ORIGIN

He missed Canis.

He wasn't sure why. He missed chasing after scrawny cave-rats and napping in the dry heat. He missed the den and the stagnant water, his mother's garden and even to an extent, the fact that the hyena would never even let him clean her of her magic's vile rot.

He had remembered to unearth the gem Usui had given him back in Orion and licked it clean so it'd be in presentable condition and made his way back home. He decided to check the bone pile first, to see if Giggle would be there first.

So, he did, making his way carefully up to where the ceiling nearly touched the floor, wide-eyed and still keeping a distance just in case he'd be interrupting her.


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Giggle was sitting at the edge of her bone pile. The bones were freshly scattered, but oddly, the hyena was not looking at them; instead, she was facing away, peering out and up at the cave roof with a faint, distant smile on her face.

She looked... peaceful, in fact; very much so, and content, as if the secrets of the universe had just been revealed to her and she had found them good. She was thus far oblivious to Bones's approach, just sitting in silence with her short, bushy tail half-curled around her haunches.

She was either intently casting magic, or perhaps was lost in thought, or communicating with the bones with--for some strange reason--her back turned to them.

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Roll the bones.

Bones carefully approached Giggle, though still kept a distance. He craned his neck down a little to spit the gem out of his mouth and onto the ground, wiping the ruby clean with his forelegs. He looked at the hyena for a moment before he moved to lie forwards, waiting quietly for her to finish.

Absent-mindedly, he turned his head to look around Canis, tail thumping contentedly off the cave floor.



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Giggle tilted her head, then sagged it off to one side, still smiling faintly in an eerily non-animalistic sort of way. Vacant eyes fixed on Bones and she let out a soft, warm chuckle.

"Bones," she said, voice only mildly tinted by surprised delight. She sounded absent, and as she stood, seemed to float more than walk, the placidly content expression still plastered over her face. "How are you? Where have you been? What's that?" She didn't ask it all at once, though; instead it was a word, here and there, interspersed between her attempts at licking back the fur on his skull, to smooth it down.

Or just to show affection, in a motherly way; that was perhaps more likely.

And while Giggle seemed happy to see her "son," she certainly didn't seem all... with it.

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Roll the bones.

The pup half-closed his eyes, waiting for Giggle to finish her questions, before he answered carefully. "I'm okay. I went out exploring the caves. This," he nudged the ruby forth with his nose. "Is a... a thing. A lion gave me it but he didn't tell me anything about it so I buried it so you could have it. I cleaned it."

There was a short silence as Bones realised his mother wasn't particularly there. He tilted his head a little before asking, "Are you okay?"


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Giggle sounded rather warm and quite calm, with no trace of her usual gritty or darkly-humorous self, as she responded.

"I'm fine, don't you worry, Bones. A lion, hmm? Which one? And--what's the gem for?" She paused, leaning down to peer at it, nosing it to try and sense any latent magic within. "It is a gem, isn't it?"

She spoke with easy curiosity, not the sort of demanding or scoffing tone that one might have who doesn't appreciate a gift. Instead she was merely asking about it, idly, and it was fairly obvious that she would thank Bones once she knew what, exactly, she was thanking him for. As it stood, she just went back to licking his head, almost catlike, as she awaited a response.

At least these few sentences had been clearer--warmer than her usual demeanor, but lacking the vapid emptiness of a few moments ago, as if her attention was snapping back to reality bit by bit.

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Roll the bones.

The wild dog watched for a moment. "Usui, his name was, I think," he said. "I met him in a room with shiny white stuff all over the ceiling."

He didn't seem to mind Giggle licking his head (mostly because he can't reach his head to clean it (though who knows where Giggle's mouth has been)), watching the gem. "I don't know what it does. It's a gem."


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Giggle at last gave a soft snort, pulling away from her "pup" and padding over to the red gem again. This time, after speaking, she gently lifted it in her jaws and turned toward the bone pile.

"Usui, hmm? The know-it-all lion. He has a lot to learn. Mostly about what it means, to learn. But he is young." Giggle spoke again as if she were decades older than the rest, an old wise woman, though in truth she, too, was still young.

She seemed anything but young, though, as she gently lobbed the ruby into the pile--and then suddenly leapt into the bones, plowing into them, leaping about and spraying them every which way in an abrupt frenzy of motion. She didn't look unlike a puppy in a sudden spike of energy, flinging dirt and flowers about, but instead she was a hyena, and she was throwing bones.

At length she paused, looking around her, tail bristling up and body finally motionless. Finally she tilted her head, brow furrowing deeply as if bothered, or at least deep in thought, regarding something she had seen. Then she turned back to Bones.

"Was this gift to you, or was it to me? Did he give it to you, and you are passing it on?" She sounded curious, and now she was nosing about in the ribs, sniffing and peering. It took her several minutes to find the gem again, but this time, when she picked it up, she did so very delicately.

She jerked her head to indicate for Bones to follow her, and off she trotted to her garden. Here she lay the ruby down very gently in among the mushrooms, as if adding to a shrine of sorts, and turned back to the wild dog, dropping down to sit on thick haunches.

"So," she said, with an air of joy and a sparkle of mischief in her eye, "tell me all about your adventure, Bones. Where you've been, what you've seen. I've never been out of this cave, you know. Tell me everything." She seemed the indulgent mother, ready to listen to anything Bones wished to tell her about--but she seemed truly curious, too, and not just about what lay outside the cave, but about her adopted son's thoughts on all of it.

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Roll the bones.

He simply watched his obviously mature and all-knowing mother roll in the bones for a moment, though with less suprise than one might expect. In fact, he seemed perfectly accustomed to this.

"He gave it to me then left, trying to be all uh.. mysterious-like. I wanted to give it to you 'cause you might like it," he said. "Do... do the bones like it?"

He let his question linger - surely knowing Giggle would get around to it eventually. The lanky pup got up and followed the hyena back to the mushroom garden. Instinct kicked in as the dog's paws moved around the mushrooms, and sat down in a clear spot. He nodded contentedly as Giggle added the ruby to her garden.

"Well," began Bones. "First I went down the tunnel out of here-- it was cold and misty, and weird."

The pup briefly licked his muzzle with a slight look of distaste. "Then there was a pretty room, dark but there were white gems all over the ceiling," he went on. "It's where I met Usui."

"And he's okay- I guess. He said he makes those. But after that, I went down another tunnel that had markings on the walls and stuff, and at the end of it there was a room that was glowing blue," he abruptly seemed excited, ears pricked and tail thumping off the floor as he babbled. "There were mushrooms and lots of lights in there. I met a half-blind creature there called Booker, he liked growing mushrooms too! He was really small and he ate things called term-ites."

He stared at Giggle with huge eyes, obviously excited to see what she makes of this.


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Giggle sat and smiled as she listened, as best a hyena can. Her large, round ears remained pricked, calm expression focused gently on Bones, with interest, as he spoke. At length her eyes crinkled up and she stood, again, padding back over to lick the top of his head before sitting down again.

"It is a beautiful gem, Bones, and a good gift. Thank you for it." Then she seemed to think, for awhile. "There were mushrooms, hmm? Were they different from the ones here?"

Then, after he had said the rest, she asked a couple more questions. "What were the carvings on the wall like? Did they tell a story? And this small, blind creature--would it be possible to meet him?"

Giggle tilted her head, watching Bones with a content and curious expression. It seemed that a lot of what he had found was interesting--perhaps even useful--and she was rather impressed. She hoped it showed.

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Roll the bones.