SKEENA

The little hybrid panted, tiny legs working to keep up with her mother's own, much longer, ones. The Mother was so big, so much larger than she was! And the Siblings, the Vinea and the Serek, were large as well! Would she grow to be as big as them? She hoped so, she didn't much like being so small.

Thankfully, the Mother came back, helping her to catch up to the group. Not long after, they arrived at a place with a lot of funny shaped white and yellow things,

'Bones, stupid! Brainless, dumb, worthless, idiot!'
bones, scattered here and there in piles. According to her Mother, they spoke, although she didn't understand how. Most of them didn't have mouths, so how could they speak? Could the Mother hear silent Not-Speech? Did they speak to her like The Voice did?... were there others who couldn't hear their Voice?

'Why's it matter? I'm YOURS, and YOU'RE mine!' it snarled. It didn't sound like Mother, or Serek, or Vinea. It wasn't an audible sound, with an actual voice. It was just... there. It was neither male nor female, but very very loud when it yelled.

And mother explained Dead. Dead was when you are Not Alive because you are Too Injured. Was she going to be Dead?

'Stupid! I'll make you Dead! If you don't listen I'll make you Dead! I'll make them Dead, too!'
The hybrid whined quietly, huddling in on herself. The Voice was scary, and she didn't went The Mother and The Siblings to be Dead. She wouldn't let The Voice hurt them if she could help it.

Her attention was drawn away from The Voice when Mother picked up something, a funnily shaped bone. Was it going to speak? Was it going to speak to them? Or just the Mother? But she didn't have time to ponder that, as The Mother was on the move again.

And then the bone was making a loud noise, dropping into the hole. The child looked over the edge, looking after the bone, ears twitching. "A destiny? What is that?"

"Destiny! Pah! Destiny? Who needs that! I'll make my own path! And you'll follow it!"
The Mother was speaking, drowning out the voice. They would be in a fight, and lose it. But then they would win? "Lose... then win? How?" she tilted her head, not understanding.

The Mother ran off again, returning with something that looked like the things on Serek's head, a long, thin bone, and a bone that was jagged and brightly colored.

The bones spoke to Serek first, the mother throwing the grey thing that looked like the things on Serek's head down. It clattered this way and that, and her head followed it, recognizing a slight pattern. The Sibling Serek's future sounded scary, dangerous and violent. But Mother told him to be Not-Violent, Peaceful, and of water, life in the tides - whatever those were.

Next, Mother threw down the second bone, long and thin. The Mother was quiet, before again speaking, this time turning to her. She perked up, wondering what the bones would say about her.

A failed defense? What would they be defending? The Mother? Serek? Vinea? Her? The Voice? Could one protect a Voice? She didn't know.

The mother shuddered, and said the bone was overwhelmed. What did that mean? But this felt too serious to interrupt, so she went quiet. And she was to find an... inner strength? Was The Voice an 'inner strength'? She didn't miss Mother eying her, as though trying to figure something out, and she asked, "Mother?"

But the Mother continued to speak. And... and she made a connection. Hearing things? Hear them wrong? She focused on those words and, ignoring the wordless screaming of the voice, asked, "Mother! The... hearing things! Is that The Voice? Is The Voice lying?" She could only hope so. The Voice scared her, and the things it whispered scared her more so.

And then the mother tossed down a bone for Vinea. For him, she said, the defense would be successfu, and he would survive. And he, too, was to not be violent.

And then she wanted to know if they had questions for the bones. The Jerboa hybrid was quick to speak up, asking, "Mother! What do they say about The Voice?"

@Serek
@Vinea

"Stay away from me..."
'I'm a monster inside...'

Mother spoke and---as she instructed---he listened, floppy ears perched ahead of him in alert stance. Even as the future and death were explained, the levity of both concepts eluded his mind. They slipped from his mind like the fly did from his grasp. Regardless, the words were stowed away, the first of their kind. Context to be found later. Just as the unheard words of the bones would ring about in his mind. They were senseless and soundless. The worldview and perspective just wasn't there yet. It'd come soon enough.

