A/N: I'm so sorry it took so long! I mean, you'll know why after you read this. I will also be posting a note about this chapter in the next couple of days for the usual philosophical bites but I really do like this chapter a lot, primarily because of what it represents and if you can figure out what the title means without me telling you, I congratulate *shakes hand vigorously* Enjoy!

It's been long, but if you'd like to read the chapter before this to recap, please. By all means. Thanks for reading!

Oh, and the music is for the latter half of this chapter but you could play it from the start if that's what you want too. hehe. 

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A reflection in the glass; no more than a manifestation of something that existed in the world housing the reflector, distorting as it displayed a copy of what really was and having the witness themselves perceive the existence as such but were they—mirrors and all—capable of the lies that the world housing it seemed to be so fond of?

It approached.

"U-Umbra," said Io, spinning around and nearly losing his footing as he did. "That's strange. What are you doing here?"

The shadow had its feet inches behind the veil of moonlight filling half the room, unwilling to cross the line that would thus place it in the playing field of an eye in the sky. It skimmed the border, rocking back and forth in a manner so innocently deceptive as it remained quite in the dark.

"I was about to ask you, actually," it said curiously. "Jiro's sleeping in the infirmary tonight. The owl's not allowed to leave till tomorrow morning, so he asked if I could bring him some clothes." It lifted an arm, in which, indeed in the darkness, Io could make out the semblance of what seemed like cloth draped over it.

"That is very nice of you." Privately, he called for Luna's presence by the window for a stronger beam of light, hoping to fill the room and eliminate the other half of what he could not see. "So you were in the infirmary as well? I've never had the impression that you two were close..."

The shadow seemed, almost momentarily, fazed by the light that inched its way towards its side of the room but it wasn't long before it realized that tonight—tonight was no full moon.

"I had a gash on my upper arm from last night," it stood its ground, lifting a sleeve to reveal slips of gauze, blotched and unsightly. "So yes, I was... and I'm feeling a little dizzy now from standing so much," it laughed quietly but what were eyes that did not follow the seeming emotion displayed otherwise?

Blank.

Umbra possessed not the raw, concentrated extremity of pure ink that Reux often did; ink that, despite the darkness beneath its surface, reflected all forms of light attempting to reach past the stillness of a pond and stir the very bottom of its bed. There was, however, the kind of darkness that seemed to resemble a drain—the kind of black that reflected no light and, in its presence, could absorb every bit of its beam.

The shadow turned its back on Io after giving him a curt nod, stepping further and further away from the light that, no matter how hard the moon phoenix had tried to intensify and reach, refused to fill the other half of the room.

And Luna was staring right into it.

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Whether Utako Jiro, a gentle spirit who never really had it in him to even ask his roommate to fetch him a glass of water from across the room, would pose a request as sensitive and intimate as bringing clothes from his former predator's room to a stranger... Io had it in him to find out.

Mid-flight to the treehouse, he decided to do so the very next day and pay a visit to Jiro in the infirmary. The matter of importance, emphasized by the fact that Io could not fathom his friend, the nightingale, so easily handing over the key to Slayne's room. The prospect of them being closer than he'd expected brought up possibilities that were nearly unimaginable, eliminated one by one on his way to the treehouse and by the time he landed on the balcony of the usual tree he and Luka hadn't occupied in quite some time, everything seemed oddly distorted in the absence of light.

And there, he began to gather their things. He observed, curiously, the lack of dust and seeming recency of a visit. There was, however, no clue of one. Everything was exactly where they'd left it, including the kerosene lamp, sleeping bag, pillows and even the box of snacks they'd kept tucked under the table.

He was about to leave with these things, knowing that he would be able to bring too much with him while he was on board Luna's back—Lyra was already helping with a single packet of lemon drops in her beak—when he remembered something key to his reason for the journey and that was the list.

The list of Luka's favourite things that Io had become gradually aware of its resemblance to his very own descriptive features which he soon understood as a primary aspect of the eagle's personality; his preference for holding on.

He moved the box of snacks aside and found the clip diary just where he'd left it, snug between the crate and the wall. This, he put between his pinky and ring finger, the only ones available after looping the top of the kerosene lamp through this index and the drawstrings of the sleeping bag through his middle.

But as he did, clumsily—for ring fingers and pinkies were never really meant for items bigger than themselves—something fell.

It slipped out between the pages; a part of the diary, torn; a page, filled.

