"Unbelievable." Gale says. He paces from side to side over my half dormant body, and I at last open my eyes, although the motion is difficult and has to be done almost against my own will."Un-be-liev-able. You didn't tell me anything--"

"This is your fault," I whisper.

His ears prick. "You're awake?"

I nod. My head hurts.

Gale's ears fall. Professionally, he manages, "Alright. The others will want to see you in a little. You've been out for a long time, Rena."

You're so cold with me sometimes. What do you keep shutting off? "I have?"

"Three days."

My mind stirs for a second, and I push back, with newfound strength, every memory now coloring my mind. With a slow, pained nod, I manage, "Grea-a-a-at."

Even Gale senses the sarcasm. "Hey, you're not dead."

"No, I'm fine. I expected it to be longer." I admit, which is... true? I didn't know. I still have no idea what's going on, and my head full of butterflies has ceased cooperating. I am firmly stuck in my body, as if someone has pressed my pelt and I back into each other, forcefully, which is a little uncomfortable but also, definitely what I've been asking for, so I can handle it. At the very least, sensation is sensation, feeling is feeling, and the magic in my veins belongs to me.

I open my mouth and light arcs between my horns, the spectral wings appearing again on my back--I feel them sweep my side-- and my fur ruffles in a wind that isn't there, calling on the I who is not I across generations. I can sense her there, all of her, and together we shut our mouth before we can inflict severe property damage. I lower the "voice" of the other to a whisper and aim for Gale's tail, which singes beautifully.

Gale turns, ears swinging back in distress and annoyance both. "Rena."

"Guess that works," I say, nonchalantly, placing my head into my paws again. "Are you okay now?"

"Better." he says.

"Could you see anything, Gale? During the Dog Days?"

"Too much, really." Gale mumbles. "I was a bastard for most of my past lives. No parents, generally, often Forhaga or just lacking in power, and I spent a lot of it trying to climb... I don't know entirely. It never gives you good details. It's like being asked to identify a place given one taste of the earth."

"If you asked me, I might be able to tell," I say.

"Auspicia." Gale says. "It's not that hard."

"I meant the dirt," I clarify. "I used to lick dirt all the time."

"Behold, the Auspicia, eternal prophet of Verhamera, being past being," Gale announces, sarcastically. "Look upon her and tremble."

Even though Gale hasn't told them a thing, the others come in around then and begin crowding me, all with thousands of questions, and I find my head begins to burn horribly. I stand still and stay as silent as possible, giving them nods or shakes, and I realize a lot more of the questions are about the Auspicia than they are me.

---

I soon find my body, for all the holy energy I have supposedly unlocked, is near unresponsive. I lay in the room like a skinned animal in the meat locker, barely recognizable as myself, and try to come to terms with the way my body buzzes all the time. I can feel the light passing between myself and I, but it's nearly as distant as before, only now I can tell what I'm lacking.

Glaze dotes over me the whole time, as well as Avery, who paces the area regularly. Sometimes she sits in the room with Arazel and the two of them inevitably lapse into listing names and places, all of them held together like stars into intricate constellations and stories. I learn about Evelsca, western land of former technological prowess and current chaos, and Ceilvyr, eastern land of former chaos and current chaos, currently one of the few places relatively lacking in Plague due to the survivalist nature of the inhabitants. Despite that, it's hardly safe, and it dawns on me that it's not only pride but even a sense of duty that keeps us here. We are protecting more than ourselves--our past is at stake, and if we left, Opphemria's magical treasure trove would be entirely open for interdimensional scavengers to loot, supposing that Plague victims didn't tear the ground asunder first and destroy thousands of years of history. At least, that seems to be the justification, aside from the fact that there's no way, at this point, that rapid evacuation would be successful.

It's so much, and Avery and Arazel speak so quickly, their voices accelerating into a barking frenzy whenever it gets to the subject with deaths. Today, after an entire morning of watching the whites of the room sour to creams with every new fleck of dust that aggresses the wall, Gale enters the room. I am so relieved to see him that my tail starts hitting the wall. Gale says something indistinct to Avery under his breath. Following this, Avery finally turns to me and says, "You are free to go, Rena."

I get to my paws and find that by some miracle, I am, indeed, free. Whether I would have been able to rise before now or not is entirely uncertain, but regardless, I dip my head to her and rush to Gale's side.

"What did you do?" I ask when we're out in the hall.

"What she asked me to do," he responds, with a flick of his ears that means it's nothing.

I dip my head towards him, just slightly.

