A voice rang through his ears - mocking him. He felt the edges of the femur bone leave the tip of his paws and he cried out, lunging forward. Pain shot down his injured back at the sudden movement and it forced him onto his belly.

He was panting despite what would seem like minimal movement. He was lost, though only about a foot or so away from his den. He whined and whimpered at the floor, paws patting around the area uselessly for his bone, but he felt nothing.

A certain feeling of warmth filled him - not the comforting kind of warmth, either. The kind of warmth that burned the edges of his eyes and dried up his throat with the heat. Burning hot tears began to sear the soft, short fur around his cheeks. The tears simply flooded out of his body as if there was just simply no room left for them to stay hidden behind his eyes.

He gasped and he whined shakily, slowly getting to his feet. He wanted to feel like he knew where he was but he could see nothing in front of him, only the inky blackness. He turned carefully and he moved even more carefully until his snout touched the wall next to his den.

He followed the wall, keeping his ear and back to it, following it along and along. "L... Lore... Lorekeeper..?" he called out shakily, voice resembling that of a childs. "L-Lorekeeper? Are you here?"

He continued to walk and walk and walk. He'd have to prepare apologies if he accidentally stumbled over the crippled wolf's limbs.

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It was typical that Giggle would have a kid called Bones; but Eve didn't have the energy to call her out for it. Not now. The crow shifted on top of the hyena's head. "I'll come with you, but it's best if I stay on your head when we go in there," she croaked quietly, briefly remembering how Giggle would cringe everytime she opened her beak. "It'll be safer that way, I think. Wait here."

The crow wandered down the hyena's spine, avoiding any mushrooms clinging to Giggle's mangy fur. Briefly, she passed a glance at Kerberos, quizzically, before she hopped down and fluttered down the tunnel with only the sound of her wings flapping coming down from the hall.

She wasn't too far into Orion when she found a small pebble and she placed her talons over it, gemstone glowing. To her abrupt relief, she watched the stone glow softly and she nodded slightly, picking it up in her talons and fluttering back into tunnel K.

She was hesitant to go near the darkness, but she brought the stone up close to it and placed it next to Giggle before she moved to sit back on the hyena's head. "I know another thing I can try in there- make myself glow. I don't know if it'll work but it's worth a try, y'know?"

________________

all you have is your fire

and the place it need to reach

δεξιά . κέντρο . αριστερά

Giggle finally came to his rescue, though her words brought him a horrible feeling of guilt. Yes, Bones was still in there. He hadn't been diligent enough. He had failed his brother-- and now he was too scared to go in alone. Him! A massive, two-ton mutt, afraid of a bit of dark! But it was pretty scary, even his mother admitted it.

More gembounds came, and he wanted to scare them away, and keep them from the dark before it swallowed up more lives... But Delphine came right up and nuzzled him, and suddenly everything felt so much less scary. "Hello friend," he woofed softly, his tail going into a gentle, playful wag. Giggle acknowledged a small black bird and his friend and he barked shortly-- "Delphine, this is my mom, Giggle. Giggle, this is Delphine." It was important that they knew each others names, though he didn't know why precisely. He moved on quickly from that, reaching his muzzle down to take Giggle's tail in his teeth.

His other two heads could still speak just fine, of course. He considered what the bird had to say and thought he could glow too, but his magic wasn't working like it was supposed to. He wasn't sure the light would do any good. "Eve's gonna stay on one of us, safe... Delph, take my tail, okay?" He held his tail still and straight, even though he wanted to wag it reassuringly. "If you wanna come, that is-- my brother is in there. I gotta save him." Perhaps it would work. It would be scary, but with Giggle leading the way it would be fine, wouldn't it!


( sorry this post is so bad it's really hot in here and i can't focus rip )

Darkness remained. It crushed any ray of light that dare try to pass. Smothering. Needing, wanting, watching. Something was out there wasn’t it? Something that needed the shadows. Something that hunted…Aleera could feel it. The sense of being watched was familiar but this…this was distinctly different. Being blinded or tricked, being cradled in shadow relieved any form of fear or anger that Aleera could possibly muster right away. Not knowing if she was in danger was new to her when all she’d ever known it seemed was out to get her. The intentions here could not be known when her light was taken and thus the calm remained. Perhaps she felt at home in the darkness. Maybe she’d searching for it all along but that alone did not change the fact that this peeked her interest if only slightly.

Knowing or not on whether or not she was dead eased her weary mind. If she was dead what did she have to lose? If she was alive, she had nothing but herself to lose. A grain of salt weighed against nothing. A paw stretched out to take a step, cautious and careful when a voice all around returned with a resounding echo to answer her very question. ”The wall before me is shadow. The abyss I longed for once. Where is the light?” She asked, her voice unusually calm. She had no idea if she would get a response, but the longer the silence stretched on the more steps Aleera took. The floor was solid, a stick or something here or there. Should she feel if she were dead? ”The light inside you.” Orange eyes peered into crushing darkness and reached into herself. She found that glowing energy and pushed it through herself.

