ORIGIN

In the center of Canis where the roof reaches for the floor, aiming to unite what lies above and what rots below, there is a Bone Pile. Here, a large, rounded circular area of earth--dirt-covered and darker than the nearby, reddish rock--is strewn with bones. Large bones. Small bones. Ribs and skulls. Femurs and vertebrae and the talons of the dead. Those who have fallen. Those who failed. A path winds around this clearing--a path well-worn, marked with the prints of a large and clawed carnivore. This path leads to a point behind a boulder, one which juts out over the pile, providing an aerial view of the bones and not too much head clearance before the roof of the cave. Not much light reaches this point; the nearby hanging light orb casts an unsteady, uneasy yellow glow that seems to dip and shiver and sometimes cast a moonlit or blood-infused glow over the bones.

And presiding over it all--sometimes eating nearby, or resting in a patch of dirt near the puddles some distance away, or sitting on the boulder gazing down upon the bones--is a female hyena. Her coat is reddish, ragged, smudged with uneven black spots; the fur hangs with festering fungus and dried, caked gore. She does not care. Her attention is on the bones. Visitors will be granted their time with her: the bones speak to all. Some rumors of the soothsayer may have spread; she is the Bonecaster, the shaman of Canis, willing to throw and read the bones and divine the fortunes of any who might dare to hear their wisdom.

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Roll the bones.

Ever since those raptors had barged into the tunnels and tried to attack and/or eat the lot of them, Leon had been on high alert. He feared encountering them again, especially alone. That was why he had decided today to track down somebody who he thought might be able to help. Leon had never been to Canis before; he'd heard of its location, in the opposite quadrant as Pisces. It had taken him a little while to finally reach this room, after stumbling his way through nearby tunnels that would take him to places he wasn't necessarily looking to be. Eventually, though, the lone tunnel opened up into a wide, cold room. The sound of dripping water was all that touched the silence, droplets sliding off of stalactites into pools of moisture, echoing through the emptiness of the room. He'd half expect to hear the voices of those that lived here, but it was quiet.

"Aza'zel?" He called out, stepping tentatively into the bone room. There was nothing - so he moved in further, carefully peering around the rocks and piles of bones in search of the large vulture. If anybody could help him track down these raptors, it would be Aza'zel. However... he had a feeling that the large bird wasn't home. Instead, Leon spotted somebody else. Perched upon an outcropping of rock was a familiar form, looming over another pile of bones. The bear slowed, orange eyes curiously flickering over the scene before him.

As he approached, he kept his eyes on her. She had aided them when the raptors attacked, but Leon found himself unable to trust her completely. She'd caused a bushel of rank-smelling mushrooms to sprout out of his skin, which was... startling and unpleasant, to say the least. But maybe she'd know where Aza'zel was. "Hey... you," He said awkwardly, coming to a halt and leaning onto his hind paws to scratch at the back of his head. "I'm looking for Aza'zel. Have you seen him?" Leon asked and plopped his front paws back on the ground.

The spotted hyena looked up sharply, mostly in darkness but backlit by the orb, eyes glittering in the shadow of her face as she regarded the newcomer. At length she gave a quiet yet jarring chuckle, harsh and disjointed; it seemed a sound of frustration, more than amusement.

"...No," she finally answered, and her voice was deep and rough, though her tone itself was not hostile. "I haven't seen Aza'zel in some time."

Giggle stood, light flashing over the dark-spotted reddish coat, seeming to linger on all the 'gross' that was caked and grew there. It looked like she'd rolled in gore, let it dried, and grown stringy dark mushrooms over it--and as she padded down from her boulder to approach Leon, seemingly in the polite fashion of a host greeting a guest, the faint but rancid stench would be apparent. She smelled rank.

"He calls me Giggle. I am the Bonecaster. We have met," she added, not trying to hide her appraising gaze as her eyes wandered over Leon, lingering over his massive paws, the crystal at his back, the heavy muzzle.

Now here is a surprise. I wonder what he's after? Funny how things work out. He seems awkward. Almost... shy. How cute.

This last thought was impersonal and dry, and (with her assessment completed) Giggle slowly sat down a couple yards away from Leon, facing him with her full, neutral attention. "The last I had heard, Aza'zel was said to be recovering somewhere, from some wounds or other. That was not very recent, mind you. Maybe there is something I can help you with?"

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Roll the bones.

Her high pitched giggling had caused the bear to flatten his ears, however small and stubby they may have been, against his skull and wince. He didn't understand what was so funny about it - but maybe he had walked in on something... Leon remained silent, watching somewhat uncertainly as the hyena giggled and then sharply answered him. No. His heart sank. He'd have to search somewhere else for the bird then, which meant he'd probably have to go back to Orion first to tell Zetos. Maybe he'd have the little leopard cub tag along... The bear uttered a small, dejected sigh as she added that she hadn't seen the bird in a while. Had he not been here in Canis? This was his home, wasn't it? Leon quirked his brows and tilted his head, worried.

