The travel through Tunnel K was not much slower then the flight from Canis. The uncomfortably foggy, dead cave even put Anubis on edge and the silence was not broken by him as they hurridly made their way through. At last when they were breathing in fresh(er) air once again, Anubis at last seemed to take a deep breath and the fur on his neck, which had been prickling, at last smoothed out and the last of his anxieties were gone. For the first time since he'd fled Canis over a cycle ago, he felt relaxed and at ease. And with his child at his heels, it seemed things were at last going right.

He slowly came to a stop and turned, panting from the run. "Are you alright? It is not much farther. Just here-" and he trotted forward to show the way to his temporary dwelling - one of many crumbled buildings, half collapsed, but with enough space left for a decent sized little cave, which Anubis ducked inside. It was much cleaner then the one that Fiver had woken up in, with only a small pile of bones from past meals, a small nest of feathers, fungus, and fur, and a single live mouse that lay half-asleep in a patch of mold-like fungus.

Anubis looked at the nest and then back at Fiver and then, in perhaps the first selfless act of his life, hastily began to scrape some of it into a second, smaller pile. He made to fill in the holes made in the original with a small carpet of soft, feathery fungus, but the spell sputtered away. Shrugging to himself, he poked at it to fluff it up as best he could and climbed into it, making himself comfortable as he laid himself down, forelegs stretched out in front of him.

"That is yours," he nodded towards the newly made nest. "Now that we are safe, we can talk. I am Anubis." His ears turned towards the child. "Do you have a name? I will give you one otherwise. I'm sure you have many questions."

@Fiver

The child didn't like the silence of the tunnel, but it was worth it to finally reach what lay beyond the dead, infested cavern.

Orion opened up like a magnificent geode, distant crystals glistening in the cave light above. It was here that his paw-steps slowed, finally, panting for breath as the jackal assured him: not much farther now. Just a bit more.

He hoped they wouldn't leave this place, not so soon. They traveled through the ruins of an ancient city, the walls begging the question. Were these dens? Who made them? Why? And these thoughts continued to buzz as they made their way to a new den. This one smelled like the old one he had hatched in, but the scents were fresher. A creature twitched in the corner, grappling for the boy's attention as Anubis scooped off some spare bedding for him.

At his father's beckoning, he shook his head, tearing his attention away from the half-alive mouse and instead to where he was ushered. The hatchling padded forward and poked at the soft bedding with curiosity, and then made to mimic his lifegiver: nudging the nest into a shape before settling in, feet tucked under his body and tail neatly resting at his side.

"Why Anubis?" Came his first question, almost too vague, asking of the adult's strange sounding name. The word sounded lofty, with a rhythm that made him want to say it several times in a row. He refrained, if barely. "What was it? The thing that wanted my brain?" That seemed like a good place to start. "Why is it trapped? How do you know all this?"

It was a lot of questions, of course, offered all at once in a way that made it difficult to answer concisely; but the boy's large, dark eyes stared up at Anubis with shimmering curiosity and a hunger all his own.

"Why were you there?" It wasn't quite the question he wanted to ask, but he found himself hesitating, perhaps even a touch... well... gun-shy to know the answer. Oh, but he wanted to know, he really did.

As for a name, well... it seemed like he had forgotten that he had questions to answer as well ask.

Instead, he added one more question, just before Anubis could begin to answer any of them, or repeat the question he had already asked. "Why is everything so big?"

@Anubis

As the child sat himself down in the hastily made nest, Anubis got a good look at him for the first time. He looked a lot like him - the general shape and color, but there were things that were off. The muzzle was different, more slender and less pointed. The feet were different as well, far bigger and shaped completely different. And then, of course, the scales along the back, and the spikes. What had the creature been like before this one? He could only wonder.

The first question caught him a little off guard. His ears twisted back a bit, confused. "Why? Um..." He thought about it in the silence after the question, but he wasn't given a chance to answer before the next one came. A more expected one this time, followed by three more. He opened his mouth to answer when again, he was cut off. A mild frustration burned at the interruption and this time he waited a few more second before starting to answer. And, of course, he slipped one last question in before he could.

He wanted to grow mad, he really did, but to be honest, he wasn't. Instead, a strange feeling rose up in him, hot and almost joyous. The curiosity burning in his child's eyes, the flurry of questions asking why? what? how? It was so familiar of his own hunger for knowledge and the child that looked back at him was like a tilted mirror of the Anubis that had looked at Giggle with such burning curiosity. A wave of possessiveness came over him at the thought that he had truly passed something onto this child. He is more then a subject of his research now, he is his.

