Smoke followed them outside, blinding soot clinging to ooze drenched skin.

Behind them, fire spread like an infection, rising across the tall building until it turned into a collapsing torch. Holly's now much more compliant gray or blue companion clung to her chest for dear life, held safe in an arm while the other helped her navigate the rooftops. The air was so thoroughly choked even her breathless lungs wanted to cough out the building filth.

A discordant symphony of noises echoed from all around. Screams, crackling, running, beating, coughing, water splashing, myriad people leaving the safety of their homes and the darkness of the backstreets to watch the catastrophe. From a particular upswell of voices as she leapt, she was pretty sure she had been spotted, but that was a worry for another time.

She stopped to look back. flames reached for the sky, a dizzying array of burning smells left in their wake, enough to almost rouse worse memories.

Almost, if for the simple fact she was completely fed up.

"I-is it going to be something new every other day now? Give me a break already!" Holly said, feeling clay roofing crack under her grip.

Urgent whispers from her Underbedder got her moving again. A glance down, and she could swear there were people down in the streets pointing at her. The desire to leave became unbearable.

"Please hold tight!" Holly said, getting a confused mutter in response. "I'll try not to shake you too much."

She lowered her body and took impulse, long strides giving momentum to jumps who cleared entire houses, her companion's screams trailing their path.

----------------------------------------

Holly laughed, enjoying the fresh breeze as she fled. The clinking of soldiers slowly giving chase from all directions but in front had been a close acquaintance for a few minutes now, a few minutes in which she puzzled together the Underbedder's words.

It had taken her a shameful while to recognize their tongue as some sort of heavily accented Awinian, but she finally understood one sentence in full.

"No no no, please, don't do this, don't-!"

Sadly, by then they were already half way down their plunge into the river.

Cool waters welcomed her back home, giving way for a softer landing. Bubbles poured out of her mouth; even now, she giggled. Now that had been freedom! No Agare and no agents to keep an eye on her, just her, the blurring land beneath her legs, and this town's lads dogging her steps!

And the Underbedder, their fists pumping again her chest and shoulder with all the strength her wiry limbs could gather. Holly winced; just because she didn't breath anymore didn't mean others followed suit. And since when had she been so eager to push this particular aspect of her new life? She paused.

And quickly unpaused when she realized that at this pace, she would absolutely drown this poor person. She swam to the surface, raising the strange creature into the air for a moment, to a mutually very relieved gasp and spluttering coughs.

They were being carried downriver, some of it currents gently pushing them away from their point of disappearance. Lamps of incandescent yellow stone rushed to and fro over the bridge they had been at, the glint of polished polearms and plate armor unmistakable from that distance. Would those do anything against her? The knife had been an enlightening experience, but she couldn't say she was too eager to experiment.

Still, she felt more alive than she had been in years. Why? She didn't have the slightest clue! Tonight's events should be weighting like boulders on her mind, that odd dream and its yet odder inhabitant recent enough she could remember her words, but all she wanted to do right now was to run, to jump, to climb over towers and spires and walls! She couldn't stop herself from humming, how long had it been since she last sung? She shouldn't have ever stopped!

The Underbedder spat their last mouthful of water. " Why?! Why in the ███████ █████?!"

Holly took a few seconds to piece her response, then cocked her head to the side in confusion, "Sorry? I didn't catch that."

"Why did yeh' jump?!" they said.

"Ah! You were dirty!" Holly said. "And me too, I guess."

"And cause of that yeh' ████ us in the ███████?! That helps how?!"

"Excuse me? The what?"

The Underbedder snarled, then yelled loud enough the rushing waters couldn't muffle her. "The ██████! The █████, the ███████, the ███████ ██████, pick yer favorite, but why?! Yeh think I came all this way cause I wanna die in human ████?! Think again!"

Holly had to admit, her explanations were not helping at all. Well, they were asking why, so maybe she could start from there? "We were dirty! Remember? You, uhm..."

"Wash what in the ███████?!" They flayed their arms about. "It's the ███████! The ████-███!"