Filled. He couldn't make out the words from where he was standing and where the light was low, so he put the lamp and everything else aside for a moment and attempted to reach for the page which he did not write.

Io did not write that page. As far as he recalled, he and Luka never got to filling a page of anything; whether it was the list or doodles or a schedule of what they should do on a weekend afternoon, they had never gotten past the quarter mark before Io's attention span brought them elsewhere and down a route of conversation rather obscure and unrelated. There, the pen would have dropped.

But this page, it was filled.

He bent over, tried to pick it up and ended up merely scratching the surface but there, the distance between his eyes and the words were enough to allow him a glimpse of their meaning and what appeared to him at first glance as a completed version of the list he and Luka had been making soon turned into a list of

him.

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Iolani Tori

1. sunflower seeds

2. night

3. humans

4. trolleys

5. asking

6. knowing

7. endings

8. good endings

9. truth

10. Luka Sullivan

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Exactly what part of I know you best remained completely beyond his comprehension and understanding, he never did figure out. What a phrase it was; both encompassing the sheer absurdity of a stranger's claim to knowledge and the fear, fire and spite that it invited in return, the desire to be complex and separate from simple.

And while Iolani Tori sought the very opposite—the search for a mind similar to his own and hence a greater understanding of whatever it was he had upon his shoulders—he could not bear the thought of a misunderstanding so huge. So huge and in spite of it being nearly entirely wrong, forced upon him as a claim of knowledge. Of knowing him best.

Further, the inability to correct this misunderstanding... indeed, all that Reux Yvone truly knew was how to wound where it hurt. The irony of a perfect misunderstanding that had, ultimately, been the most exact blade that no one, not even Iolani Tori himself, could think of weaponizing. Would this, therefore, lend its value of truth to the statement

I know you best?

He did not stand in the middle of the treehouse too long for his friend was waiting and because the dead had all the time in the world to wait, Io did not wish to dwell further on the selfish matter of fear and self-destruction. The time for that was not now.

But Luka Sullivan knew something was wrong the moment he'd seen the look on Io's face, pale and dry as he emerged from behind the doorframe, without the semblance of a whole where now, cracks had surfaced. The eagle stood at once.

"Io?"

He approached but his friend kept the exact distance between them both, putting up a smile. "Sorry I took so long. I've got everything, including the pillows."

And just as there was no lie an astronaut could ever get past his friend, the moon, it was nearly always the same for the latter to the former; more so, these days. Luka looked him in the eye.

"Something happened."

Io averted his gaze at once, dropping the pillows on the couch and the sleeping bag beside it. "Y-yeah... how did you know?" He opted for the paler lie. "Did you see Umbra too?"

His eagle friend sat him down with a glass of water, Lyra on his finger as he stroked the top of her head. "Umbra?" A moment's pause before the vague outline of a face surfaced in his head. "The pigeon. Jeremiah's partner."

"Yes," Io confirmed, nodding wearily. "You don't seem very aware of him... so I guess not. But I saw him, just now. In Slayne's room."

For the reaction he received to be a frown wasn't exactly anywhere beyond his imagination. Luka's finger stopped mid-stroke; and Lyra, eyes closed and feathers fluffed, blinked up at him as she registered the lack of warmth. "In his room?"

"Not outside or anywhere near the front door, yeah," Io went on, describing the rest of the evening and how the room had been so dark and the curtains, drawn. "Jiro wasn't even inside. And I'm thinking of heading to the infirmary soon because—I mean, what if he's lying and he was there to, I don't know, do something to Jiro while he's asleep?"

It sounded nearly absurd. Taking it this far was testing one's imagination: a mere pigeon, harmless, wounded, and seemingly innocent a night ago, revealed as the sole perpetrator behind recent assassinations.

Luka returned to stroking the top of Lyra's head upon observing his companion's increasing lack of composure once he'd done away with it. He'd noticed other things, besides this. Things like the diary and the list they'd wrote being absent among the pillows and snacks Io had brought back from the treehouse. Things like the smudge of dirt up his cheek. Things like Io being possibly forgetful because of his encounter at Slayne's room.

Regardless, he'd raised none of these except for the smudge of dirt, removing it himself with the back of his sleeve, to which Io was surprised by.

"We could go see him if you want," said his eagle friend, despite having on the black quarter-length-sleeved shirt and trackpants he'd wear to sleep.

Io shook his head at once. "But this was supposed to be your night. You were supposed to have the potatoes and we were supposed to spend the rest of it trying to recreate the treehouse that we haven't been able to visit for so long..."

