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It had been a long time since Kerberos had been home. The smell of fungi was painfully familiar as he padded through the litter of bones, heading straight for Giggle's den. He didn't know if she was there; there was a mix of smells he didn't recognize that kept catching his attention. New Bonebound, he could only guess. It had been cycles and cycles, more than he knew how to count, and who was to say how much had changed with his careless absence.

He made his way by the carvings on the wall, eyeing the various art in search of any fresh, glowing markings and sniffed about for the tiger's eye shards that belonged to Imp's chrysalis. He wanted to see if he could at least find the chalk that the injured gembound had described. He found neither hide nor hair of it-- Canis was pretty big, even the Western Wall took up a good long distance, and it was more likely behind him than en route. He would have to find it later.

The massive white dog was not hard to miss; though he had crept about on his first pass through Canis, this time he plodded along like a massive white beacon with a multicolored red-orange-cream flag wagging behind him. He avoided stepping on any bones as he found his way down a familiar path to a garden of fungi, but it was hard to ignore prickle of guilt just along the back of his neck. Or maybe that was Imp, shuffling about. His noses twitched, and he lowered each of his heads as he drew closer to the stench of decay and musk.

"Giiiiiiiiiggle?" He tentatively gave a low howl as he drew close to the pool that sat outside of Giggle's den. White, red, blue-- mushrooms of all sorts clung to every surface here, where the hyena had cultivated her garden. The smell used to be comforting, but right then it hit him like a freight train-- he was no longer acclimated to it. Despite the way it reeked, he really just wanted to roll around in it, and again he had to resist that urge because he was carrying another Gembound. Hopefully the smell didn't bother the blind dragon-bat.

Just further down was the outcrop of rock that Giggle slept under, which was where he expected her to be. His tongues felt heavy in his mouths, and he might as well have swallowed three whole frogs for the lump that clogged up his throat as the howl died in them. He had a lot of explaining to do.

He padded forward until his paws were right at the water's edge, and he tried to remember if the water was safe to drink with all of the fungi living off of it. Maybe it was better to ask Giggle first, before letting Imp down?

@Imp @Giggle ; open to any BB!

The hyena dragged herself rapidly into the light, blinking up--she was clean for once, or nearly so, with her ragged pelt holding only the sprouts of fungal growth. She blinked against the brightness, and as she saw Kerberos properly for the first time in cycles, her eyes lit up with joy.

"Kerberos!" she cried, and like every old mother whose (granted, entirely adopted and gigantic) son returns home after an extended absence, she rushed in to meet him. She couldn't embrace, exactly, but damn it she tried, her frantic affection bestowed upon all three heads in turn, her body wriggling like a puppy's. "Where have you been!?" (For all Giggle knew, he could have been off next door in Pisces the whole time--the hyena rarely left the cave of bones.) "Are you all right? How are you--did you have those scars before?" she then demanded, worryingly fussing over him.

It was a very real question; her trauma had faded, but her memories, here and there, remained quite jumbled. As she squinted, stepping back, taking in the whole sight of him, she noticed for the first time the brown thing swaddled over his back. She squinted, for a beat--it looked familiar, but how, she couldn't quite say. Recognition wasn't kicking in, just yet. Someone who had come for a fortune, once, perhaps-?

The hyena looked back to her "son's" three heads. "You look well," she assured Kerberos, beaming, and then nodded to Imp--and like good, supportive moms everywhere, then asked, "Do you need help?"

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ROLL THE BONES

Imp had already been asleep on Kerberos's back, clinging with an ancient instinct he hadn't known he had--that of a baby bat. The big dog was warm, and quiet as he padded along, and Imp was quite exhausted.

It wasn't Kerberos's howl that woke him, even, but the sound of bustling and voices around him. Slowly, groggily, like a kid who slept through the car ride and is waking up in the family reunion, he came to. His head felt thick, and he looked around--Oh, yeah. Blind. ...Fuck. Despair threatened to clutch at him, and Imp told it to fuck off, and then turned his attention (if not his sight) to the voices.

This big brute had a mother? Imp squinted, though that only hurt his eyelids and he immediately stopped, but--she sounded a lot smaller than him..? And he felt like maybe he'd heard the voice somewhere before, but like Giggle, recognition didn't fire in his brain yet.

He didn't bother getting down--Kerberos was warm and snuggly--and he didn't speak, just yet. He did, however, decide to have a snack while he waited. He had to be careful to summon it up right between his clinging wing-limbs, so it wouldn't just tumble away where he couldn't find it, but--ahh, good. There it was. "Don't mind if I have a quick snack, do you?" he muttered, and immediately started chowing down. Quietly he chewed, listening as the hyena spoke; he didn't know if this was the Bonebound, or if Kerberos was making a personal visit in the meantime, so for now, he waited quietly.

Also, sparkling from the magic banana, but he couldn't see that.

