"Four left, two to the right..." Pechi wove between the trees again, disappearing from view, and then appeared on the other side of the clearing, next to the ship. It was looking claustrophobic today, having nearly slammed into a tree on the way into the narrow refuge they'd marked as their own. There were no other such breaks in the trees, which hadn't stopped Alexa from piling the plane into trees yesterday, which yielded results similar to the ones they'd received here.

"Should we call it a day? The chances we make progress without Alexa are slim," Dusty said. The Canis was leaned against a tree, basking in the sunlight. Tabai was aware, by now, that his smug expression was either a facade or a default, but it didn't make his nonchalance any more palatable.

"She's had spearheaded the last seven expeditions. We might need to consider the possibility that the forest bares her a certain enmity," suggested Tabai. "Although this seems like a far-flung hypothesis, I assure you--"

"We k-know you hate Alexa," Pechi said, glaring up at Tabai. "It's n-not some big r-r-revelation."

Dusty rolled his eyes just as the Queen of Darkness herself paged in, her voice crackling fiercely out of Dusty's comm. He really needed to get the volume on those fixed before one of them sustained hearing damage. "You haven't found the village yet, have you?"

"You don't even need to ask," Dusty responded. "Will be back at sunset. Over."

"Dinner's getting cold," Alexa responded, loud enough for all of them to hear.

Pechi's voice choked. Tabai watched her frantically steal between trees for the hundredth time, following her paces out into the woods, and Tabai followed. They found themselves on the other side once more, rejected. The planet was massive, but it felt like they'd landed on a miniscule asteroid, where one could hardly get out of sight before coming into it again.

Dusty shook his head. "Look. I'll give it one go, if it'll assuage your concerns enough, and we'll head back for the dead. Alexa will keep at the chart at the morning. You ran through all the left-right combinations up to ten steps for each tree, right, Pechi?"

"Yes," Pechi said. "O-on the ones that aren't dead e-e-ends. O-only some l-let you through, so we have to be on the r-r-right track..."

Dusty nodded. "Let's see if I can raise your streak a little higher."

As if it were some kind of game. It was hard to impress upon the Canis how truly, disappointingly flippant he was. Nonetheless, Dusty slid into the woods, wandering between trees, and then there was a great moment of silence as he receded from silence altogether.

Pechi and Tabai looked to each other with growing fear and hope rising in their expressions as they realized it wasn't going to end. Both dashed out into the forest to meet Dusty, only to find him on a long descent. He looked back to them with a quick flash of his tail. "Well, guess I found the correct combination."

Pechi's eye twitched. "R-r-really?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure you were useful," Dusty said, padding through the woods. "In some manner or another."

"F-fine! I d-don't want the credit. We just need to g-g-get Cassie and bring her home," Pechi said, bounding to the front of the pack. Dusty and Tabai followed, moving into her smooth, bounding gait, and the three of them found themselves barrelling down a hill that lead towards a part in the forest, beyond which was a disgusting amount of golden, syrupy light. The visage gave Tabai firm flashbacks of her childhood, where she had crouched outside of cities like this, dangling on the precipice of civilization, of order.

Like today, she had always smelled something sordid about the whole affair.

"L-let's go--" Pechi panted, looking back at her winded companions. Tabai had never seen her so energized, but her fur curls were bouncing and her tail, which was heavy enough to be a convenient extension of her whole body, was swinging far to the right.

"You weren't half as concerned Benn," Tabai sniped. "Nor G'ana."

"T-t-this is different! I b-b-barely knew either of them," Pechi snapped. "A-a-and we actually have the ch-chance to save Cassie. I don't want to-- to come too late, again, and w-w-we just catch the tail end of some c-c-catastrophe."

"Why do you think the forest opened to us?" asked Dusty.

"Y-y-you're male. Maybe it s-s-sensed the lower level of m-magic," Pechi said. "I d-d-don't think this is worth thinking on right now."

