- THE LEVIATHAN -

She'd been missing, the last time he had come; and so now he was back, stalking along the top ledge of her bone pit like an overgrown spider. "SPOTTED DOG!" he bellowed, this time; he'd look again for the Orthoclase once he was done, another halfhearted attempt, but for now he wanted this one. "BONE-READER."

He was not trying to be particularly rude, but he wasn't sure how else to address--or find--her. Her last prophecy had proven quite--well, prophetic. He wanted another; he wanted both to test her again, and to see what she might be able to tell him of his future.

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

strong language

...Oh, for FUCK'S SAKES!

Giggle lifted her head at the first cry, and flinched back in recognition--but moreso, the sheer volume--of the second. "WHAT!" she bawled back, at her own hoarse top volume, before realizing that perhaps it might be misconstrued (somehow; who knows) as rude.

"Bones," she muttered, in irritation, pushing up and shaking out her coat.

A half-hurried (but also half-asleep) pace carried her up to her bone pit--where she found Vargas looming, standing astride her ledge, staring down with toxic eyes.

"If you're here to kill me, get it over with," she snapped up at him. Not that she was normally so brash; but she was tired. He'd woken her up.

Faint fear thrilled along her link, from Omen; the bird was now nearby, circling, and Giggle offered a grunting mental reassurance. She was pretty sure that Vargas wasn't here to confront her, about something--maybe he was, though, who the hell knew. She had no idea what would've brought him here, not again.

But she did (applause, please) manage to bite back a snapped "I thought you left this place," instead awaiting his response.

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- THE LEVIATHAN -

Dark humor laced his tone as he turned, descending to the bone pit with a few neat leaps and strides. "Why, bone-reader, have you done something that might merit your execution? Anything you want to tell me?" He'd last seen her in Ursa; she'd wound up chrysalized, from what he'd been told, but later emerged unharmed. And, somehow, untainted. "I congratulate you on your escape from Ursa. I heard that the fungus did not ensnare you. I hope that turned out to be true." Now that would be grounds for execution; and his brief, level stare said as much.

"No, I am here for one of your readings. Please," he added, gesturing at the bones, but it was a command and not an invitation. "Your last was accurate! I would have another."

He ignored the way she stared up at him suspiciously, the way she flinched back just a little at his abruptly closer looming presence. He didn't care for such things, aside from to note them as "as it should be" and recognize that she bore a healthy dose of respect, or fear.

"I am making changes to the Forge. I want you to tell me how they will work out. The Forge being my people," he explained, pacing along behind her as she made her way to the Pit. "And," as an afterthought, "can you tell me where to find Orthoclase-Alpha?"

Giggle scurried back a pace from Vargas's sudden approach, but managed to pull it to a halt before outright balking backward.

"Haven't done shit," she answered bluntly, biting back the "not that it's any of your business" that threatened in on the tail end. And as to his congratulations? "Thanks," came her dry response; "I'm told I have Tahi-shei to thank for that, though I've no fucking idea why." She was oblivious--entirely--as to the immense, immediate danger this remark might incur for Tahi-shei; she hadn't had a chance to see him, had no idea what the fungus's remark had meant. Maybe it was Mother's idea of attempting a frame; she really didn't know, but the idea only occurred to her now. "Haven't seen him since, though, so no idea if that's true or what it meant. Might've been the fungus trying to get him in the shit," she added, with a shrug of thick-furred shoulders.

I didn't like him anyway, she thought, half-indifferent.

Vargas was, it seemed, intruding on someone else's privacy.

"Lost your dog-?" she asked, dark amusement in her tone--but she'd already decided that, no, she wouldn't tell Vargas where to find it--even if she knew. The thing had been fucked up enough last time it had come to her pit, although-... She remembered, fleetingly, her foretelling that the Orthoclase would end up entirely alone.

Maybe Vargas had lost his dog.

"I can look. Even if the bones don't know a location, they can tell me if it's all right, or not." Little did she know, "all right" was a phrase no longer in Alpha's vocabulary.

She came to the bone pit, then, and a twinge of mischief took her. With a sideways glance at Vargas (not too cunningly, she hoped, in retrospect) with her near-black eyes, she resolved to put on a little show.

____________

The Boneseer went about her reading, but after forging a tentative tether to the Master's mind (ahh, and this one worked--it hadn't always, with Astraea) she gave it a little... twist.

When she stood atop her pit of bones, her form seemed to swell, the effect carefully curated: the shadows deepened, light springing up dramatically. She could feel the power in her magic--she could have filled his mind with screaming nightmares. But she tamped it down, and made reality the nightmare, instead.

When she picked a bone (a cluster of ribs attached to a scapula, a 'group' to test with), her form swam with shadows cast all across Canis: brief, flicking, here-and-gone (had they ever really been?). When she turned back, glancing slyly at Vargas, the whispers of the accusatory dead seemed to hang about her like a shroud. Despite that, of course, being physically impossible.

