She ran.

At first, Kera did not know where she was running to. She just wanted to be away from it all-- from the tunnel, from the lights, the blood, the goose. The more she ran across the caves, hearing only the sound of her own heavy breathing and the rapid clicking of her nails against the cave floor, the more she began to settle down. The more she began to comprehend what had happened and the more she became in control of her own body again.

As she slowed to a stop in the middle of Orion, she wondered if it was possible that the Storm had taken over her body again-- but it wasn't. There was no crack of thunder, no static in the air. No outside voice using her own throat and certainly not making her attack that goose.

What had happened? Kera did not know-- everything was a blur, from the moment that spell hit Blackberry's face. She could still smell the blood; she was covered in it. She could still hear the shrieking of the goose, the sensation of flailing limbs under her and blood in her mouth.

She didn't want to think about it.

She paced around in a single, wide circle before she turned tail and headed up tunnel K in complete silence, only breathing heavily as she quickly entered Canis. Giggle-- that's what she had to do. The lights were on and Giggle had to know what happened-- with her luck, the hyena wouldn't question why, exactly, she was covered in blood.

She paced around in another circle upon exiting the tunnel before turning and moving towards the bone pile, calling out. "Giggle? Are you here?"

@Giggle

Giggle flicked a chipped and rounded ear, grunting softly. There was a voice, calling her from her sleep. She groaned, and stretched--heavier, now, and not so emaciated as before. The lights were on, at least. She'd found the stones--the three from her pile; she'd given them life, laying them here in her garden. She lifted her long neck, exhaling with a short sigh through her nose.

The voice was distant--from her bone pile, she thought. She stretched again, and shook, scraps of fungus and caked gore falling from her rangy coat. After a moment she paced up that way, yawning her powerful jaws wide once more.

The lights were on; they had not gone out. She felt more content--more peaceful--than she had in a very long time.

There--the white wolf. She'd grown, a bit--not much, but some. But she was blood-caked. The hyena tilted her head, pacing right up to the wolf and sniffing her over with some concern, speaking in her rough and masculine voice.

"Your blood? Or another? What happened? Lights are on; your doing?"

The black bird with its single red eye swept down, hopping around Kera's paws.

"YOUR BLOOD?" it parroted in a haunting cry. "BLOOD OTHER? LIGHT WHAT?"

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@Kera

Giggle was not, in fact, here. For a moment Kera only watched the pile of bones before she began pacing around in circles again, silent for a moment. Her muzzle hurt from where it had been bitten, but she decided to ignore it for now-- considering what had happened to the goose, at least.

She turned as she heard Giggle approach, though she didn't even get out a simple 'hello' before the hyena began sniffing at her fur. With a grumble she shook her fur out. "It's not mine," she said after a moment's pause. She wasn't all too injured at all, in fact-- certainly nothing in comparision to Blackberry. "It's a goose-- self-defense. She said she'd kill me."

She grimaced at the Caller's cry, turning to continue plodding around in circles with heavy breaths. "I-- turned the lights on," she offered after a moment, remembering. "But the blood is unrelated."

There was no real victory to turning the lights on or saving the snake from the generator now-- but she didn't want to linger on the fight for now, either. Instead, she slowly sat herself down and began to lick the crimson away from her coat, shuddering a little. "I can tell you what happened with the lights?"

@Giggle

Giggle sniffed over the wolf a moment longer, probably shoving her blunt snout too deeply into her fur, checking that the blood was not her own, that she was not wounded. Satisfied, she turned and paced to the bones, flopping down beside them, licking a paw indifferently.

"Good. Kill the killers. Less danger. You did turn them on. You did, you did, said you would and you did--the white wolf the Lightbringer--tell me of it," the hyena agreed. Or commanded. Her dark eyes snapped back to Kera, and she waited in silence, intent upon hearing of this. She wasn't sure if the void-black could return, now--the eyes in the dark--but the lights calmed her down, a bit, at least.

It didn't strike her that the wolf was bothered--she didn't notice it, if even it were obvious. Her own mind was half-elsewhere--among the dancing orb-lights, shying from the eyes.

Omen dropped beside her after a short few wingflaps and hopped around her body, cawing quietly. The hyena turned, giving her a brief and affectionate nuzzle.

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ROLL THE BONES

@Kera

Kera did not stop Giggle from getting close, more concerned with her own thoughts than to acknowledge a hyena's face in her fur, though for a moment she only cleaned her own fur. The taste of blood in her mouth only brought back memories of the fight; of the things she had done.

She tried to ignore it in favour of the lights, but for a few beats Kera did not know where to begin. She inhaled carefully, and then began. "There's a place somewhere else with some light, even when it's dark. Blue light and some red light, and there's a lot of glowing rocks," she explained. "But there was something else in there-- I don't know what it was. It was dark and loud, and floated above everyone's head. It spewed light when it made noises."

"I watched another wolf do something to the ground-- she made another stone out of it but I don't know how she did it. After she did, the dark-loud-thing up above sent that light down and blew it up. After that, it moved off somewhere else in that room." She took a breath, taking a moment to clean off her paws. "It was-- a large thing, with round things inside and it was half-submerged in water. There were two others there and they called it... something, but I don't remember what. We tried to get the dark away from it, but it started attacking the thing and it tried to move."

"I don't really understand it? The thing half-in-the-water might be alive, but the two others there said there was something that had been thrown in there, so one of them went in and tried to get it. She nearly died, when she picked it up and all the things inside it started moving. I helped her-- she said I saved her life, and after she got the thing out everything started moving and the lights turned back on."

