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"OH, THIS IS bad, bad, bad." A little sprite, no bigger than a bug, but heaps more annoying, buzzed around her head. "An arrow through its heartstone. It'll die for sure." 

Celes swatted at the creature, but he deftly dodged her attack. "Oh! Did you see that Elm?"  With a huff and a snap of its mandibles, it whizzed past her ears. "Celes tried to kill me." 

She shook her head at the false accusation leveled her way. Though, in truth, it wasn't entirely incorrect. She hadn't wanted to kill him surely, but giving him a quick smack or pinching his wings between her fingertips had crossed her mind during their travels together. 

With peace and quiet so rarely afforded, any cost seemed worth its purchase. 

But knowing how much the little bugbrain meant to Simon, Celes would never act on her impulses, no matter how the sprite thought otherwise. 

"She didn't try to kill you, Leshy." 

Simon finally broke his silence, stalking forward on legs as thick as tree branches. He creaked, his movements slow, and something in Celes's chest tightened. 

Leshy flew over to Simon, perching on the bridge of his wide nose. He crossed all six of his arms. "Did so, Elm." He scowled, his ire aimed at Celes.

Simon reached up and ran a finger over Leshy's head, messing up the sprites already tangled crop of grey hair. His jaws rubbed and clinked together, a pleasant screeching rising from the back of his throat. He closed his eyes contently. 

Celes gave a quick smile, before glancing back down at the ground. A stag was sprawled out, the shaft of an arrow sticking from its chest.  She examined it closely - the dried blood, the singed flesh. 

Dark arrows then, from Evenstar. 

Hit close to the heart, but not quite, at least as far as she could tell. Lucky to be alive, it was.

Its breaths were staggered but steady, its eyes glazed over, but aware. She reached down, and orange flames ignited in its gaze. Careful not to incite further pain, she ran a hand down its head and over its back. 

"I think it'll live. You?"

Simon took a step forward. Moss-like stubble clung to his clenched jawline, his bark-line skin cracking as a frown emerged. His earthen eyes swept over the stag, then settled on Celes's face. "There's a chance." His words were slow and thoughtful, a perfect balance struck between hopeful and practical.

She nodded. "Then we do what we can." She placed both arms under its head, her hands gently cupping the beast's muzzle. It winced, a spurt of blood gushing from its wound.

"The arrow should be removed before we move it."

Simon knelt, his forest-green robes fluttering out behind him. Leshy hopped from his nose to his shoulder, all six of its tiny arms crossed over its abdomen.

"One swift yank ought to do it." From behind his green hair, Simon's eyes glistened. Mist rose around him, the air thick as he summoned the Green. "I'll close the wound with vines, keep the bleeding minimal."

Celes breathed out and nodded. Hand around the shaft, splinters biting into her palms, she pulled. The beast reared, its eyes bulging, saliva dripping down its jaws. The arrow relented and slid out.

Vines rose from the ground, securing themselves over the gash, stemming the flow of blood.

The stag rested its head back on the ground, eyes closed.

Celes fell backward, the arrowhead in her hand black and smoking. She threw it to the ground, where it disappeared into smoke and shadow. "Why in Mother's light, would Evenstar send his army after a stag?"

Simon shrugged. "I don't know, but we should get back to our hiding spot before nightfall."

Celes agreed, and with their combined strength, the pair of them were able to safely move the stag.

*

Their hideout was little more than an abandoned burrow in the woods Simon had used his Green magick on to expand enough to comfortably suit them.

The soil was wet from a recent rain, and the roots of nearby trees curled and coiled around them. They used them for shelves, storing potions and water. A hole in the ground kept their food fresh, and away from where it might attract predators.

Leshy was the first to enter, the little sprite beelining to a little alcove in the tree roots he had claimed for himself. There, he plopped himself on a bed of leaves, and sighed.

"Today was exhausting." He tucked his wings in and leaned back, hands behind his head.

"You did nothing," Celes reminded the little bug, though her focus was on the stag and getting it safely inside.

Several times, its antlers had almost gorged her because she'd been too reckless – forgetting the tangles of roots on the forest floor, or getting slapped in the face by an overhead branch the wind decided to blow into her path.

And each time, Simon had been there, pulling the stag's body back, keeping its horns from puncturing her stomach.

Once in the center of the large space, they placed the beast down. Celes crouched, her hand rising up to wipe the sweat-caked hairs from her forehead. Simon set to lighting a fire. 

