ORIGIN

Kera's description had been good--or at least, it had sounded good. A hunched-over, dog-looking-thing with spots, by the name of Giggle, that spoke to bones.

Vargas had been of the very strong opinion that "speaking to bones" was not likely to be a form of magic so much as insanity, but his new hand in the caves had insisted that Giggle's prophecies had been clear, direct, and surprisingly accurate. He had resolved to find out for himself, to investigate--along with searching out many other things Kera had mentioned.

The hulking beast stalked through Canis, mostly silent, though at times he knocked loose bones clattering over the floor. He wasn't hunting, though, so he ignored that; he kept his head up, peering down from his walking tower.

It took him several hours, but he at last caught sight of a creature not far off what he sought: shaggy, its coat laden with spores, scars criss-crossing its face. Before he could call out, she was gone: she'd turned tail and vanished over the ledge behind the pit of bones beneath. He blinked (all six eyes) and began to pace swiftly after her, calling out as he did so.

"ARE YOU GIGGLE? THE THING THAT SPEAKS TO BONES?" His voice was loud, to say the least.

She'd been lounging, and Omen had warned her in advance--complete with brief images of a massive purple something stalking through the cave--of Vargas's approach. But Omen was small, and the sheer size of the thing-... A vicarious, brief vision wasn't enough to have warned her of his proportionate bulk. When he appeared, he was at once a thing of nightmares: alarm rang through her. She didn't assume him to be sentient, at all. He looked old; he looked like a Lorekeeper-thing, like something that had slunk out from the dark to tear prey apart.

Her instincts, at least, were good.

She slipped back into the clustered boulders back behind her ledge, intending to slink away--already summoning up spores to activate if needed. But his voice gave her pause. Her heart was racing--Is it here to speak, or hunt-? Is this to do with Hydra opening? What could something like that want with me?

Was reading the bones somehow an insult, to it? A crime to a creature she did not know?

But Giggle had one rule: a strong one; that whoever came to consult the bones was not to be turned away. It didn't matter who they were; as their chosen conduit, it wasn't up to her to decide who to accept, and who to deny.

Dark eyes narrowed, she turned and--belly close to the ground--crept back over the rocky crest.

"Don't come closer," she snapped, in warning. "Are you here to hear what they have to say--or are you here for a fight?" Her voice was fierce, bluffing of course; she had magic but she also had zero illusions about her chance should the building-sized monster launch itself for her. Hell, she thought wryly, looking down at the sleek, enormous beast where he'd paused, I think it could clear the pit and the ledge in one jump.

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Vargas peered up with amusement. He noticed two things, though: first, that she had a small, red stone at the center of her forehead and second, that she was clotted with fungus. One of Astraea's, then-? he thought, wondering if perhaps the Master had created that... thing, sort of, maybe, in his own image. But no--I doubt he would ever make something so ugly. Astraea, whatever his form, was beautiful and had taken pride in such; delicate movements, a soft voice. This thing was brusque in form and motion, thick-jawed and sunken-eyed, ugly by any definition of the word.

Ironic, coming from Vargas, but he didn't even consider this.

His initial observation complete, he called back to her with dark amusement in his tone. "If I were here to fight you, it would not be a fight, but a hunt, and you would already be dead. Come down here," he added, his voice a clear order. "I am Overseer Vargas, and you will tell me of these bones."

Then he waited, certainty strong in him. She would obey, of course; the alternative was to be eaten.

Alarm rang through Giggle once more. For one thing, he didn't sound as though he were here for a reading. He sounded like some policing authority figure, debating whether to destroy them. And despite his enormous, bulking size, she felt a spike of resentment at his tone, his presumed authority.

Drawing herself up, putting on her most "stern mother" voice--the one that had brought Kerberos at last to heel--she spoke. "Vargas. I'm Giggle, bone-reader of the Bonebound. It's polite to say 'please,'" she added, her heart pounding. Oh, the ways this could go wrong...

She began pacing down back toward her ledge, regardless, and the trail that led down to the bone pit. The implication was that she was willing to read--if he could find his manners.

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Amusement and aggravation--as they so often did when the tiny ones were rebellious--rose within him. He made no move to attack, but instead drew nearer the bone pit, until he was standing at its lip.

"So many of you have forgotten your place. I am your Overseer, and your life or death is in my hands. I would be happy to remind you. Consider still being alive despite that outburst my 'politeness,'" he added in a growl. He then gestured to the bones, with one massive-spined arm, glancing out to look them over.

"My Hand of the Overseer, Lightbringer Kera, has told me of your powers. I am here to test whether you are useful, and whether your magic is real. I am older than you can fathom, and 'talking to bones' has never been a magic of which I have been aware."

