A/N: It's been some time but I have a long chapter for you! Eep. Hope you like it; and know that I'm still hanging on for this series :'))) I really hope I'll get there. The end is magnificent and I can't wait to experience it with you all but for it to be good, I've got to be patient. Hope you will be too :') 

Enjoy.

______________________

The world inside a jar is small.

He could taste the acrid stench of greed in the air beyond the glass, fuelled by dirty hands that brushed paper-thin wings and scratched at delicate veins to pierce with needles and extract or milk a life eternal—to think the wings of a butterfly felt so pleasant on the surface of the tongue.

Close encounters with teeth were not the worst of his nightmares. He never once thought he would, in his world of dreams, come across a world that could shrink. For those his size to find the sky too close for comfort and an absence of space for the spreading of his wings was a crime so foul it deserved nothing but punishment. How a delicate creature could end up in chains and cuffs and continue to believe in a world beyond the glass seemed nothing like the strength of any man on a cross.

There was nothing to look at amidst machines and tubes, syringes and needles; things of humanly invention he'd never known of and here they were, ebbing away at the creature inside his jar.

He knew for sure that someone stronger would have been able to resist the lull of the wave; the wholeness of the air inside and the sound that it produced—a constant pitch so round that he felt oddly at peace. After all, jars could only fit a creature so small. A creature very much like himself.

It did not fit a god, no. Gods were the authority, the strength, the Above. Gods were almighty, powerful, omnipresent. Their being would never fit in a world so small; a sky so low. Never weak, never small. Never meek, never fall.

They'd always felt to him like dragons—the kind that had wings spanning the infinity of a sky and armour so hard and thick that no sin could cut it dry. Its scales the colour of bravery and valour, raw strength that could hoist the world upon its back and bear the weight of more but

the world inside a jar was small and

no dragon was

a fit.

_______________________

Vater held up the vial of translucent, blue liquid to the light, extracted from the wings of the butterfly now plastered on the cold metal wall, pale and white as ice. He took the needle from a set of glass capillaries, latex gloves enhancing his grip on an instrument so delicate he could feel the pulse of it in his hands that were scarred.

"This is it?" He tapped the needle against the side of the vial before turning to the man in white.

"I mean, it's just Hemolymph, is what it is." He was from the government and the sweat upon his brow had not always been present. Wide eyes gave away semblances of reluctance and confusion, held together by an offer that could fix the loose bottoms of his shoes and his daughter's tattered books. "I've had it tested. Uh, there's nothing special a but uh it's uh, usually it's present in the thorax of the insect itself which in this case is uh, is human so one would think that collection of fluid from the wings would yield, uh, blood."

Vater nodded with a smile, returning his gaze to the vial. "I see."

The professional stood idle by his sanitized apparatus, ignoring the heavy breathing of the thing chained to the wall behind him. It wasn't the first time he'd heard of their existence, these... these people with wings. The government had, in private, done several experiments on them themselves.

To be operating on a butterfly, however, was new.

"And this is edible?" His next question prompted a startling reaction; one that the scientist himself had never heard of. It shouldn't be as shocking as he was making it out to be since, well, insects were part of cuisines all over the world.

"I... would... I mean, yes, but—"

He downed he liquid in a go, shaking the vial until the very last drop had been emptied but for what purpose? The composition was an exact chemical match to Hemolymph without a single variation in formula but then there was a tingling in his hands that was very much like a tickle—the semblance of a reaction.

The mind could process an image vague, an act of sewing; fibres and tissue in self-repair at a speed much faster than the ordinary human being and by the time he removed his gloves to confirm the miracle, it had been done. His scars had vanished—swallowed be the gulp he took.

"Keep him healthy," he told the scientist whose family he knew. And quite personally, at that. "Fluids. Drips. Anything you have. I think your tests need some... re-running." Vater held his hand up to the light and though the man in white knew not exactly what he meant, he could nearly taste it. The acrid stench of greed. He'd smiled, politely in a way that instilled a sense of guilt in those unable to look him in the eye, before leaving the professional to himself.

