If being invisible was what got him to this point in his life, Iolani Tori was glad that he was. That no one else but those close enough to be rewarded a glimpse of the sublime could see him was in itself comforting in light of his current circumstance. While Victoria resorted to bursts of speeds from shadow to shadow, Io had sent Lyra to the ceremonial hall in search of his eagle friend. They'd invented a code in times like these; where their physical beings were too far apart for an established Link and one or the other could send their Avians in their stead for a quick update. How or why they'd come to this point in their friendship—Io did not know or consider very much.

At present, he was circling the east tower that housed the library, shedding veils of light on shadowed walls that, to the naked eye, were dark. The back of his mind remained fixed on an issue he could not seem to come to terms with. What seemed to him like an aged, tired old man going up against an army of unknown numbers, the last thing Io had seen over his shoulder was Falrir, mid-shift.

The latter had one thing established between them: that no single human, aged or not, could guard all entrances of the tower without a fair trade. While Io was left to wonder about the depleting life energy—infinite or not—inside the dragon, he understood the importance and urgency of the matter at hand.

An illusion, said Luna upon their second round of inspection. Up close, it looks like a tower. Up here, there are two. There is another, forming part of the building but shorter. Narrower.

Io had to take a second, third glance to understand what his Avian had seen, more or less a shadowy darkness on the side of the tower that remained strangely unlit despite the veils of light cast directly onto it. Had one not possessed the ability to control or willingly cast a source of light against the night or perhaps not known exactly what it was they were looking for, they would have missed the narrow darkness against what seemed like a tower lit by the light of the moon.

Though beyond the reach of their light, it served as a mechanism well-hidden by the clouds. And while it was indeed intriguing to ponder and map out the mysteries of this tower's existence that perhaps dated back to the very first conception of an island in the sky, Io could not afford to waste any time.

Closing in on the tower, he and Luna came upon a narrow gap between the shadowed wall and the building next to it, slowing down with care as they searched for an opening in the darkness. The elements of a window—its characteristics or whatever humanly thoughts tended to consider it as—Io realized he never did take the time to wonder.

Curtains were the kind of things often left out of the mind and conscious thought. Their presence and absence that, although obvious and jarring in difference, go unnoticed on every other circumstance. Colour, type and size left mostly to the imagination and the exact properties hardly known by heart. Did Sylvain's windows have curtains? And if so, were they always drawn and should that be the case, what, then, was the purpose of having a window?

He caught the exact hem of darkness that his light could not seem to penetrate, desperately searching for level of balance that would allow him to shift out of Luna and into his half which, unfortunately, did not work. The narrow gap allowed him little space to manoeuvre an already poor coordination of limbs that had resulted from his lack of training in, well, moon-flight.

Io was a good couple of inches away from smacking the entirety of his left wing against the roof of the opposite building when he paused mid-air, narrowing in on what seemed like the shadowed tower opening its eye for the very first time.

Parted curtains. And climbing up to stand on the windowsill, another silken curtain almost the shade of a star in the night, sailing in the darkened breeze. Then, there were his wings: azure and like the gem of an ocean, condensed into a single colour that changed at every reflection of the light.

The moon phoenix dived fast, forgetting that he was big enough to crash into the entire tower and bring it to the ground. It struck him seconds before he touched the surface of stone, shifting and, along with the momentum he carried, hurtled at the window and into the poor butterfly standing atop the windowsill—leaving them both in a tumbling mess that could have resulted in major injuries. He was fortunate enough to have caused none.

"I... Iolani?" Sylvain had kept his wings in the nick of time, preventing them from tearing under the weight of two bodies. "You startled me. I wasn't expecting you to come let alone through the window and let alone in a rolling fashion," he sat upright, supporting Io by his shoulders to help him up. "I haven't packed any cinnamon rolls."

