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Nautiluca Part One: Fireflies
Chapter 7 - Innovation

Chapter 7 - Innovation

They eventually convinced Olive to lie down and sleep. But Amiela suspected it was less from their words and more the fatigue of a direct magical impact, or maybe even a full-blown concussion that probably did the poor kid in.

He needed the rest either way. But Amiela couldn’t quite stop herself from glancing over at him yet again, just to check if the boy was still breathing steadily.

She quietly examined his features for not the first time. Olive did hide his weaknesses well, concealing his small, skinny frame beneath baggy clothing and an overly large pair of boots. Like some stumbling puppy with paws three times too big for himself, Amiela mused, just a bit awkward and gangly at that age.

But his ill-fitting clothes might have been worn more out of necessity than intention. A scavenger could only take whatever they found, the scraps left in places looted long before a long child would ever reach them.

Fabric and leather were both useful for bandages and protection from the wild elements and wild fauna. Amiela assumed children’s clothing might have been even more difficult to obtain, much less properly salvage in such a desolate, war-torn place.

Her thoughts swept back to the crumbling ruins she waded through further north, just beyond the border of the midland sovereign territories and the less decimated northern steppe countries.

The first few villages she ventured across, abandoned settlements that stood closer to the southern edge of the nations of Kjerin, those places in particular had already been picked bare. Amiela remembered stepping through the dust with Ranya’s presence drifting close at her side, the way those ethereal claws gripped and tensed all around her in such a formless, invisible way, as if that alone could ward off the utter destruction and lifelessness of the ruins.

Amiela thought about how neither of them would speak even a single word to each other in that time, how they each remained completely silent as she kept sifting her way down through the lonely remains, finding only ashes for her trouble.

But less than a week’s travel south, where the ground itself more often trembled and shook and sank away beneath the slightest press of her feet, that was where the majority of untouched supplies remained.

Amiela shifted her vision to examine the rusty safety pins holding up the ankles of Olive’s trousers. It was just enough to keep the hem folded neatly so he wouldn’t stumble or trip on it. He was resourceful, at least. She could give him that much credit.

But the boy looked even more troubled in his sleep. Amiela peered down at Olive’s softened features, his innocence plagued by the depths of anxiety, those few clear signatures of youth still remaining over his slumbering face. Olive had clearly not grown into himself just yet, no matter how resilient he may have been.

Amiela finally drew her gaze away from him, off towards the open sky, to find the wide blue expanse over the eastern horizon.

“Doesn’t feel like storm weather.” Ranya sat perched atop the highest ledge of the tower. By that hour of afternoon, she was all talons and plumage and keen golden eyes, resting somewhere between the form of an eagle and a sizable hawk. “I think that last big bout back there was so strong, it must’ve blown away all the rest of it. I’d bet a hundred shards that we’ll be alright here until dark, Ami.” Her sleek feathers glinted in the midday sun. “Unless you want to take the night off, too?”

Amiela looked back down instead, making sure one more time to check that Olive was still sound asleep. She then turned to stare up at Ranya, gazing directly into those restless eyes.

Ranya gazed back at her, slowly tilting her plumed, feathery head.

Amiela did not allow herself to wander far into the swirl of luminous gold, to find herself lost beneath the watchful face of that massive avian visage. The truth was, after all, that her own eyes held an even sharper gleam beneath the late noon shadows. “We can’t give them any chances to catch up with us.”

Ranya’s wings bristled ever so slightly. She scoffed and moved to shuffle her taloned feet around, trying her best to look more unruffled. “If it’s them. Which it definitely isn’t.” Her beak snapped quietly over the open air. “And even if it was, how would they ever know where to find us, way out here? It’s not like we’re in a city anymore, with eyes and witnesses.”

“I don’t know. But you felt it too.” Amiela drew one of her knees close against her chest, near enough to hug it loosely. “Someone saw us. I don’t know how, or why. Or from where. There wasn’t exactly an actual presence to sense back. At least that I could get to.”

“Well. You could only even attempt that kind of thing, at such a long range, with divination.” Ranya stretched out her broad wings, basking each of the feathery limbs beneath the warm glow of sunlight. “And I don’t need to tell you just how absurd that would be.”

“No, I know that.” Amiela felt her own budding sense of frustration creep back into her words. “People who despise it wouldn’t turn to it... Not even to find me.” Her fingers suddenly went just as stiff as Ranya’s claws. “Do you think it was my aunt?”

Ranya tossed her head with a muffled squawk. “Hah! No. If that old bat wanted to find us, don’t you think it would have been before you dragged me all the way to the north pole?”

