Sarah fumbled for her cellphone less than three minutes into the pursuit. The sun had fully set while she'd been busy communing with nature, and the dimly lit trails had grown far more perilous with only the stars to guide their way. "I hate the fact that those two were smart enough to bring flashlights," Sarah complained as she quickly typed in her password. "This is not where I wanted to fall on the sliding scale of common sense."

"Mmm." Amanda's gentle hum was half-hearted and colored by concern for the couple. "Would you rather be near the top? A sage-like figure of refined and perfect wisdom?"

The fair-haired warspawn balked, choking on her instinctive denial. There were over a billion cultists, sheltering beneath the Light's aegis, and many of them sought spiritual enlightenment by aspiring to just such a state. On Deravan, the lot had been soundly derided as the type to drown on dry land. With the benefit of hindsight, Sarah knew her peers' contempt was born from envy rather than disdain; however, there was still a part of her that felt insulted by the off-hand comparison. She wondered if she was being mocked by the normally demure parasite. "Is that a serious question, or are you just being sardonic? Would you prefer me to act like Barkley and not give a shit if Boston blew up?"

Amanda's eyes scanned the dead nettles in case their quarry had left the path. "No, I wouldn't go that far. Sometimes, I simply wonder if 'common sense' isn't a little over-rated. Whenever I hear people use the phrase in an argument, it's always to justify a conclusion that can't be defended on the proposal's own merits. Politicians brandish those words to avoid the burden of proof and then ask you why they should entertain your objections. Their position's obviously correct: it's just 'common sense.'" Amanda spat into a pile of rotting gooseberries. "Personally, I'd rather be an idiot. At least, your detractors won't talk as much shit about you when you side with someone you've wronged."

Sarah yielded the point. "Do you see Kennedy's proposal that way? Hayes' criticism feels uncomfortably accurate if you recontextualize him as a martyr seeking forgiveness."

"As opposed to what? A cynical turncoat? I don't think either of us voted the way we did because we bought his line about not getting shot."

True, Kennedy's assertion was a rhetorical flourish, which broke down once you gave it more thought. At the end of the day, they were still spurning their allies for a bunch of unproven friends. To paraphrase her ex, 'those were the actions of an idiot - the very antithesis of common sense.' "In that case," Sarah asked her, "why'd you agree?"

Amanda threw up her hands. "How could I not? All of the joy in my life has been rooted in the epitome of selfishness. The fact that I'm attempting to make amends for my turpitude, doesn't mean I'm ignorant of the broader implications." Amanda paused for a moment and stopped pretending to study the trail. "Have you ever looked your host in the eye and tried to talk all of this out? I have - I had Juliette tie me to a chair, so I could speak with Lionel face to face. I felt like he deserved that much after I had the gall to crawl inside his head."

Sarah shuddered at the thought. "What did he have to say?"

"Nothing earth-shattering. I got him when he was four. He could barely speak English, let alone hold a conversation. He just cried for twenty minutes and told me that it hurt. That he didn't want to be a girl. As if I couldn't relate." Amanda scoffed. "In retrospect, I think I had this asinine idea that we could work together. You know, like a time-share plan, only the house was his life. It was fucking stupid. There's no way the two of us could ever co-exist. I've worked too hard to get his body to look the way I want, and I refuse to go back to being something you can squish with your boot. ...There is a debt, though," she admitted sourly. "I'm sure you feel the same. After everything we've done, we can't just wash our hands of Earth's predicament if we want to be able to look ourselves in the face."

Sarah's voice was tense as she formed a pair of white-knuckled fists. "Have you spoken to Pallsburg about any of this?"

Amanda nodded. "Some of it. Other parts I didn't have to; for those, she had a front row seat."

For fuck's sake. "Then, why are you talking to me?" Sarah spat. "I sympathize - I really do - but you're oversharing all over my shoes."

Amanda laughed. It was a hollow sound, one which trailed off as she raised her arm and pointed at a muddy depression a few feet to their right. "Because I've found a hat, and because I'm going to ask you to do something that will be as intuitive as pulling teeth."

