How could they find their big brother so easily? Well, the answer's obvious!

"I can always find you!" they exclaim, tail wagging, a smile going right across their face. They always know where their siblings are, after all. They gotta, so they can keep them safe and spend time with them!

Their attention is quickly diverted from thoughts of other siblings and i wonder how Enoki's doing! in favor of the sight of Bayo bounding away. His suggestion makes them perk up; ears pricking as they give him a rapid nod to his suggestion. "Yeah! That's a great idea!"

A soft glow emerges from the ground. Many thin, long mushrooms push their way up from the sediment, as if compressed and waiting underneath the ground the whole time; Chitin can't help but watch, enraptured, as they begin to glow a soft blue. "Whoa... mama will love those..." they murmur.

Well, they gotta contribute something, too! "Lemme try, lemme try!" they say, thrilled at the thought of making some pretty mushrooms for mama, too. They just gotta focus... use their magic...

Chitin narrows their eyes at a currently mushroom-less patch of ground beside them, thinking as hard as they can—make pretty mushrooms, make pretty mushrooms...

Soft as a firefly's glow, yellow, wide-capped mushrooms, short and stout to contrast Bayo's own creation, spring out of the ground, bright against the stone.

Chitin starts, leaping up from the mushrooms, glancing quickly between their own and the blue ones near their brother. "Look! I did it, too!" they exclaim, excited with their accomplishment.

@Bayo

Bayo gasped as the mushrooms grew, taking off and jumping around Chitin with excitement, ”You did it you did it!!”

He grinned over at the other, tail wagging, before picking the mushrooms and using a piece of grass to sort of bind them together (it took a minute to do so, seeing as he only had teeth and paws).

”Perfect,” he said, ”I got an idea, let's find flowers too!”

He set the bouquet down so he wouldn't break it before running off to find flowers, his tail like a banner behind him.

Bayo went off hunting for flowers, poking his nose under bones and searching for flowers. He approached a pile of bones and lifted them up, shrieking as he found a massive spider. He was barely able to react before the thing spit at him, venom coating his legs before he darted away, yelping and crying out.

”CHITIN!!”, he cried, ”CHITIN RUN THERE'S A SPIDER!!”

He bounded forward, legs burning, the skin starting to turn red and irritated.

”Get mama!!”, he yelped, legs starting to burn and tremble as he tried to run as far as he friggin' could.

@Chitin

Their brother always has the best ideas.

They watch with nothing short of total excitement as Bayo binds their mushrooms together, glowing blue next to gleaming yellow, like the crystals in that one cave they'd heard about but never really got the chance to visit. What else could they get for Mama, they wonder? She's so good and they love her a lot and she knows so much, even if some of that stuff is kinda spooky—they've gotta get more than just mushrooms!

What else… bugs, as pretty as they are, would just wander off. Shiny gems? But where would they find those…

...oh! Flowers, of course! "Yeah!" they call in agreement, following behind their sibling at a more measured pace—although their tail still continues to wag a mile a minute, displaying their good mood for the world to see.

In other caves, finding flowers would be a trivial task. Nothing more than a few moments' search. But Canis isn't like other caves—it's pretty in its own way, at least to Chitin, but it doesn't have much in the way of… greenery. The local decoration consists of bones, bones, and more bones—the local color scheme almost entirely different shades of 'ivory'.

And, thus, the search is an intensive one. Under bones, over bones—under bones again… Chitin helps the best they can, nudging bones aside and sniffing around as hard as they can to find pretty flowers for Mama.

But, then—disaster strikes. As much as disaster can strike, for two gembound children.

They leap to their hooves as Bayo cries out, eyes wide—"Bayo!" they shriek, all good mood pushed aside in favor of this sudden threat.

A spider! But not just any spider—one that spits acid!

Bayo doesn't need to tell them twice. As soon as they can see that their brother can run properly, even with his legs burnt by venom, they're off too, hooves click-clacking on the stone in a rhythm of panic as they bolt for the direction of their mother's den. "Mom! Mama!"

@Bayo

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

The cry had her scrambling up, sleep fleeing in the face of a mother's terror. Adrenaline poured through her, and she was on her feet and running before she was even fully aware of what was happening.

She came plowing over the hill a moment later, round ears pricked up and forward, dark eyes staring--every sense attuned to her children, and to finding out what was hurting them. Bones clattered out of her path, dust kicked into the air, as she came careening down the path; the moment she saw the spider she lowered her bulk and fixated on it, not even slowing down.

She impacted it in utter silence, bar the thud of heavy, furred body against exoskeleton; her momentum took her over, skidding across the rock, dust pluming up around her and the spider both. She scrabbled back up, black muzzle wrinkling up, face twisted to reveal the row of thick fangs that she rarely showed. Her expression, in the fleeting instant in which she was visible coming to her feet, was ugly: pure, feral violence.

