ORIGIN - Started in the snowbanks, Ends in our Bones

~~Backdated to February 21, two weeks after Cry Havoc, day of Giggle and Wyvern's emergence from Ursa~~

Nemo

There are three things on him mind.

One - His eyes and legs hurt, and he can feel his pulse in them.
Two - The wind is too cold, but at least he's mostly overcome his fear of heights at this point.
Three - He's currently unable to recall the last time he ate.

That also ignoring what he's been doing these last two weeks- scanning for the chysili and, now, the hopefully moving forms of the two who had fallen under worm and snow. Dracouna and corruption. Caves curse that reckless beast, his irritation at her remains and he can't wait to address her behavior... somehow.

Claws crack onto the icy stone, and he signs, a deep, chest heaving wheeze and he rests for a second, more for his eyes in the harsh white light and cold wind than for his wings. Nemo can't help the small flicker of pride at his ability to remain in the air, despite his mountain of other failures... and he's glaring at his reflection in the smooth ice, hating the white, the stark nothing and nobody looking back at him.

"F... aaah, ah, ow..." He'd opened his beak to curse, but the cold and his dry skin make him pause, and then lift a taloned foot to rub at his face, and smudge his feathers back into place. "Okay, just... breathe. One more minute, then back in the air..." he mutters, giving himself a pep talk as he shakes out his wings and then his whole body, and his bauble clinks and jingles merrily as he does so.

As soon as the snow blindness fades, he'll go back out.

Soon.

@Giggle

She padded through at a steady pace, her mind elsewhere and her expression likewise distant. Though her body traversed the cold and treacherous tunnel, and though the chill bit through her fur, her thoughts were mired in fungus. She wasn't infected; but she was pondering.

How much of what "Mother" said was true? Giggle didn't feel the need to side with one group, or the other--with Order or with Chaos. But maybe some of the fungus's rage--or whatever Mother truly was--could tell her a few hidden truths about the caves, about the shit Chaos didn't want them to hear. Or didn't bother to really tell them. 'Tahi-shei knows more.' Just what had happened during her brief rest? How had Tahi-shei secured their safety, if "Mother's" claims were to be believed? 'Tahi-shei believes in a balance.' What the fuck? Last she knew, Tahi-shei had been leading a fucking army against the stuff. What had she missed..? If-

Dark, absent eyes found a sudden silhouette ahead, and Giggle paused, one paw dangling in the air for a moment. Then, with a soft crunch in powdered snow, she set it beside the other.

There was that old confusion, for a moment. That odd sense of displacement, like the world had been torn out from under her and she wasn't where she thought she'd been. That brief, choking instant where she wondered if she'd died, if he were there to greet her, if-

It's Nemo, she realized, as she always did.

But why was he here..?

She tried to reach out her senses, to check that he wasn't infected--that he wasn't one of Mother's minions, although why would the fungus wait for her to come here-? But she sensed nothing. That said, she didn't sense anything throughout the tunnel--but maybe it was just too cold? She couldn't tell; she noted that her magic might've failed, resolved to try again, but in the meantime she stayed where she was and tilted her head a little. He'd probably heard her coming--he was sure to react any second--but he seemed a little... blind? Unseeing? Puzzled, she called out.

"Nemo?" And then, with sudden misgiving (what if it wasn't only Nemo after all, what if it-) "Is that you?"

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@Nemo

Nemo

A sudden pause in a rhythm causes him to pause as well, and perk his head up... he hadn't noticed that someone was walking until they had stopped.. His feathers all prickle in worry, and he half opens his wings, turning around the long way on accident until a familiar blurry silhouette comes into view- and he breaks into his beaky smile.

"Giggle! That's... you right? Sorry, I'm a tad snow blind! Was flying in Ursa, and staring at the snow..." he chuckles, and then lifts a wing to rub at his face in embarrassment. "Turns out that staring at snow for hours is very bad for your eyes... who knew?" His little chuckle is almost hysterical? More desperate than anything. The lammergeier is about to cry from relief, and takes a step forward- and then another type of whiteness pops up in his memory, along with a worm.