Holly sighed. Not out of any real displeasure, however. Her Will spread around them, almost diluting against the arms of her second home, it felt like the most pleasant of stretches, a nostalgic movement that inspired some earnest longing for her room, for the spring filled basin she enjoyed resting in.

Her Will felt sharper today. She could feel it all, from the grody and decay settling at the bottom, to all the strange and diminute creatures who reacted to the warmth of their bodies, bold enough to approach with opportunistic intent before her presence warned them there would be none of that today. She felt life seeded amidst the scum, prey and predator in their eternal conflicts under the unfeeling touch of a lifeless giant.

She didn't get their words, but Holly was starting to understand the Underbedder a little better. Seeing they were at a safe distance from their pursuers, Holly searched for a safe place to emerge, choosing a quiet, dark corner where a particularly reed dense bank lead to an alcove in between houses. She swam, the brunt of the river's current parting around them for ease of passage.

Quietly, Holly rose, never letting go of her companion.

Quietly, her Will rose alongside, leaving the safety of her second home to touch the world before.

Life teemed here, just as it did down below. Insects clinging to misplaced weeds, worms wriggling their displeasure around her feet, skinbirds sleeping in an alcove among notched roofing, crustaceans sent scurrying out of her path back into their dug homes. her companion looked around, scrutinizing every corner in the dark as if an assailant could be waiting for them.

They didn't react to her ability. They didn't seem to notice at all.

It dawned on Holly, then and there, that she had achieved what Marquise had wished of her those last couple weeks in the manor, coming to her so effortlessly she could nary imagine how she had struggled with it so much.

But it had been completely unlike her "learning to take a punch" analogy. At six years of age, she and Hazel had learned the technique from Elder Seneschal after coming home bruised from fighting and scrapped from fleeing one too many times. At six years of age, they had practiced on each other until they were black and blue.

She looked up at the tapestry of stars above. Ever so darker then the bright, endless plains she used to see in Lesser Hollow, or in her journey with her comrades across Galehold, yet ever present, ever watching.

A gentle hand had guided her by the hip. She couldn't feel it anymore, not the way she had that night, yet its lingering touch still coated her Will, an eternal, bittersweet reminder that allowed her something incredible, something impossible, that for all she had thought herself alone some things stood waiting, ready to come when called.

It was beautiful. It was painful. It was horrifying. She knew it to be true, yet it all felt like a delusion, madness. What had she done to herself that day?

A shiver brought her back to reality, though not one of her own. Dripping wet, her Underbedder was hugging themselves and glaring her way, done with their examination.

Holly watched her in silence for a few seconds. She didn't know what exactly moved her so; she felt warm, and suddenly wished to share some of that warmth. She slipped her other hand around the Underbedder, hugging them to her bosom.

"I ain't a kid," they grumbled, but didn't resist. "And yer' a weird ass kidnapper."

"I'm not a kidnapper!" Holly chided, chuckling. "You're the one who woke me up in the first place, aren't you?"

"...Huh. Thinkin' 'bout it, the kidnapper would probably be me, eh? Well, ye' turned those tables already, so can I go?"

"S-sorry, I don't think so," Holly said. She was pretty sure nobody was supposed to know she had been around, and while the whole secrecy thing had already gone bust, she wasn't sure if letting them go would be a smart idea. "I promise I won't let you get hurt though! Just stick with me for a while, alrighty?"

"Tch! Funny words for a gal' who's killed my pride again and again in one night," they laughed, drier than sand. "Sure. What else could go wrong?"

Holly nodded, satisfied with the answer, and settled off into the night.

----------------------------------------

Holly peeked out of the alleway. Even in the odd hours, the streets of this humongous town could be filled with more life than she would find in broad daylight in the Lesser. One wrong step and she would appear in a street filled with drunks and other nightly sorts. One wronger step, as she had been about to take a few turns back, would send her face to face with patrolling soldiers.

Though, truth be told, she had another preoccupation right now.

"Could you please stop flicking my nipple?" Holly said.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Nothin'? Not a prickle?" the Underbedder said, punctuating with several stabs of their admittedly thick and long nails. "What are ye' made of?!"

