ORIGIN

It came and went, the visions, with Giggle withholding an answer as it all swept through her mind. She had to tamp down, to clamp it all off, when it finished; part of her brain wanted to segue into all else she'd seen, to try and look at it again, to draw it out and pick it apart and she couldn't handle all that at once.

But closing it off was easier, now, and she took a moment to calm herself before considering Wilder's request. Or rather, her offer (but it had sounded like a request--how odd). When Giggle shook her head, it was genuine. "I'll be all right." She paused, another wry grin briefly twisting her muzzle. "I've been through worse. That isn't as self-pitying as it sounds, I promise." There was a little more clarity to her eyes as she looked at Wilder again, though there was still that new distance. "You could stay, if you wanted to. But I need to think, either way. I need..." Giggle paused to consider her words, then sighed heavily. "It's like someone's just given me a big bag of thousands of tiny bones, and I have to be very careful not to harm them, and I have to pick them all out one by one to look at them individually. And there's... a lot of bones. Does that make sense-?" She squinted at Wilder. "-And if I ignore the bag, it feels like some of those bones might go missing. Those memories might get lost, maybe. -Probably not, but you know how it is, with stuff you haven't thought about in awhile? Mind you, thanks for the bag. It's a good gift. I just need time to sort it all out."

Her words indicated a clear enough mind, despite the sense that she'd changed considerably in the last few minutes. But she shook her head again, as if to dismiss all her own concerns, and peered tiredly at Wilder. "Will you be all right? It's got to be a lot, to... direct that magic," she guessed.

Giggle snorted with amusement at Wilder's echoed response.

Her own was true; she couldn't speak to the cat's. But this, at least, was something she'd wanted and something she'd braced for. It was overwhelming, and it had held its horrors. But it'd given her a distance on its own, too; and with it hadn't come the feeling of being trapped, forever, in nothing.

The "forever" part had always been the toughest to come to terms with. Giggle hadn't known she'd ever get out of that place; if it hadn't been for Omen coming and going, she would've gone utterly and completely mad, broken before she'd ever been found. That little sliver of hope-... Well. These visions were a strain on her mind, bent toward breaking, but they weren't swathed in personal terror the way that had been.

She nodded to Wilder. "I'll take a bit. Then I'll rest," she decided, though--even with Wilder's help--it was hard to focus. It was like when she'd gone too long without sleep, and thoughts and half-dreams kept popping into her mind haphazardly, of their own accord. She offered another "Thanks," before plodding a little ways away.

It took her awhile to still her mind enough to focus on anything; the scattered and scattering nature of what she'd seen kept twisting and plunging her thoughts into chaos. Even with Wilder's magic she had to fight to keep her thoughts on one thing.

That "thing" was categorization. She settled into the thought that instead of going over individual memories of everything she'd seen, the best thing to do would be to try and compartmentalize it all. If she could sort of "skim" it all, package it away more neatly...

An hour later, probably after Wilder had moved on, she was managing the barest touch of it.

So she thought of "birth," and tried to remember all she'd seen that related to it. It was still overwhelming, and it didn't all come easily, but... it was neater than everything pummeling her mind at once. And then, life. War. Death.

She thought over the cycles, and what had taken place in each. Again, it was scattered, and chaotic, but she thought she'd arranged the strongest of it in memories she could more easily retrieve later on. It was like her very brain was neatening things up as she considered them from these new directions.

Then, the types of magic she had seen...

At some point, hours later, the exhaustion dragged her down; thoughts became even more fragmented, until dreams rose up to claim her. Giggle slid off into a much-needed sleep, head on paws, Hallowed Caller pressed to her flank.