So, he remains still, staring at Giggle and his bauble swings slowly back and forth, one wing still partially extended as he waits, to see... After all, he has no idea what she'd gone through before he'd bumped into her.

@Giggle

The way Nemo sounded--and his strange pause--made Giggle hesitate. She sent out her magic again, stronger this time, and swept it over him like a beam--but she felt nothing. She did note another critter up high--a bat or something, likely--with fungus on it. Was it Mothered? Possibly.

She glanced up dourly, then stepped toward Nemo, lowering her voice just a little. "I can sense you're not infected. I'm not, either. Something up above is... maybe a spy. But are you okay? What the hell happened in there after--the worm? Wyvern--the big, uh, bird thing? She and I just woke up in the tunnels." She winced, a little, rolling out her limbs; after so long asleep, this journey was already starting to take its toll.

All she'd learned through her link with Omen was that--supposedly--nobody had died. How the bird had ascertained that, though, or how accurate it was, Giggle had no idea. Maybe she just hadn't heard too much of a ruckus in Canis and had assumed that no news was good news-?

"You gotta give me the whole story," Giggle added, but she didn't disregard her concern for the bird, either. He'd been in Ursa, apparently--why? What had happened since her sleep..? Was he harmed, somehow? And was everyone else okay?

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@Nemo

Nemo

He tilts one eye forward, and then the other- looking carefully at Giggle as his vision slowly clears, and she finally comes into focus. The only visible white on her the slowly melting snowflakes, he chances a step closer to make sure she's still her.

Her statement about being infected makes his feathers crawl- it had slipped his mind that he could catch whatever spores that were out in Ursa. He hadn't eaten anything so he was... relatively safe, if weak. but the confirmation feels like another wash of cold water as his anxiety spikes and then fades. Following her glance upwards with a tilt of his head, that he hides as a full body shake of his feathers and wings, he wonders what may be following them.

Nemo lowers his voice as well, eyeing her carefully and looking more than a little shocked at her being... well. "The fungus just let you guys out? I'm... shocked. I'll fill you in as we move... If you don't mind. I want to get as far away from this cave as possible." The lammergeier straightens up, as if trying to peek around Giggle and looking for Wyvern, and then ne nods as if deciding something.

"I don't mean to sound rude, Giggle, but is there any way for me to test you to make sure you're not... infected?" The bird is embarrassed, and he's pulled his head into his shoulders and ruffled his feathers in some mild distress. "Not that I don't trust you but... I spent the whole time searching for you guys out there after everyone retreated. On edge is an understatement for me."

With that, he takes a deep breath and reaches for some... very new magic of his. There are a lot more threads weaving through his magic than there had ben a few cycles ago, and he's not sure if he's proud or dreading practicing them, but he grasps the one that reminds him of Canis, the dry smell of bones and fungus, the magic that grasps and pulls at the mycelium. A deep breath, and he casts it out over Giggle, hoping that she hadn't picked anything good or bad up in the snowland, and sighing in visible, slumping relief when nothing catches on the weak, strainer like magic.

"Okay... okay, you're good. Whew. So uh, back home, then?" Nemo straightens up as best he can and seems to show a bit of his normal glee, with his open wing gesturing down the Tunnel and beakish smile.

@Giggle

Nemo seemed-... strange. Evasive, almost, and Giggle felt her suspicions spike back up even as Nemo's (unbeknownst to her) also did. When he asked about magic, she began to respond--"To check for infection-? Yeah, I can teach-" and then she peered as he kept on talking, as he did--something? He didn't give her a chance to answer, suggesting that somehow he'd seen that she was clear. She reached out her own magic, sharp, again suspicious, but found nothing.

"What was that?" she demanded, confused.

