"What do you mean she never showed up!" The smile on Adam's face vanished faster than gas from an airlock as he looked into Kanan's face, and realized, this wasn't simply a tasteless joke.

Kanan would never dare do such a thing, and Sunny would never let him.

He watched the big Drev's eyes closely, watched as mild concern morphed to worry and then to fear.

"I saw her land! I saw it n my tracking beacon, she has to be here!"

Kanan grabbed him by the shoulder, "We WILL find her, her and Kay. I promise Adam I am sure she just got sidetracked showing Kay the flowers or something. She said he's just like you, he wants to touch everything."

While that was a true enough statement, Adam could not help the bubble of fear that bas beginning to slowly expand in his stomach, rising slowly up through his chest and into his throat. He felt like screaming, and his eyes prickled with heat which he forced down with a swallow.

"We have to go now."

Kanan nodded his big head and turned, casing up a cloud of spores as he hefted his bulk over the ground. "Zhankeel!"

At Kana's command a small Drev boy appeared from one of the hut openings and raced over the ground. The boy walked with a pronounced wobble to his step, but when he pulled to a stop one would hardly have noticed there was anything off about him at all. His carapace was a bright canary yellow, but his orange eyes were unfathomably sad, "You're in charge until I."

A slow growl erupted at Adam's feet, and he turned his head down suddenly worried that Pancake or waffles had taken a disliking to one of the Drev children, concerned that he hadn't brought a leash for them, but when he looked down, he found both of them pointing back up the little valley, their hackles raised their head lowered and their teeth bared. The nearby Drev children pulled to a halt eyeing the animals with an equal mixture of fear and fascination.

Pancake cut a particularly fearsome figure, with longer hair on the scruff of her neck than Waffles, she managed to puff herself up to look almost twice as big as she was. Her tail was low sweeping back and forth slowly from one side to the other, her ears pulled back against her skull. The growl that the two of them gave was menacing.

No one else would have been able to tell, but after thousands of years of evolution side by side, he as a human could distinguish the individual sounds that the dogs made. This wasn't a playful growl, or even a warning growl for small creatures. This growl was...

Fear.

"Kanan, Kanan." The two of them turned sharply to the left, watching as an older Drev made her skidding way down the mountain nearly tripping twice before staggering to he base of the hill, righting herself at least once. Her voice was thick, and when she spoke she motioned quickly with her four hands.

Kanan responded with similar hand signals as he spoke, "What did you see."

"Latinash." She panted miming something with her upper two hands while the other two created a flat plane below her upper hands.

Adam didn't speak Drev sign language, though after this crisis was over, he was certainly going to have to think about it because it would be awesome, but he did speak Drev, and he knew what a cynderwind was.

Kanan frowned, "Cynderwind, but it's the middle of the bright season."

The young Drev grabbed him by the arm and pointe back up the hill, "It is, it is."

"I believe you, I it just, it doesn't make sense. The volcanos aren't active this time of year so there's no way that a cylinder wind should be possible. The two of them hurried up the side of the hill after the young Drev who pointed towards the horizon with an urgent finger, and she was exactly right. Brewing on the horizon, slowly approaching as a wall of whirling blackness was a large wall of cynders.

Adam had lived through the Dark season on Anin. He knew what a cynderwind was like, knew that there was no way he would be able to find Sunny if the wind hit.

"Kanan we have to go now."

He could see the concern on the Drev's face, knew what he was thinking.

That sunny could be miles in any direction by now, there was no telling if they would find her before the cinder wind hit, and.... And what about Kay? It was hard for the average person to survive in such an environment, but a baby? Adam felt as if his entire body was on fire as he pulled his spear from his back. Waffles continued to growl and pancake circled his feet in agitation.

"Let me grab my armor." Kanan said.

Adam nodded, and while he stood and waited for kana, he opened the activation menu on the SE exoskeleton.

The machine moaned as it woke from its sleep whirring to life along his back and arms, hydraulics hissing softly. His prosthetic leg whirred to life with a slow growl. Around him the Drev children backed away in shock. The armor wasn't always on, aside from the backup systems that allowed it to carry tis own weight, otherwise the human bones and muscle that held it would atrophy without doing its own work, but now the SE armor was fully engaged, granting him all the power and strength of someone three to four times Kanan's size, if not more. The sound that it made was chilling, and Adam was glad that only Kanan was old enough to have been int the Drev war, otherwise it was likely these children would remember the noise the Steel eye suits made as they ravaged the Drev front lines.

He filled up his eyepatch, the world around him sharpening into excruciating detail as his mechanical eye's acuity picked up every spore and every thread of moss. Pancake shifted nervously at the noise, her animal instinct likely picking up the danger in the sound as soon as the sound hit her ears.

Waffles did not flinch.

Kanan appeared from his hut, quicker than one might have thought possible, already armored and ready to go.

He carried two spears. The one in his right hand was long like a classic Drev spear, and the one in his left hand was significantly smaller.

Kanan turned back to the yellow Drev, "Cynderwind, help the others close up, make sure everyone is inside and do a headcount alright/"

The young Drev nodded and hurried off as Kanan turned to Adam.

No words needed to be exchanged between the two of them as they began at a sprint up the ravine. Adam quickly outstripped Kanan, the SE armor hissing with glee as he raced up the gully pulvering rock under his prosthetic foot. Inside the SE armor, an echo of the fealty AI lifted its groggy head from dormancy. He let it take over the targeting system in his eye, asking it to look for thermal signatures the size of kay or larger.

