I wake up the next morning, covered in forest filth, to find the bags lain aside and Altair gone. I take out our last stick of jerky and dig in, relieved just to fill my cavernous stomach with something besides the oily fare of Weltva, but the emptiness refuses to abate. I crawl out of the bushes and track Altair's scent to a nearby meadow.

He grazes with his tail down and his legs far apart as possible. I keep close to the trees as I can. A complicated sort of fury works its way up into my throat, seeing him bent over like this, still shaking, knowing I can't say anything. When we'd just started travelling together, I may have made fun of the position he has to graze in, how awkward it all looked (and how delicate), and ever since, he's left to graze alone whenever things get tense.

There's nothing the world won't hold against you, no matter what your intent. He'll probably never forget that.

I breathe out a little too loud. One of Altair's ears twitches.

"Are you feeling better? I went to check you hadn't walked off a cliff." I saunter out with the feigned bravado of a con. "I'm fairly certain there's a ravine not far from here, and if you were, let's say, pushed, you might fall. Off the cliff."

Altair raises his head. "I didn't fall off a cliff. You can go now."

"If I leave, and then you fall off a cliff, then what?" I yell.

"I guess you'll just have to stand over here, then, for my protection." he says. "Temporarily. If you're not guarding it, someone could steal our stuff."

"No one's out here. The Dog Days are in two days. You'd have to be a complete idiot to travel out here alone."

"Good thing we're extraordinarily intelligent, then," Altair says, grass hanging from his mouth.

"And handsome," I push through the tall grasses and wildflowers to his side, tail swinging. With a brazen glance around the meadow, I confirm my statement: it's just us and land that seems to roll on forever, forests and valleys, the subtle hills of Opphemria undulating like a great sea stirred by wind. Towns tuck themselves into the folds, and I see a sun-struck village within eyesight, little more than a distinctive gray-brown blotch on the colorful, vague landscape. "Are you feeling better?"

A glassy expression flits across his face. "I can't see anything."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not a bad thing. If it wasn't a useful power, I'd resent it." he says, "It's hard to stay grounded when every possibility batters at your sides. You listen all you can and you still haven't the slightest clue what you're supposed to be discerning from it."

"Well," I wave my tail. "What's the present saying?"

He turns his head my way. "Whatever you want it to say. The future whispers, the present sings... the act is subjective. You make of being what you will, and the former responds accordingly." He glances back towards the woods, and I follow the arc of his vision. "That said, we should go."

"Absolutely." I agree, enjoying the warmth of the meadow and the way the sunlight arrests his coat.

---

The town we decide to stop in is either too organized for a small town or too small for such an organized town. There's a consistency to the houses, though it's not so much that they lose their originality and begin to blur into each other. Most are bordered by flowers and groves (must be a natural-based town, only Canira with magic favoring the element could grow these so well), and every new building complements the others. Clearly, it was done organically, but that just raises more questions. However, the most surprising thing about the town is that the inahbitants approach us first.

"Are you looking for somewhere to stay?" asks a Canis. "We have some houses currently not in use. The inhabitants died a while ago... I'm sure they'd be happy to host you in spirit."

And you'll all be spirits if you keep giving housing to suspicious travellers.

Altair nods, and I jerk my head as well. "Thank you," I say.

"Why, no problem! It's all we can do for those out on the Dog Days. Leaving strangers out on the road is good as leaving them for dead." The Canis says, walking between rows of huts towards the edge of the city, where a short but stocky wooden cabin lies. She tilts her head. "All yours. The rules are fairly simple-- try to be kind to the house, and to others. We have a few Defenders in town who'll be around to enforce it, but as long as you're agreeable, everything should be just fine."

Altair breathes in the scent of the wood and I begrudge myself a whiff as well as we enter through the shaky front door. The aroma of pine is mouthwatering, and the scent mingles with this enticing, if melancholy smell of a Canis, someone who has not been there in a long time. Dust settles on the sparse furniture, including a bookshelf, but it glitters in the harsh sunlight from outside: the house beams at us, looking as if it might have been waiting for our entry. Outwardly, almost choking on my words, I manage, "You're too kind." Inwardly, the sentiment is something more along the lines of how have you not died yet.

