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Black took a step forward when the wall of rancid stench hit his nose. Part of him was appalled--the bodyguard part, the part that said that this rank odor stank of predator. This part had him tensing and swiftly stepping to Fisher's side, a soft growl dying in his throat before it ever really became audible.

The other half of him was entranced. He wanted to run to her, bury his face and his paws in her coat, lick and bite and roll in it and coat himself in that delicious reek.

In any case, both halves of him were fully focused on Giggle, blue-grey eyes locked on her, so that he was oblivious to all else. He was still slightly behind Fisher--still not interfering--but his presence was suddenly more noticeable, more obtrusive, a bodyguard who had drawn closer to his charge.

________________

The voices had whispered oddly in her mind since the accident, and now was no exception. She shifted from one paw to the other, idly, even as she shifted her gaze between the brown fisher-thing and the black dog at his side. Or back.

Words drifted through her mind unbidden, overlapping and echoing and murderously soft.

They come. In ignorance. They come. In darkness.

Giggle tilted her head slightly, eyeing the two. Her bonepile was rarely simply stumbled upon--never mind that they weren't at it, not now. But they were very close, and this, combined with the whispered truths of the fungus that she bore and that swarmed all around them, made her think that they had not come here by accident. The bones wished to speak to them.

When she cleared her throat to speak, however, she sounded mild and relatively polite.

"The brown cat, no. The white cat? Yes. She isn't far from here, in fact, and the last I saw of her, she was well. I can point you in her direction--her bone tower is impossible to miss, even from here."

Giggle didn't wait for instruction--instead, she turned, nodding up toward the bone tower-throne visible on the hill. Mau dwelt there, and even from Giggle's bone pile, the throne was visible. Mau had constructed it in such a way that she could sit at its pinnacle and look down over the entirety of the cave.

The hyena then looked back to Fisher, smiling almost slyly.

"I'm sorry; I had expected that you were here for a fortune. I'm a soothsayer, you see. Everyone who comes here, usually comes to see their future. But I suppose you're just off to see your cat?"

Giggle said this with a voice pure and sweet, perfectly innocent, hoping her words would immediately enthrall the scarred brown creature. After all, if the bones wanted to speak to him, it was her responsibility to get him there--even with a little white... manipulation.

________________

Roll the bones.

Giggle listened, glancing up once more at the white cat's tower, then again to Fisher. She eyed him--and his strange comrade--for a moment, before speaking.

"Come, then," she said at last, turning and padding along toward her bone pile. She meant for Bones to come along, too.

She walked in silence, leading the way down the rocky trail and to the edge of her pit of bones. Brown mushrooms grew thickly around the edge, and signs of scuffling showed clearly in and around the pit, as if things had struggled within, tearing up the dirt and laying bare the rock underneath.

Giggle stopped here, and glanced back. Fisher was small, battered, but tough. Large, in spirit. Her eyes flicked to the black dog behind him; he was silent, and stoic. Large, and if she had to pick a word, a little mysterious. She knew nothing about him bar that his loyalty to Fisher seemed supreme--was he a slave? Mindless? She looked back at the bone pile, eyes searching the ribs and skulls for suitable representations. Totems, of a sort.

She didn't know anything about Fisher either, of course, but the fact that he seemed relatively open and friendly she took as a good sign. Perhaps they were merely trying to get her to let her guard down--but she didn't think so. She'd been warned that they were in the dark, not that they were darkness.

And anyway, she knew that this was not how, or when, she died.

Giggle stepped abruptly into the pile, and leaned down to lift a thick skull with flat teeth from the pile. At the front were small, thick fangs, or perhaps tusks, and at the back, broad pointed horns that curved forward and up. This skull she brought to Black, and dropped it at his feet; the dog stared at her blankly as she did so.

Then she went back to the pile. For a time, she looked between Fisher and the bones, contemplating. Finally she chose what looked like a lion skull--but which she knew was not. It was slightly more gracile, but it was still a massive, heavy thing, with long, thick fangs and powerful jaws still hinged into place. She lifted this, dragging it with some difficulty back to Fisher, and dropping it at his feet with a small poof of spores and clouds. Then she licked her jaws, and eyed him.

"Bring those to the top of the path--that rock, up there. Or I can drag it for you, if you wish. I will look at your futures--and for this other cat that you seek. Is there anything else you would ask, while I consult the bones?"

She turned, glancing back up toward the path that wound around the pit and up to the boulder which jutted, ledgelike, out over it. Then she looked at Fisher, and the skull--which had to weigh as much as he did--impassively.

I wonder if he will insist on dragging it up himself? And if so is he proud, stubborn, or simply foolish? Or if he will let me do it. Would that make him weak, or sensible? Humble?

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Roll the bones.

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Black started slightly as the hyena dragged a skull out and dropped it at his feet. He barely had time to stare blankly at its horns, and then the strange, rank-smelling Giggle had hauled out another even heavier one. He took a tense step forward, suddenly alert should she go for Fisher--but she just dropped that one, too, and he relaxed somewhat.

