ORIGIN

It was time to test herself.

She'd slept, rested, and moved deeper into the cave; the link would be better tested at length. It wouldn't tell her much if she could see through her spores from a mere twenty yards, no. Instead she padded deep into Canis, past even her bone pile, until she was up beneath the white cat's tower. Only then did the hyena turn, yawning, plopping down onto her haunches and gazing back toward the cave entrance.

She breathed deep. She cleared her mind.

And then she tried to project it forward, and out; out toward the tunnel, out into the mycelia that had sprawled and spread and spored all over the cave's rock walls.

Could she see through her spores...?

Narrowing her eyes, she found that she could, albeit faintly. The image came flickering, indistinct and dark; but she could see it, and to her surprise she found that she could even see what she thought might be Kerberos standing guard at the far end. Had the spores spread a little, then? ...Or was that a pale boulder?

The image snapped shut before she could sharpen it, or focus more deeply; it had been blurred but it was clear enough, at least, that the tunnel was still empty. With a huff, Giggle blinked at the disorienting feeling of being thrown back into her own mind and body, swaying a bit.

Then she stood and turned, surveying Canis, wondering how next to proceed.

She planned to exhaust herself, again; the only question was how.

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Roll the bones.

It was time, again, to test herself against the painfully difficult cast she'd learned. The ability to link herself to fungus, to guide it into devouring the flesh and bones of the dead, and feeding their energy and memories back to her--it was hard. Very hard, and the one time she'd managed to cast it, she'd learned what death was.

The horror had stopped her cold, distracting her with its memories whenever she tried again. She'd barely managed, or worse, had it simply exhaust her. Now she'd practiced for two days, honed her self-control, and it was time to try again.

It would likely exhaust her; but that was the risk she'd have to take.

She still had one of the strange, mossy bones with the gem still intact, dug out from beneath the walls of the bone fortresses. Most of those bones were dry, with little or nothing left for the fungus to consume, but there were a few--like this one--which had been buried, and still had moisture remaining within; this was the rib (she assumed) bone that she'd tried to cast on once before. She'd seen shapes, but vague, nothing strong enough to define.

It was time to try again.

The hyena carried the bone, complete with its small, pale amethyst gem, back to her garden once more. Now she laid it down, and lay before it, her alert gaze shifting doglike between the fungus and the rib.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She cleared her mind, and instead of pushing away the memories of death, she drew them close. She made peace with them.

She had seen death; she had seen darkness. Fear. Terror. But it hadn't been her experience--not directly. And now that she'd seen it, she had nothing to fear.

Or so she told herself.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The hyena leaned slightly forward, fixating on the bone, staring at it, letting the amethyst's reflections glint in her eyes, briefly and beautifully blinding. The sound of the cave around her seemed to fade, the sights at the edges of her vision seeming to bleed and fade away.

There was only this bone: its reality, its past, its pale splinters damp with mossy growth--and the scarred toothmarks of the hyena.

Inhale.

She closed her eyes, spreading her consciousness, touching, tickling along the edges of the mycelial growth all around her. She tantalized it, asked it, guided it to the bone, cooperating and promising a meal.

Exhale.

Nothing happened.

The hyena cracked open one dark eye, staring at the bone; there was no sign of growth, no fungal bodies sprouting and devouring it.

"Shit."

Well, what the hell's gone wrong now?!

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Roll the bones.

Well, she'd tried it the calm way; she'd collected herself, cleared her mind, breathed deeply, and nothing had happened.

Now she was pacing to and fro, occasionally baring a fang or two at the bone, glaring at it as she stalked. A low growl erupted from her, and suddenly she lunged, skidding to stand splay-legged before the rib and its glittering amethyst. She still didn't know what the bone was from, but it was ancient, and she wanted to see!

With a cackle of frustration, fangs all bared, she glared down at the bone. This time when she cast her mind into the fungus all around, she pushed, insistent, curling her magic into it and pulling. She wanted to SEE!

The fungus resisted, this time, actively, or so it felt; it was like pulling a stone lodged in a cave wall. It simply wouldn't budge, wouldn't spread, and a brief twinge of guilt--as if she knew what she were doing wrong--was quickly forgotten in favor of frustration. She let out another cackle, then suddenly sprang forward, snatching up the bone and splintering it in her teeth in a fury.

Snap. Splinter. Snap.

Pieces of bone fell around her paws, and she tilted back her head and let out an angry series of guttural, howling laughs. It wasn't amusement that drove the sound, though; only anger. Just anger.

What was she doing wrong?!

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Roll the bones.

Giggle trotted forward, making a circuit around the worn stone trail that ran around the rim of Canis. She often paused to look over the footprints that were imprinted into the rock, here, as she did her rounds, but today she simply loped along, sometimes breaking into a slow and rocking gallop, jaws agape.

