It was, in a most oddly distant yet familiar sense, only becoming easier not to wince in shock or lurch away from being kept in such close proximity beside another person. It did not make it any easier for Amiela’s trembling nerves to stomach.

Each time Ranya touched her, every leaping spark of fire felt as if it curled and jolted deeper beneath Amiela’s skin, dipping further towards her innermost spirit. Her heartbeat raced faster than before. The vulnerable glow of a flush spread far over her body, warming her bloodstream from within, even if her skin felt like it was freezing beneath each searing flash. She struggled just to keep herself composed.

But Ranya only kept working in a focused, easy silence. Her hands brushed the sleek softness of human skin, gently washing each little trace of mud and dried sand clinging there from their time spent in the barren wastes. She did not pay very much mind to each burning wisp of magic that kept flickering wherever she touched, burning deep into the flesh of her hands.

“We could pretty easily turn this into a hot tub, you know.” Ranya tried to chuckle despite the look of concern tugging her lips southward. “Nice and warm. It would help you feel better.”

“And kill all the fish?” Amiela scoffed without sound. “And everything else in here.” She peered over the fold of her arms and drawn up knees to stare at the tiny waterbugs flitting around the rich green pools. “I know you can feel it too, Ranya. Almost every inch of this place...”

Amiela slowly reached out to cup a bit of water in her palm, swirling with strands of freshwater kelp. She watched the plantlife slide away and glimmer like a ribbon falling from her open hand.

“Right. Poor little critters wouldn’t know what hit them.” Ranya could not help the twinge of disappointment that panged through her words, but she stifled it by clearing her throat. She watched the way the girl beside her lap seemed to curl in on herself when the handful of water fully drained. “Ami. Are you doing alright?” She hesitated when her ears caught how just high that leaping heartbeat rose. “It’s still just me.”

“I... I know.” When the warm set of hands at Amiela’s back grew still against her, she took the chance to breathe more freely. “It’s just not... It’s not easy, even when it’s only you.”

“Does it-” Ranya’s halted. She lowered her hands away from Amiela’s body. She nearly thought better of asking the next question coiling deep inside her mind. Her next words became quiet, dropping with a slight waver. “Does it feel bad?”

Amiela hesitated even longer than Ranya did. “No. Not exactly. But it-” She panted quietly to try and catch her breath. “I just can’t take the memories apart from it, Ranya. They’re all too meshed up, still, like... I don’t entirely feel you, this way, because I always still feel how it was back then, and-”

“Okay.” Ranya hummed a little while she mulled it over and whispered closer against Amiela’s hair. “It’s okay, Ami. I think I understand.” She let the sounds of the chirping frogs and insects drift a while longer between them. “I remember when you needed help before.” She kept her hands right where they were beneath the water, but she did begin to stroke her fingertips over her own palms at the memory. “When you needed me, like this. With your arm, how you couldn’t use it.” Her words faltered down to a more mournful little note. “How you were still fighting, even then.” Ranya’s voice became only a hush. “Even now.”

Amiela stared deep into the pools, gazing where the first few glints of starlight were just starting to play. Her shoulders trembled harder, like a flash of ice in the evening sunset, but then went still. She began to realize, in time, that she truly did miss the feeling that was there just a moment ago: that most easy, tender warmth from Ranya’s hands, the way they’d moved so carefully across her skin to help clean her, despite it all being mixed up into one terrible swirling churn of confusion.

“It... Doesn’t feel bad.” Amiela’s voice broke the silence softly, even if her next breath became much more sharp. She felt Ranya inhale almost the same way beside the nape of her neck. “You can keep... Keep helping me, if you want.” Amiela drew her arms nearer around herself. “Only if you want.”

Ranya smiled, but the look was still deeply tentative. “Okay.” She kept quiet and thoughtful for a time, and did not even move. Ranya blinked and slowly reached up to start pressing the bar of soap back over Amiela’s skin. “Demons have things like this too, you know.”

Amiela kept her gaze fixed on the ripples in the water. “Soap?”

“Well, no. Not exactly.” Ranya hummed with a lower chuckle. Her tail curled back and forth, sliding beneath the slick lily pads while she thought of how best to phrase it. “Grooming rituals. Cleaning. That sort of thing.”

Amiela watched the frothy soap bubbles seeping down over her skin. “It’s not a ritual.”

Ranya scoffed a quiet note. “Of course it is.” She eased the smooth bar of tallow further over the delicate slope of Amiela’s back. “It’s a series of acts performed in a precise manner-” She lifted her other hand and tapped a few of her nails in the air with her own little clicking rhythm. “With significance. Your auntie would always buy you lavender and violet, for years, because you wanted to be just like her.” Ranya’s voice purred deeper with fondness. “Until you found more of your own taste in things.”

Amiela felt her cheeks color lightly. “The type of soap is hardly important-”

“You’re wrong there, too.” Ranya wrinkled her nose a bit towards the more simple, unscented lump of bubbly material cupped in her hand. “You had a lemongrass phase, when you were still figuring those sorts of things out. And rose. Almond, too. But all of those weren’t really you.”

Amiela’s rate of breath quickened a single pace when Ranya’s words brushed so much closer to her cheek.

“It’s important.” Ranya’s gaze flicked low, towards the reflection of them both swirling in the moonlit water. “The time. The material. The sort of meaning you choose to put into it. Ritual isn’t all: ‘blood sacrifice, shale daggers and crystal prisms,’ Ami. Honestly.” She sighed a warm sound and took great care when sliding the bar of soap over the softest curve of Amiela’s throat. “It’s taking care of yourself, too.”

Amiela did not speak again. She did not move a muscle for a while, pulse fluttering, eyes tracking each of the ever so careful claws that did not so much as brush any nearer to her skin. “If that’s what demons consider-” She halted to let her nerve wither into itself, blinking a few times, before she finally bit down over her own next choice of words. “How do demons bathe, then?”

“It’s different.” Ranya’s fingertips dragged over Amiela’s lower jaw to become mostly still. Just behind her, Ranya felt a more wistful smile tug at her lips, but a pang of melancholy crept its way more steadily into her vision. “But in a lot of ways, the same.” She tracked the quiet shimmer of soap slicking over Amiela’s arms. “It’s not like cleaning dirt from ourselves, or mud. It’s still bathing, sure. But this, this is-” Ranya’s teeth clenched on her own verbal inability. “You and I. If you were a demon, Ami, we couldn’t even be doing something like this if we weren’t as close as we are, knowing each other this deeply. We wouldn’t be able to.” Her voice husked into a rumbling tone. “I don’t give a shit about their stupid old traditions, what they think is proper or justified, but even just touching you like this, if you really were-”

Amiela let the muscles in her arms fall less tense than earlier. She slowly edged her gaze back over her shoulder, watching the conflict flicker and roil in the tender depths of Ranya’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

But it took Ranya a long while to even think of some way to roughly translate the concept. “It... ‘Honors’ me. But that’s sort of the wrong way to phrase it, really.” She smiled in that defeated sort of way, teeth gritted where her voice struggled to so much as reach the concept her mind was brewing. Her brow furrowed deeper. Ranya’s starry tail slid all around in a sinuous motion while she thought, brushing fluidly over her own shoulders and upper back. “You’re smaller than me, so it’s even more important. More powerful. It’s ritual, Ami. The same as what we’re doing now.” Ranya gradually let her eyelids slide half-shut. “The same meaning.”

Amiela thought it over. She finally inhaled and tried her best not to sound too wry. “I didn’t think baths could ever be so ‘honorable.’”

“I told you it’s the wrong word.” A tiny laugh gripped the sound of Ranya’s humming. She closed her eyes and smiled. “Silly girl. Mm. Think of it this way... Big demons are supposed to look after the little ones.” She moved to twirl a lock of Amiela’s hair, still slippery with soap, over her graceful fingers. “We’re supposed to. And that means so much more, really, than human words can ever say. Like-” Ranya’s voice inhaled deeper when her tongue finally found a way to speak her mind. “Not doing it, it’s... A betrayal, of what we are.”

Amiela found she was actually the one lost for words for a while. “But I’m not a demon.”

“Of course you’re not.” Ranya’s eyes fluttered open. Her tail curled higher. “But you’re with me. I’m a demon. And that’s... It’s more than enough for me to look after you.” That steady gaze of hers truly faltered for the first time Amiela could recall in recent memory. Ranya’s expression, that wide open peal of innocence forever tinged by the brimming desire to sink her teeth down harder, render her taloned will deep and red and bloody into those she saw fit to target; it all swirled faster somehow and spun and shattered in a murky hollow of swiftly burgeoning desire and regret. “That’s why I grabbed at you, I thought... Gods, Ami, you’ve been talking to me, for the first time in years-!” Her voice rose high and wavered higher. “Like you’re actually, really listening to the things I tell you this time!”

Amiela slowly turned where she sat, still practically cradled there beside Ranya’s lap. She felt her muscles tense. “Ranya-”

“That’s why.” Ranya’s voice had never sounded quite so sharp as glass yet hushed as gossamer all at once. “You... It’s like you weren’t even really here with me, all this time.” Her fingertips twitched. Moonlight glinted over the curve of each pointed nail, half-blunted talons unwilling to slide deeper. “Like some awful automaton got inside you, somehow, made you act on autopilot, for ages. Even your soul, Ami, the way you always were around everyone for so long, it felt-!” Ranya stopped herself. The points of her teeth dug deeper into her frown. “I thought I could touch you, today. Like I hadn’t lost you, there, for so many years.” Her voice shattered hard. “‘Grab’ you, yes, pounce at you, like I always used to. It always made you laugh, Ami.” Ranya’s eyes glinted with it, as watery as the deep blue wetland pools. “Don’t you remember?”

Amiela’s voice felt like less than a wisp of herself. “Of course I do.”

“So I thought, these things, that... Even now, after everything, things could maybe be like that again?” Ranya tipped her head sidelong. Her hair drifted like silk with the motion. Her gaze drifted low. “With how you’ve been acting. You laughed the other day. You even smiled back there, at breakfast. Even more than just a little.” Ranya sniffed a bit and briefly rubbed her wrist over her face, along her eyes, hiding away any small hint that she was not truly dauntless. “You were talking to kiddo, about pineapples. And parties.”

Amiela slowly turned back to sit in the water, facing halfway forward again. “Concerts.”

Ranya did not even blink at being corrected. “It made you smile.”

“Yes.” Amiela peered once more into the darkness, at the faint starlight playing over the tall water reeds. “And this, tonight, it’s been making you smile.”

“Because of what I said.” Ranya’s lips broke into yet another half-wavering grin. She forced her throat to clear and made herself speak like her throat was not burning, as if every part of her could lose the acidic bitterness that clung to her bones, able to unfurl and strengthen and become unquestionably cheerful again. “Because I get to take care of you, like I used to. Like I’m supposed to.”

Amiela stared down at her hands. “Even if I’m not a demon?”

Ranya nodded.

Amiela kept silent for another while. “All these years...” She let her hands loosen where they rested against herself. “And I still learn new things about your species.” Amiela kept it just as quiet, that lingering little thought in the back of her mind that it could have all been just another lie.

“Hm.” Ranya bit back a smirk. “Well. Maybe I’d feel inclined to tell you even more if you keep this up, you know. Actually taking care of yourself for once.” She looked away when Amiela’s posture stiffened. “Or at least letting me look after you.”

Amiela said nothing. Her arms did shake, only a little, when Ranya returned to lather the soap over her skin, but Amiela still did not shy away.

“I really do think this is going to help, Ami. With even more than just what you’re feeling right now.” Ranya’s eyelashes brushed lower, gazing down at her favored human. She examined her there in the blurring light of the moon, that soft, most quietly precious sight of her, as if one pale lily blossom drifted in her line of eyesight, lost among all the richer scarlets and shades of vivid pink. Ranya’s lips twitched when her nose reveled in Amiela’s more subtle scent. “Listen. I know you’ve always thought those big medical books aren’t nearly quite as interesting as the ones you like, but there were a lot of parts in there about learning to handle the things that scare you, and that sort of thing seemed really on point to me.”

Amiela’s hands moved to carefully lift one of the nearest drifting flower petals. She blinked slowly when her fingertips did not so much as summon a whisper of fire, not while her instincts knew it was only an inanimate tuft of plant matter, ‘alive’ though as it recently was.

