Shaula is tiring. Exhaustion drips, crystalline beads that brush my skin and tingle an awakeness, a waterfall tumbling from far above. It conquers the feeling of sun-kissed light and small bare feet on grass, of slanted summer rays through a forest and someone's distant call.

I turn my gaze upwards, then my hand, reaching until the stream becomes a cascade, drenching me, flooding the landscape. Gushing, it propels me through the shattering sky. I swim, lungs aflame and heart pumping, until I begin to smell death and dust.

With the awkward ease of a flower's petals peeling back in the sun, reality's shroud settles over me.

I rock on my own feet, testing the bend of my toes, breathing slowly. This is only a momentary lapse in her concentration. It will end very soon, and I will not be able to fight it, yet that knowledge simply provides me with the desire to soak up every sense while I can. The weariness is mine, too. It throbs in my core, a charred, picked-at scar, spreading like a bruise -- or a delicate breath of frost, perhaps, a gentle, melodious ache -- through my bones.

The ground is stone. The surroundings are dark, murky, flecked with the scent of mildew. My face itches. My first thought is to brush a few curious fingers over my cheek, though I hurry to abandon that idea when I realise my hands are full. Held in my arms is a body. A person, alive, warm and shifting with the shallow rise and fall of sleep. Curled hair tumbles over my arm.

My heart skips, legs quaking. "Sarielle?"

My voice sounds strange. I swallow in a rush, wincing, though the only reply I receive is a low echo bounced back at me. Sarielle doesn't stir. I set her down on the ground anyway, joints stiff and difficult as rusty wires to bend in their desired shapes. The air is still water, impeding every movement, a persistent reminder of how trapped I am. I can do nothing to help Sarielle. I don't have the time nor the strength to take her away. I'm my own shell, hollow and jittery, defenceless.

Instead I kneel. Her limp hand lays over her chest, and I reach for it, twining my fingers clumsily with hers. Greedy flame spikes cold in my chest, but I can already feel Shaula's influence tangled within it, whispering soothing words until it calms. Under her command, it is willing, obedient. It watches and grins. It allows me this singular moment of forbidden touch, tittering its mockery. It is ironic, after all, that I finally taste control when it is far too late.

My fingers brush over flaking skin, the rough cracks of a wound. Anger swells. For once, it isn't a tool to chip away from within, but wholly mine, and it's fiercely hot. I squeeze Sarielle's hand, and a tear drips down my cheek. "I will destroy you," I whisper, staring at my white-skinned wrist and thinking of the serpent's fangs dug into my gums. "I vow it. I won't ever stop fighting you, Shaula."

The flame crackles, laughs. It would disappoint me if you did. Soft, strangling coils wrap my throat, cutting off my breath, blurring my vision. Do not fret. I will take very good care of your beloved Sarielle. Her very stretches out uncomfortably long, warped and stringy.

There's no chance for me to reply; she's already stolen my tongue from me. My struggles are desperate but feeble. I cling ever tighter to Sarielle's hand, letting it be the last piece of the present I feel before the past swallows me once again.

- ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ -

The frosty feel of my father's hand shocks me. I stretch my arm up, fisting my fingers around a couple of his in an attempt to warm them for him, but he jerks out of reach without a thanks. His glare is stony.

I flinch. My hand is numbly cold in the absence of his touch, prickling uncomfortably. I've lost count of the number of times he's evaded me now. Though he's still right there walking beside me, I feel lonely.

My lip quivers, and I bite down on it, gazing up at him. "Can I hold your hand? Please?"

He cradles his hand like my snatching touch injured it. "No."

"Why?"

"Because you can't, Noli," he snaps, gaze fiery enough to make me gasp and stumble. "Don't make this any harder than it already is, alright?"

"Sorry." I look down at my toes. They catch on tufts of grass, heavy like lumps of rock, dragging me to a stop. My whole body is heavy. Aches lance up my legs and squeeze, the throbs pulsing like my muscles are caught beneath an oscillating piston. We must've walked to the world's edge by now. When we first left home, my father promised me an adventure, described views of awe and excitement, and I have seen so much of interest: the huge, flat stretch of the sea, the pointed spires of earth that pierce the clouds, the strange outsider people in their drab brown clothes that give us funny looks when we pass through their towns. But now I'm tired of the adventure, and I can tell he is too. His mood has been awful in recent days, his glances cruel, his words few. He won't even answer my questions, and he won't hold my hand.

Tears well up, bullying their way up my throat before stinging my eyes. I hiccup and wrap my chest with my arms. Mother would barely say goodbye to us when we left. I miss her.

"Hey, hey."

