Dragon huffed, and panted, and again, he had to stop.

Why was this place so dry? And why was it so pointy? He hated it. It was nothing like his swamp, like the dark mist and the wet, squelchy ground. He'd never been here, not to his memory at least--but the bones made him wonder. As he lay silent in the dusty bones, jaw slightly agape, his dark eyes looked over the fortresses in the distance.

It was true, then. Some time, long ago, so many had died that their bones were piled into shelters for the still-living. And the entrance to this cave... its eerie tunnel, the place where nothing should be--it had felt distinctly not-right.

He hated it.

The only reason he was even here was to consult with the reader-of-bones; he'd been told that she could tell fortunes, long ago, and that they were supposedly fairly accurate.

Dragon wanted to test this seer. He wanted to know what she could tell him, what she might see in his own future. Or for the caves, and for them all. With another huff he started forward once more, his right hind leg dragging where it lay twisted behind him, the thick scars on his back glinting in the low light. At length, he lost patience, and inhaled deeply. Magicka coiled within him, swelling and heating in his gut, and he opened his jaws skyward.

A plume of orange flame billowed upward, spewing forth in a torrent of fire that illuminated the bones all around him. And then, past the searing pain of this--long used to it, by now--he bellowed.

"BONE-READER. I SEEK YOU."

One round ear flicked quite hard as the horrific belch of roaring flame, followed by bellowed roaring, pierced her peaceful rest. Her head came up, dark eyes blinking sleep away, similarly-dark muzzle wrinkling up in irritation.

Who is that?

She pushed up, sighing, shaking out her matted coat and turning to the youth beside her, offering him a gentle nudge.

"Serek," she rasped, her voice hoarsely masculine. "We have company."

Overhead, her Hallowed Caller circled, giving out a haunting call. Giggle could see briefly through its eyes: a long, dark, squat thing, ridged and ugly. It didn't belong here.

It doesn't belong here, she thought irritably, the thought directed at her familiar. She didn't like when things were wrong--when they were out of place. The familiar's mind came back wordlessly questioning, and she shook her mane out with an annoyed huff. Her lope quickened to a trot as she wound her way past her bone pit and toward the stranger.

It was one of her rules to never turn anyone away from a reading of the bones: they were not hers, she was merely their conduit, and she had to respect that. To respect the responsibility that she had been given.

As she drew closer, she spotted Dragon more directly. He was much, much larger than she'd expected--everything looked big to Omen, but this thing was-... Well, vast. Long, heavy. ...Fat. She eyed him over, stopping quite short, reluctant to approach any closer. His head--was that a head?--it was like a fat boat. If that opened it could snag most of her torso-...

She bared her thick fangs fearfully, chittering in her nervousness, her words coming out somewhat garbled with it. The hackles at the back of her neck stood up slightly, her mane bristling.

"Who are you? What do you want? I can read the bones, if that is why you are here but if you are here for death and eating, I am not to eat!" she barked.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Serek

Serek snored in his sleep, dreaming of prancing through the bones, mushrooms blooming in his wake. He had done the spell before, he had learned to grow all kinds of fungus. He loved his little mushrooms. But then he was awoken from his slumber by a gentle prod. He blinked open his eyes sleepily and heard Mother's distant voice. Company...

Company? Serek suddenly felt him wake up completely and he stumbled unevenly to his feet. "Company? What company, mother?" He gave a little bounce of excitement and began to prance around Mother's feet until he caught sight of her serious expression, her muzzle wrinkled as she started forward. He immediately stopped his hopping about and trailed after her silently, trying to wrinkle his muzzle in the same way. Was that supposed to be scary? For the creature that was 'company?' He wasn't really sure what was going on, but he followed Mother and matched her pace as they ran through the room of bones.

He then noticed the roaring flames that he had missed earlier and he stumbled as his body suddenly tried to pull him away. Whatever was making that loud noise and those bright things was powerful and he wasn't sure if he was scared or intrigued.

Or maybe something else? Impressed? He had never seen Mother do anything like that before.

When they came upon it, Serek gave a small squeak and hid behind Mother's legs, just as he had done when he was much younger. Whatever that thing was, it was scary. Huge, scaled, with a weird and really dangerous looking...uh...thing on its face, and claws that gave him shivers. His ears pulled back and he started growling, his hackles raising with fear. Would mother protect him? Or...would he have to protect mother? What did it want?

