Giggle peered down at the soft, fuzzy tiny-thing on the floor before her. It seemed agitated, somehow, and so she drew closer, murmuring as she did. She did not feel the strange vague hostility toward it that she did toward the reeking cats; rather, she felt that this was an equal, despite its tiny size. Why, she could not say.

"I am here--in front of you. I will come closer, so that you can hear me breathe." She padded closer, claws clicking on the stone, and then sat down just in front of the bat. She peered curiously at the stone on its face, and then she spoke again.

"Aza'zel is a bird. Feathered. He brings food. " Next, she puzzled over the bat's other questions. How was she? Why was she? Well, this little thing was certainly philosophical. "Why am I? Because I was born from a stone, and I suppose that is also the how. I don't know the rest of the why--not yet. I can see whys, and whats, sometimes--in the bones." She paused, again, eyeing the bat. "Are you all right?"

Is it hurt? It seems distressed..

"Are you afraid? There is nothing to be afraid of, here, if you are." And she meant it, too. She even offered out one paw, scuffing it loud enough for the bat to hear her place it down near him--so that he could touch her, if he wished, and learn more of what she was.

________________

Roll the bones.

Tal'at drew quiet and once more the voice came to his ears, the echoing, soft, sloppy noises that weren't sharp or clicky... And he listened. The creature offered to let him approach, and though he didn't necessarily hesitate, he certainly did consider before he followed through. He heard the clicking of claws-- through the stone. Like his friend Heartbeat's talons. Zi's talons. It was... Similar.

"Am not afraid," he spoke softly in response, scurrying closer into the paw of the beast. Strange.. This thing was fluffy in a different way, he noticed, his wings finding purchase on the creature's fur. He carefully, and slowly, made his way up the length of her leg, so long as she did not jerk or move too suddenly.

Surely, now that he was touching her, the sense would work?

;; post roll

Mm.. It was difficult to hear, but now he could find it, through the thick of fur. A gentle pulse. She must have been quite calm, perhaps? "This is better. Tell me how... Bones show why? Bones give answers?" He wanted to know what she meant by this; he could tell it was important. She had a way of finding answers and indeed, Tal'at needed every way to find answers as possible.

The spotted hyena stood quiet as the bat climbed slowly up her leg, not moving in the slightest, but rather letting him scale her like some strange mammalian Everest.

She listened to his assurance that he was not frightened, and she believed him. It didn't sound to her like grandstanding, anyway, and the thing was not hesitant, and was curious.

"Tal'at," she tried, testing out the word. She found that she liked it well enough. "You can hear heartbeats?"

She waited until the bat was clinging safely and securely, and then slowly turned, every movement careful and at half-speed, to approach her bone pile. "I'm going to walk, now, don't fall. Do you live by hearing? Is that how you make your way?"

How can I explain to him the bones?

The hyena picked her way very slowly and cautiously over the rock. She thought to herself briefly, and then added--

"If so, the bones are something like that, to me. A way to see things that others can't. There's patterns in everything... the bones show them to me. It's hard to explain." No mysticism or menace for this little one; she found herself replying with blunt honesty, impassive but without any urge for dramatic, theatrical flair. Instead she stopped at the edge of the bone pile.

"They don't make sounds, but they do make shapes. Shapes that I can see..." She sighed softly, glancing at the bat. He was blind. How could one use a visual metaphor to explain something to the blind?? "It is like... my mind touches the bones, like you touch my fur. And you can feel that I'm soft, just like I can feel what's going to happen, with my mind. Does that make sense?"

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Roll the bones.

"I hear Heartbeat. I feel Heartbeat. Sense from distance. Different from listening," Tal'at responded, interest piqued now that the Hyena seemed to understand his special sense. Sort of. She warned him that she was walking, but he stuck to her like velcro, his body made for clinging to things.

He tried to understand what she meant by living by hearing. Hearing was a big part of how he observed the world, yes, but he knew there was more. "Hear, feel, smell. I use all." He had only a small pool of senses for now, but he knew he would find more. He had to keep flexing his powers, until he could observe more of the world around him.

Perhaps the bones held the key. He listened to the curious way that she apparently lived. The bones-- he knew, somehow, that bones were the things that made up his body, the pieces that made up his wings and ribs and the rest of his body-- showed her more. Could she sense bones as he had sensed heartbeats? Or was it more like his hearing? She seemed to be telling him it was more like his hearing, the way noises (when they weren't so echoey and distorted, and instead more sharp) outlined shapes in his mind.

"It makes sense. So I think. Bones show you. You need listen. Focus on bones? It is like... Hearing distance noise." She said the bones made shapes and that showed her... Interesting. Showed her the future, some how? What had not come yet, but would.

