A dense silence stretched between them as they moved, broken only by the faint whisper of shifting shadows. Vivienne drifted rather than walked, her form shifting erratically, an indistinct shape in the dim light. Every now and then, an eye blinked open within the darkness of her shifting mass, catching fleeting glimpses of the ruins around them. Teeth gleamed now and again, shadowed and jagged, appearing only to vanish as she moved. She wasn’t quite used to this new height, feeling taller, more expansive. A silent reminder that consuming aether had left its mark, even if she couldn’t yet understand it.

Ahead of her, Rava moved with easy confidence, though Vivienne noticed her gaze darting frequently toward her. Caution lingered there—not fear exactly, but a wariness that made Rava’s movements sharper, her muscles tense even when she wasn’t looking for threats.

They were deep in the ruins now, and the walls of broken stone rose jaggedly around them, casting long, clawing shadows that crept over Vivienne’s form as she floated along the worn tiles.

Vivienne couldn’t resist. “Are you afraid I’ll bite again?” The question came out distorted, the echoes of her voice layered with low, guttural tones.

Rava didn’t look back. “I’m not sure yet what I should expect from you.”

A silence lingered before Vivienne let out a faint, hissing laugh. “I’m not sure either,” she admitted, though there was no humour in it.

The words hung in the air, and for the first time, Rava stopped, turning to face her. She studied Vivienne’s shifting form, eyes steady, assessing. “What’s that mean?” she asked. There was an edge to her tone, something that sounded almost like a dare.

Vivienne’s form darkened, the light within her mass receding until only a few eyes glinted through the shadow. “It means… I don’t know how long I’ll stay like this. How long I’ll stay in control.” Her words held an echo of uncertainty, and yet something about her shape seemed to solidify, if only for a moment.

Rava’s expression flickered, unreadable. Then, after a beat, she shrugged. “Control is a fickle thing. Just don’t expect me to save you if it slips.” She turned away again, her steps unhurried as she led them forward.

The nightmarish mass couldn’t help but feel a bit dejected. Rava had been friendly enough with her until the revenant, then her demeanour changed entirely. Maybe not changed, perhaps that apprehension the warrior was showing was there all along— Vivian was too overwhelmed, or perhaps too naive to see it.

She understood though, to an extent.

Vivienne drifted behind her, still taking in the strange, haunting quiet of the ruins. The walls here were marked by ancient scars, etched with symbols she couldn’t decipher, and the silence weighed heavier, a static charge in the air. Something here felt old—a lingering memory of battles long since ended, leaving only restless, emotion-laced aether in their wake.

They moved deeper, their steps light as if not to disturb the shadows.

“So where are we headed?” Vivienne asked, her voice low, almost melding with the darkness around her.

Rava’s eyes tracked over the shadowed archways and shattered columns ahead, her gaze unwavering. She pointed to a faded glyph inscribed above one of the arches.

“There’s an exit. If we make it through, we’ll be safe.”

Safe. The word sounded hollow in this place, where even the stones seemed ready to betray them.

“Why do I doubt that?” Vivienne muttered.

“Because you should,” Rava said bluntly. “These ruins are usually only explored by either the brave or the foolish.”

Vivienne let out a low hum. “Why were you in here then?” She asked curiously.

Rava opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by the faint sound of a growl, drifting up from behind one of the fallen pillars nearby. It was low, guttural, a deep rumble of something ancient that didn’t take kindly to intruders.

Vivienne stilled, her form blending into the shadows around them. Eyes narrowed, tracking the dark.

“Stay quiet,” Rava whispered, her voice barely audible.

But the shadows continued to growl, the sound morphing from a single note into a symphony of low, pulsing tones, as if the very stones were muttering in anger. Alarm sounded through Vivienne’s very being, winding around her mass like a chill in her bones.

Rava took a cautious step forward, fists clenched as if preparing for whatever lay ahead. Vivienne hesitated. She had no fists, no weapons, no true shape to ground herself—but she was something different, something beyond even the creatures that had come before. If they were truly threatened here, she would be ready to prove it.

The growling stopped, leaving an ominous silence, and then the shadows surged and all hell broke loose.

