Cybele had many regrets. She was still struggling to determine whether this was one of them.

This, of course, being an impossible expedition surrounded by an exhausted, hungry, sopping wet group of patrias who had varying levels of desire to kill her. The only thing that allowed Cybele to briefly ignore this unsettling thought was the fact that she was similarly exhausted, hungry, and sopping wet.

The anguis — Jared, Cybele remembered; she'd taken care to memorize everyone's names — seemed to be the only remotely energetic one left, which both alarmed and impressed her. It was only reminders of the ever-dwindling supply of rat jerky that seemed to dampen his spirits.

Curiously enough, he also seemed to be the only one who didn't actively detest Cybele's own presence, even more than Aidyn — she knew he was only keeping her just close enough to monitor. But Jared kept sending her earnestly inquisitive glances, as though he desperately wanted to talk to her but was worried of losing favor with the others. Which stung more than she wanted to admit, even if she certainly didn't blame him.

She didn't blame any of them.

Which was why she plodded on step after step without complaint, source close in her pocket as her limp curls of soaked hair dripped and her head pounded. She'd gone through so much for this, the idea of the sources, the foolish hope that she might help rally against her own kind, and yet it was still nowhere near enough. What little she'd suffered in her life was hardly suffering considering what the patrias endured every day.

Worth it, she knew. It was all worth it. Abandoning the shelter of her father's reputation. Risking her life to stay with Aidyn's friends. Leaving Will Fen behind.

She almost, almost managed to convince herself of that last one.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she reached a hand into her pocket, brushing the rana source. Even now a shiver jumped through her body at the contact, a reminder of the power it held. A reminder of how it had affected Will, when she'd been in its proximity.

Will. Pulse throbbing, Cybele shakily forced herself to pull away from the source. It felt nonsensically like the only thing she had left of her. The girl she'd so carelessly, foolishly abandoned — and so soon after the kiss, no less.

The kiss. Cybele's throat tightened. She remembered it in full detail, how it felt, the scent of Will's hair, Will's startled expression. She wanted to say she'd had no choice: Cynth would have known; it was the only way to save Will's life. But just like her younger self, trying futilely to believe that she was a human, she hated the species, she hated them, she knew deep in her bones that it was a lie. Yes, it had saved Will, but it hadn't been necessary. There were countless other solutions she could have fallen back on, and instead her mind had gone directly to —

"Cybele?"

The familiarity of the voice, cautiously suspicious but not entirely unkind, jolted Cybele from her own mind. Hoping furiously that her faint blush wasn't visible, she looked up to see Aidyn watching her with narrowed eyes. His close gaze shifted from her hand to the pocket that held the source, as if he knew her fingers had been on it only moments before, and she stifled a wince. Here she was, a human idiotically insisting on her own innocence, tainting a patria source with her touch.

"We're almost there," Aidyn said when she didn't immediately answer. He was looking at her oddly now, as though he wanted to ask if she was okay but figured it wasn't within his responsibility to care that much for a human. "We need to hurry."

Cybele blinked, realizing she'd begun to lag behind as her thoughts had overwhelmed her. In the distance, the shape of rough roofs and tendrils of smoke were visible. The rest of the group was just ahead — Aidyn had waited back, which for a foolish moment she thought meant that maybe he did care. But then his eyes flickered back down to her pocket, and she felt the press of her own stupidity. Of course. She couldn't forget: the only reason why they were keeping her around wasn't for her.

Cheeks burning with shame and embarrassment, Cybele forced a neutral smile, words steady. "Right," she said apologetically. "Sorry about that."

Aidyn merely gave her a short nod before quickly picking up his pace, catching up with the others. Cybele hurried to follow. As she fell back in with the rest, their idle chatter momentarily dulled before picking up again, more warily now. She returned to pretending not to notice the apprehensive looks sent her way.

"Almost there," Aidyn repeated, this time for the benefit of the group. Particularly Jared, Cybele guessed, who as always looked distracted and half-ready to unexpectedly run off. "Remember — we're just there to find supplies, recuperate a bit if we can. Lay low."

"Lay low," aforementioned anguis echoed, nodding vigorously.

The imposing maxi — who took unsubtle care to stay the farthest away from Cybele — was watching Jared with a distinctive sense of mistrust. "Do you even know what that means?"

Calix, that was his name. Upon first seeing him with the others, Cybele had been shaken: he looked alarmingly familiar, and later she remembered she'd seen him before, in some distant memory, in another far-off forest. How he'd ended up with this group was lost to her.