"There's no time Mr. Sylvain," the boy shook the daze out of his eyes and struggled to stand, weighed down by his ceremonial robes. He registered for a moment how graceful Sylvain could look despite being knocked over by the force of the moon. "A group of Hunters invaded the school during the coronation and it's not safe for you to stay here. Cinnamon rolls would have to wait," Io reached out a hand for Sylvain to take. "Lord Falrir sent me to take you somewhere else because he was afraid they'd—"

The rattling of a snake, slithering and seeking out its prey to surround and seal off any form of escape, shaking the shadows at the door and the light, however small, that sifted through the gap below. Someone was coming.

"Mr. Sylvain," his voice lowered and reduced to a whisper, Io tugged on the sleeve of his companion, glancing over his shoulder at the window. "Luna is waiting. You can't fly on your own, sir. I didn't think you would jump out of a window like that."

"And I'm glad you stopped me," said Sylvain as he drew away from the door that was beginning to tremble. "There were noises coming from the library and I was afraid they meant harm so I was prepared for the worst." He let himself be propelled towards the window by the other, turning every now and then to look at the rest of his quiet quarters.

There was a burst of sound and the rattling soon transformed into a hideous creature at his door, violently jerking on the handle of the door and battling with the stamina of an aged lock that would, very soon, fall and so the pair made haste, climbing onto the windowsill and waiting for Luna to take her position that would catch their leap of faith. Beating hard; beating.

"Not quite sure if you're aware, Iolani," Sylvain went on, glancing at the drop. "But butterflies don't do very well with heights."

"I don't think it's just butterflies, Mr. Sylvain," says Io. "I fear them too."

There was a clink and it was the sound of the lock on his cage giving in to the weight of the world.

_____________________

Before Lyra could infer that her hopping in the heart of Luka's palm had involuntarily made for an island-wide earthquake, members of the staff were sent to check on the insistent rattling of the doors—unarmed and awfully afraid. She stopped her chirping at once to cease all other forms of distractions however urgent she was in wanting to convey the need for a dispatch that could very well make the difference of saving a life. That, and the fact that they were experiencing a hostage situation with Umbra and, should Io fail, a hidden butterfly in the library for decades.

"Shouldn't we be doing the checking?" Dmitri gestured to the swords attached to each of their belts. He was shushed by everyone in the vicinity with their eyes fixed on the main entrance of the ceremonial hall; though his words were increasingly hard to actually disagree with.

Dmitri himself however, wasn't keen on the idea. As much as he understood the concept of priorities and the spectrum of right and wrong, he wasn't all-too-sure if he was ready to act on them. After all, he was holding on to a sword he had not one bit of knowledge about. Not yet, at least.

There came whispering from the other side of the door and Avians, sent out through the windows and closed at once, returned with safety reports—confirming the identities of those behind it amidst the urgent rattling. Professor Callaghan, one of the staff members sent to deal with the anonymous entity, asked for permission to let them in.

The entire hall turned towards the headmaster and the bearded vulture seated beside him, waiting for the semblance of a response. Neither seemed willing enough to say a word.

"Well," Kirill began with a dismissive wave. "They're just a couple of prey. We aren't missing many, according to the tally."

A wave of anxious chatter swept the room and calls of outrage from both sides began to make their way up front. Luka recognized one of the first who'd stepped forth, a hen who, for some reason, had a rather close relationship with Io (or so he would conclude since every coincidental meeting in the corridors of the school began in a hug and the eagle himself could count how many hugs he'd received from Io and as such the abovementioned conclusion). Pipa, wheeled by Vijay and another tall, lanky mynah beside them both who seemed to be in the middle of a debate with a member of the student council. There were doves and pigeons and among them, predators from the upper tiers of the pyramid as well.

"Iolani would have never allowed that to happen. He would have saved us all." "You're just putting up a front when Lord Falrir is around, then?" "Just open the door! Doesn't matter if it's a trap, you can't just leave them out there." "Jane! You can't possibly agree with this, right?" "You guys are fucked up."

Abigail was shaking her fist at Verity Ann while egging the phoenix to speak her mind; Shri had stormed away from the high table and towards the doors where Callaghan was; Jeremiah had with him his army of prey and they were crowded around Faustes with chirping complaints and the hall was like a volcano about to erupt.

"QUIET!"