When Fisher asked his help, he bowed and lightly tilted his head in gentlemanly acknowledgement, as if he were butler as well as bodyguard. Without a word he strode forward, settling heavy-jowled jaws around the skull and turning his body, backing up the slope and dragging it along with him. For a dog his size, it wasn't all that difficult. He let Fisher steer it, a bit, and when they got to the top--Giggle stepping along in front of them with stately demeanor--he set it down and stepped back.

He listened to Giggle ask her questions, and a sudden bite of curiosity nibbled along his mind, as well. Fisher had his future, and his questions. If this hyena truly could see into the future--and for some reason, perhaps his own naivety, Black did not even question this--then perhaps she could see for him?

"What is my future? Where has the thing-that-ran, gone to?" he asked gruffly.

A thing had fled from the tunnel, from Aquarian. He had chased. He had not found. He believed his purpose to be to protect and defend the other Gembound, and to pursue this threat, but thus far he'd been unsuccessful. He'd seen things in the walls--images--but nothing that had helped him so far.

Maybe the bonecaster could see more. Could light his path for him, with vision that pierced a darkness he couldn't even fathom.

________________

She listened to their requests, and then stood, looking down at the bone pit.

Fisher wanted to know his future, and where the cat-friend had gone. And he wanted to know if, and how, he could change the mistakes he had made. She stared down, not yet throwing the bones, and then looked at Fisher, dark eyes glinting eerily as they caught the light of the orb that hung a great distance behind her.

"I will ask the bones your questions, but I would also say this: the past cannot be undone, but the future can be handled differently." She eyed him for a moment--she wasn't sure this was quite what he was asking. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't, but it was a piece of advice she felt confident enough in giving. Forgiveness from others, if he'd wronged others, came in the form of renewed friendship--not in changing the past.

Giggle then looked down, and--having to use nudges of her powerful head and neck, rather than merely a flick of her paw--she shoved the heavy skull over the cliff, and into the pile of bones below.

It didn't just clatter; it crashed, hitting the pile with a sound like an explosion--and she was satisfied, for this was as it should be. Fisher, she thought, was far tougher than his size, and judging by his company and the fact that he sought others, by the scars littering his body, and something else about him, he would make far more than mere ripples in Origin--or already had. His impact was a splash, a wave, not a drip.

The bones went flying and spinning, a few ribs from one dusty ribcage even snapping and splintering, one knocking free and spinning off down the hill. Giggle simply watched, watched the patterns the bones made as they rocked into stillness, watching the shapes forming by their reorganization.

She looked, in these, for Fisher's future.

The hyena lowered herself to her haunches.

This... This is a good omen.

Looking at Fisher, she spoke.

"Nothing remains, near the skull. Very little. You stand alone. Separated from your fellows. You no longer stand beside those you once did--but that, is as it should be, for now." She looked back down, eyeing the bones that had already whispered their secrets, as she spoke, her eyes searching the patterns she'd already seen, dwelling on how best to phrase their meanings.

"You seek. It may be one thing that you hunt--for example, those cats--or you may be hunting something greater, for example the redemption that you seem to seek. It is there, in the open jaw of the skull. But there are bones closer to that: you will succeed, in whatever it is that you seek. Fisher. You will find what you are after; your hunt will end in success."

Then she looked at him once more, eyeing him quite solemnly. "Do you see the ribs, where they lay, points toward the skull? The skull is what knocked them there, but they are poised to fall back, to roll into it. A dog biting a rock breaks his tooth. A bull that jumps into a pond finds a surge of water slapping him. Actions cause consequences, Fisher, and they return to you. But this is not a bad thing," she added, looking back down again. "In fact, in your case, I suspect that it's good. Actions you took long ago, or are taking now, will come back and provide support; the fruit of your efforts will show, and surround you. If there are other questions, about this, ask them now; otherwise I will look for your missing cat."

She then looked around at the pile again, rolling the other question about in her mind. The one with the cat. Was Fallah his "hunt," or rather, one of them? Would Fisher find her--and if so, where?

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Roll the bones.

Giggle kept her eyes on the bones, listening. Yes--she would look for the cat, now. And ask the bones of Fisher's other question: ways to change, to make up for, whatever it was that he had done.

Where is this... Fallah: Is this Fisher's hunt that was spoken of? Where can she be found--and in what condition?

She did not try and explain the patterns, this time, or the shapes, for now the fungus was whispering eerie echoes in her mind. Her dark eyes seemed to glaze over as she listened, ears twitching once or twice, and her voice took on a hollow and distant tone.

"Of the things you seek, and shall find... she is but one. You will find her in a place near where you began. A place where all is stable for you. You will succeed. A shield. Protection. The bulk of the strike, deflected." She continued staring down, dully, and didn't even pause before continuing in an entirely different vein.

"You asked, too, if you could rectify your past. You see clearly, now, for the first time, like light breaking through clouds." She wasn't sure what clouds were, but it was what the mushrooms whispered, and it was what she repeated in her dull and hollow voice. "It is a split. A loss. Giving something--or someone--up. The break is too great. For now. You may try to change yourself, and it may be good--but it will be hard." She said it quietly, and shortly. This was a separation that was permanent--or seemed to be.

She looked up at Fisher, then, her gaze completely blank and empty, a strange peace about her as if she were hollow, and nothing sat there but the stale air, the fungus and the bones.

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Roll the bones.