Sarah let the light from her cellphone play over the bloody cloth. The dark-green cotton looked like it had been heavily stained by the fury of last night's downpour. Especially, since the material had originally been more of an olive hue with a small design evoking the reservation's namesake. She peered a little closer. In the time since it had been lost, exposure to the elements had smeared the dye and stripped away the detailing around the brim. Now, only the blood remained fairly obvious.

Sarah studied the two-inch swathe just above the adjustable band. "This isn't Justin's," she noted woodenly. "Dermith wasn't wearing it, either."

"I'm pretty sure it belongs to one of the park rangers. I stopped by the gift shop, when I was scouting the field, and most of their merchandise is the same shade of blue. It was only the staff who wore clothing that was tan or green." Amanda knelt down and gently brushed the surrounding detritus away. Beneath the crooked pine needles was a layer of grass and scree.

"What are you looking for?" Sarah asked her.

"I was hoping to find a few animal tracks or a sign of whatever attacked him. I can't imagine he tripped over and fell. Even if he did, this trail's well-traveled - someone would have removed his cap, since the bloodstain makes it a huge biohazard." Amanda turned towards the ragged treeline. "No, the longer I stand here, the more I think one of those dogs you were talking about might have dragged him off. That or something much worse."

It was probably something much worse; a pack of feral hounds was merely the first scenario to cross Sarah's mind. "Well, look on the bright side: it can't have been a Deep Forest Variant. The field hasn't been around long enough for the fauna to begin to warp. The beast would also have to be a local species," Sarah continued thoughtfully. "I doubt the Light would populate a minor seed with anything stranger. Not unless the guardian was pregnant, prior to its arrival."

Amanda frowned as the idea of a dozen baby wyverns took root in her imagination. "Do you think there's much chance of that?"

Sarah shook her head. "I doubt it. My guess would be a mana-starved bird simply hit him in the head."

"It still seems like a weak explanation." Amanda's nose wrinkled dubiously. "Even if an eagle was insane with hunger, do you really think one would be strong enough to carry more than fifty pounds?"

"I'm not convinced this guy didn't just walk away on his own." Sarah raked the side of the trail with her phone, so she wouldn't have to acknowledge Amanda's glare. "What?" she barked. "It could happen!"

"We both know it didn't." Amanda's voice was gentle as she delivered the grim pronouncement.

In the time since they'd paused to take stock, Sarah had hoped they'd find a piece of evidence to undercut Amanda's conclusion. Sadly, it looked like their victim had indeed been dragged away. Unless there was a serial killer on the loose, the destination was likely the skein. The next time she opened her mouth, Amanda was going to say they had a responsibility to save the missing ranger. Sarah wished she could think of a reason to let the man fend for himself. "What about Justin and Dermith?" she finally asked. "I thought you were worried about their safety."

"I was worried about them falling through the terminus. Checking the seed solves that problem from the other end." Amanda grabbed Sarah by the pocket of her jeans and used the added leverage to help herself stand up. Once she was stable, she slapped her pleated skirt and brushed off a thin film of dust. "You don't have to come with me if you don't want to. I'm not going to make you."

No, the manipulative warspawn was merely going to guilt her into obliging. "I'll follow you to the portal," Sarah conceded begrudgingly. "I'm not going through."

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"Okay." Amanda was magnanimous in her victory and didn't press for more. She simply started walking towards the rocky bluff, which loomed over a bend in the trail.

When the two drew closer, Sarah lifted her phone to better illuminate the ragged cliff. It was made of granite, she realized distractedly. Eleven feet high and forty feet wide, the rise was covered in faint striations and jutted forth like a broke tooth. She traced the faint discolorations with her eyes until they reached the top of the lip. There, she found a single huckleberry bush, nestled amidst the cracks. The plant had clearly set up shop, where the soil met the stone. Now, it was slowly creeping forward to smother the crest in a layer of leaflets.

"Let me guess," Sarah muttered tersely. "The terminus is at the top."

Amanda grabbed her ex-girlfriend by the arm and moved her hand until the beam hit the eastern face. "If that was the case, I wouldn't be so worried. No, it's about two feet up and four paces from the end. If you lean on the ridge to catch your breath, you'll fall right through the portal."