The latter watched his back disappear behind a door, listening to the odd, curious footsteps he could never put a finger on. There was something about it that suggested a general stiffness—as though the shoes he had on were constantly new and getting used to them was not something he could do. Yet, the number of times Vater had the bars of his cage rattling in fear, the number of times he hadn't felt his presence before a word was fazing. A hunter, indeed.

He had in his hands a bottle of water, unopened. Drawing towards the specimen, the subject, the décor, he placed in the opening, a straw and held it to the lips of the butterfly, chained. "It's water."

For a creature blinded by a strap of rubber and no other way of knowing the truth of human words, it did not seem to be lacking in trust. He sipped on the liquid that could very well have contained something else and thanked the man with an expression that resembled a smile. It was too weak to decipher.

"I don't understand what he means," said the man in white, staring at the veins he'd pumped with luminous material so as to make the process of extracting easier for the eye. "You're nothing special. I've ran my tests—it's written in science."

Thin lips let slip a quiet laugh, one that was wispy in nature. "That, I agree."

He had turned in the general direction of the man speaking to him and nodded in a knowing manner, albeit an act that seemed to be hiding more than he was letting on. There was a slight tremble on his bottom lip that suggested a moment of fear, or simply in response to the chill in the air upon his bare skin. It did not take much to understand that even a creature like him had a mind of its own and for Vater to speak about his plans before the subject itself was cold-hearted and cruel.

"Well?" The scientist readied his apparatus before changing into a new pair of disposable gloves. "Where's your knight in shining armour?"

"I never knew nights could have themselves armoured," managed the butterfly, struggling to voice his thoughts with laboured breathing. "They must... be more special than me."

"Knight with a K, is what I meant. Knight," the human shook his head, and with mastered precision, inserted the needle and extracted yet another syringeful of Hemolymph. His steady hand kept its hold on the vein despite watching the subject wince and flinch at the discomfort. "You said you had friends. Why doesn't Vater being them to me instead? Maybe you aren't what they're looking for—just like the moth next door."

The creature, startled by the mention of another subject, felt the pained beat in his chest pound and quicken. "I hope they don't. I'm enough, doctor. There's nothing more they could want."

"I wouldn't be too sure if I were you," said the man in white, transferring the liquid into the first test tube on the rack. For once, the urge to drink it himself was immense; furthered by the expression on Vater's face he'd witnessed moments earlier. "I thought they'd found something special. Like, you know. A dragon, of some sorts. Something never before-seen."

Fazed, the butterfly could not help but give in to the temptation of comfort. The comfort of familiarity.

"Dragons are very special indeed," he'd admitted in frail joy. "I know one. We often enjoy tea in the evenings. Tea and cinnamon rolls."

"Really," the scientist thought he would humour the creature for a bit and play along. "And how long is 'often'?"

"Once a year. On his birthday."

It elicited a scoff. "So it's an annual thing." And after further silence amidst the whir of a centrifuge, in which the man had placed three test tubes worth of the butterfly's blood, he made a point that the subject himself never considered. "What about your birthday?"

"Well, I..." He seemed to pause. "I don't have a birthday."

Yet again, the scientist played along, oddly enjoying a conversation that was almost fantastical, fictional in quality. "Okay then. So you were never born?"

"I don't quite know," said the butterfly. "My dragon friend is very celebrated. Everyone knows his birthday and every year, they throw him an extravagant ball."

"You think that's why he has a birthday? Because he's celebrated?"

"It could be, yes." The creature was very much distracted by their exchange, as he was the day before. This was the easiest way for the man to conduct the necessary tests and complete his day of work. "I am not very celebrated. Neither am I special. And so perhaps that is why I do not, in fact, have a birthday."

"Huh," again, he scoffed. "Should have brought me this special dragon of yours, then."

Sylvain smiled, the breath escaping his lips thin and bated. "You would have liked him. Unlike myself, he doesn't fear the rain. If I ever get out of this, doctor, perhaps you could join us for tea next year."

____________________

For Luka Sullivan, the infamous boulder that was otherwise known as Iolani's pet pebble to those who knew him best, it would take much skill to incite in him the complex emotion of bewilderment—sudden in nature and incredibly rare, considering the eagle's threshold for oddities. And this, he'd turned to Viktor with, eyes wide and blinking twice.

