in which Pride goes to see Giggle about how familiars work. what a nerd i am selfie-threading my own chars

He picked his way carefully over the scattering of old bones, his nostrils flared at the stale scent of stagnant water somewhere near.

Pride moved as silently as he could, his ears rotating to listen. He was looking for Giggle, the Bone Reader, whom he had briefly met in his youth. She'd told his fortune, back then--back when Reseda had been trying to "prove" Giggle's insanity and thus the need for her to die. It's ridiculous, really, how manipulative that lizard was--and how terrible she was at it, he thought grimly. Willing to kill innocents to achieve her goals. I am glad I warned Envy of her.

He shook his thin mane as if dismissing this thought, and maneuvered around a few half-intact old ribcages. He wasn't sure where the hyena's bone pit was--he knew it was somewhere near here, but it had been many cycles since his single visit, and its location wasn't clear in his mind. He did remember, rather abruptly, Giggle's fortune: a warning against engaging in unnecessary violence. A warning that it would be its own punishment.

And he hadn't listened, had he? He'd forgotten; excusable, perhaps, given his young age, at the time. But she'd been right. He'd allowed himself to be drawn into fighting Blackberry, setting off a chain of events that had only ended in violence, and in near-death for Envy.

Does she truly See, then..? he wondered. It wasn't why he was here--he was here because he'd noticed, and remembered, the black bird by Giggle's side. It had seen them, he knew, and she knew what it had seen; she'd called out to them before they'd even come into her sight. The bird, with its single crimson eye, had seen for her.

Given the theories he'd developed with Amras regarding Lesser and Greater Gembound and the link between magic and sentience, Giggle and her familiar were now of sharp interest to him. He'd tried to infuse Lessers with his magic, and it had always failed. Deer, snake, bats--he was doing something wrong, but he didn't know what. Maybe it just wasn't possible.

So he was here to ask Giggle--how had she befriended this bird? And more importantly, how did she see through its eyes? ...Eye?

"Hello?" he called out at last, hopelessly lost. His voice was a musical trill, fluting through the piles of bones and echoing off dead stone.

Only after a long moment's silence did a haunting call reply--wordless, the cry of the bird, and he recognized it at once.

Shifting his direction he set off again, angling now toward the Hallowed Caller's eerie song.

Giggle was sitting not at her bone pile, but at Azazel's shrine. Her muscled body sat motionless, dark eyes fixed on the skull of her old friend, rounded ears rotated as if listening to unseen wisdom passed on by his spirit. Really, she was just lost in thought--and she was finding, perhaps unsurprisingly, that sitting near what remained of Azazel brought her some measure of comfort.

Of peace. Something far-too-often denied her.

When Pride called out, she was actually too far to hear. It was Omen who heard, the bird perched--still recovering from Eythan's attack, and still unable to fly very far at a stretch--near the bone pit. The alert query, tense and alarmed, came along the tenuous thread between their minds. Giggle flicked an ear, at once alerted, and turned to pace swiftly off toward the pit. If put into words, Omen's thoughts would have been something like--Mother-Sister, someone comes! Her own thoughts returned reassuringly along the line, yet not relaxed--I'm coming. Stay safe. An urge for the bird to stay quiet, and hidden.

When she came loping into sight of her pit, she found a great white stag standing there--peering over the bones and to her ledge, his branching antlers glinting silver in the light of the bioluminescent mushrooms below, and orb-light above.

She didn't recognize Pride--she hadn't seen him but once, and that when he was a tiny fawn. She came to a halt a couple dozen yards away and stayed there, warily watching this stranger. Giggle never turned anyone away from the bones, but she'd also been attacked here before, and the deer was large and very-... sharp.

"Hello?" she rasped, her head tilting to one side as she eyed him over. Some distant part of her, some part that lingered from her trauma and strengthened when she was worried or stressed, whispered into her mind. It was bitter and illogical, nervously tense.

Too clean. Too pretty. I don't like him.

