The next day begins much like the first, if in a somewhat more organized fashion, and I find that the routine is easier, as promised, the second time around. I do not meander the halls, moaning and dying of hunger, or startle at the darkness long after there should be light (much). Instead, I quietly settle in the main room, which smells faintly of food and other kindnesses. The whole world is warm in an expressible, soft way, and I already feel so at ease that it is its own kind of disquieting.

My head moves about in the near-empty room to catch Gale, settled in the corner away from the food. His long snout is angled down and he is lying half on his side, breathing. I settle next to him. "Are you alright?"

"Sore," he says. "Aren't you?"

I stretch my limbs, which whine with small grievances. "Very." I admit. "That's my own fault."

He says, "We could have been more efficient had they not been so pushy."

My head jerks up. Someone is behind us. Lowering it again, I mutter, "I think Indigo knows what he's doing."

"I don't trust Canii." Gale yawns.

"You don't trust anyone." I tease, pawing his side.

"I clearly trusted you enough to come here." His eyes are shot. Had they always been so red, or his teeth tinged with that malicious yellow glint? It feels as if I'm meeting him again in this moment, beneath this light. A shadow rustles beneath his fur, curling it in a thousand directions and leading his fur to its current, unkempt condition.

"I'm a Canis. You said so." I say, and the belonging is a beam of light in my mouth and inside my blood. In the lull of the conversation, I say, "You didn't sleep last night."

His eyes widen further. "You shouldn't know that."

"I don't know why I do." I say. Of course, he's in poor condition after days of work, but the real secret is right beneath this, the taste of something more sinister in the river, poison on my tongue. Our hearts beat in rhythm.

"There are some answers you can't search for here, Rena." he warns.

"I can't drag you into anything, you mean." I say.

"That," he says.

"But you came," I argue. "Of your own accord."

He glimpses upwards, trying to reach me without having to turn onto his underbelly. I think his eyes say for you, but this could be wishful thinking. Isn't it?

"Rena, may I see you?" asks Glaze.

"Better go to your new masters, lonely twig."

"You should try to make friends, too," I offer, voice so low that it hardly registers as more than breath. "It can't just be us against the world."

"Rena?" Glaze asks, and my name pulses through me. When Gale says it, it is as if I am speaking with myself, but this is something entirely different. Yes, I am Rena. You're looking for me. Gale gets to his own paws, and we walk over together, to where Glaze is in the kitchen. The warm smell increases in intensity as we go to her, met now by a more physical warmth. Fire dances atop stone.

"Oh! Good morning, Rena." Glaze turns, ears perked, and her eyes narrow. "And you too, Gale."

"Charmed," Gale growls.

"It's on fire," I say. "Are you putting it on fire?"

"No, it's... a city thing. You can actually do it without magic, but we've set up some grinded crystals and old sigils that respond on command, since they're easier to control that way... magic generally is, and those little marks... guess you can't see them, sorry, but they mark who can and can't use it. We had to guess at what our sigils would be, since we had an Erudis, who can make marks, but not a Ibis, who can see marks. Does that make sense? Lupa are generally good at both--"

"They're like thicker Canis, with pointed ears and no horns. I don't have the slightest what the other two are." Gale says to me.

"--Yes. All species have their own magic, and new species spring up through magic, so new ways of using magic have developed as the reigns have passed. Ancient Dreamland didn't even have marks." she frowns. "I must be boring you."

"Eh." Gale snorts.

"Not at all," I say. "I need to know everything."

"Rain'll love to hear that. I'm sure we can arrange to let you off Calls for tomorrow and take you to the library." Glaze says. "Can you two fetch me some of the bright powder-y stuff in that cabinet? You're a Canis, so... probably have a better handle. Usually I cook with Misty, but she's busy, sorry..." She gestures to what must be the 'cabinet', which is a small, opened box, like a room too small to stand in.

"I can't--" I start.

"Rena's powers are off." Gale finishes, standing defensively at my side. I'm a little hot under the fur.

"She can't do basic telekinesis?" asks Glaze.