She'd taught him the very basics of fungal magic, but had she failed to mention the most important parts-? Baffled, she pressed on. "There's magic to see fungus, Nemo. It's what a few of us were using in Ursa." A pause, a hesitation (is he being controlled some other way?) and then she offered a hesitant hand. "I can teach you later, if you want."

Had her dumb ass taught him how to sprout inky defenses, but not how to see Mother-? Damn, she thought; that'd rather been an oversight. "What did you even just try to do?"

She pushed off the cold rock with her hind paws, pacing away, as he'd requested. "Well, we're moving. Update me, then. You said you've been here the whole time; how long's it been? Is anybody dead? What the hell happened back there?"

A little strain entered her voice, now; not knowing the answers to these questions was just a little bit nerve-wracking.

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@Nemo

Nemo

It takes him until Giggle demands an explanation to realize he'd spoken over her, and he winces, and cringes down even further as she continues, feeling a bit like a failure- but...

"I uh. I'd like that, actually. What I cast is sort of casting blind..." he taps after her, looking around, feathers ruffling and then flattening as he takes a deep breath, and exhales. "I uh. Sort of figured out how to pull on fungus? Like how I pull a feather out or some wind out of a stream. It didn't catch on anything on you, so I know you're clean... from every kind of fungus. Though I don't think I'll use that on you again once we get back home, I know that you like growing things in your coat and I don't want to know how wrong that magic can go."

There's a second, then, where Nemo has to gather his thoughts, and then he begins- "Nobody died. In fact, we turned back almost right after you and Wyvern fell down and chrysalized. That worm came back after a bit- Dracouna, the big one who's just... dangerous? Yeah, that one killed the worm and nearly got killed to boot. She fled the cave, I made sure that everyone was out of the storm as we beat a hasty retreat. The storm had gotten... much worse, and considering the infighting? We had to turn back." The lammergeier breathes heavily out from a barely open beak, the closest sound he can make to a stressful, sharp exhale from someone's nose.

"I also stayed back to look for you and Wyvern's chrysalis, hoping to do... something in case that Mother thing came back. I couldn't find you due to the sheer amount of snow, so I just... I've been hopping between cave entrances. I uh- Oh! I bumped into Aure at one point. He's fine, I told him a bit about what happened, and what happened to you. I also told him I decided to keep watch. So he'll be waiting, I think?"

@Giggle

She listened intently as she walked, her attention forward and all around her, on the lookout for any trace of Mother. But Nemo's words drew her mind.

Aure. Shit, she thought, realizing how upset he'd likely been at her having gone missing. And what did it say that Nemo was the one waiting--and not her own son? What was Aure doing? This wasn't thought with disappointment, but concern; was he too upset even to leave Canis, or what? Maybe he just knew you'd get back okay, she thought, but that idea somehow rang hollow to her.

"Well, that's good of you, Nemo--thank you. For looking for us, I mean. Wyvern's fine, too. We both got out okay. For whatever fuckin' reason, there was this... big, white--bug? Waiting for us in the tunnels. It led us out. I talked to its mind, and I heard the fungus through it--this 'Mother' being. It said Tahi-shei made sure we'd get out safe, whatever the hell that means." She hadn't really thought about it, and pushed on without considering the implications--she hardly trusted Mother's words anyway.

The idea that Draconua had both killed the worm and nearly died stuck with her, too; something about the big monster tugged at her instincts, and she wondered if she might seek her out, speak with her. But that would come later, if at all.

"I'm glad no one else got hurt, anyway. How are you holding up? And how's Aure?" she asked, with a glance the lammergeier's way.

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@Nemo

The hyena plodded along, wary but content. Small talk mixed with news, and before long, their voices had faded down the tunnel.

Nothing was left of her passing; any pawprints were swept away by wind soon enough, and she was so clean of spores that there was none of her usual dander left behind. It was as though she'd never come this way.

And that was fine: she was aching to be home.

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

exit due to inactivity