ORIGIN

Pride came clattering into Canis with a grim face, and a grimmer heart.

Barely an hour had passed since their killing of Blackberry, and the betrayal of Wilder. Envy had left him, heading to guard the Throne against Wilder's potential return--and he had come here, to warn Aure of what, exactly, the hybrid had in his group.

The problem was, Canis was large. Pride spent some time circling, calling out to no avail, before heading to the hyena seer's bone pit. He knew that place, at least; Giggle had told his fortune more than once, and she was one of the Bonebound, as well.

"Aure?" he called out as he came in. He'd met the hybrid only once--in the meeting that Dragon had called not too long ago--but he'd seemed thoughtful, reasonable, if a little quiet. But it hadn't seemed the quiet of uncertainty--when Aure did speak, it was not with fear. Rather, it was the quiet of thoughtful temperance, and Pride hoped that his news would not stir that calm to anger.

"Aure, of the Bonebound? Are you here?"

Pride took a deep breath, eyeing Aure, and offering a nod to both he and to the hyena. He hadn't given much thought to how he was going to explain all of this--uncharacteristically, perhaps, but then his mind was still reeling.

"It's done, yes. I came to warn you about her, in fact. I am unsure as to where she is, but I will tell you now that she is no longer welcome in Orion, at the very least. I think if she were not a member of the Bonebound we would have been... more severe, but she is, in a sense, yours." He hesitated.

Envy's words had been spat with venom--things like "two-faced" and "rude" were the best of it--and he had to try and make it sound at least a little less offensive. His own opinions, though, of Wilder--those were also very dark.

"Wilder came to me seeking, apparently, information about the Bloodberries. When I told her what I knew--thinking it to be innocent questioning--she rather slyly segued into asking about the location of Blueberry's stone--that is one of the old Bloodberries, and the large moose, the one Blackberry used to create her larger children." A weapon, obviously--that needn't be said. "Eventually she admitted that she knew where Blackberry was--had been speaking to her, in fact. I told her that the goose would need to face trial. Here--and I am sorry to tell you this--is where things grow rather more dire."

The stag shook himself a little, looking away. He was still distant, still a little trembly, with the after-effects of the adrenaline. Blackberry's screams still rang in his ears--what he'd meant to be a swift, clean death had gone rather horribly awry, for some reason. But he had a task to see to, so he looked back to Aure, squaring himself up to it. "I had thought her, until that point, to simply be naive and innocent. But when she agreed to join us in gathering Blackberry for a trial, it became clear that she was using magic. A touch into her mind revealed her warning the goose, asking what Wilder should do about us, Envy and myself. And when we asked her what she had been doing, she held that same innocent, naive face, claiming to merely be tired from the run, and so forth. I think her entire 'sweet innocent' act may all be just that--an act--and I have come to warn you. I warn you, too, that her magic is more powerful than you might think. I know that she used it to good effect to survive the trials in Monoceros a cycle or two back." He looked, then, to Giggle. "Despite Reseda's former insistences, I do believe that you have the power of some Sight. It might be wise to use it. As I say--Wilder is no longer welcome in Orion. I understand, personally, that she may need to travel through it at times--but if she is caught lingering there she will be ejected, and I cannot say how forcefully. We cannot trust her," he added bluntly. "It was because of that warning that we had to rush into killing Blackberry, rather than bringing her to any sort of trial. We had no idea what sort of trap might be waiting."

He hoped that the Bonebound would put her to a trial of their own--he didn't think that her actions deserved death, by any means, but such behavior left unpunished would be certain to repeat itself. He hoped that they had the sense to kick her out of Canis, too; she was, in Pride's mind, an insidious little shit bound to try and overthrow, to lie, to smile sweetly while aiding much darker forces.

...Perhaps his perception was colored a little bit dark, by experience.

The first thing she worried about...

Pride eyed Aure, worriedly. Was he as naive as Wilder had seemed--? "I just warn you to be wary that what she claims to feel may not be true at all. But she is one of you, and of course we will have no opinions one way or the other on how you choose to handle this internally. It is a matter of warning--nothing more." A reassuring nod, his antlers shifting, and Pride went on. "Greed--Reseda? She used to be one of ours. Exiled, now; she's in fact the one who brought us Blueberry's corpse. She's a troublemaker, violent--Giggle, you know her. Don't trust her. Do you know who started the fight-?"

"Thank you for your offer. I need to get back to Envy in case there is a trap to be sprung, but if you need us for any reason, we will be in Orion. Be well," he added, after a moment--and turned, clattering back the way he had come.

The hyena listened with growing annoyance and growing grim humor. At one point, she very distinctly muttered something about "shit-cats," but it wasn't clear what.

She didn't like Pride, much. She didn't dislike him, exactly, but his pristine primness had always put her off, as if he were shallow, more concerned with appearances than with substance. Now, however, the scars littering his face and the exhausted intensity in his gaze were clear. The mention of Greed had her glancing at Aure; she'd not heard about this. She knew Reseda--and disliked her even more than she disliked Pride, and by a rather large margin. The lizard was toxic, poison--she'd only ever met one other komodo during her time in the caves, and that one had been equally a troublemaker.

Giggle watched him intently, and when he'd gone, she took the keel that Aure had offered. Up she went, up to her ledge, and down she set it, speaking to him.

