Power.

All the alarm bells in my mind ring, crescendoing into a high, tolling onslaught of noise, but I am already ripping souls off the stalk. I taste plant flesh, bitter beneath my teeth, and I am already on the edge of town. I open my mouth, staggering backwards, and the night air whistles in my ears.

The seeds levitate around me. Cassiver walks us home. My senses begin to fall from me, so that the paws thrumming against the ground are those of a stranger, and the smells and sights fade out into a thin, meaningless grayness. I am losing hold on even the ability to think when fear kicks in and I come to consciousness in my room, seeds clattering against the ground, one of which... whom... still has a white petal attached. My breath is coarse and heavy. I lean over to pick one from Altair's side, its shell wrinkled in odd ways like matted fur, so that the seed almost looks like a curled pup. Altair's side rises and falls again. Illuet's ear twitches.

My head is emptier than the night.

I fold the layers of the bag over and under, over and under, under, under, over, and deep beneath the tweed flesh of the innermost containers of the bag I press the four Sorrows I've stolen. My mouth opens to say something, to sob hoarsely, do anything, and my tail tucks. I collapse to the ground by Altair, and his hackles twitch.

"Are you having a hard time sleeping?" he asks, voice warm and scratchy.

Deep within me is a high, long wail that never seems to end, a warning, the beginning of the end of everything, and I am frozen, violated, betrayed by myself. I lick the clear blood of plants from my lips and twist at his side, bringing fabric between his side and my pacing heart.

---

I awake from an extended period of darkness I'm not entirely certain was sleep. My head is no longer hurting, but I'm jittery from the second I wake up, instead of the usual dreary grayness that accompanies the first few moments of the day. Altair and Illuet are both asleep, and Cinnabar's paws patter downstairs. My heart kicks into overdrive.

"You did this," I say, so low that the words hardly leave my throat.

I did no such thing. I took over once you used telekinesis and returned you promptly to bed.

"But I--"

Would you like to admit to them that you did such an act out of your own volition?

A sinister feeling twists deep in my gut, and I feel him run our tongue over my teeth. I must give respect where respect is due--it was a well-played con, and I fell right into it like a rabbit chased off the edge of a cliff.

Altair rises, testing out his bag leg, and when it holds, his ears flick up. Looking to me for support, and catching what must be an expression of utter horror instead, his ears flatten. "Hawk. What's going on over there?"

I open my mouth and close it, biting my tongue. I look out the window, at the hostile fields of white flowers. "I'm starving."

Altair sighs. "You're not alone there. Illuet?"

Illuet lights up as her eyes open. My heart stops, her brown eyes searching me, but I realize she's not looking at me but a certain lack around me, a noticeable absence of magic. "Time to get on the road?" she asks, averting her eyes as they catch mine, and the three of us share a mutual moment of excitement. With a quick wag of her tail, Illuet says, "I'm going to head downstairs and talk with Cinnabar about breakfast. Let's see if we can find something vegetarian for you, Altair."
Altair eases out his busted leg. "That would be incredible. I'm running on fumes here."

Meanwhile, I try to ease myself into the monotony of routine, loading the guilty bag onto my back. I can sense the blood pouring through the pockets, coating our wares, and seeping out onto my back.

"Hawk." Altair teases.

All my fur bristles. "What?"

He nudges the herb bag. "Are you trying to get out of holding the heavier bags?"

"You got me. Then again, you of all Sentients should know better than to assume the best of me." I offer, resentment lodging itself like a burr in my throat.

"I do. It's saved me a lot of disappointment over the years." he says. "Speaking of such, as someone who's known you this long, I can tell you're not feeling well."

"Really."

"Oh, sure. And the magic? You thought I'd forgotten that, hadn't you?" My fur spikes. Some things you take for granted. That's a mistake. "Believe it or not, I do care about you, so... just know that if our positions were reversed, I'd tell you everything." This again. "You're my lifeline. If I'm not yours, that's fine, but let's just... assume we're holding each other on mutual grounds."

He knows, he knows, I'm dead, he knows. "Just a little frantic cooped up in here. No big deal. I'll be fine once we're gone."
"One night's doing that you you now? We're going to have to walk town to town, sleeping on the roads, until one of us collapses from exhaustion."
"I'll do laps in the forest," I suggest. Why did you say that?

Altair just nods, and I pass him the bags so he can saddle up. "Whatever you need." Once he's secured both of the 'heavier' bags about himself, he casts a glance towards the wide steps. "Now to test this binding." He takes the first step down, then the next, clattering down the staircase with the grace of a caterpillar, scrunching and stretching in an almost comical matter. His ears perk when he hits the bottom without actually hitting the bottom, and he even manages a little tail wag with his short white stump.

