The pup seemed to think as he looked at the smeared blood on the wall, mouth open and tongue lolled out contentedly. He craned his neck back towards Giggle again.
"Running really fast and eating, and lying around when your fur dries, and sleeping, and spending time with you, and-... and uh.. and eating and, and lying on your back," he stammered until he was completely out of breath, grinning and panting.

Bones paused suddenly, smile fading. He lowered his voice a little, tone unusually concerned, "Mom? What happens when the water dries up?




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Giggle listened to Bones, then glanced at him with some surprise as he asked his question. She thought about it for a moment rather than just rattling off a response.

"Hmm. I suppose we'd have to go look for water elsewhere. There are other caves; but if it all goes dry, we may die. I don't think that we will, though. We can go ask the bones if the water will all dry up here, if you like?" she offered. She didn't seem to be trying to comfort the pup--indeed, she was very matter-of-fact and calm in her statement of potential death. It was as if the idea didn't bother her--and so it shouldn't bother Bones, either. Death, after all, was just a part of life, and it was all around them, in the bones and the rot. And in the wrecked body of the rat and in its blood, which the pup had used to draw stick figures on the wall...

Giggle smirked faintly and shook the thought away, glancing with a good-natured, questioning expression toward the wild dog.

And if the bones say to leave? Then what will we do? ...I suppose we will have to find Aza'zel, and go. Hmm.

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Roll the bones.

For a creature that just tore another living thing open and proceeded to smear it's carcass along the wall, Bones looked concerned. He looked at his legs before licking them clean from specs of blood. He got up and nodded a little, "Okay."

He shifted on his paws before he headed behind Giggle, waiting for her to go first. "What do we do if we have to leave, or if the bones don't know?" he asked quietly, ears low.

He didn't know himself if the bones were ever unsure about something. Nothing can't know everything ever, can they?

.... Can they?



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"Well," Giggle answered reasonably, "there's no point in putting it off. Let's go ask them, and make a plan, hmm?"

The hyena wondered if a sacrifice would do it. And if so, what sort? It was an idle thought, really, one she half-dismissed even as she made her way up to the pile. Sometimes one had to give up things precious to them in order to get something back. Giggle just somehow knew this, intrinsically. When she'd helped Bevy, she had destroyed Bevy's offering--something the bird had gone to great lengths to bring her, and something unique that Giggle would have enjoyed adding to her pile. But in sacrificing it she had ensured Bevy's continued health and life, and that had been, she thought, fair trade.

But the water? She didn't think that there was anything easily obtained that could pay the cave back for all its water. No, it would take, at the very least, a rather grand gesture--and realistically speaking, it wouldn't be necessary. At least, if she trusted the bones--and she did.

The hyena glanced back at the wild dog pup, as she reached the pile. "Stay here a moment, Bones." Then she looked forward again, lifting a rib from the pile. She trotted swiftly off, and was gone for only a few moments. When she returned, the bone was dark with water, a dull grey rather than ivory, and still dripping slightly. She glanced at Bones as she passed, trotting up to her boulder and tossing the bone down with little hesitation, then standing and staring down.

After a moment of eyeing over the spinning and ricocheting bones, the hyena seemed to frown, rather deeply, in thought. Her voice came strong but hollow, as if her mind were elsewhere, as she spoke.

"They say what they said before. But with the warning that now is not the time to take a chance. They speak of chaos, all the bones jumbled... They speak of new beginnings gone sour. Leaving to search for new water is pointless. This is how it always is. And how it will always be."

And then, abruptly and in a departure from her normal methods, the spotted, gore-streaked beast trotted quickly back down again, wandering into the pile and pushing the bones about here and there, peering closely at them and sniffing. At length she paused, having found the wet rib, staring at it. Then she looked up at her pup, expression clearing, her dark eyes intense.

"They are very clear, Bones. They speak again exactly as they have before: that there is no challenge here, with the water, or one we can't fight. A journey would end badly, or be pointless, maybe. They speak very clearly... very clearly, and... they tell me that what some see as drought, others know as cycles of fertility and life. If we need to leave, Bones, we will--but I don't think it will come to that. It's best to sit tight. We'll survive this."

Then she smiled at the pup, as best a hyena can, reassuringly.

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Roll the bones.

The pup was quiet, sitting at a distance from the bones as he watched his mother do her work. He flinched somewhat as she leapt into her pile, though was still silent until she had completely finished reading her bones. He didn't look any less concerned than he previously did - even at the reassurance that nobody will die.

At least, he assumed nobody would die.

And although he nodded, his lips didn't lift into a childish grin and his ears remained pitched down. It took what seemed half an eternity for him to finally speak his thoughs, words slow and careful, "What's outside of here like?"


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Giggle laid on the rock, yawning. She looked at the cub, and her tone was perfectly content as she gave her rather surprising reply.

"I don't know," she told him.
"I've never been out of Canis. I was born here, up by the fortresses. Have you ever been there?"

She began to idly lick her forelegs, cleaning them, by all appearances, though it was blatantly obvious that she was a creature who cared little for cleanliness. She didn't say anything else, either, just glancing up at Bones with dark eyes. She didn't seem at all bothered that she'd never seen the world outside of Canis--as if she was content with only the world of bones, or perhaps intended to travel at some future point, and was in no rush. It was hard to tell. Either way, however, she seemed unbothered.

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Roll the bones.