He looked back to the hyena as she descended the trail. She was tense, her dark eyes on him, but there was a calculating something to him that he hadn't often encountered. Like Kera, she was grizzled, tough with age and survival. But she had, too, a sullent, almost resentful fearlessness to her-... Or fearlessness was perhaps the wrong word. Pride, maybe? Or the sense that she'd already seen something as terrifying as he was.

Good; it only meant she knew her fate if she rebelled against him. "Show me," he demanded, nodding to the bones.

Well, she definitely did have pride. As Giggle studied the seven-foot spikes and building-sized predator, though, she wondered if it were quite worth it, this time. Still, the Lorekeeper's stories rippled through her memory, and she couldn't help but wonder if this 'Overseer' was something from the Time of Noise that she'd talked so much about. He certainly seemed to believe himself in authority; and he wasn't mindlessly aggressive about it. It wasn't like Rafael and some others had been--a Gembound coming in, violently demanding submission. This thing spoke with presumed obedience in mind, and the weight of ages behind it.

...But the old hyena was stubborn, and a part of her refused to just give in. That being said, Kera had been mentioned. -Hand of the Overseer? What the hell?

"Say please," she grunted, eyeing the massive thing. She came to stand just beneath him, which was probably a mistake, but fuck it. If she was going to die, doing it insulting a thing over twenty feet tall would be an amusing enough way to go.

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Vargas stared down, expression betraying nothing. It dares? he thought, both aghast and just a little enraged. He remembered the little wolfling, the thing that had tried to spit at him and insulted him so. This one was older--less deserving of second chances and lessons, lessons she should have already learned by herself. But then, they'd been without Masters for a long time, hadn't they?

He reached down for her, a quick movement but it was a long way for his massive forelimbs to travel, and she jerked back before he could get a grip. He pushed up and stalked rapidly after her as she scrambled backward, lowering his massive head to snarl his words softly toward her.

"Very well, then. Please, little Bone-Reader, do not make me rip you limb from limb. Please do as I, your Overseer, command, and read your bones; please don't make me tear you apart, and leave the remnants scattered in your little pit." His head alone was far larger than her body, and his predatory slink frighteningly swift, almost spiderlike, as the long forelimbs rotated and jerked him forward step by step. He came as close as he could, even bumping into her as he spoke, with his jaws; the glowing acid-green seemed to flare up behind his teeth and eyes.

To say it was a "threat" would have been an understatement. His next action would be to follow through.

In about three seconds, she blew through--and past--terror and into wry, numb nightmarish unreality. She heard her own voice, still dryly amused and dark, and half of her wondered just what the hell she was thinking, to say such things.

The other half was still found it funny.

"Not exactly what I meant," she was saying; "but it will do. What do you want to ask of the bones?"

She stopped scrambling back, as he stopped moving forward, his leering glowing teeth inches from her face. Giggle wasn't aware that she'd stopped breathing; she wondered why she felt a little faint.

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Vargas stayed close, for a moment, lingering so the threat couldn't possibly be missed. Then he pushed up and back away, stalking backwards almost as quickly as he'd advanced until he was perched back alongside the bone pit.

He hoped she'd gotten the message.

"Ask them what they see for me," he said, bluntly. "In the near future, and not in the past. Should you be accurate," he added, eyeing the hyena closely, "then I may find further use for you. Possibly even... benefits, for your service." If she were very accurate, it might be wise to take her from this place, and keep her elsewhere--out of the reach of potential spies, or enemies.

But he doubted that she would be. There were ways to see the future, yes, but they were certainly not through bones; and they were vague, innaccurate, only glimpses of potentials. From what little he understood of it, future visions saw the most likely futures, and often several of them at once. But from Kera's description, Giggle did something else entirely--and it was time to get at the truth.

"I don't need, or want, benefits," Giggle answered, equally as blunt. Something about Vargas's manner spoke of him being from an entirely different culture--one of authoritarian aggression, and something she had no desire to revisit. "Being a conduit for the bones' wisdom is enough. Those of the past speak to us through them; it's my duty to answer for anyone who comes."

Even the rude ones, she thought, but did not say.

Quiet, she stepped to the edge of the bone pit, trying to ignore the hulking monstrosity sitting, waiting, close by. She mostly failed, at that; he had a strange and acrid odor to him, and even his breathing sounded like a quiet, rhythmic breeze.

Determined to get this over with as quickly as she could, but also loyal to her own craft, she stepped into the pit and looked closely over her bones. There were large ones, but they were solid--stoic, in a way; they didn't remind her strongly of Vargas. Then there were sharp, jagged ones; they did, but they were far too small. Ahh, there--... A large, hooked claw of some kind, still fitted with dessicated ligament to the toe or finger joint to which it had been attached in life. It was very sharply curved, much larger than Vargas's smaller limbs. Some large predator, undoubtedly; and not a bone Giggle remembered having seen before. The hyena took this up in her teeth, and turned, scrambling from the bone pit before assuming a more stately, trotting pace up the trail and to her ledge.

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ROLL THE BONES