It was working. Well, that was good.

"Now, if you want," Giggle answered, pushing up. There were a couple young ones in or around the Bonebound these days. She'd observe, herself; make sure Kalama wasn't abusive toward kids or something but the bones promised something useful out of all of this.

But-...

...Cat assassins?

"Cat assassins..? The Bonebouund doesn't--uh, assassinate anyone. Did someone come after you-?" she asked, confused.

She was already leading the way toward Aure--a little bloodied, limping, as she stepped past Kalama. But they may as well talk now, with him--if Kalama would follow, at least.

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Giggle listened, thoughtful in her momentary silence. Kalama couldn't have known it, but she'd hit on one of the few things Giggs felt strongly about.

"That sounds like something a cat would do. I hate cats," she added, dour, not bothering to keep her voice down as she walked.

"They're like that--they're all like that. Traitors." Kalama had gotten herself all worked up again, all fluff and fury, and Giggle paused to look back at her. "Nobody has to send cats to do that. They just... do it. I've only ever met one who was a decent creature. The rest will bite you in the back as soon as you turn away, even when they were smiling a minute before." Her tone was distantly bitter.

She paused, considering. "Here--let me show you." Magicka flickered up: an attempt to established a link to Kalama, to share memories--images, sounds. Emotions.

A young lioness--a cub, in fact--sitting before the pit of bones. She was bright, cheerful, polite; Giggle was reading the bones, albeit a bit theatrically. I read her fortune, in the bones, Giggle tried to tell Kalama--if even the chicken listened--mind-to-mind. I even gave her a name; Song-cat, a name she took with her, kept, and used. Fast-forward, now: an adult lioness, approaching coldly, offering a warm greeting to the bird beside whom Giggle walked. A curt, cold snub to Giggle herself; two words: 'and Giggle.' The cat saw herself above the hyena, now. Looked down upon her with disgust, despite what I'd done for her! Giggle showed nothing of it--Giggle taunted her, teased her for it--but she was insulted. Angered, shamed.

The image cut off, Giggle shaking her head, turning away again.

"Cats are shit," she told Kalama, and continued down the path.

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Why didn't you just beat her to a pulp? PRIME lesson time, and Giggle jumped on it with the tact of someone who'd done this a dozen times before. "Because we all make mistakes, and getting hurt for them is messed up. You wouldn't want to get hurt every time you said something wrong, right? Plus, it makes enemies. People get mad at you. Fighting everyone isn't the best way to go. You're better than that, anyway; just laugh at them and move on," she added. "That's what I did. I told her I was gonna swim in her pool and when she was freaking out I told her to calm down, and laughed at her for being an idiot. Feels better that way," Giggle added, somehow both smug and matter-of-fact.

She was about to speak further, but there was Aure: gentle, quiet, practicing his mushrooms. To her surprise, he showed no anger, no annoyance, at the appearance of Kalama. He showed surprise, but no hostility. Granted, he'd always been a kindly sort, but she'd expected more of a reaction than that. Either he was missing a form of spine--and she didn't think so, given his hard response to Kalama when she'd actually attacked--or he was very, very self-controlled and softer outside that spine than she'd thought.

Funny, how she didn't know her own kid as well as she'd imagined, but that was how it worked with living, breathing adult beings, wasn't it?

"Aure. Bone King," she greeted him, coming to a halt close by. A little bit formal, just to set the tone for Kalama's sake. "Kalama came to me for a bone reading," she began, firing a glance at the chicken--she'd say nothing of the attack. Maybe it'd make the chicken a little more amenable to reason, her doing her a favor like that; or maybe she'd not see it as a favor at all. Maybe she'd correct Giggle, insisting that she was some great and savage assassin, or something.

Giggle said nothing of the shreds of black fungus still hanging from her coat, or the scent of blood that clung to her.

"We had a discussion, and between that and what the bones said, I came to ask something. Would it be possible to have her as the Bonebound's... trainer, to teach young ones how to fight? Supervised, obviously. I told her if you agreed, I'd get her some armor made, and have a title among us, but that she'd have to follow our rules about fighting strangers and so on."

A pause, as she attempted to reach her mind out to her son's. Nothing came of it, and she had to think to rephrase, aloud, what she'd been about to impart mind-to-mind. "The bones suggest it's the right thing to do, that she'll find a strong role with us like that. As Bonebound or as an ally, I don't know--that's up to both of you, if you agree, Aure. But remember how Kerberos joined us."

She'd told him the story in the past: that Kerberos had been nothing but a feral pup--capable of speech, but wildly aggressive. She'd managed to beat him (if barely) when he attacked, and then when he was cowed, raised him as her own. Maybe that's all Kalama needed: structure, a family, and an example of good behavior.

Or maybe it'd do nothing--the hyena didn't know. "I think it's worth a try, but it's your decision in the end," she offered.

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Giggle glanced at Aure--the only acknowledgment her attentiveness--and then listened. There was some confusion, and she thought back at him--Why are you hiding this-? It wasn't accusatory, just a bit confused; it didn't seem like something, to Giggle, that needed to be hidden. But she took his cue, with a mental shrug, and didn't reveal what her son was laying down.

Instead, she glanced to Kalama. A clear of her throat, and she picked up, sort of, where Aure had left off.

"Sure. Meanwhile... what do you say to letting her train the kids? Older kids, obviously. I don't think the young ones could handle her. I'll watch her myself, if you want," Giggle added, then glanced back to Aure with dark, amused eyes. Older, then, sure.

"That all sound fair to both of you?"

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