“The arctic circle, Ranya.” Amiela tried not to sound too exasperated. “Not the north pole-”

“Whatever. Same freaking difference.” Ranya batted her wings all around, just mildly enough not to send air whirling all around the lower platform. “Nearly froze off my damn tail. And my beautiful, beautiful ears!” She growled and rubbed each ‘wrist’ of her wings all over both sides of her face. “No, I don’t think it’s your aunt. No reason for her to go skulking around with such amateur divining, anyway. It’s hardly her style of doing things.”

Amiela felt her suspicions wither from her chest in one low sigh. “You aren’t wrong.”

“Of course I’m not. And I haven’t even felt any strange stuff today at all.” Ranya yawned and tipped her feathery head to examine the vast grassland below. “Haven’t seen much of anything else out there, either. Except for those soldiers crossing east of here, I guess.”

“What?” Amiela startled away from where she sat. She stared up at Ranya with a wide flash of panic in her eyes. “Are you joking? Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Because they’re all just camped out over there right now, being all lazy and boring.” Ranya gestured one of her wingtips towards the southeastern horizon. “Like we should really be doing.”

Amiela crouched low. She pressed her body against the ground to hide herself, where she crept forward by edging her elbows and knees over the solid rock, clambering over to reach the east side of the pillar. She laid flat on her belly and squinted at the far-off sight of the encampment.

Ranya lifted her head high to roll her eyes skyward. “And because I knew you’d just freak out about it, like this. They’re so far away!”

It was not false. Only a faint scattering of tents perched near the point where the grassland fell away into a sea of rocky canyons and spires of stone. Amiela’s eyes tracked the scant few plumes of smoke rising up from unseen campfires, so distant that they only appeared as tiny gray streaks on the horizon.

“Who are they?” Amiela could barely spot much more than a few faint hints of movement from the dull gray tents, much less what type of uniforms the soldiers wore. “Can you tell?”

“No clue. Those guys don’t look Kjerin or Tanican, weirdly enough. Or at least not like border patrol.” Ranya yawned and shook her feathery tail back and forth. “Pfft. I should’ve gone back and ripped up that bastard.”

Amiela felt herself shiver against the ground. “We didn’t have time.”

“No.” Ranya’s talons tightened over the tower rock. “I had all the time in the world to go back and surprise that smug little asshole... With something a lot sharper than an arrow.” She gave Amiela’s midsection a pointed look. “You just wouldn’t let me.”

“Yes, Ranya, forgive me for not letting you hurry back there to murder some guy just doing his job, keeping people like me from running all over internationally conflicted boundaries without a permit or valid passport.” Amiela huffed a weary breath against her arms and fixed Ranya with an equally tired stare. “Truly, I can never redeem myself for this slight against you. There really is no correcting my gravest of sins, is there?”

Ranya chuckled at her with a cackling caw. “Well! Just as long as you’re remorseful.”

Amiela looked back at the fields and rolled her eyes to herself. “That isn’t even important now. Who are these people, if you had to guess?”

“Hmm. They’re foreigners, like us.” Ranya narrowed her eyes at the distant skyline. “Armed to the teeth. Decent gear and weaponry, but they look twitchy.” She watched them for another brief while. “Most of them just keep pacing around. Or checking their crossbows. Like they’re clueless about what they’re even doing in a place like this. Like they should be. There’s no proper training for this kind of shithole.” She shrugged with both of her wings. “So, they’re probably just some mercenary army. If I really had to guess, with how close we still are to Kjerin, they’re either spies, poorly hidden ones, of course; or maybe foreign mercs hired by the local khanates to sneak out here and lay claim to whatever these idiots are still fighting over, or...”

Amiela frowned and tried to squint closer at the hazy sight of them.

“Ugh.” Ranya reached up to scratch the plume of her head using one of her clawed feet. “This is way too much sun for delicate feathers like mine, you know. The sand gets so caught in it too... Blech. Well. Either that, or those folks might’ve been hired by whoever runs Tanica to push their territory back out into the north. The news said something about the war probably escalating over historical land disputes, right? Before everything went kaboom.” She blinked a few times and tried to shake the rest of the itchiness away from herself. “But politics are boring, so I wouldn’t know the finer details, really.”

“I still don’t get it.” Amiela felt a cold prickle grip the back of her neck. “This place is destroyed. Everything here is either already burnt to a crisp or falling away into the ground as we speak. Even if it...” She shivered again and shook her head. “Even if the rate of erosion does look slower, I guess, compared to what the news always said. But why stay here and keep fighting over muddy rubble and scorched earth? What could they possibly have left to gain?”