After a moment of picking up his courage, Serek slowly crept out from behind Mother and faced the creature, his muzzle pulled up, exposing his sharp teeth. "Y-yeah," he retorted, his voice trembling, "We are n-not food! Take another step closer and I'll rip you up!" At his words, nervous little mushrooms began to sprout from all around his feet. They made him feel a little better, but he seriously doubted his words. No way he would be able to take on that monster. But he would try! Maybe he could intimidate it away?

"I'm screaming submission"
I don't know if I am dying or living

tags: @Dragon
notes:

Dragon waited, for a few moments. He was just about to start hauling himself through the damnable bones again--dreading the feel of them scraping and crunching beneath him--when he heard the sounds of movement. He turned, watching the creature that approached: rangy, red-brown, shaggy. Fungus and gore, uncleaned, caked parts of its pelt, and it regarded him with dark eyes that stared from a heavily-scarred face.

He was about to answer the hyena's seemingly hysterical greeting, bemused, when the smaller red-brown creature--sharing her markings, to some extent--stepped out from behind her and offered threats of its own. Dragon was both offended and amused. Offended--for how dare the tiny thing threaten him?--and amused, because in his youth, he had done the same. He was torn, for a moment, between displaying his power, and reassuring them as to his motives--and so he decided upon both.

"I am not here to eat you!" he declared, his voice a regal rumble. "I am Dragon. I have come to seek your... wisdom. I am told that you can see the future, and I require this." Even as he spoke, blood-red and black dragon's wings seemed to spring from his back, spreading and arching over him as he drew himself up into a high-walk. Much taller this way, he began to approach the pair.

"There are many things within the caves," Dragon explained as he came closer--and the wings dropped out of sight. "I will tell you who I am, and what I wish--but perhaps you already know."

He eyed Giggle, wondering: was her talent truth, or a hoax, a sham meant to make a half-mad, crippled false prophet into someone of worth? Could she already know who he was, then? It was a test, as much as a challenge, and he hoped that he had not wasted his time in his journey.

Giggle snorted. His display did not frighten her--she knew of the eyes, and what they were. A flap of false wings would not intimidate. She spoke, with amusement in her hoarse voice, dry and biting.

"You are Dragon," she responded simply--after all, he had said so himself.

She glanced back to Serek, ensuring he was still relatively safe, and then, once more, to Dragon. She looked over the bones at his feet, the ones he had scattered on his way in, and she spoke with a matter-of-fact, veiled tone. She could see the patterns that lay about them; she could read them. She could see "I can see what you have disrupted, Dragon," she told him as she turned away.

"You have come to me seeking something, for you are missing something! Knowledge. Words that you must gather. A place that you must find. Yet you do this because you think you stand high, higher than that which you seek. But you are wrong. You are lower... and you are wrong. But you were not to know that, because you are missing pieces! Come, and we will find them," she chittered.

She paced back toward her bone pit, languidly enough. Serek knew that she read the bones, at least; this much she didn't need to explain. At least, not to him. But to Dragon, she might.

Above her, the Hallowed Caller circled, letting out a haunting cry.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Serek

At the sight of the bright red wings and the sound of Dragon's booming voice, Serek's ears dropped and he scurried back behind mother. Maybe...he wasn't going to be brave this time. That thing was really scary. He looked up at mother and realized that she was not scared in the slightest. Wow...one day, he wanted to have that kind of bravery.

But then she turned and led Dragon deeper into Canis and Serek realized where she was going and why Dragon had come here. He hadn't come to eat them, he had come for a bone reading. Serek understood that Mother always gave readings, no matter who passed through. She had told him this, and the other Siblings. Serek wondered what questions this Dragon had to ask of Mother and what fortune she would give him in return.

Serek followed close next to mother as they trotted towards the bone pit, occasionally casting glances at Dragon. Every step they took and every look he got, the more interested he was in the giant lizard. Strong, huge, powerfully built, that huge thing that he now realized was a mouth could crush him in an instant. A realization that made him a little sick, but he pushed it away.

He was so different from mother, so much more...demanding. Mother had an air of strangeness next to him, an air of subtle uncertainty, of queasiness that Serek had not noticed before while Dragon was strength and confidence and fear.

He continued to think about their differences as he approached the bone pit. He was excited now. He always enjoyed watching Mother cast the bones and he wanted to see if he could see and predict before her, just to test himself. He circled away from them and stood near the edge, his tail wagging expectantly.

"I'm screaming submission"
I don't know if I am dying or living

tags: @Dragon
notes:

Dragon huffed in some amusement as Giggle simply repeated back his name. The rest, however-... For a brief moment he was impressed. Then he realized how simple it would be to say, to anyone seeking a fortune, "you seek missing knowledge."