From their left, a serpentine head lunged out of the darkness itself, its eyeless visage twisted and grotesque. The head split vertically into a maw filled with rows upon rows of jagged, crystalline teeth, each angled in ways that defied logic. A shrill, unnatural screech accompanied the movement, sending shivers down Vivienne’s spine.

Rava barely had a second to react. With a sharp intake of breath, she threw herself backward, her movements honed and precise. The monstrous maw snapped shut with a deafening clack mere inches from where her head had been. She hit the ground and rolled, her golden eyes locked onto the beast as it coiled back into the shadows. A low hiss escaped her lips as she dropped into a defensive stance, only for her ears to twitch at the sound of another threat.

From the other side, a second head emerged, identical in its horrifying design. It lunged with terrifying speed, aiming to catch her off guard.

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Vivienne, her warped and ever-shifting form bristling with latent power, acted instinctively. A dozen tendrils, thick and weighty, shot out from her mass. Each one was riddled with eyes that glowed faintly, staring into the abyss as if to challenge it. The tendrils cracked like whips, slamming into the second serpent mid-lunge. The impact was like striking stone, the reverberation jarring, but her strike was enough to knock the serpent’s head off course. It veered away, hissing angrily as it twisted and recoiled back into the shadows.

“Cerrrraemolc, ilmbue mwh cphee col il maewh ctrrilce olwm mwh fholec!” Rava growled, her voice a guttural mix of urgency and defiance.

Vivienne didn’t understand the exact words, but the result was clear. Rava’s legs began to spark with energy, arcs of lightning crackling around her calves and spreading out across the ground. In a flash of motion almost too fast for Vivienne to process, the lekine surged forward, her electrified movements leaving streaks of light in the air.

The first serpent’s head reared back, confused by the sudden burst of energy, but Rava was already behind it. With an acrobatic leap, she twisted mid-air and brought her claws down hard on the side of its neck. The sound was sickening—a wet crack mingled with a shriek so high-pitched that Vivienne flinched involuntarily. The serpent thrashed, its body coiling and uncoiling as it recoiled from the attack, but Rava had already launched herself back to safety, her movements fluid and precise.

Vivienne’s tendrils shifted uneasily, their multitude of eyes scanning for more threats in the dark. The serpents were not just mindless beasts; their movements were deliberate, tactical. She could feel the strange, malevolent intelligence that lingered behind their actions, a kind of predatory cunning that sent a spark of excitement—of hunger—coursing through her.

The shadows quivered again. More shapes began to emerge, indistinct but menacing, and the serpents coiled and hissed as if regrouping for another assault. More serpents emerged from the shadows, weaving through the air with menace until the point from where they started was revealed. A Shadowy hydra, its form overshadowing the pair with its sheer mass, its body blocking the exit behind it. Vivienne’s form pulsed and shifted, the light of her many eyes brightening as a low, guttural growl escaped her maw.

“Whatever that thing is,” Vivienne hissed, “they don’t plan on letting us walk out of here.”

Rava’s ears flattened against her head, her claws sparking with residual electricity. “Good,” she replied, her tone sharp and defiant. “I’d hate to leave without a proper fight.”

The hydra loomed, its shadowy form stretching impossibly high, blotting out the dim crystal light that barely illuminated the chamber. Its serpentine heads, seven in total, weaved and twisted in an eerie synchrony, their eyeless maws dripping with a thick, inky substance that hissed as it touched the ground. The beast exuded an aura of suffocating malice, a presence that seemed to drink in the surrounding light and sound, leaving the air heavy with an oppressive silence.

Vivienne’s many eyes locked onto the hydra. Every muscle—or whatever she had instead of muscles—tightened in anticipation. She could feel its presence pressing against her mind, like fingers scraping against a glass pane. This was no ordinary aetherbeast; it was ancient, brimming with power that rivaled some of the gods she’d encountered in whispers and visions. And yet, beneath the fear, she felt a thrill—a dangerous curiosity mixed with the insatiable hunger she hadn’t yet learned to control.

“Seven heads,” Rava muttered, her voice tinged with both awe and grim determination. Her sharp eyes darted between the heads, searching for any sign of a weakness. “And no eyes. It’s probably feeling our movements in the aether.”