"It's not going anywhere," said Luka, referring to their secret base as he continued to stroke the top of Lyra's head. The latter, far too comfortable to think of anything else, had decided to take refuge in the heart of his palm and never leave. "We have forever to go back."

He received in turn a startled gaze. The word. It had surprised Io immensely. Forever; a word he'd never thought he'd hear in the eagle's voice. The strangest word to be hearing after the thought of never, accompanied by the look in his companion's eyes—the embers of a fire, still warm and toasty in the middle of the night. Soft.

Afraid that he'd soon let his guard down against the disarming properties of Luka's gaze and allow his thoughts to be read, Io quickly agreed to pay Jiro a visit in the infirmary.

"We'll just pop by," he reminded the eagle by his side as they left the latter's room and headed for the stairs. "One look to see if he's alright. I mean, he's most likely asleep by now too, so. All we have to do is see if he's really in the infirmary as Umbra said. Then we'll go back and have more potatoes and sleep on the balcony."

Io peered up at Luka, who nodded. The moon phoenix had it all planned out even before entering Slayne's room that night, slightly fazed that absolutely nothing had been going as he'd hoped it would and fearing that the more and more attention he was being forced to give towards others, the less he would have for those who mattered the most.

And there it was again: the momentary lapse of selfish. That which Reux Yvone would always be there to remind him in the inky darkness at the back of his head; the mind that insisted, time and again, on policing the act of equality and treating everyone the same and yes all did matter but the problem with the heart was that there appeared to be people who mattered more and good god was that against everything... everything he'd ever believed in.

And to think the very best of examples stood right beside him at a time like this—well, he'd have to keep his thoughts in check, for sure.

"Papercrane's not answering?"

Luka turned to a disgruntled and sleepy Victoria hopping across the banister. A single glance was all it took to tell that she was too lazy to actually fly. In fact, if not for Lyra's chirpy encouragement, the diurnal predator would've left her Winged's quiet mind filled with complaints and sarcastic remarks about his increasing brain activity at night ever since he became part nocturnal.

She's somewhere. Probably having a good time sleeping, quipped the golden eagle. They crossed the connecting bridge on the second floor towards the main building. She's calm, for sure.

"Nocturnes don't sleep at night, Victoria," Io laughed before realizing that Luka's Avian had meant it sarcastically. "Will your sense of humour ever rub off on Luka?"

The eagle looked as though she was considering the question rather seriously. For someone who actually believed his Avian's name was Mary Poppins, I think no. Not ever.

Wind.

There was something quiet and slow creeping up from behind the pair then at a burst of speed in which both felt at once had a shadow in front of their faces as they whipped around in a beat of the creature in their cages—slamming into bars at the stopping of motion right before impact, an arm raised but in question.

"Tori?"

Cai had in his eyes, a frown. He lowered his arm, reaching, instead, for the mask that veiled the lower half of his face. "It's past midnight. What are you guys doing out here?" The special ops member stared particularly at Luka, whose wings had spread on instinct to shield his companion and the power of it, shredding the latter's only pyjama shirt into slips of unrecognizable cloth that now littered the hallway. "That's not my fault."

All Luka could do was stare longingly at the remains of his shirt whilst Io, hair and eyes shades alarmingly paler and brighter than before the sudden movement, quickly responded with the truth.

"We're heading to the infirmary to check if Jiro's okay. Sorry about that... you were probably on patrol duty—"

"Jing was sent to get you," Cai cut in before he could finish, an urgent look in his eyes. "The dragon awake. He wants a word and we're looking out for rats who might've heard about this, so. Overtime," he checked the watch on his wrist.

Io blinked, turning to Luka; hesitant. "O-oh. I... we didn't see her on the way and, wait... I mean, I was in Luka's room all the time too. She might not have known."

"I think she does," said the special ops member, surprisingly confident. "I'll send an Avian to her, you head to the infirmary. The dragon's been waiting, and half his Order aren't allowed inside the room for now... it's crowded. I don't know if your friend's going to be there."

At once, he felt the weight on his shoulders. To say that it was absent moments before would be far inaccurate a statement to make for it had, as always, been like a bag. And the things inside it, added more and more at every passing second, minute, day week month year—sometimes, he'd feel it raw. Most raw when it was a climb.

A steep, steep climb.