It told him nothing he did not already know, nothing that was not already obvious. He simply dragged himself along, after that, damaged leg hauled behind and making his gait lurching and awkward. He did not complain or even seem to mind, disregarding it and moving quickly enough.

"What are your names?" he demanded--probably intending polite small talk, though it came out as a near-interrogation. As Giggle neared her bone pit, he continued. "I will tell you what knowledge I seek, bonecaster. You know as I do--you see it all around us--that once, there were many, who died. And many more, so many more, who hid among their bones--and died all the same. There are those who have told me that the Elders who guide us answer to masters of their own, and they cannot tell us the truths of the caves. There are those that say the only way to learn, is to survive, and to be the last remaining. There are those who say that there is only darkness, and eyes, that will swallow it all away--even the Betrayer, Nemean. I wish to know what this means. What this all means. What we can do of it."

Giggle had frozen at the mention of darkness and Eyes, but Dragon did not notice, and rambled on, pausing behind her. He assumed that she was simply preparing, somehow, and he continued to explain himself. "I ask that you do not pass this on, for those who serve their masters may turn on us should we learn too much. I will send my Children out to seek the truths of the caves--but I would not be a good Child myself if I did not do so with them. No matter how far I must travel," he added, glancing around irritably at the sharp points of the bones all around him.

Giggle listened, half her mind on Dragon's words, half soaring with her familiar above--catching glimpses through its single red eye of the bare land around them. She was simply keeping tabs on their surroundings, but there seemed to be no threat, no danger. No--

"There are those who say that there is only darkness, and eyes, that will swallow it all away--even the Betrayer, Nemean." Giggle froze up, silently listening, but the rest of what Dragon said passed through her cold rage and into nothing. The Eyes. The cat, that hated cat. She pushed the thought from her mind, and spoke darkly, forcing herself on ahead. "I have seen it myself! In the future of the caves. Darkness, devouring all. I have seen the Eyes, I have been consumed, and been found again. Omen can find her way in, and out of the Void, but I do not know how." At least, she thought the bird could. She still wasn't quite sure how it all worked.

"I will roll the bones for you, Dragon. I will see what the cave says. And I am Giggle," she added at last, glancing to Serek--he was young, but strong, and she would allow him to introduce himself.

Giggle, meanwhile, looked over her bone pit slowly. She lifted a heavy bone in her teeth--a ridged thing, with small bumps and spikes, not unlike the reptile Dragon himself. And this she carried off, heading for the outcrop that overlooked her Pit--ready to read her bones.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Serek

Serek listened to Dragon with wide eyes, wondering what this all meant. The caves would be devoured by D'arkness? He had heard of the eyes from Mother but...destroy everything?

That was not good. He didn't want to be devoured by darkness. He would fight back. He pawed at the ground with his hooves hind legs and paced near the edge of the pit, anxious for the cast.

But...was Dragon addressing him? The huge beat, asking him a question, pride flared in his chest and his ears stood tall. "I'm Serek!"

"I'm screaming submission"
I don't know if I am dying or living

tags: @Dragon
notes: I'll be back around in about five hours - if you wanted to continue the thread without me before then, feel free

The alligator listened, for a moment wondering if the little hybrid nearby was this, "Omen" of which the seer spoke. But the creature introduced itself, instead, as Serek, and Dragon huffed in acknowledgement.

"Giggle, then, and Serek. Greetings," he rumbled. He settled himself in at the bone pit, observing Giggle with her rather manic movements--as she chose a bone, as she loped away with it. He let her do her thing, unconcerned and tired from his travel, settling squatly just outside the ring of bioluminescent mushrooms that illuminated the bones--though the light orbs above did so, as well.

"You have seen this?" He kept the doubt out of his tone, asking his question without inflection. Again, she could simply be repeating back what he had said--claiming to have known it all along. But he didn't press it, instead continuing. "Well, then, tell me what you see. Tell me if the Children of Rot factor into the caves' survival, and its future. Tell me what we must do to uncover the secrets hidden from us--and to survive."

Her comment that they were not "morally" on top made him wonder. Made him question, if only a little. Perhaps the guardians of the cave were indeed just that? Perhaps they were slaves, along with the rest. Perhaps Tenzin and Astraea wanted to help, but were hobbled from doing so by whoever their ominous masters were-... And there was another question.

"And ask your bones, seer, who their hidden Masters are, the Masters of the Elders."

He watched Giggle with an intent, dark gaze, wondering what she might tell him--and whether it would all be lies.