When she ascended her ledge, the rest of Canis seemed plunged into shadow, a bloody firelight igniting Giggle from beneath in an ominous glow. And when she tossed the bone, it seemed to hang in the air, spinning in slow-motion like a headsman's axe descending.

She imbued the scene of her pronouncing what she'd read with spiking drama, with a ringing voice that carried all the power of the supernatural with it, that saw into the minds of the murdered and the hearts of the dead. (Oh, this was fun. While she bore a self-imposed rule to always be truthful through the bones, she'd never made a rule not to make it scary as shit.)

Her dark eyes flicking over the pit seemed lit by that ember flame. One bone bounced; more revealed. Others, falling in to protect it. The first cluster, falling away. "I see... INSPIRATION, on your part, Vargas." (Mischief, again, as she deliberately skipped his title.) "Inspiration, realization. You are listening to those near you, granting those near you something new! You are finding truths that you missed, before. I see, at first, a thriving struggle toward success!" She didn't neglect her magic, of course; her voice rose louder, filling the Master's mind, booming through all of Canis. Or so it would seem to him, at least.

"The thrill of pursing your goals! Protection, of you, by another force. By you, on those you call your people. But you are protected, in your tasks. But in the end, I grant you a warning: be wary of the advice you take, in the future. There will be a... disruption. A mistake in your judgment. A decision, perhaps, based on poor suggestion. Revel in your successes, for now, but be watchful in the future. You may come back to me, as time passes, to help avert this if you wish!" Her voice rose, at this end, quivering--and she was pretty sure she'd gotten most of the phrasing as dramatic as it would go. "Perhaps" wasn't a word she really used day-to-day; she was a "maybe" lady through and through. But fuck it. She was going full BONE READER mode, and she'd play it to its fullest.

"Do you have any questions, Leviathan?" she asked him, the shadows darkening yet again before slowly fading away, the magic releasing--by her will--its hold.

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- THE LEVIATHAN -

Tahi-shei-? The thought flickered through his mind, at first simply puzzling, and then a little alarming. Had the deer made some sort of bargain with the fungus, with Dontacael itself-? And beyond that--had he perhaps sabotaged the entire assault? Could that be? The struggle with Draconua, he thought, but before he could think further on this (not that he wouldn't tuck it away for later, of course) Giggle was beginning her reading.

Vargas, of course, was no fool. It didn't take long for him to swim from the sudden sense of surreal and drowning dread that was suddenly infusing him, long enough to at least realize that it was unnatural. He wasn't sure what could be causing it, though, and when he reached out his magic senses, he found nothing.

Puzzled, slightly alarmed and faintly unsettled by the sudden shadows and chanting whispers, he waited at the bottom of the pit. There was a distinct unease in his posture as he glanced around. If not her, then what-?
Among the bones Vargas counted a thousand victims. Likely more. Did they still linger, somehow-? Did- ...Ahh, but she was speaking; and he struggled to focus, to concentrate on her booming words. He could look into the weird... ghostliness... later, he supposed. Protection? From Lord Dhracia? Perhaps this other Hand? He tucked this all away--not as fact, of course, but as possibility--and listened to the rest.

Hm.
At least the strange red light, the echoing voice, was fading; and he stared up for a moment. "What was that?" he demanded, at once; "That light, that noise. The whispers." His tone was loud, insistent. "And tell me of Orthoclase-Alpha."

She was tempted, for a moment, to lie--to blame the spirits of the dead for his disquiet, to claim that she only channeled the ghosts and that maybe, just maybe, they really didn't like him.

Well.

She descended the ledge, along the walkway, and considered. Even a simple "I don't know" might cast doubt on them, and she wouldn't misrepresent them like that; they granted her knowledge, after all. "You saw a glimpse of my power, I imagine," she answered him hoarsely, as she passed with but a glance. And that, at least, was perfectly true.

As she passed him (and she could feel Omen watching, pensive, through their link) she sent her magic out again: another powerful surge, but again in the form of but a mild brush, carrying with it a few choice spores. I'm useful, she thought, molding the spores as she passed. Powerful. You want to be allied with me and you most certainly do not want me as your enemy...

Whatever the case, it seemed to work; he didn't jump on her and eat her neck, at least, and a moment later she was picking through the bones for something more closely-associated with Orthoclase-Alpha, at least thematically, in her mind.

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- THE LEVIATHAN -

Confusion again flicked through him at a sudden sense of calm that roiled over him--an indifference. He felt, abruptly, as though Giggle must be right; she certainly wasn't a threat of some kind. And if Vargas was confident in anything, it was his ability to jud-... Wait a moment.
Again, this time more suspiciously, his magic flickered out. This time he felt-... something. What was it-? That, he couldn't tell; only the edges of something brushed across his senses.