Jiro was nowhere to be found inside the infirmary that was packed with members of the Order and in fact, no patient unrelated to Lord Falrir could be found in the cramped space outside the private room in which the dragon was assigned to for optimal rest. This, Io had turned to Luka with unspoken words and the latter, hearing them, set off in search of the nightingale.

He felt the load on his back weigh double the moment he was apart from his eagle friend. Harder and harder; the climb soon turned into everything he hadn't wished it would be and once again, the night was not the night he thought it was. Farther and farther away was he drifting and towards a darkness that the moon was not destined to dispel but created to live with.

"And what took you so long?" It was Kirill, bags under his eyes and the most drained Io had ever seen him. How strange; even a man like him could look so tired. "Lord Falrir has been waiting for nearly ten minutes!"

"Um, I... I didn't know he wanted to see me either but I'm here now," was all Io could muster, jittery with all the eyes on him. He did not know where to look. "What can I do? Does he need my help?"

"None of us know," said another, a lady he was sure he'd seen just last night with a jaw so strong. She seemed a little different, tonight. A night rather dark. "He called for you and the phoenix the moment he was awake."

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Final words. The price, the weight of it all and to sum it up in a sentence; the mere piecing together of words to form the culmination of one's life was no easy task for the dying. What one would expect to be saying seconds before their departure was nothing like what they ended up with. And yet, what may seem to the naked eye a string of nonsense—where is my clock?—can somehow be the sum of a whole.

The dragon, his heavy head crisp and red, flaked with the licking of flames that were his own; burns like the wings of a moth that had, in its folly, strayed into the path of a fire it thought jolly. Seated by his bed, a quiet moon, watching the very creature who looked quite like his time was soon.

So he heard him speak like he would not live, sad and fallen but strangely lit; the candle among millions, left standing on its own.

"I've learnt some curious things in my time down here," his voice was thin and throaty. Like a line. "The laugh. The cry. Both very delicate. Very fleeting. I've also learnt the house, the home. The look, the see. The truth, the lie. Ah, the lie."

Io met his gaze that was gentle and fine, as though a drop of rain was enough to create a dent in that which was now oddly fragile. He seemed most apart from his status and power at a time like this; most unlike the dragon and the god that the island regarded him as. And he, a boy so young, and conversely, old everywhere else, had to squint in the absence of knowledge and understanding of an immortal being speaking about death. As though this was the end.

"Will you guess, Iolani Tori," he turned to the moon with a flicker in his eyes, as though now, the Wind was here to snuff it out. "Guess the greatest lie I've ever told."

"That Mr. Sylvain's cinnamon rolls are delicious?" He blurted, unable to stop the words from slipping past his lips. It was the first thing he'd said since coming into the room. "I'm sorry. I didn't really mean... i-it was a joke."

Falrir chuckled. The laugh. "Not to worry. I'm certainly no judge, having never had any other rolls than Sylvain's." The truth. "Well, little light," he turned to Io with half-lidded eyes, as though looking at something he was trying so hard to see, past the tears and then, the lie. "Dragons are greater than butterflies."

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Well then, sit down Sylvain.

We don't want such a frail thing to be standing throughout our conversation.

We... we're not going to have a conversation, are we?

Why of course we are.

Conversations are terribly pleasing.

Shall we start?

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"My existence... it is not eternal," was what he meant, staring up at the moon that now seemed all of a sudden, beyond his reach. And beside him, now, the sun, too. Strands of hair slipping out of her braid, tucked behind her ear after a night's worth of searching for Iolani Tori. She's arrived moments after he did, chest heaving from all that running around since Sol was no longer active in the heart of a dark sky.

"Is it true? My existence," Falrir went on. "Do I really am? Have I really been? Can God cease to be?

"Well, he can," said the dragon, chuckling low. "If he isn't truly God, well, he can. But indeed, young moon, you are right—do thrones make kings or do kings make a chair, the throne?" He turned to Io with a smile that was frail. "And as do, do people make their gods or do gods make their people?"

His gaze wandered to the window in the door, where the nurses and members of his Order attempted to catch a glimpse of his current state.

"Because I am... to these people. I am God. And what should happen if I leave?"

Jing was shaking her head. It was something she hadn't been doing for quite a while but this; it invited a grief she had to recall and a streak of selfishness furthered the extent of its reach, translating it into an outward expression of that which she feared to feel. And deep inside, something else was brewing. A hot, bubbling cauldron. "You can't leave. You're not supposed to."

