ORIGIN - Hey Mr. Preacher man!

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The baby was, as expected, incredibly tuckered out after a (supposedly) long day of precariously balancing atop the many Bone Fortresses. As of right now, Aure was carefully held --- by the scruff --- in the tip of Eythan's beak. The little wyvern was closely tucked in on himself, oversized wings enveloping him. If one listened closely, they'd hear tiny little snores from the little lump. It was cute, honestly.

Eythan peered down as carefully as he could, eyes scanning the rocky outcroppings near the Bonecaster's den. Tilting his tail ever-so-slightly, he arced toward it. Careful to slow his descent as much as he could, he tilted himself backward. Wings flapping slowly, but purposefully, he alighted, all without a single fuss from his baby brother. Smiling rather proudly to himself, the gryphon plodded forth, careful to not disturb a single mushroom at the edge of the garden. To the best of his abilities --- and to not wake Aure up --- he clicked his talons against the stone, trying to catch Giggle's attention, should she be in.

@Giggle

Giggle stood, rounded ears pricking up, dark eyes and muzzle pointed toward the sound of feathers. Truth be told, she was worried whenever Eythan was out with Aure--and not least of all due to Eythan's reputation as a short-tempered kinslayer. But she knew the caves were dangerous, too, and when they were gone, she fretted that something--something--the void, the eyes might get them.

She moved from a peering standstill to a soft trot, moving up to the hybrids, giving Aure a once-over of gentle sniff-checking. Then she looked to Eythan, alert, nodding once and speaking very, very softly.

"You're both all right, then?" was all she asked, for now.

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ROLL THE BONES

@Eythan

As the hyena emerged from the den, not at all seeming to be upset or wary, Eythan relaxed and let his head dip a little lower. The baby seemed to show no reaction to being sniffed, simply in too deep of a near-comatose state for now. If only he could sleep that hard. The gryphon smirked inwardly at the thought, tail flicking in amusement. Caves, he wished that were him, not threatened by possible night terrors and dreamless sleep.

In response to Giggle's question, he nodded, unable to really speak through the lump in his beak. Then, in unspoken words, he stretched his neck out toward the Bonecaster, offering up Aure.

@Giggle

The hyena turned, taking Aure gently, carefully, by his scruff. She padded over to the bed she'd made for him--lined with soft fern leaves and old patches of moss--and laid him there. She paused for a moment to groom him, and then ensured that he was wholly hidden beneath the outcroppings of plants and fungi.

He was. Safe, for now, and with Omen's single watchful eye watching from a safe distance, too.

She eyed the bird for a moment, thinking, and then looked to Eythan. Her voice came quiet, a masculine whisper.

"Do you have time?" She paused, and then added, "To speak, I mean. And if you still wished to learn to fight, well-..." The hyena glanced back over at the sleeping child, then to his older brother.

"I think we're well past time, if you have the energy for it tonight."

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ROLL THE BONES

@Eythan

Eythan watched as the hyena disappeared into her den, Aure in tow. Barely a sound came from the darkness, so he presumed the baby was definitely still snoozing, but now in the comfort of a warm bed. The hybrid made a mental note to bring a meal later for the infant to snack on, whenever he woke up. He had just rocked back onto his haunches as Giggle reemerged, whispering quietly about time.

At that, he was half-tempted to snort a laugh, but instead just nodded. "I always do." Then, rather disdainfully toward himself, he added, "I don't get out much." Eythan shook his head. "Anyways, yeah --- I can talk, if you want? I was going to bring some food, in case you wanted it, but Aure conked out on the way back."

Chuckling softly, he continued, "he was just so excited that he figured out how to balance. I took him over to the fortresses so he could try and climb on the biggest fuckin' bone pile he could find and not knock it over or fall in." Realizing how much he was unintentionally gushing about his baby brother, Eythan shook his head again. "Yeah, I'd like to learn to fight, if you're up to it."

@Giggle

Giggle snorted in good-natured amusement. Eythan clearly loved Aure, and that was--good, for now. With a nod she stood, passing him and breaking into a lope, right back toward the bone fortresses.

"Good! Let's not go too far, in case something happens--but enough that we aren't too loud. I wanted to ask you something, too." She broke off as she trotted, pondering, for a moment, how best to phrase her questions. She didn't want it to sound like an accusation; it wasn't, exactly. She'd decided that Eythan was family, now, for better or for worse, and if he was in league with the shittiest of shit-cats, she'd just have to work him out of it, rather than drive him off or judge him.

"...I remember you becoming--shrouded in shadows. Glowing eyes. Tell me, do you know of Senka--the naked cat? Or do you know of the void with the thousand silver eyes?"

She glanced carefully to Eythan as she went. She'd not addressed the mention of food, not yet, but that didn't matter--she had a rat stashed away, and she didn't doubt that they could catch something more on their way back to the den.