Dusty hardly even blinked. Tabai had expected better from Pechi, for some reason, but this was a bad hill to die on. Then, teeth glinting in the light from between trees, Dusty said, "Pechi, I'm not stopping because I'm winded. Before we go in there, we need you to realize that it might be too late already, and we're just being allowed in because the seraph's 'taught her a lesson'."

Pechi's eyes were dark. "I know."

"Well," Dusty said. "Then..."

"I j-j-just can't believe it, yet," Pechi tilted her head towards the village. "Let's go."

The trio stepped into the light. The warmth of a hospitable sun shone on their backs with oppressive force, and as Tabai's eyes adjusted to the glare, she found herself surrounded by pleasant grasses, warm against her pads, and past that, a small village of dark houses that seemed to be folded over themselves.

A small flurry of white beings wove in between the houses, and the sound of their purring filled the air. Their voices had a distinct chirp to them, like the noises Canira made when they were content or happy, but their ears were more like Benn's Lapnin brethren, complete with the downwards tilt that Benn's ears had on the account of her Canis heritage. They all perked up when they saw the group of adventurers approaching, and although they were in no danger, Tabai felt her heart seize.

It was a familiar old feeling.

"Do you know a Cassie?" asked Dusty. "I mean, tawny deer, big eyes, big smile." He projected the vague image through their minds, which hit Tabai and presumably Pechi, but he stopped short as if he'd run into a brick. "Their telepathy is awful," he muttered.

"We don't usually communicate in that way," said one.

"You should go," said another, trembling. They were all beginning to retreat into their homes, their little noses twitching furiously.

The others took up the chorus. "A good time to go. Just leave. We didn't do anything. We don't want trouble."

Tabai approached one, which jumped back at the sight of her. "We are travellers from a ways off. We understand our intrusion is likely not altogether appreciated, but we mean you no harm. We come in quickly and will leave just as fast, once we have retrieved our companion."

"And once we have the seraph horn," Dusty said.

"We have the seraph horn," said a voice from a distance. It was unfamiliar, at first, but under the deep coolness that fractured its warmth were the distinctive high bleats of Cassie's tone. The Fauna gripped the horn at the edge of her mouth, bits of sinew still strewn about it. The same sense of overwhelming light emanated from it that shone from the first three, but Cassie's mouth was a pit of shadow, and the Fauna's left, longer horn was still dripping blood like velvet.

"C-Cassie!" Pechi bound up to her, and the Fauna hardly reacted, so still that Pechi couldn't embrace her. The latter stepped around Cassie for a while, some of the blood rubbing off against her fur.

Cassie bucked back, shaking her head violently. She dropped the horn from her mouth, spitting up more blood, and said, "Oh stop. Clean yourself off. Please please please clean yourself off."

Dusty gave Tabai a concerned glance over his shoulder as he levitated he seraph horn onto his back. Turning back to the problem at large, he asked, "Where did you find it?"

Cassie's gaze tilted away from them. "An old gladiatorum, I suppose. It was quite the battle to get it, but these old hooves have quite the kicking in them." It sounded like something had stretched itself over the hole where Cassie was, as if something was wearing her skin like some kind of sadistic trophy and it spoke using teeth that held over her own mouth. Every high note curdled into something sour. Her eyes were intently fixed on the seraph horn, and her teeth found her tongue and bashed it until it went bloody.

Pechi backed up. "Cassie?"

"We should get back to the ship," said Dusty.

"I want to know where you found the seraph horn," Tabai said.

"Vote?" asked Dusty.

"Against."

"L-let's just go h-home," Pechi said, tail tucked. "W-w-we can g-g-get you all c-c-cleaned off, and maybe you'll feel better..."

"Three to one," Dusty warned Tabai. "Let's turn around."

The little white aliens shuddered in their homes. Not a one was still out in the clearing at large, which carried the rank smell of carrion, though there was hardly a dead thing in its vicinity. That would be the trademark smell of foul game, and Tabai was unafraid of foulness. She walked past the long obsidian trough at the center of the town and out into the meadows.