“I don’t know.” Ranya tried her best to shrug yet again with winged shoulders. “Humans are weird. They’ve always been weird. And they’ll just keep on being weird until the end of time. What else can I tell you?” She took note of the way Amiela’s body was still pressed tight against the ground. “They’re nowhere near close enough to see us. Not unless they’ve got some insanely powerful binoculars or whatever, which I doubt they’d just be handing out to foreign fighters. No matter how expensive those folks look. So don’t worry yourself so much.”

Amiela did not move herself away from her more guarded, grounded stance. “They don’t sound like spies, Ranya, if they’re just sitting there. That sounds like bait.”

Ranya scoffed. “You never would have even noticed them if I didn’t tell you.” She fluffed up her entire body. Ranya began to preen the glossiest feathers on her chest with the elegantly curved hook of her beak, carefully plucking out each wayward grain of sand. “I only spotted them because I have the most excellent eyes, you know.”

“Of course.” Amiela moved to rest her chin over one of her arms instead. She tried not to mutter her words too much. “Not like you have thousands of them to compensate.”

Ranya squawked a sudden barking laugh. “Oh, and you wouldn’t be even more agitated seeing those all the time?!” Her eyes glinted with keen amusement. “Humans don’t like the things that have more than just two, you know. It reminds you of spiders, of creepy, crawling things... Of monsters, things that aren’t friendly.”

Amiela felt a pang of sour irony twinge deep through her chest. “Ah, and you’re so friendly.”

“I am. And I don’t appreciate the insinuation.” Ranya made it look as if she flicked away the very notion with an outstretched wing. “I don’t care how the binding pact-”

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t.” Amiela finally stood herself back up. With a more somber, unhurried gait, she ventured back towards her belongings. “You don’t care specifically because you’re brainwashed by it.”

Ranya bristled genuinely then. “You have no more solid proof than I do-!”

“Other than the fact that it was designed to make you subservient?” Amiela actually smiled up at Ranya in that moment, even though the look on her face was gripped by a nearly crazed, unrestrained sort of exhaustion. “The moment you’re free, Ranya, all of it is going to suddenly hit you right in the back of the skull like a brick wall, before you wake up, realize exactly what happened to you, tear me apart, then rip out my insides for vengeance.” Her expression dropped to become entirely neutral again, almost blank, as if those particular words were the most natural thing for her to ever say. “And nobody in the world could blame you for it.”

Ranya glowered down at Amiela. “That’s cruel of you to think.”

“Everything about this is cruel.” Amiela turned and refused to meet Ranya’s line of vision. “Just be glad you’re the one living without it branded on their conscience forever. You’ll be free one way or the other before long, given my luck.”

“You-!” Ranya’s voice broke off with a crackling shriek before she could even finish. She scraped her talons down in a harsh raking motion over the rocks. “You stop that right now! You know you weren’t trying to make it this way-!”

“You are going to wake him up if you get loud like that.” Amiela’s tone fell cool and low. “If you so desperately need to take care of someone... Look after the kid.” She stared at where Olive slept. “At least he’s innocent in all this.”

Ranya glared down at her with a sudden wave of baleful, swollen rancor. Her feathers began to gleam beneath the sunlight, gaining a much deeper, sharper glint. But then she was gone, sent aloft by beating her massive wings much harder than she actually needed to in order to take flight.

Amiela could only brace herself against the swirling flurry of air, sand and grit Ranya left in her wake, still refusing to watch as she left.

When the swift outline of an enormous hawk disappeared off into the clouds, sleek wings flapping silently beneath the sunlight, Amiela finally let herself lean forward, slumping over to the side.

It ached tight, that pointed tug of energy buried deep and coiled within her chest. The binding magic tensed and stretched and yielded itself as much as it could possibly give. Amiela closed her eyes and shivered, trying to endure the pain.

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

Deep within the gusting clouds, far above the sprawling prairie and desert waste and that most detestable species of humankind, Ranya tried her absolute hardest not to scream her frustrations to the sky.

Human beings could be insufferably stubborn whenever they were convinced they were correct.

She angled her wings to sweep down through the dense cloud cover. That was where Ranya made herself seem smaller, more solid, less flecked with whirls of glittering starlight, just enough to look more believable as a flesh and blood manner of bird. She plummeted further the longer she changed, descending at such a sharp angle that the swift rush of air felt more like frigid water coursing hard against her feathers than any form of wind.

Ranya knew she could not stay there for long, soaring far away into the wide-open sky. Especially not since she’d already left Amiela behind so recently, when she’d gone hunting beneath the cover of early morning darkness. But it still felt so sickeningly good to defy her, to buck and fight and struggle against the primal grip of binding magic, if only to prove that she could.