Someday, perhaps, Tal'at would be able to read the future as well. "Show me shapes. Can feel bones. Feel the shapes. Want to understand. At least try."

Quix wandered the area alone. She should have been with Cancer for protection but she was curious and had her independent streaks. It had been a few days since she had emerged from her Chrysalis now, and the young fennec was starting to feel for herself how she fit into the greater scheme of things in Origin.

This day, she wandered towards a pile of bones. She was not headed in any particular direction at first, but then she cast her magic - this one being a newfound trait. Unfortunately, she did not pick up anyone on her radar and so wandered aimlessly. Quix got lost for a good while but the fennec was fast and she dashed about, looking for a way out...only to get drawn deeper in. It was then that she saw the bat and the hyena, and heard their conversatiob. Curiousity pricked at her and she approached the larger creature. "If you will, I'd like to know my fate." Quix sat down expectantly, tail curling around her dainty paws. She was so tiny, some of the larger bones were around her size.

Giggle listened to the bat speak as she slowly paced toward the bones. As she stopped, preparing to reply, another voice came--quiet and polite. She glanced back.

It was a small thing, dainty and pale, and pretty. She didn't like that. She hoped there was something redeeming to it; it was too... cute. Too cute.

She sighed.

"Well then, Tal'at, I will give you a lesson, if you want. I can look into the future of this... thing, that has given no name, and show you how I do it. And then, if you want, I can look into your own?" She felt slightly irritated that the fox had intruded; she'd meant to immediately speak to the bat. In fact, she felt some strange kinship with it, and looked forward to speaking with it at length. The fox hadn't even given her name! ...Never mind that Giggle hadn't done so, either.

Meanwhile, though, the bones turned no one aside--and so she would tell the fox's fortune, and then--when they were again alone--devote some time to the bat's.

"Hold tight," she said softly to Tal'at, and then more loudly, over her shoulder at the Too-Cute,
"Come on, then, whatever-your-name-is."

She picked her way into the pile of bones, and spoke softly to Tal'at as she moved among them.

"I see the bones, with my eyes. You have no eyes. But you have other things, and other things may speak to you, as the bones share their knowledge with me. I take one up to represent they who come for readings--this one... here," she said, and knelt down gently so that a small, dainty spine, pelvis and leg--still linked by worn cartilage--lightly touched the bat's fur.

"The one who has come for a reading is tiny, and light, and so are these bones. So I pick them up, and carry them to a high-place--hold on tightly--and throw them into the pile here."

For a few moments, Giggle remained motionless, so that Tal'at could touch the bones, sniff them, even crawl around among them if he wished. Then, with a glance back at the fox to ensure that she was still with them, Giggle picked her way up to the top of the boulder.

She then tossed the bone downward, and spoke as the bone arced down, clattering into the pile and sending bones sprawling and spinning every which way.

"I throw the bones, and off they roll. I watch how. They make shapes, patterns. There is meaning, in patterns."

Giggle took a breath, held it, eyed the bones over, and shifted her gaze to stare at Quix.

"I see a crossing in the bones, one like that of the black-cat. Where it should connect to others, it doesn't. Where there should be bridges, the bones fall away. For you, it means that you are unbonded to others--you do not get along, perhaps, or you are alone."

Giggle eyed the bones once more, and then spoke again, voice measured and calm, very matter-of-fact. "I see lines of bones, ending in piles. Whatever you start now, or have started, will soon come to completion; tasks that you set, learning you wish to achieve."

Giggle eyed over the bones one last time, sitting back on her haunches, then looked over to Quix once more, eyeing the slim fennec fox over.

"Last I see that the bones have fallen away in a ring, and rolled some distance. It is as water, sinking off; the sapping of power, or you will lose control of all around you, or perhaps you will leave what you know behind to begin a journey. That is all I see, for now--but do you have questions?"

Giggle then sat quietly, her dark eyes locked sharply on the slender fox.

When I think.

________________

Roll the bones.

Ack! Ack! Another voice! Strange voice! Tal'at made a low hissing noise, clutching to his new ride, his gem-bound face twisting to each side, ears straining to pinpoint the source of the voice. His gem flickered red, the "iris" in the middle of the orb glowing with a harsh crimson light for just a moment. The red died quickly, leaving him unable to find the heartbeat that belonged to the voice. Why was it so hard to sense creatures here? Was it the way the chamber echoed?

It seemed that Giggle had it handled, however. She seemed just as irritated by the interruption as he was of his lack of control over his senses. Tal'at was glad for a lesson, figuring that if he decided the bone sense was good enough, he would ask for his own.

