Gabriel's caravan moves in the next day, and incredibly enough, I really did prefer just having the Eudicans around. I get up before the others and hit them both in the face with my tail. They bolt up at once, since a good brush on the face is our general predecessor to "how prepared are you to die", and the three of us look over the town. It's still in shambles, obviously, and the visitors have been less than hospitable to the natives they kept hostage in their own town, but even though Heaven's Jaw is bright and shiny, it looks like a storm cloud has rolled over the city.

Heaven's Jaw members keep their heads low as they enter. A few kick aside or burn bones, and one stops at a house and mutters, "That's where they're sheltering them." My hackles raise as they bring out a chimeric blend of parts, a Sentient who might be three species if not more, and an unconventional blend at that. The Sentient keeps their eyes low to the ground, and the Heaven's Jaw members slide and click closed shackles around their mismatched limbs. You can see the Dog Day blaze emanating off all of them more fiercely than the sunlight from up above. The torrents of energy and the sun herself all look bleak.

Illuet whispers, "We're not going to do anything, are we?"

"We're going to run," I suggest. Our tent's on the outskirts, so close to the ground that we're practically hiding in a turtle's shell, but trust me, even without the registrars that make legal city members easy targets (and Altair always wonders why I don't want to "settle down"), they'll be onto us next.

"Okari might be here." Altair mutters from the back of the tent, raising his head. His horns are holding up the fabric of the tent we're in. "I mean--I suppose we might be able to--"

"We might be able to die," I say. "He rebuked us pretty thoroughly last time."

Altair's eyes dart away from the exit. He gives us his best deer snort. "You know, if I've held out hope for you this long, you'd have to imagine I occasionally want to give others the same kind of mercy."

I stare out the edge of our tent. "You know I'm glad to get it, but trust me, when I try to get us both killed, it's still with your best interests in mind. Or mine. At least mine." I get to my paws and very nearly catch myself from bringing down the tent with telekinesis, holding up the fabric with my back, I begin to manually disassemble our home away from home, removing the cover of damp fabric and exposing us to the equally humid, heavy air. We go from heat to heat and sit revelling in the light of the sun, which somehow, despite all its hues, is washing all the color out of our fur.

"You're so stupid," mutters Illuet.

I shrug. "Hey, I'm trying here."

"Okari?" mutters Altair, and he's already gone at an awkward canter, loping down to one of the first wooden outskirts. He weaves between factions of Sentients, tiptoeing through the Eudican fields, and Illuet and I race behind him, both of our hearts pounding in our chests. Of course, the little Moonwalker is exactly where we'd expect to find him, at the edges, pole leaning against his head like that's supposed to help, far away from his subordinates. "Okari, can you please--"

Okari lifts and turns his spear on us. His form is even more ragged than before, with silt spilling down his body in furious torrents. They intensify when we draw near to him. "Oh, you're here to try again? You have my answer once and you have it forever. There's nowhere else for me to go. There's nowhere else for you to go, and when all of you run out of places to run, you'll wish you'd joined one of the nicer cults."

"He admitted it was a cult. That's enough character development for one day. Can we go now?" asks Illuet, impatiently.

Altair shakes his head. "Okari, why are you on the edge, alone, when everyone else here is working in pairs, at least?"

The spear quivers. "Well I-- I had to-- it was important--" Okari's mouth is only half-gripping it, now, though he's at least making the attempt to drag it up. It's almost comical, or would be, if it weren't such a desperate gesture.

"You're my brother, Okari, I know you've got some fireflies in your head somewhere that you can blink on. How well defended were our cells, really? And who probably took the blame for our escape?" Altair steps forwards, and Okari's eyes fall. "He's been setting you up to fail."

Okari drops the spear. "I can fix that."

Altair's eyes widen with hope. Illuet and I exchange a look and we're trying to drag him out of there as soon as he starts squealing. Several Heaven's Jaw members, suddenly roused by Okari's display, block us off from the exit, and we find ourselves boxed into the center of town. We have the good sense to keep stepping back from the angry, magic-incensed Sentients who are closing us in, but I'm also already running through our merchandise. Unfortunately, my thoughts turn first to tricks Cas might have in store for me, but leaning on him is like grabbing an air pillow with a hole in it before leaping into the rapids.