I approach the 'cabinet' and locate the first item contained within, as I'm not entirely sure what a 'powder' is... something to do with pollen? Snow? Why you would eat either is beyond me. I grab it without my paws, reaching outwards, and it slams against the top of the cabinet. I swing it outwards, and Gale ducks. It hits the other wall and explodes into a smothering of white, flaky dust. Powder. Yes. I think that was it.

"Well." Glaze coughs. "You definitely... need to work on precision."

"I am so sorry," I say. "I have no idea what just happened."

"That much has been made abundantly obvious." Gale's tongue darts out, samples some powder, and he shakes himself off.

Glaze does so as well, but both of them are several shades lighter. She then grabs a cup and scoops up some powder, placing it in a bowl. "Tell no one," she says.

We both nod. My tail is waving, even though I really am sorry.

She continues to grab ingredients, mainly with her teeth, while Gale and I stand back. Gale is still shaking himself off, coughing as the air is flooded with powder, and eventually Fyera and a few of the others pass us, grab some food off the table, and leave just as quickly.

I catch Indigo's eyes as he heads out. "Have a fight with the flour?" he asks.

I nod dumbly. "Powder."

"Huh. Well, it looks like you won." he smiles, departing.

A coppery Canis, behind him, enters the room and the air seems to freeze as all the white particles move upwards before filing into the bucket in the corner where they throw the foot they don't want. Every individual particle moves in haunting harmony, and the Canis stares me down. "I'd advise not fighting with the food rations... Rena, is it?"

I dip my head again, immediately falling into a bow.

"Get up, please. I'd prefer if our acquaintance didn't begin with your deference--I'd more appreciate a mutual respect." she says. "I'm Auma. I work under Avery."

"If the eggs don't kill them, first," Indigo barks, from halfway down the steps. "Revenge of the food rations."

"Can they do that?" I yelp.

Auma's eyes narrow. "No."

"Oh, and pour some armadillo on there for tonight, won't you, Glaze? If you're making sweetbread of any kind." Indigo calls, peeking his head back up.

"Indigo." Glaze chirps, indignantly.

"I'll eat it!" he pleads.

"Get out of here, all of you."

"Keep the newbies busy, won't you?" asks Auma. "We'll be picking up the others. See you tonight."
Glaze nods resolutely.

"What's an armadillo?" I ask once they're gone.

"It's... Indigo has odd taste in meats. He has a tendency to request nigh impossible things, but he also puts up with nigh impossible number of Calls and has survived for a nigh impossible amount of time, so we let him get away with things."

"Nigh impossible?" Gale asks.

"Seven years," Glaze says. "Since near the start of the Plague crisis, back when most of the Sentients were adults."

Gale's eyes widen. "I see," he says, his voice trembling slightly.

We lapse back into silence. Gale and I distract ourselves, that is to say, he's messing with the shadows and I'm practicing by flicking one of the untouched morsels of meat on the table and flicking it up with telekinesis, trying to hit a perfect, routine curve... after a while, Glaze's voice picks up again, but she's not talking to us-- it's like she's speaking with the air.

"Yes?" I ask.

Glaze bolts slightly, and a bubble pops on the plate she's set over the fire, which now holds liquid goo. Embarrassed, she admits, "I have a bad tendency to call a little, under my breath. You know, singing, howling. Mistral and I've had plans for years to strike it out as travelling musicians when the Plague ends. 'Course, it's far from practical, and I'd more be doing healing and nutritional services, but it's far more about the spirit of the thing."

"You're the group healer," Gale says. "They just have the one?"
Glaze's eyes narrow. "Currently."

"Seems dangerous."

"Healers are targets." she admits. "I'm one of the last members of my family."

"Are they all..."

"They don't have to serve and can live in the city, safe, for as long as I stay alive." she says, and she flips the pan with a quick movement of her jaw. The goo flips off, revealing a pastry on the other side--how did it do that? My mind is racing with miracles, tragedies, and what to say. "Rena, can you move away from my side? I don't want you to get burned by fire."

I step back. "Are the others... are they also?" I begin, hunting for words.

"Obligated to be here? Mainly by duty, which is why you're here, according to Ginseng and Amber. I admire that. Anyways, you can ask them tonight. They'll all be here for initiation."