He was about to snatch a limb out, to grab her by the leg, to warn her off any magic. But the spores were insisting--powerfully--that it wasn't the hyena that was a threat. Vargas hesitated, the fungus and its magic vaguely confusing him. Surely she was only using the magic she had to, to read the bones-?

Six acid eyes narrowed, and he regarded the hyena's back. "You had best not be using magic on me, Bone Reader. You will regret it."

Yet despite the sincerity of the threat, there was no real conviction in it-... Surely it wasn't her?

Haha, whoops.

Giggle fired him a sour, dark-eyed glance, mustering up every bit of that bastard rebellious nature she held in her to give him a straight-faced lie: "What are you talking about? I'm not. Now let me do my work."

Hers was a look--and tone--of complete confidence. Her level of bullshittery this fine day could not have been more on point, and as she selected a hefty, misshapen spike of bone from the pile, even the way she turned her back on him was disdainful enough to seem completely honest.

She padded to the top of the pit, leaving the baffled Master alone with his thoughts, and stared down at the bones again.

Tell me how Orthoclase-Alpha is doing, she requested of them, and then dropped this jagged representation from her perch.

The way it fell--the neat pattern followed by hectic chaos, then the spinning away--set her mind reeling back to the past in sudden memory. 'You'll get what you put into this world. Effort you put forth--it will be rewarded! Harm you give, that will be returned to you! Everything is a cycle, and all of it is in balance, and it all comes back to where it started. Be wary what seeds you plant, Orthoclase, because what you plant is what grows. ...That's metaphor.' Because, suddenly, that was what the bones were whispering into her mind: What it put into the world is being given back. It has planted its seeds, and what it plants is what has grown. It has come back to where it started. Wariness flickered through her. Did that mean it was here, too--literally here, in Canis or Tunnel P? Or was it only metaphor; or was it both?

The next was utter disruption. Hindrance and stagnancy, chaos. Destruction. Here, but more... to come. And it ended much as Vargas's own had done.

Giggle took a breath, disturbed by this omens. Showmanship was forgotten, for now; this reading was a dire one.

"I once told Orthoclase-Alpha that it would reap whatever it had sowed. Get back whatever it put into this world. It has. Whatever is happening with it, it has circled back," ahh, if only she had known the word karma, and all it stood for. "I see destruction. Hindrance and delay. Its life is like a storm coming, one that cannot be escaped. And it ends much how I saw your Forge: a miscommunication, terrible advice, something along those lines. What happened to it-?" she asked, looking up at Vargas sharply (or, down, rather) almost accusatorily. The creature had been simple and violent, but almost innocent in a childlike way. If a child threw incessant tantrums.

Was it cowering in Draco, under Vargas's thumb-? Was he asking so he'd know what was going on in its mind?

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- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas stared at the old hyena.

Maybe if he wasn't still under the effects of her lingering magic, he'd never have asked his next question--but he was, and he did not feel his usual wariness at being so blatant, so open, about the Forge's internal affairs. Anyway, she was like a doctor--wasn't she?--and you had to tell them everything, to get an accurate diagnosis.

Destruction? Reaping what it's sown..? Orthoclase-Alpha, what have you done?
"What do I need to do?" he asked her, almost hoarsely.

Surely this strange hyena, this random Gembound with no authority whatsoever (who claimed to speak to bones, no less) would know.

That logic, for whatever strange reason (hint: it was spores) seemed perfectly valid to Vargas right now.

Giggle very, very nearly blurted, "what the fuck are you asking me for?" And then she realized. Oh. OH. He wants me to ask the bones.

Crisis (barely) averted.

She eyed him, sighed a little, and plodded back down to the bones a second time. She picked a small tangled pair, jagged, blackened by flame. And this she carried in thick jaws back up to her ledge again.

A toss. A tumble. Dark eyes tracked its movement, came to grim conclusions. Lifted to Vargas, apprehensive of how he would respond. Then--for the third time--Giggle began to speak.

"There needs to be... clarity. Honesty. A new hope for it, I think. Something needs to be revealed to it." As always, her faint paranoia--that something was being kept from her, in order to make her seem the fool--flickered through her... but her confidence outweighed it. If, for example, Vargas had killed Orthoclase-Alpha and come to Giggle to test her powers, she had no doubt the bones would have told her precisely what he'd done. As it was, she simply continued, making no mention of any of this whatsoever.

"After that-? I see travel that bodes ill. I see two, splitting apart. I see them unable to work as one. One, unable to improve itself despite maybe trying. And I see it ending in loss. A child, lost," she added--the reading was simple, but it was quite specific.

"It might be that you need to let it go. Or that it will leave."

Little did she know.

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