Defend. Defense. Protection, his mind distantly supplied, uninvited. Speak. Listen. Learn. The mantra found itself close to his heart. Vinea got to his feet, pacing about the bones, taking care not to disturb them lest Mother wasn't done. "Violent?" Running his thin tongue over his teeth, he struggled for a word. Instead, he pawed at them before chomping down abruptly. The tone Mother used suggested a good future. Not death, however intangible it was. Yet... things lurked below surface level. Things he couldn't dig past on his own.

"What is defe--our defense..." Again, he struggled for a word, fumbling about with his face before concluding upon: "against?" Trying to articulate further, Vinea fell onto his haunches and stood upright, waving his paws about. "Who hurts survival?"

@Serek

Serek listened to Mother with interest. How did she know all this? Did the bones show her? Would he see those things too? He leaned down over the pit, but he couldn't see anything but bones. He wanted to learn! He wanted to know things too!

He stood back and tried hard to think about what he wanted to know about. Maybe...the evil? Yes, he wanted to know. He wanted to be strong. "What is the evil? I'll beat it back if it tries to hurt us!"

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

tags: @Giggle
notes: sorry, short post

Giggle listened to them all patiently. It was her job--as a Seer, and as a mother--to hear every word that they had to say, and to try her best to answer every question.

SKEENA

"Destiny, Skeena, is what lies ahead, for you. Fate! Fate can be changed, and glimpsed--seen--in the patterns of the world." "Lose... then win? How?" A trot of swift paws, a snatch of a half-tangled ribcage--representative of all of them--and a toss into the pile. Her dark eyes scoured the bone pit.

"You ask how you will lose, and then win. I see bones that fall away but are stopped: false starts. Your new lives will be thwarted; you are young. You may lose one another, and drift apart, at first. I see bones at odds, bones at angles! You will come into conflict with others--and perhaps each other, or you won't have one another to lean on! The bones then tangle, entwined... In time you will join again, a friendship, an alliance, and grow stronger."

Skeena was asking about the voice, and Giggle ran to seize another, smaller bone, to hurl into the pile. She had no idea what the "Voice" was, but she would answer just the same. "Voice? I do not know what Voice you hear--what does it say? --I see-... The bone lying alone. Loneliness... imperfection... separation. They do not change, and in this I see this--Voice, unchanging. But they are all entwined, too, in the end. A team. Inseparable. I do not think the Voice is a bad thing."

VINEA

Giggle turned her attention next to Vinea. "Violence is--harming! Fighting, battling, hunting. We must hunt, but there is no reason to torment others or start too many fights! It is wrong to do so. Remember--if you don't want something done to you, others won't like it either." There--a basic tenet of childhood, imparted: empathy. Or an attempt, at least.

Giggle trotted down to snatch up another bone, almost tired now as she made her way back up and hurled it. For a long moment she inspected the scattering bones, and then turned her attention back to her children. "You ask what will threaten survival, Vinea! I see-..." Dark eyes flicked over the bones, calculating, gathering knowledge. She muttered something to herself, and tilted her head, then dipped it as if in a faint nod. She wasn't sure how to explain this--it was the bonding of the children, or the lack of, she thought. She saw the bonds of others, but not in a negative way. "I see your bonds with others. Perhaps you will go your own ways, and find the world dangerous until you come back together. Perhaps others with you will bring you into danger, without meaning to! It does not matter. Don't shy away from others--be cautious, but don't hide from your lives. Protect one another and you will survive!"

SEREK

And now, to Serek. She loped down yet again, this time inspecting the bones closely before picking a large but dark and narrow skull, half-charred by some ancient flame. This she lifted, carrying it up and tossing it down, watching the green gem slightly off-set at its forehead's center glitter in the light as it tumbled.

