He gave Giggle all the time he needed. Honestly, Tahi-shei understood the sentiment. Needing to be murdered in order to wake back up from it because he was too much of a liability... Tahi blinked the thoughts away, and let himself be distracted by the subject change. His ears flicked and he nodded confidently. "Yeah, I do. You said... how time wasn't really linear, and about how magic refracted through things like light through a prism. Well, that part was me, actually -- but that everything is a part of the same whole."

Tahi-shei drew his legs up close to him and reflected on his various encounters with things. "Maybe?" was what he offered in response. "Instinct, I think, mostly. But I've sometimes come up with really odd things while I was meditating. Thoughts that I didn't think I could've come up with, or at least not on my own." He gave a vague shrug. "But I've also been trying to listen to the things that are around me."

@giggle

"That it isn't strict," Giggle half-murmured, a minor correct. She had no idea if time was linear or not--that hadn't crossed her mind. It was more about being able to reach forward... as if the future weren't as malleable as one might think. "I don't know about linear or not. But if there's Seeing, then maybe there's one, set future. But then that makes you wonder about free will. Choices. If the path changes, does the Seeing in the past change-? I don't know. I never said time wasn't linear because I don't know what it is. Not to be pedantic," she added, with a nod, "but I don't want you to think that I know more than I know, or... that I'm giving fake knowledge. I don't want you... eh, building on wrong information?" she tried to explain, with a shrug and a grimace. "It's hard to explain."

"Well-... We can start little. Do your meditation, then--and try to include your magic." She was looking around, as she spoke. "I'm going to pick up a couple of bones, and then cover them with my paws. I'll close my eyes and uncover one at random. Let's see if you can figure out which one, before I do it," she went on. "I'm not sure if it's something that can be taught if you haven't got the touch, but I can try and nudge you in the right direction. I can tell you where my mind is, when I do it." Focus on a task was at least allowing the fear of Mother to bleed away; there was still the faintest tremor in her voice but she didn't realize it. Instead, she was picking out three bones: a tiny knuckle or knee bone in pristine white, a little ivory-colored hoof, and a very small black-streaked rib. All of them were small enough to fit beneath her paws.

Giggle carried them to a point a couple yards from Tahi-shei--still at a safe distance--and looked to him as she pressed her paws over the bones, covering them from sight. "Now, taking everything I said into consideration... try to meditate, and imagine me picking my paws up off the bone, pushing one a little forward, with my eyes closed. Try to really see it happen, and guess which bone it will be."

Then she waited, patient. "Just tell me which one you think it'll be, but take your time in getting there."

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@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei settled down into a slightly more comfortable position, closing his eyes when Giggle told him to -- he drew in a deep breath, and watched the swirling spores from behind his eyelids. He focused on his blood as it pumped, propelled by his still ametrine, and he breathed in and out again. He thought about magic, centered in his stone and spreading out over his body like that same blood. He pushed it out, and whitecaps sprouted up all around him.

He opened one eye to glance at the bones just before she covered them, and then closed it to continue.

He focused on Giggle first. Raspy voice and scarred body, old and wise. He focused on her magic, on the way it had felt when she had cast at him, at the way that the fungus reacted to her presence. He thought about the tone of her voice, and the rustle of her fur moving quietly against itself. He thought about her own heart beating, about her scent, about the scrape of bones against the ground -- and he imagined her moving, that rustle and that scrape and the breath through her blood and her own bones wrapped in vessels and muscles and fur. He thought about the fungus, bowing towards the taste of decay, and leading to new growth --

Tahi-shei breathed in, and out, and then said, "The rib?" with a hint of a question in his voice. He wasn't sure how he knew, or if it was maybe just a wild guess. He just... sort of felt like that was the right answer. He hoped, somehow, that he was right. Technically, it was only a one-in-three.


@giggle

She did her best to open her mind to his, head tilting a little as she focused. Her paw came up--just before he spoke--and it was, indeed, the rib. Whether by chance or true Sight, she couldn't say, of course; and she said as much aloud.

"Good. It is the rib. We'll try again; see if it's true Sight or just chance. Keep your focus," she added. Her tone was a neutral one--familiar, encouraging, but still focused on their task. "Let me show you how I do it," she added, quietly, in a moment of inspiration.

She linked her mind to his, as best she could. And then came a trickle of her own process: a concentration, an absence of self, an opening to exactly the sort of 'random thought' that Tahi-shei wondered if his guess had been. As if stray ideas occurred to her, and yet they just seemed... right. It developed, almost, into communication, as though the aether were sending her concepts, ideas, promises, warnings.

Giggle attempted to show the young deer as best she could: and then, when a few moments had passed--assuming Tahi had his eyes shut--she uncovered the second bone.

This time, it was the hoof, and she looked to Tahi-shei for his guess.

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@Tahi-shei

His eyes lit up as he looked towards Giggle. He'd been right! It was a good feeling, the one surging through him. But he righted himself when she told him to maintain his focus, and he opened himself up to her magic and her own experiences. Tahi-shei was happy to have it.

He focused on her -- on how she opened herself up and nearly hollowed herself out, opened to the possibility of the answer that the magic and the universe would give her. That... fate would give her. It was a somewhat uncertain thing, and Tahi-shei opened himself up to the potential answers. The first answer, half-formed and barely-there, was the hoof. But Tahi-shei hesitated, thinking about it. It was hard to trust himself, and he wavered. "Um... the-- the hoof? No, wait. No, the-- the knuckle. No-- arg!" His ears laid down and he opened his eyes nervously. "... Oh. I... guess I was right the first time."

