ORIGIN - and that is eternity ;;

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((ooc -- skipping bones by request))

Giggle padded over to the hide of black fungus and placed a paw to either side of it, then nodded to Bevy.

"Come stand on this, touch the black stuff, if you could, please? I'm going to try to cover you with it so there's no space for anything else to grow. Then I'm going to try to grow the stuff that's already on you, off. It'll get old and die really fast but there'll be no place for it to go. I can't just kill it off, but this is worth a shot."

It seemed to her perfectly logical. And while she hoped the little bird didn't die from it, she certainly didn't feel as frightened as poor Bevy did, which was perhaps to be expected. Still, something about the way the pitouhi bird was trembling... Maybe she could distract her?

"If you accidentally grew this on yourself, maybe you can pay attention while I grow it back off--maybe it'll help you learn how it works...?" she offered. It was halfhearted, at best, but it was the most she could offer to keep the little bird's mind off of all that could go wrong.

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Roll the bones.

enna . ratchet . calypso
sweet and soft . bright and cheery . critical and melodic
ooc ;; notes
There was no reason not to trust Giggle, especially with her extensive garden of mushrooms and everything. She nodded curtly, shaking the fright out of her nerves as best she could. "Got it," she peeped, hopping up on to the soft fur. It was cold, and almost instantly reminded her of a cold monkey with pale skin, and a shimmering, glistening gem. She closed her eyes tightly, screwing up her face in an attempt for forget it.

She forced her eyes back open to watch what Giggle was doing, however. She took a deep breath, focusing. The others in her mind chattered quietly but she couldn't seem to pay any attention to them-- she was aware of the three others there, but not much else. She wanted to learn how this stuff worked- the strange black fungus was almost sticky, goopy. She didn't like it very much, but the grossness of it had distracted her from that intruding memory.

There wasn't much more to do other than hoped it went well. At worst, they could always cut off her leg, right? She didn't like the thought of that, but it was an option... And if it was necessary, she would make that sacrifice.

At best, maybe she would learn something from Giggle's attempt at healing with death like she healed with life. The process seemed logical to her, too. She wondered if she should try to assist but thought better of it-- she might only make things worse since she didn't know anything about fungi.

from my rotting body, flowers shall grow
and I am in them and that is eternity.

Giggle eyed Bevy, but instead of messing with the mushrooms, at first, she turned and took the fish skull that Bones had brought along. She stood right up alongside Bevy and laid this down. She looked at it, pawed it--as if considering her "payment"--and then, looking quite satisfied, leaned in and crunched down, splintering the bone into dust and pieces.

Then, regardless of any protests, she looked up and concentrated. On the outside, she looked confident. On the inside...

I hope this works. I hope this works. I don't want to overwhelm her with fungus. Those are some nasty ones...

The hyena was concentrating hard, concentrating on gently pushing her consciousness into the black fungus, the stuff she'd worked with before, the stuff she'd accidentally sprouted over herself when attacked by Kerberos. She'd grown some, here, to experiment with it, and she knew how oily and goopy it got; it was her hope that it'd eclipse the other fungus, especially once she grew the other stuff past its lifespan.

Taking a deep breath, she prepared to try and bloom inky black all over Bevy's body.

Here goes.

As she pressed her mind to her work, she could feel flickering, blooming life within the black stuff. They took nutrients not from the bird but from the air, for now, trembling and swelling and spreading and clotting around Bevy unless the bird stopped it or moved away. They'd form thick, soft protective frills around her, until she looked like a black puffball with a head--nowhere on her body free for the leg-fungus to spread to.

"Not done yet," Giggle said shortly. "You okay?"

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Roll the bones.

enna . ratchet . calypso
sweet and soft . bright and cheery . critical and melodic
ooc ;; notes
Bevy was completely unnerved by the sensation-- and appearance-- of the many black spores that sprouted in her feathers and came all the way up to her head. She looked more like a lumpy crow baby-- she would know-- than her lovely full grown pitohui plumage. She managed to watch it all without flinching away, however. The whole thing was fairly complicated, but she thought she understood it. The dense black shrooms were uncomfortable but harmless. It would prevent the infection from getting worse. She could handle watching it well enough.

