ORIGIN

Giggle trotted down the stone path, dust kicking up at every step. She was making rounds--checking this and that, as she did now and again. Lorekeeper. Skeena. Bones, or his stone. Eythan. Those were her usual targets, though she didn't always find them--and she was getting worried that she hadn't seen Vinea in awhile, but that kid had always been elusive.

She wasn't sure where Eythan or Skeena would be; she just kept her nose in the air and tended to follow it if and when she caught their scents. Eythan's hit her first, and she veered off, trotting toward it.

"Eythan?" she called out, hoarsely, but it wasn't an urgent tone; a casual call to see if he was there, and little more.

Omen was somewhere in the distance--circling, looking for Lorekeeper; she liked watching the old creature, for reasons Giggle couldn't ever quite fathom. That was for the best... Omen did not like Eythan, and it was better she wasn't... here, for this meeting.

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Eythan seemed... happy? Affectionate? And that was a change. Giggle was taken aback at the warmth of the greeting, the extended beak--it was unexpected, but she wasn't about to snub him, as unusual as it might've been. She offered a quizzical but friendly enough muzzle-to-beak touch, trying even now to think of him as family and not something else, to this day pushing away thoughts of Aza'zel and his first, white cub.

Gah.

She looked Eythan over, focusing instead on him, family now, ally. "You seem happy," she observed, and then laughed roughly. "I'm just making my rounds. I'll go hunting for Lorekeeper soon. But how are you? You're... more relaxed than usual," she settled on, at last, because telling a male leopard-bird that he was beaming like an expectant mother would be... odd.

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To Eythan's question about Lorekeeper, Giggle merely shrugged and grunted, pacing half-past him so they were practically shoulder-to-shoulder. She was peering off toward Lorekeeper's den--far too far to see, but apparently there in Giggle's thoughts. "She's as well as she can be. As well as she ever is," and the tone wasn't grim or sad so much as matter-of-fact. She'd never run and jump and travel, but she lived; she was always wearily exhausted, but she wasn't dead, at least.

Ah, but this other news--the hyena's head came up, eyes widening a touch. "You did!" There was surprise in it, and honest joy; there was no filter on this immediate, reflexive response. "Oh, Eythan, I'm so glad for you." There was an instant, then, when the status quo lurked there, bewildered, wondering where the hell it should go now--Giggle wasn't close to Eythan, she couldn't be, he was a cat and a killer and she'd never trust him etc. etc. But--a baby! Her motherly instincts were already kicked back into high gear, and she beamed at him.

"No, no, don't be worried. I'm sure it'll turn out fine." And there was the dismissive good nature of the grandmother who'd already had the kids to worry about, and then some.

Giggle didn't think of Damask as Eythan's, nor did she really blame him for having had no part in raising her--it had been a favor to Aure first and foremost, a spur of the moment thing so the life of Aure's gemstone wasn't lost. And Eythan had made mention, too, of another stone he'd given life but--again, not a child, not like this deliberate creation. So far as she was concerned, this would be his first real foray into parenthood.

"But-!" and here she plopped cheerfully onto her haunches, rough voice full of both amusement and encouragment, "Do you want to tell me what you're worried about? Plus I guess I should give you some, you know, advice on raising kids. It'll be the first one you're really raising, right?"

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She laughed brightly. "Oh, we can go now?" she replied, to the first, pushing half-back off her haunches. She'd leave that up to Eythan.

To his worries, though, she listened, and her expression gradually sobered. The very last--uncle Eythan--tugged at her heart. "...I think, as a parent," she started slowly--and it was with the tone of one with thoughtful experience, not patronizing, not commanding--"you--we--have responsibilities and... well, expectations. If that makes sense?"

She paused, sitting back down to truly think this out before speaking, every word careful. It wasn't that it was a dangerous thing to get wrong--no; it was that it was an important thing to get right. "Our responsibility is to keep them safe, mainly. And to teach them about the world. To correct any misconceptions. To train them to survive--whether that's... magic or just warning them about dangers, all of that. And to give them what they want, so long as it doesn't spoil them!" Giggle laughed harshly, here, a broad-mouthed cackle. "To love them and support them, give them advice when they ask for it, a safe place to rest when they need it. But they need structure, too. You can't let a kid just wreck your bones and beat people up," she went on, thinking very distinctly (and warmly) of Kerberos.

