ORIGIN - i've mastered the power of standing so still i become invisible to the eye

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Bayo stood in the grass, near the sort of divot where he'd hatched in, staring down a mouse. The small critter was frozen under the gaze of a predator, a seed in it's mouth, it's button-like eyes staring up at Bayo.

It stepped forward, and it didn't even have a chance to squeak before he'd caught it, snapping it up in his jaws before running back to where he'd left his mother, his steps still unsure, often leading to him tripping or stumbling. He made up for his faults with his boundless enthusiasm, his tail actually getting sore from all the wagging it was doing.

"Maaaaaaaama!!", he called out past the mouse in his teeth, "Maaaama! I got you somethin'!!"

Bayo approached from behind and didn't notice a rock behind a tuft of grass, his paw catching on it and sending him tumbling head over heels, the mouse flying through the air and landing on the ground. It slowly got up, stunned, and Bayo hurriedly grabbed it before it could run, still unfortunately clueless about how exactly to kill one of these things. But that was okay!

Mama won't mind, he thought, and finally set it down, pinning it with a paw before looking up at his beloved mother, tail wagging as his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, pleased as punch at his little prize.

"Did I do good?", he asked, anxious as always to please.

@Giggle

Giggle moved to the call with a warm, alert expression. Omen was keeping watch on the other two--and through her, Giggle--in a sort of half-watchful way as the bird foraged for her own food. Bayo, though, was already proving to be like Skeena in personality: attached, a true mother's child, interested and loving.

She noted it, content with any development in her kids so long as they were happy, and weren't murderers or something. She'd have to foster his independence a little, though. "Oh, very good!" the hyena exclaimed, coming up short as she peered at the little mouse. It looked afraid, and she felt a bit bad for it but that was life: prey had to die so the predators could live.

It was a good chance for a small lesson, though.

"You'll be a very good hunter, I think, Bayo." Her tone and expression were encouraging, her full and open gaze on him. She'd fed the kids, but hadn't yet taught them much about hunting. She added in some enthusiasm as she went on. "Now, I'll teach you something! When we hunt to feed ourselves, we have to respect our prey, okay? It has feelings too, and we have to eat but we don't want it to be too afraid. So to finish it off, we give it one hard bite on the head, okay? Just be careful of its teeth--you don't want to get bitten back!" and here her words held bright humor.

Let's hope he manages, or it might scare him later on. He seems a sensitive one, she thought to herself. But, showing no sign of this--as bright and encouraging as before--she went on: "Why don't you give it a try now?"

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

beginner quest: kill 1 low-level mouse
reward: 10 xp

@Bayo

Bayo grinned, a lopsided, dopey thing, his golden eyes warm and mushy with the sheer love he clearly felt for Giggle. Just his expression alone demonstrated so much affection, it was crazy.

His tail wagged even faster as he cackled happily, shaking his head, his expression sly like a hyena, but his eyes ruined it, quickly followed by the rest of him. His ears went back, tail flicking back and forth through the dirt as he leaned forward to give Giggle puppy kisses. A lot of puppy kisses.

"How d'you know?", he asked, looking down at the critter, "It's jus' a mouse. An' it don't speak or use magic. It jus' has its weird beady eyes... how could y'tell it has 'motions 'n' stuff?

But he tried to get at the mouse's neck anyway, trying to grab it by the neck and crush it like his jaws told him too. He had a pair of strong ones, so strong he found that crushing bones (little ones, right now) was easy. A mouse was nothing comparatively. Well, he thought so.

The mouse grabbed him by the face and he yelped in pain, shaking his head instinctively and only making it worse... because the damn thing held on. He cried out in pain, half baying, half crying, and finally he managed to whip the stupid thing into the air, sending it flying over his head into the grass.

"MAAAAAMAA!!", he cried, running over to her and shoving himself into her side, sniffling and whining and pawing at his face, "I-I'm bleedin' mama!! It bit me!! It bit me- I'm bleedin'!!"

When it had been launched into the air, it had torn through his lip, leaving a gash through his muzzle, the two pieces now independent of each other and bleeding heavily. Head wounds always bled a lot.

"It bit me! H-how bad is it?", he asked through his fat tears, rolling down either side of his face as he thrust it towards Giggle in the way a child would expect their mother to magically make the wound vanish.

@Giggle

Horror briefly roiled through her--then amusement, though not at her hurting son. It was amusement--admiration, even--for the spunk in the little mouse, a tiny rodent with the gall to fight back against something so much larger than it.

It had escaped, and Giggle thought to herself wryly, ...It earned that.

Then she was moving quickly to her son's side. The prior thoughts had been only a heartbeat's observation; his cry and the scent of blood--and the torn lip--wrenched her motherly instincts into churning worry. She was beside Bayo in an instant, magicka flaring out with a mom's instinct, attempting to press her muzzle to his face beside the wound. Unless Bayo resisted her, her magicka would take his wounds to her, splitting and healing the damage--a small scar forming on both their lips. It was surprisingly painful, and her sympathy spiked higher as she realized it.