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Pride turned, taking a few shuffling steps to face the hyena as she spoke. His attention went to her fully and at once, polite; he had nothing but respect for the dog. ...Cat? Creature. She had offered her wisdom--such as it was, be it madness or magic--freely to him, and to Reseda too. Now that he knew Reseda a little better, he couldn't help but wonder whether it had been the hyena's insanity, or Reseda's lies, in their earlier conversation; had Reseda truly threatened Giggle..? He pushed the thought away, and instead, he bowed his head a little, careful not to make it look as though he were about to charge. He didn't realize that Giggle was wary of him; it simply seemed as though it would be impolite.

"Hello," he fluted softly. Every word was precise, carefully-chosen and -enunciated. "I do not know if you remember me. I was here, once before--several cycles ago--as a fawn; my name is Pride. I came with Reseda," he added, by way of explanation. He took a breath.

The hyena remained silent, staring at him, waiting; and he spoke further, deciding to simply be fully honest. "At the time, she was trying to prove that you were mad, and your 'kind' ought to be purged--a silly grab at power in an attempt to gain the loyalty of a mere fawn. As it turns out, she was wrong: you were correct in your bone-reading," he said mournfully. "Were I not a young fool, I would have listened, but I forgot your words. But that is not why I have come. Rather, I wondered if I could ask you a few questions--not of the bones, though I confess curiosity--but of your bird? I remember it, too, and I wanted to ask of its relationship to you."

The hyena seemed quite tense, Pride realized. Had he said too much..? Was she a little mad, and had his words perhaps set her off? Her coat was certainly a little scraggly, and the odor even from here was rank--he could see fungal blooms all through her pelt.

He hoped he had not drastically misspoken. He had never had to deal with anyone--bar Blackberry--who was entirely parted from their sanity, before.

Giggle listened, and as Pride spoke, she remembered with a jolt. The tiny white fawn, barely able to stand, legs trembling as it had determinedly made its way forward. She tilted her head, eyeing Pride over again, remembering now the glinting gemstones at his throat.

Yes.

So Reseda had been out to kill her? Faint suspicion washed over her as she eyed the stag; why would he tell her this? Or perhaps it was a "friendly" warning. Regardless, her demeanor did not change, and with her suspicion growing, she pushed the thoughts aside. The white deer was asking of Omen, and that put her further on edge.

"My relationship to the bird?" she rasped at last, voice hoarsely masculine. That faint, illogical part of her was growing more resentful: it hated this deer, hated his white perfection and prim cleanliness. The world wasn't white. The world wasn't clean. He had no right to be so flawless.

Giggle winced and pushed her thoughts away savagely. Stop it, she snapped to herself, firmly. The stag was--so far--not being unreasonable or impolite, and she had to treat him at least somewhat neutrally. What sort of mother would she be if she couldn't even set the example of "be polite to others" to her children, after all?! ...Still, an attempt at gathering herself to recount to the stag--not everything, but enough--had her twitching and half-snarling at her own memories.

Slowly, she sat down, and more slowly, she began.

"Tell me why you want to know. I will tell you that... I was lost, lost in another place, all darkness and eyes and nothing else. No screaming, and no eating; no breathing and no dying. It was eternity like that. The shit-cat did it, the one with no fur," she spat. "Only Omen can go in and out. Only she found me."

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Pride had felt the need to warn the hyena of Reseda's less-than-noble intentions, but her reaction surprised him. She was not, herself, surprised--or didn't seem to be; she didn't ask any questions about it, nor even ask what part of her bone reading had come true, or how. This immediately struck him as... abnormal, to say the least. Surely a sane person would have immediately wondered these things? Yet he found himself struggling to drag his mind back to the present as--rather abruptly--the hyena began to answer his question.

At her brief explanation, he found himself more confused than enlightened. Is she mad? ...A dark place, full of eyes? Pride held back a grimace. Whatever the case, he doubted that there had been someplace that only the bird could reach. Perhaps she had fallen into a crevasse, where only the bird could fly in and out..? Maybe it hadn't been Giggle to befriend the bird at all, but the other way around?

Wording himself carefully, glancing to the bones and then back to the hyena (and only briefly wondering at all the lives that must have once been, all now nothing but bound-together calcium), he spoke.