The Canis dips her head. "The world could use a little more kindness, in my humble opinion. Delia, by the way. Howl if you need anything."

Altair sweeps the area, catching a few candles on the single table in the center of the one-room house. There are still-lit candles standing there, their small flames waving like tongues. They border a small bowl filled with incense.

"We can't con anyone in this town," Altair says. "They're too nice. It's preposterous."

---

The Dog Days start with one of the most beautiful sunrises of the year, as is nature's tradition. As the first rays of sun sweep the land, Altair's hide glows with it, and things skew double, even for a Forhaga such as myself. For the next several days, around fifteen in total, the entire biosphere releases and renews all the magical energy contained within. Magic flows during the day, filling all the living with their innate natural energy and that of the ghosts of the past spirits on their heartline, and at night it will dwindle to only that of their mind, the so-called third part of the spirit that is completely of the self. Tempers run high and low, bodies are distorted by the presence of the magical form, and those who can stay still and lay low.

It is a bad, bad time to be out on the road, and a far worse time to be escorting in strangers. I would pity the denizens of this city if I wasn't so shocked by their magnanimousness, and perhaps if I weren't benefiting from it.

The sun grows red and the two moons shine with a blue aurora around their white, corpulent celestial bodies, and the entire sky alights with strange, nigh unnatural hues. The clouds are wispy and thin, and I swear I can feel the world breathe beneath us. Altair's busted antler seethes with green smoke and he seems to radiate energy on either side, making it difficult to see his outline. The Sentients in the area, all of whom are stuck watching the sun with this slack expression, have a similar effect. Some are significantly more distinct than others, and some even have the more particular effects that come with higher magic (though most have gained something by the end of the Dog Days), but all are frightening for inexplicable reasons. I breathe out heavy air, knowing I will never belong to anything but the dirt, and even then I will be as much to it as the rabbits and massive unsentient herbivores.

Less alone than you think, but I will concur on one matter: truly, you are a bastard of the land.

I turn, but no one is there. Shrewdly, I search the crowd for a telepath, but to my dismay no one is angrily squinting at me. Furthermore, it's difficult to find a magical object that will allow the use of telepathy that does not extend to anyone in the vicinity, but no one else seems bothered. Frazzled, I blow it off, looking back towards the sky, but the sunlight is burning my eyes.

Beneath the last rays of resplendent light, before the sun settles back into its usual blistering white, Altair and I take our paltry northern harvest and trade Bliss on the roadside, right through the center of town. There's a small clearing where most of the townsfolk gather, and a few empty stalls set up. A few Canira have cider, which they're giving away at leisure, and most of the Sentients seem to get their food from a storehouse nearby. The prey is well-seasoned, indicating a display of wealth, and my mouth waters as I wonder how far their hospitality extends.

"Are those Bliss? From the North?" asks a Canis. Her coat is blue, but today there are rudimentary periwinkle runes splotched in, the color seemingly floating above her coat itself. "May I..."

A petal tenses up on the flower at the edge. I press it down with my paw. "While we appreciate the kindness your town has shown, we do not pass our discounts down to others. We'll need pay for that."

Altair steps on my tail, but the Canis nods. "Of course, of course. Have you spoken with Delia yet? She could set up some kind of payment plan. We don't take haemo around here, since crystallized blood tends to attract scavengers, but we could get you some food. Possibly some trinkets?"

Right. We'll find almost nothing of use here unless we demand it. I grit my teeth. "We'd love to see any trinkets you all have to barter with."

"That sounds lovely," Altair says. As she walks away, he adds, "I consider a good place to stay and a few good meals its own kind of profit. No worries. Besides, everyone here's been so civil! How often do you see that nowadays? Not often, let me tell you..."

As he rambles on, I see a few white, nigh invisible bone talismans dangle in the air, hitting against the front wall of a nearby house like a moth hitting a light. "Oh, they're lovely." I glance away.

---

"Al. Steady." Lying on our joint bed at night on the third day, I paw through the practically non-existent payment Altair insisted we 'settle' on, even though we're dishing out material that could buy us a castle elsewhere, while Altair takes deep, labored breaths. He picks up into hyperventilation, shaking, and I finally pull myself onto my paws and snatch one of the books on the shelf. "Look! They've got our parents' copy of The Gardenkeeper's Daughters."

