Giggle did not pick up on the additional unease. She had already gathered that Damask was nervous--and weirdly stiff; cold, almost, and formal. It was very unlike the rest of the Bonebound, who were relatively open, warm, and easygoing; it was hard to... to like. She didn't dismiss the child, by any means, and she couldn't dislike one so young, but-... Cats, she realized, and even the thought was a distasteful hiss. She reminds me of cats. Standoffish, hiding her feelings, but was it in a superior way, the way cats could be-? That, Giggle couldn't gauge. Not yet; she hardly knew Damask, after all. It puzzled her, though; any child raised by Aure surely would wind up warm, open-? She wondered how Damask had become like this.

But she wouldn't bring it up; maybe if it persisted, but for now maybe the kid was just nervous about stepping outside her former social circle..? Or maybe, she thought, glancing to her son, my own well-meaning kid was too emphatic about the whole 'treat grandma with respect' thing, she thought, with amusement.

Dark eyes turned to Damask.

"I've rat back at the den, if you're hungry. Or we can share the bird," she added, not mentioning her distaste at the idea of eating it. "I'd be glad to teach you what I know--and that's not just specific ways to use magic, but about concentration, where it comes from. You'll have to tell me what you've already been taught so I don't go over stuff twice," she added, managing to swap "crap" for "stuff" just in time (had to be polite in front of the kid, after all). "I am a Seer. I look into the future--through the bones, through fungus, through magic itself. But your grandfather--Aza'zel, I mean, not Cancer--his magic was like that. Wind, sound. He knew how to break my ears, and I used to break his in return! Hahaha," she added, a hearty cackle tacked on to a warm memory.

Dark eyes briefly, warmly, searched out Aure, sharing with him the moment.

She wasn't aware that he'd hidden Damask's parentage from her--or, at least, withheld it. And if she'd known Aure meant to have it a secret, she'd have berated him twofold--first, for hiding it from the child, and second, for not thinking to warn Giggle first.

A family meeting, without discussing family?! Not this Grandma. Anyway-

"What's this about blood, then? What do you mean, you work with blood?" She rocked back to scratch idly behind one big, round ear with a hind paw, her gaze back on Damask now. Her tone was curious, almost professional--one magic-user asking questions of another. She'd never heard of anyone using blood, before.

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@Damask

@Auré !

and auré was silent. absolutely no sound, no words, no audible hint that he'd even moved. frustration simmered bitterly in her stomach. if only she could see him, his reaction, whether there was guilt or protest or anything at all to confirm or deny — but keep it together, kid! it didn't matter. not right now. more important business (more than your own parentage?) (yes) to attend to. no room for sloppy sentiment here. damask steeled herself, training her eyes and ears on giggle as the hyena spoke.

a twofold choice: eat or don't, rat or bird. food was the very last thing on her mind, and the thought of choking down rodent for the first time in weeks prompted a further swell of nausea — which was exactly why she resolved to do it. with a decisive nod, she pushed her kill to the side with a foot. not like it impressed anyone.

here, giggle returned to the topic of magic, and this afforded the young accipiter a genuine diversion. she'd yearned to learn more from the day she was hatched, and now a venerated adept stood before her. who better a teacher than her grandmother? "you'll have to tell me what you've already been taught," giggle said, and damask nodded once again: of course. the hyena's penchant for prophecy fascinated her — scared her, a little, in the power it bespoke. at the mention of her grandfathers, she started slightly, the motives disparate but the effects the same. more surprising yet was the fondness with which giggle recollected aza'zel. outside of her ... her vision, the fledgling knew him only as the pinnacle of her lineage, spoken of in a rare and reverent hush. to hear of him as mortal was unprecedented; refreshing, even. she cocked her head. maybe she would ask about him later. assuming the subject wasn't too sore, of course — for either of them.

then, a question: "what do you mean, you work with blood?" damask backpedaled at once. "ah, maybe bodies is a better word. life? vi-vitality?" she cringed at the mistake, but quickly recovered. "i used it to see you, make sure you'd be here. your heart, all the vessels ... beautiful, really," she breathed. wait. that was weird. tucking her face into a wing, she coughed away the gravel gathering in her throat. "... but i'm better with wind." her eyes dropped to her feet as the breeze whisked at the floor below, spinning loose pebbles and dirt into restless circles. it made her self-conscious, being asked to speak about herself like this, to speak so much. auré had praised her skill, encouraged her to have a little more confidence. but for all she knew, he'd lied about that too.

and he was still here. he didn't have to be, not anymore. she needed him gone.

she wrestled her emotions into submission, pinned them down, held them still until they relented; then turned her head, slowly, the movement uncharacteristically smooth, to face him. her silver gaze leveled his way, not so much a glare as a gun. we're finished here, she wanted to snarl, get out, but her expression was blank — beaten down to absolute zero.

her magic rallied, veered from its course, swept the discarded bird to auré's feet; and with that, damask blinked and snapped her sights back to giggle. her features had already defaulted to studious composure. "what you said, about teaching me — i'd like that."

On Giggle spoke, of sharing rats (should I warn her or - Damask that she doesn't have to eat... no, no...) and giving his (not-so-little) darling more general, practical lessons in magic and focusing it. Conflicted as he was internally, he was yet present enough to give a soft laugh and smile in regards to a more pleasant vignette of Aza'zel's life. Those were rarely seen through his bones, though maybe he was searching too closely in the hairline fractures marring them nowadays.

Damask pushed the bird to one side her decision made with that smooth, predestined motion. A smooth curve of action accentuated later by a stirring wind pushing her kill directly to his own feet. Shining prussian blue knocked against his claws, the measly stain of blood down its nape all but a sign of life. Bright eyes fixed on quicksilver ones for that silent exchange, staying glued for only a moment before the sheer cold snapped his gaze away and back down to the bird. His ears pricked back slightly, mind reeling while his darling moved to business as usual.

It was a caroller. She always hunted them - preferred them vastly over rats, found them easier to stomach. She'd put it at his feet and pointed a loaded barrel at his heart. She'd nearly pulled the trigger, or had he? Unconditional love and admiration suddenly seemed to be just a wistful flight of fancy. The certainty of her awareness was... in a sense, breaking Aure a little. He'd not meant ill intent by it, but the lack of knowing had lead to deception, hurt.

It'd stung with Giggle, and it burned with Damask.

Given the brief period of silence - "Ah, I'll leave you two to it," he chirped with not too much quickness, scooped up the bird ("and take this,") and puttered off like there was a thousand pounds' weight on his wings.

exit aure, unless stopped
@Giggle

...Well, okay, there was something going on there. Giggle peered as the bird was blown away, to Aure, without a word. It was a strange gesture--something unspoken in it, something she wasn't party to. And the fact that the Bone King simply accepted it as a dismissal, and slunk off without a word, struck her.

The hyena looked back and forth, for a moment, a double-take twice, between Damask and Aure's retreating form. She didn't say anything, for now, making a habit of that--instead she turned, pacing off toward her den, leading the way toward food. She knew nothing of any strangeness of Damask in regard to eating. She also hadn't noticed, really, the description of blood vessels as beautiful, at least not in a weird way; Giggle was a creature, after all, who found comfort in bones and the rot of fungus. Blood was, if anything, perhaps more kin to the living and the warm--or at least, a sister to her own magic in terms of grim life-and-death imagery.

"Life, hmm... I wonder. When I met Cancer, the first time, my magic had gone out of control. He used that to hold my body down, from a distance, until it passed, while reassuring me that it wasn't an attack. I wonder if it's in the same--the same vein, ha!" she laughed, realizing she was making an inadvertant pun.

Padding paws took her down closer toward the little den, a warm glance back ensuring that Damask was following--or not. The place was a hollow, racks of fungus on natural rocky shelves along one wall, planted in substrates of dirt, or rotten wood, and so forth, as they each preferred. The water pools were stagnant, but relatively clean, and the foliage that grew around here was more prolific than in some other parts of the room of bones.

She padded to where she'd laid a fat gray rat, a gnawed-on thing a couple feet long and with gnarled teeth. There was no visible gemstone on it, and she turned to Damask as she spoke. "They don't turn to black sh-... stuff, if they haven't got gems; but it's not always obvious which ones do. You have to just hope you didn't miss one," she added, with wry amusement. She nudged the thing Damask's way; it was cold, wounds open to the air, partially-consumed. A brief look over the child and she concentrated, for a moment, magicka curling a fat, sweet-smelling banana into existence beside the rat. "Or if you want that instead. Or after," she added; "They're sweet." What was a visit to Grandma's house without cookies, after all-? The hyena herself then went to the water's edge, lapping at it, briefly.

She turned and sat to face her grandchild. "So how old are you, then? I'm sorry I haven't been here to meet you sooner. The Bonebound's... all close-knit. I've always known my family as soon as they were hatched; it feels strange not to." Her tone was easygoing, calm, and she went on: "Has anyone actually worked with you, with magic, yet?"

She had no idea what Aure had been doing or, given the brief, tense and strange interaction she'd seen, what their power dynamic was. She didn't know how much Eythan was involved, and her natural suspicion there lingered, though she tried to push it down.

She'd just have to wait and see.

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@Damask

@Giggle !

auré took the hint. damask's nose twitched up in a split-second wrinkle. that's right. get gone. only a flutter of one tufted ear acknowledged his departure, and her magic dissolved, its purpose fulfilled. her grandmother's eyes flicked back and forth, a sort of bemusement in the dual double-take. she'd noticed. the fledgling breathed in, prepared to deliver a tactful explanation — but to her relief, the question never came. not yet, at least.

farewells unspoken, giggle turned and padded away. damask followed as another anecdote unfurled in her ears. cancer again. she flinched just slightly and regretted it at once, out of sight or not. you should be curious about him. not avoidant, not afraid. leave it alone. but the spell in question certainly sounded like something adjacent to hers. she considered it, envisioned its hold over the hyena's heft and will. that kind of power ... it didn't surprise her — this blood magic was as potent as it was primal — and yet it did prompt a pang of discomfort she couldn't pin down, instead shoving it away. this was valuable information. it ended with a witticism, and she huffed out a tiny chuckle: clever. giggle wasn't at all what she'd expected. when the seer looked back, gentle warmth glowed in the gesture, to which damask responded with a slow blink. for all the differences that were already so apparent, she hoped they could form a sort of rapport. not exactly your strong suit.

they were drawing into a small hollow. damask gravitated a few steps towards the shelves of cultured fungus, ears perked with scientific intrigue ... only to deflate on spotting the rat. the thing was mangled practically into carrion. trying her best to hide her apprehension, she approached it and hovered a little ways apart as giggle remarked on lesser decay. "good to know," damask said, not without sincerity — but it was the carcass in front of her that held her attention. slowly she lowered her muzzle to its haunch, almost recoiling from the stench. oh, come on. don't be a child. against all instinct, she bit off a mouthful of cold, stringy meat and, as if swallowing bitter medicine, downed it with a pitch of her head. the sour taste of vomit rose in her throat. awful. absolutely awful. that was the worst thing i've ever — but she smiled tightly through her own revulsion, nodding thanks to giggle.

her grandmother had conjured up something else, though: a curious yellow crescent. she took it in her claws and turned it back and forth. the exterior felt tough, rubbery. a sort of skin, maybe? tentatively she pulled away the peel with her teeth, then nipped at the flesh inside. the texture was foreign; the taste, wholly and mysteriously absent. eating it felt faintly wrong, but its neutrality won out over the abject atrocity of the rat, and she continued to nibble as giggle spoke. when expectant silence rested between them, damask swallowed and set down the culinary oddity.

"two cycles, six days ago. it's all right; i haven't met many of the others either." damask seated herself opposite her grandmother, wrapping her tail in a neat circle around her. with the motion came a glint in her lower periphery, and she glanced down to investigate as she continued. "about your other question —"

she froze. wait. accipitrine eyes widened by degrees, stuttering to her chest, undercarriage, trousers: every feather twinkling and shimmering in the half-light of the den. i'm glowing. blood flushed slowly from her face. why am i glowing. she zeroed in on the half-eaten offering, slack-jawed with dismay. suddenly the nausea was back in full force. the fledgling shifted back and forth, squirming in her skin, acutely aware of the sudden sequins in her tuxedo, horrified, mortified — but downplayed it, gathered herself, sharply but levelly inhaling through her nose. no i'm sorry about that, no please put me back. better to play it cool than make it a problem.

it (looking great, kid!) was (like a real shining, sparkly star!) fine.

"about your other question," she repeated with measure, "well ... no. nobody. just me." a trace of worry edged into her voice. "do most learners my age have teachers? did you?"

Giggle wondered--worriedly--why Damask hadn't yet met the others. But it was sort of a thing, wasn't it--for Gembound to wander off, rest, vanish for awhile. Maybe they were just... hibernating.

She wasn't sure; she really should be paying more attention.

She resolved to do so. As for Damask's question--the hyena let out a short, brash laugh, lowering herself from sitting to sprawled out on her chest.

"Teachers-... I guess I forget you're hatching into a world with... more structure." Giggle paused, eyeing Damask thoughtfully, but it seemed almost half-absent, for a beat, as if her mind were elsewhere--perhaps in memory. "Two cycles," she murmured, and it seemed sad, somehow; she was thinking about the time she'd missed out on. But she shook her head, after a moment, and went on. "When I hatched out... oh, fifty cycles ago, maybe seventy, give or take--somewhere in there--the caves were empty. Dark, off and on. There wasn't anyone to teach us anything." It wasn't harshly said, but there was certainly a solemnity to it, a seriousness that spoke of foreboding and of frightening potential. "We've had to learn on our own, carve our own way, test and experiment and learn. We're passing what we know to each other-... What I'm saying is, we're still students, ourselves. This world is... It was asleep, for a very long time, and I'm not sure what came before us was all that pleasant. The Lorekeeper knows more," Giggle added.

"But no, there's no... stucture to any of it. We're all winging it. Taking it as it comes, trying not to die," she added, with a snort. "That--if he hasn't told you; if I haven't told him--is why family's so important. Why the Bonebound are so important. Not everyone in these caves helps each other. Some hurt each other. Some attack, kill, without reason. But we're a family; and we'll always look out for one another." Giggle lapsed into abrupt solemnity, her dark gaze more stern. "If there is anything you ever need, you can come to me--no matter what it is, all right?"

She hadn't seemed to notice the flushes, the picky eating, the uncertainty; that, or she still wasn't commenting on any of it. Instead she nodded to the fungus. "That's my own experiments. That's years of me learning the fungus of the caves--what they grow on, what the do. What I can teach you is how to focus, while you learn. How to take some kinds of precautions. It'll backfire, sometimes; you'll get headaches, or worse, but stick with it and you'll master it, in time. I can help you get there, if you want to, but we all have to do most of the work ourselves."

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

@Damask

@Giggle !

giggle sunk to her stomach and barked out a laugh. shifting her feathers — uneasy at both the sound's volume and its roughness — damask gathered that she'd misspoken. already she'd worried that she had done some sort of wrong, as though she was supposed to have a mentor and had failed by not seeking one; now she sounded foolish, naïve. but giggle's laughter wasn't of mockery so much as marveling melancholy.

"teachers — ... i guess i forget you're hatching into a world with ... more structure."

sensing a sort of monologue coming on, the young bird of prey strained her ears forward, eyes roundly unblinking. "two cycles," the hyena said, almost mournfully, and damask cocked her head back and forth as she listened, puzzled. you didn't miss much; i wouldn't have been very good company, she might've said, had she the space and the vocal wherewithal — but somehow she suspected it wouldn't have helped. then came something startling. fifty or seventy cycles? that kind of time was just ... unimaginable. far too much for her to conceptualize — as was the revelation that the caves had once been empty, black. as giggle went on, the fledgling (that's all you are, you know) began to feel — terribly small, terribly young, terribly ignorant, exactly as she had when she'd first seen the world beyond aza'zel's cairn. it reassured her to hear that so many others, the very oldest and wisest among them, were self-taught as well; but at the same time, it wasn't, for it had taken them years to gain that experience. she had a mountain to climb, and even if she crested the summit, she'd be far from the first. "the lorekeeper knows more," the seer remarked as an aside, and damask made a note of this (lorekeeper, lore-kee-per, don't forget that) but for all her hunger to learn, she was somewhere between swimming and drowning.

"that ... is why family's so important. why the bonebound are so important." damask's eyes reflected the gravity of giggle's. she ... hadn't thought about this part. no one had ever been anything but kind to her. she knew it was idealistic to think that all the caves' souls were benevolent, but the darker side of greater nature had never sunk in the way it did now. she was slight, fragile, entirely unskilled in the art of combat. even so, she would rather lose her battles than let others win them for her — which was why, when her grandmother urged her to confide in her, damask resisted inside. she nodded obediently, ears flapping up and down with intensity: i will. but she wouldn't.

the hyena finished with a cautionary choice, and a long, long silence ensued. headaches, she'd said. damask had to suppress a huff of irony. if only. if only. but her presence had sharpened as she hung to words of mastery, fierce ambition creeping into her features. she would do the work, she did have what it took, and she could get there — knife or not.

at last: "i have a great deal to learn." she spoke quietly, eyes averted downward, tailfeathers thumping a slow rhythm against her legs. damask was visibly shaken — not lost or upset, but profoundly overwhelmed. just two caves. just two tunnels. that was all she'd ever known. "you're very wise, grandmother. i'd be honored to accept your offer." another pause. she bit at her lip and looked off to the right as she thought. a moment's time, and then she refocused on giggle. "i've been working on some new spells. would you like to see?"

Giggle lay quietly as the child seemed to... think.

When at last Damask spoke, her words were still cold, simple, almost as if she feared to speak further. Or... perhaps she was hiding what she thought. 'You're very wise, grandmother.' Was that genuine, or did Damask find her to be the insane old ragged beast that so many had seen her as, for so long? Brief insecurity struck her, paranoia, even--a relic of older times; what if none of them trusted her? What if Aure'd avoided her deliberately; what if 'crazy Grandma' had been deliberately avoided, and what if Damask had been warned about her-? What if that's why she was so wary and standoffish?

Were these quiet, polite, generic responses just meant as... meant to humor her?

The hyena closed her eyes for a moment, trying to center herself, to stop the spiral of fluttering darkness in her mind, the flash of silver eyes in her memory, the roaring doubts that threatened to consume her thoughts.

Get ahold of yourself, Giggs, she told herself quietly; the kid's just being polite. Look at her; she wants to learn. Eyelids again parted, and Giggle pushed up to a sitting position, and sat there for a moment.

"I'd love to see your spells. Show me what you've got, Damask," she offered, putting as much warmth and humor into it as she could.

Her doubts lingered, threatening her, gnawing at her, but she told them to shut up and to get in their box, for now; this was her grandkid, and she wasn't about to mess this up.

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

@Damask

@Giggle !

the hyena's eyes closed, and for a long moment — too long — they stayed that way. this wasn't the reaction she'd expected. not a comment, not a joking remark or a rambling tangent, and most concerning of all, not a word or so much as a nod in the affirmative. nothing but silence and stillness. was giggle still ruminating on the past, reconsidering the offer, maybe only pausing to rest? no. none of that makes sense, but you know what does? this: you said the wrong thing again. frustration prickled at her skin, threatening to raise the feathers she'd worked so hard to preen. should've said more. you were too quick to switch over; made it all about you. all those priceless stories and lessons, and you didn't even thank her. show some respect.

she restrained a shift of her wings and a drumming of talons, maintaining composure as her grandmother seemed to wake back up — eyes open, forelegs straightened to prop her upright.

"i'd love to see your spells. show me what you've got, damask."

tangled air caught in the fledgling's throat. "right." she rose slowly to her feet and worked her jaw, thinking. giggle had spoken of danger, survival, those who would seek to harm (and don't leave this out: kill) her. nothing in her repertoire so far would allow her to retaliate. however, she had been studying something that might help in ... those sorts of situations. block an aggressor, distort their vision, give her the time and space she'd need to get out. not exactly the context she'd envisioned when she started practicing it, which'd been just a few days earlier, and its newness would make it a challenge, but — she'd promised something novel, and the other option within that criterion was far, far riskier.

okay, relax. you've got this. take it slow. focus, like she told you.

she backed away and breathed in deep. now hold it. willpower caged the draught of oxygen in her lungs. please, please, please — i've got to impress her — no, wait, don't think about that, just — just make it happen. a second's delay, another, another ... and then her stone thrummed in response. a high gasp fled free of her mouth as her eyes flew open, fixed on the wind gathering before her.

the screen of pressure shimmered like a mirage, giggle faintly blurred behind it. it was on the weaker side — damask could do better than this — but she was able to maintain it, even as she cleared her throat to elaborate. "this is a sort of barrier. difficult to cross. it might be useful for staving off an attack." (also for enforcing distance, not being touched, and ... hiding my face.) "it can move, too, if i concentrate." she held her breath, narrowed her gaze, and sidestepped in an arc to the left, right, and back. the windshield followed, always a pace directly in front of her. with practice, she might be able to cast it further or closer, adjacent to or even behind her — but she wasn't quite there yet. she had another idea in mind, one that brought a flutter of trepidation to her heart and her features.

"i was thinking i'd ask you to try and break it."

Giggle eyed the barrier, and pushed up, curious.

She stepped forward, and lifted one paw to press it to it--then her nose, ears swept forward with deep interest.

"It's protection-!" she crowed, at once fascinated. "That seems useful, very useful," Giggle went on, and then--in a musing tone--"I wonder if you could teach me. Ha! I've never had much luck outside my own magic. Mind-magic, mushroom-magic. I don't have much to try and break it, nothing that wouldn't be-" ...terrible, really, mind-hallucinations and fungus eating at the body so let's not do that, Giggs-- "...too serious for sparring. My magic... Most of it was developed after I was attacked, really attacked." A fleeting memory of the stag-bird creature raking claws over her eyes--the scars of that attack still lingered, and explained well why defensive clusters of fungi were scattered all over Giggle's living- and 'work'-areas.

"I can try to physically break it, though," she added, thoughtfully. For a moment her jaw opened, seemingly too wide, an impossible angle; thick teeth pressed at the barrier. Finding it strong enough to withstand gentle gnawing, the hyena backed up. "Brace! Focus," she added, eyes bright, and then leapt for it.

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

@Damask