"So, how was it?" Gash asks, sitting in our secret grove.

"I told Aislyn." I tell him.

"You did? What does she think?"
"She doesn't know why it happened. She says that Almalia told her that Sentients with close connections often dream of each other, telepathically or otherwise, but before this we were unacquainted, so it might be something else entirely."

Gash looks towards the trees. "Hmmm... I guess we'll have to figure it out ourselves. You're coming soon, right?"

I nod. "This is almost the halfway point. I believe it's the twelfth day, but with Aislyn's keen sense of direction and Almalia's help by Companion Crystal, we're making good time. Just a question... what's it like where you are?"
"We're up near the mountains. There's lots of rain, it's full of dense foliage, and the creatures there are very large. The dragons are usually friendly, but the large Felis are potentially less so. You guys stick together, okay?"

I sigh. "We will. Don't worry too much about us." I get up to my paws to stretch out. "So, tell me about your family!"

"You want me to talk about all of them?!" He looks shocked, though his expression is playful.

"Well, yes."

"Ugh, Nat, I have eleven siblings! That doesn't even count my cousins, they're wild. I must have... fifty of those."

"Eleven?"

"Five from the first litter, and mine has seven. I still can't believe you only have one sibling." he teases, but after a long pause adds, "It must be really lonely."

"I... I guess when we fight, I don't really have anyone else to talk to. It's bought us close together, though."
"Mhm." he says, taking everything I say in with a deft nod. His gaze turns upwards as he looks at the trees. Sunlight is spilling in, but unlike the usual pastel dream light, this sunlight is bright and hard. "Time to go already?"

"I'll see you tomorrow." I say with a sigh.

He nods, his whole body disappearing as the sunlight washes over him. I feel my own form turning to nothingness as my eyes open, returning me from our little forest to the real world. I feel a tinge of disappointment as I look upwards to find the sun above bright but there's no Gash.

My sister says she can usually control her dreams. I used to be a little jealous of her. Now, I'm very jealous. I could have done so much more behind closed eyes. I could have had a world made of endless places as beautiful as the corner of the forest where Gash and I meet. I could give him an entire empire for us to share.

The thoughts flit through my head like butterflies as I walk along the barely marked paths between trees, my paws splintering sticks into smithereens. Aislyn approaches me, but on my other side, Vivian pulls up.

"H-hello, Vivian." I manage to stutter, shocked by her sudden confidence.

"Morning, Nat." Vivian says in what I guess was supposed to be her least threatening voice.

"Good morning to you too." I say quietly. Her gaze meets mine for a second before I look away, still shaking a little.

Aislyn strikes up a little song, and I realize that she is really really good at singing. Without any words, her voice carries over the quiet woods and into the morning. The birds chirp back high pitched melodies and prey sits clustered around trees.

As we walk, leaves fall around us, silhouetting us against beautiful shades of bright red and orange and Aislyn continues, strangely solemn.

"Is it a princess thing?" asks Vivian, finally breaking the spell of her voice.

"What?" Aislyn replies, her voice echoing for a second before silence falls on the forest again. All that can be heard is a few birds, the pawsteps of prey, and the river rushing in the background.

"Singing to random prey animals?" she asks.

"I don't think so. Are they listening?" Aislyn looks around, but most of the prey has scattered again.

"Not anymore." says Lotus quietly.

Aislyn mutters, "Oh well."

Vivian looks around at the slightly more pigmented trees, clearly enjoying the beautiful weather, and sniffs the air. "What'd Almalia say about the river?"

"We can cross it whenever we'd like." Aislyn replies. "It's going the same way as we are."

We pad alongside it for a while, taking in the cool air, until Lotus cries, "Look!"

A tree has fallen over across the river, making a perfect bridge.

"What about it?" Vivian asks.

"We should cross here! It's a sign!" Lotus cheers.

"A sign from who, exactly?" I ask.

"I don't know. Verhamera? Some Terreskians? The universe?" Lotus says.

