ORIGIN

Crack.

Giggle flicked one round, fungus-bitten ear, and lifted her head. The sound had been muffled, but distinct--a thump of something hard, but not sharp, against something else hard.

Bones, Mother-Sister? The words--streaming into her consciousness from her Hallowed Caller familiar--were not words, exactly; it was an image of a bone clattering over stone, a questioning emotion touching at the edges of the fabric of her mind.

No--too dulled, Giggle thought back, slowly standing. The hackles along her back were on end. It might be the eyes.

Eyes in the dark, coming to get her. The void closing in. She exhaled, glancing around at her bone pile, with its by now familiar ring of bioluminescent fungus that--in her mind--somewhat protected her against the pitch black and the monsters which she knew lingered within.

She could cower here--which was wise--or she could move off ahead. She remained, for now--frozen in indecision and in fear. It was, as it often was, the bird that flew off first, carefully soaring where there was still enough light by which to see.

A gem. It's in the bones, came the thought-image at length, a brief flash of a bright, translucent blue--a big blue something stone--against the rock, half-hidden amongst old bones.

In the bones..?

Giggle started off cautiously into the darkness, following her link to her familiar, following the route she'd seen it take, in her mind's eye.

Soon enough she had picked her way to the place--and leaned down, nosing a few bones aside, to get a clearer look at this--blue stone. It was too large for her merely to bite through, to free whoever lay within--as she had done with that damned lizard. No; she wasn't sure how to help this one.

Perhaps a little light, first? So she could, at least, see what she was doing.

The hyena closed her dark eyes, shaking out her fungus-matted coat a bit, urging the spores to fall and to take root, and grow, to provide a bioluminescent glow here, too.

Slowly, but steadily, the soft blue-green glow of the pale fungi began to illuminate the blue chrysalis, and Giggle leaned down to peer. She hesitated; what lay within? What if it was another little monster, like the lizard had been? Or what if it was one of her own sons, reborn?

This thought spurring her on, she began to claw at the rock--ineffectively for now--while speaking quietly.

"Hello? Hello? Who is in there?" she asked--her voice deep--as if whoever was within, could already respond.

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ROLL THE BONES

Giggle quickly scrabbled back as the gangly-brown-thing emerged and stood trembling.

What in hell WAS that thing?

She eyed it over, trying to decide just what a... a moose, was. Or a Blueberry, for that matter; or a Sage. She huffed quietly and stepped forward, trying to briefly lick the moose's head in a sudden urge of curiosity--what does a moose taste like?

Then she sat heavily, on her own haunches, peering.

"I am Giggle," she said, peering. "I read the bones. Welcome to this world. You are new-hatched," she added, though this should have been perfectly clear.

Then, curiosity gripping her--and with the black bird hopping around to peer at the pair--Giggle spoke further. "What are you like?"

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ROLL THE BONES

Giggle peered, and listened, but her attention was quickly taken upon seeing the glow spring up beneath the moose's hooves.

Another light-bringer? And mushrooms, too! --Wait, those aren't-- She stood rapidly and leaned down, sniffing over the moss.

"These are not mushrooms," she said in a bewildered, accusatory tone--as if the moose had tried to trick her. But she kept sniffing, and then peered up at him. "The lights are gone, now. We all need to create light. We all need to spread it. Or the things in the darkness may get us,", she added, then chittered in a hyena's nervous cackle.

Were she thinking straight, she'd probably realize she might be frightening the calf--but she was not. Then again--perhaps it was best that he be afraid, so as to use caution in the darkness. Or, perhaps Blueberry was not so easily frightened.

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ROLL THE BONES

Giggle huffed, softly, thinking.

"I do not know. But there was a white wolf--a youth like you. She came through. Spoke of the no-lights, the black. The bones say she will turn them on. If you wish to aid--perhaps you can find her. I do not know where she went; only that she left this place."

The hyena sat, watching the moose in the dim half-light, considering.

Perhaps this one is meant to help her, too?

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ROLL THE BONES

The hyena listened, and flicked her ears, sitting slowly on her haunches again.

"Then be careful. There are eyes, in the darkness; carry a light with you, little one, or they will come and they will eat you up." She sounded hushed, solemn, afraid even; she eyed him over briefly before offering a brief chortle of fear.

"You may rest by my bones if you want. I can ask them what they see in you. Or I can show you the way from these caves--there is not enough green, here, if you eat green. If you eat rats--there are plenty of those."

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ROLL THE BONES