"They do?" Altair asks, tensing as he attempts to stand, and the youth in his voice makes me terribly sad.

"Sure do." I clear my throat. I've mimicked voices before, but I'm no good... not that I need to do a perfect Natrina, knowing neither of us have ever heard her. "While our kin grew strong on the creatures they'd killed, we tended to the garden. It was the last joy of our ailing mother..."

I trace the voyage of Natrina and Lotus, besieged by fire and loneliness, towards their grand, interdimensional trip with Aislyn, the first Auspicia, and Vivian, one of the most powerful, brilliant Defenders to ever have lived. It's a silly story, so shrouded in myth that it seems detached from our world, but it harkens back to a time when I thought the road was kind and brimming with flowers. I imagined things would be so easy. Still, Altair leans against me like he did when we were small, and I look down at his knobbly legs, which have hardly grown thicker around since we left. When I close the book, I look up. Altair yawns.

"Tired?" I ask.

Tilting his head with a hopeful smile, he says,"It's a little easier today. I don't have much magic in me at all. Stars, I'm empty. My whole body is empty," This descends into a long tirade, climaxing with a quick spark of his horns and then all the luster goes from his body. If anything, he looks significantly worse than he would on a normal day, outside of the Dog Day's haunting magic.

"Must suck being empty," I say, yawning.

"Sorry, Hawk." he manages.
"I don't care." I say. "Say whatever gets you through it. Dumb question though, real quick?"

"Sure."

I bite my tongue. I can taste the salty blood welling from it, but it doesn't stop me from asking anyways. "Can you... can you feel your heartlines?"

He lowers his head down to the pillow. "Sometimes I think so."

"What are they like?" I ask.

"They hate me." he says, tearing up. "They hate being this. I think I might have been... I can't see. I don't know what I was last time."

"They're dead," I say, realizing this was a bad avenue to venture down. "and they're a third of you, anyways. They had their lives, we get ours, who cares?"

"I care. It's usually not this bad." Altair says. "The Dog Days are unpleasant, sure, but it's like having my prongs vibrate for fifteen days, like a tuning fork. This is just atrocious."

Playfully, I whip his hind with my tail. "Yeesh. We really do need to get back on the road. I never knew staying in one place for so long would make you stir crazy." When he doesn't respond, I ask, "You want some Bliss petals yourself?"

"No," he says.

The night wears on between us, unyielding to sleep and any matter of interest both.

"Maybe a few petals."

The bag is still lying around, dwindling by the day. I resolve to make a brew of tea to spread the raw material a little thinner, but for now, I pass Altair a few raw petals, which he takes gratefully before passing out on the spot. I stare at the veins a while longer. The scent of Canis is overwhelming in the house tonight, but it's not as if anyone has been there but us.

Aren't you running from something?

I don't have magic to stress about. I'm going to sleep.

---

The citizens hungrily slurp down the tea, and I'm biting my tongue to restrain myself from withdrawing every cup. We could be making a killing off their desperation. We should be. This town is too dang legal to juice anything out of without asking a little less nicely, but since we're being paid a flat rate for our 'services', one which'll hardly even get us anything worth keeping at a legal dealer (and they'll start waving their tails the second you bring out anything you didn't find in the yard), I'm fond of asking less nicely. I don't do charity work.

The color seems to recede on sight as they drink, and I find myself watering at the mouth for the magic they so idly toss aside. What's turning inside their minds that so compels them? What makes them real that I can't have?

"Thank you," one of our customers gasps. "Thank you so much." The voice changes as he says it, a second sound fading out.
Altair nods. Genuine sentiment wells in his eyes. I want to throw up. "I'm going to get some lunch," I say, already exiting our stand. "Hold down the stand, alright?"

"No problem," Altair says.

I disappear around back. I located the back door to the stockhouse on the second day. It has no handle and is almost faded into the wall. My enterprising front left paw slices down the side where a handle would be and creaks the door open, darting in. Guards are out front. Smell is delicious. I have no alibi whatsoever and no clue what I'm doing. The heat might as well have brought me here.