My father has doubled back. He crouches down in front of me, lips twitching through emotions, eyes full of flitting hesitance. They're coloured forest-green behind the misty veil of his spectacles at the moment -- for protection, he told me, since purple eyes are not normal among the outsiders and he wishes to keep their curiosity at bay. I miss the old colour, too. Meeting his gaze right now feels like staring at the face of a stranger.

"It's alright," he adds, his voice dropping until it faintly soothes. I wipe at my eyes with the heel of my palm, swallowing hard, though the lump in my throat doesn't diminish. "It's..." He pauses, glancing downward as if hoping a script will appear for him amongst the dirt. "It isn't safe for you to touch me right now. I don't want you to know why, but I need you to understand that."

Harsh, angry voices float to the forefront of my mind, the jarring echo of a memory. "Because you might hurt me?"

He inhales sharply, shoulders tensing. His nod comes stiffly, his reply slow and reluctant, dragged through mud. "Yes. Do you understand?"

My returning nod is jerky, my thoughts full of sharp and jagged edges and that continued whisper of why, but I hold back the urge to ask. He'll only get angry again.

"Good." With a flicker of a smile that softens a little of my fear, he straightens, gaze tracing a line towards the horizon. His hands wring before him.

Longing twists and wriggles in my chest. A shiver claws up my spine, the wind's cooling, autumnal breath tickling the back of my neck and my arms. Sniffling, I dab at the last of my tears and try to speak again, making my words quiet enough that part of me hopes he won't hear. "Will we ever be able to hold hands again?"

A jolt travels through him. He looks to me and away again, dodging my stare, his smile thin and sad. His eyes spark just faintly. "Yes," he says, and the certainty there is warm, fulfilling and earnest. Finally meeting my eyes, he sinks back into his crouch. "Very soon. We've very, very close to our destination now. If you walk fast, we might get there before it goes dark."

Curiosity kindles a spark. "Our dest-in..."

"Destination." He nods. "The place we're going to. Once we get there, all our problems will be solved."

"And then we can go home?" I regret the words as soon as they leave my tongue -- the lack of gratitude attached to them, the whimper underneath -- and flinch from their sound, afraid. Relief trickles through slowly, though, when my father's expression doesn't darken at my speaking out. If anything, his eyes are full of light.

"We can go home," he confirms.

Giddy excitement clambers up from my toes to my fingertips, tingling. Home, where Mother is, where Father is kind and gentle, where I can rest. Where all the beautiful things I've seen can be nice memories along with the thick murkiness of exhaustion. I bounce on the balls of my feet, ready to get going again. "I'll walk really fast."

My father laughs, though it's short-lived, dying away like a summer leaf's withering into amber and brown. "When we get to our destination," he says, voice low, "there's something I'll need you to help me with. You're going to need to be brave for me. Can you do that?"

I'd grin and tell him how boundless my bravery is, that I'm not afraid of anything, but there's a seriousness to his expression that wards against it. I answer simply. "I can be brave."

His gaze drops to the ground. A taut silence holds him there for a moment before he rises, movements jerky and awkward, fiddling with his spectacles as his face ducks into only partial sight. "I'm glad," he says on a shaky exhale.

My chest grows tight. He sounds upset. Is he crying too?

His warped, miscoloured eyes are clear of tears, however, when he casts me a soft glance. His smile has a windswept strength to it, akin to the way I've seen trees hold themselves in rough gales: doubled over, creaking, but roots anchored firmly into the earth. He lifts a hand close to my face, hesitates, then lets it drop to his side again. "I love you, Noli," he says. "And I'm very proud of you. I want you to know that."

I try to smile back, confused but eager as always to make him happy again. "I love you too, Father."

His nod is somewhat vacant, his mind too busy to invoke anything natural into the stiff way he stands. He turns, takes a step. "Come on. Let's walk as fast as we can."

Such a thing is easier said than done. I push my legs into as quick a pace as they can muster, thinking of Mira, the wolf Synté who visits us sometimes, and the effortless way she bounds through the long grass when we play our games of chase. She is always too fast for me to catch, and the same is true now. After only a few minutes, I can feel myself slowing, as much as I try to keep up with my father's determined, occupied stride. The air has fingers that wrap my ankles and tug constantly backward. Still, I carry on, thinking of home, holding my chin high and telling myself to be brave.

The minutes stretch into hours. Long silences are strung through the forest we clamber through, the only sounds the rustling of boots pushing through undergrowth and the whistle of wind gliding between patchy branches. Midday comes and goes. Rays of sunlight brush my skin and then wink out, leaving me to shiver into my thin cloak, stumbling over tree roots with its hood tucked low enough to obscure half of my vision. I keep peeling it back to glance at my father, but he never looks back. He keeps going, and so I do too, tongue caught between my teeth, spiky words bundled in my throat and held back for fear of rebuttal.