Worse was how heavy it was... and sticky. She felt like she could hardly move without making it much, much worse. She met Giggle's eyes and felt a terrified shiver crawl though her skin. She wanted to flee to the nearest puddle (preferably not the one in the hyena's den, it smelled off) and bathe.

You're doing fine, Enna, Ratchet hummed in her head softly, getting a hard swallow in response. "I am fine," she peeped, softly. Part of her was afraid that if she didn't do something, she would surely die from the process. Another, more sensible part, knew that interfering with the healing might only make matters worse. "K-keep going."

from my rotting body, flowers shall grow
and I am in them and that is eternity.

Giggle listened to Bevy, then tried to smile reassuringly at her; it came out as a brief snarl of teeth. She turned to drag a meaty bone over, one from her garden yet not yet rife with life, and this she pushed right up against the bird. She spoke, as she did, hoping perhaps to distract Bevy from what she was doing, to keep her mind off the infection.

"I don't suppose you know anything about the water in Canis drying up? Has there been any similar news from elsewhere?" Truth be told Giggle didn't even know what lay outside the cave--she had only the briefest stories, and hadn't ever had a reason to leave her den of bones.

Meanwhile, she tended to the fungus at Bevy's leg, leaning close to inspect it. Her intention was to grow it off of Bevy and onto the meaty bone, and to do it in such a way that it couldn't possibly spread over the bird herself.

With a deep breath and a glance at the black-coated pitouhi bird, Giggle focused on her magic once more, sending her will and her intent into the fungus that infected Bevy's leg. It was with relief that she sensed that it was working: the fungus quickly ran through its normal life cycle (possibly tingling or even causing slight pain as it finished feeding, shrivelled and died), its next generation instead taking root--well, spore--in the nearby bone. Giggle then moved away, dragging this back to her garden.

"There. All done, I think. You'll just need a bath to get rid of the rest. Whatever damage it's already done, though, will need time to heal on its own."

The hyena then sat before the bird, the crumbled remains of the fish skull nearby, watching her.

________________

Roll the bones.

enna . ratchet . calypso
sweet and soft . bright and cheery . critical and melodic
ooc ;; notes
"No I... I haven't heard... Caly?" She asked, in a murmur, to her headmate. She didn't get much of an answer from the quick tongued, fierce personality, so she left it be and simply shook her head. If Calypso hadn't heard anything, no one had. "I have a friend who might be able to find out more, maybe. He swims through the waterways, perhaps he can find a blockage that's keeping water from coming in, or... or something," she offered softly, tilting her head. Eeya was always up for a challenge... Giggle began to use her magic once more and Bevy did her best to focus on the task at hand-- she wanted to see how it worked.

Exhaustion filled the young bird as her parasitic fungus grew through their life cycle and, abruptly, died and reborn on to the bone that Giggle had provided as a new host. She relaxed, the tingling, almost burning sensation on her foot fairly reassuring. Maybe her body had finally figured things out.

Bevy paused to consider. She had definitely grown mushrooms on her body. Was there a way of doing it without harming herself? Were there good mushrooms, shrooms she could use to heal? Perhaps she could make that black stuff-- if it wasn't dangerous, perhaps it would be good for making bandages and casts. She looked around Giggle's den and found herself wanting to know as much as possible.

"Um, if you don't mind, could you tell me about all of the different fungi? Could I... Could I use any for healing the sick, or..." She hoped the question wasn't outlandish or weird. She wanted to make good use of her sudden, unusually ability. She wasn't tempted to make the spores grow again immediately... But perhaps when she wasn't so nervous, and when her system recovered.

from my rotting body, flowers shall grow
and I am in them and that is eternity.

Giggle peered at Bevy, and then seemed to nod faintly, and almost to shrug, before turning toward her garden. She sat there, looking pointedly toward each type of fungus as she briefly explained.