"Think it'll hold up on the road?" I ask.

"I think that's the kind of risk we'll have to take. Anyways, we've stocked well, and if experience has taught us anything--"
"Notoriously deathproof." Did I steal those seeds for protection? No. That wasn't it. I had some sadistic reasoning in my head... but for the life of me, I can't... The moment plays over in my head.

"You look like you don't entirely believe it." Altair says. He scents the air and his face tenses. "Oh. That's..."

I lick my chops. Strips of meat are a delicacy, especially those of larger herbivores (much bigger than feral deer, we're talking of things that rival trees in size), and I can scent the strange pine sap and meat smell wafting through the air. "Definitely not vegetarian."

Cinnabar brings a fancy plate to the table, the strips half slathered in honey, but Illuet follows with a clover salad and some bread. There are nuts sprinkled in, perhaps to an excessive degree, but given how wilted the clover appears that might be for the best. Altair receives his bowl before Cinnabar passes the plate down. By the time I have taken my first bite, Altair has hounded down the entire salad and is licking up nuts and attending to the bread.

"So. How do you spend your days?" Illuet asks Cinnabar, politely.

"Preserving things, I guess. Not much to do. Miss 'avin' females around t' do the managin'." Cinnabar admits. "Us dumb males can't 'andle it." A flame idly flickers about him. He is hardly more impressive in the daytime than at night, plain all over, and it becomes more obvious that he is gaunt and poorly cared for. The desperation that fills him is not that of Yaan's bandits or Heaven's Jaw's impure, decaying Sentients. It is a timeless, gradual decay. He looks like one of the figures from his tapestries, Lotus, friend of the Auspicia, when all the quests were done and the world was saved-- he is despair.
"We're a two male pack of sorts and we've managed fine." I say, the silence hanging too heavy on the air.

"You're not a pack. Your family's 'ome in the south and you should join 'em. This is a bad season for wanderin', and it'll get you three killed."

"Three," Illuet muses.

"I explained..." Altair starts. With an accusatory glance at Cinnabar, he adds, "We just met her."

Cinnabar is silent for a second, then, rising, mutters, "I don't trust the air today. You three should leave soon." My fur spikes again and I curl my tail close to myself, so that no one can see that it is flaring up in panic.

Smoothly, I ask, "One last question before we get on the road. How does your small town have such a stockpile of wealth?"

"Figures your lot would ask that." Cinnabar shakes his head.

"Our... lot?"

With a quiet hiss, he says, "Merchants. Don't settle anywhere, won't contribute anything 'ealthy, only passin' around what others have made..."

"Merchants," Illuet parrots, staring not at me but straight at Altair. Collusion, then.

Altair nods, giving me a knowing look out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

"It was a bigger town at a point, long before the bandits. We were a regular connector between the freezin' wastelands of the north an' the forests. Then we were... less of that. Times change, hostilities grow, everyone realizes the only thing in the north is stuck up ice elementals and danger."

"We were in the north a year ago," Altair says. "For inventory stocking."

It is incredible how much he can say that is technically true while being entirely misleading.

Cinnabar's flames, small as embers, light the candles all the way down the hall. "Whatever works," he grunts. Illuet passes back her half-eaten meat and stands. I snag a second piece and slurp it into my mouth. Finishing, I lick the honey from my face and join my companions. Cinnabar, with an affirmative nod, says, "Make good choices."

"I'd say we've made a good one." says a cool voice, booming from outside the door. My blood runs cold. There is a precious second of silence, enough for Altair to shift the bag my way and for us to snag the pole and roundgard, but this is truncated by several thumps, increasing in volume and intensity before with a metallic, singing clang the door comes down and hits several items of value in the foyer.

Well, well. This is an opportunity.

My face twitches with pain.

"I see Byrfrost has been busy. Looks like a nice job to finish." Andulas, her two associates on either side, enter and take the living room, swiftly blocking the exits by the time they've entered the kitchen. Illuet, Altair, and I stand facing them, weapons and magic at the ready, but we're small and underprepared when contrasted with the behemoths cloaked in bone and crystal standing above us, their fur and forms hardly visible beneath uniform and smoky aura.

"We can't leave him--" Illuet starts. Blinking back panic, she adds, "--and I can't portal."

"Isn't that unfortunate." Dominic, covered in bone, purrs. There's something around his neck. I'd bet anything there are magical inhibitors all over their bodies, like a web to trap poor idling flies.

Altair and I brace ourselves. Andulas smirks. "We missed you at dinner, Altair. What would you say about accepting the invitation this time around?"

Cinnabar, apparently no stranger to subtext, moves around the group to stand between us and the bandits. Three fires, hot enough to make the air around them shake, hang in the air. "There are laws for 'ospitality in this land."