The room is dark as the innards of one of the massive woods herbivores, and its ceiling slopes like the ribcage of one of the very same beasts. I take in the scent of salt and meat, my teeth clenched around the imaginary food, and the haze overcomes me for a second. I'm hardly hungry, and there's hardly a reason to be in here. Unless...

They've cut you a raw deal. Shouldn't you have your payment?

"Stop that," I mumble.

Stop what? You haven't the slightest clue what I am, or how I'm talking to you. Perhaps there's no one there. Perhaps you're just hungry.

"Not hungry enough to... rule two. Everything in exchange. We don't steal. We con. Not steal."

They're stealing from you.

"It's not a fair con."

A fair con? Are you an idiot?

"Evidently!" I say. "This is over."
Everything you do is losing its value. Soon the world will have no place left for you at all. You go legal, which I know you possess no ability to do, or you start stealing.

I turn with contempt, then turn again, nab some jerky and leave. My face is burning the whole time, but they owe me. I'm just cutting the right kind of deal.

---

The Bliss is running low and still everyone demands more for nothing. I find ways to distract myself from our dwindling supplies and the frankly awful deal we've cut (which continues to get us into more trouble than it's worth... I'm fairly certain the town would go ballistic if we left). Between runs, which get harder with the heat every day, we lie in the room. It's a good of a hobby as any.

"Why would a Fauna get time sight that varies in clarity depending on their emotions, anyways? When I was young, I was always so sure my aptitude meant something valuable... the singular power unique to me, and that's what I got... it felt like rebellion against my terrible stoic parents. The other parents, I mean. Not our-- Anywhom, now it feels like the universe was making a quick quip on my character and then I got my head bashed in anyways. You know?"

No. I don't know. Instead, I say, "You've told me this," turning on the bed and raise the pillow up with my teeth, absentmindedly, dust filling my lungs.

"Earlier?"

"Earlier today."

"I can't keep track of what I'm saying. Everything hurts. It's so hot." Altair says. "I haven't been rambling all day, have I?"

"You have."

"Really?"

Like I said. Stir crazy.

---

It should have been over days ago.

Altair bolts upright in the morning when they come to the door, the scratch enough to wake him up and the ensuing, less civil flinging open of said door enough to make the whole house shake. I narrow my eyes, sliding out a weapon for if the worst comes to worst and holding it beneath my back paw.

"What's the matter?" Altair asks.

Delia keeps her eyes on her paws. The Canis next to her, clearly not suffering the same shyness, snaps, "You need to leave."

"But the Dog Days--" Altair pleads.

"Things are getting worse and our rations are running low. Any travellers are being asked to vacate the city." Delia says.

Did they see the bag? Do they know our service to them is almost up? In spite of my eagerness to be liberated from the confines of any house, my mind flashes back to the unhelpful image of those burning cities. I bite my tongue. "Look. Do you have any clue what's going on? The Dog Days are running long this year."

"No one does." Delia admits, bleakly.

"That's not entirely true." says the Canis beside her. "We've all heard the rumors."

"Rumors." I say.

"Aye. We've got a representative who just came back from the Auspicia's castle and claims there's been a prophecy. I don't know what to think about it, but well, guess'll have to hear 'em out."

"Might we stay to hear your representative speak before we go on our way?" Altair asks.

Delia looks pleadingly at the other Canis, who gets a look at our bag and the last petals of Bliss from around the side of our bodies. "I guess," he says. "Come on, then. Get your things."

"Thank you for your hospitality," Altair says, chipper. He saddles himself back up, assisted by the psychic skills of the Canis, and rolls his shoulders. He's unusually fine this morning. It's nigh unsettling.

As we exit, Delia stands close to my side. Eyes fixed on her companion's flank, she says, "You could have just asked us for more food if you needed it."

I stand still and lay low.

All the ornaments on the houses jingle against the wind, rising as if to beckon us back. For all I know, they could be from a benign source, perhaps some weak magic deflection like shells, but with the way the elder Canis looks at them I'm certain it's not true. "The world was bound to fight back one of these years," he says. "Teach us a lesson. Folks've forgotten how to do good by each other."

I wish I could say something in retaliation, but I'm not even on the right side of the statement to prove him wrong.