There... "Serek, you ask if there is an evil. Of what I've seen I think not but I will ask--I ask! ...I see dark bones beneath uncovered--a mystery, bad luck, something soon revealed... It could be a danger. It is a warning. Be cautious, all of you. I see new light on those bones. Change. Swift and sudden. It comes--it must come, you must help it come--after this secret is shown to you. And I see the tangled bones, but now they stop movement--it means that this mystery is revealed, and change must be made, but it will cause... harm. It will split others. Things will not be the same."

ALL

She looked solemnly to her children again, the Hallowed Caller now circling overhead, giving its haunting cry as if to punctuate Giggle's brief silence. Then the hyena continued.

"You are my children! Be cautious. Be shrewed. Be kind, but not foolish. Be brave, but not stupid. Care for one another, seek but do not allow yourselves to be hunted. You will triumph."

Well-... Possibly with the exception of Skeena, but she hoped that the little one would at least survive whatever life had in store for her.

"One other thing! We all hold a power in us. A magic! I do not know if you will have power that I hold--that of fungus, of mushrooms. I can grow them! Use them to drive an enemy away. To drive them mad, for a time. Grow ones to eat. If any of you wish: you can stay. I will teach you, if that is what you want. If you decide you want to go and learn the caves--it's your choice. Your life. But you are my children, and if you ask me to teach you, to protect, to guide, then I will!"

She turned, calling upon her magicka, trying to rapidly grow--from the spores scattered all around--her bioluminescent fungus. It had been a gift from the Bringer of Light, the white wolf Kera--and Giggle held it precious indeed.

Around her, and forward, a bit down the ramp, the softly-glowing blue-green mushrooms sprang up, forcing themselves from the hard-packed peat and giving off their light. Giggle looked to her children, hoping that they'd seen this lesson.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

//ooc another long post so I split it a bit with headers for each char's questions, hope that's okay!
@Skeena @Serek @Vinea

The mother explained what destiny was, and Skeena tilted her head. Fate... fate was destiny. And it was what lied ahead for her. Something seemed to glisten in her eyes, and a thought niggled in the back of her mind. Not the Voice, but not dissimilar to it. "Fate be changed," she murmured, tilting her head, "look inside," She didn't know what it meant, but to her, it felt very important.

The Mother turned, retrieving more bones. This one was a messy looking, tangled up ribcage, which quickly found its way into the pit. She peered over the edge to look at it, squinting as she desperately tried to see any patterns in them. She felt as though she were looking right at them, but not seeing it, and it bothered her.

There would be... false starts? She didn't know what that meant. And there would be... thwarted? thwarted lives? She didn't know what that meant either.

'Stupid, brainless mutt.' The Voice grumbled, and Skeena gathered that it wasn't talking about Mother.

And... they would lose each other? She wasn't terribly attached to Vinea, not yet at least, but Serek... she didn't want to lose him! He'd promised to protect her, hadn't he? And she intended on holding him to that promise.

But, the bones said they would come back together, and that made her glad. She would have her Family again!

She perked up as Mother addressed the Voice, going so far as to retrieve another bone. But... the Mother didn't hear it? "Mother, you don't hear the Voice? I am the only one? You do not have a Voice?" she asked pleadingly. But the Mother asked what the Voice was saying, and she hesitated. It said... dark things, scary things. "It tells me to hurt," she finally said, "it says mean things, scary things, things that make me worry." And yet, Mother didn't think it was a bad thing. She lowered her gaze, thinking on this, while Mother addressed Vinea and Serek.


Her rabbit like ears perked, twitching up at a loud cawing sound. There was a big, black bird overhead, seeming to circle them. And then the Mother was addressing all of them, and so she listened. Mother was imparting them with traits they needed to be, shrewed but kind, cautious and not foolish, brave not stupid. She could do that.

And the Mother offered to teach them. Skeena was quick to accept the offer, pleading, "Mother! Teach me the power of the mushrooms, to read the bones!"

@Vinea
@Serek