Ranya scrubbed the soap across Amiela’s shoulders, ignoring the heat of her flame. “Funny, how your aunt’s older collection didn’t really go into depth about all the new experimental stuff. The medical colleges, you know. They’re the ones challenging a lot of things that were ‘settled science’ for decades.” Ranya only kept speaking when Amiela did not make any attempt to respond. “It’s not all just ‘shove the rug over it’ and hope to forget, or drown it away with booze and under the table drugs anymore, Ami. Exposure therapy is helping people. It’s real medicine, now.” She gently brushed Amiela’s damp curls of hair aside to wash the skin along her upper neck instead. “It’s still in the early stages, sure, but the results look really promising.”

“I guess so. Just... Go slowly, please?” Amiela fought back a sudden wince when Ranya’s fingertips washed the tenderest span of her throat. “This is... It’s okay, when you go slow.”

Ranya nodded for her. “I will.”

Amiela shivered. She steeled her nerves just enough to keep whispering. “I... I didn’t really expect we’d even be able to get a chance to do this at all, out here.” Even though she spoke as softly as before, it still felt wrong somehow to disturb the tranquil stillness of the river pools. She looked back at her hands, then at her fingernails. Amiela realized they could have certainly used a good wash and trim as well. “On the survey maps, there aren’t really any signs of water like this. Not on this sort of scale, at least.”

“Well. I’d doubt those silly old cartographers are going off of eyewitness accounts.” Ranya lathered more soap against the lower curves of Amiela’s back. “But I’m not about to question a good thing.”

“I’m not either.” Amiela tried her best to clean the dirt out from her fingernails, scraping away as much as she could without a nailbrush. She wondered if there might have been enough grit resting beneath them to carbon date the residue. “I really would prefer this place to go undiscovered, anyway. At least for as long as it can.”

“Mhm. I was telling kiddo when we went for our little walk, this is all newly grown, I think.” Ranya gestured with her tail at the verdant waterways drifting all around them. “It has to be. Think about it. I mean, even if the war really did blast this place all to hell back then, the rivers here are still flowing.”

Amiela nodded. She moved to cup a bit more of the soapy water into her hands, just enough to wash her own face and front, scrubbing away the dried mud and dirt from where it clung in gritty ripples along her skin.

“And wherever water goes, life like this comes along for the ride.” Ranya pointed the tufted tip of her tail even higher. “Those big walls, they’re going to protect this place from the worst of the sandstorms, aren’t they? So the wind can’t just tear right in and ruin everything again.”

“It does make sense. Sort of.” Amiela winced and abruptly shuddered when one of Ranya’s hands brushed along one of her more recent scars, a small gash along the side of her abdomen. “Careful-”

“Sorry.” Ranya’s skin shivered likewise when she felt the first pang of echoed shock twinge deep into her own bones, even if the true ache of it was mostly muffled. She moved to ghost her fingertips down over Amiela’s skin instead, seeking out and finding the mostly-healed wound to try and soothe the worst of ache away. “Oh, Ami...” When Ranya touched it, the motion brought even more light swirling from Amiela’s flesh, a fiery glow that bubbled and danced beneath the surface of the water. “This was from the border, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Amiela trembled when Ranya’s fingertips touched and lightly pressed the span of flesh near the lowest curve of her ribcage. “It’s still sensitive.”

“I’m sorry.” Ranya frowned at the tender pink scar. “Those bastards. They’ve got good aim.” Her gaze dipped low. “I should’ve stayed nearer to you.”

Amiela gave her a stiffened shrug. “You did everything you could.”

“Not everything. No. It... It isn’t enough.” Ranya breathed a low snarl. “If I wasn’t like this, now, I mean, if I could actually do things again, like I used to-!”

But Ranya struggled to even try and wrangle the racing blur of her mind. How could she ever possibly even begin to explain to a human being what her prior existence had been like, so far before they’d even met? Ranya was not sure if she could even put such concepts into comprehensible telepathy either.

Ranya let her head tilt lower. Her hair brushed close beside the base of her horns, slipping before her face to hide the frustration tightening and cinching hard over her features. “Gods, if I just had a handle on the power I know I’ve got, especially now, I could make sure things like that won’t ever happen to you anymore!”

“That’s a nice idea, Ranya.” Amiela stared into the starlit waters. Her tone, quiet as it was, still did not sound overly convinced. She drew her arms forward to let them rest loosely around her knees, though she still kept the limbs propped up close beside her chest. “But nobody can prevent everything bad from happening.”

Ranya kept staring out over the deep blue pools. Her hands clenched harder, but she moved them away from the tender flesh of Amiela’s abdomen, where the young woman would not have to feel the strength pulsing through Ranya’s veins with rising ire.

Even then, when Ranya finally let loose a sigh and forced her muscles not to twitch so hard and grip the water between them, the two of them each slowly slipped back into that same quiet, unspoken rhythm of washing. Ranya moved to ease the bar of soap over Amiela’s back and arms, cleaning her skin until there were no more smears of mud or dirt left to tend to.

Ranya did, however, ignore the majority of Amiela’s upper chest. She also stopped moving the bar of soap entirely just before the lowest curve of her spine, just beside her waist. She knew humans were awfully touchy about those places, after all, and Ranya simply refused to make her favorite little witch any more uncomfortable than she already was with such close proximity.

But it was in that small moment, beneath the gleam of the pale evening moon, where Amiela finally turned around to truly face her. With no tinted mask to hide her features away, Ranya could finally start to see them there in full: those most delicate, adorably owlish eyes, even in the dim firefly light.

With a quiver, Ranya’s heartbeat stirred at the sight of them.

Amiela’s irises were a light brown tea color. The faintest glow of magic warmed her gaze from deeper inside. A rare and uniquely beautiful sight, Ranya considered; it was not very often that her innermost energy was so openly visible.

Ranya felt a less dire smile broaden over her face. Her fingertips twitched beneath the river surface. The thrum of her heart wished, against all odds, that she could just reach in and chase those stubborn little shadows from underneath those lovely eyes of hers, banish the exhaustion from Amiela’s features until it could never return, feed her more fresh meals and nudge her right down to sleep deeply beneath the shelter of the wetland rushes, lay there in the softness of moss and wander the cozy realm of dreams with her until the young woman was hale and far less fatigued.

Amiela stared up at Ranya. She watched the way that demon kept gazing back down at her in a most peculiar manner, those stormy eyes full of such obvious, raw emotion. It felt strange as well, in a more fleeting way, to even try and mentally describe a demon’s sapient form of appearance.

Because though that particular guise appeared no different at first from a normal human being (minus certain antlers, claws, and one sinuously sleek length of tail) there was simply some other quality about her, some bizarre, otherworldly semblance that made it appear as if Ranya was not quite so used that particular face as she might truly have liked.

Ranya’s features were soft yet angular. The warm darkness of her skin, those long pretty eyelashes, her distinctly expressive eyebrows; the soft brown mane of hair that looked nearly as deep and glossy as raven feathers, only with a more colorfully mercurial sheen playing just beneath.

Then there was the keen little smirk that so often seemed to linger and quirk over her lips even when Ranya wasn’t smiling. It complimented the regal slope of her jawline, the powerful yet slender musculature that hid away a certain set of dagger-sharp teeth, or even that indecipherable look inside her eyes that absolutely was not human if one stared at her for long enough.

It sent a razor-edged shiver directly down Amiela’s spine just to peer past those indescribable colors, the first few shifting layers of impossible shades that appeared dark golden at first, twin pools of molten, living amber. But when she kept staring, gazing even further into the vastness of Ranya’s eyes, Amiela knew she could almost just start to see it there: those edges curling beyond reality, swirls of colors her mind could not truly name, a realm so far away and above from anything else she could have possibly known for certain, as if she might just fall away inside it, drifting off to far reaches elsewhere if she lingered there too long.

Some cold, bone-deep reflex made Amiela want to shift herself, lean far, far away from Ranya as if she were standing atop some steep precipice, not sitting up to her waist in calm, floral pond water while the demon before her did not so much as twitch a single talon, much less threaten to take her away, spirit her off to any strange plane of existence she could not comprehend or claw her way back from.

“Ami.” Ranya’s tail drifted through the water without sound. “Are you alright?”

She was, oddly enough. Amiela finally managed to tear her gaze away from the sight of Ranya’s eyes, even if she could not hide the weak bout of flush still coloring her cheeks. Despite it all, Amiela felt more than accustomed to the odd prickling sensation that fired throughout every nerve of her body.

No matter how much the sight of those keenly honed eyes still always made her blood crawl, the way Ranya’s clever smile made her flesh tremble fast beneath her skin, it all settled in her bones like familiar venom, toothless and collared as it was.

It was only instinctual, Amiela told herself. It was the simple fear of looking off towards the unknown, staring into the fluid movements of a tiger pacing behind an opaque sheet of glass; those first little visible glimpses that told her what was truly hidden deeper beneath such an elegant human guise. The only real, solid traces that usually ever revealed themselves were Ranya’s antlers, teeth and tail.

“Everything’s fine.” Amiela, grasping for whatever else could help steel her nerves, settled her gaze on exactly such an array of features. “I’m just glad Olive wasn’t too scared of you like that.” She scoffed a quiet sound and gestured at the top of Ranya’s head. “They’re getting longer every year, you know.”

Ranya laughed. “Yeah?” She reached out to slowly touch her hands around the base of her horns. “Hm. All part of growing older, I guess.” Indeed, when she tapped her fingertips over the sleekly rounded surface, she could feel the way even more bumpy tines were gradually forming there. When Ranya turned to peer back down at the water and look at her own reflection, she realized just how much her silhouette was starting to look like an elk.

“Listen, Ranya.” Amiela waited for her companion to look back up from the water. “If anyone is going to practice anything, you really should try to get more used to hiding those.” Her gaze lingered on Ranya’s antlers, before she flicked one of her hands to point at the more animate appendage drifting in the pond instead. She eyed the way that sinuously clever tail curled loosely around both of them, just as fluid and slick as a massive eel beneath the slimy pads of the water lilies. “That, too.”

Ranya lifted her tail above the surface. The tufted tip, fully soaked through with water, cascaded down in a pattering rain-curtain from where she lifted it high over herself. “I’ll try.” She let the glistening bulk of her tail rest with a dull thump over her own shoulders for a moment, like some fashionable stole made from a living, semi-translucent anaconda with one singular fluffy end. “It’s just not as simple as hiding my ears, or claws.”

Amiela only blinked when she watched the ears in question quiver and bloom right out into a catlike shape, despite most of her companion still looking human. “I’m sure you can manage.”

Ranya pretended to deeply whine. “And I’m sure it would be even easier if it didn’t feel like they’re always about to drop right off from neglect.”

“Ranya, I...” Amiela’s gaze fled from the mere sight of them. “I don’t want to burn them.”

Ranya shrugged. “They’d grow right back. Just as lovely as they were before.”

Amiela’s voice became less than a mumble. “They are lovely. The rest of you is lovely, and I hate burning it just as much.”

Ranya slowly lifted one of her graceful hands from the water for a brief instant, as if to remind her just how quickly that skin could quiver and knit itself back to full, flawless regularity.

Amiela almost did not expect the hushed tone Ranya took to respond to her with.

“I get it, Ami.” Ranya quietly purred and tilted her head to squint down at her with obvious affection. “It’s like I told you. I want you to tell me, yeah? You don’t have to pet my ears anymore if you don’t want. They will survive, I assure you, even if they’re never quite as gorgeous as they always used to be...”

Amiela felt her lips tug ever so slightly away from grimacing.

“Well.” Ranya let those feline ears furl back into a mostly human sort of shape again, even if the furthest shell of each tip remained ever so slightly pointed. “All of this, really... It’s a whole lot easier to just pretend to be your shadow, you know.”

“I know. But I can’t always get my umbrella out in time to hide you quick enough. And holding it over myself with my suit on already is not exactly the most inconspicuous look for us, either.” Amiela’s expression darkened. “Especially after... Whatever that was, yesterday.”

Ranya’s mind abruptly conjured the scent-memory of those strange metallic objects, acrid burning projectiles launched so fiercely, irrevocably skyward. How fast they’d streaked across the sky, she wondered, as if propelled by some tremendous force, utterly explosive. And yet there was no known chemical substance Ranya could think of, not a single one she knew existed, none at all that could have ever possibly projected that form of object into such an unerring straight line like that.

“They were almost like... Siege weapons. Just in miniature.” Amiela stared down at the placid water, watching the glittering sheet of starlight reflected over the surface. “But cannonfire, it doesn’t-”

“It scatters. Yeah. Makes a mess. A huge, nasty mess.” Ranya frowned. “I have no idea how they’ve made those things so little like that.”

“I didn’t exactly have time to observe the battlefield conditions much either, but-” Amiela hesitated on a sharper breath. The expression in her eyes began to grow even more troubled; the magic behind them churned like an unquiet sea. “It looked, like... The soldiers, they fired those things just like they would with a crossbow. But instead of steel or a wooden bolt, they shot burning metal.”