"You don't want to bathe first? ...Okay. That black stuff, I first sprouted that over my own fur. It's very thick, inky, gooey--good for a getaway if something's trying to bite you. They just get a mouthful of black mucus. This stuff--these brown ones, here, with the white stems--these cause hallucinations when eaten. I think with the right magic, their spores could, too. They grow on dirt, and you can recognize them because their stems go blue when damaged."

Giggle took a breath, rattling this all off quite quickly and rather professionally, but just slowly and clearly enough to teach someone new to it all.

"Those orangey-red ones, those there, they grow on meat and bones. Rotting flesh, decay. That's what I meant by growing death--I grow them, they're alive, but they feed off the dead. They smell like carrion--like rot--but they taste terrible. That's what I used on the bear. The raptors hate it." She glanced at Bevy again, the humor evident in her face, before continuing.

"Some grow on dirt, some on rotting wood, some on meat. Some of them need dung," Giggle added, matter-of-factly. "Some are probably edible, but without someone willing to die in tests, it's hard to say which ones. Because some are very poisonous. The rats eat them if they're starving, like that red and white one over there, and sometimes they seem to go mad, sometimes they die. Usually they don't eat enough to die, though." Then she smiled.

"I found one just the other day that glows in the dark. Provides light. And there's some that speak to me." Giggle fell silent abruptly after this last, and then suddenly changed the subject.

"If you find anything out about the water drying up, will you tell me? If it keeps going at this rate, the Bonebound won't be able to live here for very long."

________________

Roll the bones.

enna . ratchet . calypso
sweet and soft . bright and cheery . critical and melodic
ooc ;; notes
"Well, it's not hurting anything, is it?" Came Bevy's short reply before listening to Giggle explain all the different kinds of mushrooms. The black stuff wasn't harmful, just gooey, like she thought. The brown ones didn't seem good for healing, but at least now she knew how to tell them apart from others. Blue stems. She would remember that.

The orange red ones hadn't killed the raptors as far as she knew, but she hated thinking about those monsters. If they were nasty to eat, perhaps she could use them protect her stocks from nosy lesser gembounds. She thought it all over very carefully, but nodded politely at Giggle's amused glance.

The red and white one was very poisonous. She would remember that. She didn't want anyone to die from eating a mushroom they shouldn't. She thought it might be good to test the edibility of things using rats, though perhaps that was quite cruel and waste of good food, if the poisoned vermin became inedible after dying to injesting the toxins. She paused, however, when Giggle said that they didn't often eat enough to die. Did they just go mad and stop eating? She had no idea what to think of that.

Bevy nodded, remembering the glowing fungi she had seen all around the caves. Those seemed useful, but not for much other than their light, and most places were well lit from the glowing white spheres. The hyena went on to talk about how shrooms sometimes talked to her, but then cut herself off.

Something bothered the young bird about how Giggle stopped so abruptly after mentioning that some of the fungi spoke to her. She changed the subject before Bevy could say anything, and so she was left just with a curious glisten in her eyes. Her polite, proper nature kept her from pushing the hyena on the subject, as much as she wanted to.

"Of course, Giggle. There's always plenty of water in Pisces, anyway, if you need it. Worse comes to worse I can bring you water-soaked moss, maybe." She bowed her head and shook out her feathers, the clinging shrooms all goopy and heavy on her wings. "I better wash up. Thanks again. I don't know what I would have done without your expertise." She wanted to learn as much as she could from Giggle, but she felt like the hyena had done enough for her today.

from my rotting body, flowers shall grow
and I am in them and that is eternity.

Giggle inclined her head slightly to Bevy, and briefly leaned forward to inspect her once more. Seeing no signs of fungal recolonization, she then slid to lay down on the rock, sniffing around at it. She spoke idly, as she did so, her tone absent.

"If I find anything new, I'll share it. If any are good for healing, and so on."

She then laid her head fully down, yawning slightly and closing her eyes. She'd done her work. It was most definitely time to sleep. She didn't even look again at the bird, instead already drifting off into dream-land--mushrooms dancing in her mind.

Mm. Hope she lives. Wonder if she learned much. Wonder if Bones learned anything, from listening. Tired, now. Too much magic. Sleep.

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Roll the bones.

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