"May I ask... what you mean? In answer to your question-..." He paused, tilting his antlered head to consider his phrasing, before speaking carefully. "A friend and I were pondering the link between magic, and sentience. There are deer who can speak, and cast magic--and then many who can do neither, and serve, sadly, merely as prey. Birds, too, and bats--and nothing seems to separate them, no pattern that we could see." He paused again, taking a breath, then continued. "We wondered if perhaps a magical infusion might grant them intelligence and ability. We were also seeking the source of magic, and the Spire seems to be the origin point--but tapping into it revealed a sentience. Whether its own or another I do not know but it very nearly shattered my mind. It made us--or me, at the very least--wonder if perhaps magic itself is not an elevating force for intelligence."

He still wasn't sure where he could take this knowledge. Even if he figured out how to elevate Lessers, should he? What, then, would serve as food for the carnivores of the cave? Was it not cruel to make them aware of their fates? Or would they then need to fight the carnivores, just like Giggle herself, here? And what of them? Would too much magic shatter their minds--or could they use it to further elevate and empower themselves? Was it what raised regular Gembound into Elders..?

Pride exhaled, voicing none of this aloud. The important thing was to gain some baseline information. First things first. He could then work ahead from there.

Giggle listened, silent, her mind slipping back at Pride's question. Back, and back, to the time she'd been in the fractured black, the unbroken darkness, herself shattered and spinning away in a thousand triangular pieces. Cold horror laced along her nerves as her mind balked at the memories. Memories of broken memories. Memories of voices in the darkness, of those she knew coming and going in grim hallucination. Memories of her gnawing at her own flesh in an attempt to end it all, but it never worked, never worked...

She shuddered and pressed her eyes closed, hunched in on herself, and in that moment she felt again the tentative touch of Omen at their link. Relief shot through her and she did her best to pull herself together, dark eyes opening as she turned to look up at her ledge. Come here, she thought quietly to the bird--a summons, a beckoning.

After a moment the black Hallowed Caller appeared from behind the ledge, eyeing Pride warily with its single crimson eye. The stag regarded it back placidly enough, and so it hopped down to Giggle, its mind questioning. She leaned down, giving it a nuzzle, a lick, and then--after another long moment of silence, in which she sat with eyes again squeezed closed--she at last looked up at Pride.

"I don't know what to tell you about magic, and... intelligence," she rasped quietly, and there was a stark difference now in her tone and her demeanor. There was fear there--real fear--bitter and distant. The humor was gone, evaporated as if it had never been. "I don't know why you'd want to know. Seeking knowledge, I suppose. I could ask the bones," she added, her mind half-absent. "But I'll explain to you what Omen is, and maybe you'll understand a little more. With her, it isn't only intelligence or magic that keeps her. That makes her different." The words were a little jumbled, a little nonsensical, and the hyena could feel her own heart racing as she tried again to shove her memories away. "One day, many cycles ago, this whole cave was plunged into pitch darkness. We couldn't find one another--none of us could." Quiet. Hushed.

The stag was watching her intently, listening in attentive silence, but her eyes were closed.

"There was a cat, no hair, and in its darkness were a hundred silver eyes that watched. I was dragged-... out of this world," she continued, unsure how best to describe this. "I've since met that cat, I've watched her and I've been in he dreams. She is only mortal, tormented, tainted, controlled. She was mad, perhaps, as I was. Maybe the intent was to turn me into another 'her.'" Giggle paused, hesitating. She wasn't sure if she was explaining this properly. If she was explaining anything. With a deep breath, she gathered herself and tried to rally, to continue with more... structure, to the tale.