“Yeah. I’d say that’s about right.” Ranya hummed an uneasier note and peered skyward in thought. “Fire-crossbows? Just without the ‘bow.’ Or the ‘cross.’” She slowly reached out beneath the water to brush her fingertips over one of Amiela’s hands. “But, Ami-”

Amiela’s entire arm lurched back, jolting away in total shock for only a split moment of time.

The surge of flame flickered sharper between them, snapping forth like some vast surge of electricity in the tranquil river’s flow. The fiery spark lashed a fierce strike of pain into Ranya’s touch, but she endured it by gritting her teeth. Amiela inhaled fast and shied away from her with a full-bodied tremble, edging herself back.

“Sorry-” Ranya waited right where she was. She took great care to slowly lift her hand between them. When Amiela did not visibly protest more than another shiver, Ranya reached forward even further. “You’re okay, Ami. It’s alright. It’s just me.” Ranya tried to extend her arm even more gradually, leaning forward hold her fingertips down in a loose, careful grip over Amiela’s smaller digits. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy.”

That time, even when Ranya’s fingers first began to wrap over her hands, Amiela’s skin only prickled. She did not pull away. The light of her fire still quivered when it bloomed over her skin, just as disquieted by such treatment, but it did not strike with the sudden fierceness of a spitting viper, or any form of startled beast, no less.

“It’s... When it surprises you, isn’t it?” The softest contours of Ranya’s eyes dawned with understanding. “Going slower, then, it really..?”

“It’s just-” Amiela swallowed a dry breath. “Easier.” She still winced at the way Ranya’s skin was pierced and bloodied by such potent magic, no matter if every inch of demonic flesh knitted itself back up almost instantly. “I can’t, um, get it to stop, even when it’s slow. But at least-” Her expression withered beneath the sight of the pale green flames. “At least it isn’t quite as awful.”

They both waited, lingering in the quiet that swirled with the water rolling beneath the pads of the lily blossoms, the stray schools of fish that kept a fair distance away from the warmth of magic radiating around those two odd strangers.

“I know it’s, um, not in your...” Amiela struggled to even find the right phrase. “Your nature, to give warning-”

“Not exactly. No.” Ranya exhaled a low sound and lifted her hands away, rubbing one of them almost anxiously over her own arm. “Ah. Not when demons want to do things, no. We don’t warn, generally. We just do it. But, Ami-”

“I told you before. You don’t have to stop. ” Amiela gritted her teeth and stared at the heat shimmering in the water by her hands. “I’m not a child. I’m not fragile. As long as you want to, I...”

Ranya waited to see if Amiela would continue. She still did not reach for her again. “But do you want to?”

Amiela breathed in a bit faster. “What I want isn’t important.”

“Wrong.” Ranya’s eyebrows furrowed in the very same moment her tail stiffened and curled forth. “Very wrong.” She waited longer, stooped there with bristled shoulders, gaze darkening despite the warmth of her golden eyes. Her features tightened the more the silence crept in. “You know, sweetheart, I actually hate the fact that you think you aren’t lying more than the way you even say that.”

Amiela’s gaze wavered when the grip of Ranya’s hand ever so gently returned to her skin.

“I want you to tell me to stop, like you did before, if you don’t want this. Understand?” Ranya’s gaze sharpened quicker than her claws moved, ghosting away from over Amiela’s hands, slipping down to slide through the water instead. Those claws only pierced the liquid that danced around them, through the seeping the glow of Amiela’s fire, grasping only for the mud and silt and mossy watergrowth drifting like cushions between them both. “You struggled with me, at first. And I thought it would pass. I thought you would snap out of it, realize it was only me, that it wouldn’t bother you once your mind finally caught up with it, but if it does-”

Amiela felt the old, faded scar in her shoulder twitch. “Too many things bother me.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s like... A live nerve, Ami.” Ranya dipped her head low to sigh and mutter her words. “Sensitivity isn’t bad on its own, but the level you feel, gods, it worries me.”

Amiela stared at the patterns of magic that curled and coiled over her trembling flesh. “We can only work with what we have.”

“I know.” Ranya sighed. “I know...” An unusual sense of conflict, one Ranya had not felt in many years, creased its way over her features. She reached out, one more time, but she only moved to touch Amiela’s skin when those soft little hands lifted slightly from the water for her. “But, Ami, yesterday, the strangest thing about it, when all that was happening with the soldiers... It was the way it reminded me of your fire.”

“What?” The look on Amiela’s face fell further. “Wait, you... You think it’s magic? Not some natural phenomenon?”

“Hm. What you call magic isn’t so unnatural.” Ranya began to trace her fingertips over Amiela’s knuckles, easing across her palms. “It’s just as natural of a force as this water is, here. Or the oceans of your world, or the wind. Or thunderstorms. Or even a volcanic flow.”

Ranya watched the bright little particles of energy, observing how each fiery wisp tried to bite and tear deeper into her flesh. It began to remind her of the way an immune reaction would tremble awake and fight wildly against a foreign virus, microbes viewed under the thick glass of a magnified lens.

With a muffled sigh, Ranya ignored the twinging pain. She moved instead to draw her fingers closer around Amiela’s hands. “But I’ve never, ever seen a thing before quite like that weird little rock.”

“Wait, but... No. Ranya, if they actually were using magic as a weapon, ignoring how out of the question it would be-! They... They can’t all be witches-” Amiela’s eyes narrowed in sheer and utter disbelief. Her shoulders and arms each began to twitch. “No. That would mean they would have to be witches, which is absurd. It would be impossible.”

Ranya leaned in slightly closer. “I’m not saying-”

“No other human beings could influence magic to that degree. Much less take any sort of meaningful control of it.” Amiela practically huffed her next breath and shook her head. “They’d all be hunted down, rounded up, put to death for using magic like that out in the open, so blatantly; their gear looked like top-of-the-line stuff, which means a real, functioning military has to be funding them, so if they were witches, or even not human-”

Ranya chuckled quietly. “Ami. Remember to breathe.”

Amiela gave Ranya a much more weary look for it, but she did pause to draw in a slow, shaky breath before she spoke. Her arms and fingers still kept twitching the longer she rambled, but the way her muscles jumped began to slow. “The Mantilla would already be here, Ranya, if they were witches. They would be practically swarming the place, trying to get it under control before any hunters caught wind. We wouldn’t see them. Not at first. But both of us would already be sensing them, everywhere.” She took another small moment to breathe when Ranya gave her a fondly chiding look. “Not to mention humanity’s response. The whole world would be banding forces to put a stop to it.” Amiela’s voice dropped to something more approaching disgust than anxiety. “Especially Althea. Can you even imagine what sort of heart attack their queen would have, hearing about that?”

“Well, sure. But maybe times are changing?” The sheen of Ranya’s eyes reflected the volatile sparks dancing over her fingertips. “There have been less funded hunts, you know. Statistically.”

“As if that matters.” Amiela tried not to scoff any longer. “There are still nowhere near enough witches in the world to make up a military force that large and cohesive.” She shook her head. “No. We have enough trouble getting along with each other, much less strategizing together. I would have heard about it, at least. Not to mention-” She gave Ranya her own look of reproach. “Those soldiers were mostly men, and I don’t need to tell you how mathematically improbable a male witch even is.”

“No, no. I know.” Ranya slowly shook her head. “But listen, yeah? I’m not saying I think they were witches either.”

With a softer breath of anticipation, Ranya moved to lower Amiela’s hands with her own, drawing them each down to settle beneath the calm surface of the waters. Amiela’s fiery magic still simmered there, burning and bubbling away in the teal-green liquid. The moonlit pond began to glow from much deeper within, a hidden sunrise caught over the span of their interlinked hands.

“Those soldiers were human. That much is pretty certain.” Ranya tapped her fingertips over the smoothness of Amiela’s skin. “My people don’t really care enough to get involved in human politics. It’s not like most of them could even get here in one piece, anyway.” She narrowed her eyes in consideration. “And there’s nothing else out there that could ever pretend to be human for so long, at least not that I’d know of. Especially not in those conditions. I would’ve sniffed out imposters.” Ranya smiled to make her nostrils twitch. “Fae always start to smell really funny whenever they try and look human for too long, or get panicked. Hell, they always smell funny to begin with. And no one else really knows how to make a proper glamour but them and your people.”

“You don’t know that for sure.” Amiela stared down into the luminous glow, the fiery light swirling across her transfixed hands. “My aunt would always-” She could feel the ripples of warmth that washed against her body, brushing into the depths of her skin in strong waves of watery heat. “She would say you could never truly know anything about the capabilities of other races, especially ones with magic. Not for certain.” Amiela grimaced. “She... Didn’t seem sure herself, how many types of fae there even are, or others similar enough to them.”

Ranya slowly reached out for a wayward strand of Amiela’s hair. She watched it fall like wet silk flowing between her fingertips, before she moved back to take hold of Amiela’s hand again. “I’ve always thought you might have a little fae blood in you, you know.”

Amiela practically blanched at that. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No it isn’t. You just have this sort of scent-” Ranya chuckled hard at the driest stare Amiela could have ever possibly given her. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not bad. Not in the slightest.” She inhaled deeper, taking in a strong yet quiet breath. “No. It’s just sort of like the sweet taste on the wind you get from an orchard, in early fall.”

“That’s even more ridiculous. We... Different races, we can’t be genetically compatible. It wouldn’t make sense.” Amiela flushed hot and looked away, gazing down at the lotus blooms floating in the water instead. “Even if I did, the witch part would probably drown out the rest entirely.” She tried not to fidget at the thought of it, much less the way Ranya’s hands were still gently squeezing over her own. “Have you ever actually seen a fae? One that wasn’t hiding with a glamour? Because I haven’t. So unless you saw one, somehow, before you met me-”

“No. Not really.” Ranya hummed a low laugh at the way Amiela looked so adorably twitchy beneath the subject. “But I thought you were a fairy when I first saw you.”

Amiela wrinkled her nose. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“I wasn’t going for flattery, exactly.” Ranya’s nose twitched. “You were what, four? Yes, I thought you were beautiful, but we were both practically babies.”

“Five.” Amiela stared at her hands to try and keep them from fidgeting. “How many times are you going to keep calling me that?”

“Beautiful?” Ranya beamed at her. “Mm. Just until you start believing it.” The look of affection tugging at her smile began to crease with befuddlement. “But Ami, if your birthday is in-”

“I know when I was born, Ranya.” Amiela let her tone go dry to stop sounding quite as flustered. “It hardly matters. At five, I was young enough to have a natural glamour, but only enough to get by without making it obvious I was a witch.” She slowly blinked her eyes in the moonlight. “It’s more difficult now. So many things are... More difficult.”

Ranya inclined her chin, looking halfway torn between pushing the point and letting such a minor detail slide without clawing to the bottom of it. “Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure you were four-”

“I wasn’t. But whatever.” Amiela sighed, gently prying one of her hands away from Ranya’s grasp to stroke at her own forehead, as if the mere thought of it made her head ache. “I don’t even know how long I can keep casting mine, around Olive. It’s almost starting to hurt.”

Ranya frowned. “Well. He knows you’re a witch anyway.” She stared into Amiela’s eyes, finding the most lovely, quiet glow revealed in the wake of that odd shimmer, the sleek veil of energy that usually kept the true nature of them concealed. “Why bother hiding them? He’s seen your fire now too, already.”

“Because I’m supposed to.” Amiela did not even sound very convinced of it herself. “And it’s the only one that’s ever come naturally to me. My aunt even said it was difficult, back when she met me, to see what my eyes really look like.”

“You’ve never told me that.” Ranya’s features pinched at the sound of it. “Why do you think that is? Knowing how to- No?” She saw the correction flash quietly in Amiela’s gaze. “Not ‘knowing,’ just, ah, naturally casting something so complex, so young?”

“I thought it would be obvious.” Amiela waited a beat of time to stare into the blank look in Ranya’s eyes. “Because none of us would ever survive infancy without it.” Amiela ignored the way her ears caught the sound of a stifled snarl bristling deep through Ranya’s chest.

Amiela listened to it for a moment. She watched how the demon beside her tried her hardest not to let the fierce swell of guardian instincts flare forth and affect the way her most rigid stance grew even stronger, the way that warm amber gold grew hotter and more achingly wild.

“Ranya. It’s not-” Amiela only rubbed the tender area around her eyes instead, sighing at the soreness that blossomed in the depths of her sinuses. “But... You’re right. What’s one more broken rule on top of the rest?”

