She stank.

The pup snorted, though nuzzled his 'mother' in return before he moved to lick her coat. "Everything is okay. What are you doing?" he spoke almost dismissively, clearly concerned more in the condition of Giggle's fur. He only briefly added, "There was noises and stuff."

He'd try to keep licking her coat until she was clean - or at least as close enough to it as Bones could get before he sat back down next to her, licking his own legs down while he waited for her to answer.



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Giggle peered at her "son" as he spoke. She began to reply, at the same time moving away so he couldn't lick the fungus from her fur, shaking her head absently to indicate "no."

"Careful. Some of that is poison. The noises were a big three-headed dog-pup. I've never seen anything like him. If you see him, hide. He is dangerous. And this--"

And here she turned, to show the clots of thick black goo hanging in her fur, alongside stringy growths of reddish fungus.

"It's a kind of defense. He couldn't bite me with that on. Don't clean it and don't lick it, it might make you sick. It's my magic," she added. Then she squinted, looking Bones over. "The dog--Kerberos. He's gone for now. I can see him, if I try. That's the same magic--have you felt your magic, yet?"

She sounded both calm and curious, sitting down as she watched the pup, lifting one thick hind leg to scratch behind her own ear. She wasn't sure if all Gembounds had magic, but she suspected as much. She wasn't sure why. But the pup hadn't shown any signs of it, yet. He was young--but maybe he'd found something, and that's why he'd been away?>

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"No," the pup spoke slowly, perhaps bothered by this. He was much quicker to abandon the magic-talk completely, in fact. "Will he come back?"

He wasn't too worried about actually getting attacked. He was more interested in seeing a puppy with three heads, even if his mother said otherwise. Once glance before running away would be okay, surely? Then again, she was the one with icky black stuff and mushrooms in her coat.

He turned his head to lick his shoulder with an inward sigh, quiet and waiting for Giggle to speak.



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"He might be. He might not." Giggle shrugged; this was obviously one of the things that she hadn't worried enough about to consult the bones. "I will protect you but that doesn't mean to stand there if you see him. He is very hungry, and very aggressive. And his mind is simple."

Giggle moved to the water, lapping at the pool, then yawned, stretched and laid back down, eyes on her distant mushroom garden. "Don't eat anything with those reddish mushrooms all over them. They smell nice, but they taste terrible."

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"Traps?" asked the pup before he moved to sit near the hyena again, glancing around the cave room cautiously. He crinkled his snout before leaning down to snuffle the hyena's ears.

He wondered briefly how long she slept before he woke her up. Can magic be used up 'till there's nothing left? That's what she looked like, at least. Tired. Worked out. He grumbled and licked at one of his forelegs.

"Hungry?" he asked again, already half-getting up to his feet again.



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Giggle glanced at the little pup with some surprise, then slowly nodded. She hadn't really thought about it, but she was.

"A little bit, yes. You want to eat? There's not much meat left, maybe we can go get rats down by the wall? Maybe even a deer?"

She nodded off toward the western wall, where she knew that rats sometimes congregated. Maybe it'd be good training for Bones, even, if he hadn't started hunting on his own. After all, Kerberos had eaten most of what had been here--and she'd used the rest to grow her fungal traps.

She stood, again, offering another nudge to the pup, then shook herself like a wet dog--unfortunately, spraying clinging bits of fur-gore all over the place, though she didn't notice that any more than she noticed her own stench. She then looked to Bones, ears pricking up, waiting to see if he was hungry, too.

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The pup immediately began cleaning himself, albiet quickly. "I wanna try hunting," he spoke between licks, already standing by now and trotting ahead and adding, "The deers are weird."

He made his way to the wall, though often stopped and waited with a wagging tail for the hyena to catch up. In the same way a child's excitement works, Bones is only excited for the journey - hopping and skipping and the like - though by the time they arrive he hides behind his proclaimed mother.

And why wouldn't he? The cave rats were easily bigger than him - the pup was still such a tiny thing. He peered up at Giggle cautiously, waiting for instruction.


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Giggle led the way to the Wall--or she would have, if "her" rambunctious cub hadn't dashed and wandered about ahead. She smiled indulgently as she loped along, sniffing here and there.