Her dark eyes were intense, frustration building within her and driving her to physical action. She passed the west wall; she loped past the dips filled with water, and past the boulders where the rats lived--and hid. She heard the scattering of scratching feet, and a hiss, but she wasn't in the mood to hunt. It didn't seem right to tear into living beings in the mood she was in, anyway. With a growl, she sped up even faster, thinking.

The fungus was forsaking her, or she was missing some important point in her casting. She wasn't sure what it was, and that was perhaps the most frustrating thing at all. She could go and ask the bones, but she knew by now that she was in truth asking the fungus, and since it was that very fungus that she was having trouble with, she first wanted to calm herself.

She passed the place, now, where the Lorekeeper was likely sleeping, and she slowed so as not to wake her, if she were asleep. Giggle felt a brief regret that she hadn't hunted, now; she liked to bring the strange and crippled Gembound a meal now and again, to look after her and to speak with her. But now wasn't the time to talk, at least. Instead she quickened her pace as the trail wound upward again, glancing left and up at the strange carvings on the wall. Bones had been painting, she saw; there were several new blood-smeared drawings sprawled across the smoother surfaces. They were fascinating, but again, now was not the time, and Giggle lowered her head and grumbled to herself as she trotted up toward the Fortresses.

It took some time to wind her way up to the white cat's tower at the edge of the fortresses. Here the small but frequent piles of bones, mostly about her size and a little taller, were scattered along around the trail. The hyena wound through them, finding that she had to focus on her footing and her path through them, and she realized in some corner of her mind that having to concentrate on this calmed her, somewhat.

With a sigh through her nose, some of her angry energy ebbing away, she trotted up into the fortresses. She wound her way through them, and at length she had a vague idea.

She began to nose her way in and out of the bone fortresses, sniffing along the outer edges, looking for something.

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Roll the bones.

It took some time, but eventually, Giggle found the residual shards of her chrysalis. She crept into the fortress in which she had hatched, in under the cover of its darkness. Then she sat, looking over the dusty red-golden shards, thinking.

Her mind drifted back.

She remembered hatching, remembered pushing forth into the world, all alone.

She remembered looking at the world around her, and feeling only hunger; remembered her first awed gaze at the pale, glowing bones following quickly with it all being tainted by the need for food.

She remembered tearing bones from the fortress walls, and as she looked around in the here-and-now, she could still see the fruits of her fruitless labors: dry and ashen bones, scattered over the floor, some splintered. None had been edible, and she could clearly remember that, too--the sour taste of dry dust in her mouth, the frustration, the rage.

She realized that the rage she felt now was much the same. Hunger, with what looked like food all around her: yet none of it could be eaten. The bones had been empty, hollow; her stomach had roiled, biting at itself, the way her mind and her ambition ate at her now.

The hyena lay down quietly, staring at the shards of her own chrysalis, so small compared to her large bulk now. She lowered her head to her paws, sighing through her nose, watching it.

Giggle knew there was a lesson to be learned, here, but what was it?

How had she finally eaten, before?

Aza'zel.

Aza'zel had turned up unexpectedly, directing her to food. She didn't think he'd brought her food, though her memory of that time was fogged; maybe he had. But she thought... what was the lesson?

Maybe looking in the same place after a failure won't bring me to success. There wasn't food here the first time I looked; why would there be, later on? But does that mean that the bone I've been using has no memories--or that I've been going about it the wrong way?

Giggle sighed, turning her head and closing her eyes, slowly drifting off to sleep, napping on the bones of her old life.

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Roll the bones.

As she slept, she dreamed.

She only napped; if anyone were to look in, they'd just have seen a large, reddish-furred animal lying in the deep shadows within the small bone fortress, sides heaving with each quiet breath. There was no twitching or whimpering, but she had nightmares just the same.

She saw a rat, clearly, sharply-defined against a dark nothing. It was encased, she thought, in ice, perhaps dead, motionless. She drew closer, in this dream, to investigate--only she realized too late that as she approached, the cold reached out to her, embracing her, encasing her.

The cold swirled around her, gripping, filling her, and the next thing she knew, she was falling away into darkness, a dream within a dream. She lay quiet, in this place, cold and black all around her, and she saw. She saw a field of glittering lights far above, as if a million tiny pinpricks of glowing fungus were coating the ceiling of a pitch black cave. It filled her with fear, the cold increasing, a sense of enormity, of eternity, of infinity, swelling all around her.

She woke with a start not even a half an hour after she'd fallen asleep, blinking large dark eyes and staring around, disoriented.

Oh.

She realized abruptly that she was where she had been born, and it was a strange feeling, as if she were being born again. The shards of her chrysalis still lay at her feet, the dark bone fortress silent and still as if waiting for something.

The hyena eyed the dust-covered shards, and then looked toward the entrance of the pile, where the orb-light shone bright.

What had that dream meant? Giggle wondered if it meant anything at all; as a seer she was loathe to assume that it didn't, and as a practical creature, she was loathe to assume that it did, so she simply considered the possibility with an open mind.

Death. Cold. A field of glittering lights; rebirth? Eternity. Infinity.