"The attack put me into... what I can only describe as another realm. A place void of everything. There was no light, only blackness. There was nothing to stand on, nothing to see, or hear. There were no others in this place. I was there for-... Bones, I don't know how long. Weeks. Cycles, even, More. Or perhaps only days; I don't know. It felt like an eternity. I couldn't-..." And here she paused, opening her eyes, looking to Pride--and there was nothing but pain in them. Pain, and fear. "I could not even end myself," she growled hoarsely, and she felt Omen's fearful reassurance at her own fear at her memories. She reached down and roughly licked the bird's head, behind the eye, once before going on. "My mind broke and fell into pieces. I couldn't get it back," she added, matter-of-factly. "I hallucinated. I saw many things--friends I had known, though I couldn't remember, then, if they were friend or enemy. My mind was shattered from the nothing, from having nothing for so long. But in all the hallucinations there was one that didn't-... fit. A bird, this bird--black, with one red eye. It wasn't anyone I knew. It came into my dreams--into my reality--into my void. It landed on me, and it picked at my fur, or it slept. I think-... I think that it was her home, and I was in there where I shouldn't have been. In time, our minds linked, I think through magic. She is not more or less intelligent than other birds, I think--but I feel her thoughts, or her-... emotions, and state of mind. And she feels mine. I see what she sees, and when I was stuck there I could feel when she left that place. I could feel life, light, warmth, colors--through our link. It was her who brought Kerberos to me-my son, one of my sons. He found me and woke me. My-... My body was here, too, even though it had disappeared. I don't understand it, before you ask," Giggle finished, both wry and gruff. "but that's the answer to your question. Omen came and went from the Void--she still can. I've been there once since, and she can come to and fro freely. A different kind of magic, perhaps, though I think Senka can do it, too. The cat."

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Pride listened in attentive silence, and the more the hyena spoke, the more he felt... a disconnect. He felt as though his very definitions of reality were falling away, as if the world itself was something distant and cold and not-quite-real. It was nightmarish, the idea--the very concept of this void, of being dragged away from this world and trapped somewhere else.

With a sudden impulse, he did his best to steel his mind against "leaking" thoughts, and reached his thoughts and his magic to Giggle, trying to tap into her mind. He had to know for himself whether her words were madness, or fabrication, or truth.

He felt nothing happen, instead, and somewhat disappointed, he let it fall away.

At Giggle's mention of trying to kill herself, yet being unable, he felt horror. At her description of this infinite void, horror--and curiosity, a very grim, reluctant curiosity. Her explanation of the bird's link was fascinating, to be sure--and he tried to turn his mind to this. If there was another realm altogether, and these creatures could go to and from it--but was it only this bird? Or only birds of its kind? Or perhaps even all Lessers--could they come and go as they pleased?

...Assuming this Void is even real, he thought to himself--and it wasn't doubtful or mocking, but rather, logical. He approached it from a few angles, thinking. If this bird could truly travel in and out of another realm, what's to stop others from doing so? Perhaps it is an innate ability of this type of bird? Or could something prevent Greaters from traversing--but no, she claims to have been there herself, and that this--Senka?--did the same. Not a name I know, he thought. As he began to consider the possibilities--and how they could be tested--he did not notice Giggle's slowly widening eyes as she stared at him. Instead, curious, he spoke.

"And that--link, between you, persists?" he asked curiously. It'd have been useful to tap into Giggle's mind, to sense the link more directly, if he could--but he couldn't force it. Magic seemed to have a will of its own, sometimes. "Have you ever tried to have the bird go into the Void while you watch it? Does it vanish, or remain visible?"

The idea of other realms opened up myriad possibilities. Frightening ones. What if this wasn't the only reality? What if there were a thousand parallel caves, and a thousand Prides? There were too many potential nightmares, here, and Pride didn't like a single one of them.

Had he realized that he'd been broadcasting every single one of his thoughts straight to Giggle, he might have been even more horrified.

Giggle listened, Pride's thoughts clear in her mind. The more she heard, the more incredulous and indignant she was, until all nervous fear had fled from her mind and all horror at her memories had departed. Instead she felt righteously angered, though not truly enraged.

He'd been trying to listen to her, hadn't he..? She had the same magic herself--she knew that it went both ways. She remained silent, though staring in shock at how terribly rude the bastard was, until Pride asked his last question. In response--and not bothering to bite back the gloating mockery in her mind--she stood and circled closer to the white stag, her thoughts linked to his loud and clear.

Not so terribly pristine now, are you? Not so spotless that you won't try to invade someone else's mind? Well, here I am, she snapped triumphantly along the link. Pride blanched, looking just as shocked as she had--just as caught out--and Giggle felt the savage triumph of well and truly having the upper hand. He had the good grace, at least, to appear ashamed as she continued. So you think perhaps I'm mad? Look, stag, and tell me why. She came to a halt before him, staring, unblinking, and deliberately she drew forth the worst of her memories of that time.