There was a thrashing of hard, furred muscle; the hyena's body, as much as she lazed about, was still toned from hunting and thick. As gentle as she was with her children, this was a new side of her, a fierce and unrelenting viciousness. Her body thrashed, neck twisting, the pop of a spider limb tearing away audible; there was a series of clicking sounds as it fought and bit at her, and the scuffle of paws as she barely avoided the strike. A crunch, and a splatter of dark ichor, and she yanked back with a leg in her jaws; this was immediately released, half-flung away as she lunged back in. A squishing second crunch and she'd bitten down on torso, and now a guttural growl escaped her, and a harsh chittering as she ripped into that, as well. Blue-black blood spilled forth from the carapace, Giggle skittering backward and rending, tearing as she went.

It was over in seconds, after her arrival: a scuffle of gore and violence, and then the hyena leaping clear, splattered in thick dark liquid, her muzzle, chest and forelegs coated in it. She paused, tensed, head low, gazed fixed on the spider--but it was dying, curling up and half-torn apart, bristling limbs twitching (and one laying to one side on the floor).

Her voice trembled as she looked up, as she raised it, as she rushed to her children in turn. And undoubtedly she sounded frantic, possibly even angry, but she was just afraid. "BAYO! CHITIN! What happened?! Are you okay? What happened?! Did it bite you?!" She sniffed for them, shaking--were they bitten? Poisoned? Would they be okay..?

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

@Bayo

Bayo stumbled and fell, quivering as Giggle passed by, looking ferocious. He cowered as she bared fangs, tore the spider apart, looking nothing at all like his mother.

He blinked as she called out for him, ears pinned. She sounded mad... real mad.

”I'm sorry!!”, he yelped, limping towards her with his tail and ears down, falling onto his side to show his belly, quivering as tears welled up, ”D-don't be mad at Chitin, I-I found the spider 'cause I wasn't careful when I was lookin' for flowers-”

He was crying now, tears welling up and falling, ”I'm sorry mama! I-I'm sorry I keep on gettin' hurt! I don't mean to, I swear!”

His front legs were burned and blistering, nothing life-threatening but it was definitely uncomfortable. The poor pup just kept getting himself into pickles like these completely by accident.

”M-maybe we ought to jus' put me in a bubble,” he sniffled, head low, ”Th-that way I won't hurt myself no more.”

He felt so awful for Chitin. Here they were having a good time and then that spider had to show up.

@Chitin

Mama comes into view all teeth and fury. Snarling expression, sprinting gait—Chitin ducks out of the way, taking a few hurried steps towards Bayo, as the spider suddenly becomes a target instead of an enemy.

It's not—it's not a pretty sight. Chitin sees for all of two seconds all of Mama's teeth bared in a row, vicious and angry, before blue blood spatters her fur and the stone and everywhere else it can reach and she pulls away with a leg and they've seen enough.

Too much.

With a soft whimper, they look away, folding an ear back to try to block out the sound of squishing, tearing—growling, and this is a sound that takes Chitin a few moments to place as coming from their mother as opposed to the spider, because they've never, ever heard their mama make a sound like that before.

It only lasts a few moments, but it feels like forever they tuck their head down against their chest and squeeze their good eye shut and wait for it to be over.

They don't like that sound. They don't like—they don't like what they just saw, with the spider all being ripped apart like that.

They didn't think it would look like that. They don't know what they thought it would look like, but not like that.

When their mother's voice sounds out—frantic, loud—they dare to open their eye.

They turn to look at her, putting their good eye in view of her, and—

—that's.

That's a lot of… blood.

Not the kind Chitin's ever seen before, the red kind that they associate with Bayo getting hurt (again) and bad things happening to their family. This stuff is blue. It looks alien and strange—but they still recognize it as blood. Still associate it with the terrible scene that played out before them, of Mama ripping something apart for hurting their brother.

"You killed it…" comes their response, a trembling whine that makes their expression twist, sad and uncertain.

Did it… did it really need to…

...to have that happen?

It was so bloody…

They look up and over at their sibling. Their brother, trembling, crying—the sight makes them sad, too. A lot more sad than seeing the spider made them.

And it's a lot and they still don't really know about the spider but… Bayo's sad.

Bayo needs comfort.

They get up, trotting forward on hooves that feel unsteady beneath them, and nudge Bayo gently with their nose. They sit down next to him and turn, looking back at Mama. "Pl—please don't be mad at Bayo… he didn't do anything wrong…"

Or if he did, it was both their faults. Chitin's for even suggesting the idea of finding things in the first place, 'cause if Bayo hadn't gone searching, he wouldn't have found that spider, and everything would still be okay.

@Giggle

They were upset. They were upset, but they were unharmed. She felt like crying, hysterical, like shaking and burying her head and sobbing, but she rushed to them instead. She offered nudges, snuggles, licks across their heads, all the while talking in a frantic but reassuring voice.