@Kerberos

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Almost immediately, Kerberos's mother came scampering out from the undercrop of stone, rushing up to him. His heads, held low, eagerly accepted Giggle's love, and he gave her three good licks and several snuffles to the underside of her snout (even if he had to crouch even lower to do so). "I think so," he answered, blinking and glancing down at his paws. "... Maybe a few new ones?" He wasn't very sure. He had been gone for a while, and he couldn't remember exactly what Giggle had seen of him last.

"I'm alright!" His other head insisted, body wiggling with happiness and tail wagging high in the air where it wouldn't smack any of the fungi or disturb any bones. "I missed you! I'm sorry I was gone so long!"

... As for where he had been, well, that would have to wait for another time. More importantly, his middle head snorted and reared back, glancing back around the horizon as though expecting to see something in the distance.

"You can eat!" His left head replied brightly, "Giggle, is the water safe to drink from?" He felt a bit silly asking, but she had always told him to listen, learn and speak.

His right, floppy eared head pushed its cheek against his mother's, voice low. "This is Imp, he was maimed by Nemean and Vargas, have you heard of them?" His words were mingled by a low whine, threatening to dissolve into whimpering. He pulled his head back and exchanged looks with himself, squaring his paws up under him as he sat down by the puddle's edge.

"Imp was hurt," the middle head repeated, soundly. "Is there anything you can do?" The left head tried to twist around to sniff at what Imp was eating, but it was a bit hard to reach anything between his broad shoulders, even for the side heads. "He said he shouldn't stay," the floppy-ear head added, "we could get in trouble for harboring him. They want him to say that he we punished and everyone should obey them. The rest of Bonebound need to know." His fur prickled, his hackles starting to raise despite the weight settled on them.

@Giggle (Imp) ; open to any BB!

"Kerberos!" Eythan had called out, once he managed to discern the massive, fluffy silhouette that was the namesake, "you big bastard!" He was half-tempted to give the big dog a quick cuff, a wrasslin' to remember, but he sobered up at the sight of a blinded dragon-bat(?) wolfing down a banana. Who -

Ah. "Shit, dude."

Imp, poor guy made eyeless by Nemean and some dude named Vargas - hadn't that been the big guy haunting Canis, for a bit? Even now? The gryphon shook out his wings, ears flickering back as he listened. Punished and forced into exile unless he spread the word about obedience. Crimson eyes flickered over to Giggle for a moment. "I mean - it's up to you 'n Aure but - the Chambers are a good place to hide in, until he's - uh, better," he offered, tail flicking, "if we find a nice spot, that's three sides protected and there's water 'n food, yeah? There's the whole secret thing, too."

Under his breath, he repeated, "shit, dude."

it's real small brain hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYMboTIXym4

Giggle turned, trotting the few steps to Eythan and offering him a nudge in greeting. She was more reserved with him than her own children, but he was Bonebound, family, and she was determined to always treat him as such. "Water's safe," she answered Kerberos shortly--not rude, but to the point--and then, with humor, added "That's what it's there for." She padded to the Imp, staring up at where he crouched, eating, on Kerberos's back. He seemed comfortable, there, at least; and her first reaction, glancing at Kerberos, was pride in the three-headed hound.

"You did very well," she told him, in half-a-murmur. It would never cease to amaze her how far he'd come, and how good he had become. She tore her attention from admiring her adopted son, however, in order to look Imp over. His eyes, it seemed, had been badly torn-out, but they didn't seem infected. Hell, he seemed to have a rather carefree demeanor about him--he was focused on his food, unless maybe he was half-starved. She pressed forward, trying to touch her nose to him long enough for a flicker of magicka to flare out, and include him in it.

Show me what happened, she said to herself, though not aloud.

The story is truth, came the answering... thought, for lack of a better word. She saw flickers of it--Nemean, laughing, and Giggle couldn't remember ever having seen her before; Vargas, leaning down, too many teeth and far too many eyes. If they were eyes. Ripping. A strange twist of vision, before the vision cut off. She inhaled sharply, and stepped back. She spoke without shame, her admission of half-distrust honest and laid out. "Well, he isn't lying. Little laughing fairy, big purple-and-green ugly beast. Hrm. Can you two get him there, then, Eythan? It's a good idea--let him drink here, then go hide him, get him some food. If you can find Aure, bring him, and I'll ask the bones what to do, and meet you two there? There isn't much I can do for him; he's healing, and it isn't infected. He just needs time. I think he'll stay blind, though."

She looked at them, her brow furrowed, her mind working gradually. She'd have to consult the bones, find out what to do with Imp. More than that--"I'd like to find out what this means for us."

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ROLL THE BONES

Imp jumped, a little, when a cool nose touched him; he offered a protesting, but mild, "Hey. Bat-like tongue shot out to lick away excess banana, and at this 'Giggle's' assurance that the water was safe, he lurched into motion.

