripping away white, moldy spores were taking root among her own fungus--driving it away, moving it onto bare rock that wouldn't sustain it. In her mind, there was very little mystique or mystery around the Hive. It was, she'd learned, a manipulative and empty-headed force, as selfish as anything else in these damn caves, and she wasn't worried by this pollution so much as irritated by it.
It helped that the bones had strongly forecast victory.
Giggle turned, squinting again, as she finished. Ahh-... A familiar shape. She wasn't sure, but it reminded her of the scrawny little brown pup she'd seen here quite a few cycles back. She waited, though--to see if he introduced himself again.
@Anubis
Anubis turned towards the sound and trotted faster, nimbly avoiding each patch of white webbing, until the infestation came to a halt and he was looking down into a pit - a pit, he realized, that was completely devoid of this strange fungus. It was evident why, as he watched Giggle chase the fungus away with magic. This was her space, then. Her pit. And obviously she did not like the white. Perhaps that was why she was at the fight - these people were her enemy (not THE enemy, but hers. Anubis had no enemies).
He stopped at the edge of the mushroom ring and looked over, ears angled in Giggle's direction.
He felt something unpleasant on his paw and realized that he'd touched some of that strange white. Turning his nose away, he shook his paw out away from the pit, scattering the spores elsewhere, careful not to breath it in, whatever it was.
She cast a sharp, wary glance at the fuzz, and then slid her gaze back to Anubis.
Again, she reflected that she'd chosen the worst possible time to elevate her magic.
Giggle shook herself a little, and turned her attention briefly back to the pit--it looked clear enough, at least to her eyes. Magic-... she'd have to try again with.
She nodded off to one of the patches of cleared rock nearby the pit.
@Anubis
Relief. He was not wholly forgotten, although he supposed he would look different now, after many cycles and after - yes, the stone that she then pointed out. He tilted his head a bit, the whiskers on his right side twitching, almost self-consciously.
He shook his head, the word Mother meaning nothing to him, in this context or without. He'd never had parents, no mother or father or any protective figure. If anything, Giggle was that, but they had met only once. And for the rest of the time it was him, to fend and fight for himself, death stalking his every move.
But her phrasing gave him pause. She had said
He returned a quick
Her magicka flared out again, weak and flickering but--she saw no sign of infection on Anubis, at least, as yet. She hoped that she was right-... and ahh, here was some lingering crap around one of her bioluminescent clusters. With a grimace, the hyena set about clawing it away with busy paws.
Of course, Giggle knew nothing about the Hive's Queen, or the Praetors, really. She assumed they were Gembounds serving Mother. She assumed, too, that they--Juggernaut, Ace and the rest--had once been normal Gembounds, like her. Well-... sort of normal. Maybe more like Vargas and his ilk: oversized and spiky, but not in some cultish hivemind, anyway.
She kicked away a clot of white webbing, curling a lip at it in disgust, and glanced back to Anubis.
@Anubis
He listened with an almost intense interest, fascinated by the story she unraveled for him. A fungus...that could think? Enslave others? Connect their minds together? Giggle seemed to regard this fungus with disdain but for Anubis it was...fascination. A big battle had been raged over this, not just here but in a faraway cave (that he hadn't visited yet). And that word...Masters. He had not idea what those were either. He burned with questions and curiosity, although some he didn't think Giggle would be able to offer him, or be willing, giving her attitude towards the fungus. He would have to discover it himself.
Hopefully that wouldn't be a horrible, irreversible mistake.
He narrowed his attention forward as he turned to the second subject.
Talking about himself, however, didn't seem as interesting to him.
Giggle sighed at the barrage of questions, her snout lifting from where she worked at purging a wider area around the pit. But it wasn't a sigh of annoyance. Rather, it was thoughtful, even a little disappointed perhaps that she hadn't better answers.
Her eyes flashed dark as she glanced back.
She'd hardly told anyone this next part. It might even put her in danger, to admit it, but... ahh, well. She looked back to her work, plodding along, casting slow, light sweeps of magic forward in an attempt to push the white fluff farther and farther away.
Giggle paused, turning, taking a breath and a short rest from her work.
She said it grimly, yet almost flippantly. Her tone was a sort of 'yup, the world sucks, we have to stick together,' a casual severity born of years of dark experience.
Despite his disinterest in speaking of himself, Giggle pressed with more questions. She was interested in him--or at least his well-being.
@Anubis
Anubis hummed softly, thoughtfully. Perhaps it actually wouldn’t be so bad an idea to investigate here, to infect himself and let Giggle pull it out, since she was capable. He could have her give him a few minutes before she pulled it out, or if he tried to leave or do anything dangerous.
But then the promise or knowledge, of a secret, and he leaned forward hungrily, thirsty for what she had to divulge. He nodded a silent promise, to keep this to himself, as if he didn’t already jealously hoard knowledge as his own. And his thirst was watered by what Giggle told him. She had done her own research. Propagated it alone, penetrated its mind, or what mind was there. He unconsciously licked his jowls as he imagined himself doing this same research. He could see it now, setting aside a section of his cave for it, feeding the fungus what remained of his subjects when their uses were expended. The knowledge he could gain from an ancient being, however greedy it was. He had his ways to make things talk. Perhaps he could do that here as well.
He glanced towards Giggle again at her seemingly flippant disregard for the dangers of the caves she was speaking of so casually. Interest rose - evidently she had seen and experienced a lot. She might be more useful to him and his pursuit of knowledge than he thought before.
Again, he didn’t respond much in the way of himself.
She startled at the question, glancing somewhat sharply back at Anubis.
Her tone was grimly sardonic. She had turned away again already, nosing and testing at the edges of her fungus ring.
Another puff of white slid away from her, coiling and spreading like pallid fingers for bare stone--where it shrivelled, wisping away with nothing there to sustain it. Then the hyena was turning back toward Anubis--watching him, and awaiting his decision.
@Anubis