Seeing nobody left or right, she crossed by the leaps, finding herself on the other side in the blink of an eye. Her companion yelped quietly, but resumed her sequence of finger jabs and scratches without pause.

"Shouldn't you be a little more afraid of admitting you're trying to hurt somebody you don't even know?" Holly huffed, but kept moving. What if I was really dangerous?!"

"Eh, mountain gals have seen some terrors," they- she said. Her voice was a little shrill, but not overtly unpleasant when she wasn't screaming. "Besides, left my fear a dip and hug ago. Cuddly for a dangerous fella', ain't you?"

"C-cuddly?" Holly was sincerely surprised at the casualness this Underbedder person had taken with her as of the last hour. She had leaned into Holly's one armed cradling like a baby on her mother's arm, a growing expression of boredom the darkest sentiment Holly had seen as she climbed forwards. Forwards, relatively speaking of course; she had been idling in circles and exploring to kill time.

She had expected to find Agare leaving the shadows at a random corner a good while ago, and didn't know what to do when that reality failed to happen. Not being alone helped a lot with the worry, but where could the others be? They couldn't have abandoned her, could they?

"So, then, mind if this mountain gal asks you a few things, just for fun?" the Underbedder said.

"S-sure?" Holly said.

"What are ye'?" they said, almost making her falter in the middle of another street, thankfully under an unlit lamp. "Careful there! Anyway, I've met a couple other Dashi in my time, but never one like you."

"I'm human."

The Underbedder snorted. "And I'm Mu. Wait, ye' know Mu, right?"

"I-I know at least that much!" Her surge of anger was stopped dead by the pettier sentiment. "And I am! I know I don't look like it, but, uhm, I-I more than how I look! Also, I'll have you know, you don't look too human either!"

"Good?" She shrugged. "Since I ain't human."

Now that stopped her dead on her tracks. Under a sliver of yellow incandescence touching their bifurcated backstreet from a well positioned lamppost, Holly took a second, good look at her companion. A tone of skin she had never conceived of, sharp claws, sharper canines? Of course she wasn't, Holly had noticed as much before, so why did the statement leave her speechless?

".... Ah. I guess?" Holly managed, turning her head from side to side to catch her companion at all angles. "What are you, actually?"

"Goban? What else?"

"I see!" Holly said, and walked. It took her a few seconds for the claim to dawn on her. Her eyes widened. "W-w-wait, you're a Goban?! Like, a Dashi Goban?!"

"Yah? That's me, alright." they shrugged with a frown. "Name's Klyla by the way. You have one of those?"

"O-of course I do! I'm Holly, Holly Seneschal!"

"... Huh. That Alle or somethin'? Sounds real Alle."

It took Holly a good couple seconds to understand they had meant to say Gale. "Y-yes, I was raised there."

Klyla winced. "Sorry to hear."

"Why sorry?" Holly asked.

When no answer was forthcoming, she looked down to meet a raised eyebrow. Only then did her brain catch on. For a second, the words "it wasn't that bad" came to her lips, but would not leave her mouth. In the end, she settled for, "thank you."

"So, Holly the Human, hailing from the Bear. Who put ye' in a barrel?"

"I... don't know. I'm trying to figure it out too. What were you doing under that bed, uhm, Klyla the Goban from the mountains?"

"From Fena, if you wanna be specific, but that ain't neither here nor there, eh?" She shrugged, snuggling her head against Holly's bicep. "I've been stranded here in Treil for a tad now-"

"You mean, Three Hill?" Holly asked.

"... No? Who still even call it that?"

"M-most people?"

Klyla shook her head. "Where was I? Ah, I got desperate, thought the big bucket in a magical circle thing had to be worth something. Then the commotion started, ye' exploded out that ███████ thing, and here we are..."

"S-sorry if I scared you," Holly said, "I was pretty scared myself. Had a bad dream, you see."

"I didn', but no matter." Klyla sighed. After a few seconds of silence, she started again. "So, where we goin' now, Holly?"

"Nowhere? I'm just exploring! Why, did you want to go somewhere?"

Klyla scoffed, and Holly frowned at her, confused. She had meant it, after all. Noticing her look, Klyla explained. "I've a good head for trackin' and mappin' and such, see? Hunter by trade. You've been making a pretty pointed curve for a while now."

