The sounds of a bird woke him up. The voice was desperate, scared. The pup stretched his legs before lifting himself up, lazily licking his muzzle as he padded outside.

He headed towards the hyena's bone-pile pausing as he saw a floating skull. Weird. What was--... no. No, that's a bird. That's a bird carrying a skull. He lowered himself closer to the ground, staring wide-eyed at the black-and-red bird.

He didn't stay long. No, he was young but not stupid. He could tell there was something wrong and he wouldn't even had to be told that the bird needed help. But, instead of running forward, he turned around and quickly ambled back into the den.

"Mom. Mom. Moooom!" Bones immediately trotted towards the hyena, moving to lick between Giggles' ears. "Mom, there's a... there's a thing outside near your pile."





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The spotted hyena, her coat every bit as matted with fungal growth (and dried gore) as Bevy's foot, opened one bleary eye.

"Hrmph?" she grunted, the very picture of grogginess. Her fur--despite the wild dog pup's licking--stood on end every which way, her mane half-flatted down from sleep. She listened, blinking slowly, yawning, stretching--trying to make sense of Bones's pleas.

Well, whatever it is, the pup's usually got a solid head on his shoulders.

Giggle stood, giving Bones a brief nuzzle, then yawning before moving off toward the pile on tired, stiff legs. "A thing, eh? Well, we can't have that," she said, tired but good-naturedly. "I'll go have a look."

Giggle padded up to her bone pile--a pile now surrounded by rings of small, conical brown mushrooms with pale stems. She was looking proudly toward them as she crested the hill when she noticed the "thing"--the little black-and-red bird sitting wide-eyed and... blotchy, near her bones.

The hyena's brow furrowed as she approached. Last time she'd seen Bevy, the bird had been fine. What was this? She came closer, sniffing briefly, but now she could see: fungus, growing out-of-control over the bird's leg. Bevy was trembling, gasping even, and Giggle tilted her head, speaking with dark, dry humor.

"Well, that leg'll have to come off," which in retrospect probably wasn't the best way to open a conversation but Giggle was nothing if not dark.

Oh, well. Hopefully the bird would know she'd been joking.

________________

Roll the bones.

Bones slowly sat behind Giggle, ears flopping slightly. "Mom, how do you take off a leg?" the pup asked not-at-all-quietly.

The puppy idly licked his coat clean as he spoke. Not meaning to offend Bevy of course, but it was clear he had absolutely no concept on bedside manners. He kept a distance, too, aware of the mushrooms on the bird's feet and obviously not deciding to get close.

That said, it doesn't stop him from being near the horrid-smelling spore-covered hyena spilling jokes about cutting little bird's legs off. Weird.






________________

Giggle opened her mouth to answer Bevy, immediately apologetic that she'd made the bird think she was serious--and then her adopted "son" was piping up from behind her. She gritted her teeth slightly in a grimace.

Oh, that's unhelpful.

But aloud, she merely said "I'm kidding, little bird. Bevy, right? I take it the fungus is the problem?" She nosed over it, briefly, and tried to quickly assess the type and function with magic--by projecting her senses into them to see how, exactly, they were linked to the bird.

Feeding. Flesh. Flashes of color from overhead, the stench of rot and bones.

After a moment, Giggle pulled away and grimaced. The sensations she had had were vague and merely fleeting, but it had been just enough to tell her what she needed to know. She wasn't sure if the things fed primarily off of living tissue, but it was clear enough that Bevy was their substrate, for now.

This is going to be tricky.

"Are you able to walk? Fly, even? I need to take you down to my den," the hyena explained--and never mind the sinister surroundings, or the black and red fungi dried to her coat, or the blood caked on her chest and paws--or the piles of bones ringed by mushrooms nearby. "That's where my garden is," she added matter-of-factly.

________________

Roll the bones.

Oh, a joke? It didn't seem like a logical thing for somebody to joke about. In fact, he was fairly sure that having a hyena take one of your legs off would be quite horrifying, especially when this creature only seemed to have two of them, instead of four.

Bones whined slightly, glancing at Giggle nervously for any instruction. He licked the side of his muzzle, peering between the hyena and Bevy before asking quietly, "...Why not carry it?"


________________

Giggle turned, padding back down along the by now well-travelled path toward her den, shaking her head slightly as she led the way.

"Him? Bones. He's a pup, he's--well. I take care of him. A son, kinda. He's a good pup. And because she's infected, Bones. Infested, even. If you touch her, it might spread to you. It should be easy enough to get rid of but I'd rather not risk filling my mouth with growth--oh, could you bring the skull she brought?" She glanced back at Bones--apparently the skull was important, and from the solemn look she gave the pup, she trusted him to take it along.

The hyena then looked forward again. She led the way down a path of rock which angled down at first somewhat steeply, then evened out into a broad clearing. This was peppered with divots in which stale water stagnated; between this lay a honeycomb of thin rock trails. Her "den" was a dirty patch of rock wide enough to sleep in and strewn with patches of large ferns.

Giggle didn't stop here, though. She stalked right through, glancing back now and again to ensure that Bevy was keeping up. She was wondering how bad the infection was... if the bird was in pain. If she was afraid. Shaking her head, Giggle led the way to a spot where a shelf of dirt lay almost as tall as her.

Here there grew a strange garden: neatly-organized meat-covered bones, long sections of dead and rotting wood, and patches of mud (some of which smelled suspiciously like dung), all laid out carefully in patterns both atop the dirt shelf and along its slanted front.

On each of these there grew different types of fungi, of many sizes, shapes, colors and even scents. Most prominent perhaps were the conical brown mushrooms with white stems, along with the red, carrion-scented fungus with small caps, and an orange, twisted one that looked rather vicious.

Giggle, however, went to what looked like a patch of fur, or rather, hide, which had what looked like soft black frills growing from it. She turned, and looked at Bevy.

"I'll ask how exactly this happened later," she said matter-of-factly. "Rather not waste time while it's growing on you. You ready?"

She eyed the weakened bird, glancing over the rampant fungal growth, and then meeting Bevy's gaze.

I hope this works.

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Roll the bones.