Sarah couldn't tell the difference between the skein and the scarp without tasting the local mana. The dusty ridge appeared to be one unbroken whole, and the single seam she found was too small to fit her finger, let alone a person. It was only by studying the difference in the throughput that she could see the stone for what it was: a hole in the world; a chasm carved into space. The terminus waited for them with malevolent patience and was ambivalent to her growing unease. "Well..." Sarah murmured stiffly. "Here it is. Good luck, I guess."

She took a cautious step back and accidentally bumped into Amanda. Her ex was too busy staring at the gateway to flinch from the unexpected contact. "I do need your help," Amanda admitted wanly while streams of mana wormed beneath her skin. "I can do this by myself, but it'd be a lot safer if you were there to back me up." She smiled at Sarah with a bit of a self-deprecating edge. "Hey, if I don't make it back, will you tell Juliette what happened?"

Amanda didn't give Sarah a chance to reply before stepping through the gate. The transdimensional hole flexed as she approached the border and then glommed onto her host with a sound like a wet slurp. A breeze tugged at her clothing while the rest of her slid through the stone. When the arcane sphincter finally fell still, Amanda was gone, and Sarah was left staring at a wall.

She immediately cursed the missing warspawn. Sarah rubbed the bridge of her nose. Even though she'd been expecting her ex to pull a fast one, Amanda's request had been a real bitch move. Perhaps, this was karma for harassing Dermith in the meadow - or maybe Amanda's sense of fair play was coming back to bite her in the ass. In any event, Sarah was determined to not fall for any of it and settled down by the scarp to wait.

Ten minutes passed without a sign of her companion's return. Sarah turned her flashlight off to help preserve the phone's battery, but she still kept swiping at the screen to periodically check the time. When the clock read '6:33 p.m.' she started to get a little worried. By the top of the hour, she wouldn't have used a word like 'little.' "You'd better not fucking die on me," Sarah swore beneath her breath. "I'm not telling your paramour that you disappeared into the asscrack of existence. I refuse to have a conversation that awkward."

Amanda didn't reply. The trail was quiet, and even the insects had fallen silent as the moon's amber glow illuminated the empty reservation. Sarah began to pace back and forth in front of the bluff. After a few of minutes, she walked along the shallow trough, which channeled rainfall away from the hill. Her loops got longer with each hypnotic cycle until she began to close in on the meadow, where Pallsburg was busy cultivating.

Sarah stopped herself before she could be seen through the trees. If their eyes met, she knew the brunette would want an explanation for her girlfriend's absence. It'd be better to just stay hidden. While there was nothing preventing her from passing Amanda's message along, she felt like her place was by the skein.

Sarah blamed Amanda and her speech. Neither of them were under any obligation to hunt this asshole down. They certainly weren't to blame for the monsters within the seed. Hell, the only crimes Sarah had ever committed were the ones involving her host, and helping a random human out wouldn't rebalance those scales. Good deeds didn't absolve you of your mistakes: they just made life more complicated.

"...Damn it all." Sarah kicked the granite bluff. The heel of her boot landed flat against the stone before releasing a hollow thud, which echoed between the moss-covered pines. Along the narrow branches of the forest's canopy, an owl took flight. Sarah winced when she heard its furious coo. The bird's voice was lower than she had come to expect, and its call roiled like a basin set atop an open flame. How long must it have been sitting there to sound like a bloody foghorn? Since the Light had first arrived? Sarah didn't think its foundation had progressed to the point where its physique had begun to warp; however, the essence of what it would eventually become had definitely taken root.

So had a growing hunger. The owl circled the moonlit trail, and then dove towards her head when it couldn't find smaller prey. Instinct made the bird lift its claws as it rapidly approached the ground. Mana honed their edge until they could crack sinew and bone with ease.

The infiltrator held her arm up, anyway. Once the animal was in the terminal phase of its dive, she ducked aside, praying she wouldn't lose the limb. She was lucky; the bird wasn't used to its new-found speed and was unable to correct its course. This caused it to plummet into the dirt behind her before it skipped off the trail and through the thorny verdure.

