Opal watched the stag's eyes narrow; a blood red glare that turned his blood to ice. At first, he thought it was something he said. Maybe the mere fact of his insubordination was enough to pass judgment on. Opal braced himself for Astraea's wrath, but, it never came.

In the distance, he heard Giggle's harsh cry.

"IF YOU WANT ONE OF THE INFECTED, NOW'S THE TIME."

Claws gripped his chest. Giggle had found a hive member No, not here! Anywhere but here! Fungus-brained or not, they were still a brother/sister.

Opal took off after Astraea, managing to keep pace with the stag even on three legs. Adrenaline surged, brought on by the fear of what might happen if the Master got there first. It spurred him faster, moving him foward into longer bounds. The Opal began to pulled ahead of the stag, reaching the Bonebound a few yards first.

He skidded to a stop, sliding over some bones. His tendon cramped and Opal grimaced. "Argh!" Yellow eyes blinked wide in a panic. "What happened!?" He breathed. His eye stalk flicked to the hyena, and then to the black pelt farther in the distance. Wild-ling? Was that her name? His other eyes cut to Aure, and the white speck of Mother on the ground. Oh no...

The ram arrived moments before chaos erupted. At first, they were discussing going to war, then- It got Wilder too? That's why she's been missing. No sooner had he thought that, something white and fuzzy whizzed passed him. Aries jumped back. Aure, who had seen it coming, spread his wings and attempted.. something, but the glob hit him anyway.

Aries head snapped towards Giggle's voice. "There, there!" The ram strode foward. "Where?" Well, Omen was a hint. He couldn't see her at first, but Wilder's pink eyes betrayed her. Aries kicked it into gear, rushing towards the cat, but not with the amount of vigor he had when chasing down Opal. The last thing he wanted was to trample her.

Where was Eythan when he need him? This might require some graspers.

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Wilder @Auré @Giggle // OOC:

The fungus hit Aure in the face - good, he would start to feel Mother soon. But there wasn't anything else good about this. She was right - they knew and Giggle screeching about her being infected...oh no. Oh shit. Astraea was coming back. Wilder, who had already been in panic mood, panicked even more and, without thinking, lashed out.

Mother was speaking in her head, the alarm only serving to send Wilder down even more stress. Mother! Sorry I...I messed up! I messed up really bad! Bonebound know about me! Astraea is here! I'm sorry...I'm sorry I failed you I'm trying!

Without thinking, magicka reached for Astraea, to pick him up and push him away - not particularly violently, but without much of a care. She needed time, time without him interfering. Wilder backed up, eyes wide, watching Aure for any signs that he was getting infected, flicking over to each of the Bonebound. She was...she was family, right? They weren't going to hurt her! She just...she just wanted them to be part of Mother too! She didn't want to fail Mother!

@Giggle @Aure

for some bad words

Disgust was flowing through her. Hatred. An outlet, a fiercely glad outlet, one that malice roared through with savage glee.

It had started with some... vague, instinctive distrust of lions in her youth. And then, systematically, virtually every cat that Giggle had ever met--large, or small, and no matter how friendly--had turned on her. Had come to her for aid, and then mocked her to others. Had thrown away those who loved them and caused deaths. Had brought void.

And now, this. The one she'd reluctantly accepted; the one Aure had brought in. The one she'd watched with suspicion.

A cat, among the Bonebound.

And it betrayed us.

"You piece of SHIT SHIT-CAT betraying untrustworthy fuck!" Giggle's hoarse voice was a rasp, a roar. Stiff-legged, she rushed forward, mane bristling, grinning, eyes mad with hateful triumph.

She extended out her magic, again, her run speeding up, her fury driving it. She'd tear the fungus out of Wilder, rip it and pull it and send it sprawling across the rock-

Here, Mother-Sister-

-and the cat wouldn't die, but fuck trying to be kind. The cat had betrayed them. And it wasn't the first time.

I know.

The magic poured forth, aiming to control the fungus in the black cat, to pull it out as she'd done with Opal, to send it out over the stone instead.

And maybe the cat didn't deserve such hatred. Maybe she had been only an innocent victim. But Giggle-... Giggle didn't care.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

When the purple thing came up behind him--Astraea hadn't even reached it, yet, and even on three legs it was somehow outpacing him? a stag?--he redoubled his speed. Opal, he realized.

But it didn't seem to do much after pulling just ahead--only stopped, speaking--and Astraea charged on past. Magic buffeted him, and had he been one of them, a hundred times weaker and more base than he, he might have been moved by it. To the Master, it was but the whisper of a breeze, a gust of touch that staggered him only briefly mid-step.

It bought the cat nothing.

