The unborn child had no way of knowing that he was being watched. He was blissful and ignorant, dreaming in the hazy way that came with limited stimuli and no memory to work with; his brain firing synapses without quite understanding how to process them.

The dream was broken by the natural urge to escape. The red cocoon suddenly felt impossibly tight around the child. With a desperate push, the cinnabar crystal cracked and shattered. The child tumbled off of the crimson bowl that remained and on to the floor, unfurling from the tight ball that he had been coiled up in. Dark black eyes, big and filled with wonder, blinked open, studying the world surround it with confusion.

Traces of vermilion dust settled as the chrysalis fluid dried. The cavern was somewhat dim; a shallow den hiding the larger world that the boy still had no knowledge of. There was a strange taste in the air: a combination of the scents of other creatures, and of the growths of white substance edging one of the walls.

Ears flicked forward and back, and the young boy coughed the wet from his lungs. Everything seemed so vast and... strange.

@Anubis

Cast from his home by his own mistakes, Anubis could no longer keep his eye on the crystal as it grew. He returned for brief visits when he could, staying only long enough to ensure the chrysalis was still growing, and then quickly fleeing the cave before the lessers of Order caught him once again and endangered both himself and the child.

He was not there when Fiver at last broke out of his chrysalis, but perhaps there was something in him that sensed his blood would live today, making the very swift journey from his temporary dwelling in Orion back to here. Fiver would be alone in his cave for maybe fifteen minutes - which smelled of old decay and rank fungus, surrounded by rat skeletons, some of which still had bits of the black oil clinging to their bones, and a variety of fungus, little of which inside the cave was the white fungus of Order. He had made sure to keep this area clean of it, at least.

During this time, Anubis was sprinting, avoiding all the white he could, panting heavily as he raced against Mother's eyes to reach his child before she found them. At last, he reached the cave and peered in, eyes brightening at the sight of Fiver. He looked over him briefly, the general canine shape, the strange paws and the armor-like plating and tail. He had never known the creature he had come from...

"You are awake," he panted. "Good. We have to go. Now. Are you strong enough to run?"

@Fiver

The child had some time alone to adjust to the new world, and he crept along the small dwelling, sniffing at the strange fungi and the bones. He had a natural hunger, one that made him hopeful to find something edible among the remains, but the one fleshy mushroom that smelled like food that he licked made him recoil from the taste. It wasn't what he wanted, but how did he know what it was that he wanted? It felt like one massive mystery, waiting to be solved.

He considered the edges of the space, and where they broke away into an opening. Dare he investigate what lay beyond this secondary cocoon? His curiosity lingered, and his hunger left him wanting. If only the mice corpses were more than rot, oil, and ivory.

A new shape-- the one that carried the stale scent but fresh and now-- lumbered forward from a hole in the wall, gasping for breath. The urgency in his voice filled the youth with uncertainty. Questions bubbled up in his mind: Why? Go where?

Who was this stranger? They were so large, towering over the child who's only sense of scale was in the mice bones that seemed so small to him. He blinked, and stretched his paws, opening his jaws to make a whining sound as he tried to figure out how making sounds work.

After all, if Anubis could talk, surely so could he. The words wobbled around in his mind, and it was just a matter of getting his tongue to cooperate. "Why?" He asked the most pressing thought on his mind. "Why?" Despite the question, he wriggled on his paws, restless.

He pranced in place, dark eyes glinting in the low light of the den. "Why, why why?" His jaws parted in a nervous grin, flashing sharp teeth. A pause, and a hard swallow. "Yes!" He declared firmly, tail swishing back and forth.

@Anubis

So many 'why's that Anubis didn't have the time to answer right now. Already he was glancing over his shoulder, anxious for the sound of wingbeats or the shuffling of feet over bones rapidly approaching. He was scared for himself, but also scared for his child - if it was caught and taken from him, then all of his studying of the growing chrysalis, all his future research into growing life, would be for absolutely nothing.

He swallowed heavily, ears turned back. "Little time to explain. It's dangerous here - for me and for you. We must go." He padded forward to nudged Fiver forward towards the exit of the cave, intending on passing the parasitic spores between them, but his panic kept the magic from working, too frazzled and hectic to get any kind of spell going.

He passed the kid and led the way towards the exit, taking a few steps outside and turning back, waiting for Fiver to gauge how fast it would be able to run. "Follow me. Run. I will not leave you behind."

@Fiver

Many eyes were watching. They took note. It was a few moments before the first appeared--a simple Caroller, too-thin and ragged--to perch on a high-reaching stone, staring down with an eerie stillness and blank white eyes.

As the child greeted the world, as his father prepared to spirit him away, more arrived with the flutter of feathers and that settling silence.

Undoubtedly, should they remain, something less pleasant would make its way; Anubis had drawn the attention, and perhaps the ire, of the god behind these stares. But for now the strange little family was given only that unsettling watch, a multitude of eyes gauging--judging--their every move.