Vivienne snarled, her voice guttural and distorted. “Then let’s give it something to feel.”

The hydra struck first. Two heads lashed out simultaneously, their movements blindingly fast. Vivienne twisted her form into a mass of shifting limbs, her tendrils snapping forward to intercept one of the heads. The force of the impact was bone-shaking, and her tendrils recoiled from the sheer density of the beast’s flesh. Meanwhile, Rava blurred into motion, her lightning-infused legs propelling her to the side as she evaded the other head by a hair’s breadth.

“Ct evmjtat olfh ae tatolucaem ctol mc, cu jev tat olujat mev!” Rava barked, her Lekine words filled with a force that reverberated in the chamber. The sparks around her claws ignited into arcs of electricity that danced wildly across her form. She launched herself toward the hydra’s main body, claws aimed for the dark, shifting mass at its centre.

The hydra twisted with unnatural speed, one of its heads intercepting her mid-air. It struck her with the flat of its maw, sending her flying into the chamber wall. She hit the stone with a crack but rolled to her feet almost instantly, shaking off the impact with a feral grin. “You hit like a storm that forgot its lightning!” she mocked, her claws crackling as she prepared another assault.

Vivienne surged forward, her tendrils whipping through the air like living spears. She slammed into the nearest head, wrapping her limbs around it and squeezing with all her might. The hydra shrieked, a sound that vibrated through the walls and made the crystals tremble, but it wasn’t enough to stop its assault. Another head lunged for Vivienne, its maw wide enough to swallow her entire mass.

She shifted again, her form melting and reforming in an instant. The biting maw passed harmlessly through where she had been, and she reformed behind it, her tendrils latching onto the neck of another head. Her multitude of eyes glared, their light intensifying as she channelled her will into an attack. “You’re not as clever as you think,” she growled, her voice resonating with something primal, something otherworldly.

Rava took advantage of the distraction, dashing under the writhing mass of heads. She drove her crackling claws deep into the hydra’s shadowy body. Electricity surged through the beast, lighting up its form from within as arcs of energy raced along its flesh. The hydra screeched again, its heads thrashing wildly in pain, but it didn’t fall.

“Tch!” Rava clicked her tongue, dodging a lashing tail that nearly took her legs out from under her.

Vivienne felt the hunger rising within her, a dark, insistent pull. Her many eyes narrowed as she considered her options. She could feel the power radiating from the hydra, aether so potent it practically begged to be consumed. Unlike the sunwake lynx, the hydra almost felt like it was begging to be eaten. Less potent than the revenant she ate from before, as if it was less concentrated, but still delicious.

“Vivienne!” Rava’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Another head was bearing down on the Lekine, its maw open wide and dripping with black liquid.

Vivienne didn’t hesitate. She launched herself forward, her form stretching and twisting as she collided with the head mid-lunge. The impact sent a shockwave through the chamber, and she wrapped herself around the beast’s neck, her tendrils digging in as she began to pull.

“Distract the other heads,” she shouted the sounds of battle, the tracks of thunder, the flashes of lightning, her voice a cacophony of echoes.

Rava hesitated for only a moment before nodding sharply. “Don’t get eaten!” she called back, and then she was moving again, dodging and weaving at blistering speeds. Each strike doing not enough to do significant damage, but more than enough to draw attention.

The hydra’s heads snapped and twisted, some splitting their attention off from Rava to lunge at Vivienne’s writhing form, others swiping at the blur of lightning that was Rava as she darted through the chamber. Vivienne could feel the beast’s raw, primal fury, each head coiling and uncoiling like the limbs of a monstrous predator, and yet she could sense something more—a hint of desperation, hunger, as if hadn’t eaten in years.

She tightened her grip, her form bending and stretching as she kept the head closest to her in a vicious hold, her tendrils anchoring her like roots, sinking into the shadowy flesh with surprising ease.. She felt the tension in its neck, the slight tremble as it resisted her pull. And in a moment of strange, uninvited connection, she almost understood the thing. The darkness, the isolation, the endless hunger. It wasn’t unlike her own.

But she was hungrier.