"And you believe we follow any?" Andulas asks. "Serves you right. Preaching hospitality, camping out in a city devoid of bones... had you been a little more ruthless, your city might be standing right now." Her eye glints like a yellow ember, goading him.

Cinnabar goes for her neck. Reynard swings a bone plated tail and spikes him against the wall, then blasts him through it with a beam of darkness from his maw. Our protector lies unmoving in the grass outside, the house defiled. A long smear of blood streaks across the floor.

Illuet's body blazes. She strikes Reynard back, who dips under, and the beam burns the horns on his 'borrowed' skull instead. Dominic joins the fray, the two of them wrestling Illuet to the ground while she tries desperately to sink arrows of light into any open niche between the bones. Her light-made forms are shaky, and Dominic and Reynard are swift and experienced. Blood sprays on the corner of my eye.

Altair strikes Andulas under the jaw as she walks forwards, the only thing his antler is still good for. It does nothing, merely hitting her accursed jaw and bouncing off, coated in ink-black blood. We lunge at the same time and I strike bone at an odd angle as I hit the side of her mouth, jolting her teeth shut. Her good eye fixes me, ruinous, and energy gushes out from under her jaw and through her legs, where scars coated in crystal burst free. I've seen Moonwalker blood magic before, but hers is less like my mother's streams or Engreaves's oceans-- hers are torrents, a flood, a thing uncontrolled. If anyone else tried this they would die of exhaustion or bloodloss, but the energy crystallizes all about us as crystals rip through the wood and pin Altair by two legs and around the neck. My forsaken birthright climbs one of my legs, where Harrier's crystals lay, and I attempt to jump back, hitting the wall and cornering myself in the back of the room. I'm surrounded on all sides by sharp stone which is pure energy beneath the surface, a thousand shards pointed in a ring about my neck.

I'd forgotten how useless you were. Can you reach the seeds?

Not even if I wanted to, Cas.

"I'll handle you later, pet." Andulas says as she walks around Altair. Every syllable out of her mouth is sweeter than honey, dripping in something dark and unsettling. She walks through the room on soft paws, through an island of wood in the seas of weaponized life force, and as it begins to dissipate, I see her tongue lolling out, her head held heavy. Still, she draws close to me and I feel the strength of her remaining magic, as well as her wretched breath and the rot of her wounds reeking. One of her eyes is a socket I can see through to the eminent end of my life. One of her legs is no longer recognizable as a limb, covered in sludge and sprinkle with fresh bone. Sentients died to give her a leg up. She'll kill more. With a contemptuous sneer, she lowers her teeth to my head and says, "Don't suppose you have another light orb on you."

I hear a click in the distance and a torrent of flame scorches the wall. The structure begins to give, Cinnabar standing in what is soon to be wreckage, tapestries worth countless amounts of gold ablaze. His whole body pulses with energy, the ginger of his fur restored, and in his throat lies a single white knot, out from which emanates fire... his body is burning through itself. In two voices, he says, "Call me defenseless one more damned time."

Andulas's eyes widen. A fireball hits her bad side, bone burning under incredible heat, flesh sweltering, and I see Dominic dash for it. Reynard drops from Illuet's side, where she lies, wounded, the light around her body reduced to near nothing. Andulas turns and Cinnabar jumps atop her, maw open to an impossible degree, and I jump past degrading crystal, feeling the needle-like scratches gouge my sides. The house is a mess of embers and wood, collapsing, Altair, struggling to dislodge himself, Illuet, grabbing at her ear ribbons with her mouth. She finally gets them out with a quick telekinetic pull, the last of her light returning into her body, and then bursting out as her restraints are removed. Even this is candlelight in comparison to Cinnabar's inferno, his body blazing with his house, dark shapes visible beneath the center of his living torch-- the fuel's sustenance. His jaw is open but there is no longer a tongue to make sound, merely the rush of fire.

The fire pulls Altair free, crystal dispersing to dust around him as Andulas moves all her energy to defense, and one of the house's supports catches ablaze.

Every bone in my body cries we aren't going to make it but my mind is whirring with terrible solutions. Casiver is practically yelling, You have to get them all at once! Do something! Do anything!

"What did he-- did he eat one of the seeds?" Illuet cries.

"Calm down." Cass writhes beneath me. Right now, I'm okay with being dead as long as it means they get out. Time to damn myself a little more. Oh, you think you can pull a heroic sacrifice? Shut up. Shut up. In telekinetic grip, two spirits combined, I swing a fallen bone through Dominic's magical inhibitor with telekinesis. Illuet's eyes jolt open and a portal unfolds from the darkness behind us. I throw them through, and Cassiver has me pick up a trinket from the ground, a molten little gold piece.