Quickly pulling himself out of the clouds threatening to swarm his mind, before the silence grew too long, he cleared his throat. "My name is just a name, I came up with it when I hatched. Many do, but many are also named. It does not matter. The white, however - it is a fungus controlled by a distant entity. It calls itself Mother and it takes over anyone that eats the fungus or inhales it or otherwise consumes the spores. It wishes to entrap everyone within its hivemind, where they lose all sense of who they are in service to Order. For now, it is confined to that cave. The creatures that carry it do not tend to leave, so we are safe as long as it is not spread manually. As for how I know this, I was told much of it, but I also studied it. For a brief time, at least, but Mother must have understood I was trying to learn too much about it. I'm a target now, in Canis - that's the cave we were in. It's not safe for me - or you - in there."

They took a moment to catch their breath after the long explanation, and also for the meaning to sink in. He hoped the kid was keeping up, but if he was anything like him, he'd be smart enough to understand, even at a young age. "I was there to get you out before Mother got to you first. The birds that were watching - those are Mother's. The place you woke up in was my old cave. It knew where you were." They were quiet for a moment before a smile reached the edge of their eyes and they quickly leaned forward and, in an almost affectionate gesture, nudged the top of his head. "Everything is big because you are small! But you will grow, you are only new-hatched."

@Fiver

For a moment, Anubis was stunned to silence by the onslaught of questions: but his son merely stared, wide, blank void for eyes blinking slowly and thoughtfully as he waited.

And then the answers came, the jackal unleashing a torrent of information that was almost as overwhelming as the sensoral overload he had recieved from the mycellium in Canis. "Or-der?" The young pup echoed, tasting the word on his tongue. Order brought to mind the concept of everything having its place, of structure and understanding, and for some strange reason, it didn't sound necessarily bad... but the gravity with which Anubis explained it, the emphasis on the cost that Mother made you pay... well, that was enough to send a shiver down his spine.

It made sense that Mother would want to stop Anubis. Even as fresh a mind as his was, he could understand a cartoonish evil that held secrets and would do anything to silence those that would stop it from its grand plans. But... "Why would Mother want me?" The child asked. "I'm just small, like you said. I didn't know any of this, either, until now..."

His ears laid back and his nose crinkled as he thought about it. He was glad that Anubis told him, had saved him... "How did you know I was there? Why was I in your old cave?" Reasonable follow-ups, perhaps. What went thoroughly unsaid were any answers that the little boy had for the jackal named Anubis. Instead, it was just more and more whys and hows.

And the most pressing question of the moment, of course, was: "When will I get bigger?" He shuffled closer, nosing his nose into the underside of Anubis's chin.

@Anubis

He anticipated the child's first responding question and his answer slid out easily, already thought about in the cycle he'd waited. "She wants you because you are young. There is little that you know, so you would learn about the world through her eyes - her twisted ideas would be the root of all your experiences. You would never taste freedom, so you would never crave it. That is, I think, why she would want you." Not to mention it could be a punishment for delving too deep for her. A punishment against him, to take his child from under his nose. But he doubted that there was any kind of malevolence underneath - it was simply a force of Order, trying to devour all in its path.

But he did not think that the kid had no idea who he was. Why he'd been there. Had he not just assumed? Had he not seen the similarities between the two? Well...he probably hadn't had a good look at himself. It wasn't like Anubis had looked at Giggle and thought, immediately, that she was his mother.

Still, he tilted his head quizzicly. "Oh, well...I am your life-giver - your father, if you'd like. I knew you were there because I put you there, when you were only a gemstone." He looked around the rubble and quickly rolled a small stone over for the child to look at. "Once, you were only about as big as this. A little red stone full of potential. When I gave you life, you began to grow into the shape you are now. And you will continue to get bigger, however much you are meant to grow. And I'll be there for you, to watch you get bigger. You will be safe with me." And it was now that Anubis lifted a paw and placed it on his son's shoulder - from the outside, it was an affectionate, caring gesture. But as his paw made contact, from his fur came a bit of white dander that settled on the other, almost invisible, right in a spot that would be hard to clean. Already, Anubis could sense him through it - distant, maybe, but it was enough.

He would never lose him now.

@Fiver