The noise, as though sucked into a vacuum, ceased at once with an indication of never returning. Vaughn stood at the far end of the room, desperately trying to control his breathing but nothing was as loud as the people beyond the door—the people they were supposed to be hearing.

There were fists and they were banging on the wood, begging for it to open and every second made for an increase in volume. Terrifyingly strong.

Lyra had somehow made her way into Luka's breast pocket, or so she determined as the most comfortable hiding spot after much evaluation. She chirped quietly into his jacket, hoping that he would somehow do something to get the doors open so that she could tell him everything else.

"Just open the door." Hwang Jae-min Viktor had his last straw tugged free by the hands of his step-brother, who, very naturally, held every other straw that made most of the condor's decisions. He checked the lock, breathed once, and jerked them free of their restraints while the pounding continued so that one by one, the prey behind the door stumbled into the room without so much as a breath to catch.

"What happened?" Callaghan had them gathered round while Viktor slammed the doors shut and put the locks back into place. The rest of the hall remained ghostly quiet. "Is everything alright? Are any of your hurt?"

"You," Vaughn's eyes were wide as soon as he saw Utako Jiro among the group of pale, panting prey who looked quite as though they'd seen an army of the dead. Pipa had wheeled herself up front in tears and squeezed the nightingale in her arms. "You're... the hall. How did you get out? We could have lost..." you to whatever force that took your other half.

"We didn't know there was something going on," said one of them, a cardinal perched on her shoulder. "We just... we were admiring the stars outside after heading to the bathroom. That's all. A-and then we heard the gunshots and we ran back and then we met up—"

"What do you mean by met up?" Kirill narrowed his eyes at the girl and she looked away at once.

"I... w-we were separated at some point. We didn't know where to go but we promise! We don't know a thing about what's happening."

The headmaster was not convinced. He sighed. "Yes but what we're concerned about now is if among you six stand a rat. An insider who has been feeding information to the Hunters or even perhaps, one of the Hunters themselves."

"If it helps, we overheard something," said the cardinal, turning around to glance at Jiro. He scrambled in his pockets for something. "It looks like they wanted something from the library. And the rifles sounded like they were coming from the east but we weren't sure..."

At this, Jiro produced a note and handed it to Callaghan, who read it aloud. It corroborated with everything that the cardinal had said, along with the informant who'd brought the news earlier about Hunters in the east wing. And with this, Lyra was given the opportunity to chirp away—leaving Luka to de-code her message with an oddly accurate memory.

"Io needs help at the library," he said, slipping Lyra back into his breast pocket where it was warm and she could hear the beat of his heart. "And... Umbra is..." They look around. "He's injured."

_____________________

As though the element of surprise was a necessary evil, the sharp clink of a lock breaking apart was followed by the firing of a shotgun and the taking down of what was to be a carpet upon which dirtied soles would tread. The hinges of the door snapped open at the force of a kick, breaking in and breaking down the only thing that prevented both parties from certain chaos.

The sound of the strike struck the pair on the ledge like a bottle to the head, precipitating a series of manic events that included Io accidentally pushing Sylvain out of the way and placing himself in the unfavourable position of a clear shot—right into the path of a bullet, staring down the barrel of a shotgun. The butterfly's reaction to the sudden offsetting of his balance had been to shift into his lightest form, fluttering beyond the window and darting behind the stone wall for cover.

"Don't kill it—"

The firing of a gun up close sounded like the quaking of the earth; a force strong enough to thunder air and set the molecules in its wake ablaze. The bullet grazed the edge of the open window before escaping into the night and though it wasn't the first time he'd stared down the barrel of a gun, Iolani Tori could feel the creature in his cage beat its wings in a frenzy.

He called for his Avian on instinct and looked towards the window, but the moon was far and it was either choosing to jump out of the window now or stay where he was within the grasp of five, six Hunters and their rifles. One of them was reloading.

The click of the bullet in place and the sound of hands cranking the latch and taking aim was not as frightful as he'd imagined it to be. Stunned, his hands groped in the darkness by the window for something he could use but in the heart of his palm was air and it slipped through his fingers in an attempt to increase, however minimally, the distance between the gun and his face.

