Tahi had been visiting Giggle for a while now, and this was the first time he was to see her after acquisition of his crown. He was hoping he wouldn't have to answer any uncomfortable questions -- they had discussed that today, they'd be trying to see if he could tap into time like she could and see things. He was uncertain, but hopeful -- and was trying to walk with his head high as he passed the Collector's general stomping grounds, aware that he was probably being watched.

He approached Giggle's den, pausing to look over the Bone Pit. He squinted. It looked... different, but just a little bit. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it would come to him later. He turned his head back towards where he guessed Giggle might be. "Giggle? I'm here!"

@giggle

A hyena head popped up over the lip of the ledge above, dark eyes blinking down. She was about to respond when she saw the bone-and-fungal crown atop the stag's head, and her own head tilted a little to one side--had he made that? What... was it?

Realization struck, then--though her immediate, intense suspicion was entirely unrelated to the reality of it. To Giggle, it looked like Mother, like the white clots of soft, moldy fungus that she herself had briefly cultivated.

The hyena scrambled to her paws, trying to reach out her magic to see if the thing on his somewhat distant head was fungus, after all, as she came upright in a surge.

"Tahi-shei-? What is that? -On your head?" she demanded, and her voice held stress, held tense warning. She braced herself--if he came toward her she would warn him off, though her tone and posture was warning on its own. And if he should dive at her--if his intent was to infect her with Mother--she would bolt, she would fight, she-

"Don't come closer," she added, her tone low and urgent, as her magic confirmed (if weakly) that there was indeed fungus atop that questionable crown.

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@Tahi-shei

He froze when she appeared, tense in every limb and with her hackles raised, for the first time unsure of her intentions. Then she asked him about the crown, and he cringed. And-- told him to stay back? He paused and frowned, and then took a half-step back to communicate good intentions. "It's... a really long story," he admitted reluctantly, "but, um, the short version... well, remember when I told you about how, when I was littler, I'd screwed up and made a deal with the Collector I couldn't get out of?" He looked away, guilty now. Ashamed to meet her eye. "I... was scared he'd hurt me, if I didn't hold up my end of the bargain. He certainly acted like he would. So... I--" He wavered, choked up. Just a bit.

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and shook his head. "I did what I had agreed to do. And I didn't break my promise to you," he added, still ashamed to meet her gaze. He felt like he'd failed her, and scuffed gently at the ground. "I don't think it's dangerous, though. Not beyond being unable to take it off. It just... lets me see fungus and see through fungus without having to actually use my magic." He shrugged -- hopefully she wouldn't kick him out, but he wouldn't have blamed her if she did. (He'd have probably kicked him out, too -- not that he'd figured out why she was nervous, but he'd have agreed with her on that count, too.)


@giggle

Half his words didn't register; her mind picked out enough, and she relaxed fractionally, though dark eyes didn't stray from the eerie crown. "So it isn't--Mother?" she asked him, warily. "That white moldy shit isn't Mother?"

She didn't invite him closer--not yet; but her alarm seemed to have, at least, lowered down a fraction. "You don't have voices in your head? Little whispers telling you to spread it, anything like that?" Wariness still reigned, and Giggle waited, wondering if she should shout for the Collector herself. Not to get the truth of the matter--she didn't trust him--but to warn him: if it was Mother, she'd tell Astraea on him-!

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@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei took another step back, suddenly anxious. "Not as far as I can tell," he said, his voice wary. "I've not had any voices, no. I-- remember what that felt like." He swallowed hard. "I was-- infected, briefly. There was a massive outbreak at a Raid, just before the first earthquake. I don't know how many were cured -- my friend, Madhukar, removed it from me by force. I... have the capability to be dangerous if I can't resist it," he said gently, pawing at the ground. Mushrooms spotted up in his wake.

"I knew something was wrong, though. I remembered when you'd cast spells on me -- causing hallucinations and strange spores to take root in my body, just for a moment. I knew I was being controlled, I just-- couldn't fight it. Not then. My friend struck me with lightning to get the infection out of me." There was a tinge of humor in his voice -- not anger or frustration or fear.

Tahi looked at Giggle, his eyes soft. "Do you still want me to go? I know we discussed practicing with seeing if I could do what you do, with bones and stuff-- but I understand if you don't trust me." He inclined his head slightly. "I wouldn't trust someone with white fungus on their face either, not after that Raid."


@giggle

Giggle was silent for a tense, thoughtful moment, jaw tight as she studied Tahi-shei and his crown, and considered carefully his words.