A plan grows through both our minds.

As the house cracks around us, our grip reaches up to hold a whole pillar, the weight of it crushing me even though it has not touched my body.

Andulas swings her burning face to see me, Cinnabar is all but gone, and I feel a foreign smile creep up my mouth, all of me that is left in my body burning to ash. "You have rules against this, swiftpaw," Andulas growls.

"Do I?" asks Cassiver. The house cracks, the primary support frame dropping on the shocked face of the bandit.

---

I jolt back into being and my mouth tastes like smoke. I am up against a tree, my tail clipping through the bark, and when I rip myself away I feel fur give out. Illuet was right--portalling to anywhere I don't know would be a nightmare. Even the half-formed bits of forest I pick up by instinct are iffy.

My head seethes with the sudden image of Altair with his neck leading into a tree, leading to nothing. Guilt passes through me just before the fear hits.

"Altair? Illuet?

"What happened?" Illuet asks, dazed. Her energy is little more than a few spare orbs close to her heart and horns, and her ribbons are in shambles. Altair is by her side, the two of them burned, bloodied, and slumped atop each other. Fortunately, neither has clipped through a tree. I allow myself a second of relief before the next wave of fear.

"You don't remember teleporting us out?" I ask.

"I don't remember anything." she says, her eyes hazing over.

Me neither, I think, on one side of my addled brain. On the other side, I'm screaming, Rule one, rule one, rule one--

"You were gone for a second." Altair says pointedly.

"It took me a while to get into the portal." I explain, leaving out such small, irrelevant details as not being in control of my body when I approached said portal, or that I made it myself. Supposedly. "Forget me. Are you two alright?"

Altair grimaces. He raises a hoof, revealing that the herbal wrap around it has sweltered down to nothing. "So, fire isn't good for plants, apparently. Never would I have guessed." It's not his only injury. His neck is speckled in crystal lines, scarred the same way my own is. They flex, revealing red rivulets of blood, as he reaches down for the herb bag.

"Let me get that." I say, slipping it off my back and holding it just outside his neck's range. Much of our supplies are wrinkled or ruined, despite the lack of contact with the fire proper. I suck in a breath, looking for the furze leaves we had for wrapping. Unfortunately these seem to have taken some significant damage. "Not seeing anything."

"You sure?" he asks. "I'm sure I could scrounge something up."

"No, I-I've got it." I take the furze closest to the center of the bag, which is relatively unharmed, and pass them to Altair. I throw it some extra leaves for binding, and he takes a stick from the ground and rolls it all together into a passable cast.

Altair tilts his head. "Is that where you're keeping it?"

My ears perk. "Keeping what?"

"Whatever's been letting you do the telekinesis."

I lower my ears. "If I said yes, would you..."

Altair nods. "Ask you if that 'voice' has anything to do with it."

A strangled, stuttering noise escapes my throat.

"Hawk..."

I pass him the trinket, which is a molten mess of gold. It's useless, but it looks like it might have been something once. "I think it gave out during the battle," I say. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to protect you two, and Cas said we could throw something together that would let me harness some of his magic. It's been a nightmare, but it's also... over now." A few days ago, Cas would have been barking mad that I so much as mentioned him. Now, he waits in eerie silence, but I feel something warm from him, something I can only compare to pride. The Sorrows shift in my bag.

Altair bends down, clicking his hoof against the metal. "Hm. Never seen anything like this before."
Illuet grunts in the corner. "Illuet!" I announce, turning her way and gesturing to the savage bite wounds around her neck. Her fur is torn to shreds, which catches Altair's attention, and I see his ears and tail fly straight up with alarm. "You're bleeding!"

Illuet mumbles, "I know. I'll be fine." She rolls herself onto her paws, blood dripping from her neck and sides and onto the forest floor, and as the sun heightens overhead the glow of her fur returns to her, in pieces. It only serves to illuminate her wounds, but she's walking now, and with a jerk of the head she looks back to us impatiently. "Trust me, I heal quick. Are you two going to be okay? Because we need to get a move on."

Altair limps up. "I'll be fine."

"Same here. You know where another 'safe town' is?" I ask.

Illuet's ears fall. "I'm... not entirely sure where we are, actually, so I have no idea how we portalled here. Let's just go south, or our best approximation of it, and see what we find." She begins to walk faster, leaving Altair and I to hobble after, but whenever I am too close she accelerates again. The sun comforts her, runs a shimmering limb over her fur, frames her in a way foreign to a Forhaga and a busted Fauna. I open my mouth to ask her something but I can't find the words to say it. You would lie too, I think, if you were empty. You would say anything.

We say nothing, hanging in her light. It is all we can do not to compare it to an open flame, burning out miles away.