"Later! He's not the one we're after."

Those words—to someone like Iolani Tori who'd across time gotten used to being in the limelight of unwanted attention—were surprisingly unpleasant to hear for it bode ill. That the Hunters, those who might have shared the very same vision on the side of Reux Yvone, had chosen not to waste their time on him demonstrated the extent of their business with Sylvain.

Yet, their primary purpose evaded him completely. That anyone would have something to do with a harmless butterfly, let alone Hunters who'd only ever set their eyes on prized predators, was almost insane. He could only hope that Sylvain would make it as far as the bridge, where Lord Falrir could protect him. The Hunters hoped otherwise.

A blur of movement; a scramble for the window where one of them attempted to shift and dive after the poor creature incapable of swifter flight and escape—started on a run for the momentum and in a swing, had himself on the table and leaping in the direction of the opening like an animal after its prey.

"I'm not—" Io lunged at the nearest man who'd made for the window, grabbing him by the ankle and messing with the latter's balance. "Letting you!" The Hunter crashed into a stack of chairs; ones that Sylvain had kept in case of additional visitors right beside the dining table where they had tea and cinnamon rolls. It was a long time ago.

"Just shoot him!" "Tie him up—" Something had his leg in a vice-like grip, holding his right calf in a position that might as well have twisted the rest of his limb. "Get the jar and some rope."

Io clawed at the other man's pants, feeling the top of his head burn and scream from the way they were pulling at his hair. He felt as though his entire head was going to come off. Pain seared in his eyes and his vision blurred as it pulsed before he could see a blade through the air coming for his mouth that was open and ready to scream but a veil of darkness blocked his view and all of a sudden there was something wet on his face and the blade was no more.

The beat of Victoria's wings were weak with her wound and her screech made it seem like the world was on fire for there was no thunder and rain but anguish condensed into a single sound that could rock the skies. At once, Io released his grip on the man's leg and stretched out his arms to catch his eagle friend as he screamed her name and his mind lit ablaze. Her other wing sought to keep her hovering in the air like a shield but that was before they grabbed her neck and tossed her aside like a chicken, knocking her against the stone wall where she tried to regain her balance.

Io had intended to make a break for the window now that he'd given Sylvain sufficient time to hide in some crevice or at least somewhere safe but now that Victoria was here and he had to have Luna look after the butterfly more than anything else, he understood the necessity of a fight. We need to share.

"Please fly," he said to the golden eagle before harvesting every sliver of energy left within for his wings to materialize. Taking half of Luna's weight, he carried the frames of moonlight on a back so small and, when he felt the tip of a blade graze a lone feather of his wings, knew they would act as an invisible shield.

He called for Victoria and with a burst of speed, she'd made it to his arms in a bloodied frenzy—talons sinking into whatever it could reach and leaving a trail of screams behind her back.

"Just shoot that son of a bitch and get the fucking insect!" "Out of the way—" "Move! 'Ave a clear shot." "Pull the damn trigger!"

The moon phoenix had made it to the window amidst hands tearing at the back of his shirt and others at his wings that they could not see but only recognize as an unseen barrier forcing them aside in a single beat as he and Victoria crawled towards the opening. He turned at the exact moment he could see the man with the rifle pulling the trigger; a slow, almost melodic symphony that would have otherwise been an art itself.

But as the Hunter tore through the resistance in his finger and fired the bullet out of its barrel, a shadow swooped in from behind and the last thing he felt was the ripping of skin on the back of his neck. Rarely does one hear an owl before they see it and now was the time to reinstate the fact with a long-drawn scream.

"Get that fucking thing off him!"

A blur of white amidst the chaos was enough for Io to identify his second ally, scrambling to cross the remaining distance between him and the night sky above as the snowy owl stole the attention of several others. He had Victoria in his arms—something dark and warm staining his robes and soaking through—and it was hard enough to make a break across a ledge so high but Io was determined to see this through. He would have to jump; even if Luna wasn't there to catch him during the fall.

