The storm is howling outside.

The lot of us, a force about thirty to maybe fifty strong, sit in a well-sheltered cave tucked into the folds of what I now know to be 'mountains'. The stones here go on higher than the bounds of my imagination, and they're ragged, with little foliage outside save for a few shrubs. In the inside of the cave, bushy, moss-like plants flourish, keeping the walls warm. Iris and I have also donned tight chains, retrofitted with pearls, gems, and other trinkets. Iris scoffed as they affixed it to her neck, but we both felt the warmth and strength flood us. One of the Canira, whose blue eyes are tinged with purple, asked us, "See? Don't you feel better?" and flashed me the most sincere smile I'd ever seen.

She sits with the others now, her back speckled with gemstones like small mountain ranges bursting from her flesh. Her ear is one of the few parts of her free of the crystals, so I've still no clue if she's Evelscan, Opphemrian, or that other continent... it started with a 'kay', didn't it?

Iris has hastily integrated into the group, not out of any genuine desire to socialize but rather to pry for information. "So, tell me. Who are these... 'Heaven's Arc' Sentients?" she asks. "I've heard 'heaven' in the Factory. Other beings were praying for it. They certainly weren't of your world."

The slant-eared Canira, Echo, explains, "Heaven is used in our language specifically to mean 'the sky', but in others, it means where you go after death. The idea isn't a Dreamlandian concept. A single, unified afterlife... it's below us, certainly, but to other species, it's something to aspire to."

"So then how did a foreign concept end up creating a cult in a sealed-off world?" Iris prods.

"It's... a long story. Heaven's Arc is really a conglomeration of movements, which can trace its origins to fracture movements of water-based Canira who sided with dragons in the Second Interdimensional War, certain factions of the former Halcyon Labs from the Fifty-First reign, various close associates of the Auspicia themselves and certain interpretations of their texts-" rambles Echo, listing off all sorts of terms that are more foreign to me than any 'heaven'. "Oh, I'm not the one to ask about this."

An Evelscan Canis, whose fur is so thick around their face that they might be able to survive in the snow without the use of protective heating charms, suggests, "Epanza over there's actually gone between worlds. Technically, she's not even a licensed Defender anymore, but if anyone knows Heaven's Arc, it's her."

Epanza sneers in the corner, having noticed our presence. Her eyes dart about as if she's already looking for trouble to stir up, though with far more grace than a novice trickster, and the threefold lights around her body dance off her off-white fur and give her an air of power mirrored in her regal posture.

Iris gives me a look, something like I insist you go first, and I return it with an incredulous flare of my nostrils before approaching the stranger. Iris follows in turn, and Epanza sizes us both up. I feel myself tense as if I was hit, which immediately makes me feel silly.

"What is your knife made of?" Iris asks.

Epanza's face cracks from apathy into a vibrant, sharp-toothed grin. "Ophaboros tooth. Found one off-world. Took all my credits- oh, ya on-worlders wouldn't get that, but let's say there's this odd 'exchanging' deal most other worlds do and it was a pain, a real pain, to get this beauty."

"Ophaboros." Iris repeats, her head cocked to one side. "It's blank."

"She doesn't know anything about them," I translate.

"Ancient dragons large enough to hold suns in their claws, scariest beings to have gone extinct long, long before our time. Their teeth are one of the few materials that can kill seraphim, creatures imbued with powers from divine sources outside the known multiverse. Your Auspicia is one of them, which would be why no one is keen on having this little gem around." Epanza says, swinging it about her neck with a bat of her paw.

Iris's eyes glint and she looks to her own paws and the steely, almost artificial glint of her claws in the dull light.

Epanza continues, "Now. You wanted to know about Heaven's Arc? Huh? Not much to say. In every world, there are those who dislike the way things are handled. Originally, Heaven's Arc was more of a cult who believed in other beings outside what we'd call the multiverse. Verhamera is widely accepted as one, but with other seraphim, it would follow that there would be more, and that was blasphemy for a while. Then, when most of those folks moved off world, you ended up with what distilled to a lot of Sentients who wished they'd gone off-world, before it moved to top Defenders only and then to no one. The Veil's too thin. I was one of the last Canira to see what was out there."

"And what was-" Iris begins to ask.

A Canira with huge panes of glass over his eyes and metal strung all about his body in an almost laughably awkward fashion approached Epanza and mutters in her ear, "Epanza. We're speaking with the Opphemrian HQ now... they'll want you."

Iris watches intently. I wag my tail, hopefully, but I can already guess we're not a part of this.

"You two don't worry about it. You'll need rest for tomorrow, we'll explain your role then." Epanza explains. Her voice is kind but firm, like a gentle push from a being large as the mountains.