"Plan?" asks Illuet.

"I'm going to stall," I mutter under my breath. "Get ready to flash as brightly as possible, possibly on top of portalling."

"Not in this town," Altair says.

"Great. Altair, find us some good news."

"Right on it," Altair mumbles, in a voice that perhaps conveys he doesn't have any intent of finding any. (Come on, you have to be at least a little more optimistic than that.)

Gabriel's high, ringing voice, echoes through the crowds as he takes the stage. The surrounding area is saturated with Sentients of his own faction, indicated by their multitude of hideous decor, but there's also quite a few bystanders shying away from the pyre. As we're escorted forwards, Gabriel says, "Aren't I glad to see you again? I'd imagine after your last failed rescue mission you'd know better, but you can never account for toughfeet. Dull in the head as they are in the paw, aren't they?"

"I know this is going to sound a little incredulous, but do you think you could hurry up the part where you try to kill us? Your voice is giving me a migraine," Altair says.

"Don't worry. I'm thrilled to be finally desanctifying that accursed flesh of yours," Gabriel practically purrs it. It's incredible how little he seems to be processing most of what he's saying to us.

"You know, Andulas might be fascinated with Altair for her own purposes, but you, my friend, are just absolutely smitten with us. Which is why, like the good merchants we are, we've created a special package for you. It's a desperation price we're calling 'The Gabriel'. We'd love to set you up with it..." I say, "Don't even have to worry about the offspring. They don't call the Forhaga barren for nothing."

"I've got some good news," Altair mutters, "But we're going to have to get theatrical." His eyes loom up towards Gabriel on the stage.

Illuet nods, fully charged.

I feel my bag rustle. An idea bursts to life. "So do I. Gabriel, we have some of the last Bliss seeds in Opphemria in our bag. We're going to give you a choice. Either you take the Bliss and let us go, or my friend here, who is fully charged, portals it out of here, and you never see it again. You wouldn't want that, would you? You can see how full my bag is."

"You can't portal in a properly fortified city," Gabriel sneers. "Caught your bluff."

"Does this look properly fortified to you?" I ask him. "Seems to me like you're taking an awfully big risk. Furthermore, Illuet's one of the most powerful magical beings this side of Opphemria, and it's high morning right now. Every second you stall, you're going to be a little more uncertain of what we may or may not be able to do, won't you?"

"Who'll you portal it out to?" asks Gabriel.

"We have friends across Opphemria. A network of cons. Half of them would kill for this kind of horticulture," I boast. Now, see, prior to Zwella's home being detonated, this would have been true, so it's less a lie and more unupdated information. I can only update my personal knowledge archives every so often, so, honest mistake. Anyways, Gabriel's losing the support of his own followers. I raise my head and watch as the entire crowd begins to shift.

"Drop the Bliss."

Illuet opens the bag and begins shaking the flowers out. My heart pulses in time with the Sorrows trembling in one of the deepest, darkest pockets, but when they don't give, I close my eyes and breathe out a sigh of relief.

Gabriel leers. "We're bound to our word, unlike some others. You may go this time."

A merchant interjects. "That's not Bliss. Those are the white flowers we gave to Lotus as tribute earlier. He's been selling white mimics to the townsfolk--"

That's the last thing we hear or see before Lotus goes off with the brilliance of a small sun, a display of blinding light emanating out from her body. We mount the stage and tear through the other side, bounding off into the open fields, and Illuet dizzily tries to set another portal. I widen it, holding it firm, and imagine us moving south. I can barely reach my projection forwards, and though I recognize where we are, still, we're at least sight and sound away from the Sentients who were in pursuit, if there were any.

"We're out," I tell the other two. "You're welcome."

"Welcome for what?" asks Illuet. "You're the one who almost got us killed."

"Altair was at least half responsible for that," I interject. "Altair, you know that if you hadn't been so invested in Okari, who has completely turned on our family, we could have been gone in two shakes of a--"

Altair starts walking.

