Again, his mother had told him, the caves were sleepy. They were quiet except for the distant thrum of magic from Polaris and the still-new heat from Hydra's opening. As Aure became acquainted with the colder cycles, though, he was grateful for the warmth. It settled softly around Canis and seeped against the deathly, foreboding chill of Tunnel K. The distinct scent of it — like the furnace of a human home in another time, another place — muddled easily with the musk of long-dead bones; bones that shifted only when disturbed by the living.

The Bonebound had dispersed somewhat, by now, and their King allowed it out of a confusing cocktail of reasoning — on one hand, he did not want to force the bonebound to exist in one place indefinitely, as life was ever-changing, and on the other... on the other, he did not see the purpose in an organized group with the caves in such a quiet state. Protection against any sudden activity, yes, but they were still all within an arm's reach. If not so, they would quickly be.

His tail shifted, banking easily through a particularly sharp bend in the labyrinthine Chambers. Bones clattered below, but he attributed it to the lowness of his flight. It was just some lighter, more fragile bones disturbed by broad wings. Aure flapped his wings once or twice as he rounded into a long corridor, the cave form of a cul-de-sac except when one goes completely vertical. He climbed quickly and dove through a narrow opening at the top of the chambers, and descended into a wide room filled to the nines with bones.

Bones, which were all clattering rather violently.

Being quite an expert on bones and the nature of being dead — somewhat indirectly on the former — Aure flicked his ears back and grimaced. Hovering in place, he scanned the mass. His magic absently sent a wisp down, to disperse the half-light and give some context. Maybe. Just, maybe there was just someone having a hey-day down here.

Below, the bones ceased moving. A few shivered; they then fell still.

In the eerie silence, then, a creature pressed forward from the shadows.

It looked like a deer--a small, antlered creature, pacing forward and looking around warily. One leg raised, its head turning to and fro, as if it were frightened by the sudden stillness...

Yet, what reason had it to be frightened? For this was no flesh-and-blood deer, nothing of life and fur and muscle. It was but bones, set in neat rows as if the creature were still alive. Soft phosphoresence lent it a strange glow as it stood far below, and then--hesitant--it approached Aure's wisp.

Only as it stretched its neck vertebrae, reaching its skull's empty nostrils for the wisp, did it spot Aure above--and then the deer-skeleton turned, bounding with a clatter back toward Canis. Yet even as it fled, it appeared lost--hesitating and bounding this way and that, as if it didn't know how to leave, how to escape this cave of bones.

@Aure

Aure hovered in place for a few moments, peering down with keen uncertainty as the bones settled back into place. Perhaps it had been a trick of the light, sound filling the empty, quiet space. Auditory hallucinations, as it'd be put scientifically. His mind could merely be filling the void while he was unconsciously aware. Yet, now that he had put it at the center of his focus, it went awa —

Ah, no. There was an antlered sort of creature trudging through the gloom, searching. It was an intact skeleton, investigating his light with a stretched set of vertebrae and hollowed-out eyes. Then, its 'gaze' fixated upon him and it startled.

So, of course, Aure went through a number of logical steps: bones were dead; ergo, bones did not move; ergo, bones did not form entire skeletons and move as if they were sentient and alive. Magic most certainly had to be at play here, yet he lacked the ability to see it. But, he could see past death. "Hey— sorry!" He called, before abruptly diving down to make contact with the creature, marrowsight sparking.

The skeleton scrambled to get out from under Aure as he swept down, but contact was made nonetheless.

Fleeting images of a whole deer--wandering, bone-thin and wide-eyed. It was a Lesser Gembound, a simple cave deer, and as it moved hesitantly among the myriad bones of Canis, no food to be found, it slowly lost all energy. Lost, starving, it lay down to die...

The skeleton clattered away, this way and that, still hesitant... still lost. Perhaps it held no real soul, no sentience, and yet the echo of its final goal remained.

@Aure

Aure shook himself, pushing up from his momentarily prone state, breathing sharply to quell the phantom sensation of famine in his gut. Nothing was odd about this creature's death, except for that it seemed beyond such a thing. This was quite a literal interpretation of being bound to one's bones.

The hybrid murmured again, "sorry," and drifted into thought as he stared at his wisp. The light gave little to no indication of sentience, either. Puppetry came to mind, but he figured it would be entirely too elaborate to sustain such an illusion of life just for his amusement. No, no, something was odd here. Had he been aware of what purgatory was, he might've considered it. A spirit trapped between life and death due to uncompleted goals. But, were cave deer really of mind to have a spirit? A soul? Enough consciousness to be staggering about without flesh and blood through sheer will?

Bright eyes watched as the skeleton clattered to and fro, looking lost for all the world. Trapped in this room of the chambers. Perhaps, if he just — "hello," he called softly, ears lowered and trying to look as nonthreatening as possible, "if you can hear me, come along — we'll get out of here, okay?" Lessers weren't the most conversational, but he hoped his reassuring tone would be enough.

Aure then meandered towards the wall he had emerged from, focusing in on his magic with a fervent intensity. He called upon mycelia of a polypore sort, beckoning sturdy shelves of fruiting bodies from the sheer rock face. Each one was probably about two feet wide and long, cascading ever-upwards towards the ceiling of Canis. The Bone King's feathers puffed up, then went slack with the effort. Stair-making was an exhausting process. His wisp danced about, unconscious encouragement before he mentally tossed it at the mushroom steps.

To indicate to the lost-looking bone creature, the incandescent light seemed to bound up each step before drifting back toward Aure.

It wasn't clear whether the creature understood, or even heard, Aure's words.

But when the wisp began to drift upward, along the stairs, the skeletal deer began to follow. It seemed no longer to notice Aure, simply following the siren song of magical light before it... up the stairs.

Yet even once out it appeared equally lost--perhaps it hadn't been stuck in the room so much as stuck in Canis. It seemed willing, for now, to follow the wisp, however.

@Aure

The skeleton seemed enthralled enough by his light, following it up the steps and into the main drag (so to speak) of Canis. But, that wasn't exactly what he wanted from this. He wanted to know what exactly was going on upstairs. Or — around that region. Aure spread his wings a little, and trudged up the shroom-stairs after the skeleton and, once he was surely on solid ground looking across the bone pit, he quelled his wisp's glow, banishing it to nonexistence.

Just to see what the skeletal cave deer would do after it vanished. In the meantime, he reached out mentally, to see if the lights were even on. There weren't very high hopes in that regard.

Aure would find a blank emptiness--there was no one here, nothing to mind-read. It was as if the bones were inanimate, nothing more; but surely he wasn't imagining all of this-..?

With the wisp-light extinguished, the deer-skeleton again paused. One thin-hoofed forelimb lifted, the strange light shimmering around it as it seemed to look around, lost, once more.

It started off, with slow and uncertain steps, exactly the wrong way--heading, though slowly, deeper into Canis.

@Aure

Nothing. Utterly nothing. No half-alive agony, no shambling thoughts and reanimated impulses. Nothing.

Aure watched as the deer skeleton scanned once for the wisp-light, then continued to trudge onwards. He paused for a while, contemplating, is it looking for something? A way out? His ears pricked forth, mentally measuring the distance being placed between them. At last, with the creature several meters away, the hybrid followed quietly.

Where's it headed?

The skeletal deer wandered deeper into Canis for a few moments, then paused. One thin hoof again dangled midair and then it turned, and headed back in another direction. Then it turned, as if confused, standing still and silent, listening with nonexistent ears, sniffing without any sense of smell. Then it turned a third way, equally lost, as if doomed to wander--a starving pile of bones--forever.

Unless, of course, something led it out.

@Aure