"N-no! I've just been-"

Following a trail.

In her defense, she hadn't been aware she had been following a trail either. Her Will had picked on something in the air, almost like a thread of warm smoke in the wind, and left in the background of her thoughts she hadn't realized she had been on its tail. That was worrying. Very worrying. She decided to correct herself.

"... There's something this way, actually," Holly said.

"Somethin'? Somethin' what?"

She shrugged lightly and kept moving, just as curious of where it would lead them.

The track grew larger, and with its size Three Hills lost that liveliness from before. It started with the odd lamp either left empty or stolen completely from its post, cobblestone roads growing worn and hole ridden, its people nothing but shadows skittering away around the edges of her view at the slightest hint of movement.

Then, the track grew large enough she detected something almost familiar in its midst. Broken houses, dilapidated walls of brick and defaced fences, windows left shattered, doors wide open into impenetrable shadow. Out of curiosity, Holly sneaked into plain view, and detecting no reaction, reached with her Will inside of some three story high establishment, its front entrance boarded. Nothing Dashi inside; a scant few pests, all in some level of alert.

Then, once that track grew so present she could feel it stagnating in the mortar and the plaster, so present it made her heart thump in her chest as if trying to flee, they ran in a barrier, a literal one. A wall over twice her height grew in a curve, disappearing both up and downwards, no gates in sight. Every building neighboring it had been brought down too, as far as she could see.

Only one way in.

"Hey, Klyla, hold tight!" Holly said, testing the integrity of the wall with a light pull.

"Ye' now, I think we weren't meant to get inside this one. Think I can change your mind?" Klyla said, oddly tense.

"N-no, there's something I need to check on the other side."

Klyla sighed. "And ye' can't leave me on this one. I guessed."

Weather worn and short, the wall was quite easy to climb over, nothing compared to the trees in the Hollow. Reaching the top, she noticed how it was thick enough a lad could walk its perimeter without ever being afraid of falling off. Looking back and forth, she didn't spot anyone.

Rather, what she did see was a blot. A colossal shape, inert and sagging, blocking the view to both the farther hills and the horizon of stars.

She froze, carefully scooted up. Holding her Goban companion firmly, she jumped.

"Ouch!" Klyla winced. "That hurt you ███████! And watch for those claws on my thighs, they ain't small!"

"Those are nails." Holly growled, looking from side to side.

"Don't ye' dare get angry, I'm the victim!"

They had come to what might have been a backyard of sorts, now nothing but an overgrown garden of weeds overlooked by the decayed framework where a house had been half-rebuild, before complete abandonment. Disorderly piles of rubble and neatly piled construction materials had been equally eaten into by time and weather, stalks as tall as her hips hiding old tools in her way.

That odd trail had grown to become the air itself, and describing it was... difficult, to say the least. Mushy. Filthy. Nothing but a brush needed to know she was striding into a river of mud and rot, barren but for an inkling of life so rustic she hesitated on calling it life at all. It beckoned, yet didn't, a dead tree's branch waving a greeting with the wind.

And so, so familiar.

She knew she had never been here. But she had seen this before. Where? When?

Debris and tools cracking under her heels, she followed a little road around the ruins to the rusted hinges of a small gate, the main piece long gone. Beyond, a ravaged street of crumbled houses, some showing that same half-repaired state in various levels of development, but not a single one whole.

"I'm feelin' it," Klyla whispered, "feelin' creeped the fuck out. let's █████████, ████ we?"

"Aaaah, I think I get what that word means now. But what's 'Fulilip?' "Holly said

"Oh, don't ye' start that here of all places!"

Long stride by long stride, it didn't take long to reach the heart if all this destruction.

One day, this had been a wide open area, a flat paved platform in which several streets met. From the ruins of a squat rectangle opposite them, a spiderweb of ravines shallow and deep had consumed everything in its path, and in its many lifeless gulfs the remnants of that time still rusted, solidified slurries and charcoal coating shriveled serpents of red whose branching bodies disappeared underground.

