Giggle paced alongside Wyvern--well, not exactly alongside; the larger creature needed room. She spared her a glance, now and then, worried that she just wouldn't fit--would she get stuck? Hurt? Despite her assurances, Giggle was concerned.

The wisp kept a dim light flickering, which was just enough to keep her panic at bay--the place was claustrophobic, and dark. It was scary as hell, to the hyena at least, and she regarded the walls with dislike. "This place is awful," she muttered sourly, over the quiet taps of their feet on ice. "It-" ...Oh, but here was the ant-thing again.

Giggle came up short, a little puzzled. Wyvern addressed it, and Giggle glanced at her sidelong, then looked to the ant-thing again. "Can you talk-?" she asked it, and tried to link to its mind more directly when it didn't immediately respond. Maybe it could think, but not speak?

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The Cleaner continued to slowly tip-tap away. The exit was a ways away--a long trek through dark and cold, wandering and winding past other tunnels, up and down, around and around like a maze.

Giggle's touch to its mind didn't make it falter, but there was a moment's silence before a thought reached back to her.

"It cannot... speak. It is my... child... it will guide you free. If you would... know more, speak to Tahi-shei. He knows... more of me... than most. He has secured... this guide, for you."

Giggle's eyes widened, and she glanced to Wyvern, speaking softly.

"...I can hear its mind. I think it's 'Mother,' or whatever, in there. It says it sent it as a guide. That shit's tricky," she added, in quiet warning--"But it says Tahi-shei made sure we'd get out safe."

She wanted to distrust that, though she couldn't quite see how. But now her tread was an anxious one; was this a trap? Were they being led straight to their deaths? Giggle narrowed her eyes, set on seeking fungus as they went.

"I'll check us for infection once we're out."

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@Wyvern

The ant did not respond--Wyvern supposed it couldn't talk, after all, but it was good to thank it nevertheless--but Giggle said she'd managed to communicate through its mind. And that it was Mother? "I'm sorry?" Wyvern frowned. Giggle had reacted in a very blasé manner, if her mother was really living inside the ant's head, somehow. It didn't seem like an everyday occurrence. And why call it it? What did Tahi-shei have to do with all of this?

Checking for infection seemed like a good idea, if the ice worm had been sent by the mind-control fungus. Wyvern wasn't too sure how it all worked, but at least she wasn't feeling any urges to run away from home and disappear into Ursa. That was probably a good sign...?

@Giggle

Her response, as she spoke, was as soft as it had been before--a careful modulation of tone as if it were intended not to be overheard by the ant. "It claims to be Mother, speaking through it, guiding it. It says Tahi-shei secured it as our guide, whatever that means." Her words were mostly just repeated, but she slowed down a little, dropping back some from the ant.

Dark eyes studied it suspiciously, and her shoulders, limbs, were more tense than then had been.

She didnt know what was going on here any more than Wyvern did, really, and she said so: "I don't trust that shit, obviously. I don't know what's happened."

She cast her magic out, as they went, and it was just as strong as it ever was. And unless Mother was somehow messing with her perceptions, it seemed to her that she and Wyvern both were perfectly, squeaky clean of any fungus whatsoever. Shit, I'm going to have to get some spores again, she realized; her regular little collection was missing from her fur.

"We're clean," she said, at last, as light began to filter in from the tunnel's end.

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The Cleaner stepped at last into sharp, clean air, and then moved aside to clear the tunnel mouth. Here, there was an opening: a gap overhung with snow, curling wide into the edges of the Drowned Forest.

It waited for them to depart; nothing would stop them, now, from simply leaving, safe and entirely unharmed.

If, of course, they so wished.

@Wyvern

Giggle's words didn't make any more sense the second time she said, them, unfortunately. "Your mother?" she tried uncertainly. "Or..."

She trailed off. Though they were making good progress through the tunnel, she couldn't help thinking that something was very wrong about the way Giggle talked about this Mother and the way her posture was tensed. Was the ant not so trustworthy, after all? Would it have been an enemy, had Tahi-shei not... done whatever he'd done?