"Verhamera has better things to do with her time then knock trees over." I say, but Lotus is already halfway across.

"Be careful!" I dash after her, but the tree is thick and quite steady. It bears our weight well as we bound across, Aislyn and Vivian hot on our tails.

Aislyn leaps up and takes off, wings extended, and she soars over us and lands on where the roots were once pulled out of the ground proudly. "Queen of the woods!"
"Oh no you're not!" Vivian cries, tackling her off. She almost pushes both of us over getting to her, and for a second I think she's hurt Aislyn but Aislyn just chirrups happily as she's forced against the ground.

"Wow, you're so strong!"

Vivian gets up, suddenly silent. "Thanks."

Lotus slides easily off of the tree trunk, falling onto the grass on the other side. She stretches out in a wide arc, her tail swaying back and forth as she presses her head up against it. "So comfortable..."
I get off myself, and stretch a little. My cramps are getting worse every day. It's disappointing to know that for all my tribe life, I'm still pathetically weak physically.

"Something wrong?" I ask Vivian, noting how stoic she's suddenly become.

"That's odd."
"What's odd?" I ask.

"I could've sworn..."

"Yes?" Aislyn leads her on.

"Watch out!" she says, ducking down suddenly.

I look around in panic as a black shape blurs towards us. A dragonlike creature comes careening from the bushes, screeching in a high pitch unlike anything I've ever heard before. The sound is barely animal at all, more like the sound you'd get from scraping claws down rock. The creature is pitch black, as if formed from shadow, and the gloss indicates it is something that can barely considered alive.

As Vivian leaps forwards in front of Lotus and Aislyn dashes back, wings flared, it's clear that this creature is none other than the nightmare we have all been dreading since we started this journey.

"Is that?" Lotus asks.

"Obsidian!" I confirm as it rakes long claws down Vivian's side, breathing in a rough breath as it does so. Vivian summons a portal and lava crashes down on it, but it dodges and Vivian summons another portal only a pawlength from the floor as the lava falls downwards. Aislyn is still frozen, hyperventilating in panic.

Lotus looks at me and nods, but before I can figure out what the nod was supposed to mean, she's rushed forwards and her petal wings exude a golden mist, like butterfly scales. Whatever this is has no effect on the creature, which turns to bite her in the neck, flinging her against a tree with a loud crack. She falls limply to the ground.

"Lotus!"

To my relief, she's already getting up, but she's bleeding from the neck. I get my herbs from my bag and begin fixing her up. "Give me some cover!"
Aislyn shakes her head sideways quite violently, as if trying to snap out of a trance, and she slams claws encased in bright energy into the monster's side, scouring marks before its tail spears her through the wing. With an empty gasp of pain, she too staggers backwards.

Vivian gets back up, and taking the secondwide window of opportunity, slams a paw into the creature's head, knocking it back just in time for it to burn alive an inferno she opens a portal to beneath it. Opening another above us, a sludge of ugly lava drips onto the ground, which she then pours a large quantity of water onto.

"Shit." she says, "It's over."

"What was that?"

Vivian leers. "They're onto us."

I begin dispensing herbs to all of them, barely restraining Lotus from trying to help, when a sharp cry hits my ears. "Help! Help me, please!" There's thrashing near the bushes, the sound of legs or paws hitting the foliage in panic.

Aislyn wanders away, still bleeding heavily, and limps to the struggling form of what appears to be... a deer?

"Do you have anything for bandages?" asks Aislyn.

I paw some lamb's ear and some cloth out of my satchel quickly, unsure of her motives, but at the ready to help. Aislyn knows what she's doing, right?

Aislyn gets to work quickly as I try to bandage up her wing.

"This is a waste of our supplies." Vivian argues, limping towards us. "This is a prey animal. If we get hurt, we aren't going to have enough to heal ourselves."

"I can get more." I say quietly. "Just... let her work."

"You don't have any idea what she's doing either." Vivian points out. I shake my head sadly.