Has the Hive been so foolish, to let her draw so close-?

He could hear profanities, shouting, and he cast out his own magic: to find the link he knew was there, to sever it before it could do any harm. To pull, as Giggle was (though he did not yet realize it) the fungus from Wilder, and to cut her off from that wretched Hive.

Post-roll

There was no response from Mother. Only empty nothing. Had her message gone through..? There would be no way of knowing. Only agony, as both the Master--fast approaching with a furious light in his ruby eyes--and the ragged hyena ripped the fungus from Wilder.

Astraea, however, was careful. Careful in his control of it. He could not let her fall into a chrysalis. He had to know what she knew... And for that, he needed her awake.

Alive.

Aure, too, would sense nothing... a strange sense of vertigo, but the swelling ocean of voices had suddenly faded.

@Aure

There was a flurry of movement and noise around him, but Aure was presently focusing on keeping his breaths steady, his own motions purposeful and - well, his. There was an influx of some otherness, a garbled voice and the murmuring he'd felt through Wilder. What was it that mother did- he thought, unintentionally calling it out to the fungus creeping through and seeking to lay claim to himself.

His head shook this way and that, instinctively trying to dispel the fungus, before growing still with dim focus. Somewhere along the line, the voices quieted down, but his mind continued to swim. Aure forced himself to stay on one track, staring blankly ahead with glassy, watery eyes - still trying not to panic.

Oh, she - she - the young King reached out to his magic, shoving through the outer influence and fixating upon the fungus that was undoubtedly inside of him. It was driven outward for certain, but the wretched mass propagated as soon as it crept out of his mouth (with no small amount of gagging noises.) White fuzz started coating Aure's entire front, spilling from his beak and cascading across his right wing and messily down his chest.

That hadn't been intended.

Breathing grew difficult, but his visible eye flickered over to Opal, worry flashing for a moment as he tried to put distance between them - but he did not run. He didn't want the eel to become infected again, even if nothing seemed to come of his own. "Hnngh - goh -" he wheezed as he failed to speak. Aure's blunt claws shuffled unsteadily across the rock, balance entirely reliant on his ability to see out of his left eye. It wasn't too successful, considering he was quickly brought to his knees.

There wasn't much to do in the same amount of time that it took to react to something. The moment Eythan managed to parse some happening, another arose altogether. Aure'd been smacked upside the head, and there was a veritable calamity following. For a moment, the gryphon considered racing after Aries to grab the infected cat, but whatever was inside of their king was turned inside out and crawling around, uncontained.

Eythan's talons reached out, hesitating as the wyvern continued to wheeze shrilly and shake his head, shuffling away. Bright eyes fell onto just one, brows hiking up, "what can I do?" Aure made a soft, choking sound (a poor attempt at speech) and flicked his head in the direction of Omen, of Giggle, of the others. "Why - Whyuld..." he struggled, and Eythan nodded mutely.

His head turned towards Opal, and he commanded briefly, "make sure he doesn't stop breathing." The young King needed to save his breath.

Boosting his momentum with a few flaps of his broad wings, the gryphon hurtled towards Wilder. Briefly slipping into full hunter instincts, Eythan's gaze caught sharply onto the little cat, briefly acknowledging her as a small, moving target being purged of fungus. Perhaps, she was thrashing around by then, but Eythan scuffled over top of her and tried to hold her down beneath his talons (by the scruff and her lower back) - for her sake - and in case she... tried anything.

To Opal's horror, started to over take the Bone King, growing out his beak and across his chest. Aure began to choke, the white tendrils were clogged his throat. Mother had grown stronger.

Farther away, Wilder forwarded as Astraea rushed towards her. Opal was split in too.

The Aure's, frightened and desperate, eyes locked with his. The wyvern choked out something. It sound like "go".

Like Hydra he would.

He picked up small rib, a tool to use, just in case. Eythan came by telling him to do what he already planned to do. "Don't kill her!" He called out to the gryphon as he took off. He'd missed the fungus being expelled from Wilder, but she appeared to have been spared, for now. With that off his concious, Opal reared up and yelled for the stag. "MASTER ASTRAEA, IT'S GOT AURE.". By his tone it was urgent.

The eel fell back on all fours. "Easy Aure, be still." He comforted., stepping closer. It was vital to maintain a calm demeanor. The young king should conserve energy and think rationally. Opal gripped the rib tighter, waiting to see what the fungal users would do, but if things went sour, he was ready to step in with his methods.

@Auré @Game Master Dark
@Wilder

Wilder continued backing away as Giggle started screaming profanities. She didn't really process them, too far deep in panic-mode to care at all, and she turned to run. This was bad this was really really bad if she stayed here she'd die! Or they'd find out about Mother! Or something else that the Master was planning.