She pulled a few jars from a branch shelf above her head, then got a mortar and pestle from the dug out where they kept their crockery. After removing the lid of a jar of jagged, brown leaves, a sourness seeped into the burrow. Leshy was first to comment on the stench. "It reeks!" His wings flapped indignantly. 

She poured the leaves into the pestle and began to crush them. "You think it's bad now? It'll only get worse." 

The sprite harrumphed, before taking a curtain of moss and shutting himself away in his room. 

Simon laughed, then turned to face her. "Need anything?"

 Behind him, a fire slowly caught, the logs smoking. "No, a fire's enough. Besides--" She glanced at him. At one time, he'd been no taller than her, a spindly creature, no more a sprout in his spring season. But now Simon was older, his bark brittle, his eyes duller, his green hair patchy. He used to be crowned in brightly colored leaves, but they had all turned brown, and the flowers he once grew when he was happy, wilted and shriveled up. 

Celes shut her mouth, and looked away. 

A warm hand fell on her shoulder. "It's not time yet." 

"But it will be," she said miserably. "You'll enter your Winter and I'll--"

He peered into her face, his eyes warm and sincere. 

"I'll forget." 

He nodded solemnly, one hand resting on her shoulder. "Magick is a part of us, it intertwines with our essence. To be so far out on this limb of the great tree though, we feel its absence in all ways." 

She quirked an eyebrow as she poured the dusted leaves into a clay bowl. "Simon Elmswitch, when did you get so downright sagely?"

The corners of his mouth rose. On his head, a flock of baby's breath had started to grow, curled stems hanging over his eyes. "When you travel with the captain of the Swiftscrap long enough, you wise up real quick. Either that or you get singed by all the fires she leaves in her wake." 

Celes harrumphed, though her hands never stopped their work - pulverizing beetle shells, stripping roots, adding the correct amount of drops. "Goblins caused those fires," she reminded him. "I was the one carrying all those buckets of water to put them out." 

"And I was right there beside you, wasn't I?" 

They shared a grin. 

"Always."

At the time of their introduction, Simon had been no more an apprentice Kinsage, a sapling Verdan venturing forth onto one of the many branches of the Great Tree as he sought mastery of the Green. She'd met him on the streets of Pris, after a thief had nicked his purse. And then at Dawn Queen Raylia's request, he became Celes's chaperone. 

As the Worlds-seer and keeper of the Worlds Keys, Celes argued she didn't need a watcher. But before the argument had been settled, the Evernight attacked, and the Morningtide fell, and her home was swaddled in smoke and soot and the Kinsages were all slain, save for Simon, and he, and to a lesser extent, Leshy, became all she had left. All that stood between the Eridan and absolute darkness. 

They'd staved off the Evernight forces, kept light in the realms, but found themselves stranded in Exul. Her ship beached on the shores of the Crossroads, her Worlds-keys ineffective in a land with such little magick at its core. 

Finally, Simon stood, the baby's breath blooming along his forehead already withering. He glanced down at the stag. "We'll take shifts." 

"No." She shook her head as she used a stick to mix the salve into a paste. "I'll stay up." Her eyes flicked to Simon's face. "You sleep. You could use it. Your leaves are curled."

"Your leaves are curled," he retorted, his voice soft, his words absent any sting. Patches of red bloomed like roses across his cheeks. 

A chuckle floated between her lips. "I've got this." She grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. 

Finally, he relented. Moving a curtain of braided vine aside, he vanished into the adjacent room leaving Celes alone with the stag. 

Tying her hair back, and rolling up the stained sleeves of her shirt, she got to work - burning the vines, cleaning the arrow's entry point, applying the salve her mother had taught her to make. Her mother, she remembered, had been one of the wisest Aureates in the Morningtide. A scholar of both history and magick. She'd always reprimand Celes for being neither - not a great thinker nor some wielder of mighty magick. Celes had always run from her studies, taking to the city streets instead. She'd play with other kids her age and when they made fun of her shortcomings, she always fought them to prove herself worthy. Her mother never approved of ending arguments with such vulgar displays though the Aureates that bullied Celes always held their tongues after their faces had been introduced to her fists. 

Her mother had a name, and it danced on Celes's tongue, but no matter how hard she tried to pry it free from her mouth, she couldn't. 

The forgetting, she thought as she smoothed the salve over the wound. The slow, awful forgetting of what you knew, what you were, what you loved. Names had been the first to slip away.