Then she stepped back, blinking, exhaling a deep breath. She took care of her kids but she didn't want to coddle them--so she asked him, kindly but without being too (she hoped) sappy, "That better-? You did good, for a first try. I'd say that mouse earned its freedom--what do you think?" She asked it in a way that seemed to say, 'I value your opinion,' and 'help me make this decision;' teaching him to care for himself while supporting him was her intention, always.

She wanted him able to care for himself--not too reliant on her. Sad memories of Bones flickered through her--he'd been a little too... not clingy, but dependent, yes; and the wounds he'd wound up sustaining had, she suspected, been at least in part her fault for not preparing him for the world at large. And he'd wound up dependent on her forever after, then.

It was a shame he was resting, now; she thought he'd love Bayo, really.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

@Bayo

Bayo pressed into the contact, ears pinned, tail between his legs. He was surprised when the pain did lessen, and licked his nose and lip, his sobs quieting as he realized he wasn't bleeding anymore.

"... It bit me," he mumbled still hung up on that fact, "But I mean... I guess it does. It has guts, at least."

He shook his head out and leaned up against Giggle, hiding his face in her chest fur. He took a few moments to compose himself, snuggling into mom and breathing in her scent for comfort before wiping his eyes and looking up at her, eyes still a teeny bit watery.

"I wanna catch another mouse," he proclaimed, "A-an' this time it ain't gonna bite me!"

He lifted up a foot to scratch his ear before running off into the grass again, his floppy legs and feet making quite the ruckus. It would be a miracle if he caught anything at all.

And out he came, carrying a mouse in his jaws, this time the thing good and dead, it's neck bleeding, suggesting he did just what Giggle had told him to do. He set it down, tail wagging, and licked his lips, ears down.

"I got you this," he said, "I was 'sposed to give you the first mouse, but... yeah. But I got you this!"

Thankfully, his enthusiasm didn't seem to be hindered too much, and he nudged the mouse forward so Giggle could inspect it or eat it. He'd be happy with either, honestly.

@Giggle

Giggle laughed, amused, at the insistence that the mouse had bitten Bayo. She couldn't blame him for being resentful. "It sure did. Most of those little guys can't do magic, so all they got's their teeth and fangs. Some of them have things like poison or tricks but I'll teach you about 'em later." She was going to go on, but Bayo was ready to move off and try again, so she laid back on her stomach, half-sprawled on the stone, and waited.

She was content, all told. The kids were doing well and this one was determined to succeed. That was good--though as she watched the short, dry grass (and there wasn't a lot, here, just a few overgrown tufts at the water's edge) twitch to and fro, she wondered if he'd catch anything at all. She was already pondering a better way to teach him when he returned, after a bit, with a new mouse after all.

"Nice job!" she declared, hyena brow lifting up a little in genuine approval. She hadn't expected the clumsy rustling to amount to anything, and was impressed. Giggle pushed up, sniffing it briefly over. "A clean kill, too, huh? Thanks, Bayo. Hey, wanna split it?" she asked, glancing to him. A tear of jaws and she left half, in case he wanted it; she crunched down her own, and nodded. "You know, since I hvae you alone while the others aren't here-" (asleep? exploring? just resting?--well, Omen was watching 'em, anyway) "-is there anything you want to learn, or do, just you and me?"

It was asked in an easygoing fashion, and as Giggle flopped back down (a plume of dust spewing from beneath her furred belly), she offered some examples. "I can tell you about some of the other caves; about magic; about Seeing, maybe; about how to hunt some of the more dangerous stuff? We can play a game, if you want. Or anything, really." It was all said idly, another brief thump of her tail signalling relaxed contentment.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

@Bayo

"Aw yeah!!", Bayo exclaimed, ecstatic about her offering, watching her tear the mouse in two and immediately jumping after his half, grabbing it in his teeth and crunching down, powerful jaws making quick work of the tiny bones.

Being half hyena and half coyote meant he make quick work of bones, to which he was a bit thankful for. The marrow inside was the best part of any meal!

He carried over his half-eaten mouse and flopped down against Giggle's belly, his floppy ears falling in front of his face with every crunch, making him snap at them and toss them away. He perked up at Giggles' questions, eyes sparkling.

"You 'n' me?", he said, his tail wagging and smacking against the ground, "Y-yeah! There's lots of stuff, mama! But what's 'Seeing'? You say it weird, like it means somethin' else."

Seeing just meant using your eyes to take in things, right? So what was 'Seeing', the word Giggle used? It had a weird emphasis that he wasn't used to. He gnawed on his mouse in thought, trying to figure it out for himself, but alas, he didn't have enough context as of yet.

"Is it like seeing things that ain't there?", he asked, "OH! Can you see the future or somethin'?!"

That would be so cool! He could predict where prey would be, if he would be handsome when he grew up, all sorts of things!