"You sound completely absurd, I'll give you that," said Vaughn, raising his index while the rest of his arm and elbow remained stuck to the armrest, unwilling to give it up. "If flirting is your primary form of approach then I believe you've made the wrong decision. Neither of us are experts. No, don't look at Sullivan he's barely human." The vulture had made his point and it was nothing short of a good one. In fact, Viktor was reduced to mere shrugging.

"He might like one of your faces."

Fastened seatbelts were good at reining in explosive veins because all Vaughn could do was sit like an infant and glare. Their very first mission together as knighted partners and to commemorate the occasion, a sole purpose of charming the supposed enemy! How extremely memorable. A few years down the road and he'd be sharing this with his grandchild—orphaned children in community centres, pale and wrinkly.

"Objection. I don't see this being more likely with us than Jeremiah Reyes."

"Reyes needs time to bond with his knighted partner," reasoned his step-brother with a lilt in his voice. Playful words. "They don't seem to have the natural synergy that the two of you have. Mentally and physically, I'm saying." And without a doubt, this further triggered an additional round of coughing and narrowing of panicked eyes. While these emotions weren't necessarily displayed on the eagle's face, they were, of certain probability, manifesting within his cage.

"You cannot be serious," was what Vaughn would have captioned the look on Luka's face, "taking us out of training for such mindless tasks that even Dmitri could execute. I mean, he might actually... possibly... present some... sort of an... a-appeal." Whether the vulture himself was a believer of his own words, no one would ever know. Nevertheless, he was one to get back on track with ease. "This eagle was watching sparrow documentaries the entire ride, Viktor. Documentaries. About sparrows!"

"Relax," the professor had glanced over at the remaining two members of the team; one of which was leaning over onto the other's lap for a view of the plains below. "He's not going to need much persuasion... I hope. And even if he does, there's nothing wrong with that since you're always so good with words."

Vaughn was appalled by the current situation—frightened by the severe misunderstanding his step-brother had of his villainous character. "Ridiculous! Do you even understand what you're saying? I was never good with words, Jae. Things never go the way I like them to."

Viktor found himself nodding out of obligation. It was the only thing that would appease his baby brother in times like these. "I know, I know. You feel burdened by the weight of responsibility and wish you were back in your dark vampiric room drinking the blood of your enemies out of a wine glass and reading Shakespeare, yes yes."

There was a need to set things straight and correct the way in which the condor had described himself (however true) but Vaughn was at once rudely interrupted by an announcement on the sound system, thus forcing him into swallowing his words.

"Good afternoon passengers this is the captain speaking. Hope you're enjoying the ride and our new collection of documentaries which can be accessed through the inflight entertainment system," the captain's unsurprisingly monotonous greeting was not a good representation of the announcement as a whole. "We're currently an hour away from our destination but recent updates have informed us of a forest fire approximately two kilometres south of our initial landing, travelling northeast at speeds of two hundred and thirty-five meters per minute."

All four members of the team had turned to Viktor in a moment of panic. Luka primarily due to hopes of returning home in the shortest time possible. Delays were unwarranted and unwelcome.

"The ship will be recalculating its route in the next minute or so and will dock or land in an equally inconspicuous part of the forest. In the meantime, please be prepared to take the stairs up to the deck and shift. All belongings will be transported to your accommodation by seven in the evening. Thank you and have a pleasant flight."

"So... we're not going to be disembarking the airship but jumping off it," summarized the straight-A student with the Adidas bag, folding his arms as he did. "Perfect."

"It's the same thing, sweetheart," Viktor reached over to pinch the vulture's nose and pull on it. This was unfortunately witnessed by the rest of the team, who promptly stopped and stared. Zijun held in a laugh. "Don't worry. I'll talk to the co-pilot in a minute. Everything's going to be fine."

The kids responded with silent nodding, all except the one crème brulee who had his confidential folder of profiles opened to a random page and was staring blankly at a bloody head without ears. Somewhere behind, they heard the click of a latch and the subsequent roaring of wind that had Vaughn's hair slapping all over his face.

__________________

The sparrow had been staring at the floating girl for the past minute or so with the door half-opened, creating a gap wide enough for him to slip through and stop in his tracks, mesmerized by the glowing human before his eyes.