Beneath her fingers, the animal's body relaxed, its eyes closing. 

"Sleep well." She got up, threw a tattered blanket over the creature's back, then drew nearer to the fire. She poured a jar of water over her hands, and washed them until the stickiness was gone. 

In the quiet, she listened. To the stag, its breathing, much to her relief, had steadied a bit. The fire crackled and hissed and spat, angry flames lashing the burrow's dirt ceiling. In the other room, she heard the lumbering snores let loose by Simon, and the contented purrs of Leshy. It had begun raining and water dripped onto the ground, sizzling when it came in contact with the fire. 

Celes leaned back and closed her eyes. She didn't sleep; she prayed. 

Prayed to her mother's gods, prayed to the Mother Light, that illuminated all and banished shadows. That protected them. 

She did as she'd seen her mother do, clasping her hands over the spot wherein her chest her heartstone beat - pumping blood and magick through her veins. She focused on her veinings, gifts of sunlight and spring water, sky and silt  that blessed every Aureate, that spoke to the light they carried inside. She called on what was left of that power, what had yet been stripped away while she survived in Exul. 

Mother Light, illuminate our path, so we may walk it ever steadfastly. Banish the shadows that cloud our minds and loom over our heartstones. Let us radiate your warmth eternal. 

Let this beast survive. 

She blew out and opened her eyes. The stag was watching her, its dark eyes glimmering and strong. 

It breathed out, a cloud of steam curling from its snout and then it gave a bow of its head, and Celes could have sworn, she saw the worlds dance around its horns. 

*

The burrow faded, along with the stag, the warmth of the fire cooling. Abby was back in the Wizard's office, seated on his couch, Sebbi and Lucy at her side. 

Margo knelt in front of her, smiling. "Welcome back." She reached up and pulled a strand of hair away from Abby's eye. 

Abby gazed up at the Wizard. "She saved you." 

He bowed his head, slowly, reverently, stars raining down from his horns to pepper the shoulders of his robes. "She did." His hand rose to cover his left side. "After all this time, it still hurts." 

"Love?" Lucy gripped her hand. "What did you see?"

She turned to face him. "I saw her. My mom. She had a tree for a friend and a little bug annoyed her to no end. She called it Bugbrain and tried to swat it from the air." 

"Sounds like Sebbi." Lucy threw a glower over his shoulder. 

A low growl rumbled out of Sebbi's throat. 

"She missed and she did so on purpose. Mom loved that bug and her friend." 

"You speak of the wood sprite, Leshy and Simon Elmswitch, last of the Kinsages." 

Abby eyed the Wizard. "You knew them?"

"A bit. They had their hand in saving me as well."

A sob both happy and sad fell from her lips. She rocked forward. "Mom was a ship captain." 

"Your father always said you had adventuring in your blood, Love." 

"She was so filled with fear." Her hands clenched in her lap. "That she'd forget who she was, and what she'd done. She couldn't recall her mother's name." 

The Wizard rested on the edge of his desk. "A terrible thing, for a member of the Eridan to be stranded in Exul. The magick in one's blood is slowly lost, and without it, goes their sense of self. Exile here was used as punishment for the most heinous crimes."

"She worried she'd end up alone. And--"

The Wizard stared down at her with a smile on his face. "And she didn't." 

Warm arms embraced Abby as she rocked forward. Both Lucy and Sebbi were holding her steady. Margo's hands covered Abby's own. 

"Your mother--" The Wizard spoke with fondness in his voice, his gold eyes shining like the dawn. "--was my first friend, outside of my sister. Fate is a funny thing, sending her child to save me this time." He chuckled and the suns around his horns exploded, littering sunlight down onto the ground, around his feet. "I think it is time I depart." 

Abby wiped her cheeks. "Sh-should we..." Her eyes darted around. "Do anything?" 

The Wizard's lip curled. "No need, my dear. You have done enough." He turned away from them, facing the window that looked out on Triad. "I will leave everything to my assistant, a job he will do admirably, though he will not believe himself capable. Always did doubt his worth." The Wizard grinned over his shoulder. "A shame, as I have never met anyone more worthy."  Turning around, he released an exhale. "I would like to glimpse the sky before I go. Would you all join me?" 

Abby's eyes flicked around the room. Margo, Lucy and Sebbi all nodded in silent agreement. 

The Wizard's smile widened, his eyes glittering. "Good. I know just the spot."