As the others dissolved into casual bickering, Cybele kept her attention on the village as they approached. Neatly lined shops and housing inhabited the wide streets, opening into what looked like a village square — a welcoming setting if there ever was one, but Cybele still felt on-edge. Then again, it had been a while since she'd felt off-edge. If that was even a word. No, that was two words. A phrase?

Distantly it occurred to her that she might slowly be losing her mind.

"Our first priority is supplies," Aidyn reminded them as they reached the village's perimeter. "Don't attract any unnecessary attention."

Cybele watched as the caela — Ari — leaned slightly closer to Aidyn, murmuring something Cybele couldn't catch, though her expression was disconcertingly uneasy. "I know," Aidyn answered her aloud, looking exhausted. "We'll leave as soon as we can, alright?"

He sent the hibri, Kei, off with Ari, and the two of them cast the group a last glance before heading further into the village. The others followed Aidyn as he led them in another direction.

Cybele almost asked if they should split up further to make the hunt for supplies more efficient, but sensibly bit her tongue at the last second. No matter how she phrased it, she'd look even more suspicious, and Calix was still eyeing her like he was ready to attack if she so much as breathed wrong.

Trying to avoid his scrutiny, she kept an alert lookout for easily accessible shops that might not be too expensive. Never mind that the truth none of them were willing to admit was that all the shops were probably too expensive — their supply of money was dwindling even more than the rat jerky, and that was saying something.

They moved further into the village, stopping a few times to get various food-related supplies (including, notably, at a gourmet jam shop), and Cybele tried not to note the several alert gazes that seemed to be tracking them watchfully. For a moment she thought it was only because of her — but it soon became clear, the way their suspicion would land only briefly on her face before sliding left to Calix: the maxi was made even more intimidating in the midst of the angui. Cybele shifted uneasily, hoping Calix wouldn't worsen the circumstances with one of his soul-departing glares.

She was still brainstorming alternate methods of acquiring more supplies once they'd spent most of their money on jam — she was this close to suggesting that they politely raid the village and then get the hell out of there — when a question interrupted her pondering.

"So, what's it like?"

After a long moment, Cybele looked up in confusion to find that somewhere since her last thought, Jared had transitioned from monologuing about how good the jam was (he had made the executive decision to christen their group the Jammity Jammers because of it) to looking at her expectantly.

"Being part of a super evil and genocidal race," he clarified easily. "Having a super evil and genocidal dad. What's it like?"

She blinked, comprehending too late that he was talking to her. No one except Aidyn had really ever spoken to her directly, and she was startled out of all available vocabulary.

"It must be terrible," the anguis prattled on, emphasizing the word with awe. "Do you recite holy kill counts every morning? Do you colour-code lists of patrias to mass-murder?"

"Um," Cybele managed intelligently.

The questions should have sounded mocking, but Jared was looking at her with genuine curiosity. He meant every one.

Somehow, that was much worse.

And it definitely didn't help that said questions were... frighteningly a little too close to truth, which was terrible. It was horrible. Cynth Leeyung probably colour-coded and alphebetised her lists of mass-murder plans. Cybele tried not to visibly cringe. It was this — knowing that her own father was doing this — that had always made her sick to her stomach.

"It's — bad," she finally answered, struggling to keep her tone even. "I hate... I hate it. What the humans are doing." Some part of her realised that this was the first time she'd ever said any of this aloud, and she felt suddenly too vulnerable, especially when she sensed Aidyn and Calix turn their attention to the conversation. She swallowed hard.

"Everything they're doing," she forced herself to continue, "everything they've done — it's all wrong. I wish... that wasn't our nature. Their nature. I wish I could say that they want anything other than to control, to dominate." A vivid image of Cynth appeared in her mind, and she almost outwardly flinched. "And I wish that I'd been strong enough."

She hadn't meant to say that last bit out loud. Jared looked intrigued, like he was watching a particularly enthralling musical. Calix looked skeptical, like he was sure this was all a written script she'd planned beforehand. And Aidyn... Aidyn looked guardedly indecisive.

"Strong enough to do what?" Jared asked when the silence stretched. His expression was almost eager, shamelessly looking for the next exciting musical number.

Cybele ducked her head, feeling stupid once again. "To — fight against it," she replied. "Against them." Her voice sounded pathetically small. "My parents. Cynth Leeyung."

Aidyn's face darkened at the mention of Cynth's name, and he turned to face back forward.

"Do you think you're the only one?"

Cybele looked up at Jared again, brow furrowing. "The only one of what?"

"Of humans who think like you do." He shrugged. "There's a bunch of your species alive, isn't there? It can't be possible that you're the only one." Calix sent him a look, and he quickly backpedaled. "I mean, it's definitely possible. Since your kind killed like half of all of us off. And stuff. Geez, Cybele, do better."