To say that Jing was dangling mid-air was an understatement. She was floating, yes, but at the very same time drowning—her hair moving as though she was submerged beneath the waves with her eyes closed in peace. Enraptured, Io had by accident, left the heavy door forgotten and startled himself and his fellow Eye as soon as it slammed shut with its weight. At once, the girl had opened her eyes to reveal blinding orbs that felt to him like pieces of the sun, triggering a fiery burst of light in which nearly rendered the latter unconscious for an instant.

"Io," she soon realized, descending with grace. Relieved. "I thought it was someone else."

The sparrow lowered his head in apology. "Sorry I interrupted. I'm very upset with the door. And at myself for letting the door be a door," he sighed, glancing at Lyra who was finding the phoenix's hair particularly interesting. "Don't mind me asking: was that some form of meditation? Is that something I can do, too? I mean, it's like flying without wings, isn't it. Except it isn't really flying and I'm, just, I would like to learn." He shuffled his feet upon finishing, glancing up to see his friend hiding a laugh.

"I was watching over my Order," she explained, crossing the room towards a table at the far right. "Cai and Jun. On the air ship with Luka and Vaughn."

"Luka?" Io was all ears. "And Vaughn? Are they together with members of your Order?" He would recognize those faces in their presence. While he hadn't quite had their names carved into his memory, the boy was sure they were the two other students that he'd often seen his fellow Eye with.

She beckoned, and he obliged. "The four of them are on an air ship to see someone. Professor Viktor is accompanying them."

"Who do they want to see?"

"A contract killer. He would know if an unnatural death was part of an assassination, sometimes even who the assassin is," Jing explained without taking her eyes off something she was holding between her fingers. "We are suspecting two parties... or perhaps even more."

Io's eyes popped. "Sounds messy. Will there... will there be dangerous things involved? I mean, to see this man."

"He doesn't do any killing unless there's money involved so I would presume they are in safe hands," said his other half in the sky.

She proceeded to hold out the thing in which she had been holding between her fingers; a thing unseen. The phoenix looked as though she was presenting the item to Io or perhaps bestowing it upon him, but the latter expressed his inability to see said item's concrete form. He was very honest about it.

"This is a part of me," Jing stroked the area above her hand. "It is what I use to connect with the members of my Order. I can watch over them at any time and in any space."

There was at once a vigorous movement of the particles before his eyes and the intense heat that was generated as a result caused the thing in her hands to burst into flames—or perhaps it already was. In flames.

It crackled and spit and burned, slow and lazy as she held it out to him once more.

"A phoenix feather!"

Io was in awe, gazing at the magic of it all and drawn to it like a moth to the flame. He accepted the feather despite fearing its heat, holding it in his hands as though it was an infant to care for. "It doesn't burn."

"It will if I lose control of my core," Jing explained with warning, observing the light in his eyes and finding herself wondering how it was like for the sun to wish for a glimpse of the moon. "That night in the infirmary with the dragon. Cai felt the burn."

Her companion raised the feather above his head, holding it up to the light. "I've been thinking about that. What you said to Lord Falrir that night," he returned her gaze with an expression of concern. "You sounded mad back then."

"I was," Jing admitted at once, with a sigh that had her breath escaping in wisps but this time, her lips forming a smile. "Responsibility was the only thing keeping me alive all these years, thinking that he, too, must have had a burden heavier than the one I carried. I mean, being immortal must have meant that there were many things he had to leave behind. Let go. So I thought I had to do it too.

"And now he's gone," she laughed shortly. "Just like that."

It was to Io an instinct to wonder exactly how it was she felt about that and his Link, unguarded, echoed itself in her mind at once. The phoenix averted her gaze.

"Would it be wrong to feel betrayed?" She posed to no one in particular. "Does it hurt? Should I just leave it all behind?"

She felt, through his grip on her feather, his answer and it was the kind one would expect of the moon. He found it endearing, the way they were choosing to communicate—it made him feel oddly close to the sun and its heat despite the distance in the sky he knew they would always have to deal with. And it was in that instant that the flame of the feather snuffed out like a candle in the wind, startling the boy into a yelp.

"What happened?" Io tried to light it once more. "Was it me?" His shoulders fell at the feather that now remained unseen. Crestfallen.