"We've been talking a lot since you went under. She paces over you all day, you know? So I suppose I almost have some kind of interpersonal connection to her, even though she... I'm almost too frustrated to talk about it." When I cock my head to the side, Gale continues,

"They do care about you. They just... they all expected this, you know? And that makes me angry. Knowing we were sitting in a trap the whole time, waiting for the metal teeth to close on our necks."

"But you've been doing errands for her." I say, hesitantly.

"Lots of them," he says, gesturing with his nose to several new scars. He bares them with pride, his chest swelling to reveal the pink lines between the silver fur. His body looks like the moon. I'd never told him that before but looking so closely at the way dandruff plays off the gray, it's almost mystical. I press myself to him, almost tasting the scar, and he jerks back. For a second there, I could feel his heart. "Rena. Don't make this weird."

"I wasn't. You were just hurt." I say.

"Everyone here's hurt. It's not like they were hard missions or anything, but she does prefer to send me on things, generally alone, sometimes with Nina... I mean, things haven't changed that much. You're still you. That's... how they told us to approach you. Like you were still you." His gold eyes catch mine. "But for what it's worth, I'm glad to be in service to the Auspicia of Dreamland."

"In service."

He looks up quizzically. "Of course."

Everything lights up.

He parts ways not long after, with a new, almost frightening independence leading him down the halls by the neck. He has a swagger to every step, head raised, eyes darting not for threats but for something to seize upon. It's remarkable, really. Had I missed so much?

Aeons. The body says. I don't want to grace it with a response.

I settle back into the room and get a wide berth save for Indy, who immediately plops down beside me. This is enough to at least drag Auma along, and she fidgets with a kinegraph while pretending she's not viewing me over the top. A voice cries out "We've come here a million times," from inside the layers of magical paint and Auma very discreetly shuts it away. Instead, she just watches me, abashed, and I look at her coppery fur and the muscle gleaming beneath it.

"Have missions been going well?" I ask, and it is the epitome of small talk.

Auma nods very slowly.

"That's good. Are the cults still around?"

Head shake.

"That's good too."

"We saw the most fascinating animal the other day. It was like a deer, but almost entirely hollow... there are a lot of semi-solid species that work like something between phantasms and liquids out there, capable of changing shape. It's almost like the body is a bag that the will can push out into any shape. They're not native to Opphemria, save for some coastal varieties, so we were all really confused." Indy begins. "And then there were a whole herd of them, gaping at us like we were the strangest thing we'd ever seen. And I thought--"

"You wanted to eat one?" Auma begins.

Indy looks taken aback. "Absolutely. I love seafood."

"It's not seafood if it's nowhere near the water," counters Fyera. Fyera lounges over one of the larger cushions, ensuring that she takes up as much space as possible by spreading her limbs wide as they can go, and she lowers her head down and yawns. "Oh. This is wonderful. Ignis? Right here."

Ignis lays down at her side, gently resting her head against Fyera's, and Ignis begins to lick Fyera's wounds. The gesture is so tender that my heart quivers, brimming with want, and Indy's continued anecdotes fade into the background, all of them nothing to the blood rushing in my ears. I can sense several figures stand in my mind, all of them strangers, but I know the light inside their eyes. Everyone else in the room touches, fur edging into fur, from over in the corner where Glaze hums while putting her dishes away with Blossom at her side to the table where the strategists drink leftover spirits.

"I don't want to be alone," I whisper under my breath, but that was never an option. History holds me away from them. I am a few years too late to be part of this family and as I stand, I see them all curve away from me. I see Indy recoil just a few inches, and the facade slips. Several wings rise from my back. "Do I scare any of you?"

"No," Indy answers.

Fyera looks right into my eyes. "Of course."

"I want to be part of this more than anything." I insist, choking on my own words. "But I can't be, can I? You're all holding me just out of reach."

"Are you sure this isn't paranoia speaking?" asks Ignis.

"Twitch." I say. "You've never explained why you hate them. It's not time, Rena. It's not your business, Rena. If you wanted it to be in the past, you would have forgiven him. But you haven't. It's just a game. Do you play with all your prey this way?"

Fyera pauses, face framed by the thin shafts of moonlight from outside. Indy lifts a paw and places it on hers, cold eyes a warning sign, and Auma shakes her head. Fyera rolls herself back, as if preparing for a hunt, and loud enough for everyone in the room, announces, "He killed Kyan."

"N-no. Why would you keep him around if-- no." I say.

"We need Thistle around. He's a dragon. But Twitch?"

"No one told me this."

"We didn't know if we could trust you." Fyera explains, briefly. "It's fine, now. You're part of the family, Rena, but we just couldn't always afford to give you all this information, in case it upset you, or you acted rashly. Does that make sense?"

"You still shouldn't." I say, dizzy. "I'm more dangerous now. You just happened to let something slip."