The exposed skin around her twisted maw, the length of her tail, and the bottom of her feet became aglow with a white hot presence. The light it emitted was faint at best, but it wasn’t the light she wanted. ”Pain is life.” The mild searing pain in all these spots indicated she still had her body. She was still very much alive. ”No matter how fast the light may travel, it will find that the darkness is always there first. Who is it that blinds me?” The sinister growl that rolled through her was demanding, yet unsure. The entire situation was extremely odd.

table by Sara

After his meeting with Cancer, Azazel had resolved to return to Canis once again, but something was wrong. Very wrong. It gave him chills, and he realized what the issue was. The room of bones was shrouded in shadows so thick that you could barely see a foot ahead of your face. Warily, he looked down, trying to find something, but there was nothing. They... they couldn't have died while he was gone. Blinking at the tears that almost stung at him, he gave a loud cry. "Is there anyone... anyone there?" His call fell short into nothing in the darkness. He was in the center of the room now.

Without even realizing it, he called upon his magicka and reached out to perhaps someone. That someone happened to be Giggle. "Giggle... -nes... Ker-... Anyon-... there?" It would sound similar to a radio losing and gaining connection, words chopped up or ignored completely. Honestly, Azazel was terrified.

She was glad for her friend's eager reception of her greeting, even more so when introductions were made. Though she could never seem to understand why exactly, it was a point of pride that Kerberos would deem her fitting to introduce to his— her thoughts halted and her emerald gaze found that of the one called Giggles. The hyena was his mother? Although the two and two did not quite fit as she thought it should, it was nonetheless a basic fact she accepted on the sheer grounds that they were birthed of gembounds and it was not entirely unlikely that perhaps they had formed bonds where it mattered. Delphine smiled and she nodded her greeting, "Hello Giggles."

Then came the silent admittance that indeed what darkness lurked in Canis was no ordinary blight that even the matron-figure should fear it. Delphine, also wrought with the dichotomies, found herself hesitant to voice her own opinions and instead merely stuck closer to Kerberos. It was her own validation of her intentions to remain by their side if only to ensure that if they truly intended to step into the void, she would be there to do what she could should anything befall them. She could not imagine playing spectator, not as she had when Baratheon's sight had been stolen from him. Just once her gaze briefly found that of the three-headed hound and in that gesture alone did she find the courage in her to hook the end of his tail into her rimmed horn. "I'll come with you, Kerberos. We'll save your brother." The equine reassured him before casting her attention wholly to the darkness that spanned before them.

Asurai continued to wander around slowly. She was lost, completely and utterly lost, wandering in the darkness. She couldn't help but shiver when she heard the response she got. It scared her, it scared her so much she screamed loudly out of fear! "W-who are you? W-where are you? T-tell me....p-please!" She shivered some more and whimpered as she slowly walked through the darkness. She wasn't sure if she did want to go on anymore. She was so scared, she couldn't stop shivering.

Her low, rasping breath dominated the silence immediately around her. There wasn't much else that the creature could hear, and she damn well couldn't see anything. She had woken to darkness and the sound of others calling out, but the sound was drowned out, as if they were miles and miles away - were her ears failing her, did she go blind? She wasn't the only one that couldn't see. The Lorekeeper slowly rose from her shaking legs, supporting herself against the wall when the shuffling of another drew nearer. Before long, his voice reached out, asking for her. "Yeeesss, boy... I am here." The canine rasped, hanging her head as her five eyes widened, staring into the darkness.

Had she seen this darkness before? She... she couldn't remember.

Bones continued to walk slowly until his nose touched the shoulder of the crippled wolf and he placed his wet face against the Lorekeeper's fur. His face was still wet. "It's so dark... And.. And there's something here-- I don't know what it is."

The dog was terrified, but it began to ease off as he found another. The voice of somebody he (albiet barely) knew. He decided, more to himself, to not pull away from the Lorekeeper's shoulder despite any protests.

The hyena listened to the others, aware of what they were saying and doing, but she was absent. Her mind, the fear she was trying to swallow down, her intense motherly concern, had her focused on the room ahead.

She simultaneously wanted to sprint blindly in, shouting for her son--and to turn and run away and never look back. It was a terrible feeling.

She pushed it down, looking back to peer at Eve. The crow had managed to make the thing glow--a rock, or so it seemed. With a soft huff of approval, she glanced back over the others. Before she could speak, though, a thought rang through her mind--and with a start she realized it wasn't her own.

Aza'zel...?

She furrowed her brow; was he in danger? It was very hard to tell--or maybe it was some sort of trick. Blinking eyes, shifting darkness... what was all of this? She gritted her teeth, and spoke.

"Stay close. Whatever that is making those noises in there... it's probably dangerous. Don't run away or you'll probably get lost. I think I can find the way down to my den--Bones is probably there. Lorekeeper's just down the wall from there. ...Does anyone else hear Aza'zel?"

The hyena looked forward, steeling herself; as she awaited responses, she focused on her magic, drawing it to her. Her aim was to grow mushrooms, as she walked--not one vast carpet, as she normally did, but a thin breadcrumb trail to follow back should they become lost.

"I'm going to try to leave a trail of mushrooms to follow back, so if you get separated, try to find it. Assuming whatever is out there doesn't destroy them," she added quietly, tone dark.

Then the hyena took a deep breath... and stepped into the void.

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ROLL THE BONES

@Kerberos ; @Delphine ; @Eve