Giggle considered, laying there thoughtfully for a long moment, before speaking.

"Well, you may try either one, any of it! See if the stone speaks to you. Or touch a bone and see if it shows you its past!" Giggle didn't know if Skeena had tried any of this before--and moreso if any of it had worked--but she had no way of knowing and it didn't even occur to her to ask. She assumed that Skeena was a beginner at this, as she had been when she'd begun.

How could she know that her child bore powerful abilities as a Seer, just as she did, and had already honed them to some extent?

"A bone, a stone, a whatever! Though when I have tried it with bones, sometimes I have only seen the flesh around them," she added, somewhat grumpily.

The hyena turned, pushing up and trotting off a few paces. She lifted a fresh, red-stained ribcage in her jaws--a tiny thing, likely a rat's--and then moved back, dropping it near Skeena. "Stand back," she warned.

She stood silent as she focused on drawing together her magicka, on shaping it. A moment later fungus began to sprout with quiet creaks all over the ribcage, and then, gradually, to cover the rust-tinted bones. As the last of the stringy flesh and as every last remnant of blood was consumed, she felt the strange, almost unsettling thrill of magicka pouring back through her--and bringing with it the rat's final memories.

"Fear," she murmured hoarsely, toneless. "Hatred, fighting. Frustration. Peace, hiding under a rock, the rain dripping down--all was well, then. Tiredness--sick. My--" she flinched suddenly. Among the many memories fleeting through her mind, she'd seen the final one the rat had experienced: a huge, black-mouthed muzzle with thick and flashing white fangs, dark eyes, a reddish coat, all appearing seemingly out of nowhere: blotting out the cave beyond as it lunged. It was her, of course--an image of herself lunging forward, snapping the rat out from where it had been lying too close to the edge of the boulder. It had been ill--tired--and hadn't heard her coming. Old, perhaps, but it was fascinating, if shocking, to experience.

"I have seen the memories of this rat, now--through the fungus," she explained at last, dark eyes opening to peer at Skeena. "I saw glimpses of its life, here and there--and I saw its death at my own jaws. Strange," she added, tone thick with her own thoughts of reflection.

"It is but another way for the universe to speak to us. Perhaps a method you, too, can learn." Her voice was quieter, now, almost sombre, as she lifted a paw to gently nudge the bones of the dead rat, now thick and nearly fully-obscured with fungus. She rarely thought about the lives she took, but now that she had seen through the eyes of her prey, well-... she had much to think on.

At length, the hyena heard a call--in both mind, and audibly. She turned, ears swivelling. "We'll continue later, if you want. Think on what you've learned!" A brief, affectionate nuzzle to her daughter, and she was moving off at a swift trot.

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ROLL THE BONES