Fractured mind, falling away. Broken. Broken. So much nothing that nothing became everything. Voices in the dark, their clarity perfect, their owners flashing into visibility yet never truly there. Silver eyes in the darkness, blinking and staring. Running, running, up and down and sideways but there were no such things; there was no direction and no place. Nothing to stand on. Nothing at all within the void. No time. No end. Eternity, horrible and destroying, yet no end... never an end. The horror, the terror, the eternal panic of it. She was drowning.

With a snarl she cut it off, cut the memories away like a thread and let them tumble back into the recesses of her mind. She was trembling, now, her heart racing with the memory of it, as if afraid that merely an instant's reliving might draw the Void back to her with its many eyes. Is that real enough for you? she demanded, mind-to-mind. If you think me mad, you aren't wrong. If Reseda thinks me mad. But now you know why, you spotless bastard. She mentally spat this at him, and then turned with a snarl of bared, thick fangs, and paced to stare morosely, angrily, into her bones.

No, I've never seen her go in. Cold. Distant. Miserable.

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Pride was mortified that Giggle had overheard his thoughts. No, he corrected himself sharply, grimly--though he could feel their link was closed. I'm upset I even tried to listen in. How rude had he been? She deserved privacy, if nothing more--everyone did. But he'd had to know. And he supposed, now, that he did.

He'd felt a real and genuine horror at the memories that she showed him, and there was a truth to them that could not be denied. He didn't think she'd imagined it, or made it up; it came with a stark conviction, with too many details and intricacies to have been fabricated by a mortal mind.

He felt pity, too, or at least sympathy--he could deeply understand why she was as she was, now, and even stand a little in awe at her recovery. He could feel what she had once been, and feel what she was now--struggling, yes, but with a strength of will to keep her mind on some semblance of straight rails.

Beyond that, he had felt--though Giggle was too intensely upset to feel it herself--a faint, quiet questioning. It was with some surprise that he realized he had been listening in, in some sense, on the link with her familiar--and his own mind, briefly, reached for it. But it was secondhand; he could touch Giggle's mind, but he couldn't reach along that link. And now that link had closed, but he had felt Omen's worry, and fear.

Softly, he spoke.

"I'm sorry. I genuinely am--that was terribly rude of me. And I am sorry for what Reseda tried to make of you," he added, more hotly. Some part of him, now, hated her--hated Reseda. Hated her for trying to make of this tortured soul an example, a tool on the lizard's path to domination.

Fuck her.

A shuddering exhale, and he came to stand somewhat alongside Giggle, though giving her space--also facing into the bones.

What does she see, there..? Was it this void that granted her her visions? He glanced at her, sidelong, uncertain for a moment as to what to say. When he spoke, it was still quietly, still apologetic. "Your memories, I've--never seen anything like them. Never imagined that, even. It--changes everything. Ahh--your bird is upset," he added, quietly.

He had felt that along the link, at least, even if Giggle had been too preoccupied.

Giggle snorted, as if in derision, but she turned anyway and gave the Caller another gentle nuzzle. At length she looked back to her bones, trying to fight back the overwhelming emotion that threatened to wash over her, cold and black, at the memories of the void.

She'd gotten better with it, lately--moreso after confronting Senka not once, but twice. Knowing the cat was only mortal, and the Void only another kind of magic, had helped, to some extent--but it didn't change what had happened to her, nor that the Void itself could still suck her in and keep her, forever.

She'd been back, too--once--and she knew it could take her again. It was only a matter of time. And considering my fucking with that shit-cat, likely sooner rather than later. I wonder if she'll bother coming after me? Part of her almost looked forward to it. She didn't like pitying the cat; she'd rather a fight. She'd rather tear her limb from limb.

This savage thought ran through her mind, for a moment, before she realized that she'd spent the last full minute staring in silence at her bones. She blinked up at Pride, a scowl on her face.

"Is that all you wanted, or is coming to screw with a tormented victim's mind not enough for you?" she snapped. "Did you feel like talking science, again? Because I could not possibly care less about your shit theories and guesses."

Cold. Bitter. But compared to the void, compared to the warmth between friends, compared to life and death and bones, none of what Pride had come to discuss actually mattered.

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