Ranya forced herself to try and relax somewhat, hunching there with a more muttered, cursing murmur. In time, when the bristled tuft of her tail finally stopped twitching, she forced a small chuckle for her companion in the soft evening glow. “See, I prefer the sound of that.”

Amiela gave her another hard stare. She did not even fuss when Ranya took hold of her hand once more. But then Amiela refused to so much as look back at her taller companion, to even regard the warmth of that knowing little look playing fast in Ranya’s eyes. “You-” She forced herself to clear her throat. “You were saying, about the soldiers?”

Ranya released a longer, slower breath, hissing softly between the points of her teeth. She clicked her tongue at such a perplexing little puzzle. “Right. No, it wasn’t just some weird chemical, or whatever they were using.” Her tail swirled around in the water, disturbing the lily pads while she tried to think of how best to phrase it. “I felt, a... Well. It felt almost like it had a heartbeat, inside.”

Amiela’s entire posture tensed. “It... It was really alive?”

“I don’t know. Not for sure, at least. Could’ve just been some non-sapient organic thing, like a plant. Or something as simple as a single-cell critter.” Ranya suddenly wished she’d kept the charred remnant of unusual stone, or even some small particle of the strange little object, just enough for her to examine and scour more closely. “But what I’m really saying is, whenever I touch you, Ami, it’s almost the same sort of feeling.”

Amiela felt another twinge of unease creep through the innermost muscle of her shoulder.

Ranya carefully squeezed Amiela’s hands, keeping them there with her own beneath the water. So little, Ranya mused: just like holding a tiny, delicate starling in her grasp. “It always feels, Ami, like some subconscious thing is fighting me like this, somehow. Struggling.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Unhappy, about being touched.”

Amiela stared down at their intertwined fingers, the way Ranya’s gracefully shaped hands somewhat dwarfed her own, nearly holding hers fully in her grip. “I’m... Look.” Amiela closed her eyes for a moment and tried to breathe slow. “I am willing to practice on this with you. You’re right, that I... I can’t try to ignore it forever. Or for as long as it takes out here.” Amiela belatedly realized her volatile ‘flinch’ had calmed significantly during her extended skin contact with Ranya, even if the force of her magic was still burning bright. “But we can’t let it distract us from where we’re going.”

Ranya hummed and leaned back a slight distance. She tried not to allow herself to look disappointed. It was a victory, she supposed, even if only a partial one.

It still felt so incredibly difficult not to become frustrated by the sheer strength of human determination. Ranya almost admired it in a way, that pure single-mindedness Amiela held towards whatever might be awaiting her ahead. But Ranya also knew, inside the darkest corner of her heart, that it could only ever fall upon her own shoulders to force some sort of balance into their wayward journey, lest her fragile human companions drop like flies out in the wastes.

“Let’s make a deal, then.” Ranya forced herself to smile again, to reveal those most mischievously pointed teeth. “Or... A trade, if you prefer.”

“Right. Because that’s never a bad idea with supernatural forces.” Amiela fought the urge to roll her eyes. “What do you propose?”

“Well. You’ll just keep on letting me help you like this-” Ranya felt a sudden thrill prickle down her spine, traveling all the way through the curved length of her tail to reach the waterlogged tuft. “That way, we can get your fire under control. And if it isn’t going crazy, we won’t have to keep wandering around the wilderness like starving hermits all the time anymore.” Ranya simply could no longer conceal the excited little edge rising through her voice. “And once we’re out of this place, and this is all over and done with, once we’re finally ready to get back to civilization again... I’ll help you find Eulalie.”

Silence fell between them like a ghost inside the air.

Amiela only waited there, sitting right beneath it all with an utterly blank look on her face, merely existing for all the unbearable seconds that could pass. She abruptly jerked her hands from Ranya’s grasp. “That’s low of you.”

Ranya’s brow knit. Puzzlement swirled through her narrowed gaze. “I’m not lying. I can do it-”

“I know full well you ‘can.’ ” Amiela did not try to stop her ire then, the sheer acidity lifting out through her rising words. “Gods, you..! Why would you even say it?! You shouldn’t even be saying her name-!”

“Because-” Ranya frowned. “Look. I can’t bring you back there, Ami, but I can-”

Amiela seemed to realize she did not even believe it before she finished. “I don’t want to go back-!”

Ranya narrowed her eyes further. “You said-”

“I know what I said!” Amiela slowly clawed over her own face to fight back the grimacing whisper of a snarl, the maddening, pulsing ache of frustration left unchecked. “I didn’t mean... I was just talking, just saying things to try and keep things, gods, even a little bit normal for the kid; it’s not like it would ever actually be possible-!”

Ranya tried to lean forward. “Ami.”

“So, what, we go and find her? Knock on her door, so she can take one look at us and tell me to get the hell away from her?” Amiela’s voice broke in a rising tremor. “My aunt is almost definitely still trying to track her down; you think we should just go ahead and make it easier for her?!”

Ranya’s tail slid down low behind herself, disappearing beneath the water. “Ami, come on. She’s not going to-”

“You don’t know that.” Amiela stood up to point directly between Ranya’s eyes. “And I don’t know what could have ever given you such a ‘brilliant’ idea, but it means nothing to me now. Less than nothing. And even worse, you’re trying to create new terms under the duress of a binding spell, which means I’d be actively agreeing to this fucked up power imbalance to begin with-!”

Ranya rose up as well with a rumbling snarl. “I am not brainwashed.”

“And what would a brainwashed person say?” Amiela stepped forward to stare right back at her then, leaning as close she possibly could beside Ranya’s face; their sheer difference in height might have looked almost comical then, were she not so actively enraged. “What would a brainwashed person think? You’ve been locked away in servitude for so long that you don’t even remember what you really are!”

Ranya almost startled. She took a single halting step backwards. Her eyes, as bright as they ever were, still prickled and stung, welling with the slightest dribs of starlit liquid. She clenched her teeth hard and hissed through the pain blossoming deep throughout her tongue.

“My... My aunt might have fucked us both over, but she screwed you even harder.” The anger had bled away by then, fading apart from Amiela’s eyes and trembling words alike, replaced by only a fiercer swell of pity. “And it’s... A tragedy, because what you are, a demon, or a presence, a spirit, or whatever else we can possibly try to call you... It might be the most beautiful state of being I’ve ever seen.”

The slump of Ranya’s eyelids did widen ever so slightly at the sound of it, but the look on her face still was utterly lost.

“You... Your command over your own physical matter is something a human being, even a witch, can barely even dream of.” Amiela shook her head and turned away with a fleeting grimace. “And here you are, allowed only a fraction of your real potential. Stuck playing guard-dog with someone as insignificant as me.”

Amiela’s heart clenched harder when Ranya would not even look at her then, the way the light itself seemed to fade from her, the way those most inhuman, unfathomable limbs went listless, when those eyes each squeezed themselves firmly shut.

In the wake of the sudden outburst, Amiela retreated with great haste into the deeper, denser reeds. Her footfalls were less than a ripple of water. Ranya slowly sank to her knees and shook.

She would not cry, she assured herself. It really was not her fault. No, it was those humans who were all too horribly complicated and strange with their supposedly ‘noble’ reasons. It wasn’t her fault at all. The deeper, darker facets of their hearts were simply too treacherous for a creature like her to try and unravel.

Ranya bit down on her tongue until she could not bear it. She inhaled and forced herself to keep silent, to remain perfectly still, to not let even the slightest note of her voice rise out into the misty evening. She swore she would not even make a peep of those more anguished, breathily sorts of smothered noises, but she could only suppress so much.

Luminous fireflies swam out towards her, bobbing one by one to meet her sorrowful presence, to gently brush over her tears. Ranya laughed out a choked, stifled sound. She hugged her arms tighter around her chest.

Amiela hurried through the dense green rushes, swift and implacable, wading off into much deeper water. She shivered a sharper note, before her throat endured a cold, excruciating inhalation. Her lungs ached deep. She gripped her hands at her sides into uncontrollably shaking fists, before she lifted them both to numbly swipe at her eyes, chasing each stray droplet away.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Her feet moved further into the starlit waters, trembling wherever she walked. There was no more sunset light left aglow in the foggy evening air. Total darkness had fallen over the river valley. Only the fireflies and the faintest sheen of the moon and stars could illuminate her path.

Amiela finally stopped, drifting there in the water that pooled even deeper than her shoulders all around her. The river bottom stood thick and frigid with congealed rocky mud, biting hard against her bare skin.

A lone firefly tried to swirl out and land on her shoulder, but the little creature quivered and fled when all it received was an abrupt jolt of pain. Amiela watched it leave from the far corner of her gaze.

image [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]

The lush waterways glinted with faint pinpricks of stars. Olive watched how the last few rays of moonlight danced over the heavy mist rising from the marsh.

He’d already finished his laundry hours ago. After that, he’d swatted away so many clouds of whining mosquitoes that he finally remembered, through the sheer rush of annoyance, what his mother’s cousin once taught them: the way to crack open the stalk of a certain bullrush species to free the pungent oils within. Olive recalled the way it had looked back when his mother first helped him rub it over his arms and face, so clear and shiny until it dried.

It certainly still smelled a bit strange. And that was not even mentioning the time it took to even find the right variety of species, after so many years of not glimpsing more than a speck or two of living green. Olive still thanked his lucky stars that those plants had indeed been able to regrow themselves there, taking root from whichever seeds were carried by the rivers from the north.

Once he felt satisfied that the ravenous bugs were finally unable to detect his scent, Olive chose to spend some time catching a few darting fish from the river shallows, scooping them right into a small watertight cup he’d found in Amiela’s supplies.

She had so many interesting things there in her satchels. Olive tried his best not to peer too far into Amiela’s belongings, but curiosity overcame his underlying caution. He spotted a compact medical case, some twine, a few spare sets of fuzzy socks, more than a few boxes of granola, quite a lot of scrap cloth, as well as what looked like a small sewing repair kit.

His stomach had growled hard when his eyes first caught the words ‘peanut-butter chocolate chip oatmeal bars’ printed on a little cardboard box, but Olive stopped himself before the thought truly dawned on him. It would be stealing, he reasoned, even if the watery beef stew and canned peaches Amiela left out for him only kept his belly feeling somewhat full since late afternoon.

Even then, it took a far greater force of willpower than Olive ever knew he possessed just to drag his hand back from the nearest corner of that colorful box. It took just as much effort for him to edge his gaze away from those lovely words and all their sugared promises.

But nothing made Olive’s eyes go quite so wide as when he caught sight of a few finely-bound leather books, along with a small zippered camera bag. He even spotted a tiny flat device, chipped with wear, which had disc-shaped buttons affixed on one side. The odd little thing even had what looked like some sort of stethoscope apparatus sticking out from the far end of it, only the sleek wired contraption had no diaphragm at the end. Unless, Olive reasoned, the entire flat metallic square with so many faded floral stickers on the back was the part intended for listening to someone’s heartbeat?

He knew, deep down, all of those wonderful trinkets were far too valuable for him to even think about touching, at least while Amiela was gone. Maybe he could get permission from her later?

A stray thought drifted over his mind, unbidden.

“Right. Hold still-” His mother’s voice had laughed with such a warm tone when she’d watched Olive hurry all around beyond the lens she held, the way the boy clambered right up the old stone wall to try and see the deep pools of waterlilies just below. She sighed and tried to steady the camera focus to capture his full features. “Come on, now. I want to be able to mail these back to your aunt and uncle and have at least some of them not turn out blurry.”

“But it takes ‘video,’ you said!” Olive remembered grinning wide and waving his arms all around, gazing down in awe at the sight of the flowers and the lazily drifting koi. The colorful fish swam and wandered through each watery passageway of the verdant river gardens, but there were far more of them, not to mention frogs and blossoms and aquatic insects in that one spot than his eyes could possibly count. It had been the first time in several weeks, Olive had begun to realize, where he could almost start to forget the scent of smoke and pitch clinging to the coastal wheatfields. “Can’t we put the video inside the letter?”

Ziuna chuckled at that. “No, little love.” Her voice briefly became a wryer mutter. “Not unless I pay extra for shipping a cartridge... Hm.” She peered down at the camera itself, past the rounded glass disc that glinted in the wetland sun. “Olive.” Her voice did gain a stonier tone, but the edge of it remained as soft as always. “That might not be a god you’re sitting on, but it’s a statue of one. It deserves respect.” Ziuna lifted her camera again. “Would you sit politely and smile nice again for me?”

Olive did as she asked, easing himself to merely sit there on the old arched railing instead of perching over it like the otters he saw that morning. He could feel the weatherworn carvings of scales, curved fins and sleekly curled muscle, the etched layer of stone and velvety moss pressing his hands when he rested them there in the sun.