"What's out there." repeats Iris, putting a paw on top of Epanza's. Blade and claw, both equal in the light, shine just a face's length from each other.

Epanza's eyes glitter as she leans down to meet us, with all the enthusiasm of an old storyteller. "Monsters."

Iris's snout twitches, but Epanza is disappearing. We stand with some of the other recruits near the edge, and Iris pushes through them to the back of the cave, where a few pelts have been prepared for sleeping. I sit at the edge of one, wondering how I've become so accustomed to this world's comforts, and Iris lies down on the cold floor, rolling to face the ceiling.

Iris's eyes narrow. "Torch. When we're older, we should go somewhere."

"Where?"

"Out." her eyes narrow.

"Okay," I say, half asleep.

She stirs all night. I can feel it against my back.

***

I'm surprised and more than a little upset by how afraid I am the next morning. Old tension bubbles inside of me, made new by the chill under my fur and the concerned murmurs that hold over the group. A few stare back at us, though never for long, traces of blue, green, and brown in the gray gloom of the cave.

The metal-covered Canira pads back to us, at last. "You must be Iris and Torch. I know this'll sound more than a little odd, but I've been waiting to meet you for a long time. Name's Icarus."

"Okay," I say, as he looks me over, his large glass panes and magnified eyes scanning what feels like every hair on my body. My fur bristles slightly, "What are those? On your face?"

"And your back," Iris adds.

"Googles. As for my back," The metal shafts on his back fold out into large, sharp mechanical wings. "Just a little project of mine. I had a bit of a dream as a pup, and well, once I've got something in my head..."

Iris tilts her head, as if trying to look through him and figure out what kind of motor powers his heart.

He, equally fascinated by her, taps one of her ear tufts. "And you two were artificially made, weren't you? Look't that. Now that's a pretty piece of engineering, right there. Do you know what they made you out of? Not that I'm intending to do any engineering myself, especially not of the flesh variety, but if you don't mind me asking out of curiosity."

"I am me," Iris says. "And the Obsidians made us. I don't see how this is 'beautiful'."
"Sure, sure, they made you, but a work of art, when finished, belongs to the public and the viewer. You belong to yourself, and you get to decide whatever it is you mean- ah, sorry, I get a little carried away." he says, bashfully. Several other Sentients are watching him, not us, but him, and most of them are amused.

"Is Icarus going on art again?" asks Epanza. "Damn, sorry we let him chaperone you. I almost forgot how insufferable he is."

"Thanks, Epanza." Icarus quips back. "I understand there's not much respect for my profession or my particularly dynamic way of thinking, here-"

"How about because it's wrong?" One of the shorter-furred Canis says. "An' you make weapons. Don't get on at us about art. Now, Epanza, Echo, if you'll lead us... we're wasting daylight, 'ere."

"Nothing wrong with some friendly banter, but I suppose you're right." Epanza says, her flames flickering in the dull light. They add an extra level of menace to the lithe, well-muscled white Canira, making her appear like something of myth. She would almost disappear into the snow not for them, and as we hike down the treacherous peaks, even our protected paws scabbing and burning with pain, I find myself looking to them for comfort and safety. The gray skies overhead are so dull that she might as well be the sun, if not for the even brighter light and warmth by my side.

Iris and I trek onwards besides Icarus, who has a talent for finding himself in unstable footing but has enough mobility and energy to keep him from any real danger. He can't be much older than us- at the very least, he couldn't possibly have been through many real battles and still be this plucky.

The encampment below seems to shiver below us with the instability of the opening sear in spacetime. The group begins to disperse, and I watch dark shapes in the snow below us turn upwards. As the first group of our number disappear altogether, sheltered by some odd Sentient whose shape and powers I don't quite understand, the rest of us are noticed by those down below. The watcher lets out a sore-throated howl. Unlike the Moonwalker's almost spiritual baying, this is a cry of desperation and bloodlust, the bone-chilling noise that heralds in a hunt.

It is unclear who is hunting who.

One of the figures lets out a sharp yelp and falls, dead. The others look around, panicked, and another's neck is cut clean away. They thrash against the air, contending with our invisible troops, until the winged Sentient who was shielding them is plucked out of the air by a beam of brilliant light. A furious dragon stalks towards them and flings another Defender aside like a ragdoll. Her white wings flutter delicately and I recognize her gray fur even from this far away. Skye looks up into the eyes of her aggressor as the dragon crushes her head beneath its talons.