Papercrane had her talons positioned to defend against reaching hands that attempted to grab at her wings, scratching and clawing at anything that invaded her space. There was a scuffle and a screech among many other things. A Hunter reaching for the rifle strapped to his back; another, retrieving the shotgun Papercrane had made drop and taking aim while the stench of iron began to fill the room and so did the gaps in the flagged stone floor but with a dark, heavy fluid. Crimson under the light of the moon.

"GO!" Io could hardly hear himself over the noise, yelling at an owl that wasn't accustomed to listening in the first place. "Go now. Out the window!"

She turned and in that moment, was blindsided by a blade slicing through the air and grazing the tip of her wings. Her screech was muted, seemingly stuck at the back of her throat which she refused to release, ducking and spinning halfway across the room to avoid the weapon but by doing so, giving one of the Hunters a clear shot of the very person she was protecting.

But as their heads were ringing with the scent of blood and violence; adrenaline coursing through their veins and getting to their fingers in tremors of instinct, the world appeared to slow into what seemed like a chapter lifted from an entirely different book.

The wrong story.

A blue morpho butterfly emerged from the night, coming through the window in a path so uncertain but with an unworldly light harvested in its wings, looking as though they could be dented by a drop of rain and crushed between the fingers of a baby.

He'd returned. Sylvain did. And this did not necessarily bode well for the moon phoenix who had risked everything for the safety of his friend and was even willing to put up with worse as long as the world could remain as it was—where every dragon had its butterfly friend under its wing on rainy days. Days like these.

Io could not afford to have Sylvain back in a whirlwind of blood and violence. The luminescent quality of his wings drew the eyes of the Hunters at once and for a moment, it seemed as though it was the only thing they could see amidst the darkness of the night. He hovered mid-air, over the unseen line drawn between two parties and under the roof of his very own place to belong; a place in which he'd sought shelter under for the years that he could count for before this was nothing. Time was a construct he did not know and with age failing to manifest on his physical features, a clock was mere décor.

"Mr. Sylvain?" Io was afraid to know what would happen next. To be proven correct at a time like this was certainly not the way he wished for things to happen. To be correct was almost a tragedy.

And so the butterfly hovered his way, lilting through the air in an unpredictable fashion before landing, gentle as a feather, as close as it could get to the strongest part of his being.

"Get the jar."

To think that something so small could look so huge once put into perspective—it felt to humans almost bizarre. Apart from their course of action, rehearsed time and again before today and of course, collusion with those from the inside for a carrier to their destination and above all, information, there had been close to nothing unprecedented. Nothing more surprising than how big a butterfly could look on the forehead of Iolani Tori.

Granted, there were limits to how big a face could get and while Io was not the best representation of an average human body, the fact was easily forgotten once Sylvain began to wander away from the light.

You know what to do. "No... no, you can't go not now not when everyone's waiting for you." Io did not like the thought of those words being the last he'd ever hear from the very basis of a world he'd built his beliefs upon. This was the kind of an end he could not bear to watch.

Sylvain had hovered in the veil filtering through the only window of his home, courtesy of a moon—returned—but as all things big were, afraid of hurting that which was small and less than the size of its eye.

Together, they watched the passing of a butterfly into the darkness where the light of the moon could no longer reach; landing on the opening of the jar and then crawling into a cage of its own. The Hunters themselves had taken a fair moment to register their mission complete. After all, it wasn't everyday that a win did not consist of viewfinders and thunderous reports of a rifle and every dull, delicious sound of a bullet finding its target; cages and locks; the beating of hearts.

This one had no sound.

It was quiet and very much unlike the ticking of the clock they were so used to hearing. That which they hunted was a creature so silent that no human being could hear the step of its feat or the beat of its wings as Death often was, only not quite the opposite but hovering, somewhere, in the middle of it all. Both the beginning and the end seemed to it, friends, and that was the nature of infinity.

Of eights and rings and cycles and circles. To be infinite was to be quiet and apart from the heavy beat of wings in which those too big often produced. To be immortal was the gradual recognition and acknowledgement of the small and seemingly insignificant.

"No. No, please let him go—aren't you after predators? This is a mistake," Io could feel the dream slipping through his fingers and the searing of his wounds start to sting the back of his head. "He's harmless. It isn't fair."