He sat beneath the boughs of flowering willows, above the water that rippled with countless fallen petals, where sleek carp swirled and swam all around beneath the arched bridge in the shape of an ancient beast, eager for any bread scraps or rice such a nice young boy might have brought along to offer them.

“There we go.” Ziuna smiled for him as well, holding the camera before her eyes to help steady the perfect angle. “Your auntie would love this. Do you remember how much she talked about them, all the old shrines here in the south?” Her mirth crinkled the warm lines of her features. “Your uncle would probably just want to catch a few of these ‘sacred’ fish for dinner, but...”

Olive smiled a little wider. But something had caught and held over the depths of his eyes faster than any fishing hook or barbed bit of twine, the stray little shards in his heart that his mind just could not seem to shake. “Will we have to leave here too?” Olive hated the way he made the smile vanish from her face like mist from the water. “Not the village, I mean. Um. I know we’re leaving next week, for the rest of your cousins.” He dipped his head slightly in shame. “I mean, uh. This country. Will we have to leave it too?”

Ziuna hesitated a long while. “Nagapore, little love.” Her voice blurred with the unseen silence, the fading sunlight, the sounds of crickets blurring in to chirp long throughout the endless night. “We’ll find them in Nagapore. With luck, we’ll never have to look for another home again.”

Teardrops barely even ghosted the soft green moss. Olive’s eyes felt nearly dry of them by then. Especially when his mother’s image was already dimming, swiftly lost to him in the swirls of imagination and passage of churning time.

Olive’s mind swam with the hazier details of her face. He tried to dismiss the wandering memory, banishing the mere idea that the sight of her might ever become something not so definitely concrete, drawn back instead to where he rested, facing the box of granola and camera bag waiting so patiently beside the device he could not possibly know was for storing records of intricate music, not hearing heartbeats, swollen with sorrow or otherwise.

His grip tightened over nothing. Olive tore his gaze away from the various lovely things inside Amiela’s satchels.

When the evening glow first dipped away into dusk, he decided to go swimming again before the sunset light fully disappeared.

Olive used that time to dig out as many mussels from the riverbed as he could manage, enough to make a decent meal for later. He ate a few of them on the shore to sate his hunger, thankful that the raw flavor wasn’t too bitter or acrid, as most freshwater shellfish usually tended to be. Olive still realized he really did prefer the taste of oysters, after all, so beautifully rich and salty from the ocean shallows, just as pearlescent as a sunlit sky.

They were even better when his mother cooked them in crushed tomato and white wine, with a few sprigs of fresh thyme and basil bobbing in the simmered juices. But some things were still gone to him, only left adrift inside his memory.

Olive discovered what looked like a miniature prybar tool from another of Amiela’s satchels. It made gathering the somewhat less tasty mollusks much easier work than otherwise. Once he’d collected them all up into a larger metal tin (again borrowed from Amiela’s supplies) there wasn’t much else he could really do, Olive figured, especially since the evening sun fully faded into darkness.

He hoped Amiela wouldn’t worry too much or scold him for borrowing so many of her things. He’d certainly tried his best to be careful while using each and every one of them, he swore. The sleek little minnows were still swimming around in nervous circles inside the water-filled cup.

His attention drifted back to the present, where his body was sprawled out over the grassy shoreline, wondering where in the world his companions could have ever gone. Those two were clearly not coming back from their bath in any timely fashion.

Maybe it was a girl thing, Olive supposed. He remembered how often the women of his home village would spend far longer than necessary cleaning themselves or using any manner of hygienic facility. But that particular notion did nothing to soothe the worry seeping in deeper and gnawing at his heartbeat.

Olive hoped they were both alright, wherever they were. He knew he would just have to make himself useful and guard over the supplies while he waited. Amiela would surely never leave those behind. There was no way, he reasoned, absolutely no chance at all, not even the slightest smidgen that she would ever choose to simply abandon her valuable things there by choice.

The back of his head ached. Olive tried to blink away the stubborn lingering dizziness. The blurred memory of hitting solid ground when she’d shocked him somehow began to feel far less potent than the sight of her there with such raw tears leaking down from her eyes, the way her pale skin looked so red and anguished.

His heartbeat ached a little faster. Olive’s arms fidgeted against the grass. He reassured himself, in the moonlit silence, that looking after Amiela’s belongings really was the most helpful thing he could possibly do in her absence.

An idle impulse led him to peer at the small satchel by his belt. Olive slowly reached for the clasp, to open up the worn leather pack and slowly grasp inside.

He could feel it beneath the soft pocket of hidden fabric. Metal and glass, rounded and clear. He knew he really shouldn’t be bringing it out, not even into the open calm of the river clearing, but there was nobody else around to see, right? No one who would possibly know how valuable it was?

Even then, Olive himself scarcely knew. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. Who could ever put a number to such a marvelous thing?

The sheet of crystalline glass, that wonderfully translucent surface spun by a masterwork’s hand; he could just start to see where the newer structure joined seamlessly beside the antique base of burnished art, forged with such perfect pleated waves of scaled bronze and intricately spiraling scrollwork.

The original design of the brass disc had once been a strictly circular thing, tarnished and well-aged. The smaller, much newer sheets of glass forged beside it were each lightweight and easily lifted. Olive stared deep into the inner circle of flat crystal, peering out through the bizarrely fish-eyed surface.

He watched how the starlit sky became distorted and hazy through the eye of the largest disc. Olive slowly moved the entire thing downward instead to peer at the tangled wetlands, but the image there was no less indecipherable. Even when he reached for the little hooked lever on the handle that drew forth the smaller lenses, clicking and sliding each of them down into place, over and over again, the image before his eyes only darkened and went dull.

“It’s not even a good looking glass.” Olive sighed and clutched the delicate little thing to his chest, regardless. “I just... Don’t get it.” What use, he wondered, was such a contraption, when it only ever made the world around him look twisted and warped?

Olive held one of his arms higher instead. He rested it over his mouth to muffle a second sigh. Why were Amiela and Ranya still gone for so long? Were those two really okay?

The positives, he tried to tell himself. Olive’s gaze wandered off to search for anything unusual. First off, he figured, it was a mostly silent night, other than the sounds of the wind and the water, or even the restlessly chirping insects and echoing warbles of various waterbirds. There weren’t any explosions or harsh roars of chaos in the enveloping darkness, no shocking blasts to harm his companions, sharpened cracks of artillery that still made his skin crawl like fire seeping fast over his flesh.

Olive hugged himself tight. He tried his hardest to help steady his breathing. He stashed the delicate little antique away with shaky hands and reached for the tiny whelk shell instead. The positives, just like his mother used to tell him. Like the golden moon on a cloudy night: her soft, steady glow would always be there, even if he could not always look out past the darkness and see it.

His rapid breaths gradually began to slow. In that very same sense, Olive considered in the swirling span of silence, at least he wasn’t left all alone with his worries for all too long. For oh, how he enjoyed the fireflies.

They drifted out, one by one, floating there to dance their slow, graceful waltzes. Their vaguely glowing bodies each swirled and pranced and drifted all around to swim between the tall reeds of the rivers.

Back and forth they spun. Their pale luminance cast flickering shadows, delicate outlines of light that rippled fast through the greenery, illuminating the hazy marshland wherever the sunlight faded into dark.

“You guys are so amazing.” Olive whispered his words up to them. He held the little seashell a bit closer to his heart. “Do you like it here? There’s so much water for you. And you can hide away in the reeds, too, so no one can just run in and catch you.”

Gradually, the odd little creatures began to respond to his voice. A few of them even floated closer. They moved through the damp shadows of misty plantlife, fluttering there as little wisps of light. Olive held his hands out for them. The fireflies drifted down to rest against his palms and perch beside the purple-blue shell.

“Hello.” The warmth of Olive’s smile became illuminated by their steady glow. “Thank you for keeping us safe.”

The fireflies swam across his hands, moving over his skin like oblong minnows. He realized they felt just like tiny fish as well, sleek and smooth, fluid against his touch. The bizarre feeling tickled his skin, nudging the delicate whelk shell all around his palm. It began to sound like tiny distant bells whenever the fireflies moved there for him, soft and slow and chiming.

“Did you lead us here? Fireflies are supposed to be able to find water. That’s what people say.” Olive’s gaze flicked down to look at the moonlit river. “But there’s no one else here, I think? At least, um, Ranya and Amiela don’t seem to think so. How did they even get us here, anyway? Those walls look like they go on forever. Did you help them?”

The fireflies just waited patiently, stirring all along his hands and fluttering soft pulses of light.

“I... I really wish you guys could come along with us.” Olive drew a more difficult breath. “With me and Amiela, I mean. Ranya too. They’ve been helping me. I wish they were here right now to see you too.” He peered towards the general area of marshy thicket where his companions had gone. “I hope they didn’t run into more soldiers. It’s really quiet now though, so I don’t think-” He felt the rest of his smile fade. “But, um... I wouldn’t keep you guys locked up inside a jar, though! I’d never do that. Only soldiers do that, right? I’m not a soldier! So don’t worry.”

The fireflies only nuzzled their way further across his hands. Even more of the tranquil little creatures began to drift down through each passing minute, surrounding the young boy with their light.

“You must be magic, aren’t you?” Olive stared at them all. “Just like my new friends. I mean, I think they’re my friends?” He felt his nose wrinkle slightly with befuddlement. “They’re really nice to me, even if they both act sort of grouchy about it sometimes.” He began to pet the little creatures with his fingertips, grateful they did not seem to mind. “Ranya said she’d bite my nose off, but then she rescued me. And Amiela kept saying I should run away from them both, but she’s not really scary either-” He blinked when one of the glowing creatures rose up and gently bumped a ‘snout’ over his cheek. “Oh, um. Right. Back home, people used to tell lots of stories about you guys, you know.”

The fireflies swam in languid circles beneath his touch, repeating their unending patterns over the soft surface of his skin.

“The old folks, they’d always say fireflies could grant wishes for people if they wished for good enough reasons-” Olive’s expression suddenly quailed. But the look caught in his eyes that time, the quiet light inside them, that breathless little fire of his own fleeting spirit, it all only brightened, becoming somehow increasingly, wildly desperate. “Could you do that?! Is... Is that possible?”

The fireflies remained silent against his hands.

“Then, I... I wish you could help her! She didn’t chase me away, or say mean things about me, or throw things, and they both took care of me, and it’s so dangerous out here, so if-!” Olive nearly sputtered and choked over his words. His lungs forced himself to breathe more evenly before he could even try and speak. “Please, if you can do it... Please, would you help Ranya protect Amiela and me? Could you-” Olive lowered his head in trembling shame. “Could you maybe help me, not be, so... Could you please help me do something for them too?”

The luminous little creatures still had no response for him.

Evening wind stirred further across the moonlit valley. Olive found himself gradually warming to the fact that he should just enjoy the lovely little fireflies and their attentions for as long as they would stay.

The colorful wisps played over his hands and fingertips, wandering back and forth. A few of the fireflies even swam through the air to dance close around his face for a while, twirling there before his eyes with their intricate swirling patterns.

There was a fleeting warmth over his shoulders. Olive lifted his gaze to try and see, but only the fireflies remained drifting in the air around him. The weak, most gentle chill of the wind stirred over his skin, across his arms and chest and aching heartbeat, on the curve of his cheek where the shadows of tall grass were pushed by the water, never-ending, as blue as the ocean deep. He sighed a softer, quieter note and slowly tore his gaze away.

The hours of dusk faded deeper. The fireflies each began to drift further away from him, retreating into the dark. Olive almost felt like an old friend was leaving, stepping down past the lanternlight from the sandy doorstep of his mother’s house, bidding them both farewell for the night.

He sighed yet again to himself. Olive slumped his way forward, crouched low over the ground.

But then, beneath the lingering, nearly sweltering air of silence, the most unusual of noises suddenly graced his ears.

In that small moment, despite his disbelief, Olive caught the faintest hint of an empty can rattling around somewhere in Amiela’s supply packs.

Every last nerve of his body jolted right back to attention. “Hello..?”

The half-open satchel simply laid there, mostly hidden under the shaggy overhang of the moss-covered log, right where Amiela had left it. Olive stared at the grassy ledge for a while, watching the wind brush over the grass beside the dip in the ground, the space where the edge of the riverbank eased closer by the shore.

Was he only hearing things? Olive turned forward further and crept his way over the soft green earth, inching closer across the mossy carpet of the slope. He lowered himself to a stiff crouch beside the lip of the old fallen tree trunk. With wavering fingertips, he reached out to slowly unzip the supply bag within.