We're already rushing downwards, falling into the fray, but my paws are numb. The harsh scents of metal and blood fill the air and my mind begins yelling at me to leave, save myself, but Iris is far ahead of me, outbounding Icarus and tearing a greasy-furred Canira from tip to tail. She is a whirlwind of fury, unnaturally calm and swift in the midst of the chaos, and I can not get to her before I am ambushed.

Something has my tail. I recognize a beast like Quill, though this griffin is far scragglier, and its hindquarters are scaled. Its beak just misses my throat and tears down my side, and I'm gasping too hard to cry out in pain. Iris Iris Iris calls my heart, then I call out for Vivian while it hits me against the snow again and again. My last thought is of Vivian, reaching out to find me at last, and I smell something burning.

My whole body is on fire. It's like drowning, the way it curls through my body and devours all of my oxygen, but it comes with an energy unlike anything I have ever known. As I struggle for the reins of my own body, I pull the flames back to my head and tail, a magnificent crest blazing down my backside and around my paws, I look into the face of the griffin to find nothing but melting flesh and ash. The part of me that is still mortal reviles at this, but I've lost that battle. I can hold onto almost nothing, and pity and disgust are two emotions have gone up into the flames.

Iris, not far from me, has had no such luck. I barrel through assailants, unsure of who is friend or foe, and try to feel something other than the adrenaline that begs to be released from me like thick smoke as I pull a dragon from her and blast it with all my might. When its fireproof scales hold, I tear into it with my claws inside, until I am scorching innards, until there is nothing to burn. I scent fear, but it is not my own, and it is not hers. Iris looks to me and sees herself reflected in my eyes. "Were we both weapons, Torch?"

"I don't know." My voice is different. I can hear Vivian, by my side, and thousands of ghosts. The anguish of a thousand unhappy endings flood me, and I know it to be every other Keeper of Determination, across worlds. Ours is a story that never ends well, and I am us, the ephemeral blaze against the darkness of space.

Iris, visible as herself even in pitiful condition, glows softly. Her face twists into emotion she can not find. "I told you we had to leave."

No one has aggressed us, but my paws are itching for something to dig into. I am the sun. Not her. Not Epanza. I am the sun, right now.

I am burning.

Smoke fills the air in my wake as I approach the dragon who broke Skye, a detail that is hazy as my dreams before Iris. Everything shakes in the heat, everything but him. The dragon's nostrils flare, and by his side a bipedal Sentient raises a sword. It runs at me and I flick it away, where it lies in the snow, struggling to rise as the flesh around the impact burns. I study the dragon again. Memories that are not mine- Vivian's old vendettas, the Elysian council- all emerge, clear as I need them to be to know that there are old scores to settle, here.

"All hail the long arc of fate! I will die, gladly, in the name of freedom for all of us trapped on-" the dragon's cry is cut off by my teeth. We are entangled in a long battle, tooth to tooth, claw to claw, and the winds of the north whistle around us. His hateful golden eyes meet mine, looking around desperately to burning buildings and empty battlegrounds and he goes limp.

I am about to finish him when I realize that it's not just his blood matting my pelt, and I choke. My body seems to buckle beneath me and the fires all but disappear, returning to glowing embers, and I feel the little sustenance I had empty from my body. I am standing at the limp corpse of a being three times my size, bleeding from several different places, and a dark edge surrounds my vision.

My throat is too dry to make noise and my eyes too dry to create tears. Horror overcomes me as I scent burning flesh, feel myself trying to heave, and I know I am trying to empty water that isn't there out of my body. I am back in the Obsidian Factory, drowning to death and-

That's why they made you, an infinite store of energy, of emotion, of something they could devour, a ball of fire and spite and weapon weapon weapon-

Not a single Defender will touch me. Iris, my last anchoring point to the world, is not far off, and I drag myself through the snow to her, collapsing against her.

Skye lies before her, bleeding out onto the ground.

Iris can not avert her gaze, and though I've seen death before, I know if I look up I will see everything else that went wrong today. I watch Skye, instead, feeble and covered in snow and blood. Her scarf remains perfectly white, and Iris picks it up from around her neck. Out falls a few fall snippets of plant and a tiny wooden talisman. Iris tries to drag it upwards, to sling it around her neck, but the last bit of it will not come out from underneath her body.

At last, Iris drops it, leaving it outstretched to us against the snow. She mutters, "I was so weak. None of my powers were functioning."

"Photokinetic." Icarus appears from inside one of the buildings the Arc has put up, his wings laden with satchels full of scrolls. "You're photokinetic. Plant-based powers."

I can barely speak. I don't make an effort. Icarus notices me, and I catch his expression realize the fear I scented while I was...

We are quiet on the way home. Iris does not fidget, does not complain, as she realizes for the both of us that we can not run away from what the Obsidians have made of us.