"Oh, bones, you scared me! You have to be more careful! You could've been hurt! -I'm not angry, I'm--you just scared me, are you all right? Are you okay?" It was a flood of words, gasping breaths taken now and again--her run had been sudden, and unexpected, exertion. And her voice was still intense.

But she wasn't angry; just terrified. She cast a glance back toward the spider, fear in her eyes. The children--they had no idea, did they? No idea how dangerous these things were. She'd seen what they did to rats. "Those spiders--you need to be careful around them. Some of them, if they bite you, they can kill you. These ones--if they spit that poison in your face it can blind you. Forever," she added, and now her tone was carefully measured, soft. She didn't want to scare them, but-... she kind of had to, for their own sakes.

A pause, as she regarded it, then looked back at them. "Come on, let's get this stuff cleaned off, huh? And then we can get you somewhere safe."

Giggle wasn't a helicopter mom. She wasn't constantly hovering over her kids, nudging them this way and that, denying them alone time, or fun. She didn't mind them playing throughout Canis, so long as they were somewhat within earshot. But this-... This could've been bad, and the sensation of her heart hammering in her chest was one that filled her with fear.

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

@Bayo

Bayo pressed into Giggle's thick fur, whimpering and whining, dancing on his front feet to try and ease the pressure on the blisters and rashes on his legs. He could have been blinded. He could have gotten seriously hurt. Chitin and his mama could have gotten hurt!!

”Sorry,” he repeated, ”M' legs hurt mama, it spat at me! Am I gonna die?!”

Big fat tears rolled down his face as he cried, ”I-I'm so sorry Chitin! I could've gotten you hurt too- I ruined our fun!!”

He very nearly wiped his eyes before snapping his paws back down, quivering, ”Nono don't touch the eyes-”

The pup sat his butt down and shook and shivered, overwhelmed and struggling to deal with it. He looked rather pathetic, half-blind with tears and his ears pinned to his skull.

”I hate spiders,” he sniffled, his hackles raised, ”Imma kill every last one! Stupid spiders!!”

@Chitin

Mama offers comfort in the form of touch—licking, snuggling, everything a mother could do to bring comfort, and this, at least, is familiar. Safe. Okay.

It's like a dam bursts. With a whimper and a whine, they lean into their mother, almost careless of the blue blood staining her, now. They bury their face into spotted fur, and a tremble runs through them as she details how badly, exactly, things could have gone.

Bayo could've been blinded. For the rest of his life, for a span of time that their little mind really has no way of wrapping itself around.

All because of a stupid spider.

And—Chitin still worries, about all the blood, about how violent everything was. In the back of their head, they're wondering if their mama really had to kill the spider. It was just scared, too… it was just defending itself, just like mama was defending them.

But they don't think about that for too much longer. Right now, they're scared, and Bayo is crying next to them and saying something about how his legs hurt, 'cause the spider spat at him, and if they can do nothing else then they just wanna help him feel better. They wanna make the hurt go away, because then they can pretend something like this never happened at all, and think about good things, like the mushrooms and flowers they were gonna get for mama as a gift.

Sniffling, they turn to Bayo, giving him another, more insistent nudge. Trying to comfort their brother the best they can. "Bayo… it's not your fault."

Another sniffle. "It's—it's my fault, I'm the one who asked about looking for flowers, I should have been watching better, Bayo 'm so sorry—"

They lay their head over their brother's back and shiver against him, trying their best not to cry as well but just feeling so bad about the whole thing. Feeling so much guilt in their little heart that it's hard not to cry about it.

@Giggle @Bayo (visibility!)

She took a breath, still offering comfort--physical, verbal--and when both children had responded, she at last pushed away.

Still trembling.

"Come, let's get to the water, kids," she said, "Before you do wipe it in your eyes, huh?"

It was an attempt at humor. It fell mostly flat.

But as she turned to lead the way to the nearest pool of stagnant, metallic water, she did her best to turn it all into a learning experience for them. "Accidents happen, okay? You didn't know any better. Don't be mad, or upset, right? And hey, listen, you don't need to kill all the spiders. We kill if we're hungry or in danger, that's it, right? Just be careful you don't get too close to them--now you know their smell, sort of. So you've learned something today."

The world swam with black streaks. Her heart raced. Her voice was forced calm, false cheer, frightened encouragement. It was fading, all of it--it was over, now--but it-... It could have been worse. Could have been worse, could have been worse, could have been so much worse...

The hyena took a breath, plodding chest-deep into the liquid the moment she reached it.

"Come on, now, wash off. And no dunking each other, or your old mom, unless you manage it while I'm not looking," she added, and deliberately turned her back.

Distract them-... Let them play, if they could find their joy so quickly after a fright. But they were kids-... Children recovered quickly. She just had to set an example--and be there for them if they couldn't.

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

@Bayo