And there, just inside, after a brief moment or two of complete and total stillness, one of the empty cans abruptly shook.

Olive lurched back, reeling as if another hissing viper had just leapt right out and lashed at him. Could it really be such a dangerous creature? Had something entirely wicked and nasty crawled its way deep inside there, perhaps to try and scavenge the faint scent of food?

His heartbeat ran wild in his chest, painful and swift. Olive knew, despite his wiser edge of instincts, that he simply could not just sit idly by and let some potentially venomous animal run around in there rampant. What if it left dangerous residue behind all over Amiela’s supply of food cans?

Olive realized in that very moment: he had to be brave. With a tremble of wrestled hesitance, he blindly grasped out into the space behind himself, reaching for the moonlit darkness. When his fingertips brushed over a branch, Olive tightened his hold over it and somewhat gracelessly swung it forward like a blade.

“Whatever you are, you... You can’t be in there!” He tried to raise his words even a little bit louder than a shaky, wavering whisper. “You can’t take Amiela’s things!”

Olive finally mustered a surge of jolting courage. With only a brief yelp of effort, he struck the stick down against the empty fruit can, bopping it right out of the bag.

It rolled all around and bounced off high over the slope with a rattle of tin and smushed grasses, knocked away along the moss-coated ground, bonking forward with a clatter or two against the smooth river rocks, until it finally skittered into a rolling, gradual halt, resting just over the pebbled shore. But then, Olive wondered, why was such an ‘empty’ can all aglow from the inside?

He dropped his stick to the ground and stared, struck by the very sight.

The gathering of miniature, wiggling firebugs, the tiny creatures that ‘lurked’ deep within the depths of the pineapple can, they all seemed rather unphased by his actions. They each just kept licking away over the scant remains of sticky fruit juice, as if entranced by the nutritious liquid that dripped along the rungs of the inner cylinder. The miniature creatures crowded up beside each other and wagged their soft little tails while they drank, squirming all around to nudge at one another like luminous little tadpoles.

“Wait, you guys are just... Babies?” Olive hurried right over with a muffled gasp to crouch down low before the fallen can, pressing his ear against the rocky grass to try and see them there inside. “Oh..!” He carefully picked up the metal tin with his hands, leaning back to sit and hold it up before himself. The little animals all trilled at him, even while they kept lapping away at the gooey, sticky fruit juice. “Oh, gods, you’re so tiny! Where... Where in the world are your parents?!”

Off in the distance, the fireflies Olive met earlier ignored his words in order to continue their graceful dances, floating serenely above the sleek riverways.

“Well, um.” Olive settled himself on the shore. “Hmm. I don’t think it’s really any trouble if you eat this stuff. It’s not like we were going to try and get it out of there, anyway.”

Olive lifted the pineapple can closer before his eyes. He watched the way the tiny bugs drew in the nutritious liquid, drinking up the pale residue of fruit juice to gradually become plumper and more rounded in the ‘belly.’ The eager little creatures were absorbing it somehow, even though the glowing lumps of brightness did not seem to have any distinguishable manner of tongues, or even mouths with which to drink from.

“Oh, wait!” Olive’s expression brightened more when he remembered a certain little detail from that morning. “I know what else you can have!”

He hurried back to the supply cache again, carrying along the can full of bugs right with him. Olive knelt himself down on the ground and reached into the backpack for the other fruit tin.

The firebugs all moved to gather on the edge of the pineapple can. When Olive finally held the empty pear container over towards them as well, one of the tiny bugs bunched itself up tight and trembled in anticipation. It then hopped right across the gap with a soft plunk of sound.

“Wait, hold on...” Olive watched how the bravest of the little bugs rolled itself right into the can to knock against the far side and get at the watery pear juice. “You guys can’t fly yet?” He laughed aloud when yet another of the tiny creatures jumped right over, and then another.

Plunk, plunk, plunk. They all sounded like wet little tree frogs hopping along over the ground. Soon enough, the creatures were each pattering around together inside the second can, eager to drink up the pear juice as well.

Olive smiled at them there. “You really are just babies.”

A deeper swell of affection filled his heart to the brim and squeezed it. The tiny bugs reminded Olive of the curly-shelled vagabond crabs he often used to pick up from the beach of his hometown. He would then keep the little animals as pets for the rest of the day, or at least the duration of a single fishing trip.

His small companions would always slowly scuttle around and wander over the bottom of the rowboat while he worked. And then later on, in the evening, Olive would place them back down on the sandy shore where he’d found them in the first place, left behind with a fresh minnow or two as a gift for keeping him company.

Olive stared down at his newest group of similar friends. “I’ll have to ask Amiela, when she gets back, if I can give you guys some real fruit too.” He looked back once more at the dense tangle of reeds. “But I don’t know, she might not be okay with that... Um. I’m sure we’ll find some good food for you someplace different.”

He reached back into his shirt pocket for the little whelk shell. He held it up before his eyes, tracing his fingertips over the vibrant mineral band.

It was a long-vacated shell, with no sea snail left inside. But Olive realized he really did not want to try and feed such a pretty thing to the bugs. It already felt much too precious somehow. Maybe the hungry creatures would appreciate something less empty instead, like a freshwater mussel or two.

Olive clutched the glowing fruit can closer to his chest as he hurried right back to his feet, scampering off in search of more things to try and feed the firebugs.

Beneath the gentle glow of the evening moon, under the glittering, patient light of so many indifferent starry galaxies, Olive could almost start to pretend he’d forgotten the faraway bursts of artillery and wildfire, the sensations that threatened to swell up and choke his deeper memories.

Those mysterious firebugs, Olive decided; he would turn his mind towards them and them alone, towards whatever possible care he could give such delicate, tiny creatures.

Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Line_Breaker.png]

Beyond the flowing rivers, over the slumbering span of the foggy marsh, past the winding canyons and rocky bluffs that reached far beneath the starlight, plumes of heat rose from the ashes of the once-sprawling prairie.

Smoke drifted eastward in vast fuming billows, noxious and thick. The charred remains of grasses smoldered until even the last of the dull embers faded. The ashes crumpled away into the night.

But there, despite it all, the derelict makings of a fresh encampment stood in sheer defiance before the dark. Dull gray tents and makeshift metal barricades rose high against the desolation, spewing out even more smoke from a dozen fiery braziers.

From atop the saddle of her armored destrier, the foremost knight pulled her mount to a pause. Beneath the faceplate of her helmet, she sighed. The whisper of sound only rang inside her own ears, a long and weary exhalation from the mere sight of such a ramshackle settlement.

Only scarce minutes earlier, she’d ordered her riders to approach at a slow, deliberate trot, and for good reason: she could already begin to see how their presence had not gone unnoticed. Even just a glimpse of her armored company sparked hurried whispers and nervous little glances all across the wayward encampment.

Better to not spook those haggard-looking soldiers, she reasoned, lest they begin to think yet another invading force approached.

High Justiciar Ardelaine, atop her pacing warhorse, fought back a deeper sound of distaste. She could glimpse just beyond the outskirts, how those ragged warriors were mostly rough-looking men, and likely not the most agreeable types, either.

As if right on cue, he came barking out at them. “You get the hell back from there, right this fucking second, all of you!” From within the gathered crowd of soldiers, a stocky general with a seeping bandage over his chest marched right up to the strange riders, pushing past his own men. He snarled and shouted, practically frothing at the mouth. “This is a private encampment under international code jurisdiction-!”

But an oddly accented voice interrupted. Her voice rang high above the din of orders, one of the riders who had already cantered up beside Ardelaine.

“My good sir!” Her words were lilting and high, almost sweet to the ears. “We are here under the authority of Her Majesty, the Esteemed Queen of Althea, on a sworn mission of utmost importance...” Beneath her soft hooded cloak and gray leather armor, the woman who spoke went by the title of Sister Josephine. “I am sure we could come to some sort of amicable agreement-” She pushed the sleek hood aside to reveal her graceful features, the brightness of her face, the openness of her keen blue eyes. “If only we spare a moment to hear each other’s story.”

It was not her birth name, ‘Josephine.’ Ardelaine knew that much about her. She also knew the strange woman was not native to the land their queen hailed from, instead a convert from some far-flung missionary expedition somewhere, perhaps a dozen or so years ago. But from which campaign in particular, Ardelaine was not certain. She did not even know whichever country Josephine supposedly hailed from. She did not care enough to ask.

Ardelaine only exhaled herself again. She gave the grizzled features of the fuming old general a quick glance, before she decided to just let Josephine handle it. Her direct subordinate, Josephine did possess the authority to speak of their business to outsiders. And as oddly verbose as that wiry little woman could be, Ardelaine knew better than to question her ways of diplomacy.

Instead, Ardelaine chose to peer down once more over the ragged remains of the private military force. Her eyes scanned the rather sorry lot of broken soldiers and even worse-off scattered weaponry. She turned her eyes skyward, where she fought a similar urge to shake her head. She would have sooner staked herself through the heart than let her own ranks fall into such disarray.

The general scoffed up at them all, the numerous riders and mere sight of their heavily armored warhorses. “Witch hunters? In a piece of shit hellscape?” He stared at the assembled knights for another moment of sheer and burgeoning disbelief, before he barked a rather humorless laugh. “Don’t waste my time! Now, you, all of you, get the hell out of my-!”

“Oh but we are certainly not in the interest of wasting time, sir!” Josephine leaned forward over the neck of her own horse, grinning down at the man with just a little too much fervor. Beneath the silken blue fabric around her throat, she lifted forth a glittering silver badge. The metals jingled like a set of tiny carriage bells in the acrid air. “Under the International Treaty of Demonic and Heretical Suppression, by this mark, the Hand of our Queen, the Divine Arcaielian Order is hereby allowed access to any-”

The general only snarled at her and leaned forth to snatch the silvery little medal from her grasp. Then he looked down and frowned at it. His expression deepened further, creasing into a resigned, exhausted sort of scowl. “Fucking Arcaielians... Gods, fine. Just make it quick; we don’t have the time, means, or the patience for entertaining bounty hunters.”

Only a few horse-lengths away, several of the veteran riders whispered low curses at the man, hissing more audible murmurs towards his brazen act of blasphemy. Their younger peers merely glanced all around and kept as silent as the grassy cinders.

“No problem at all, sir.” Josephine flashed the man a brighter smile. “We won’t be here long, I suspect...” She accepted her ornate badge back from him with only a quiet chuckle. “It seems you might have run into a bit of trouble out here in the wastes?”

The general turned away from her. He gazed out over his own weary men, across the full span of the salvaged encampment. “Either state your business or leave us to tend to our wounded.”

“Of course.” Josephine dismounted from her nimble gray steed in one swift motion. She passed off the reins of her mount to a younger rider and moved to fall in step with her newfound guide. “How terrible that war still rages here, even now...”

Ardelaine dismounted with only a grunt. She handed off her massive warhorse as well. She signaled for a few of her younger warriors to accompany them, leaving the vast majority of her forces to remain standing watch over the entrance of the derelict camp.

The commander led the way onward, treading past the open gatherings of weary, tattered soldiers. The ashen combatants who bore less serious wounds were mostly sprawled over the charred dirt, while some of them huddled closer together for warmth around the roiling braziers.

A few of them with more faraway gazes even leaned in solitude against the burnt-out husks of steel supply crates. Their bodies rested without any care for companionship or material comfort, as if they laid sleeping there with their eyes still fully open.

Beyond the bonfires waited the medical tents. Weary-faced healers bustled all throughout the enclosed area, hurrying back and forth between the fabric corridors. They carried stretchers and subdued hysterical patients with quickly timed jabs of sedative dosages and carefully applied instants of brute strength. A smaller assembly of medics hunched over makeshift hospital beds inside the tents. They tended to the soldiers with limbs bandaged in bloody stumps, spreading healing salves over mangled skin and muscle scorched to tatters.

It was the smell of it, Ardelaine thought, but it was not even the inescapable scent of charred human flesh that made her stomach turn. No. It was the pungent medicinal bitterness that rolled forward through the air like a silent wave of oblivion.

Even the face of her helmet did nothing to stop that particular scent, nor did it dampen the sour stench of antiseptic that burned and curled inside her nostrils, a foulness worse than fumes of sparkpowder.

Without warning, the commander made an abrupt turn to face his most unusual entourage. “War will always exist where there is a demand for it.” His attention shifted to regard Josephine in particular. “There are very few constants in life, Inquisitor, but this I can assure you...” He slowly pressed his fist against his bandaged wound. “Now. What in the world can we possibly do to assist you and your order?”