Danger didn't seem to be lingering, at least none that the newborn could immediately discern. There was no further protest as he was shoved through the hole in the wall into a world much more massive and bright than he expected. His ears swiveled as he glanced about, padding quickly after the jackal who urged him away from his nest. Innocent and so very naive, he had no way of judging the situation for himself.

He locked eyes with a bird that perched above them, soulless eyes meeting his own. The air in Canis was stale and dry, strange compared to the warmth of the cozy, forgotten hovel hole. He tore his eyes away from the Caroller, quickening his pace to keep up with Anubis.

If the stare of gathering birds was not unnerving enough, the greater assortment of dust and bones that were scattered across the ground as far as he could see was more so: hollow, dark eye sockets of skulls stared out at him.

He didn't quite understand what they meant-- not yet-- but he had been put on edge, and instinct reacted from deep within him to pull at his magic. The hybrid did not know what his magic was doing, much less through what medium it reached, but the effect was instant. He didn't lose a single step as he trotted after his life-giver; but his senses opened up to the world around him, reaching out blindly for every trace of spore in an attempt to find the source of Anubis's fears.

@Anubis (im @ing a gm for the crit success but. ya)

A child's mind was not meant to be awakened to such a breadth of knowledge--an entirely new world--when the world already existing around them was still so fresh and new.

In addition to the experience of sight, and sound; smell, and touch, suddenly Fiver's senses were plunged into the alien realms with all their variation of pressure and humidity, dampness, soil nutrition, the hardness of the stone and the softness of the soil. His mind was expanded in that moment--briefly but perhaps leaving its irrevocable impression--to encompass the cave hundreds of feet in every direction. He existed--his mind, these strange senses--sprawled over rock and through puddles, over the scatterings of bones, even spores blooming in old dust.

Rot. Ancient death. New life.

The shape of the terrain was revealed to him in strange cartography, his own steps--and those of Anubis--registering as soft treads across omnipresent fungus, even that which was microscopic. He was on the ceiling. He was in the stones. He was stretching up the nearby wall, and secreted away in the dark holes in the porous rock. A breeze blew over all of his expansive skin.

...And then it slid away, his mind retreating as though back through an ever-narrowing tunnel, restricted to the taste of Canis's air and the scent of fungus and Anubis and the chrysalis; the sight of the cave of bones and the sound of paws on stone.

@Fiver

Every step of the way, Anubis kept his focus behind him, making sure that the child was still there, still keeping pace. He glanced back often, slowed down if he did, not stopping fully until they were at the tunnel leading out of Canis.

As they ran, Anubis barked back a few words, as much an explanation as he could on the move. "The blank eyes. White fungus. Do not trust it. It will take your mind." He'd noted the Carollers watching them on their way out, glaring at them to try and mask the rush of anxiety that they would be caught. Obviously, it knew where they were. They would not be waiting around for whatever main force was in store for them.

Anubis wasn't sure, exactly, what it was that he'd done that had stirred Mother's attention so much. Why she seemed so intent on capturing him. Was it annoyance that she'd bothered him, trying to drive him from his home? Or maybe...this was some form of punishment for his quest for knowledge. The experiment he'd attempted had made her mad, perhaps. Well, one more reason, then, to resist the call of Order. If Mother didn't want him to dive into her secrets, then she had lied to him.

This wasn't important right now, though. What was important was getting to safety. As they reached the edge of Canis, Anubis trotted to a stop and turned around. He gestured towards the tunnel before them. "Past here they cannot get to us. The cave is dark, but pass through and there is safety. We are almost there." Anubis waited just a moment for Fiver to catch his breath before leading the way into the tunnel and out of Canis.

*exit? (unless Fiver stays)

@Fiver

The boy was left with more questions, more and more, more more more questions, so many more questions than answers. He stumbled only once-- when his vision faded into the background so he could absorb the overwhelming torrent of new information. The dryness of Canis, the acerbic-not-quite-flavor of the earth, the way his body seemed to stretch and peel over the land, enveloping it in in a map much too vast to put to memory.

Thankfully it faded in an instant, but he tripped a bit over his paws all the same. Anubis offered half-answers: the creatures that stared at them, watching. They were the danger. How could such things take his mind? His mind as it was stood as such a fluid thing... Could they snatch it, if he allowed his senses to peel away again? His fur crawled at the thought, and he hurried his steps.

"Why can't it follow?" He asked as he came upon the tall jackal's heels, glancing over his shoulder and trying desperately to wet his dry mouth with his tongue. "Why does it want my mind?" So many 'why's', and certainly not enough time.

But his questions did not have answers, not yet. Anubis pressed forward into the dark tunnel, and left with the cold terror of what lay behind, he felt he had little choice but to press forward into the unknown. The only thing that was certain, right then, was that there would only be more 'why's' to come.

... hopefully answers, too.

Fiver exit! @Anubis for visibility