@Giggle

Her own half-mouse gulped down (a pleasant little morsel), she settled in with Bayo curled close beside her. She was content--comfortable--and her mind twisted briefly back to the First Reading she'd done for this lot. None of them had been good, though she'd framed it as brightly as she could. It wasn't something to fret over but it had definitely been ominous, and she was bearing it in mind.

"The future, yeah! Do you remember when I talked to the bones?" she asked--the little tradition was one of the first things she did, for newly hatched -bound. Her voice held that careful enthusiasm that parents used with their children, and she stretched out a little as she pondered how best to explain this.

"I believe that all things are connected, Bayo. Gembound live and die, the air brushes their bones, carries the settled dust into nearby water--water others drink, that grows plants, fungus. And others eat that, carry it elsewhere--into new wind, earth, air. Their warmth might grow a seed, a seed that grows into food for someone else--it probably all sounds a little chaotic, huh? But what I mean is, everything that is, affects everything else. And magic's like that, too." She paused, thinking. Tahi-shei, when she'd tried to explain this next bit, had somewhat misunderstood and so she'd been trying to reassess the way she framed it, even to herself. "So, whatever's in the future is the result of all those little bits of 'now.' Everything that's interconnected, right now, works together to end up with the world we have in five years, or five minutes, or five seconds. And Seers can tap into magic to look at that whole web of everything being connected, and get a glimpse of what that future will be."

It wasn't that time wasn't linear; she'd been misunderstood that way, before. It was that the everything of now made up what was the future, and by looking around at the everything of now, one might know what would soon be.

"So yes, I can See the future, sometimes. By magic, by fungus, by reading the bones--sacred bones, touched by all sorts of things!--you came from the bones, you know?" She leaned out, offering a gentle, affectionate nuzzle. "I bring life back to them, when I can. A gift, a thank you, for their guidance. They chose your stone, and Enoki's, and Chitin's. You're a touch of ancient knowledge, brought back to life: you might have that Sight in you."

Giggle offered a quiet, self-deprecating little laugh. "I'm rambling, Bayo, sorry. Do you understand anything of what I said?" There was Giggle-tier rambling, when she was stressed, of course--this wasn't that. This was just the slightly scatter-brained chitchat of a momma with way too much story to tell.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

@Bayo

"Gembound live and die, the air brushes their bones, carries the settled dust into nearby water--water others drink-"

"That don't sound very sanitary," he mumbled, ears perked up as he listened further, enraptured by her ramblings, her story woven like a spider's web.

Bayo's little tail immediately wagged as she finished, and he leapt up to lick excitedly at her face, paws waving in the air as he stood on his hind legs, falling forward a few times before managing to wetly kiss Giggle's nose. Once he'd done that, he flopped against her chest instead, pushing the top of his head against her bottom jaw, a grin on his face.

"I think I get it!", he said, "Everythin's connected, you said... an' you can see those magic connections to try to see the future! I think."

But he was so excited to know if he could do that, could be taught to see the connections like his dear mama could. His tail got going all over again as he galloped away, tossing his head and falling all over himself in a clumsy tumble that ended up with him tripping over his own feet and landing on his back.

Sheepishly, he grinned up at Giggle, licking his nose and lips, ears down, "Can you teach me, mama? I wanna See like you do!"

And up he got, waddling over to a bone one of his siblings had left behind, and he looked as hard as he could, body tensed, tail stiff (even though it was still wiggling just a bit), his eyes comically wide. He kept it up for a minute before looking over at Giggle, ears perked forward.

"Am I doin' it?", he asked, unable to hold back a small giggle, his tail finally wagging away.

@Giggle

The "sanitary" mumble was mostly lost in her, bar a sort of figurative question mark hovering briefly in her mind. But the rest, she was pleased with: he got it, for the most part. He understood what she was trying to get across, and in a moment of surprised relief, she felt her shoulders loosen, a breath exhale. She'd been somehow far more worried than she should've been that she was overcomplicating things, for a second there. But no--he got it! He was-...

...Staring at the ground.

His affection had been returned, of course; and now he was staring at a bone, tail again set to wagging, and Giggle paced over with slightly confused attentiveness in her gaze. Once she'd come up alongside him (to get a view of what he was looking at), and confirmed that he had, in fact, been staring at a bone, she glanced to Bayo.

She tried to reach out her senses, to see if there was magic being cast--and instead she was bombarded with flashing imagery from all directions, a sort of mental map of all the magic in and around Canis, but too jumbled to make any sense whatsoever from.

She managed not to react too badly, instead briefly closing dark eyes until it had passed, and then clearing her throat.

Pretending nothing had happened.

"Well... are you using any magic? What do you see? I can't sense anything, yet, but keep trying, and maybe I will?"

What she didn't say was "holy shit, my magic just gave me so much feedback that I could write a novel series without needing an actual editor," or the like, which was probably for the best.

"So I can see you looking; but are you seeing? What do you see what you look at it?" Her tone was patient as she regarded him--and curious. Was he tapping into these magics, already--so young..? Or was it just a game, for now; was it something she could teach him?

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

@Bayo

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