The exit to the tunnel came as a massive relief from the claustrophobic confines. Wyvern practically threw herself out the hole, wriggling through the ice and snow and paying no heed to any feathers that crumpled against the walls. She breathed in deeply--oh, how sweet and crisp the fresh air was!

@Giggle

Giggle glanced over, peering blankly at Wyvern.

"My-? What? No? Did you get some memory loss? You know why we were in Ursa, right-? Mother's what they call that shitbag fungus. It's dumb, on its own. But it links people together, I guess, and they say she can control you." Her dark eyes cut forward, studying the ant-thing's back with caution.

The bones said to go to it, though. I wonder. She sent out her magic, tentative and impulsive both, even as her limbs carried her to the tunnel's exit. Her gaze--settled warily upon the Cleaner--was half-absent, her mind instead looking toward the future.

The visions were in rapid succession. Hard, fast, tangled.

In the first, she saw a battle: Gembound fighting together, against one another, a mess of gore and blood staining pristine snow.

In the second: a family, all warmth and cuddles but beneath it the dread horror of empty eyes and starving ribs.

And in the third: oil, settling, draining away, leaving this plane entirely. Darkness snuffed out. Madness... erased.

Giggle came to a halt in the tunnel exit, staring out with consternation on her face: serious, studious. She looked to the Cleaner. "I think we're safe, here. Can you find your way out? We're both clean," she added, with a glance toward Wyvern.

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@Wyvern

Wyvern blinked, bewildered for a split second. Fungus? she wondered. No one in the raid had explicitly mentioned its name, but-- why call it Mother? Such a gentle, loving term for a mind-stealing abomination.

Which it was.

In the few milliseconds it had taken her to process this, Wyvern scrambled back, her feathers ruffling. "You took Bone!" she accused the ant, never mind that it couldn't speak. She wasn't looking for an answer, but an action. "Give her back!" That had been the whole point of the attempted assault, hadn't it? Wyvern had died trying to get Bone back. And while she didn't exactly want to die again-- well, she wasn't going to just let it go like that either.

@Giggle

The sudden outburst baffled Giggle. Bone-? She lived with bones; she read bones. She knew someone named Bones--her adopted son--and it took her a moment to realize that Wyvern wasn't referring to any of these.

"Bone?" she echoed stupidly, dark eyes shifting to the ant-thing. Then memory trickled back: the white dragon, who'd come for a reading so damn long ago. "...The dragon?"

The prophecy came flooding back. Giggle's own words, echoing in her mind.

'I do not see a kind future for you, dragon, and for that I'm sorry... You'll find a journey--physical, or spiritual, or whatever--I don't know--going very badly. It might be trying to improve yourself or your situation or it may be literal travel that goes poorly. There's then emphasis... it falls badly again, and reiterates! A bad journey, dragon. A bad way. Things will be tricky, and you'll have to be very, very careful to avoid them going very bad. Catastrophe, even. I'm surprised it didn't shatter. And last it speaks of families, or children, of rebirth, new beginnings. A chrysalis, maybe, or kids--I'm not sure--but it goes badly. It could be bad family trouble. You'd better be watchful.'

"Disaster, and a new family," she murmured grimly, turning to face the Cleaner fully. More loudly, she asked Wyvern "The fungus took the white dragon-?"

Her mind reached out, latching to the ant's without much issue, and she asked her question again. The answer was a reassurance, though Giggle wasn't sure she believed it: she could only catch words, no emotions. 'Mother' spoke through the Cleaner, but it was only speech that bled through the link.

"Bone lives... in Ursa... but she is not my child. We do not harm... those who do not... seek to harm us."

Giggle stared for a moment with narrowed eyes. You and I need to talk. Leave your ant-thing here. I'll come back. At a distance. She looked to Wyvern, then.

"She--it--claims Bone lives here but isn't hers. Be careful, if you try to find her. It might be a lie," she warned. She remembered the fumbling attempts at manipulation from the fungus's base hive mind; the idiocy it displayed when it didn't have forced emotion to back its bullshit up.

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@Wyvern