Ardelaine cleared her throat with a low grunt instead. “You have a man, there.” She inclined her head, visored helm and all, so the general could turn his eyes sidelong as well. “That one.” Her gaze slid forward like a watchful hawk. “It doesn’t look as if he was attacked by conventional weaponry.”

“Nothing about this is conventional.” The commander leaned away and spat at the dusty earth. “But him? No. He ran into a wild animal in the confusion. Coincidental injury.”

“No!” From deeper within the candlelit tent, the man in question twisted forward to writhe against the medical stretcher. His hands and wrists were bound tight against the corners of the mat with strips of thick cloth, just enough to keep him from fleeing off into the darkness or reopening his wounds. “Gods, no, no...”

The general slowly paced forward to loom there above him. “He was severely dehydrated when he was recovered. Delusional. We found him wandering the fields, half-bled and frenzied. It’s a miracle the fire didn’t take him after the beast did-” He blinked, then grimaced, before he almost seemed to reconsider his words. “No. That would have been a mercy.”

Josephine strolled over with an entirely casual gait to stand close beside the general. “Oh, truly?”

“No. No..! It was a demon!” The mangled man trembled and hissed and rambled across his own words. His breath rattled hard through his teeth as he lunged forward against the bindings. “A demon! And the one in the mask, that one, she commanded it, but, gods... It was too late-!”

When the man whispered and howled and thrashed forward over the stretcher, vials of delicate glass toppled away from his rapid flailing, knocked aside from the nearest tray of medical supplies. A healer lurched to reach out in vain and cursed aloud when the bottles broke apart with a splash of liquid against the floor of the tent. The air grew thick and nauseatingly saccharine, even more pungent with the scent of antiseptic and cloying sedatives.

Ardelaine rolled her eyes and firmed her posture.

“Oh?” Josephine paced forward, slipping past the sudden flurry of medics, where she knelt down close beside the panicking soldier. She grasped for one of his bound-up hands to take it into her own gentle hold, even when one of the healers deftly injected the man with a fresh sedative plunger. “A mask, you said?”

“I... I couldn’t see.” His eyes darted back and forth, but his gaze grew as slow and mumbled as his rambling when the medicine churned faster through his veins. “I couldn’t. I didn’t see, her... Her face, not at first, beneath the glass, it was so dark, but then, her eyes-” He wept and gripped Josephine’s hand achingly tight. His body began to gradually fall slack from the numbing dosage. “Gods, something was wrong! They were too bright..!”

Atop a nearby stretcher, a younger soldier with a severely burnt ankle spoke up as well. “I did see something weird out there.” The young woman ignored the weary look the general gave her. “But... Look, I... I thought it was just part of whatever other weird shit they were attacking us with! I don’t know.”

Josephine peered over to address the young woman as well. “What sort of ‘weird’ do you mean?”

“Like, a-” The soldier paused and glanced around, preemptively expecting ridicule. “Look, I barely even believe it myself, what I saw. I mean, it... It looked like a freaky huge animal carrying away a body from all that carnage. I almost thought it had to have been a... A werebeast at first, but those are only folk stories. Old pagan shit to scare kids into doing their chores and staying away from wild animals, that kind of thing.” She coughed over a breathy little laugh and held up her hands to mime her own sense of disbelieving. “I know, right? But, uh, I mean, it really didn’t seem interested in us at all. It was just running off and carrying what looked like a corpse? At least, um, I mean... Well. It wasn’t easy to see, with the fire and everything. I hope they were already a corpse.”

Ardelaine and Josephine shared a brief yet lingering glance.

“My, my. How interesting.” Josephine clasped her hands together and stood right back to her feet. “By any measure, do you know if anyone else here might have seen this strange woman in the environmental hazard suit and helmet? Or the beast?”

A few of the men having their burns tended to began muttering about ‘enormous’ birds large enough to carry oxen away, but the soldier with the injured ankle only gave Josephine an odd look. “Wait, he never said she was in all that stuff? Just a mask.”

Ardelaine strode forward instead to stand at full attention, crossing her arms to rest them against her enameled breastplate. She lifted the booming tone of her voice high into the air, loud and full enough to address every ear between the soldiers and medical workers in the nearby tents.

“We have reason to believe that this individual is extremely dangerous; a severe threat to the public at large!” Ardelaine did not even have to pause for each gaze in the room to land upon herself. “Any truthful information we receive that leads to the apprehension of said individual will be rewarded by both the Crown Regent of Althea and the Divine Orders of Arcaiel!”

Josephine let her gaze slide around. She smiled at every face inside the room, listening with keen ears to the sudden flurry of rushing murmurs. “I’ve even caught word that our glorious Queen is considering granting full work permits to the most helpful of volunteer informants...”

“Alright. Alright! Enough!” The general did not even glower at his gossiping soldiers and medical staff. He simply cleared his throat with an exaggerated shake of his head and began to usher the two of them out instead. “I do believe we’ve given you an abundance of our time and answers already, have we not?” He gestured towards the entrance of the tent. “I can’t... ‘Inhibit’ your mission, but I have to implore you to leave the triage area.”

“But of course, my dear man.” Josephine bowed her head towards him, curtsying as well, though she wore no skirt, only polished traveling leathers and her sleek blue cloak. All while she did so, however, she gently played her fingertips over the gleaming hilt of her rapier. “We will regroup and rest outside your lovely establishment tonight, but we may linger in the area for a while, just in case any other upstanding individuals might have even more of such helpful information for us... Perhaps we may even barter for supplies?”

That honeyed voice could become absolutely insufferable sometimes. Ardelaine kept herself as silent as the mounds of unburied dead while she marched herself right out from the medical tent.

“Sister?” One of the much younger knights of her own company moved to follow close behind Ardelaine’s heels. She carried a crested shield and helmet bearing her family emblem: a red-beaked gryphon intertwined with a pale, slender serpent. “Should... Should we not make haste, given how recently they were witnessed?”

Ardelaine scoffed at the girl under her breath. She wished she could have spit her words at the ground like the general had done, but she did not care to remove her helmet. “The bitch is on foot.”

“And, the...” The young rider shuddered a quiet sound and almost shied over her next few words. “Blasphemy, that accompanies her?”

A fierce wind whipped along through the remains of the burnt prairie. Ardelaine paused to stare at it, watching how that howling gale barely even ruffled the forms of all of her followers, the mounted assembly waiting there by her own command, and hers alone. Only Josephine remained somewhere back inside the tattered camp, likely still putting that silver tongue of hers to good use.

“Demons do not trouble me.” Ardelaine gripped the burnished hilt of her sword. She began to smirk at the dying cinders, gradually yet humorless, baring her teeth with far less brevity beneath the narrow slits of her helmet. “We’ll make our haste in due time.”

Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Line_Breaker.png]

The wind carried the scent of ashes high above the canyon walls.

Moonlight played over the rocky slopes, past the marshland hills and weakly sparkling fog, over the dense mists that rose higher to fade off over the river waters. Glimmering fish darted back and forth in the deeper pools, beneath the shadows of canyon peaks.

In the passing hours, it became clear enough to Olive that the baby firebugs enjoyed more than just the syrupy taste of fruit juice. But he did feel surprised to learn that the creatures were fully content to nibble on the gristly scraps of a few rabbit bones as well.

Olive hoped Amiela wouldn’t mind it. He remembered her murmuring something about ‘maybe the damn things not being too brittle to boil some bone broth from’ later on, but Olive did not think she would be eager to drink it herself, given her reluctance to even look at the meat she’d butchered for his benefit.

But when he’d tried feeding the little bugs a wiggly minnow instead, all of the creatures just quivered and shied away from it.

“Oh?” Olive reached back to drop the tiny fish into the cup of water. “Okay, um... Maybe not minnows.”

Olive recalled the way one of the canniest old fishmongers always used to draw the harbor cats close with such a rare treat. The elderly woman had the purring creatures practically eating out of her hands by doing so, while anyone else would only ever receive a smacking paw or the sharp sting of claws for trying to so much as touch the wary felines.

Olive frowned a little to himself. Maybe it was too cruel, he reasoned. Cats were innocent creatures despite their callous natures, their eager willingness to sink down their teeth and eat a living creature rather than the meat that had been sitting there for hours to dry beneath the coastal sun.

He peered back to observe how the tiny bugs all returned to ‘gnawing’ at the chewy gristle from the rabbit carcass for a while, before they each grew bored of it and moved to hop up and snuggle together on his hands.

Maybe the baby bugs were just reluctant to eat living things. It would make sense, Olive supposed, if they were detritophages instead: animals with the same dietary preference as many species of insects, fish, or the even far more elusive creatures of the terrestrial world like worms and isopods.

But Olive still wondered, what even were those little creatures, anyway? When he tried to squint and look closer, he could not make out any distinct features on their luminous little bodies at all. They merely looked like living droplets of soft, gelatinous light with thin wispy tails, no bigger than a handful of gumdrop candies, as if they were all just a bunch of wiggling river sprites.

“Well. You’re definitely not made from fire, like your name.” Olive lifted his hands to see them all a bit clearer. “And you’re not even ‘bugs,’ really, like the way real flies are.”

The sleek little animals felt cool and smooth against his skin. It seemed like each and every one of them had sated themselves with drinking and eating for the night, content to gather there and snooze over his palms instead without so much as a peep.

Olive watched the way their inner luminance dimmed as they each gradually drifted deeper into slumber, flickering inside like a trembling candle flame, their heartbeat pulse stirring a faint plume of light throughout their tiny, liquid bodies.

“I mean, if anything, we should really call you guys ‘waterflies.” Olive smiled when a few of the bugs chirred sleepily at him and cuddled closer over the warmth of his skin. “But you do always glow, just like a lantern does.”

Olive yawned to himself. He slowly leaned back to rest against the trunk of a dead tree. When he gently set his hands down on his lap, the firebugs all drowsily tumbled forward together, but they just as soon moved to hop up and wiggle and climb their way atop his shoulders instead, settling back down to sleep.

“Um, I... I’m supposed to be guarding the supplies. I mean, I told myself I would.” Olive struggled to even keep his eyes open. The soft peeping sounds of his newest little companions did not help much at all either. “They’ll be back soon, right..? They have to.”

But sleep took hold of him before Olive even realized it. The deep green bulrushes drifted back and forth in the cool river breeze, swaying in the mist rising from the waterfalls. A lone figure padded forward through the wetland grass.

Ranya’s tail dragged limp behind her clawed feet. Her body, no matter how regal, felt like it all just kept slumping away from herself, sagging with each step she took. She did not really feel like being in a human shape any longer. But somehow, it felt like changing her physical form would take far too much effort to even muster.

When she trudged further back towards the makeshift little campsite, Ranya almost did not notice the odd, watery glow surrounding Olive’s shoulders.

“Mm? What have you gotten into..?” Ranya paused and leaned in closer to peer at the luminous firebugs. “Oh. Looking after him for us, are you?”

Olive stirred where he laid at the sound of Ranya’s voice, but he did not wake. Ranya stepped away and claimed a spot in the tall grass instead. Even then, where the clear midnight air swirled and the stars shone bright from so far above, her human body felt like it just could not freely breathe.

Her heart ached and strained, twisting and writhing and clawing its way down between the swell of her lungs. She covered her eyes tight with her hands and tried not to seethe in utter frustration. That damnable, beautiful little human; she always knew the exact inflection, the honed sharpness of tone to make her words feel like the point of a dagger sinking deep within Ranya’s chest.

If there really was, truly, no way of convincing Amiela otherwise, then what possible manner of sense could Ranya use to help that girl see what her heart actually wanted?

Ranya laid flat on her back, sprawled without any semblance of grace or dignity between the tall leafy reeds, searching for any stray hint of answers across the moonlit night. But the stars gave her no responses, not even the ones that scattered themselves far away into lengthy trails, pathways of glittering dust beneath the cosmos. Neither did the sound of the wind over the water, or the distant calls of owls far above.

The demon found herself peering at those tiny firebugs instead, the way such wild creatures each rested peacefully atop the shoulders of that sleeping little boy.

Humanity always was such a horrible, wonderful, endearing, disgustingly stubborn species. Ranya outright ignored the contradiction echoing in her own mind. But in that very same strand of reasoning, how did humans usually become friends with one another?

Ranya wracked her thoughts, grasping for each past experience she had once witnessed secondhand. She remembered the times she’d watched Amiela interact with those in her various peer groups, as infrequent as that sort of occurrence actually was.

Usually it came down to that very first meeting: the attitudes involved, whether or not a person seemed to rub someone else the wrong way or not. But surely that was not a problem with the two of them, Ranya reasoned. Otherwise all their years spent together would have become unbearable to the point of madness.