But she didn't even get one step before utter agony exploded through every inch of her body. She screamed as she fell, white clots blooming across her skin and falling away as both Giggle and Astraea, at once, pulled the fungus out of her small body. Heavy claws pressed down against her back and held her gently but firmly against the ground. Not that she could escape now, but she found herself unable to move much which was only further cause for alarm. But her writhing was held down, keeping her from hurting herself, until her her body shuddered. She retched and spilled white bile across the ground, tears spilling from her eyes from both the pain and from the fear - she couldn't feel Mother anymore! She was getting farther away, the many voices of the hive getting quieter until they all cut off and Wilder was suddenly alone.

And reality suddenly crashed onto her, through the agony that still sent shivers across her body, and her head whipped back, straining against Eythan's hold, widening at what she saw behind her. Astraea and Giggle staring straight at her, furiously, Aure struggling to breath with white clots across his body and a strange eel-creature standing over him... no....no wait...she'd done this!

It was all her mind, clouded by pain, could process and she trembled violently, shocked. This was all happening so fast and her magic reacted, all but stopping time for a moment as Wilder lay beneath Eythan's claws, still held firmly to the ground, but at least now...she could think.

She didn't feel as much pain here in this suspended state and she found herself able to think a little more clearly. The gears in her head, almost completely unused, started to turn and she tried to work out what in the fuck was happening. The last thing she really remembered with clarity was speaking with Reji. She'd offered her a piece of fungus, to inspect, but the instant she'd breathed in, everything went weird. She'd thought things that she'd never imagined she could think, connected with others through an impossible link, connected to Mother, and used as a pawn to infect the Bonebound. Her family.

Had all that love really come from Mother? Could fungus feel love? She was confused. How had this all even happened?! But that wasn't important - what was important was that she'd betrayed her family. Mother had commanded her to infect the Bonebound and not only had she accepted that order but she didn't even question it. Giggle hated her. The Master, Astraea, was probably going to kill her. Aure was hurt, on the verge of infection himself, and they were in disarray because of her. No...no, no no this was all messed up. She felt sick to her stomach, which had nothing to do with the magic that had ripped her from the hive. She felt sick because she'd hurt them. She'd done it again, but this time it had been consciously. It didn't matter that it had been Mother that did it. She could remember doing it, making that choice to attack, and that was enough.

Could she ever hope to recover from this one? Did she even want to?

The Master was going to question her. She knew that, in the back of her mind, that she would be required to give him information. Well, she didn't exactly had a reason to hold back, but she found it difficult to think of anything else but this crushing guilt. She remembered...a hive. Here, in Canis, that she'd built herself, but that only served to heighten her despair. She wallowed in this grief for a while, until time began returning to its regular pace.

Wilder had fallen still, only trembling slightly under Eythan's claws, still wracked by pain. She was crying, she realized, and the adrenaline and panic was crushing together with the guilt she'd just built in herself. She let out a small, squeaking cry as her heart raced out of control. "Sorry," she wailed, "Sorry, I'm sorry...I...I'm so sorry I didn't...I didn't mean to!" She was in hysterics. It was probably a good thing Eythan was holding her down - she may have hurt herself otherwise, claws scraping against the ground as if to hold onto the earth.

@Giggle

Giggle spun, dark eyes snapping wide, at Opal's cry. She rushed back toward Aure, toward the Bone King, toward her son, fear churning powerfully through her. Gone was the angry bravado, the malice-laced triumph. In its place was only horror.

He looks like a fucking puffball. Her mind pointed this out absently, distractedly, as the fear sparked higher.

"Hold still--hold still, hold still, hold still--it'll be okay," she babbled out frantically, skidding to a stop close by him. She feared getting closer. She feared not drawing up to him. Distress boiled through her. In that moment the tough-bitch hyena was gone, and in her place was only a frightened mother.

Her magic lashed out, strong but gentle, a mother catching and cradling a child in firm and loving arms. It pulled at the fungus, wove it quickly, carefully from him, tugged it like a kid's finger-splinters out in cautious pulls. She sent it out over the rock, and then--only when she sensed him free from it--she drew closer.

Wilder, behind her, was forgotten.

"Are you okay? Aure, are you okay? It's okay-" she added, hastily--"You're okay-" And then her gaze snapped back at Wilder. She'd done this. Hatred roiled through the hyena (and Wilder was now very much remembered, again) but she bit it down, jaw clenching as she looked back to her son.

At the moment, she didn't give a shit about the presence of a Master or the strangeness surrounding Opal. She just wanted to know that her kid was all right.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr