@Giggle !

damask's face brightened by degrees as her grandmother inspected her handiwork. a broad paw rose to test the barrier, and it swirled around the contact, pushing back in equal measure. the fledgling couldn't say exactly how much pressure her shield could withstand. she'd only been able to test it herself, and, well. clearly she wasn't capable of applying much force. here, though, here was the perfect opportunity to see how far she could go. "it's protection — ! that seems useful, very useful." damask nodded rapidly, a tentative half-smile tugging at her lips. oh, wow, i actually ... did something right, for once. so much so that the hyena pondered the idea of damask teaching it to her — as if she, giggle, redoubted seer and matriarch, had anything to gain from her kid granddaughter. is she serious? she can't be serious. damask quirked her head to the right, left eye screwed in a conservative maybe.

but she sobered when giggle went on: "my magic ... most of it was developed after i was attacked, really attacked." something dark loomed below the surface of that sea; damask's eyes flicked furtively over the scars on the hyena's snout. and "mind-magic," "too serious for sparring," that was — ... she wasn't sure she liked that. be careful, kid. nothing to worry about, though, right? giggle was on her side, after all, and —

oh, those are some very big teeth.

damask stared as they worried at the windshield. massive jaws resounded with power, armed with daggers and stretched altogether too wide. she'd never seen a mouth like that, hadn't even known they came in that shape, and the barrier wavered slightly in daunted distraction — hyenid canines rippling in points. her spell held fast, but only just. the young accipiter found herself tensing: head low, leaning forward, one fleet foot poised behind the other. giggle drew back, ready to lunge. silver eyes widened around contracting pupils.

"brace! focus," and those teeth were headed her way.

okay, okay! evasive maneuvers! thinking a mile a minute, damask spun the wheel hard. the barrier vanished seconds before impact, gone up in smoke; she'd steered her magic elsewhere. in its place, a strong burst of wind came to life at her heels, and she darted away on the diagonal, speed doubled by the spell. thin air whisked in her wake with a clatter of pebbles and earth — the assault averted long before its arrival.

she pivoted to face giggle from behind, breathing heavy: not from exertion, as it appeared, but rather a vestigial pulse of panic. "sorry," damask panted, and again, "i'm sorry." you should be. you spooked. how are you supposed to train with her if you're just going to break? "it wouldn't have stopped that charge. i can do better. a moment, please, i — i'll try again." she clamped her jaws shut and swallowed, fighting to steady herself. her heartbeat trembled aloud in her ears.

She stumbled--a grunt, an "oof," a widening of eyes as the child slipped away. But Damask's strangely nervous, stammering mannerisms after gave her pause.

"That'd be great in a real fight, Damask: a trick to remember, eh?" she laughed, good-naturely. "But you don't need to apologize to me." Or to be scared of me, she wanted to say, but something about the visible shame and rapid breathing made her hesitate.

Had someone hurt her..? She couldn't see Aure being abusive. But Eythan? Giggle eyed the child, for a moment. She could think of a dozen reasons a child might be nervous about meeting her (and here the 'like if they told her you were crazy, dangerous' thoughts reared their ugly heads), but outright afraid-? Damask seemed more than just nervous, now. She almost seemed terrified, and Giggle couldn't think of any reason a kid raised by the warm family of the Bonebound should be this way.

So she turned, then, and looked Damask in the wide silver eyes, and asked the hard questions.

"Nobody's hurt you, have they, Damask? Or told you that I would?" It was asked both unflinchingly and calmly, firm but gentle, as Giggle, as a mother, had learned to be.


@Damask

@Giggle !

damask gathered herself, a final sigh huffing out through her nose; the rest were inaudible and nigh invisible, nothing more than soft, shallow breathing and the in-and-out of her nostrils. the praise helped. that was kind of a smart move, wasn't it? she hadn't lied: her cast had been too weak for the strength of giggle's onslaught, and in a real fight, she would've taken serious damage if she hadn't stepped aside. she'd thought fast, made the right choice, executed it cleanly. but the dodge wasn't the issue. her panic was.

you shouldn't have apologized, shouldn't have stuttered, shouldn't have belittled yourself — should have taken a minute to pull yourself together and talked only then — and most of all, you shouldn't have needed to. giggle had nothing but good intentions; she was only trying to help her learn. so why had damask overreacted?

there was no point in hoping her grandmother hadn't seen it. she'd overlooked every tell so far, but here damask's luck had run out. that much was clear when the hyena turned and looked at her, grave intensity in her voice, her expression.

"nobody's hurt you, have they, damask? or told you that i would?"

giggle had missed the mark, but she'd caught onto a problem nonetheless. uncertainty flitted briefly over the fledgling as she raced to conjure up the best response she could. what she wanted most was a drop of the subject or a shortly said no, but those wouldn't fly. explain it to her, then? to explain it to herself almost made her cringe. here it was, the real reason why: damask had seen a skull in those exposed teeth. aza'zel's bones staring back at her. death itself coming for hers. and ... there was this thing lurking inside of her, intangible, almighty. she couldn't say what it was or where it came from, nor did she want to. even to think of it was a risk she couldn't take. that was the honest truth. telling it was not an option.

she arranged her features into cool composure, meeting the seer's dark gaze: the binary answer evident in the calm of her face, the slow-burn sear in her eyes. her voice came quickly, evenly, and levelly, as if a teacher had asked her to justify a math equation she knew by rote. "this is the closest i've ever come to combat. i'm up for it; my nerves are still getting there."

she concentrated on her stone as she finished, knitting her brow, leaving no space for reply. back to business; they'd leave it at that. the windshield took shape once more, stronger now, its fortitude bolstered with resolve. giggle's face swam back and forth behind it, and damask let hers harden, its subtleties safely hidden. "i have it under control," she said — both of her magic and her panic. "again."

Giggle eyed the little hybrid, and as much as she tried to keep a straight face, herself--and as good as she normally was at it--she couldn't hide the fleeting worry, the furrowing of her brow, that passed through her expression.

She'd been ignoring the little telltale twitches, or taking them personally--but the kid's explanation made sense, and it was fair to be nervous if nobody had trained her before. Still-... Being the meddling bitch that she was, she extended her mind out, looking to eavesdrop quietly on Damask's thoughts. She knew it backfired, sometimes, so she was careful to keep her own in check.

And holy hell were those thoughts intense. Doubts, careful misdirection, fears to the point that Giggle found herself, for a moment, shocked into silence. Still waters run deep, and all that, and the calm face the child presented--so cold--was a mirror lying atop white-water rapids. The poor kid's mind, she found, was running in eight different directions at once. Death, fear, self-doubt, insecurity greater than she'd ever known.

Giggle slowly sat down, tilting her head as if thinking, struggling to make sense of this.

After a very long moment, she spoke again--the careful, kind words of a grandma trying not to say too much, while at the same time, hitting to the core (so she hoped) of whatever troubled her granddaughter. Time for an encouraging speech, and Giggle tried to sound confident, though honestly, she was anything but. She had her own rampant insecurities but... she did her best. "Control of yourself, your magic and your mind, is always good," the hyena began, her tone one of agreement, and approval--but what came next was carefully-phrased, and pointed, her expression a knowing and intent one. "Just remember--if you'll accept a little unasked-for advice from someone with experience--we can't control the world around us. There'll always be times shit--sorry, stuff--gets out of control. What matters is how we handle it. And how we recover after." Bones, didn't she know it. "Experience comes with mistakes. We learn what's right by messing up. Nobody's perfect, and nobody ever will be."

"As for your magic, you don't have to improve for anyone but yourself. Don't ever push yourself that hard; we'll love you no matter how you do--and that's not saying you're bad, you're not! You're good at it," she assured, warmly. And then, a touch of blatant hypocrisy, though she hoped Damask would never know: "Just remember, always be honest with family. We can't help one another unless we know what's wrong, right?" she encouraged. "If there's ever anything else going on, you can talk to me about it. I'll never judge you."

Manipulative, sure... but her heart was in the right place. She gave Damask a warm expression, and paused; the magic had faded, so she couldn't tell what the kid's reaction might be, but she hoped she'd hit the right notes.

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@Damask

@Giggle !

damask had hoped for giggle to buy her excuse and move on; she'd expected her to briefly press the issue, then resume training. what she had not accounted for was ... total silence. minutes of it. this was more than a thoughtful pause or even the protracted delay that had worried her earlier: it was a lapse of real tension, as though muted and frozen in the midst of the action. she was far from uncomfortable with quietude — if anything, she preferred it — but coming from her long-winded grandmother, this was outright unnatural. desperation danced around her as she searched for a clue, but the barrier worked both ways; she couldn't discern any change at all until the hyena sat down. whatever was coming, it wasn't the test damask had requested. yet again, she had slipped up. was the mistake that bad, or did i switch subjects too fast, or what? come on, what did i do?

then, the seer spoke, and somehow, she hit the bullseye.

how is she — ? damask's eyes widened slowly in dismay. with every sentence, her mouth, wings, and shoulders fell just slightly slacker. the windshield hid it, for a moment, but giggle was killing her focus. as the spell rippled gradually away, damask straightened up and picked her jaw off the floor — with effort. "control," her grandmother said in a preface that sounded very like a warning. that's it. that word. that's where you blew it. "there'll always be times shit — sorry, stuff — gets out of control." tufted ears flicked at the unfamiliar expletive, surmising its strength; but it was giggle's worldview that stuck. damask followed her up to a point. certain forces (most) lay outside her sphere of influence, and there her role was limited to rolling with the punches that came her way. of course she couldn't orchestrate everything. she'd never presume to think otherwise. but here, giggle lost her: "experience comes with mistakes. we learn what's right by messing up. nobody's perfect, and nobody ever will be."

it only got worse from there. the encouragement, the excessive praise, that emphasis on honesty again ... it was too on the nose. something about it struck her as terribly uncanny, itself insincere, despite the warmth ever-lingering in her grandmother's face. suspicion narrowed her eyes to a slight, marginal squint. in smaller, subtler doses, damask might've accepted that sweet-tasting medicine, but a spoonful this size offered all at once? she didn't trust it. this isn't right. what does she want from me? her instincts urged her to take a step back, coil up like a snake. it was all she could do to dismiss them, along with the misgivings her features suggested.

"we can't help one another if we don't know what's wrong, right?"

she's telling the truth, you know. but will you ask for help — charity — or can you make it on your own?

damask aimed a nod at the floor. it took a beat to compose a response, but the pause was a reasonable one, albeit very loaded. "nobody's perfect," the fledgling repeated, and dragged in a deep breath. a strain of hoarseness sidled its way into her voice, a break here, a crackle there. she hoped against hope it was from overuse and nothing else — or at least sounded that way. "that's a wall too great to summit; i'm aware. but i'd like to climb as high as i can. control is how i get there. self-control." she raised her eyes to the hyena's. this was the hardest part to sell, and she sold hard, head low and brows lifted to affix an imploring look. "i know i can trust you — for help, advice, release. if i need you, i'll find you." you're lying through your teeth, a part of her said, but the other was louder: please please please, giggle, just let up and get off my back. "promise."

She didn't press into the kid's mind further, not now at least. She wasn't here to control her. But she didn't like family being so troubled. She still wasn't sure how she'd got this way; Aure was hardly a high-pressure parent-but maybe that's the problem-? she realized, abruptly. Aure was good--a good king, and a good son--but he was tentative, soft, until he had to be hard and decisive. Maybe he hadn't shown Damask enough structure; maybe her granddaughter felt to be in a fluid, unstructured world without rules or real security.

Hm. She'd test that, in a moment; she wanted to help the kid. That's what she was here for, Giggle: the seer, yes, but the one the Bonebound were meant to come and talk to with their problems, to get advice. An advisor. They didn't come so often, these days, but whether that was due to her failings or her success she couldn't say.

"Being the best you can be isn't a bad goal, not at all," she agreed, with a nod, aloud. "Just be sure you're doing it for yourself. That the actions you'd take would be the same if no one were around you." It was gently, but pointedly, said, and Giggle let that thought rest only a moment before moving on. Her magicka flickered up as she cast her senses out, through the myriad fungus in the cave, feeling the local population of rats and mice and moths where they scurried and rested.

"Now!" she barked, abruptly, in a cheerful but firm tone of her own. "Show me your blood magic! You said you can see others' blood, their veins? Give me a count! I'll look around myself, with my own magic." This was not delivered in the bark of a drill sergeant, but it was loud, brash and enthusiastic. A game, perhaps, but it broached little argument.

Giggle was testing the waters, really. One paw, first, dipped in, to see if the child responded well to firm but encouraging direction better than the softer methods the Bonebound usually employed. Maybe she could offer Aure a little advice on that front, if it worked.

Or if it backfired.

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@Damask

@Giggle !

"being the best you can be isn't a bad goal, not at all." sale closed. damask exhaled a lungful of air taken and held, breathing it out through her nose in a silent heave of relief. now keep it, giggle. no buts, no caveats, no disclaimers — "just be sure you're doing it for yourself."

that made her think. she bit her lip and broke eye contact once again, brow furrowed. am i? more than anything, she wanted to prove herself, but that was for herself — right? not anyone else? somehow they felt so tangled together. others' approval told her she'd gotten it right, and their ... everything else told her she'd gotten it wrong. wait, no, not told, implied. just a means of checking the temperature in ascertaining the weather at large. she'd admit to this, though: giggle was right about the other thing. she wasn't quite the same alone — a little looser, a little less careful, not so motivated to keep it together. work on that. bring those dimensions into alignment, and you'll be more in control when it counts. her eyes cleared and drew back to her grandmother's. "noted."

then: "now!" immediately the fledgling stood at attention, bolt upright, focused intensity written all over her. giggle's instructions were brusque and energetic, but far from severe; a commanding note of encouragement hung behind them. she's trying something different, damask realized, and already she was stepping eagerly into its thrall. anything but unasked advice and uncomfortable inquiries, all the roads to which they led, this thorny horrible thicket that was her head. this beat that by a mile. exactly what she needed: to quit thinking in circles, pull herself out of that hole, and throw herself into something worthwhile. and she wanted to be pushed, to be taken seriously and not handled with care, to be schooled as something more than a child. damask was game.

crisply, almost a salute: "on it!" she spun southeast, puffing her chest to rally the jasper inside, already casting her radar throughout the cave — only to stagger back with a hissing gasp of pain. every pulse within the room's walls throbbed in sanguine red before her — discordant drumbeats like heavy metal in her ears — and she whipped her head away with squinting, watering eyes, ears pinned trembling against her nape. oh, and here's the pièce de résistance! — her stone was beginning to nip with overuse. the ensuing edges on her lungs came out in shallow stopping-starting breaths.

oh nonono this is bad this is very very bad get it together kid GET IT TOGETHER —

fighting with all she had to speak without stuttering — "too ambitious." she returned to giggle, burning with mortification as she struggled to go on. her own speech was hard to hear over the barely-ebbing pump of myriad hearts in her head. "only approximating, but —" oh, that croak is definitely not just from talking too much. you gonna cry? "i estimate twenty to thirty rats, about fifty mice, two bat colonies, ah — small flock of carollers ... yes." do not apologize. do not. "hang on for me, please? i just need to reach more slowly, i'll have the numbers exactly in —"

her voice burst apart in a barking cough. at that, the pain lessened.

"... a second," damask finished, clearing her throat.

Well-...

At first, her test seemed to have been going well. A bright response, a change in attitude from subdued to downright chipper. And then suddenly the kid was shaking, gasping, wet-eyed, ears flattened back behind her skull.

Giggle peered, quizzically, and waited.

"Ambitious?" she asked, a little blankly, so that a listener might even be forgiven for thinking she was asking the meaning of the word. But she didn't understand how it could apply. Had Damask just... cast--too hard? Too fast? How did that... how would that work?

Giggle didn't bother to cast out her own magic, yet, instead plopping onto her haunches idly. "Take your time." She didn't press to ask what happened, and she had to fight, for a beat, not to fall back into the 'concerned grandma' warmth. Damask seemed to be responding well to 'businesslike,' and she didn't want to punish a failure by taking that from her, yet.

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@Damask

@Giggle
please let me know if i got any of the lessers wrong and i will correct!

the aftershocks subsided in waves, each slightly weaker than the last. still, pressure lingered in damask's chest; tinnitus, her ears. the film in her eyes passed, but phosphenes blotched over in stars and patterns the color of bruises. she winced slightly as they haloed her grandmother's bewilderment. not the worst reaction she could've had, she conceded, but ... not great. she knows you screwed it up. who wouldn't?

giggle repeated a single word by way of inquiry. "ambitious?" yes, here a very tactful synonym for: careless, arrogant, and overeager. "i tried to take the whole room at once. triggered an overload," damask explained, a hush of weary embarrassment in her voice. the task she'd been given was more than doable, so long as she worked her way up to it. it was a simple spell, and she'd practiced it more times than she could count — excellent for such various purposes as finding prey, avoiding dubious company, locating loved ones ... and simply gaining knowledge. studying local species and their populations, for instance. quietly she confessed, "the guesses were from memory."

okay, let's get down to business. and this time, do it right.

she closed her eyes. another mustering breath, stirring gently at the core of jasper in her ribs, heart of her own fluttering against it in trepidation ... and — there it was: the thump-thump-thump of life. "got it," damask murmured, deep in sensory concentration. good. now, you know what to do. first, separate. silver eyes snapped open, shooting back and forth as tufted ears swiveled in synchrony. a tiny quiver here; a louder, steadier pulse and a strong arterial articulation there. she began to count in minute lip-shapes, rapidly and almost soundlessly, her arithmetic nigh-impossibly fast. next, go farther. her magic inched towards the bounds of canis — (keep going, keep going) — and her mouth continued to move, never missing a beat — until arriving at an abrupt stop, frozen in place. tunnel k. that's the last of them. report.

only a minute or two had passed. she blinked and turned back to the hyena. "all right. greaters: eythan is sleeping near a pool by the north wall. auré —" (auré.) "— has gone to his nest in the chambers. those are the only ones i recognize." her words came carefully and relatively slowly as she concealed the emotion around that second name, the simmer of anger it provoked. here, damask gathered speed, rattling off the numbers with computational efficiency. "four rat packs, sixteen individuals in total; fifty mice even; thirteen bats, just one colony, actually, roosting on stalactites; six carollers at the grove; ah!, and four tunnel runners have strayed inside for a fresh carcass, but they'll be leaving soon. plus bone moths, of course, but their blood is different — difficult to see unless i'm up close." now her throat was sore for sure. she cleared it once, twice. it didn't help. giggle was dragging more out of her than she could summon up without strain. she felt a pang for ashtoreth and the signing language they secretly shared.

a hint of uncertainty flitted over the fledgling's features. she hoped against hope that her grandmother's eyes hadn't glazed over, that giggle saw the effort and care put into the exercise — and above all, that she was impressed. "how did i do?"

As Giggle listened, she closed her eyes. Half her mind listened to Damask's report even as her magicka flared, even as her senses slithered away through the myriad fungus that littered Canis. Her magic could not grasp all the little intricacies; the clusters of bone moths, or the exact numbers of all the cave rats. But she could sense them, the skitter of claws, the flutter of wings, and from what she could tell, Damask was not at all wrong. She was, Giggle knew, probably more accurate than Giggle was herself.

"Good!" she cried, opening her eyes, feeling the strange tight crawl through her scalp as her mind withdrew from its fungal veins. "More accurate than my count, most likely," though Giggle was fairly sure Canis had a lot more rats than that--but perhaps they were beyond Damask's reach, for now. One thing she'd noticed was Damask's titling of her fathers. Eythan, and Aure. Not--Dad. Neither was Dad.

Strange--a little worrying, but Giggle didn't comment on it, for now; she simply squirreled it away with all the other little quirks that bothered her about this child. Call it, the "Damask things to keep an eye on" folder. Anyway--"And that's what you've got, yes? The ability to see living things from a distance; and the ability to create barriers, manipulate wind?" Dark eyes sought out and examined Damask. Giggle was thinking--that much was clear.

"Back in the old days, when we had large numbers, before Aure--before his father's death--each Bonebound member had their own responsibilities. It isn't strictly necessary now. But we had guardians, myself as the Seer, Aza'zel to lead," and there were others, but she couldn't remember them all now; not all of them had had tasks, but many did and-... She thought it worth mentioning, now. "Has Aure brought this up? I don't think it's as widespread these days. We have another hyena, somewhere, hunting--probably sleeping, by now; I've not seen her in many cycles. But, is there any role you'd like to play? Either as a sentinel, or a messenger; a hunter, or to explore and map the caves on our behalf... Has he talked about this with you?"

Part of Giggle's phrasing made it sound as though this was expected of Bonebound members. In reality, the hyena suspected that being given a responsibility--something to focus on, something to be praised for, to take pride in--might do the child good. Structure, that was it. She just hoped the suggestion wouldn't backfire.

"Is there something you'd want to do?"

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@Damask