After that, the day slows to a hard crawl. Glaze keeps putting things on the fire, and as food stacks up on the table, Gale and I practice our powers. Occasionally, Glaze calls out comments, but for the most part, the day is slow and empty, if warm. This is inexplicably agitating. I can't let the seconds fall off behind me, empty. I can't exist in a second that barely breathes. It'll suffocate me.

Gale notices, too, but his golden eyes flick aside. Something else on his mind. He's familiar. Strange. I'm trying to remember other names. I can almost reach everyone, sure, but someone has to be missing. I sink myself into the rug a little, trying to think of a face, but instead I hit the sun. Who was there?

"Excited to meet anyone?" he asks.

"The butterfly dog," I say. "Where's she?"

"Who?" he asks.

"No, I think it was someone I met a long time ago."

I can feel the concern prickling his fur. "You know, I really should have dumped you in the woods. I was hoping to get a good conversation partner, but you never make a lick of sense."

"No, I'm thinking of someone--I swear! She had these huge wings, but they're not like mine, and kind of... a freckling."

"Canii with wings aren't common," offers Glaze.

"They're not?" I ask, looking back at my own.

"No. If you remember anything more specific, we can help you." Glaze says.

I look through the windows to find the sun is setting over the city. We're so far up that it's almost dizzying, at least with my wings closed. Everyone below, everyone that we're protecting? They're all specks. The normalcy of it is reassuring, oddly enough. The sun catches my attention again, drawing my eyes away from the crowd forming at the bottom of the tower. "She was the sun," I whisper.

"That is the opposite of specific." Gale says.

"That sounds like a myth to me," says a blue Canira, entering from below. She's accompanied by a low roar of noise, most of which echoes up from below. "You must be Rena. It's lovely to meet you, really. I see what Avery meant with the echoes. Are you aware how auspicious your appearance is?"

"Auspicious?" I ask.

She surveys me, and I sense a chill feeling up my back as she steps around me. It reminds me of being outside on a cool day, and the refreshing feeling of water running down my back. "Lucky, in the traditional sense, but you also bare more than a passing resemblance to a previous ruler of our world, Aislyn, the first Auspicia."

"Oh," I say, unsure of myself. "You're... kind of like a rain shower."

"Rain," she says.

"They wanted to go to the library, too." Glaze says.

"They did? That's the first time I won't have to beg newbies to come with me to the main branch downtown." Rain says, with a slight smile. "Well, I'm sure we'll be well acquainted whenever I can best get my paws on you. I won't take up too much of your time, especially given the others will be here..." The bustling downstairs grows into a thundering as close to a dozen Sentients break through the doorway, lead by Avery and Auma. They glisten with strength, many of them are scarred, and they make our welcome on our first day look meager. My tail swings so hard that it hits Gale in the face. "Now."

"We're going to eat, aren't we?" asks one Canira, who's splotched coloring and asymmetrical, stone-and-flesh tails are almost impossible to look away from. He looks like he's torn himself from a cliffside, but his voice is so lively... he's just a spectacle, to be frank.

The others all clamor past, taking Glaze's food, and when we get to the table, which is now sufficiently crowded, Gale sits on my right and I sit to Indigo's. A Felis with nine tails settles to the right of Gale, and I stare at my plate, which is significantly less crowded, and bend down.

No one else is eating. I jerk my head up.

Avery, at the head of the table, looks to me with a kindly nod. "It's fine, you didn't know. We usually eat right away, but we were going to initiate you, first."

"Do we have to... kill someone?" asks Gale.

The table breaks out with laughter. Even the dragon, who is not only so massive that he has to step back from the table, but is also terrifying, manages a sneering snort.

Gale's ears fall back. "No, I'm entirely serious--"

"You'll want to in a few months, but we'd prefer if you didn't." Indigo says.

Another round of laughter follows.

Avery spreads her wings to settle the group. "No, we'd only like to make you feel welcome here, so after you're done eating, we'll bring you to the memoriam room. If you want to opt out, that's your last chance. It's not as if we'll go after you, later, but once you've picked a patch..."

"We've what?" I ask.

"We'll explain when you're up there." interjects Rain.

Gale twitches. "Whatever you need out of us," he says, his voice low.

I nod.