"Smell's important," she instructed him as she went--apparently able to smell things over her own rancid stink--"and so's hearing. A lot of times the rats will see better than you in the dark. There's not all that much prey in Canis, 'cause not much to eat, I guess. Lots of dead, lots of bones. But there's rats that come--little ones, mostly, and a few of those big ones. They can give you a nasty bite, so the trick is to get them by the head, or the spine, and crush them--like this."

Giggle demonstrated on thin air, quickly thrashing her head back and forth as if she were a terrier holding a--well, rat. Then she nodded forward.

"You gotta either sniff and dig them out--and then you have to be quick, they're fast--or you can try and catch them doing something, like eating. They go from over there--" and she nodded off toward the bone fortresses that provided shelter to any who would take it--"along the wall, here, to my bones, the meaty ones at the den. Now... watch."

Giggle eyed the wild dog, trying to look confident--but in truth, she didn't even catch half of the rats she went for. They were alert, and they were quick, and--being young and somewhat proud--rather than telling the pup that so he wouldn't get discouraged by his own failures, she instead tried to make it look easy, to encourage him.

She moved along a rock pile that sat just opposite one of the carved wall--leaving a narrow channel that the rats tended to scurry through. They still weren't particularly widespread, here, and it took a bit of searching and silent sniffing, during which she glanced often at Bones to be sure she was demonstrating well enough and keeping his attention.

Eventually she caught a scent, and trotted to a hole in the rock. She began to dig and to sniff, prying at it with claws and powerful jaws; a rat was nesting within.

I'd better not mess this up. It's just a rat, for bones' sake.

It cowered back, and now and again she spotted bright pinpricks of light staring back at her from within its eyes. She had to dig very close before its will broke, and it bolted out; she pounced, trying to snatch it up in her jaws.

She missed her first lunge, and the thing scrambled between her legs and out; she whirled and bolted after it, snatching it up in her thick teeth. Now facing Bones simply by coincidence, she rapidly and violently shook the creature; there were several quiet snaps as its bones, including its spine, broke. Then she moved forward, dropping the rat at his feet.

"Your turn," she told the pup calmly.

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Bones watched the hyena carefully. He licked his muzzle before he lifted himself to his paws again, nose pressed against the ground hard, in an attempt not to get rat-smell confused with Giggle-smell; which proved suprisingly hard to do as he caught himself heading towards Giggle a few times.

He sniffed around rocks, and against the wall, though to not much avail. He glanced at the hyena, briefly, before continuing to try find the rats. He had recieved comments about his comically large ears - so, perhaps his hearing was better than his smell? He lowered himself a little, huge ears pricked. Faintly, he could hear scratching.

He tried to follow the sound, trotting back and forth a few times before he clung to a hole, starting to scratch around it, rather frantically snarling as he stuck his maw into the hole and chomped, grabbing the rat by it's haunches. He scrambled away from the hole, rat in his mouth, looking at Giggle.

The rat still flailed in his jaw, the beast trying to yank itself away by placing it's forepaws on the pup's chin and trying to push itself out. It seemed to take Bones a few moments to remember what to do with it, before he began to shake his head to and fro, biting down on rat-butt as hard as he could.

It didn't seem to be moving anymore, at least. The puppy trotted to Giggle, tail wagging.


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Giggle watched, her own rat limp and dead beneath her paw, as the wild dog pup went on his own rat hunt. He was quicker than her, more lithe, and due to both his species in age he would be able to reach into places she could not.

Sure enough he lunged forward neatly and his jaws closed around his prey--and he came to her proudly, tail wagging. She chortled softly, standing up and wagging her own brush tail in approval.

"Bones is one pup that will never go hungry," she told him, her tone affectionate. She went to give him a brief nuzzle, nose-on-skull, then flopped down with her own rat. "Let's eat, huh?"

A good old-fashioned family meal: a hyena and an african wild dog sharing their fresh-caught rats together. Mmm. Giggle bit down with a crunch of bone, the soft hot splash of blood into her maw--tangy and salty--filling her with contentment. She hadn't realized how hungry she was; it'd taken Bones to point it out to her.

She glanced up at him, her tail thumping again, as she ate.

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Roll the bones.