Cybele bit her lip, looking away. She'd long wished for the very thing Jared was suggesting, but she knew now that it was a hopeless dream. Maybe there were people like her, but they were in such a minority that it would never matter.

"Whoaaaa," Jared exclaimed a moment later as they entered the village square, sounding even more awed. Cybele followed his gaze to find a rickety stage set up by one of the buildings, with rows of chairs lined up before it. "A puppet show!" He reached out to tug Aidyn's sleeve. "We have to go, Aidyn — "

"We're here for supplies," Aidyn said. "Not for..." He squinted at the stage in question, frowning, and Cybele shared his brief bafflement; the puppets that were currently bouncing endearingly about the stage looked — not quite as endearing, to put it nicely, and Aidyn finished lamely, "...entertainment."

"Is that supposed to be a — faber?" Cybele asked in uncertain reference to a vaguely tree-like blob among the band of puppets in the show, for once not weighing the wiseness of speaking out of turn. Also for once, Calix didn't send her a look of death, instead staring with similar disbelief at the stage.

"Grassland angui!" Jared emphasised, pointing to the sand-coloured, wobbling sticks on the end that might've looked like snakes if one was being generous. "I was friends with one once. She was great!"

"Uh, that's great," Cybele attempted when the other two only looked back at Jared blankly.

"Oh," Aidyn said with faint horror a moment later as the play continued to cheerfully unfold, "oh, six tides, please don't tell me they're about to start singing — "

"They're singing!" Jared cried with glee, and darted forward before any of them could stop him, slithering with alarming speed to a seat perilously close to the stage. Aidyn muttered an exasperated curse, and Cybele grimaced.

"It could be worse," she offered. "At least he's an anguis, so he shouldn't attract too much attention — "

"The lyrics." Calix's gruff voice cut her off, his eyes razor sharp. "They're about the source."

"What?" Aidyn quickly refocused on the show-turned-musical, and Cybele similarly paid closer attention.

🎶It was dark as night when Fabian snuck out

To find the source of the whole town's doubt

A secret object, sacred as can be

But this choice was a bad one, as he soon would seeeee🎶

Cybele was both entranced and disturbed by the puppets' enthusiasm. Her eyes darted warily to Calix. Out of all of them, he couldn't possibly be the one to believe that this could be taken seriously —

🎶So Fabian slithered just out of sight

To a magical city and a drop of midnight

Yes, a magical city, some call it a mine

And poor feeble Fabian had much to findddd🎶

"Wait," Aidyn whispered, frozen just before he scrambled for his pocket, hand fumbling to reach inside. "I know this song — I know these lyrics." He pulled out a slip of paper, unfolding it to read. He held it out to Cybele and Calix, briefly forgetting mistrust and tension in the face of a new discovery. "They're from a common anguis lullaby."

"Where did you get that?" Calix asked doubtfully.

"It doesn't matter." Aidyn frowned, looking from the paper back to the show. "I knew the lullaby discussed the source somehow, but I didn't realize they were directions to where the anguis source was."

"This is — big," Cybele said, eyes wide. "I mean, this is what we've been looking for, right?"

At her absentminded use of we, Aidyn sent her a sideways glance, but spoke before she could hastily take it back. "Yeah," he said. "Hopefully this is it." He tucked the lullaby back into his jacket. "Let's finish finding supplies, and then get Kei and Ari — "

" — my friends!"

The loud exclamation had the three of them whirling back toward Jared — only to find the anguis surrounded, hands in the air. The puppet show had paused, all eyes in the village swinging toward the altercation in the square.

"Oh, god," Cybele whispered at the same time Aidyn hissed, "Six tides."

Before Cybele could think any further — should they try to fight to reach Jared, take him and run? But how would they get Kei and Ari? — a large group of angui approached them, cover blown.

"Outsiders," the anguis Cybele assumed was in charge said by way of cold greeting. "It's not every day such a... varied group like you" — his regard flicked to Calix and then Cybele, and she hoped her gulp wasn't audible — "comes through our village."

"Uh, right," Aidyn said, taking a cautious step back. "Really sorry, we were actually just heading out. Just stopped by to look for some food and water, maybe some new shoes but — "

"Of course," the anguis interrupted coolly, in a way that clearly said Even if we believed you, it doesn't matter. He nodded to the other angui, and Cybele felt the edges of panic as they were surrounded just like Jared.

The head anguis smiled, not quite kindly. "Now, if you'll please come with us..."

✧ ☾✧☽ ✧

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