The dragon looked up at her, taking in the eyes that reflected a distorted version of himself. No apology could make up for what he'd made the girl live with. And if God had a voice, would he have done the same? To the people whose houses were swept by the floods; to the animals burned alive in forest fires; to those it took in thunder, winds, seas, and flames. Was God ever sorry for cleansing the world or did creators have the privilege of not having to feel this way because they made the world as is?

"I never blamed you because I thought you were going through the same thing," said the phoenix in a whisper. "And now you're saying that you lied? You're... leaving?"

Is the creator punishable for the act of removing what he created for the purpose of something more? Something, possibly, good?

"Leaving... death. Nothing's quite as alright as dying is," said Falrir with as an immense weight set itself upon his eyelids. "I leave. And that is it for me but everything else, left behind, lost their God, don't quite know what to believe in since the very thing that they centred themselves on turned out, well... different. The time they'd need... that, compared to the instance of my departure. You are right, Jane. I have lied. I am a liar—oh how human I must sound right now."

And as though he'd anticipated the tears that began to fill their eyes and cloud their vision as human beings so often allowed themselves to be doing upon witnessing any form of death, the dragon raised a hand. Something unreadable upon his lips.

"I like to think of it as a... what you might call: teatime," he nodded at nothing in particular, lifting an imaginary cup off an imaginary saucer. "Myself, and certain things I've gotten quite attached to in this world. Tea. Gymnopédies. Cinnamon rolls. Gazing up at the stars with a good friend by my side.

"It all comes down to sipping that very last drop of tea. Cold but equally delicious. Bitter, yes. But delicious nevertheless."

Indeed, there was tea in death.

Tea.

Death.

The dragon struggled to sit up, allowing himself to be helped by the two whose presence he'd requested and now, he pointed, towards the door where the rest of the world was waiting for its god. "Let them in. I'd like to speak about a friend."

*

And as Falrir expounded to those before him, the truth of the prophecy and that which he had hidden from the eyes of all who stared up at the sky but never down at the butterflies below, they progressed from disbelief to fear, fear of the dragon's seeming stories; fear to confusion; confusion and back to disbelief.

There was no acceptance. As there often was in the light of things that people did not wish to believe in. Not a single word.

"I understand that this may not be something you will soon come to terms with," said the dragon, carrying on despite the failing of his voice. "But if Sylvain's immortality is the reason why the Hunters have him now, there are more pressing matters we have to be dealing with instead of... of spending precious time on a mere rat in the school.

"Immortality. Humans and their search for infinity," he shook his head before raising his gaze. "You, of all people, should understand. Why else would you decide to join my Order? A powerless thing, a dragon... but human beings. So much greater, frightful creatures.

"To be immortal and preserved, untouchable by the forces of time in which we fear the most. To be free from all these things—they desire," said Falrir before observing the lowered heads surrounding his bed. Not a single word. "As we all do... for selfish purposes."

Io's mind was reckless enough to project an image of a blue morpho butterfly, held captive in the fingertips of a human being holding it over a mouth; open and ready to have it sent into greedy jaws.

"Syl." It sounded like the name of a god upon his lips. Falrir breathed and in the air, he caught a familiar scent. He forced a laugh past collapsing lungs, charred and failing. Still, no words. "Oh Syl."

"How frightened he must be—alone in the darkness and the rain. Ah, the rain."

The man shivered in his skin, the coldest he's ever been. There were no books meant for dragons to understand what it meant to depart; how it should happen; or if there was anything he needed to be doing. He found himself wondering: was there a button? If so, when should it be pushed? He considered, for an instance so slow, shifting into his original form to disappear in a spark of flames but then the ashes and embers, lit, would only cause more damage to the island in which he'd already left his mark on the broken bridge.

It was then that he decided to die as what he had become—gradually, at every passing second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century.

"Did you know?" There was little strength in him remaining. The muscles under his skin and the veins, the bones, the cage, the creature, coming to a quiet slow. "Syl is afraid of going outside where it rains."

The silence in which made him seem all the more alone was the least he deserved; it was peace and clarity; fear and uncertainty, altogether. How it was for the rest of the world to say something at a time like this. There was far too much to say to a dying man to utter a single word, let alone, a dying dragon—once, god.

"Oh." Said the man all of a sudden, turning slowly to a light that no one else could see, as though he'd picked up the scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls and the aroma of chamomile. "Teatime."

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Oh Syl,

I

too

am afraid of going outside where it rains.

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