"I'm making a very conscious decision to trust you." Fyera says. "It's not a slip. I don't slip, Rena. Do well to remember that." With that, she gets up, cracks her head to the side, and announces to the group, "I'm going to sleep. Is anyone else tired?"
Several Sentients mutter something, and Auma steps up. "Yes, I think I'm tired myself."

My face warms. "I'm trusting you, too." I say. "Please."

Fyera nods as Auma takes her, and all the emotion in her body, all the warmth, the way she angles herself a little closer to me... please tell me that's true. Is there any way she could still be playing with me, displaying all the signs I'd be looking for? The room presses in around me, white walls barren of decoration, and Indy puts a paw on mine. His eyes look sad.

"I need air."

He couldn't deny me that for the life of him. I exit onto the roof and breathe my first true lungful of air in ages. It fills my head with old, wild thoughts, and I am stumbling through brush again, my mind a mess of dissonant patterns. The silhouettes of the trees do not correspond to their shadows, and the lights of the city, and the two moons overhead. Sirius. Procyon. Brother. Sister. I can't believe I had almost forgotten their names. I lean up towards them, into the starlight, and take in the space where the stars are set apart. How horrible for all the bright things to be set so far from each other, out where they will never know each other's warmth...

I stumble onto Kyan, whose grave and budding tree are little more than a bone piercing the night. "I'm sorry." I say. "I didn't know."

"You don't." answers a gruff voice. I fall into a defensive stance, and he responds, with unusual kindness, "I'm up here alone."

"You never told me he killed someone." I respond, aware how pathetic my voice sounds as it rises into a whine.

"Did he kill someone? Did he go at them with his own paws?" asks Thistle. "Do you think that Twitch, who was little more than what you'd call a pup a few years ago when the incident could happen, would deliberately, physically inflict injury on someone? More importantly, would he have been capable?"

I shake my head briefly.

"He was training to be a strategist. This was around the time he called Fyera a Forhaga. After that? He was a target. Now, do you know what being a strategist gives you the ability to do, Rena?"

I shake my head again.

"Yes you do."

I shake it again, more vigorously.

"You are a military strategist thousands of years old. What could a bad strategist deliberately do to their own troops if they felt so inclined? If they got one chance to run missions on their own?"

"I don't know. It's not just one thing, is it? I don't know what answer you want out of me." I say. "I don't know what any of them actually want me to do. They just keep looking at me like I'm supposed to figure out their games and I just want to be part of all of this but I don't even know if that's possible and I don't really want to be the Auspicia and I just want to live as hard as I can and go down and end up here where everything is quiet and peaceful and I get to protect everyone without having to think ever again--"

"I didn't ask." Thistle says, curtly. His tail strikes my side, not cruelly, but it silences me.

I gulp back air.

"Twitch used a single day where he was allowed to take patrols to downplay the importance of a Call. He estimated it would be a one-Sentient job. In reality? It necessitated around five, at least. He thought if he could get Fyera out there, alone, and something were to happen to her, the others would leave him alone. Instead, Kyan hopped aboard and died. Fyera spread the rumor the missions had been deliberately tampered with. There's your truth, Rena. I'd ask you for something in return, as dragons are wont to do, but without prompting you've admitted a lifetime of anxieties."

"Thanks," I say, beneath my breath.

"There is a reason dragons have scales." Thistle continues. "We barricaded ourselves from each other because every other dragon has claws. The world is full of Sentients with things more dangerous than claws, and they're not aiming for your jugular. They want what's under the skin. If you strike that, you can take someone down across time, across lifelines. You will dilute them in such a way so that they will never be fixed again."

Thistle begins to slink away, and though I dare not step in front of him, I peek around, and ask, "Why do you stick with him?"

"We're companions." Thistle says. "It's old tradition, more intimate than anything else you Sentients have. See, dragons do not have hearts, nor souls, nor anything that could make us... what you see out there. This also means that when we die, we disperse into stardust. But if we were to become so close to another being that we were nearly the same in heart and mind? We would become part of this world through them."

"You're using him?" I ask.

"Are you using your loved ones, Rena? A relationship is giving and taking, in tandem. It's hard to admit that, sure, but I see no point in blurring truths." Thistle snorts out smoke. "Have a good night." With that, he disappears, and the stars stand behind me.

We've used everyone. We've used this world up.

I don't even know what they did. I don't know if I was the worst Sentient in the world. Everyone respects me, so that can't be true. No. I did something. I want to remember. No. No I don't.

My head spins a little but I stand straight.

The wind howls.

In service.

"And the Auspicia," I call to the air, "Is in service to all of Dreamland."

The trees nod in agreement. I remember something very important about me as I was: I had roots.