The bear stood where he was, watching as she rose and began to walk down from her perch towards him. Sure enough as she rose a rather odious aroma followed her, twisting around his nostrils, causing the bear to wrinkle his nose and nearly gag. It definitely wasn't polite to gag in front of people, especially if the stench was coming from them, but he really couldn't help it. Leon blinked a few times, his eyes watering, and raised his paw to rub the smell out of his nose. No luck. He sniffed a few times and tried to hide the fact that her stench offended him. "Yes." He confirmed and nodded. So she was called Giggle then, the Bonecaster. An odd name, but somehow fitting for a rancid and dirty hyena. "Wounds from what? What happened?" Leon's attention drifted back to Aza'zel. Had he gotten himself into trouble with the golems? Or maybe those pesky raptors...?

He cast his gaze around the room, finding himself intrigued by the pile of bones beneath her perch. "What're the bones for?" Oh, innocent, naive little Leon - the bear had only known bones to be the product of eating. Never in his wildest dreams would he imagine that there was a Gembound out there that coveted them. A Gembound that used them to predict the fortune of one Makyna Songcat - a fortune that would, unknown to Leon, predict a union involving Makyna very soon. If only he was aware of Makyna's visit to the hyena, he'd have known better than to come traipsing in.

Giggle's brows raised slightly as the bear seemed to grow more and more ill-at-ease. A lightweight, then, this one--soft, perhaps; maybe weak-stomached? She sighed inwardly and turned her focus to his words, listening. Then she shook her head.

"I don't know. The bird told me--the other bird, Bevy. I think he'd been in a fight." Giggle glanced back over the bones as the grizzly bear asked her about them, then looked back to him with solemnity and mischief vying for dominance over her face. The result looked almost faintly malicious, though not deliberately so.

"The bones speak to me. They answer many questions, show me many things. Lots of Gembounds've come to have me read their futures in them," she added, a faint hint of youthful pride and joy, as well as the somewhat undramatically weak grammar of a young creature, entering her words.

She glanced back at her bones again, and then to Leon, slyly waiting to see if he would speak. She had a feeling that if she offered to read his fortune outright, he might just run away. And in any case, it wasn't her place--if someone wanted a reading, the bones would call to them, too, and they would ask for it.

And she would provide.

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Roll the bones.

A fight seemed almost obvious - Aza'zel was the kind of bird to dive bomb headfirst into a fight. The fact that Bevy had known what happened was surprising to him, but he really shouldn't have been too surprised. Most everybody seemed to know everybody else in the caves, and Aza'zel had even joined them on their escapade out to Polaris. Bevy hadn't made mention of anything having happened to Aza'zel, but then again, Leon didn't really ask. He nodded and stored that information away, making a mental note to seek out Bevy again for answers. His attention would drift now to the bones, looking over them while Giggle's face twisted into that of mild malice. Confused, he tried to seek the answer in the bones - what had she meant? Could she speak to the bones? Was it the souls of those who were once bound by the bones? Was she just crazy? It was hard to tell.

"The future..." He murmured thoughtfully. Leon couldn't deny that he was curious about the future. He wanted to know what would happen between he and Makyna. Would he meet his friend again? Was she angry at him for having left? Or would she understand, would she forgive him? Brows furrowed in mild concern. Did he really want to know the answer...? Leon looked back to Giggle and inched closer. "Could you... tell my future?" The bear asked tentatively. Some part of him hoped that if she could, she wouldn't bring up Makyna - and another part was so desperate to know everything, he'd likely throw himself in a volcano just for the answer.

She smiled faintly on the outside, more on the in. As she stood and paced over to her pile, she felt, somehow, like someone who'd just snagged a fish--she wasn't quite sure why.

Pausing, she eyed over the bones, and it didn't take long for her to pick out the one that reminded her of this bear. It was a bull's skull, one horn broken and shattered away, probably at some point in its life. It was a particularly emotional bone--it felt of hurt and pain and gentle warmth, of the tender extension of a helping limb with the knowledge that it would be burned.

It was strong, but gentle, shy, and these things reminded her strongly of the bear. It was also heavier than most of her collection, and so after she'd padded quietly over, picking her way through the bones and gripping one horn in her jaws, she had to half-drag it back through with a quiet clattering. She set it down only briefly, to speak, before again lifting it and dragging it up the worn path to her boulder.

"Stay here," she said.

Once she'd made it to the top of her pile she paused, panting briefly to catch her breath. She looked down, peering at the bear, and at the very shallow pit filled with ribs and skulls and spines.