"So, Rena and Gale. Prior allegiances? Are you two registered in any way?" asks an especially small creature, sliding down the neck of the dragon to the table. His eyes are like twin fires, despite their green coloration, and nervous, even violent movement plays at his limbs, keeping him from sitting entirely still. There's also his tail, which sparks with a small, slender fire, flickering off as he sits down from a bipedal standing position.

"We're... not at all. Gale was in some packs," I look over towards him.

"Lonely Twig pack," he says. "Former allegiances. Current allegiances. Nothing else." His stare quiets me. I nod, a knot in my throat.

"I don't have any memories," I say. "So there's that."

"Yes, so today on the Lira City Defenders... an amnesiac Canis with wings, with Aislyn's coloring, walks in with some vagabond with deliberate markings around his gold eyes, and no one asks questions." Twitch says. "Typical."

The air is thick. Are they... glaring at him? Fyera's stare sharpens, and I can see her companion's mouth twitch, while the others are entirely still.

"I have a question," I say. "What... are you?"
The whole group bursts out into laughter. Fyera hits both her paws against the table, and Avery, whose gaze I manage to meet, looks concerned but amused.

"Don't waste your breath. Teeyu." he mumbles. "I'm... I'm Twitch." His teeth, which are so small, grit as he says it.

Gale nods. "Other question. Once we're actually 'initiated', we get to run missions... calls... on our own. Right?"

"We'll discuss that later. Let's eat." Avery says, and Gale looks to me, hurt.

I look back. What did she do now?

Snubbed. His ears fall back.

The others are eating, and Gale and I share food off each other's plates. It's not entirely deliberate, at least not at first, but I catch a bit of meat sticking out of his bread and I'm tempted, and once I've accidentally stolen that from him, he lifts up an entire leg of some unidentifiable dead animal and drops it on his own plate. Eventually we give up.

Indigo watches us, curious. "You two seem close. How long ago did you meet?"

"Four days." I say, cheerfully.

"...wow." he concludes. "Do you finish each other's sentences by total coincidence, too?"

"No, but he does this thing where he makes this face, and I know what he means, and then I do the same thing with my face, and we have conversations like that." I explain.

Indy nods.

Gale looks at me in a way me with an unmistakable why are you telling all of our secrets to Indigo, Rena look, although the food in his mouth is kind of messing with my ability to translate.

I perk my ears back in a, flashing him a playful glance, which is followed by a shrewd narrowing of the eyes. Both of us look out at the table, thwhich is filled with conversation, but I can't make out a word of what anyone's saying. Every few minutes is more roaring that Avery has to quiet, and at one point food starts being thrown... the Teeyu, Twitch, is still watching me with his

"I'm not doing a good job at this, am I? There's just... so many of them, and they're all terrifying." I have my face half buried by my own ears.

"You'll get there," Indy says, getting to his paws. "We're fairly scary, but.. I promise, once you've stared down death with someone, they're a lot harder not to like."

"Thanks, Indigo." I say.

"Please, Rena. Call me Indy."

"Odd," I say.

"We need to depart for this 'initiation'." Gale says, spitefully watching us both. "Swiftly."

Sure enough, everyone at the table is rising. I follow the upwards swell of movement, and Avery is the first to move to the stairs. I hadn't realized there was another staircase until she bows to the wall, and a painting cleaves in two, opening up a stairway that leads ever higher. We approach an exit onto the roof, where a surprising number of trees stand. None are much more than saplings, but despite this, they feel older. I can sense the air humming with them.

Gale practically convulses. "We s-shouldn't be here, should we." he whispers. "Rena, we should go back--"

"This is initiation." I say. "They're friendly trees."

"Their bark is worse than their bite," says Indy, but his voice trembles.

Past the few trees surrounding us, out towards the edge of the roof, lie dozens of small patches of soil. There's just enough canopy on the trees for them to shake, and my breath seems to lighten, the air whistling in my throat. It's never been so clear.

"May I have a feather, Rena?" asks Avery, melancholy and twilight staining her face.

I nod, reaching down to pluck one, and I offer it up to her. "That patch, near the edge. Has a good view of the city."

Gale asks, "Wait, do you already know how this works?"

"Don't you?" I reply. "Why else would would you be so afraid?"

"It's some kind of dedication," he says.

