ORIGIN

Nothing about the Bone-seer's reading surprised him, which was in itself a little disappointing: nothing new to assimilate, no puzzle to look over. Just his plans, laid out as fact: travel and learn, then return successful, then work with the Forge, most likely. Unless he ended up with another group--but this he doubted very much.

Still, he looked to Giggle (after a long, thoughtful pause) and spoke, ignoring the

impale one paw

helpfully suggested into his mind.

"Are those the Sentinel will serve in the end, the Chaos Forge?" he asked, in his rasp.

Past that, he held no questions.

The 'Chaos Forge?' Giggle perked her brow at that, again; she thought she'd heard the name mentioned in passing, but what a strange one it was. What did it mean? Why would anyone "forge chaos," and how did that even work? Why would anyone want to?

She shrugged it off, at length, and looked into the pit.

She'd need to choose two bones: one for the "group," one for Sentinel's death. Death was an easy enough thing to ask about: all the bones belonged to the dead, the spirits that possibly lingered beyond that veil and offered back their wisdom. If the dead knew anything, it was death. But still, she needed something that suited the Sentinel's eventual demise.

She picked a smallish ribcage, for the first, a few ribs still knotted together by old and mummified tissue. A Lesser, maybe, stoneless; or just someone who'd had a few strands of sinew escape the melting into oil. Regardless of the source, it would do: several bones in one were close enough in concept to a "group" for her.

She carried up to the tip of the ledge, and again looked down into the pit.

He asks, will the group he winds up with be his Chaos Forge? Those he's with now? Or is he going to wind up with another? she 'asked,' and when the thought was the only thing in her mind, she let the ribcage drop.

The way it fell--the snap of bones, the others tumbling in to cover it--had her more grimly wary at once. This one was a little more... ominous than the other reading. "This is-... Hm. I see a sacrifice. Intended to bind chaos. This will fail. You will lose something to the chaos, and perhaps gain nothing. You must find your own truth, past that; you'll need to seek new wisdom, new knowledge, from a higher authority. Or I should say--not necessarily new, but... true. You'll have to seek the truth. Where you will wind up... You might fail at finding that truth. Or it might be hidden. But you'll find company, regardless--it'll just be in the dark." She glanced to the Sentinel, unsure what this meant. "I'm not sure whether to say it'll be your Forge, or not. It sounds like you lose something, and you'll look for a truth, some... voice of a god, I don't know. But you won't find it, or you'll find lies. Whoever you end up with, it'll be those stuck in the dark, same as you."

A shrug, and--feeling a little grim at all of this--she trotted down to pick up the skull, again. And at the top: He wants to know how he'll die.

And again, she lobbed the skull downward.

For a few moments she was silent, as she studied the signs in the bones, the way the skull had fallen and tumbled, this time. There was both good and bad in this reading, which was unusual for a death. In fact, some of it almost seemed to mirror Black's own demise. "I think it might have to do with... a female, possibly someone in whatever family you join. Whatever the case I see something drawn away. A loss of power, maybe, or maybe you yourself leave on another journey. I see a new... beginning: a new family, maybe, or new life. And in your end, I see joy. Again the satisfaction of work well done. I'd... assume you might die defending someone. If you view that as your purpose," she added, with a shrug.

Oh, how just once she'd like to get a "nah, this one will live forever." She so hated the confirmation of someone's eventual death.

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The Sentinel listened in silence, noting this all away. He wondered, vaguely, how long he had to live, and this he asked impulsively.

"Does she know how long the Sentinel will serve? Before its death," he asked, head tilting. The emotionlessness of this question was perhaps strange from one so young.

It sounded, at least, like a good death. He was indeed a Sentinel, and to die guarding his charges would be the most pleasing way to go. Satisfaction, was the word she had used; and she was right, in that. He found the idea satisfying.

He shifted in place, thinking; he had one more question yet to ask. He thought nothing of pleases or thank yous, only offering further questions in response to the Seer's potential wisdom.

"She has spoken of him seeking wisdom. The word of a greater being. Where might he find it, should he wish to? Or will it be forever lost, in the darkness." That's what it had sounded like, at least. But maybe he'd get lucky. If there was information--truth--to be found, he wanted to know where to look.

