ORIGIN

There was a silence. Somewhere amongst the bones there lay a chrysalis that only gave the slightest of movements. The front of it was marked with a long, thin line that gradually seemed to expand across the stone. Just as fast as the movement had began - if you could even notice it - it stopped. The silence continued.

Time passed, minutes and hours, until the stone gave more movement. The hairline cracks along the neonite sprawled across the smooth rock, ends beginning to meet and connect. The creature-inside's movement seemed almost weak, slow and sluggish. Eventually, pieces began to crack quietly, falling off as the creature inside finally emerged.

A puppy was essentially what he was. Small and fluffy with a multi-coloured coat. It's dark, bleary eyes slowly blinked as the dog looked around at it's surroundings - the low ceiling, the twisted and mangled bones everywhere and the stagnant water. Carefully, the pup stepped out from where he stood and gave a meek, confused bark.

The dog moved slowly, cautiously - not yet quite on his feet. The rounded ears on his head were pricked as high as they'd go in alarm. He slowly made his way around the bone-ridden room, head low and nervously sniffing at the dusty ground, making his way towards a shallow puddle of water to carefully loll his tongue out to lap at the water.



________________

Not too far away, a large juvenile spotted hyena had been picking carefully through the bones. She was shaggy, and dirty, and had the air of someone who was shopping: turning over this bone, then that, and leaving them behind.

She wasn't even sure what had brought her this way, today. Normally a bone pile would seem to call to her, and she would go to it, and pick the bone that sang to her mind, and bring it back to her soothsayer's pile. But today, she--

Her head snapped up, rounded ears pricking toward the sound of a weak, shallow bark. What the...?

She had frozen, motionless; now she began to move very slowly, muscles tense, lowering her head to stalk forward almost like a cat. Her intention was to approach silently, but it was the bones--her own bones (they were all her bones, in her mind--all linked to her by some sort of bizarre esoteric magic)--that betrayed her.

Her hind foot caught on one, flipping it and sending it clattering just as she stepped over a hillock to see--and hear--a pup lapping at the water. She had just enough time to register multicolored fluff, ridiculously oversized ears and a little pup shape before the noise gave her away--which caused her to utterly freeze again, staring.

What the hell do you say to someone about to catch you sneaking up on them...?


________________

Roll the bones.

The puppy jerked, immediately lifting his head and spinning around, stumpy little legs in the water. Though the water was shallow, it still nearly touched his belly. His eyes were huge and glinting with terror as he stared at the much older hyena staring at him in silence. He stumbled back out of the water, away from Giggle.

It occured to the dog that he might have to actually say something to the other creature, but no actual words came to mind. What escaped his throat instead was a soft bark. He seemed almost alarmed at how quiet the sound was, as he scrambled back a little.

Surely, the hyena was a threat. There was no other reason why it'd try to sneak up behind the nameless pup if it weren't to attack, right? The dog, however, had no way of defense or attack, and so all he could do is stand there on his shaking legs, barking under his breath at the hyena in front of him.


________________

Giggle blinked and straightened, sitting quietly down, an unexpected surge of protective, motherly instinct racing through her. She spoke quietly and reassuringly.

"I'm not here to hurt you, pup. It's okay. ...It's okay. You may be calm. I won't hurt you, little one." Her words were repetitive, her tone soothing, and in fact she found herself slowly laying down, lowering her head with a brief, relaxed shutting of her eyes, her body language broadcasting clearly that she was not hunting.

"Shh, come on then, are you cold? Hungry...?"

He's so little. So young. Scared. He shouldn't be out here on his own.

________________

Roll the bones.

The dog's comically sized ears flopped briefly, remaining almost completely still as he watched the hyena cautiously. He remained where he was for a moment longer before he began to carefully tread through the puddle closer to Giggle.

"Cold," he half-whimpered, more repeating the hyena's words than making his own statement, crouching slightly in front of her and sniffing her paws. He immediately seemed turned off by her scent, scuttling back a little with huge eyes.

