Light and heat flooding my veins... this time I drown in my own smoke. The world is hungry for me. Something is dragging me down. I can feel it take my neck in its mouth...

We awake bathed in light.

Everything is blurred about the edges, like the whole world has been soaked in the sun, which is brighter than I've ever seen it. The two moons hang alongside each other in the morning sky, two skewed eyes, and all of the plants move as if trying to break from the earth.

"What happened?" I ask, tasting smoke on my breath. Fear seizes my body, rendering my paws numb- did I do something wrong? Did I manage to manifest my Virtue while I was asleep? "Iris, are you seeing this?"

She looks up, and when I stare at her it's like seeing above and below water at once. Her form flickers, a halo of light around her face which shifts and fades. Her whole body is eclipsed by dazzling luminescence, her white fur dyed with refracted pastel shades of every hue and her ears streaked with the colors of the Espera lilies. "I am." Iris says, her ice blue eyes looking into me as if trying to discern some deep truth. "You are brilliant."

I scramble to my paws and duck into the hallways. Sure enough, every Sentient there is somehow changed, whether it be imperceptible markings on their legs or drastic physical changes, such wings or different body shapes, that shimmer like mirages. There are few Sentients there at all, however. One notices us: a Canis I recognize from training, whose eyes seem to keep changing color as we look at them, and he dips into a bow as he notices us. Several others do as well, and I feel myself swell with fire. What are they seeing?

"What's going on?" I ask.

"The Dog Days." says Mira, the Fauna who has been watching us during our courses with the Defenders. Her horns are longer than usual, and the parts of her fur that are tinged in light appear like small, tufted feathers that cover her body. Her illusion passes quick enough to be the trick of the light. "This is the time of year when Verhamera first created our world. Magic runs so wild that it spills over into our physical forms."

Iris twitches. "Can you make it stop?"

"No, and most of us stay in during the Dog Days. It's dangerous to use any kind of magic during them, due to the interconnection between our minds and our magic. You could go out of control." Mira continues. "Are you two getting handlers?"

"The Auspicia designated a few of us to them for the days ahead, to ensure they don't leave grounds." says one of the Canii.

Iris balks. "We're back under surveillance?"

"For the Dog Days? Yes. Absolutely."

"What if we're not interested in being under surveillance?" Iris asks, menace dripping from her voice.

The dauntless Canis responds, "Orders are orders."

"There will be no need for that." A booming voice echoes from down the hallway. Before she comes into view, everyone knows her at once from the overwhelming aura of her magic. Eyes are averted, even more so than usual, and I can even scent the presence of Natrina. She smells of forest interwoven with domestic plants, flowers and herbs, wild and soothing at the same time. Her whole body appears to be fractured when she approaches, as if it were reflected through a broken mirror, and she is one of the most incredible things I have ever laid eyes upon. Natrina looks at us with two unchanged brown eyes. "I would like you two to come with me."

I nod. We leave the Canis and the crowds behind, none of whom so much as whimper. Natrina leads us through the halls in near silence, face curved into a solemn frown. "I apologize," she says. "for not busting the two of you out of this earlier, and furthermore, for not coming to you sooner."

"You considered it?" Iris asks. "What was holding you back?"

Natrina turns as she walks outside, strange light on bizarre, illuminated form, and her eyes squint into an expression of utmost pain. "Would you believe me if I told you I was afraid?"

Iris remains silent, but she follows Natrina with a new reverence. I can almost hear the gears of her mind whirring, trying to figure out the older Canis. Natrina steps out onto the grounds and keeps walking. Soon, fields turn to shaded forests, rich with scents and life. The forest takes on a new dimension today. The trees and ground remain solid, anchoring points in the new landscape, but every Sentient being, even those hardly peeking out from the bushes, shines and complicates the world with them. Canira voices rise like birdsong from the trees and a herd of Fauna, their horns twisted into formations like those of the trees overhead from their usual routine branches, catches our eyes. I can see stars on the dapples of their pelts.

Natrina is most alive here. Plants spring in the wake of every deliberate step. Her eyes are half closed and her tail waves gently. "I often walk home from here, cutting the path back to my own castle over a day or two. It gives me ample time to breathe."

"I can imagine." Iris says. "Where are we going?"

Natrina says, "Somewhere they should have taken you a long time ago."

The forest foliage clears to reveal a single tree, beyond which is a cliff overlooking more forest. The tree shifts and shakes as much as we do, but its branches stay the same- they fall down in long tendrils to the ground, forming a protective veil around its twisted, leaning trunk.

I know this place.

Iris and I step forwards in unison, and as I open my mouth in awe, she says in a voice that is not hers, "She died here."

Natrina dips her head. Her eyes glimmer with remorse. "Nothing I could do would save her. She wasted away for decades before coming out here, where she watched the sky until her death." Bitterly, she adds, "I have lied about the location of this place for a long time. It is known for many myths, particularly those involved lovers, but never hers. She will rest safely."