Tahi-shei frowned. "... It's hard to trust yourself." Especially because he definitely didn't.

@giggle

Giggle offered a brief, goodnatured snort.

"It's like that, at first. I guess either we find out you're right a lot, or we find out that your guesses are just that. There might still be ways to train seeing. I don't know."

Paws pulled the bones back in, shuffled them. "One more time?" she asked, and then tilted her head, a little. "I might be able to teach you the other magic I use--to see into the past, into the future... if I describe it well enough maybe you can, ahh--meditate it-?"

The old hyena shrugged, and then--after a moment of waiting--pushed a bone out from beneath her paws at random. It was the hoof, laying bare on the rock, and she glanced to Tahi-shei, waiting.

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@Tahi-shei

He sighed, a little embarrassed. Learning new magic was such a pain in the neck, but he had to remind himself that this was, in fact, magic. It wasn't necessarily magic in the traditional sense, but it was definitely about being in touch with magic (in the cosmic sense, that is). Tahi-shei considered that -- "Well, if anyone's going to find out a way to teach it or learn it, it's me," he said, his tone light with humor. "... I'd like that, though -- you said that it was pretty similar to fungal magic anyway, right? At least, as far as you cast it. I'd be happy to try -- I've learned unfamiliar magic in the past, at least. You just have to figure out a different method, at least in my experience."

The stag closed his eyes and concentrated. He quieted himself and opened himself up to the answers, breathing deeply in and out. The hoof came to him first, but he reasoned quietly that Giggle was unlikely to use the same thing twice in a row -- but also, would she use all three of them? Just as he teetered on the edge of overthinking it, he shook his head minutely and returned to his instinct. He'd been right last time -- there was no reason to think about it now. "Hoof." He opened his eyes, a bit surprised at the sureness with which he said it, only to find that Giggle did indeed have the hoof uncovered. His eyes grew wide. "... One's an accident, two's coincidence, but three..." Well. Three was a pattern.

He offered a wary smile. He'd wait for Giggle's assessment -- she knew more than he did about this sort of thing.

@giggle

Again, her laugh was good-natured: short and raucous, and her reaction itself was both encouraging and pragmatic. "Three in a row's a good sign," she agreed, easy-going, "-so keep practicing. Keep honing it. It's something I think I explained... not as well as I could, in the past. The time part," Giggle went on, leaning back a little as if to think. "The future, it's made up of the 'now.' Of all the possibilities already lying around us. When I was talking about time being... different than we picture it? I think it's kinda like that. Like being in touch with everything that is, so you can see what that'll become. If that makes sense." She offered a slight, self-deprecating gesture--a sort of shrug and shake of her head--before continuing. "So, we start off with the simple. You know I'll uncover one of three things and maybe you're noticing the little things. My stance, the way I lean, breathe, the choices I've made before. And then that little bit of magic touches in, and then you know which future will come to be. You know-?"

Dark eyes briefly studied Tahi-shei, almost pleading for him to understand--because she wasn't sure she was explaining it real well, and of all the things she did, the Reading was the most important. She wanted it... understood, because if Tahi-shei was going to wind up a Reader, too, she felt it important to give him the best knowledge, the best understanding, that she possessed. It was sort of her duty, in a way: to pass on the secrets (such as they were) to those who asked.

"Anyway, I think maybe if you start little--or by doing, you know, readings like I do, for others' futures? Once you're confident in doing it, anyway. You can start little and work your way up, if you want," and here, again, she stopped. Was she making sense, or only rambling-?

She waited, pensive, to let Tahi-shei decide.

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@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei was only halfway following her, but he nodded along anyway. "It kind of does," he said, his ear flicking. "It'll probably make more sense once I've meditated on it." He considered her explanation for several more moments. He thought about how he'd known -- it had been an almost subconscious perception of things, and when he'd started thinking about them critically, he'd lost it. Why was that?

You don't trust your perception of the world, he realized, looking askance as he quietly warred with himself. But that's silly; what could be wrong with it? Except maybe being able to excuse murder. You are not the center of the universe, Tahi-shei Deimos, so do not assume that you are.

He cleared his throat, snapping himself out of that line of thought. "Little by little sounds good. Whatever you think is best, Giggle -- you know more about this than I do."

@giggle

Giggle laughed, good-naturedly, at this assurance. She tended to flick--even on the best of days--between paranoid uncertainty and candid warmth, and she made this switch now, without realizing it. "Well, we teach ourselves. Am I better at it-? Do I know more? I don't know. I'm feeling my way along just like you are. We're blind, and we have to teach ourselves to see."

She paused, again an easygoing moment, leaning back to scratch at the rough edges of her muscled neck with one hind leg. After a moment--and a brief lick of her claws--she sat back again, and thought about it all.

"Right, here's what we'll do. You'll go find something--anything--and bring it back here, in a few days, a cycle, whatever. And I'll get something, too. Then when we find each other, we have to guess what it'll be, before we reveal it to each other--right? Meantime, you can practice however you see fit. There's only so much I can teach you--the rest we have to work out for ourselves. But I think it's possible you've got the skill to See," Giggle added, with a nod. "But how's that sound, for a test? Not a 'which of three,' but a blank, blind reading?"

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@Tahi-shei