He went still again, a little ways from Giggle with his chest on the ground. His ears have positioned themselves to be pricked up once more, eyes wide and watching her in silence once more.


________________

She smelled that bad, eh?

"It's food, pup--I smell like food. You hungry?"

She rose slowly, and trotted up off the hill. She glanced back once, but he wasn't following--just crouching, shivering.

BONES his ears are HUGE.

The hyena shook her head a bit, blinking, and moved away.

She was gone a scarce few minutes, then returned, trotting audible well before she rounded a rock formation with a heavy, meat-laden haunch in her teeth. All things considered it was relatively fresh, and the hyena dropped it with a thunk a few yards away from the pup.

Then Giggle backed off, laying back down and licking her chops.

"Food. Come on, eat," she urged him.

He looks like a newborn. I wonder if he's ever even eaten, before...? If he knows what food is?

She'd just have to wait and see.

________________

Roll the bones.

Not 'food,' thought the dog. Nothing that smelled that bad could be considered edible.

He was still confused where she'd went to, however, though he was vaguely relieved. He'd begun to relax when she returned with a haunch of meat, licking the water off his legs before lifting his head to peer at the meat, then at Giggle, then at the meat again.

"Food. Come on, eat."

The puppy slowly lifted himself up, giving Giggle a last cautious gaze before he shakily approached the meat, stretching his neck out to sniff it. He recoiled slightly at first, as he caught the scent of Giggle clinging to the food, but he finally took a single bite and shrunk back to chew and watch the hyena.



________________

Giggle smiled after the fashion of animals, eyes squinting down and the corners of her mouth pulling back and up just a bit.

"There you go, little one," she said quietly, then laid her heavy head on her paws to wait.

He's frightened of me. That much I can tell. And there is something different--there's something about him like there is about the lions, but I don't hate him like I hate them. I wonder if he hates my kind? Hmph. I will have to wait and see. Maybe he'd survive on his own, but... somehow I doubt it.

Giggle was hoping he didn't run off; she felt oddly motherly toward the little cub, and would have preferred to look after him, at least for a little while. Were he to go off on his own, he might fall into a bone pile. Or freeze. Or starve. Or get eaten by something. She huffed softly through her nose as she lay there, watching the timid little animal. That wouldn't do at all, no. She didn't want the little fellow to die.

________________

Roll the bones.

The dog slowly swallowed, still watching the hyena. The pup tilted his head, consideringly so, before he scuttled forward to take another bite from the haunch and then nudge it towards Giggle.

Though, he backed off just as quickly as he came, crouched down and wide-eyed, waiting for the hyena to eat. His ears flopped quizzically as he watched, before he carefully edged forward to sniff Giggle's coat, recoiling once more at the scent.

He snorted before moving to curl up next to Giggle, seemingly deciding to claim her as his mother. He thumped his head down between his legs, pressed up against the hyena for warmth.


________________

Giggle turned to peer quizzically down at the pup as he curled against her, confused, but there was something oddly satisfying about the little warm ball of fuzz pressed up to her side. She leaned over and licked his head a few times, grooming him, then snuffled at him. He smelled clean--cleaner than her, anyway.

Gross.

She turned her head, surprisingly content with all of this, and began to gnaw quietly on the meat instead--delicately shredding bits with her incisors, then chomping it down. Every now and again she'd strip off a thinner piece, and drop it gently at the paws (or, sometimes, when she missed, on the nose or head) of the pup. At length, she paused, and spoke quietly.

"My name is Giggle, little one. The caves can be dangerous. You'd best stay close by, for now." Never mind that she wasn't all that much bigger--maybe twice his size, certainly not an adult. But to her, he was little, and so she called him by that title, for now.

She went back to nibbling at the meat, quietly, so that the pup could sleep if he needed to.

________________

Roll the bones.