Giggle looked down, nosing through the shards of her past, tail flipping to beat once or twice on the cold, hard rock. With a soft chortle, she wondered, for the first time...

Where did I come from...?

The thought froze her in place, dark eyes empty as her mind wandered.

Where had any of them come from?

Had they sprung up from the bones? Where did these gems come from? Where did the bones come from? Where had ANY of these bones come from?!

Giggle sprang to her feet, pacing stiffly and quickly to the fortress entrance, peering out wide-eyed.

Bones. Fields of bones, bones upon bones. She'd been surrounded by them forever, but what were they from?

She'd always known in the back of her mind that there were those who had come before--and had always sought knowledge. But their own origins? Their past? The Gembound--the others, and her--had simply sprouted from the walls, and she could feel her heart racing in rising fear at the realization that there had been no previous generation waiting to guide them. It meant that something was wrong; horribly wrong. That something had gone wrong, perhaps.

Most importantly, that it might go wrong again.

Giggle bared her fangs at the world, a grimace of fear, and then turned, moving quickly back into the bone fortress and snatching up her gem shards in her teeth. She couldn't carry them all, and some had to be left behind, but she only needed a few for her purposes. Most of all, she managed to dig up one of the bones that had been closest to where her gem sprouted, and she clenched this, too, in her teeth.

She turned and trotted swiftly toward her den, even galloping along at her rocking, uneven gait now and again, cold fear driving her. She was one of the oldest Gembound she knew; most of the visitors to Canis, and the other inhabitants, were much younger. She'd been a big sister, and now a mother figure, for almost everyone she'd met bar Aza'zel.

Where were the elders?

Heart pounding in her ears, Giggle skidded into her den. Fear still gripped her. Dropping her shards in a scattered pile, gently pushing aside the older amethyst-studded rib bone, she dropped the bone she'd carried from her hatching-place on the floor before her fungal garden.

If I see the memories of the one who lived, the one whose bone this was... will I get some hint as to my own past? Our pasts?

Dropping to her chest, feeling younger and more alone and vulnerable than she had in a very long time, Giggle closed her eyes, and focused.

This bone was from her hatching-place. She didn't know if it was as old as her chrysalis, or much, much older--she suspected the former--but it was worth a shot. Maybe she would see some truth. Maybe she would even see something that she remembered.

With a soft intake of breath, fear still pounding through her, she tried to clear her mind. To focus on the fungus all around, to ignore her near-trembling, to guide the mycelial growth to the bone. To guide it into consuming the bone, consuming its memories--and imparting them to her.

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Roll the bones.

Giggle found no answer to her dilemma. No peace to her fear.

She shivered and leaned back, lowering her head, staring at the bone. Staring at the shards of her chrysalis. She let out a soft chortle of frustration.

The thought then hit Giggle that if Bones were to happen upon her now, he'd see her frightened--and that thought stabilized her, calmed her. She glanced quickly around, guilt striking her; she was his rock, his support, his mother. She had to stay strong, and she had to stay calm.

She inhaled deeply, turning to stare down at the bone.

One more try. She'd give it one more try. One more attempt to look into its past--and maybe her own, or some hint as to how she'd gotten where she was. How they'd all ended up here, alone, no older generation to guide them, no hints there as to the cave's past. The Lorekeeper had only just emerged, and who knew how long she had remained asleep; the rest were--what, sleeping? Gone? Glancing around, back at the bone piles, Giggle guessed she knew.

The rest were dead.

But why?

Grimly determined, the hyena lowered her head, glaring at the bone.

She'd taken it from the place she'd been born, and scattered around it lay some of the red-orange, translucent shards of her chrysalis, shards that caught the dim light of the cave's orbs. The light set them glowing faintly, like old and stifled fire, and the hyena took a breath and tried to steel herself against their reality for strength. She existed. She was real, alive; she was here now, inevitable death aside. Maybe that's why she'd seen and felt dying, her first time trying this magic.

Maybe that's what it meant. Maybe she could only see things as they died.

But maybe not. Maybe she'd get some glimpse into the past of the caves.

Steeling herself, and taking another deep breath, calmer now, Giggle looked down and focused on her magic. On the bone, and on the fungus all around, tugging in particular on the flesh-eating mycelia, this time. Trying to guide it into the bone, into eating through its past and its secrets, and showing her what it found.

I'm still trying to look for food where there is none.

The thought hit her, and she stood and turned, pacing away with a soft growl. She was still trying to force something that wouldn't happen, in the name of knowledge that wouldn't come.

She glanced back at her shards, and on second thought, abandoned the magic entirely--it was failing, the fungus not responding--and instead buried and hid the remains of her chrysalis. Some was still scattered up where she'd been born, but these had to stay safe, she knew instinctively. Not out in the open. They were a part of her, and not something for others to mess around with.

Not something for others to tamper with, or curse her with.

With a sigh and a defeated snort, fear still shivering through her, the hyena paced away.

She'd have to find another way.

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Roll the bones.