"It's where they leave the bodies when you die," says Mistral. Her fur is stirred by the wind, which turns the branches again. The trees are just large enough to touch each other, all but the smallest few interwoven into a canopy. "The part of you that stays in your body when you leave--the soul? That stays here. If the worst was ever to happen, the energy of this garden would be enough to protect Lira City from a catastrophe. We sometimes fashion things from bark, too, but... it's a big commitment to make. You don't just belong here while you live. You're offering to protect everyone here through as many lives as it takes, as long as it takes."

Gale's eyes are cold, the smaller moon, Sirius, reflecting off his pelt as it traverses the dome of the sky. He sinks down, his fur spiked, and asks me, "You really mean this."

I nod. "I already chose a place."

"But why--"

They're staring at you, Gale. He knows. We watch each other, breathing in the air of the warmest season, and a kind of old mania comes to mind, familiar in part from memories that have corroded with the rest of my identity. He finally says, "The patch next to hers."

I, too, have questions-- so many-- reflected back in the way he looks at me at that moment. Four days. Something is wrong. I think it's going to burst out of me, like all of that light, but that can't happen. I can't let that happen. Instead, I merely nod to Avery, and he stands by me proudly. "What next?" I offer.

"Tomorrow." Avery says. "You'll be training at dawn."

The crowd disperses around us, though a few of the Defenders come up to greet us afterwards. Auma gives me a curt nod, a few of the Canira thank me for my service, and Indy grins. The most substantive interaction is with the dragon and Twitch, who holds out a paw.

"Welcome to the Defenders," mutters the dragon. Each of his scales are the size of my paws, and his whole body is so massive that he's up to the first branches of the trees. In fact, I can see some gashes on the entry way back down stairs, and I think I know whose horns caused them. "It's Thistle, for later correspondence."

"Welcome," Twitch agrees. "Charmed to meet you."

"Sorry about... sorry." I manage.

"No problem," he says, tail sparking. Bending in, he adds, "Quick advice, 'Rena'? Never trust the first thing anyone here tells you."

I pause, drawing myself back. "Well, I..."

"Are you intimidating the newbies?" asks Fyera, diving in from a corner, her voice shrill. "Come on, Twitch, leave them alone."

Twitch shrugs his shoulders. "You can't blame me for trying."

"Can't I?" Fyera asks. "Come on, let's... let them have some peace."

She departs as quickly, and Twitch resentfully climbs back up onto Thistle. The dragon has been eyeing me the whole time, silently, and his eyes widen when I return the gesture. With a flick of his tail, he crouches down in the entryway and returns downstairs. Fyera and the horned Canira I keep seeing with her talk in the entry before departing downstairs as well.

Peace it is.

Avery, who has been talking to Gale, looks up to me. "And of course, I'm sure we'll talk later... the both of you. You'll need to go back downstairs now, though, as I'd prefer the two of you weren't up here alone. We've had some minor issues in the past..."

"Minor issues," Gale repeats.

"I understand this all sounds like a cult to you, and you're right to be suspicious. A lot of things that are standard practice now never would have been allowed when the Auspicia was in power. The other continents are in similar anarchy, even as they mock us for placing all of our faith in one Sentient... she was a prophet of our god and the truest embodiment of her power, one who ruled for most of our history. Without her? Many think we're living after the end times. Why have regulations when the only thing left to do is give up?"

"But you won't." I insist. "We can't."

"No. In part, that may be why you're here. Many join just to do anything besides die."

"They do die," Gale says. "There are a lot of trees here."

"But you die for someone," I respond. "Is that... why you've been following me?"

"I just need to be somewhere right now," he admits, voice hushed as the growing clamor from their trees, their voices higher than Glaze's song as the wind rips through them, howling a melody older than this town, one that stretches all the way down to the very bones of it. The expression of his face is his own kind of message, one that tears my heart a little further: This means nothing.

Avery watches us, looking out of her own age. "You two remind me of... well." she says. "Twitch was right that these are odd circumstances, and they're not the kind I plan to overlook. Whatever the case, I'm glad to have stumbled upon you, and I want to help you. Both of you, and thus I'm afraid we have an even greater priority than fighting right now."

"Which is?" Gale asks.

"Filling you in."