---

Everyone can say whatever they want about bars, but they will always, always, be the best way to gauge the quality of a town. The place we're at has a full roof, entertainment, and the citizens don't look like they'd be better suited for a medic's den, so this is what we'd call an alright place to be just about now.

"This is the fourth city in the last ten days," Illuet says.

"Yes. That's what running away entails." I say, placing a paw to the map we picked up in Garuda City. "We're making some strong progress towards the Homestead, though. We could be there in a few tail shakes."

Altair swings his stump of a tail a few times.

"Keep shaking that for a few days and we'll be there."

He looks over at me resentfully. "We're not actually going to be there any time soon, are we? We're not even to the desert yet."

"You're heading to the desert?" A silver Canis with russet splattering and a variety of metal spines comes around with our food. There's still this look about her like we're the entertainment, but we sure haven't said anything funny yet. "Due south?"
We nod. "Just to make a turn around. We're trying to avoid Yaan and the mountains."

"Eh, you must be trying your damnedest to avoid the mountains. They're about the safest place to go these days. Been having trouble with Heaven's Jaw?"
"More than once," I mutter.

The Canis nods sympathetically. "Well, of course. You are aware of the Red Desert, aren't you?"

All three of us look to each other. I shake my head.

"I take it you're not aware of the Red Desert," The Canis says. "So, lemme give you a little riddle. Who uses more bones than any other Sentient species, even before this whole thing started? Heck, ever since they've been around?"

"Moonwalker customs are nothing like the crude dark magics that are being utilized to maim Sentients across the continent. Moonwalker magic is consensual, a living relationship between the dead and the living, and it's-- there's literally no comparison. Moonwalkers also don't slaughter innocents for deliberate use of their bones, unlike the cowards who've been at everyone's necks for reigns now..." Altair says.

"Toughy, calm your tail fur. I'm just asking you a question," the Canis says with another harsh, barking laugh. There's still that amusement in her eyes, like huh, isn't this one a riot. I want to wipe it off her face, but Rule 20 sticks to me like a burr on a travelling day. Mouth shut. Tail spared.

"We know what breed you're talking about," Illuet confirms, moving her paw towards Altair to gesture for his silence. He gives her a look that says something along the lines of for you, I suppose, and keeps his mouth shut. "Tell us what the Red Desert is."

"So, a few bandit groups realized that the fire-based Canira and Moonwalkers on the desert were going to be loaded, and things down there are real bloody. Heaven's Jaw is crusading that way to save the souls of the damned or whatever they think they're doing, but it's looking like it might just be a huge, terrible storm in the very heart of Opphemria. If you can go any other way? You might want to go there. Like I said. Mountains--"

"We get it. We get it about the mountains! You've only mentioned them three times--" Illuet interjects.

Rule thirty-nine. Unexplained ill temper arises most commonly from old wounds.

"Twice," I correct her.

Illuet's eyes blaze with fury.

"We're going to the east, then?" asks Altair.

Illuet closes her eyes. "We can't go east."

"We might not have a choice, Illuet."

"That's ridiculous. We have four cardinal directions, don't we?"

"Two of them are going to get us away from home and one of them is going to get us dead," Altair murmurs. Our food grows cold on our plate. He looks to our waitress, who is still loitering at the table, like a fly at a carcass. "Thank you. Come back around in a few and we'll have our payment ready." She disperses, and Altair begins working on his salad, but in halting bites. Every now and then he raises his head, like he has something he might say, but Illuet and I are eating in the same hesitant fashion. None of us speak. The food itself is warm, so it at least has that going for it, but the texture is lacking, the palette barren.

"Sorry," Illuet says. "Let's just keep going. Maybe we can skirt around the worst of it."

"We wouldn't make it--"

"We could-- we could--" she starts. "We just can't go east."

"Why not?" I ask.

Illuet becomes very preoccupied in her stew.