"Then you have this whole bundle of... expectations, Eythan--at least, that's how I see it. You picture 'parenthood,' and 'kid,' and have these ideas in your head of how they should be. But my advice, for what it's worth, is don't worry about that. Worry about the kid--giving them what they need, protecting them, giving 'em structure and training and love. Whatever happens from there, you know you did your best, then. But this is your kid, no one else's. This isn't Uncle Eythan's stone. Don't let anyone just take the kid away from you," she added, thoughtful. "I don't think anyone would, but you have authority over your own child, you know? You set the boundaries, you set the rules. I don't think it'll come to that, though. I think you just need to remember that raising a kid is about the kid. And I think as soon as they hatch, you'll remember that," she added, but it was a hopeful statement, not a harsh one. And then she shrugged. "But one thing to remember. I've raised a bunch of kids, but I'm not an expert. Nobody's here to tell us how to do this. What's right, wrong. So there's no real best way to parent! Find your own way; maybe it'll be better than anyone else's, so far."

She gave him an encouraging hyena-smile, and hoped that her mess of words had been... at least a little coherent, a little bit helpful for him.

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She spoke as they padded along, falling silent at last, listening intently--with bright eyes and pricked ears--to Eythan's hesitant replies.

When he suggested catching up with the others, she brightened further. "I'd say, do it," she encouraged. A brief moment of hesitation, then, as she realized what this meant. "Damask is impossible to reach," she added, more quietly. "I've been trying. She visits me, but no matter what I say or do she stays... aloof. Standoffish. Hides what she thinks. She's afraid of everything and won't admit it; wants to be strong but doesn't know how. But you can try." Giggle shrugged. It was exhausting to try, and it made her feel hopeless, miserable, that nobody could break through, that she was only "grandma" and not the parent to show some boundaries, some stern-ness. No, she could only watch as the child--who had been hidden from her, and for what?!--grew into a broken adult. Nothing she'd done had affected that. She'd have liked to say "it can't hurt to try" but it felt like every attempt at a step forward had merely shoved her back.

She shook the thought away. One broken, estranged child in a warm family--this was not the thing to be thinking of when she entered the alcove to greet a new stone, no. It was bad omens. Poor luck. "I definitely think a kid would be better off with a more present parent," Giggle added, quietly. "And I think... maybe you'll be better at it than Aure is." She fired a tired gaze to Eythan. He'd been meant to help Aure grow, to look after him, to advise and protect him--those had been the 'terms,' so to speak, of their familial agreement. Yet Aure had botched raising the child--badly--and where had Eythan been? Giggle wasn't angry about it; she knew the circumstances. But it had, in some sense, cost a life. Damask might never be happy. (And with a jolt, Giggle realized that was true; in every single interaction she'd ever had with the kid, Damask had never once been happy.)

Eyes closed as she pushed these thoughts away for a second time. The alcove. Surely this wasn't a trap-

-She pushed these thoughts away too, harshly. It's time to stop judging him, she told herself, a quiet thought, and then looked to Eythan. "I think giving life to an old stone, an old bone, is one of the kindest things you can do. One of the biggest gifts. We all muck things up; this time you'll do it right, yeah?" she offered, encouragingly. She'd have liked to reassure him that his other kids weren't that much of a wreck but that'd have been a fucking lie, so she didn't, instead turning and striding into the alcove.

It was an oily stone, something that at once warned her of... wrongness. A throbbing unease, a threat lying dormant. She hesitated, and then strode straight to the stone, pressing her nose against it. A touch of magic and then she saw: uneven, unclear images. Something running, almost... horse-like? But with claws; pale purple and streaked with inky black stripes. And ahead of it a crowd of spined, violet, alien creatures--varied in design but sharing those characteristics--darting over rock and sand. The image was brief, and Giggle pulled back as it ended, thinking.

"It's... one of the old ones, I think," she said, surprised. "Like Lorekeeper is. I see--stripes and purple," she went on, unaware that she'd in fact seen a former inhabitant of the stone, and not the most recent one.

A pause, as she regarded it. It felt off, certainly; but it didn't fill her with the dread that she'd expected. She looked to Eythan. "You know, once it's hatched, maybe Lorekeeper herself might know something of its... Of whoever lived with this stone? Maybe she could recognize it," she suggested. It might be useful information, or just... emotional; whatever the case, it was a possibility, at least.

She looked to Eythan, and smiled. "Do you have a name picked out; or are you going to have it pick its own?" she asked him, gently.

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