She paused here, now, cleaning her fur of blood and waiting to see if Giggle had any comments thus far. Her eyes were briefly locked on the Caller, warily.

@Giggle

Giggle stared. She listened. The words at first made sense, then their meanings twisted and took on confusing shapes. It was strange--things half-alive, or--was it half-in water? Was the light--wait, she was speaking more--

What does it all mean, sister-mother? came Omen's thoughts--confusion, curiosity--translated into words by Giggle's own mind. Her nervous puzzlement echoed back.

I have no idea.

Giggle's poor mind could make no sense of the already admittedly confusing words of the wolf. She stood, as if preparing to flee a threat, hesitating as she stared at Kera with wide, dark eyes. She huffed, as the wolf stopped, and simply stared for awhile before at last speaking.

"...What?"

She sounded lost, confused, blank.

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ROLL THE BONES

For a time, Kera only stared back. She blinked a few times, quiet for a moment. "The-- important thing is that the lights are fixed,"" she stammered. "I don't think they'll break again? Unless the Betrayer does something to the thing again but-- there was something else."

"The dark stuff up above was alive, too, and it kept.. speaking? It said its name was Vathrahi, or Vahi, I think? And there was another thing that came by-- it looked like a cat but it didn't have any fur and it looked like it was made out of black and it said its name was Senka?" She shrugged, and went back to cleaning the blood from her fur. "Senka said they'd go home but I don't know where that is. It looked a little weird but it was dark and I was wondering if they were the Eyes?"

She watched Giggle again, frowning faintly, then attempting to explain a little further-- "The dark-- Vahi --it looked like.. just darkness?"

Kera was not very good at explaining things at all, however.

@Giggle

Giggle listened, ears flicking to and fro; she huffed, freezing up upon hearing of the Eyes. Her voice came out in a low and roiling growl.

"...Eyes? Darkness? I remember the cat. Where is it," she said. Terror and rage boiled blackly through her. Memories fluttered through her mind, falling like shards of shattered glass.

Memories of nothing, and of darkness.

The hallowed caller leapt away, and took flight, calling frantically as the magnitude of Giggle's emotions overwhelmed her--and the hyena herself was left half-crouched and growling. It wasn't at Kera--it was at the thought of the Eyes. The idea of it.

She didn't know if she wanted to flee from wherever these Eyes might be--or to confront them. In her terror, she glanced back at the bones.

A circle. Round. Coming around. A journey. I will go. She snapped her gaze back to Kera, trembling.

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ROLL THE BONES

@Kera

Hearing Giggle growl surprised Kera. She wasn't sure if she could ever comprehend what had happened to the hyena but she understood the basics: she was trapped in darkness, unmoving, with no conversation or food for... some undetermined amount of time. The concept of time, even, was quite lost on the wolf. She just knew it wasn't pleasant.

With a shuddering breath, Kera watched the one-eyed bird take flight with some concern, briefly wondering when it would betray Giggle and when Giggle would have to rip it apart. She wondered if Giggle would even feel guilty or if she would justify it in her own way.

She looked back to Giggle, exhaling slowly before speaking. "They-- were in another room, some tunnels away," she said, thinking-- they had left, but where had they gone? In the short time Kera had been here, she had seen many rooms and memorized the tunnels. She knew which tunnel lead to which room by now, and she could recgonize almost every room-- though scarcely by name. "They moved-- to the room outside this one, I think. They could have gone into the plant-room as well."

For a time, she was quiet after this. She wondered briefly if Giggle would try to go and confront Senka and Vahi, but what would she do? What could she do? Kera did not know-- and so Kera moved onto another subject, if for a moment.

"The-- thing that was thrown into the water and turned the lights off," she stammered. "Someone said it was-- alive, once. That it fought a dragon and died, and that it should be revived." There was no real question and barely a statement, but regardless Kera shut her mouth and watched the hyena to gauge what she would make of this-- if she didn't ignore it completely in favour of pursuing Senka, that is.

@Giggle

Her mind was fragmenting, breaking away and she watched its pieces fall out of sight into the dark. None of her thoughts stayed where they were meant to. Anger and terror both rose in her, too high to feel. She wanted to kill the dark. The eyes. She wanted to hide from them and hope they never saw her again. She wanted to rip them apart. She wanted to cower.

The wolf's words about a stone that was once alive barely registered. She knew little about the long-ago fight with Raheerah. Instead, she jerked and trembled, half her muzzle wrinkling up in a snarl. Her voice came deep, hoarse.

Abruptly, with a gait filled with purpose--and also entirely staggering with fear--the hyena turned and loped out. The fur along her back and neck hackled; her legs trembled. Hate and fear battled, driving her into motion, yet she was only just shy of freezing in place.

It was Omen that turned the tide in her favor. The bird could move in and out of the darkness; she could not. If she were trapped, her bird would find her once more.

"Omen. If I am taken again. Bring the wolf. She will bring the light." Her words were, for once, gruffly to the point; and the bird seemed to understand, from the pictures and feelings in the hyena's mind-link, what it was to do. It parroted back a few random words, as jumbled and out of order as if they had come from Giggle's mind.

"Omen, will she!" the bird called, circling overhead.

Giggle did not wait to see if Kera would follow. She was on a mission, now.

She had to kill the eyes.

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ROLL THE BONES

@Kera