Shading my eyes, I squint at the gaps between the trees ahead, searching. What does our destination look like? Will I know when I see it? I hope it's a nice place, with somewhere to sit down and somewhere to sleep. My bones groan with longing for it.

Yet the afternoon is acres long, and refuses to end. My flame sputters in my core. It chases away some of the cold and makes my legs less wobbly, but doesn't speed up the passing of time.

I can feel tears pricking my eyes again when the dark begins to descend and we're still walking. The effort of shoving them back creates a heavy ache. My stomach hurts too, hard and flat like a pebble. I rub at it, looking at Father for the umpteenth time, waiting with a crushing impatience that wraps me in tangling, phantom vines until my lungs are tight and dizziness sways my step.

The words eventually choke out all on their own. "How much longer?"

"Not long." Face cast in evening's sharp shadows, he gestures with an arm, sleeve dyed indigo in the fading light. "Can you see the water there?"

At the end of his finger, in the distance, a sleek, glassy disc shimmers, sparks of blue and silver winking in and out. I nod.

"That's where we're going."

The faint tickle of disappointment emerges -- a lake is far from the pleasant country house with a fire and a bed that I dreamed of -- but it's overcome by the watery rush of relief. Somehow, from somewhere, I find the willpower to speed up, staggering through each heavy step. A lake is beautiful, and it means this ends.

The sun has just sunk below the hills when we reach the water's edge and finally, finally, stop. My father has snatched a fallen branch from the forest's edge during some moment I wasn't paying him my attention, and now he holds it aloft, fingers snapping above it. Amber flames eat its tip and cast a bright glow of light over the lapping shore. The lake's ripples murmur, the spaces between them glowering darkly. I can only think about my throbbing feet and whether I'm allowed to sit down yet.

But my father's voice answers none of my buzzing, unasked questions. It booms instead over the glimmering lake. "I'm here as promised," he announces. "I have brought you my son."

The words linger, sprouting wings and soaring around us with the anticipation of circling vultures. And then the water cracks.

I stumble back, awe-inspired fear grabbing me by the throat. A long body pours from the gap between the unsettled waves, glints of colour drowning in a wave of black scales, an arrow-shaped head rearing up impossibly high to turn its point on us. A forked tongue flicks out and in, a shadow amongst shadows I only catch because my neck is craned to examine the huge beast. Father's light can't capture most of it. Patches of its body creep from the folds of the night while others succumb to starless blackness.

My heart pounds and my vision blurs. I clench my fists tight enough to earn pain in my knuckles, unable to catch my breath, head spinning. Be brave. Be brave. My legs quiver.

"Noli is six years old," Father continues, a brittle shake to his voice. "Not yet bonded, as you requested. I've done as you asked."

A hiss slithers through the night, sharp and serrated enough to cut. I press my lips together, suppressing a whimper, and breathe furiously through my nose. I can't be afraid. I can't think past the mess of fear. Why is my father telling the beast about me? Am I its prey?

No. No. I scrunch my eyes shut for a second, ordering myself to be calm. Be brave.

They open to the sight of my father's arm thrown in front of my chest, his stance wide and shielding. His head tilts upward, glowering through the spectacles. Peering through the space behind their rims, I catch sight of dark, unnatural violet, a shade of midnight as foreign to his face as forest green, sparking dangerously. "First, you deliver what you promised me."

Water heaves and splashes as the beast curves, lowering itself slowly and steadily while loops of its long body form behind, until its head is only just above my father's. Its tongue emerges again, nearly tasting the tips of his chestnut hair. He stays firm. His hand shakes as he sets the lit tree branch down at his feet, then presents his palm to the beast, flame bursting from his fingertips and climbing familiarly in a twisting blaze.

His flame should be violet. The same as mine, the same as every other Katasko before us.

But right now, in the smoky twilight, this blaze looks black.

"Fix it," he says. The words are glass, and they shatter.

The beast's head dips, and I notice slitted black eyes blink, narrowed as they study the fire. I'm sure its wide mouth grins. My father steps closer, his boots sloshing through the shallows. This odd, darker fire of his barely casts a glow, and so what occurs between him and the beast is hidden from me, shrouded in descending darkness. My heart thumps. I want to run after him and drag him back before something happens, but my feet are melded in place, a sour iciness roiling in my stomach.

Several long moments drag on. My boots sink, leaving indents in the mud. Tension curls my toes. "Father?"