She eyed him a little dourly, a grunt escaping her. She really shouldn't have expected gratitude--but she didn't demand it, either. Respecting the bones was important but really she did think herself a conduit. She just wished he'd thank the bones.

"I will ask them," she said, and then--a little pointedly--"If I were you, I'd thank the spirits of the dead for sharing all this wisdom." It isn't often someone asks this much of them.

A few moments passed as she selected, and carried up, two more bones: a tangled stretch of vertebrae (for 'length,' for longevity) and another, smaller skull with a wide eye socket that seemed to speak of haunted knowledge, and a jaw still attached (for the source of his truths). Omen waited in patient silence, staring down at the black dog's progeny with her one red eye. Giggle glanced at her, noting her unusual aloofness, chalking it up to uncertainty about his strange magic--distrust. She couldn't blame her.

Then she settled into her meditative state, and once again read the bones.

How long will the Sentinel live?

"...Awhile, I think. A fairly long time. I see strength, fortitude, endurance. Eventually you'll join a fight you shouldn't have, and sacrifice in protection. It's clear on that," she added. Repetition of a reading wasn't that unusual, but it certainly strengthened the truth of it. This would be his immutable fate: a decently long life followed by his sacrifice in guarding others.

A habit of the Onyx, it seemed.

Where can he find these 'truths?' If anywhere?

This reading was more... chaotic, even, than the others had been. Tumbling bones and the crack of impacts. Giggle tilted her head as she tried to interpret this one, but it was a little harder. "I... think you can find your truths, but it'd be hard. And I don't know what it might change. But I see you facing a mystery, a... gamble you might take. If you take that chance, it'll lead to destruction--I don't know of what. But I see chaos, disruption, delay. Like-... a storm. Like chaos." She paused, studying the bones. "If you take that path you will find your answers. The storm will end, and you'll see clear." She shrugged, a little, again--and peered down at the strange dog-beast before her. It was maddeningly non-specific, this reading--this "gamble" the bones could only hint at. There was only so much the clash of dead remains could tell her.

And so she did something she more rarely did: she stretched her mind out, along the tendrils of the future, seeking what it was the Sentinel might throw to chance and luck.

What she Saw was, as always, a cluster of strange imagery and sound: music, in one, with the knowledge of luck strong in it. A mango, clear and ringed by light. That much was utterly baffling to her, and her single brief thought of a mango?? was quickly strangled by the third set of images: swarms of insects, and a group coming together.

...Okay.

"...Listen, don't judge me," she started off, slowly, drily; "but as far as your 'path to enlightenment' or whatever goes, I see dancing, luck. I see a mango, which is--a fruit. I don't know why, but there's a hint for you, I guess. And I see insects, swarming, all over. A group together, content. Take from that what you will. Maybe it'll make sense later," she added, with yet another roll of her baffled shoulders.

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As he had with Oliver, he simply listened: compartmentalizing the information, tucking bits and pieces away for future reference and half-discarding the rest. He pushed up to his feet, going over it in his mind.

Point one: he'd live a long life. Two: take a chance, a gamble, when confronted with... Singing, dancing, or mangoes. Check. Noted. Whatever that meant. Expect chaos, potentially--insects?--and then things might be clear.

This was baffling, but as naive as he was--as naive as his predecessor had been, or even moreso--he accepted this all as blunt fact. Giggle had been right before: therefore, she was right now. End of story.

She wanted him to thank the spirits of the dead, and he tilted his head, peering at her. "How does the Sentinel... thank the spirits of the dead? He has not spoken to these," he explained, and then looked around--as if expecting them to appear on demand.

He reached for his magic--the chaotic tangle the Forge had granted him--and felt it catch. Quite abruptly, some of the spores around his feet began to fruit: growing, spreading, their rancid stink making him sway on his feet. One hand gestured to them, and he peered again at Giggle. "Is this... where they live?" he rasped. He looked at them. Knelt before them, very sombrely. "The Sentinel thanks the spirits of the dead for their wisdom," he informed the mushrooms.

She stared, nonplussed, as the chaotic, shadow-swathed anubis-hound suddenly grew her mushrooms. This--was his magic, too-?

His question had her blinking. His talking to them was something else, and she blinked some more, clearing her throat a little as she trotted back down to meet him.