Jing took the part of herself she'd plucked off by her own, right under Sol's wing. It ignited at once. "I've been testing this. The feather shares my flame with another. They gain the ability to heal or... light everything up but I think it only responds to those whose hearts or minds belong."

"Belong?" Io's eyes followed her back, anxious all of a sudden. "Where? Does that mean I don't... belong?"

"... I might need a dictionary," was all she said in return, ears hiding behind her hair oddly hot. "I scored a B in English."

"That's better than the C plus I got," said Io with a broken heart. "Both Luka and Pipa got an A. Maybe they could find a better word for it. For the feather."

Jing seemed mildly surprised; by Luka's grades and Io's suggestion of consulting the former. She told him that Falrir had given each member of his Order an ember extracted from under his scales as long as they could do it themselves. "An ordinary Winged would not be able to stand the heat. They say it's like acid on flesh, but some feel it as a tickle."

Io could not for the sake of his sanity digest the image of Reux extracting embers from Lord Falrir despite his faith being completely false. The shrike had always believed in one thing only: an art form, almost religious, revolving around himself. The plans of an artist so great, no one would be able to understand its entirety.

"But... but then, is there some kind of criteria to fulfil? Like-mindedness? Faith?"

"Faith, maybe. Something that has to do with belief. Trust in their leader, or... but it's not like I can imagine anyone having faith in me," she laughed quietly and Io walked up to her before smacking the back of her head. The sun yelped.

"So...? Can your two friends heal?" He poked her cheek and questioned in a chiding voice. "Can they produce a flame?"

"Y-yes, a small one but—"

"Then they have faith in you!" He proceeded to rain an attack of pokes on her cheek and she tried to push him away but to no avail. They were his ultimate weapon. Jing had scrunched her eyes shut and swatted his fingers away before finally giving in but also nearly setting the moon's hair on fire.

"Sorry, sorry," she had apologized whilst checking the bits of his hair that were singed. In response to this, Io had much to say. Including a reminder that apologies for whatever it was she was apologizing for were unwarranted. "It's just... I'm," she paused. "I'm the only phoenix who's ever had the power to destroy."

While Io could have very well said that having two opposing powers were always better than one (and in his case, seemingly none), he sensed that she was getting at the very thing that had plagued her mind all these years. That she had never been the healing Eye that everyone else had expected her to be.

"Do you ever think it could be part of evolution?" he asked, recalling what he'd learnt in history class taught by a woodpecker professor. "That there might have been a problem with a sole purpose till one day, they simply thought it wasn't enough to be returning things to what they were?

"I don't know what I'm getting at, actually," he admitted. "I feel like there are different people in the world and some of them prefer for things to return to the way they were, but others want new beginnings.

"And for that, maybe sometimes healing isn't enough. Some people want to destroy and build something anew."

"But even if the destroyed will never come back?" she couldn't help but challenge and upon witnessing the look in his eyes, knew that he was already challenging himself. "I couldn't."

The boy fiddled with a lock of hair between his fingertips, thinking about a part of himself he could be giving to someone else. "Maybe humans were always meant to bear the pain of being left behind. One day or another."

__________________

Vaughn Alekseyev had in his hands a map sandwiched between Far from the Madding Crowd, eyes fixed on the road straight ahead despite the many turned against him and his companion, idle and visibly unfazed. Apart from the occasional pretence of stopping by vegetable stalls to stare at heads of broccoli and discounted sacks of baby potatoes, the pair were finding their task oddly manageable.

Some hour ago, the team had landed in the middle of a forest surrounding what seemed like a harmless-looking town in the distance, sitting at the bottom of a mysterious hill. The landing had been part of a twenty-minute flight from the deck of the airship cruising above the trees, led by Viktor and directed through the group's established Link.

When the time came for him to instruct a sudden split in the team, all four members did not hesitate to oblige. After all, no human would think themselves fortunate enough to be witnessing a golden eagle flying alongside a condor or a vulture with any other species apart from its own. They shifted back into their human forms only after landing among the trees in the outskirts of the town, each receiving an individual map that illustrated differing routes to their destination. Quite unfortunately, the knighted pair had ended up with something that looked terribly similar—which was a bad idea since long, ash grey hair was certainly not going to attract attention in these parts of the world. Luka had pointed this out.