Light replies.

Purple light spreads brilliantly over the lake, tingeing the water, etching out the silver-lined edges of the beast's thousands upon thousands of reptilian scales. Soothing relief settles over me at the sight of it. My father's fire has returned. It sits and flickers contentedly in the cupped hands he presents to the beast, illuminating him in coloured brushstrokes. He steps back, cradling it close to his chest, and from the side I just about catch his mesmerised smile. His delight is strange considering how small a thing it is for him to summon flame; I've seen him do it plenty of times, haven't I? Even so, it springs a smile to my face. It's nice to see him happy.

Slowly, his head lifts to level the beast's gaze once more, his smile thinning into something harsher. His brow is furrowed in concentration. I wait, hoping desperately for an explanation. Or at least for him to say this was all he needed to do. I hope this is over now.

His gaze slants my way, and I stiffen, listening intently. "Noli." His whisper is wound tight. "Run back to the forest."

I toss a frenzied glance over my shoulder. Confusion storms in my chest. "Why?"

Without warning, the beast's snarl rumbles loud as thunder, and it throws itself forward. A high-pitched yelp jumps from my tongue as I scramble backward, hand clapped to my chest as I pant hard. Hooked, gleaming fangs tear through mid-air, a shudder running through its looping body as if its snout has collided with something. I blink. For that brief second, there's a wall at the lake's edge, transparent and faintly gold-yellow, rippling out in knitted, glowing threads before it fades again.

The beast tosses its head to the side, fangs glancing the invisible-ish wall again, and this time a thread comes loose. It flies through the air before winking out of sight again.

A victorious hiss twines with my shaky bones.

"Noli, run!"

I flinch. It takes a second to register my father's shout. Desperation flails in his expression, his violet fire wild as it roars and crackles, snaking up his arms. Twin fiery whips condense into his palms. He snaps them, and they too collide with that glimmering gold wall, the threads' glow as blinding as the sun within the moment they are visible. He looks back at me. His eyes glow just the same.

My legs are heavier than they've ever been, yet my fear is swirling feathers, dizzyingly light and fizzling energy into my veins. I turn on my heel and force a run.

The forest is still another world away when I hear the scream.

Father. Gasping, vision reeling, I stagger to a stop and whirl, just in time to see him plummet through the knitted veil. He lands with a slapping splash in the water. Crimson soaks a pool around his arm. A fang impales his flesh, tugging at him, dragging. The beast's head is already half-submerged.

I don't think. I just know that my boots charge through sodden mud again, then shallow water, the bottom of my trousers soaked and clinging to my ankles. The air stings like it hits me from either side. My flame roars. I'm crying again. Everything burns and aches as I wrap my arms around my father's leg and pull, claws scraping through my core as my strength dribbles through my fingers. I need to get him to safety. I can't let him be taken away.

A bitter, coppery stench assaults my nostrils and stirs my stomach. So much blood trickles from the hole in his arm, more than I've ever seen in my life. I strain, pulling harder, the lake swaying beneath me.

The beast wrenches its head back, and a vicious yank jerks my arms forward. My legs fold. I trip onto my knees, barely saving my face from breaking the water's surface. I'm losing my grip. I claw and grapple with the slippery material of my father's trouser leg, freezing water spraying over my skin.

My father snags my focus. His spectacles are all askew, shoved at an angle onto his forehead and slipping as roughened water laps at them. His violet eyes are wet. He looks like he's saying goodbye, and that terrifies me. I don't want to say goodbye.

I open my mouth to tell him that, to tell him that I'm going to be brave and I'm going to save him, but the wind is snatched from the words before I can get them out. Something crushes my waist.

My scream is weighty and breathless, hardly making a sound. I see my father's lips move but can't hear what he says. A ringing hiss fills my ears. I claw at my middle, fingers sliding over a smooth, silky surface, cold to the touch. It slides over my stomach, my chest, tightening. My ribs hurt. I'm just barely conscious of my grip finally breaking away from my father's leg, of the water on all sides, of my kicking feet growing sluggish. I keep squirming, keep trying to breathe, though nothing will come in.

Desperate flame sings in my chest, licking at my painful lungs. The warmth buried within it abruptly drops into a chasm.

Do not panic, child, a distant, blurred voice murmurs. Sleep.

It's an invitation my body craves more than anything. Black spots steal away my vision, and I float into cushioned darkness.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

I love delivering prequel breadcrumbs which are solely to keep me happy. Also tiny Nathan is my absolute favourite thing to write he's just so good T^T

Or just,, Nathan is general. Nathan chapters are so comfy to me you don't understand.

- Pup