Morbid curiosity took Holly across the gaps, even as Klyla's complains descended into soft whines and involuntary shivers. Decades after the tragedy, or so she guessed, heat still lingered in the air, not enough to make it painful to breath as it once had, yet an eternal reminder of what had transpired.

She could still see them, in the full of their horrifying glory, a canopy that was a bright crimson sky into itself, the fire that licked its throne and ate all those who had dared being unaware of its presence, with eyes that saw beyond their means and limbs that tore through armor and wall like skin and flesh. Holly's legs faltered, shaking harder with every step. Had the people who lived here received so much as a chance to submit?

She didn't see any bodies around, except the one. Its surface clean of bark, groves like wrinkles covering it from top to bottom, their pitch liquids having crystalized around gouges longer than she was tall and steel projectiles like needles much the same size. For all it was still large, she could tell from the pit it had created that it used to be much larger, taller too back when its thousand prominent limbs didn't point towards the ground.

Her Will reached out, skittish in her fear the thing would defy her expectations, roar back to life at the smell of new blood. Nothing happened, of course. Here it was, the bottom of the lake of mud, the putrid remains of the conscience that used to be pulling everything down with its mucous weight, still calling, never speaking.

A desperate raking at her breast drew her attention. "W-we need to get outta here! Ye' know what this is?!"

"... Yes."

"It's bad shit! People who fuck with these things still go ███ sometimes!" Klyla whispered so softly Holly could barely hear it. "Things like these don't die!"

"Yeah."

Holly could see where that came from. It was dead, but it was not, except it was.

No, that wasn't it. Holly pondered to herself what she had noticed under her Will fingers, and couldn't come with an explanation.

That was the reason they were here, wasn't it? It had called lured? her, with no real intention or purpose, the twitching of the dead by means of Will. An impression, a desire, a command? Why? How? This wasn't death, no, it couldn't be death, but why did everything her countless Will limbs touched brought that specific idea back to mind? It was Will but it wasn't Will, it was beyond Will and far below, it wasn't as conscious as it once was, it was- it wasn't-

She stepped back, contracted around herself, feeling a headache starting to form. She stumbled, sight wavering with spells of dizziness. A little more time, and a little more she would know; a little more she would know, and -

She needed to get out of here. This had been a bad idea after all.

"O-oi!" Klyla shook her. "S-see?! Already ███!"

"Hehe... Hold tight, alrighty?" Holly said, already fumbling a hop and nearly falling companion-first into one of the faults. She recovered, tried again, and managed a pace that didn't topple her but didn't make for a very timely escape.

"Ye' alright there, Hols?" Klyla asked, prodding her collar. "Ye're sounding real rough."

"This place is bad," Holly struggled to say. "Shouldn't have come."

"Hey, careful now!"

Too late. A throb, like a nail pounded through the back of her head, and she slipped. She was going to fall right into one of the dead roots, not a very long fall all things considered, but the knowledge shook her.

It couldn't do anything to her anymore. Still, she braced herself.

And then, came nothing.

She froze, like an unaware animal suddenly speared. She knew it because she didn't; she felt it because she couldn't, like her father, but instead of a slippery presence all she found was sheer absence in space, from this close so jarring it was impossible to ignore.

And it was fast. So fast, she realized there would be no time to react until it plunged into her back.

She closed her eyes, and felt-

... As the nothing rushed through her Will, and gently took hold of her.

Holly blinked, feeling herself being turned around. Two diminutive, twig like, steel hard shapes carried her like a princess away from the fissures, the world blurring beneath.

Once they landed, she looked down, a hooded head barely visible as it peeked from her flank.

Agare stared at her, silent and contemplative.

Holly stared at Agare. heart hammering in anticipation.

Agare threw both to floor.

"W-why?!" Holly cried, landing on her rear end.

Instead of answering, Agare looked further away, were a series of sharp thunks were echoing in their direction.

"Do you realize now?!" she recognize the voice, and it brought such relief she had to lean back. "Over an hour lost when my initial predictions had been exact. Fucking prick! Where's the blind guess now?! Does a Faceless have such a strong craving to manhandle the Faces that-"

Aleh froze.

"...Wait, what the fuck is going on here?"