The tree quakes, branches shivering with hot summer wind.

"I have a question." I state. Natrina turns. Her brown gaze is so scathing that I can barely breathe beneath it. "Someone told us that one of the Hope and Determination Virtues are destined to die. That's not true, is it?"

"A long time ago, a Canis the color of flame and a goddess's daughter met with a pair of sisters, and the group discovered they had destinies unlike anything their young world had ever seen. They were entrusted to drive back a horde of dark creatures with no hearts, and they did so, but they had to set up a veil to ensure their world was never harmed again. The flame-colored Canis lept through time to find a better solution and without her, the brighter sister wasted away. Alone, the goddess's daughter and the leftover sister watched over the aeons as the veil began to harden, travel between worlds grew more difficult, locking us all within, and the two Canii were left to ponder if they were ever meant to succeed at all."
We nod.

"When the Veil was flexible enough to afford such luxuries, I searched dozens of dimensions for answers. There I found a singular truth- there were hundreds of young worlds, with young heroes, and all of their stories shared remarkable similarities. One of these was that there always appeared these two characters- light and fire- and unwaveringly, they succumbed to fate."

I nod again, the world spinning around my paws. "We can't- we can't stop it, can we?"

"There is always escape, but in doing so, the world itself is put at risk. I know this is unfair to you both, but you deserve the right to choose to devote yourself to that fate. We can not offer you up unwilling."

The Hellhound is watching me. My breath teams with her smoke. If I ran, it would not be to the future, for more answers. I would be gone, and this world...

"Can we stay here?" asks Iris, sounding a fair bit more like herself. "Alone?"

"Do you realize what a poor guardian I would be if I did that?" Natrina asks. "Now, let's say there was a disturbance in the forest that I needed to attend to... potentially an assault... and you two agreed to stay right here-" In the distance, there's a loud, dull noise followed by the distinctive felling of a tree.

"What an unforseen occurence." Iris says.

"Confound these disturbances." Natrina agrees. "It's the Dog Days. There are never not turf wars." She tilts her head back towards us. "Hopefully this journey will provide you with introspection. I will see you momentarily."

We watch like timid animals as she turns into the foliage and disappears. I realize I've been holding my breath and exhale, but as soon as the looming presence of her magic leaves the area, something else creeps in, familiar and bright like a winged thing on fire. It is not the harsh flames that consumed me in battle, but a more gentle, teasing presence, though I can feel the strength that lies underneath it.

Iris creeps towards the tree like a predator stalking prey. "Are we going to go under?" she asks.

"I don't want to burn it down," I say. "What if I catch on fire again?"

"I am concerned as well, although for different reasons." she says. "I can feel her there, Torch."

"Lotus?"

Iris nods.

"You're not a fake, then. You're the real deal."

"Torch..." she whispers, wistful sadness undercut by a stern sense of danger.

I take another step, and we pass under the veil together. Underneath, the whole tree is covered in white flowers. They grow like a disease out of every gnarl of bark, thrust themselves out of the ground, and the air is thick with their pollen. The whole place is full of smothering sadness.

"I don't want to die." I whisper. "I don't want you to die."

Iris shakes her head. "It's not just that. They made me like this for a reason, Torch-" Her eyes are filled with white, reflecting every flower, and she shies from them like they could poison her. "At least then, we'd be heroes, but they made us- they made me-"

Our bodies eclipse each other, and we are the only things holding each other up. I can sense Lotus as if she was standing there, sense her pining for the happy ending she never received, and I feel her sorrow for her friends, her lover, and her sister. Iris breathes it in, her ears and chest pale as the flowers, and our snouts touch.

She steps away. "My claws are made out of artificial material made to mimic the texture and properties of Ophaboros teeth."

"What?" I can barely hear her. Her voice is overwhelmed by a distant ringing in my ears, a rush I've never felt before.

"They wanted me to escape. They wanted us to come here. They knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself- they knew what I was-"

"Iris, what's wrong?" I plead.

"The Obsidians made me to murder the Auspicia." Iris says, and I feel fire prickle up my spine and through the fur around my neck. It sparks against the flowers, red on white and gold, but they do not burn. I feel sick, claustrophobic, trapped by the tree and the two of our bodies, inseparable even when we do not touch, two fates, two souls, interwoven into a mesh of destinies we never chose for ourselves. "I told you. I told you we need to leave."

"We can't leave them. We can't leave this world." I say. "This history... this world... they need us, Iris. If we left now, they'd die-"

"And I need you," Iris says.

"We'll fix this." I say. "Everything." My body is shaking so hard I think it might shut down. I can't see a solution to this anywhere, and I'm drowning in the panic.

We do not touch again, and Natrina mistakes the nature of our tears when she returns.