With a flash of golden light, Lotus prances over, her wounds mainly healed. She at least looks serviceable. "S-sorry that took me so long. As long as any of us aren't stabbed through the heart, I should be able to- able to-" she passes out from exhaustion.

"Lotus..." I say, exasperated. "She needs to stop using her powers like that."

"At least she managed to fix herself up." Vivian says, "Although we should've been helping her. What are you doing exactly, Aislyn?"

"Saving this deer." Aislyn replies. "He can hear you, you know."

"H-hello." the deer says meekly. "Do you know what that was?"
"Obsidian." I say. "It's dead, but we'll be seeing a lot of them from now on. That one was relatively weak, but I have no doubt they'll get stronger."

"Luckily, none of us were too badly injured." I add. "Aislyn's still bleeding, though..."

"Why save a deer?" asks Vivian, still snappish. "We need to fix you up! Aislyn, you're going to get hurt..."

"Anything with a heart, mind, and soul is worth saving. The mind gives us reason and speech, the soul gives us our powers and our duty, and the heart gives us our morality and that special light within us that will be passed down through generations. When we die, our heart is given to another Sentient being, who will in turn pass the core of our being down through the generations. If this deer has a heart, it might have been someone's who we knew in a past life, right? That's enough motivation not to hurt anyone. I could never betray a friend."

"Aislyn, you were created by Verhamera. You don't have any past lives."

"I will if I die." she points out.

"Let's not think about that." Lotus says loudly, trying to speak over us before the conversation veers in a less-than-pleasant direction.

The deer hobbles up back onto its hooves unsteadily. "T-thank you. I didn't expect such kindness from a Canis."
"Don't expect it again." Vivian says coldly.

"Always expect it, long as I'm around! I plan on staying here for a while." Aislyn teases. "Say, if you're Sentient, like us, maybe your kids will be Sentient too! Maybe there's another Sentient deer out there, waiting for you. You're the father of a new species!"

The deer looks shocked at this. "I'm what?"

"Special! Everyone's special, but by circumstance, you get to be the specialest! Plus, the world needs you! If you can really see timelines and you know which ones are dominant and all that, you might be like a time-manipulating version of the Canis. A prey species created to balance out a predator species. You need to survive to start up a whole new race, don't you?"

"I'll tell you all about it next time I see you. Whatever life that is."

"That's pretty confident." Vivian says.

"It's just a hope." the deer says. "Oh yes, if I'm a Sentient like all of you, I want a name of my own. If someday I do father a race, and they ask my name in history... it's Mizar."

"What?"

"It's the brightest star on my favorite constellation. I named all the stars so I would have someone to talk to." His tail flicks wildly. "Well, I'll see the four of you soon."

"Until next time!" Aislyn calls as he leaves.

That night, we cluster around in the dark and sleep in a shoddily made camp. Lotus, who just woke up, looks in no mood to sleep, but I'm exhausted. The adrenaline rush alone has an aftermath capable of wiping me out, but with all the exercise, I think I might never wake up again, though that might be bearable with Gash (but I suppose unbearable for the obvious reasons).

As I'm about to fall onto my quickly made leaf bed, Vivian strides up to me, a grim look on her face. "We need to talk."

"About our first impressions."
"Oh, that?" Maybe it's just how sleepy I am, but I don't feel like holding a thing back. "You hated me, right? I was under the 'impression'... that that was all of our impressions. So hate."

"Well... you're right." Vivian says coldly.

"I was! I mean... what?"

"I hate you."

"Thanks."
"For the sake of Verhamera's a million tails, stop being snarky! I just wanted to say... I don't want to hate you. I think we could be... maybe... not enemies?"

"Truce?" I ask, though in my mind I'm suddenly seeing that we could have so much more. A friendship, perhaps. An alliance.
"Truce." She replies with a sincere nod of her head.

A truce is a good start.

"For Lotus." we agree at the same time, knowing exactly who instigated the conversation.

With that, I pass out, and find that Gash is already waiting for me. "Am I late?"