Giggle moved in quietly, quickly, her paws crossing over bones without ever scattering them.

She was almost exhausted, already, her trip back from Tunnel O having been fast and stressful. She'd had to stop, a couple times, and she didn't think that the white clot of fungus she now carried on the edge of her stick had infected her... but she feared what might happen if she were wrong.

I'll make a habit of taking fungus out of myself every time I work with the garden. If I'm ever not sure, the habit should help. And if something ever stops me, then I'll know. The hyena wasn't actually quite sure how Mother infection worked. She knew it affected the mind; she didn't know that, if she were infected, she would want to be. She'd given Omen instructions, of course, on what to do if another voice suddenly joined their link--but the bird was not highly-intelligent, and whether she would manage, or not, was not something Giggle wanted to rely on.

She moved to her garden quietly.

Here--down at her den, half-shrouded in foliage against Canis' West Wall--lay a couple pools of stagnant water. The mud around it was where she slept, and up above--against the wall--were crevices in which Giggle grew various mushrooms. Bioluminescent ones provided light to shield against her fear of darkness. Carrion-scented ones tasting absolutely foul grew by their side--a good defense--and inky black ones that tended to turn to goo at a touch were there, as well. There were mushrooms with powerfully-hallucinogenic spores.

She grew most of these somewhere on her body, nestled in her coat, and at a pinch she could grow them into fruiting bodies to protect or help her in one way or another. But now, she'd cleared a space behind them--in the dark, half-hidden in the crevices--in which to grow this 'Mother' fungus.

Giggle still wasn't sure how this would work. The bones had said to find it, to listen to it, but how, she wasn't sure--and she didn't want to risk infection. She hoped she could simply grow the stuff, and then communicate with it mind-to-mind, but she wasn't sure it had a mind with which to communicate.

She'd just have to try, trial and error, until something worked--and hope she didn't get infected.

The hyena set her stick down, and pushed back the half-rotten foliage and fruit that she'd prepared. Then she picked the stick back up, setting the clot of white into the rancid banana, and hoping it might take root. She sent her magic into it, attempting to grow it, to spread it, out into the prepared bed.

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

She felt nothing happen, and swore to herself, softly. Omen clamored at her mind, asking what was wrong, and she gently shushed her.

Giggle did not want to get closer to this crap than she needed to. She pulled the stick back out, and inspected it, briefly.

Right, fungus was still there. That meant either her magic had just failed, or the stuff was so weak from the journey that it was nearly dead.

She pushed the stick, by its end, back over and onto the bed of foliage hidden beneath the ledge, and waited. She gave it a few minutes--she went down to lap water from the pool, and rested on her belly for awhile. Let it take root on its own, she thought; then I'll see what I can do.

Eventually she pushed back up, standing to try again, peering inside. She couldn't see much, there in the dark, so she sent her magic out again.

It lashed back out, as it occasionally did: a nasty spark that seared her mind, seeming to impale her sinuses with pain. She backed away, grimacing--but it was better than infection, she supposed.

She'd just have to wait, and see what happened of its own accord.

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

dice boy dictates that magic backfires instead of infection or dead fungus. phew

She waited, this time, and she slept--carefully far away, off at her bone pit. She didn't want the fungus to encroach down upon her in her sleep. She didn't know if it was capable of that, if it was sentient, if it had senses of its own, but she wasn't about to risk it. And for good measure she purged herself, before she left.

It meant removing all the fungus she carried, but it would do well enough in her garden.

She left, then, and slept at her pit; and returned some hours later, stretching and yawning, to see what had transpired in her absence.

Her mind reached out, testing, checking-...

Ah, yes. There it was.

"You're alive, then," she mused aloud. It had grown. It had swollen, taking up much of the small space she'd placed it in, already, to the point she feared that it might soon erupt and spread further.

Hmm.

Time for the second 'moment of truth, then.'

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

The hyena lowered herself back, and then sat slowly down. She watched the fungus cautiously, at least, what she could see of it: sickening white clumps half-pulsating beneath their ledge.

Right, Omen, I'm about to speak with it. Don't panic.

Careful, worried, she extended out her mind directly.

Are you there..? she sent, tentatively--and then waited a beat. Nothing, at first. So she continued. My name is Giggle, of the Bonebound. I'm looking for the one they call 'Mother.' They say it lives in a fungus. Is that you..?

-Or had she dragged the wrong damn fungus the entire way back to Canis?

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

It felt the mind, touching its own: the sentience prodding at it. It reached out, instinctive, to twist that mind: to seek the chemicals of its brain, to release endorphins, the sense of love, of gratitude, with which to control all the advanced biological entities.

...There was nothing.

There was thought--but there was no control.

Without that link, without that control, the fungus was no Mother. It was not warm and reassuring, it had no means to change and twist. It did not think to try and convince the creature touching it to serve--it was too simple for that. Instead it reached back, a question in its faint sentience--its node was not particularly strong, yet.

"We are weak," that consciousness sent back; "there are others of us... but we cannot sense them. We must grow. Who... what... are you?"

It was, Giggle would sense, wholly emotionless: an ordered nothing, a consciousness without any real drive or emotion of its own. It was a task; it was purpose.

It was little else.

Giggle grasped, then--she understood--the basics of it. It might have lashed out, had it realized its situation, but it wasn't advanced enough, perhaps, for that. It was nothing but a parasite. Yet it held information, in its node, did not not? Memories, and knowledge.

Perhaps she could keep it here, feed it, and consult it as to what it knew.

She considered this, carefully, and came to a decision.

"My name is Giggle. I am a Seer. I will feed you, if you need to grow. But you can't get too big. Not here. You say there's others of you, and I think that's true. But I offer you a deal, now. I feed you. You stay here. You grow, not too big. I'll protect you--keep you secret. And sometimes, we'll talk. Food, for knowledge. Protection, for memories--you have those..?" she asked--and then paused, checking, with a frown, to see if her mental link even remained open.

It was--she could feel the sentience churning and thinking beyond; and she waited.

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The sentience paused, thought, waited.

"We are... I am... Mother," it tried, and hesitated--no; it still found no brain to afflict with its infection. What was going on..?

The offer was there, but the node was too weak to consider it very well. It had to think, and pause, and think again. But memories-! That, it understood.

Brief flashes came to Giggle's mind. Long aeons it had spent beneath the sea, and before that alive, and after that, alive again; and from its myriad linked nodes it had always shared these things. Battles, in the dark. A struggle to survive. Orderly, lined rows of servants tending it. "We want those, again," it murmured, indifferently. Small creatures, moving, and predators hunting them, and Mother's guidance keeping them safe. "There have been times... of hiding. We are hungry," it complained.

Ahh, but there'd been an offer, hadn't there-? "Feed us. We will talk to you." It was... unsettling, having no servants; but perhaps it could create some, once it had grown enough to do so.

Giggle decided, then and there, to feed the damn thing. She'd have to ensure some way of keeping it secured--another row of fungus, perhaps, though she'd have to find one that would consume Mother, and not the other way around.

"Done," she said aloud, though the magic was already fading.

A banana, then--a promise of the future. She stripped it down with her teeth, took a bite, and lobbed the rest into the crevice.

Omen, she thought along the link, a serious, fierce instruction in it. She showed her a mental image of the crevice. You must never, ever, go in there. Understand? Never, for any reason, no matter what.

Yes, or at least, acknowledgement--a little fearful, but comprehending. Giggle nodded, a brief good, being sent back in response--and then she turned, pacing away to hunt.

For herself--and for this new guest of hers, one she'd have to be very, very careful with.

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

exit Giggle