Fealty was happy to do as told, scanning the ground in a grid as he raced over the moss and rock his feet shattering stone.

He would have stayed behind to accompany Kanan, but he knew the big Drev would understand. Sunny hadn't landed her shuttle very far, maybe a mile or less out, and it took well under a few minutes for Adam to cover the entirety of what would have been the easiest rout his heart beginning to pound faster and faster with each second he didn't find his wife or child.

Fealty reacted to the beating of his heart, his vision sharpening and slowing, giving him unnatural grace over the moss and rock as he ran his brain adapting as fast as it could to the flood of new and unusual information filtering in through his eye. Off I the distance, the cynder cloud was growing ever larger, bearing down on them with unusual speed which fealty jumped at the chance to calculate for him.

Almost forty miles an hour.

It would be here in a matter of minutes.

Winds weren't usually that powerful on Anin

Sunny's shuttle grew larger in his vision, and Adam nearly ripped the door open as he came to it, hoping beyond hope he would find Sunny inside.

But no, he found the shuttle and carseat empty with kay's blanket crumpled on the floor below the pilot's seat.

Adam screamed in fear and frustration, punching the metal hull of the little craft so hard he left a sizable dent.

He turned and ran outside just as Pancake appeared, waffles trialing a good hundred or so yards behind. The young dog had obviously sprinted the entire way. She skidded to a halt right beside him panting heavily her sides heaving. Waffles showed up in a similar state of exhaustion as Adam stood scanning the horizon in all directions.

The cynder cloud was almost here, little flakes of ash pelting his skin and face.

Kanan appeared on the horizon just as the cynderwind hit, and Adam was forced to reatreat with the dogs back into the shuttle closing the door most of the way until Kanan appeared, staggering through the door attempting to keep himself upright against the power of the wind.

Adam paced back and forth over the shuttle deck hands in his hair.

Waffles sat at his feet doing her best to calm him though, this wasn't anything as simple as the anxiety she was used to. This was Sunny and Kay and they were gone stuck in a cynder wind.

Kanan wiped ash from his armor and looked up at Adam, his golden eyes wide with concern, so like Sunny.

"We have to find her." Adam was saying, though he knew that there was no chance in weather likes this. How could there be. If she had left tracks they were already gone. Pancake sat at his feet whimpering knowing he was upset but unable to do anything about it.

"She is going to be ok. She knows how to hunker down in a cynderwind, and Kay will be fine too, she won't let anything happen to him." Kanan was saying his hands gripping onto Adam's shoulders. The words were supposed to be comforting, but to Adam they were hollow.

"What.... What am I supposed to do. I.... I can't just."

Waffles growled low in her throat. Adam turned his head sharply towards where her head was pointed.

That was a warning growl.

Pancake stood from where she sat and let off a similar noise, deep and low in her throat.

Adam peered out through the front windscreen eyes narrowed into the roiling ash, and in it, he thought he made out the shape of a Drev through the darkness, its form nearly a shadow against the dark backdrop.

"Sunny!" He shouted, pulling open the door and squinting out into the ash.

He could see the form now as it made it's way around the side of the shuttle, and new almost instantly that it was not Sunny.

Too tall.

Adam Drew his spear at the same time the dogs began to bark.

The figure stepped forward coalescing from the darkness, skin black as coal, carapace black as coal. He pulled back his spear ready to kill Kazna on sight, but soemthing stayed his hand. With one more step the face came into clear view, and Adam stopped in confusion.

This was not Kazna.

The Drev had a hand lifted against the sash and motioned to the shuttle.

Adam didn't know what to do at first, and so backed into the shuttle allowing the stranger to come forward and close the door behind him. Kanan eyed him warily as did the dogs both of his spears at the ready.

"Who are you. One of Kazna's void creatures" Adam demanded, jabbing his spear in the strange Drev's direction, just at the height of his chest.

Two golden eyes blinked back at him from the near darkness.

Something about him seemed familiar, though Adam wouldn't have been able to place him.

The Drev was large, almost as tall as Kanan, and black as coal. Where most Drev had colorful carapace, and skin that was middling to light grey, this Drev was darker than coal, his carapace glittering like obsidian.

The Drev slowly knelt offering a hand forward to pancake and waffles.

The dogs looked between each other and then back at Adam.

Pancake sniffed the stranger's hand and took a tentative step forward pressing her cold nose against the offered hand, sniffing gently. She allowed the stranger to stroke her ears. Waffles was a bit more reserved but after a moment the stranger was able to coax her forward. Nothing the Drev could have said would have convinced Adam that he was a friend, but this simple action was enough to make Adam trust the stranger with his life.

He lowered his spear partially as the Drev stood.

"I am Naktan..." he said softly, and when he spoke his voice was deep and rich.

"Wait." Adam said, watching as Kanan's eyes widened in recognition, "The shaman from the mountain. The one that guides the saints."

Naktan lifted his yead, his coal black eyes boarding into Adam with a cold calculation, "And you are the human who speaks our tongue, and walks with our people."

Adam let his spear drop further, "Why are you here, I thought you never left your mountain."

Naktan shook his head, "I do not, but I come to you bearing urgent visions, and after the revelations of the past few years, I see no reason not to venture down from my mountain."

"Visions." Adam wondered.

"Yes.... Visions of darkness. Visions of the saint."

"You mean Sunny, you know where she is."

The Drev took a seat on the shuttle bench, "No but I can help you find her."