"Cats seem to have a habit of betraying," she started, drily. Every time she thought she'd like one, it turned out to be a shitty traitor. "But if you want, if you speak to her at some point, I could read her mind, as well. See her real motivations--intentions--whatever. I'd suggest talking to her and getting her side of things before making any decisions, but I'm guessing you already intend that." Her son was nothing if not reasonable, level-headed. He wouldn't act rashly; she had faith in that.

She stared down at the pile, for a moment, and then lobbed the keel downward. Bones scattered, and she went back to speaking, quite matter-of-factly. "The way they fall together speaks of trying to bring things together--it can be hard. Perhaps she's just different from most, and we have to work to integrate her. I see white bones toppling stained ones--good over evil; we need to try and see that she sees morality clearly, I suppose. Or ensure that we ourselves don't support the wrong side! --Both would be wise," she added, with a short cackle.
"The bones speak of an ending, too--or a result of all this, anyway. The pile beneath the keel is unstable. Her morals are frayed. There's a lack of something--justice, I think--lack of communication. We need to find out what she sees--thinks--feels--and make sure her perspective isn't skewed."

The hyena rocked back on her haunches, scratching behind one ear with a hind leg, as she gazed thoughtfully down at Aure.

"Congratulations, anyway; looks like you have your first real problem as King to solve." Her voice was amused. "Lucky it's not something more--overwhelming. Don't let it get to you; my advice? Be fair and firm."

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ROLL THE BONES

Giggle listened closely, and at Aure's joke regarding the sudden jump in leadership difficulty, she laughed quite raucously.

As to the rest of what he said, she listened. She couldn't really deny that most "evil" was simply others doing things misguidedly, but that was pretty much the definition of evil, wasn't it? Selfish, harmful actions? Her thoughts erupted before she really had time to consider whether she should speak them, blurting out--"All the moral questions! If they're a problem you solve it, if they're allies you help." This was said with deep amusement and followed, again, by a cackle.

"And as for magic-... It's been awhile. There's spells I didn't want to teach you--you were too young--but they can help to save your life. Spells to confuse your enemy's mind long enough to kill them, if they're out to kill you, or to do-... whatever else needs doing," she added, with a shrug.

"This is one of them," she went on, pacing a few steps away to nudge at one of the mushrooms around her bone pit. They were small, red-brown things, hardly-noticeable and she never called attention to them. "This place isn't without defenses! I've been attacked here before, nearly killed, so these are here, now. The spores from these will addle the mind. But that doesn't necessarily make your enemy less dangerous--and they need to breathe them in, first. This is a little more direct," she went on--"Brace yourself."

She focused, for a moment, bracing her own paws against the stone, head low--eyes on her own child. And then she sent her mind to his, imparting brief, nightmarish visions of the Void, of being trapped, of monsters and of eyes in the darkness. It wasn't anything too terrible--it was mild, at its worst, and she was being very careful not to truly frighten or overwhelm him, if she could. It was an example, however, of how such powers could be used in self-defense. Should the time come, she did not want her son to be defenseless.

"That can be much stronger! If you want to learn--to train--come to me and I will help you. Teach you. You might think of me as just an old seer, your old Mom, but I've had my share of magic practice," she added, a crooked grin crossing her face.

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ROLL THE BONES

Giggle snorted with amusement, pacing over to give Aure an affectionate nuzzle to his head. By the caves, her son was too damn sweet for his own good.

"Hrmph. I never mentioned anything about a hag," she responded, with good-natured amusement. Heckling Aure--gently--never got old, really. Unlike me, apparently!

"As for all the 'good' and 'evil' and moral choices--ask yourself this: according to who, or what? -There's no grand set of rules inscribed somewhere, no secret bunch of information that someone else knows, that we don't. There's situations, and we have to try and make sense of them, but a lot of things you have to just do what feels right to you, at the time. Follow your heart, really follow it, do what you think is right--try your best--and that's the best any of us can do. As for irredeemable?" She thought about Senka, for a moment, and shook the thought immediately away.

"In my eyes--and we all have to make our own decisions, remember!--everyone does things for a reason. But some of those reasons might be selfish, or cruel. If someone's gonna be a threat, you kill 'em, or take 'em out. If they did terrible things and they regret? That depends on a lot of things! 'Redemption' isn't a real thing, Aure. Irredeemable isn't real; it's just a word. There's no invisible counter on a Gembound that will keep track of how bad or good or redeemed they are! It's about justice for the emotional sake of the wronged. And it's about preventing future harm. And it's about showing consequences for others who might otherwise decide to do bad things. It's all very complex and... I don't think I'm qualified to judge what's good, or bad, or what. Maybe nobody is. We just have to do the best we can."

She paused, eyeing Aure, then added--"And for that, to always be ready, always ready to defend family and do the best we can--we need to be able to defend ourselves. Can you try to do the thing I just did--the flood of scary... things," (Language, Giggs, she corrected herself just in time) "into my mind? You focus on your thoughts--focus on trying to find mine. I don't know if you've tried that sort of thing much--but you sort of... send your own thoughts out. Project them. Find mine... and change them, push yours into mine. Give it a try," she encouraged him.

She didn't want her son defenseless out there... not now, not ever.

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ROLL THE BONES