"We'll go back," yelled Dusty. "I have things I want to do with my day! We can't spend it all on a wild chase for--"

Tabai had great ears, so it would be a while, unfortunately, before he got out of earshot. Fortunately, the meadow itself seemed to be tuning him out. She passed massive obelisks, which all tilted in the same direction, heads of the aliens she'd just passed with horns ten times as long leering back at her, cracked and ruined. Cryptic runes and ornate patterns trailed down the sides, depicting what looked to a trained eye like depictions of sacrificial altars.

Tabai knew what she was approaching. That didn't mean she had to lie it. She stepped into the gladiatorum and looked down at the small white body there, in the center. There were long stains around the body, and the skull was bashed in from being kicked around. It had been a brutal, savage kill, but the worst part were the innards, which had been torn out like an opened package. The curled white fur, soaked pink, gave way to red, and then to a ribcage. The tastiest bits on a traditional prey animal had been crudely chewed out.

"Wait."

Tabai looked up. Her long ears draped around the body, mixing in scarlet with her green fur, and behind her she saw Cassie and the other two. Tabai merely needed step aside, and she did, though her body was numb.

"That's where the seraph horn was. It was a test," she explained. "A test by the seraph, which I failed."
"You failed when you went off alone," Dusty muttered. "Shoot. What were you thinking?"

"There was no food," whimpered Cassie.

"There's grass everywhere," Tabai said. "You could have done without eating somebody."

"It doesn't fill you up!" Cassie exclaimed. "It just-- it leaves you entirely empty, just--" She stomped out of the stadium and tore a swath out of the ground, crunching it in her mouth. Her pupils dilated until they were only little pinpricks of darkness, and she kept crunching it until she eventually swallowed, choking violently as she tried to get it down. "I was tricked."

Pechi was still looking at the body. Slowly, her gaze went up to meet Cassie's, her snout contorting as the right words died out in her throat.

Cassie spoke first: "Don't judge me, Pechi. You know you don't have a leg to stand on."

"We should go," Dusty said.

"What do you-- but we-- and don't we have some responsibility--" Tabai began at least three different speeches in her mind, but the trio were gone, just as she had been. She trailed behind them back past the ruins of a wrathful civilization, under the judgement of the dead, and all of the little creatures in the fold flinched when they passed. Tabai had nothing to say hat would reasonably reassure them of their good intentions, not when Cassie had so kindly informed them of their purpose already, so they just lead Cassie over the steep hill and back into the woods.

They were allowed their spaceship back. They stepped over the threshold into the airlock, and Cassie's foot caught in the doorway. There was a slight crack as her hoof chipped slightly, as a statue might, a pebble rolling across the floor as it bounced out from where it had once been on Cassie's body. The area around it began to gray, like a mold spreading across the surface of a fruit.

"C-C-C-C-Cassie!" Pechi could hardly get the words out. She jumped forth again, pressing her paw over Cassie's hoof. "L-l-let's g-g-get her in s-s-space, so we can a-a-amputate it... we c-c-could stop the spread, I m-mean..."

"I failed," Cassie said. "I already told you." The Fauna staggered once, as if hit by a wave of sensation, and her bloody horn knocked Lucil, on the back wall, sideways. The Auspicia bore a brand of blood across her face, the kind it would be difficult to wash out.

"Cass, you should really get into the pod," Dusty said.

Cassie looked up at the ceiling. "Whatever you say." Pechi helped her into the pod, then the Canira receded, holding just away from her, though she was still staring desperately into Cassie's eyes.

As they took off, Tabai just watched the ground below. She could just see it from inside her pod, so she could watch the trees blur together into a green blanket. There was no crack to indicate where the village had been, but Tabai could still see the fear in their eyes as they had passed, the way their very presence seemed to smother the inhabitants.

Tabai bit her tongue.

It ran raw in her mouth.