Sarah could hear the raptor snapping at the weeping brambles in a desperate attempt to free itself. It would've been better off using its feet. The thought didn't occur to it, though, and the firethorn was dense enough to keep it trapped for the moment. Sarah used the time to catch her breath. She honestly needed the break. Her heart was positively hammering from the unexpected attack. It must have been fifteen years since the last time someone had tried to kill her. She was no longer used to the way adrenaline made so much blood rush to her head.

The parasite shivered; she could feel her host's engorged arteries brushing up against her writhing tendrils. The pressure actually caused her vision to blur as a fleeting sense of deja vu began to conjure memories of her first cell's collapse. There had been a lot of bodies on the ground that day. When Phillip's latest disagreement had spilled forth from Brendan's McMansion, Sarah had been caught between the waring factions with a dozen bullets whizzing past her ear. The sound of their long-forgotten gunfire may have been missing from her current environs; however, she could still feel its echo shaking the rust off her old training. Harlan screamed for her to do something before the owl could cut itself free. She didn't know if she was going to kill it, or remove herself from the situation, but she was leaning towards the latter, given the bird's observed capabilities.

A particularly fat branch split in half while she waited for its attention to waver. When the mana empowering the raptor's talons began to flicker fitfully, Sarah passed in front of its prison and retreated further along the trail. She figured there must have been about thirty meters between them before something else began to rustle in the underbrush.

Sarah froze. Whatever animal was nosing about in the half-dead ferns was moving towards the racket, instead of away from it. Chances were, the perpetrator was one of the reserve's nocturnal predators or something less ferocious, which had gradually grown into the role. In either case, it was bad news; especially, since Sarah could hear the owl finally free itself with a shriek.

"Oh, come on," she murmured petulantly as she spun towards the sound. If both ends of the route were now blocked that didn't leave her a lot of options. Not unless she wanted to escape into the bracken without the light from her phone.

Sarah fingered the sleeping device and quietly weighed the risks. At the end of the day, she knew she couldn't afford to make herself a target, and the slope was a serious threat. If she wasn't careful, she could do worse than twist an ankle.

'I guess that means we're fighting a bird.'

Sarah grit her teeth. Given a choice between the two, she knew the owl's abilities, and it'd been recently injured in a fall. That meant it should prove weaker than the threat creeping up behind her. Or at least, so went her assumption until a wave of light erupted from her target, then Sarah just felt terribly focused as the mana level began to climb.

She took off running. Whatever the bird was doing was causing its core to leak like a sieve. Either, the stupid owl had ejected its entire reserve, or it was activating some new technique. Both options were dangerous to her health.

"Don't even think about it!" Sarah screamed as she closed the distance at a sprint. She didn't get there in time to stop whatever the owl was trying to pull, but she did respond fast enough to kick the bird in the head.

The blow didn't help. The raptor sprang up with a furious caw and tackled her across the chest. Its wings began to batter her ribs while its claws reached for her stomach. Sarah thanked her lucky stars that its talons were no longer glowing; the pressure it was applying was dangerous enough as it pushed her closer to the skein.

"Oh for..." Sarah bit her tongue before she could finish the thought. When her reticence failed to improve the situation, she tried to channel her indignation into shoving the owl aside. It felt like she was wrestling with a greased cat; every time she thought she had a hold, it slipped a little further from her grasp.

The terminus was inching closer. Soon, a ripple passed over the pool from the waves of coruscating energy. At this rate, they might actually trip the restrictions and get shredded by the Light's defenses. "You little shit! You're going to get the both of us killed!"

The bird didn't care. It continued to peck at her coat while forcing her heels through the mud. Ten feet; eight; six. When they were barely a meter from the scarp, Sarah gave into the inevitable and braced herself for the trip. Her head hunched forward; her hip swung out to the side. Both of these ensured the owl's torso would be misaligned with the top of the field. Between the angle and the animal's output, the skein pitched a fit. Space rippled. Rather than drawing the raptor into the center of its mass, the dimensional twist cut it in half. Part of a wing and most of its skull landed in the dirt by the ridge. The rest was drawn into the terminus, along with Sarah's bedraggled host.