But it won't be long, Iolani, so that was what the mind sounded like in a jar. An echo. Cinnamon rolls don't taste very nice when they are cold. It is not my time to disappoint.

It was now or never; Io had to leave before a change of mind precipitated his face in a viewfinder or him staring down the barrel of a gun yet again. For him, an Eye, not to have foreseen this in the stream could perhaps mean that it hadn't been set in stone, or so he brought himself to believe.

He never imagined jumping out of a window to be such a distasteful thing to do. The bitter lump at the back of his throat he soon could not feel in Luna's form and with the Avians of his friend tucked behind the downy feathers of his neck, they fled the tower and made for the scent of smoke.

*

The bridge was falling apart. He could see flames licking the staggered roof and leaving trails of darkness in its wake, dark and singed by an immense heat burning through its frame. The connecting end towards the main building had collapsed after what seemed like the structure giving way to hungry flames and melting heat but the semblance of a man in his robes—struggling on his knees with his face plastered to the floor—remained in the midst of his fiery abyss.

Voices in the distances made out calls for help and others for a chase but no longer could he tell friend from foe; who was running away from the tower for an escape and who else, running from the flames. He neared the falling bridge and the fallen dragon, careful not to cause any further destruction and hoping that Lyra had been able to call the others for help. This, he needed urgently.

"Mr. Dragon?" He shifted by accident and fell through the roof that was already weak, slamming onto the flagged stone floor with a wince. The rest was numb. "Sir? Please be okay." The skin on his arms prickled and stung at every bit of gravel biting into his robes as he crawled, desperately towards the frame that now looked as though a drop of rain could put a hole in bone.

"Sir please answer me. What happened? The fire... was it you? We have to get out of here before the bridge collapses," Io was within reach of an arm and he grabbed it, relieved to see that it was trembling and alive. "I'm sorry about Mr. Sylvain. I need to tell you what happened but maybe if we go together, we can still make it. They're escaping from the east wing and with the members of your Order maybe we can surround them."

The heat was getting to his head; clouded by fumes and ash, smoke rising into the night and corrupting what had been pure and bright. He shook the dragon's arm once more and then, his shoulders, helping him up from the ground but the moment he did, and Falrir looked into his eyes—

He thought he saw in them, nothing more than a child.

"I should have never tried to cross the line," the dragon's voice resembled the embers of a fire. Remnants of a flame. "What a rain. What a storm... oh Iolani. Dragons were never meant to speak to butterflies."

_____________________

He had better not scare the poor thing. Speaking to it would be a disaster, a calamity. For he, so large, would do nothing but destroy a thing so small. For an end to become a tragedy—one that he could have very well avoided—was a loss greater than living itself.

________________________

A/N: Okay by this point I'm actually afraid you'd think I'd pull a Slayne but I'm nOt and no one's going to suffer like we all did for snowy owl it's not as bad as that but, uh, somewhere along those lines BUT ITS JUST GOING TO BE EXCITING and I hope you'll stick with it :')

If you realized, this chapter had several references to the Dragonfly backstory (dragonfly is their ship name by the way, the chapter of the backstory is in Predator, titled Where Butterflies Go When It Rains) and in the last line, Falrir says: "Dragons were never meant to speak to butterflies," and not the other way around. To say that butterflies were never meant to speak to dragons would mean that Falrir is putting butterflies as a lesser kind to dragons but to put it the other way around would mean the exact opposite.

Falrir is suggesting that dragons are lesser than butterflies. Bear in mind that the only people aware of Sylvain's immortality is Falrir only. Oh, and you, of course. The rest of the characters, including Io, have not been told about this. Sylvain himself isn't entirely aware of the prophecy and lives his life without going about actively thinking about his age since the only indication of time he has is Falrir (on his birthdays).

By suggesting that he, the supposed 'God' of the Avian world is lesser than the bottom of the pyramid is something big and several inferences can be made from this. What, if possible, has more power than religion itself? And what is the purpose of Falrir saying this to Io?

Hooray.

-Cuppie.