"There's nothing wrong with looking like travellers," Vaughn had protested in defence of his precious hair. "In fact, it gives us an excuse to not know whatever it is might be going on around the village and perhaps inquire about it."

This, the casual clothes added to. Without the vulture's black trench coat, customised to his tastes as Hearts often had the privilege of doing, Vaughn had lost most of his ability to intimidate. Dress pants and neatly pressed formal shirts swapped out for a simple black tracksuit, he could have passed as some unfortunately fashionable, rebellious teen in the city. Except, this wasn't a place of skyscrapers and shopping malls.

Cobbled streets gave way to old terraces and accommodated humans, bikes and horses alike. Above, their Avians roamed as scouts; keeping themselves generally out of view but at a decent distance. Rows of grocers, along with the occasional corner store, were the centre of attention for Luka, who apparently felt the need to bring home some form of souvenir for his tiny waiting friend.

"If you would so kindly use your brain," suggested the vulture, who was witnessing his partner drift, for the third time, toward some nut grocer with a glint in his eye. "Getting someone what they already have access to sounds like a terrible idea for a souvenir. The very definition of the word entails an element of novelty! Not, some, measly packet of sunflower seeds."

"Oh," was all Luka had to say, quietly considering this before admitting that it did, indeed, have a point. His partner did not stop there. In fact, Vaughn went on to lecture him regarding his behaviour and how he could possibly ruin the entire mission in his state of unguarded-ness.

"Sullivan. I see what you have become, having spent these past couple of months in the company of your friend—"

"He's your friend too."

"—you were never so indecently careless and easy going, distancing yourself all the time and spending it all in your head, cooped up in the dark like the loner you were—"

"You're describing yourself."

"—reluctant to try anything new and so suspicious of everyone and everything around you, let alone asking a stranger about roasted sunflower seeds instead of focusing all your energy on the task at hand which you used to do. I remember witnessing your first dinner on the island, a child who refused to stomach anything but was oddly at the top of his class and couldn't be any better at his studies—"

"So you were stalking me."

The eagle had said this moments before noticing a grocer with discounted cobs of corn, grilling them over an open fire before leaving them to cool on the side. A heavenly fragrance wafted by and he followed it at once.

"—not that you've changed in that sense because you are focusing all your energy on something, just that it isn't necessarily... Sullivan are you listeni—oh skies where did he go."

The townspeople around him were nice enough to point out the stray eagle who'd wandered towards the roadside stall selling grilled corn, leaving Vaughn inexplicably surprised. Had it not been for the map given to him by the team's mentor, he would have very well thought themselves mistaken and had somehow ended up in the wrong place.

Nothing quite stood out in his books; for all intents and purposes, the town looked to him completely ordinary if not mundane—something far too residential for the gory business of lost ears and bloody heads. He would have to look into this.

"Will you stop going off without a word like some wandering chick?" The vulture had his partner by the arm, turning to lead him away from the stall. "I would listen to me if I were you. Iolani wouldn't be too happy to hear his friend acting all distracted on important missions that are supposedly undercover."

"Your friend's got a familiar face," said the man behind the grill all of a sudden, gaze alternating between the pair. He had said this to the potential customer whom he'd noticed lingering around from before, and now seemed much more interested in Vaughn than anything else.

"I've heard that many a time," lied the vulture without so much as batting an eyelash. "Sorry if it offends you—we're not from around here."

"No no," the man laughed, sliding a fragrant cob of corn into a paper bag before handing it to Luka. The latter stared, then fished out some change from his pocket. "It'sa nice face. Probably why they put it on the front page of th' papers this morning instead 'f, uh, the other faces."

Vaughn felt at once a disturbance in the waters that were otherwise calm. An inkling of something beneath the surface.

"That is very kind of you. I'm sure the other faces were all very attractive and the editors simply hadn't enough space to feature them all in the front page."

The man's brows raised along with the widening of his eyes, as though thoroughly amused. It was hard to tell if his reaction had been in response to the weird coins in his hands or the vulture's words. He returned to grilling the next batch of corns, averting his gaze.

"Hm, wouldn't know if the editors would'a wanted twelve dead people on the front page but'ah... maybe, maybe."