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ROLL THE BONES

@Eythan

As was the case often, Eythan plodded after the hyena, trailing her toward the bone fortresses. He spared a cursory glance back to where Aure slept, already tensed and prepared to spring at the first opportunity toward him. It'd been three whole days, and he was already ready to fight anything and anyone for his baby brother.

He turned to Giggle's back with a bit of confusion, meeting eyes for the briefest of seconds as he was glanced at. Shadows? When--- oh. Eythan shook his head quietly. Realizing that the hyena likely hadn't seen the gesture, he spoke, "no? I don't know where or how I learned how to do that. One day, I woke up, and here it fuckin' was."

@Giggle

Giggle winced, one paw hanging midair so that she stumbled and nearly fell. He doesn't even know..? She caught herself, grimacing, and reflecting that perhaps it was for the best. If he was telling the truth, at least he wasn't in league with Senka.

"I wonder if you were targetted because of your relation to me. Or maybe it was just... around the same time? I don't know if you were even born yet, then," she reflected sadly.

Giggle really had no idea on time-frames; she had lost all sense of it while in the black. Had Eythan been born before? After? During, perhaps? When had Cancer died? Surely all that had happened to her hadn't happened in a single cycle--it must have been later..?

She shook these thoughts away and turned to him, no longer travelling, her expression a little grim.

"There is another... realm, Eythan, for lack of a better word. A void. A nothing. Some can go in and out--Omen can. The darkness on you--I think it was related. It comes, roiling, with glowing silver eyes. The eyes watch," she added, and the stress of memories added a hoarse and almost gibbering, jilted cadence to her speech. "Maybe you can gain power to go in and out. Or maybe it tells them where you are, when you use it. I don't know. Let me show you--will you let me do that? Let me show you what the place was like, mind-to-mind."

She grimaced again, hesitating, then added--"But I warn you... it isn't pleasant. It's something you need to be aware of, though. Maybe you can fight it. Maybe not. Maybe none of us can. But being able to leave would have been nice."

She tentatively worked to open a mind-link, not yet sending anything along it.

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ROLL THE BONES

Eythan skidded to a stop, then lurched forward to catch the hyena as she stumbled. Ears flickering back as she caught herself, the hybrid stared worriedly. His brows were quirked slightly, softly giving an unspoken question: are you okay?

"It… doesn't hurt," he offered quietly, trying to give a little semblance of further information. "I don't remember meeting you — if I did, I mean — before you and Bones came to Polaris. Dad… fell before you came back, I think." His tentative, slow steps halted as Giggle turned to him, expression solemn, now; she spoke of another realm, a void, with many silver eyes that stare. A wing came from his side as he approached, head low, trying to wrap it around the bonecaster's shoulder and give her some semblance of comfort. Eythan watched carefully as she spoke, tilted speech continuing. There was a possibility of entry, on his own, to the void. But, from the primal fear that it sparked in Giggle, he wasn't sure if he wanted to.

"Okay," he said simply, softly, nodding and opening himself to the oncoming surge of images and what the origins of cycles of trauma. "If you're ready."

@Giggle

Giggle stared, listening, sombrely silent. She accepted Eythan's wing without a flinch, and when he had finished, she spoke a single sentence in a hushed tone.

"It isn't about pain."

Her mind, linking to Eythan's, plunged into darkness. Memories of black space, nothing within it--nothing for the paws to gain purchase on, nothing to indicate what was up, or down, or whether her his frantic scrambling was changing her his location at all.

Emptiness, no sound, no feeling. The air had no taste. Breathing it brought no sense of life. Hunger gnawed, but only faintly, and there was nothing to stave it off--and thirst. It was as if starving, but in a dream--a nightmare--real, and yet not.

The nothing stretched, in time and space. She was there forever, it seemed.

The silence was deafening.

Her own heartbeat became impossibly loud. She heard it as voices, voices of the familiar. The nothing around her, the ever-pitch-black, played host to moving shapes that weren't ever there--her mind trying to find some input in a world where none existed. The visions of those she remembered, parading past, or half-glimpsed from the corner of one eye, brought back no true memories--she couldn't remember, past her terror. Wouldn't remember, past the subconscious knowledge that doing so would break her.

No, she couldn't remember what she'd lost. Not in here. Not yet. She would truly go mad, then. Everything fell away and pieces of her his mind shattered and broke and fell away like scintillating glass, each reflecting a facet of herself that she could not cling to here.

A flash of black feathers, and Omen appeared in the nothing, a single crimson eye staring. At this memory, Giggle recalled one other thing--one more thing to show Eythan. Silver eyes bloomed through the void, dozens of them opening from the nothing to rotate and stare down at her at him, unblinking and eternal.

It was an infinite plane, yet claustrophobically pressing in with its nothingness, the eyes far too close--

Giggle cut it off, and spoke her warning softly.

"It's about fear."

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ROLL THE BONES

@Eythan

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