Ranya weathered a sigh. The warmth of her breath created a deep puff of fog in the crisp midnight air.

After the initial chemistry, it all became so much more difficult. A human being needed to figure out if they could trust the other party involved. They had to know whether or not it was safe to confide in their fellow human, or to turn away and back off from each other stiffly instead.

That was the stumbling block, then. Ranya knew Amiela definitely did not believe in her inherent safety, demonic as it was. And not for altogether bad reasons, either, but Ranya glossed over that particular fact entirely.

She let her gaze drift back towards Olive again. Maybe. Just maybe, something, or someone like that young little boy could be the answer she really needed.

There simply was no rule within the binding pact that said she even had to be nice to him, much less civil, like she’d been trying so hard to be. Ranya even had the ability to kill him or any other human in range of her claws and teeth, for that matter, unless Amiela commanded her otherwise. But even the smallest thought of that turned Ranya’s stomach and made her entire body feel wretchedly sour. She tried her best not to gag, groaning and rolling over to rest on her side instead.

Ranya suddenly dry heaved, struggling to keep the prickling slither of her gorge down, but her innards rebelled and made her spit up a mouthful of acridly bright starlight. She cursed herself for even thinking it, watching the glistening golden slick of a mess hiss and burn a deep, searing hole right down through the leafy grass she’d spilled her guts on. Her tail lashed back and forth through the reeds as she growled to herself in protest.

No. The boy was much too sweet and innocent. Ranya rolled over with an awkward flop on her belly and tried not to cough up any more glittering bile.

She knew, deep down, while she tried to settle and still her squirming innards, that the charming little boy certainly did seem clever for his age, whatever that truly was. Olive was quite funny in his own way as well. Ranya had already gotten more than her fair share of amusement from teasing and talking with him over those past few days of travel.

Damn it all, it really was the fact she already felt far too fond of him, Ranya’s mind snagged over and snarled with a resigned sense of abruptness. Even if the scrawny little thing ever did become a threat later on towards her or Amiela, she knew she’d much rather lift up the poor boy and drop him off somewhere nicer, leave him safely behind rather than hurt a single hair on his sweet little head.

Even deeper in that line of reasoning, Amiela had only ever told Ranya vague things like: ‘go get him out of danger,’ or mentally chided: ‘don’t scare him; those claws are fucking terrifying, make them shorter or something, I swear-’ So maybe, Ranya wondered, thinking deeper beneath the starlit night; if she redoubled her efforts in looking after him, if such actions might just help turn the tide.

Thoughts tucked away in mind, Ranya blinked up at the sight of the pale crescent moon, at the smallest fleck of fiery ethereal color she could just start to see beyond the glowing outline.

Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]

Deeper inside the misty wetlands, the fireflies each retreated to their own slumbering places. They hid themselves away in the sheltered crevices of the natural world, the deep nooks and crannies of river rocks or fallen logs among the dense green reeds.

Some of them even rested higher along the canyon walls, wherever they might find a cozy little spot to burrow into and sleep. Their soft, silky bodies still glowed against the midnight darkness, but the loss of their presence was felt around the valley without question.

The moon rose high and traveled further across the midnight sky. The long, steady curve slowly sank beyond the canyon walls, leaving the riverland in almost total darkness. Only the stars above twinkled with faint light. Even they were soon stifled by the thick prairie smoke rising along the steady wind.

Amiela padded barefoot through the undergrowth, traveling back towards the silent shoreline with only a clean set of clothes in her grip. She held the fabric in a damp bundle beneath her arm, pressed snug against her freshly washed suit. She’d tied the laces of her boots together in order to sling them over her shoulders as well, carrying them along with her socks, each scrubbed clean.

To preserve some sense of modesty, Amiela did wear the spare set of clothes she’d brought along with her to the river. The softness of the threadbare old shirt and worn knit shorts still felt all too flimsy compared to her thicker gear.

The sleek outline of Ranya’s figure did not move much at all when the sound of bare footsteps approached, barely making more than a sound over the dewy grass and moss. Amiela wondered if it was better or worse that the demon would not even regard her.

But Olive did wake. He blinked several times against the inky darkness, sitting upright in a quiet daze, baffled as to why his eyes could not see the moonlight any longer. The tiny firebugs had already hidden themselves back into the pineapple can, where only the dimmest glimmer of light was visible.

But out there, just off in the center of the clearing, he could suddenly see eyes inside the dark. Olive’s body tensed up all at once. He gripped his hands tight over the mossy earth. He wondered, by some fleeting stretch of imagination, if he could have possibly still been dreaming.

Olive forced out a slow, uneven breath. His voice still shook inside his throat. “Hello..?”

Those eyes appeared there as steady rings, a faint source of brightness beneath the shadows. Her irises did not cast any light over her face, but they were each clearly luminous all the same. “Hey. Sorry for getting back late.”

“Amiela?!” Olive stared out in blind, total shock into the pitch black clearing, blinking rapidly. “That’s... That’s really you..? Am I awake?”

Amiela moved to gingerly crouch a few paces away, sitting against a soft patch of flowering lichen. “You should go back to sleep.”

Olive blinked several times more. “Your eyes are glowing?!”

“They always glow.” Amiela shrugged for him, but Olive could not really see it other than the slightest movement of those luminous eyes. She reached over to lay out her wet clothes across the ground and help them air out in the chilly breeze. “Usually there’s enough sun or moonlight to help hide most of it. It’s only when it’s dark out like this that you can really start to tell.”

Forcing himself to sit more calmly, Olive wondered if that was the reason why her eyes often looked so unusual, the oddly elusive quality that always made it so difficult for him to see the finer details about their nature.

Olive could finally make out the true color of them in that small moment: Amiela’s eyes were light brown, just like the faint golden halo over the moon on certain nights. Or maybe, his mind wondered, conjuring up images of lantern-lit festival evenings, more like rings of pale liquid honey suspended inside the dark.

Olive blinked his own eyes a few more times. He tried not to stare that way at Amiela too much. “So... You can see in the dark like that?” But seeing only her glowing irises move around in the shadows felt oddly captivating somehow, enough to draw that familiar air of fascination back to the forefront of his mind. “Oh! Is that another witch thing?”

“No. Well. Only for the unlucky ones.” Amiela paused a brief while. Her hands came alight only for the briefest instant when she reached over to spark a whirl of fire over her clothes, helping the moisture dry faster with a small gust of summoned heat. “And it’s different, seeing in the dark. That takes extra effort. Like, um. A... ‘Magic spell.’” Amiela sighed at how stilted the phrase actually sounded. She moved to lay herself down over the mossy grass. “We should-”

Olive grinned at her. “Can you cast a lot of spells?”

“No.” Amiela grimaced in the midnight shadows. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s not even a good example, calling it a ‘spell.’ That’s not how magic works.”

Olive rested his chin in his hands. “You said you could curse people into toads.”

“Frogs.” Amiela breathed deeper and pinched her fingertips over the bridge of her nose. “And no. I never said I could actually do it.”

Olive’s gaze flicked away, even though he could not see anything else in the dark. His smile twitched, but it did not waver. “I kind of didn’t think that one was actually possible.”

“Then you’re smarter for it.” Amiela almost thought to point her hand towards him to emphasize, before she remembered it would be useless. “It’s ‘possible,’ in theory. A lot less in practice.” She forced herself not to grumble. “I told you. People will lie about anything. You saw me make fire and light with my hands, even air when Ranya wasn’t listening-” She grimaced when she peered over at that most conspicuous outline of starlit shadows laying quietly in the reeds, no more than a few paces away. “Believe what your eyes see. Not what people tell you.”

Olive nodded. “Um... Can you make magic potions, or flying brooms, or-!”

“No.” Amiela sighed louder and rolled herself over on the mossy ground. “Go back to sleep. We’re going to have to cross the rest of the valley in the morning, with our schedule all messed up like this.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Olive nodded to himself. “Uh, so I caught some of those mussels from the river while you guys were away.” He tried his best not to babble as much in sheer relief at the fact of her presence sinking into his mind, the fact that Amiela had really, truly returned. “We could have those for breakfast, I bet they’d be really good.” He yawned a quieter sound when he felt his body finally begin to settle. “Oh, I borrowed that chisel-looking thing from your bag so I could pry them out of the rocks. And, um, that little cup to hold the mussels. Also, uh, the other cup thing, to hold some minnows I caught. Um.” Olive coughed a little bit when the silence became too pointed. “Sorry for not asking first...”

Amiela gave him a lengthy sidelong glower. “You’re lucky you’re a good kid.” She went quiet for a moment and looked away, gazing up towards the last few traces of stars left in the cloud-streaked sky. “I’d have a few choice words for anyone else who touched my stuff.” Amiela did not mention the fact that she’d have a rather choice end of her switchblade as well.

Olive muffled a weak little laugh under his breath. “Um, sorry. Yeah. I meant to ask before you guys left, but it all happened so fast... I’m sorry.”

Amiela kept quiet for a while longer. “Just make sure to be careful with my things, please. It isn’t going to be easy to find replacements out here if anything gets lost or broken.” Amiela let her eyes drift shut. It made her almost entirely invisible in the dark. Only a soft, dim glow remained where her eyelids hid her eyes away. “You shouldn’t go swimming like that when you’re alone either. Especially if you might have a concussion. It isn’t safe.”

Olive nodded his cheek against the velvety moss. “Sorry.” He stared deep into that strange, half-hidden source of light remaining the moonless dark. “My head doesn’t hurt so bad anymore, though.”

Amiela laid there for a time. Her breath eased quietly, with softer little mumbled sounds. When it almost seemed as if she’d fallen asleep, lulled away by the hushed shadows of night, she finally exhaled a clear sound and spoke. “Well. We really should make use of the sunlight tomorrow and get some fishing done. That way, if the weather is still clear enough, we can dry any surplus meat in the sun. Then we’ll have a better supply on hand going forward.”

“Oh! That’s a good idea.” Olive smiled to himself. “I’m good at fishing.”

“That’s good.” Amiela’s voice became even hazier with sleep. “Close your eyes now. And relax.”

Olive wondered how Amiela could have ever possibly known his eyes were still open. Maybe she just had some innate sense of it, somehow. Even in the encompassing dark. Olive breathed a slow, contented sigh.

In the time that passed beneath the windswept reeds and the distant starlight, as they each slipped deeper away in the balmy darkness, without any warning, a weak little jolt of fire hissed itself into the night. Olive felt himself shudder right back to nearly-full wakefulness, staring wide-eyed and tense at the sharp yet blurry afterimage of fiery brightness that lingered in his field of vision.

But Amiela, who still merely laid there, unfazed by the magic that had so suddenly sparked to life over her skin, whispered her words to herself beneath the silence, growling almost too quietly to overhear. “Fucking mosquitoes.”

Olive could not help but abruptly giggle. He only somewhat stifled it, as well as his mumbled words for her, beneath a firm press of his hands. “They deserve it.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.” Amiela grumbled a bit more when yet another ‘unfortunate’ insect suddenly scorched itself into nothing but a plume of dust, vaporized near-instantly by a harsh spark of reflexive, torching fire. “Bedtime. Now.” She let her voice become more dry and testy. “Do not make me resort to lullabies. I am terrible at singing.”

Olive nodded for her, even though he really didn’t think he’d mind it. He let himself yawn. He tried his best not to laugh any more when so many other mosquitoes of the marsh turned out to be none the wiser, occasionally torn up and seared by quiet plumes of magically gusting fire. He did feel glad though, at the sight of them, with his choice of rubbing the fragrant reed oil over his skin to keep such nasty little beasts at bay.

He wondered how she could ever feel it, if the skin of a witch truly was sensitive enough to detect even the slightest press of minuscule insect feet. Or was it her blood that was simply so fiery, torching the hapless, ravenous creatures by its own will when they saw fit to try and feast on her?

Olive’s soft green eyes blinked against the midnight shadows, watching each flicker of seafoam flame ripple over Amiela’s body. It was there, even beneath the overwhelming pressure of midnight dark, in the mist of the river and the sight of flame and light and quivering magic, everything began to feel right again, somehow, ever since he’d found himself not quite so achingly alone.

Olive let his eyes slip shut. He wondered, ever so briefly, before his mind was stolen away by dreamland, why the sight of her, those sharpened eyes, that quiet hunger, all of her fire, everything, why it never did make him feel even the slightest bit afraid.

Beneath the deepest, darkest void of night, Ranya rose to her feet, no longer human. She eased her tongue over her pointed teeth. She tipped back her head to peer towards the distant galaxies across the boundless sky, the stars only half-hidden by ashen, acrid clouds of war, and padded off in search of slumbering wildlife.