"The fungus is a... conduit between life and death, I think, yeah. They're alive--but they feed off what is dead. Rot, plant or animal." She leaned down, holding her breath (familiar enough with their effects) to touch one with her nose--it was stronger in its stench than hers normally were, different somehow. She could smell it even with her breath held, and came away a little surprised. "...I assume they've heard you. That's your magic-? I thought it would be light and dark," she added, head tilting to one side.

In her surprise, she forgot to be wary; there was hardly anything threatening about the stranger touching some mushrooms, as odd as he might be.

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He looked up at her, a little surprised in his own right.

"No," he rasped, in answer. "This is not his magic. Perhaps it is... death's," because to him that made some sense. He'd reached out with what roiled and was black, to say "thank you" to the dead, and those mushrooms had spawned up--surely it was related?

He stepped back, rolled a shoulder, and called on his magic--his true magic--and remained motionless as the shadows coiled up to shroud him. It was black, darkening the entire area around him.

"Its magic is darkness," he intoned, with the faintest gesture of his other hand's claws.

She peered at him, puzzled--and a little concerned. This wasn't hsi magic-? But he'd grown the fungus, nonetheless? As she was trying to figure this out, he suddenly engulfed himself in black--not as powerfully as Black himself once had done, but enough to have her swearing and scrambling backward, near falling over her own rump, the fur along her spine standing on end.

Eyes wide with alarm, she swore again.

"Fuck!" A few yards off she paused, a tremor passing through her. Oh, how she hated the dark, how she feared the void, even after her confronting Senka directly. "I hate that shit," she breathed, half to herself, tense as wire. "I wouldn't fuck with the void, if I were you," and now her voice was harsh with emotion, stress filling each syllable. "I've been there. It can suck you in and keep you there."

A shudder passed through her.

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He stared at her, expression rapt.

Void.

That was what Black had--the name Oliver claimed he'd been assigned upon hatching. By the same stranger, a black wolf-? Who'd assigned him the task of guardianship.

"Tell me more of this... Void," he rasped, taking a single striding step toward Giggle. "How was she... taken into it?" That sounded powerful, not that the Sentinel cared much for power in its own right--but the concept resonated with him.

The idea of nothing. Of blackness. The void itself.

Ahh, but she was cringing away, and even he had the sense to stop. To explain. "It has been instructed to travel. To learn. Will she tell it of the Void? Will she tell it of her magic-? It would learn." He paused, and hesitated. Thus far, in life, he'd simply demanded most things--nothing he didn't feel he was owed, but when he wanted something he simply stated that he wanted it, and most others would offer it to him. But now he could tell he was pushing the boundaries of what this stranger might accept, and he felt, intuitively, that he should offer something for his request.

"Tell him of it, and he will swear to guard her should it come again."

His offer was... nice, at least, even if she didn't believe it. Didn't believe anyone was capable. A bitter snort escaped her, and she shook her head.

"You can't," she answered bluntly, a little harshly. She drew herself up a little more, her dark eyes sparking with brief malice. It was resentment--she'd explain it, she already knew she would; she was too nice sometimes for her own damn good. But she didn't have to like it, and in her begrudging aid she didn't have to be kind.

"Brace yourself," she snapped, coldly, "and I'll show you."

She gave him only a beat to prepare, and then--feeling unsteady, unstable with the horror of her own memories--she lashed her mind out to ensnare his own. To share the horror that she'd felt. The sudden engulfing darkness, and the nothing that lay within it.

The emptiness.

There'd been no air to breathe, but she wasn't choking. No food, but she couldn't starve. No water and she had been so thirsty, but it hadn't killed her. There was no land to walk on, no light, no gravity, so that the silence had become voices, and whispers, and the darkness had become visions... Her mind creating somethings out of only nothing.

She sent to him these memories: of herself, trapped in the void (with flashes of memory of Senka, now and again, and Giggle's bitter hatred of the time). Of the nothingness, the horror, the utter mindless mind-breaking terror. The fear and helplessness, the desperation and desolation and, worst of all, the hopelessness. She would never be rescued, never be freed, she was trapped in here forever and ever and ever and ever and ever...

She took a gulping breath and cut it off, staring at him angrily. It wasn't his fault--but damn it was she angry, even at only the memories.

"You get it now-?" she demanded, darkly.

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