Her shoulders loosened a little more, at last, and she nodded. "Well, sounds like you know it. I've dealt with it. It's... insidious, but stupid," she explained. It had been blatant, oblivious, demanding--without the actual physical aspect, tugging at the emotions, it was nothing but blunt. "I'd feel better if you didn't wear it here," she added, half in statement, half in request, her voice wry and a little tighter than usual. She wouldn't seem hostile, to Tahi-shei--just... a little off, a little unsettled, as if her mind were half elsewhere.

On impulse, she reached her mind for his, intending to briefly eavesdrop and check on his intentions--to look for any sign of Mother listening in. But the magic failed, or his mind was blocked--she wasn't sure which one--and she came away unsatisfied.

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@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei cringed at her request. "I, uh, wish I could, but the Collector wanted a higher price than I was willing to pay for the ability to take it off." He shook his head violently for emphasis, and the crown stayed tightly on. "My best guess is that the only way to get it off is with equally powerful magic, or by, y'know, breaking it off, and neither of those are really appealing to me, gotta be honest with you." He shrugged and glanced at his hooves. "I will stay over here if you'd prefer, though. I really don't want you to feel unsafe with me."

He thought about suggesting that she ask the bones if he was safe (and if he'd known more about her, he might have specifically suggested the keel bone of a long-lost friend), but decided against it. He didn't want to seem like he was lying or deceiving to coerce her. He could see the tension in her body, though -- a hard line as her mind wandered. He hated thinking that he might have been the cause of it, so he asked a question anyway -- "Is there... anything else I could do to make you feel better?" he asked, voice wavering just a smidge.


@giggle

"The ability to take it off?" she echoed, disbelieving. What the hell had Tahi-shei gotten into-? What had the Collector been thinking? "That's some bullshit," she decided, bluntly.

Giggle eyed the cluster of white fungus, and tried to hold back her anger at the Collector. Her inability to know whether this was truly Mother. The situation--whatever it had been--had been wholly out of her control and had harmed (sort of) what amounted to her only apprentice, and this filled her with brief and violent rage, followed closely by a sort of shaky absence of self. That familiar sense of stress becoming a dizzying loss, of reality fragmenting as if to form a shell around her, threatened--and she clamped her mind down, struggling to maintain herself for a moment.

Dark eyes closed, squeezed shut--then opened, staring at the deer, her legs tensed, her breathing a little fast. But then she shook her head, straightening, and backed away a little. "Just keep a little distance," she told him hoarsely--and then looked at him wisely over her shoulder as she turned to pace a few more steps away. "And if I were you, I'd find a way to get rid of that piece of Collector's shit as soon as possible."

She sat down some twenty feet away from the deer, regaining control of her mind, her breathing. When she had finished this, she looked at Tahi-shei more closely. "Right, that thing you said-... about learning? What you came for? Tell me again," she asked him, her voice quiet--just audible from this distance--and hoarse. It had hardly registered in her mind, but it was time to focus again.

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@Tahi-shei

Shame burned through him. Giggle was visibly upset, though he wasn't sure how to pinpoint why, and so he was left under the assumption that she was angry at him even if he could equally come up with a million more explanations. She was right, though -- the Collector was a manipulative piece of work, and he muttered an angry "Tell me about it."

He took another step or two back at her request, and then moved to lie down -- he couldn't get up all that quickly, so if he made any aggressive action, she'd be more than able to move in time. He hoped she noticed it as the olive branch it was. But at the thought of getting rid of it, he cringed. The problem was, Tahi-shei had taken so much to get it -- a life. The alligator had been sacrificed like a lamb to slaughter, and that was a shame and guilt Tahi-shei would bear forever (even if he knew the creature had been a danger). If he abandoned the crown, what had he even killed Elias for? What had he dragged himself down to accomplish?

He looked at the ground, still ashamed to meet her eye. "We were going to work on Seeing," he said gently. "Specifically, trying to figure out if I could do it, because our magic is so similar."


@giggle

Giggle certainly did notice the olive branch of Tahi-shei lying down--and it did put her somewhat at ease... somewhat.

She lay down quietly, eyes half-closing for a moment, then sighed. Tried to focus. To turn her mind back to the present.

"Right--let me... wind down a little. Mother's nothing to fuck with," she added, but there was the faintest tremor in her brash voice. Another deep breath. "So: you remember all of what I said--I hope!--about everything being interconnected-?" A pause--a flick of one ear--"Have you had any kind of inkling of sight in the meantime? Any... premonition, instinct, things like that?" she asked him.

She was still a little shaky, and maybe buying some time with this half-assed line of questioning--but it was a good place to start; as good a place as any.

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@Tahi-shei