Down he tumbled, landing in a brief tangle of wings upon the rock. But he'd quickly straightened himself out, sniffing his way to the stagnant, metallic pool. Something here stank, and he wasn't sure if it was the water, or the Giggle, or something else, and he wasn't about to ask. Something about looking a gift-hyena in the mouth.

He eventually found the water by way of his chin dipping into it, and flinched--then winced as that caused him pain, and managed by the third reflexive flinch to not wince at the pain, and then bent down to drink.

His ears rotated some, as he listened, their bat-like ridges catching the light. Licking banana-flavored water from his jaws, he half-looked back at the three strangers, 'staring' eyelessly in slightly the wrong direction. "Well I wasn't lying," he pointed out, but there wasn't much vehemence in it. He'd lied so often that he could hardly take offense at it, after all. "I'd like to get back to Cetus, eventually. I don't know how easy that'll be," he added.

Then again, if these mooks were considering free room, board and food, for awhile, he'd not complain. "I wouldn't mind more food if you got some, though. It's been hard to find any like this and I've been livin' off bananas." He waited to see what they'd decide, settling for now on the rock, quite near to Kerberos's paws.

@Kerberos

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It had been so long since Kerberos had seen the hybrid child of Azazel and Cancer; if it was not for how familiar he had been with furballs's parents, he might have not been able to pick out from the foggy memories who this now full-sized leopard-vulture.

Eythan. He had grown so big! He was even bigger than his fathers-- though, truthfully, the long body and wings made it hard to judge that exactly so... But still! Last Kerberos had seen the boy, he had been but a little cub! "Did Giggle teach you those bad words?" The middle head playfully growled, reaching his snout over his other muzzle to snort at Eythan before his mother deemed the water safe and praised him.

Kerberos gave an appreciative rumble from deep in his chest to his mother as Imp scrambled down off his back to drink from the pool. Perhaps... Her affection and pride was misplaced in him; he was certainly... capable of mistakes, and faults, but right now, he did his best not to dwell on any lingering guilt. Without needing any more prompting, the big dog himself reached over Imp and took three separate, large gulps from the pool too.

Everyone else discussed what to do now, how to move forward, and the big guard dog listened attentively with twitching ears. Kerberos could be a clever, smart dog on rare occasions, but he could tell just from the words shared that he had made the right choice in confiding in his family.

They would help protect Imp, at least until it was time to go. The safety of the Circuit-- where the Bonebound once raised their children-- was undeniable. He could even guard it, a familiar and comforting purpose to strive toward.

"When you're feeling better," Kerberos insisted to Imp, "I can get you back to Cetus." The cerberus had actually never been to Cetus, but he had seen the maps made by other gembound, and he had traveled tunnels that led to the damp, foggy swamp that had always seemed uncomfortable for his thick pelt. He liked the dry air of Canis.

"And!" His other head woofed, "We'll hunt, get you tasty rats. "Yeah! Eythan, you're a good hunter now, I bet?" Each head perked up excitedly at the notion, his tail raising with a wiggle. "You'll have to show me!"

@Giggle (Imp) @Eythan

Eythan clicked his beak in response to Giggle's nudge, then he batted at the snout snorting along his feathers. "Fuck, no! I taught them to myself, Kerb!" And wasn't that the truth? The words had just popped into his mind one day, and he reserved them only for other adults. He tried his darndest to not swear around kids, at least.

Aside from that brief bit of silliness, though, the gryphon was standing at attention and almost tense. He swore up and down he'd seen some big purple thing hunting about in Canis, but never once thought to approach it. Y'know, because it was big and (comparatively) little Eythan wasn't very well-equipped with magic and means of it.

"Kerb could probably carry 'im to the Chambers? I can lead them to a spot," Eythan shrugged, regardless of his nervousness about Big and Ugly. He added, more aside to Giggle, "couldn't he - maybe go into his chrysalis? Wouldn't that help?" Why hadn't Imp gone in, to begin with? Losing eyes had to be enough for a stone to decide that? "Once you've bounced back, we can take ya' to Cetus, yeah." Almost proudly, to Kerb, he punctuated, "I got punched by a golem there. That sucked ass. It's gone now, though." The last part was hastily tacked on.

With a proud puff of his chest and return to playfulness, Eythan boasted, clearly egged on, "only the best. There's not a rat that can escape me!" His head turned towards Imp, assuring, "those fuckers are fat here. We'll get you the best of the lot." Flexing his wings preemptively, the gryphon started to trot off. "Get started taking him to the Chambers, maybe? I'll be back with the biggest rat you've ever seen."

@Giggle

Giggle listened, snorting briefly at Eythan.

"Language," was all she answered, wryly. At his offer, she gave a nod. "Let me go speak to the bones on this. Find Aure, if you can, bring this--Imp--to him."

She glanced to Kerberos, again. "I won't be long. It's good to see you," she added, and then turned, not wasting time in departing. She lurched into a fast lope, her ragged coat shedding fungal spores as she headed off toward her bone pit.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

exit Giggs