Eagerly, his tiny form fell over the bones, gingerly sniffing at them, running his hindpaws and wings over the bones, considering what the hyena was saying. Tiny, little bones. He could almost imagine the creature that belonged to the bones... Almost. He wasn't too familiar with other creature's structures yet. This was valuable information-- he would have to study them more.

He returned to Giggle, and up they went with the bone-- and suddenly with a gentle toss, he heard the clattering of bones. He heard the tangle of spine hit the pones, scattering them into shapes that he couldn't quite make out. It happened so quickly... No, he would have to look, have to crawl among them, feel out what she said.

Tal'at waited for Giggle to finish, before letting go of her coarse fur and swooping to where the bones had fell. Curiously, careful not to disturb them too much, he looked for the crossing of strange bones, ones in fit to be near each other. For pieces disconnected from each other. He found the lines and ran his wings over them, pausing to thing, and then he finally searched the ring. They had gone quite the distance... But then he returned his attention to Giggle, who's voice had died off now and left him in silence until the fox would speak.

It was more than the shapes-- it was interpreting them. Tal'at did not know the bones well enough, as this was his first experience with them, but given time... Yes, perhaps he could learn to understand the bones. He flapped his wings and fluttered then glided over to Giggle, clicking softly so he could pick out her fluffy form and hit her flank with a light bump, clambering up on to her back.

"I will understand. Do not yet. Much to learn," he spoke softly, waiting for what the fennec had to say about her reading.

The girl watched curiously as the hyena conversed with the bat. She tailed after them as they walked towards the pile of bones, straggly paws click-clacking on the cave floor. Quix was not particularly interested in these Shaman things but she very much wished to have an inkling of what was in store for her in the future. It thrilled her and gave her many more possibilities to contemplate about. The fennec waited patiently as the hyena shared her trade with the bat, and when she cast her gaze over to ensure that the fennec was still with her, the fox gave her a cute smile with small, sharp teeth poking through in an adorable manner.

She threw the bones then and they clattered down noisily. Drawing in a deep breath, the girl waited with great anticipation to hear the hyena speak, drinking in her every word. Her ears twitched as the hyena mentioned “unbonded”. This set her thinking. The black cat was definitely Cancer. The hyena spoke of her separation and distance from Cancer! She had to leave Cancer? No no no she could not let that happen! He was the one who brought her to Maji and he was her “dad”! She needed the larger cub’s protection where she could not fend for herself. Then it struck the girl that perhaps, that was all she cared about. Her needs and wants. Not really bothering about how Cancer felt, having assumed that he was happy and content with just her presence.

The hyena moved on to the second part. It was about learning and tasks coming to completion! Yet everything would fall away. She would have nothing left. The fennec fox quivered, not very sure that she was liking this reading. It revealed the dark side of her nature that even she wasn’t consciously aware of. It could not be all that bad though, could it? Casting her doleful blue eyes on the hyena, she replied her in shaky tones. "Um…thank you. I’d like to know…a journey to…where. Also…my name is umm…Quix.”

"I do not know which will speak to you," Giggle replied softly to Tal'at. "The bones, or something other."

A journey to where, the little one wanted to know? Fine, she could do that. In fact, she didn't even need another throw. She moved down quietly, pacing alongside the bone pile, her eyes picking through each settled rib and overturned skull.

There. What is that?

She paused, peering at one particular place where a ribcage was mostly broken off bar a few ribs at one end, leaving the spine like a tree trunk with crooked and broken palm fronds jutting out. She looked back up to Quix, voice again coming calm and deep.

"Giggle sees--I see, a tree." She paused, for a moment, possibly for dramatic effect, before she continued. "It may be that you journey for renewal. Or to a place of lush life. Or it may be that you journey to the thick cover of friendship. Perhaps the solitary life bothers you."

Giggle fell silent again, eyeing the fox and wondering what she'd make of it all now. She felt impassive; she didn't particularly care what the fox made of it--it was just an idle and vague curiosity on her part.

Again, silent, she waited.

When I think.

________________

Roll the bones.

The hyena obliged her and in doing so gave her name. Quix peered curiously at the pile of bones as Giggle went about reading the bones. They looked very much the same to her from her spot. Still, the hyena was able to see something. As the girl spoke, Quix moved over to pay closer attention. A tree? She tilted her head quizzically. Well…she did not like climbing those things! Renewal, lush life, friendship. Those sounded glorious to her. Yes! She needed more friends indeed. The fox was able to accept the previous readings knowing that her future held a path to it. Politely, Quix gave Giggle a short bow and spoke. "Thank you Giggle. I, feel very much assured. I think, I do have a journey ahead. And, a good day to you bat.”

The girl then took her exit, tiny paws clattering away. This place would definitely not miss her miniscule presence. And so, Quix went on her way, pondering about what Giggle had said.

-Exit-