And then she dragged the bull's skull to the edge, jerking it over and letting it fly, watching closely as it smashed down into the other bones. Her eyes flicked intently over each scattering of ribs, each ricochet of tibias, every spinning vertebra. She slowly sat, pondering.

A frown flicked over her face as she picked out first one shape, and then another.

Her frown deepened.

She half-stood, then sat again, and looked to Leon with a guarded, solemn expression.

"There are antlers, scattered and broken, Bear. I know not if you were the hunted, or the hunter--perhaps both--but you failed." Her voice came stern and almost cold, like a wind through the bones, and she felt the chill of the truth grip her. He had failed.

"A broken hammer-bone. A shattered ribcage. A decision you made--that you make--you think it morally correct, Bear. You think it is justice. It is not. It will lead you to loneliness. Only to loneliness."

She sounded somehow more stern than usual, and she felt it, too, and found herself staring Leon down. The bear was in the process of making some grave mistake, or he already had done so. The bones were unequivocally negative about that. For a long moment, she let the silence hang, as if waiting for Leon to speak--and yet just before the time ripened, she continued.

"There may be a way to avoid this fate. Give me permission, and I will see it."

Her eyes were sharp and blazing as she regarded the bear from her perch atop the boulder, breath held as she waited. Would he let her see...? Was there a way out of this lonely existence for the shy ursine? The bones ached to speak. She could only hope that he would allow her to put voice to their wisdom.

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Roll the bones.

Leon watched her closely. The hyena seemed to delight in his question, as if having lingered on it, hoping that he would ask. He couldn't lie - Leon was incredibly curious about what his future had in store. At the same time, he didn't really want to know, and he even doubted that her predictions would be accurate at all. But maybe she had a way to see into the future, like how Makyna could see into the past. Gembounds had abilities of all kinds, and now that he thought about it, maybe it wouldn't be too farfetched for her to see into the future... but her methods of doing it, that was a different story. The hyena had wandered off to the bone piles, picking one and dragging it over. It was a rather hefty skull, with a shattered horn and a face that Leon didn't recognize. He would've offered to help, but she seemed rather intent in her actions. After she told him to stay put, he obeyed, nodding quietly.

The hyena would then drag the skull up to the top of the pile, where she proceeded to just... toss it down. The loud clattering rang through the room, causing him to pin his ears back again. The skull sent various ribs flying, and Leon tilted his head, trying to see what she was trying to accomplish by doing this. While the bear couldn't understand what had just happened, it seemed the hyena saw something he didn't. She appeared pensive, and then a grave frown began to spread on her lips. Panic rose in the bear, and he glanced around, as if seeking some kind of escape from the inevitable bad news.

But there it was. He furrowed his brow and tried to make sense of her words. The hunter, or the hunted - he didn't know which he was. He didn't even know he was involved in a hunt, but somehow, he had failed. What had he been hunting for? Food? Somebody else? Was it... was it the love he sought from Makyna? Leon frowned and glanced aside. If he had failed, then... what did that mean? There was more, and she went on to talk about a decision he had made. That only worried him more. She was right - how she knew, he couldn't tell. But she was right. He had made a decision, a terrible one. He thought it would be the right thing. Distancing himself from Makyna would allow her and Cancer the privacy Cancer wanted. He didn't want to interfere - but in doing so, he had made himself alone. Had he been wrong in his decision?

What would it mean? Leon was wrapped up in his thoughts when the hyena spoke out again. An offering to change this fate. But - no, you couldn't change fate! Leon frowned over at her. He didn't want to tempt this. This was already bad enough - he didn't want to hear anything else. "Wh- no, just stop," Leon stammered, standing up again. "You've done enough." He added, glancing around. He really didn't want to hear anymore. This was frightening enough - and maybe, if he thought on it, he could find a way to convince himself that what she said was wrong. He could distract himself. "...Thanks." Leon added and turned away from her, jogging back to the entrance of the room.

Some day, the bear would learn that fleeing from his problems would not solve them. Today was not that day.

Giggle's eyes narrowed as the bear stammered and retreated, the coldly irritated anger settling in her heart--that feeling she got when the bones were denied. When she was denied. When she didn't get what she wanted.

The hyena let out a chilling cackle, but it was sheer frustration--emotion released through a spray of jittering sound. When all had fallen quiet, she risked a glance down at the bone pile, anyway. A secret look. Something the bear would never know.

She blinked at what she saw, and felt herself softening, somewhat.

It wouldn't have mattered--her words would have made no difference. This was a lesson that the bear--and he'd never given her his name, she thought?--would have to learn alone. So long as he rejected what she offered, the entire situation was moot.

If it isn't me, it'll be another--but he has to accept that, first.

Giggle lowered her head to her paws and closed her eyes, and idly drifted off to sleep, the bear and his frantic heart soon passing entirely from her mind.

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Roll the bones.