When the waitress comes back around and we give her a satchel of gold that is, by all accounts, useless, she offers, "There's one good passage these days. You're going to want to go to--"

"Tempasse. We're going to want to cut through Tempasse," Illuet says. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it?" She removes herself from the table and heads out the door, to where the light shines down on her. Her magic has not grown worse nor wavered over the duration of the Dog Day Wars, and somehow, even though everyone else's auras have been intensifying, they all just make her look better, too. When we pass through, every broken-bodied, empty-souled Sentient looks up. She storms out of the city towards what I'm going to go out on a limb and assume might be the general direction of Tempasse.

"You're going to need directions," I say.

"I doubt that," Illuet calls back.

"Why, does Tempasse have a magnetic pull or something?" I ask.

The joke deflects off like an arrow against a dragon's hide. Illuet begins walking faster. Gently, Altair suggests from the back, "You could at least let us catch up, Illuet."

Illuet slows to a walk, dragging her paws as much as she can without being theatrical (well, more theatrical). Altair shoots me a look, because that's just how we're communicating now, and I try to suggest, using only a few tail movements and a grimace, that we've hit on a gold mine of emotional baggage.

She doesn't fall asleep the first night until we have. It's not as if Altair and I were planning to sneak out without her or anything, but if we had been, this would have been a major stumbling block for us. In the next few days, we're always the three of us, together, or the three of us, separate, or Illuet begins going off with Altair, just to spite me. I give him the face every time he comes back, trying to convey Well? discreetly as possible, but he always gives me back a Nothing, Hawk. It's nothing, and frankly, after the mystery fades from an alluringly fresh kill to just a dead animal sitting in the back of our bags, inedible, things become less tense and more strained, even boring.

Of course, I'm fortunate to always have company.

This is a waste of time, Cassiver complains as we scale the slopes towards Tempasse, finally putting our paws back on ascending land. The landscape is lush with trees, more so than the razed, burned earth below, and the temperate winds seem to blow our fears off our shoulders. The chiller air teems with a fresh excitement, and animals spring through the forest, safe in their belief that nothing cuts through the mountains.

"Let me guess, you would have wanted me to go to the desert?" I ask Cassiver. "That's severely inconvenient for you, because we're headed in the opposite direction. How do you feel about mountains? Freezing to death? The homestead?"

You're not going to make it as far as you think you are, Hawk.

"Why? Do you think that you're going to stop me?" I ask him.

Long may you have the audacity to think I need to do anything for things to play out the way I want them to.

Wonderful.

We sleep beneath the stars, sometimes in a blanket, sometimes out of it, and the world grows chiller with each nightfall. It's not as if summer has altogether drawn away from us, but up here, far from the sweltering heat, things are almost... normal, instead of the tepid, confining warmth of the Dog Days. Illuet perks up like a cut daisy placed in water. Altair's step has a little more spring to it, and he's full of stories. "--and then Hawk got his head half-stuck in the wheel. Mahigan couldn't bust him out with his fire magics, but Aunna Engreaves cut the thing right open! It was a little excessive, but if you've never seen a Defender in action, you just have to. It's a miracle in motion."

"I believe you," Illuet says, then goes rigid as a statue. "Hear that?"

Altair and I perk our ears. There's a distant sound of some variety, which we eventually realize is conversation. It's little more than a mutter in the woods, but we haven't heard anyone for days of hiking. Lacking all formality, we rush with abandon towards the noise and find ourselves in the light, at the edge of a town that's so small that most towns would be able to fit it within their main square. It's given more heft by a small series of fields surrounding the edge, where the conversation has sprung from, and when we move into the light, several Sentients look up. A bright Canis steps towards us, slack-jawed, and Illuet winces.

"I know it's been a while. Of course, we're just passing through, but your hospitality would be much appreciated..." Illuet begins rambling, but she's cut off by another Sentient pressing her face into her ruff. Illuet's voice chokes in her throat. "Oh."

The other Canis doesn't look upset in the slightest. Instead, removing her face from Illuet's ruff, she says, "It's been so long, we almost thought you weren't returning... given your condition, and the Dog Days, we had assumed the worst. Have you come back to visit Day?"