Even then, after all was said and done, the act itself always swirled bittersweet over Ranya’s tongue. There would never be a lack of that lingering twinge left behind after such outbursts, the fact that Amiela could merely call Ranya back on a whim if she wanted. Such rebellion was only ever afforded out of guilt.

Minou, minou.

Ranya could remember it as clear as the rays of daylight, the sound of that soft voice. She remembered the feeling of tiny hands brushing over her body, touching at her neck, her pointy ears, so gently squishing the fluffy cheeks of her face.

She remembered the sound of chiming bells at the front doorway, the way the light of afternoon looked when it spilled down through the colored glass, the warm summer winds whirling over the garden, the feeling of being carried and cherished and held so preciously while the swaying branches spilled perfumed air as sweet as nectar in the breeze.

But most of all, between all the tiny slices of fresh fruit tossed for her that she caught so easily, the fine tidbits of meaty sandwiches and caramel shortcake those little hands offered freely towards those pointed teeth, only the very best for the young demon waiting there for them, Ranya remembered the way it sounded when that girl’s voice laughed easily, when it wasn’t so achingly forced.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ranya squeezed her eyes shut while she fell. She could never forget, not a single bit, not even if she wanted to. And she certainly did not want to.

She landed with a dull thump over the top of a dead tree, gripping her talons over the highest, most weathered branch. A soldier in beige camouflage looked up at her. Ranya stared right back down at him, as if daring the man to comment on the strange, nonnative corvid resting there above the encampment.

But she realized it might not hurt to preen her feathers again for a while, just enough to make it look more convincing. With a casual flick of her tail, Ranya looked away and started cleaning herself. The soldier gradually lost interest as well.

Ranya still felt like cursing that horrible place, the sinking lands, that country, the entire world, all of it. But she knew she needed to keep herself quiet. Birds rarely ever spoke after all, even the more intelligent species among their numbers. Even while she ran her beak over her glossy feathers, she wondered: what if what that little human said to her before was really true?

Her spirits deflated, crumpling fast inside her chest. It did always feel good to catch and bite and kill the living creatures of that world, to sink her teeth down deep into those solid bones, the bodies of fleshy animals; to taste their rich blood, smell the sheer fearful haze of it, so sweet and gratifying. But the moment she even tried to imagine doing the same at Amiela’s throat-

Ranya’s abrupt squawk of protest startled a few of the soldiers. But the humans were apparently as well-trained as they were equipped; they all gradually lowered their weapons after realizing the sharp cawing noise was only a bird. Ranya would have blushed if it weren’t for her feathers. She hoped her current body couldn’t look too sheepish for it.

Even then, what if it was true? What if that sudden, sour gag reflex she felt when she even so much thought about hurting her tiny, soft human that away, what if it all fell apart if the binding pact really could break? Ranya stared down at her clawed feet, looking as pensive as a large raven could be.

Only one answer appeared before her. She simply could not allow it. Ranya would not let her do it. No, she’d grab ahold of those delicate little arms first, keep her there, cherish her that same way, cinch her grip down tight and never let go. She’d need to do whatever it took before she ever let Amiela undo the spell between them.

It burned deep, the rapid heartbeat pulse that engulfed the fluid hollow in her chest, glistening with quiet fury. Ranya knew her eyes would have beaded with hot tears if she had currently not been a bird.

Better to be a bound monster than an alone one.

“This sucks.” One of the soldiers below the dead tree broke the windswept silence. “Three months, we’re supposed to be out on point... And they send us this crap?”

“At least it’s edible.” Another soldier just kept cleaning her crossbow. She did not even look away from her weapon, too absorbed with clicking the adjustment levers and tightening the fine leather straps. “A lot better than what you’d get in the Kjerin divisions.”

A third soldier chuckled at that. “Yeah. They don’t give two shits about anybody nonnative. You’d be getting bottom of the barrel garbage that side of the border.” He spread his arms out wide in a mockingly fantastical gesture. “Can you imagine, otherwise? Partying it up on the job with fresh barbecue, beef dumplings, honey horsemead-”

The first soldier sighed aloud and leaned back against the base of Ranya’s chosen tree. “Shut up. You’re making me hungry...”

Ah. Ranya blinked. She inclined her head to observe them. So they really aren’t a government army. At least not a local one. Probably hired by the southerners to sit around here, then? Does Tanica not have its own fighters? She wished she could send her thoughts back to Amiela from such a distance, even if she wasn’t so currently peeved by that stubborn witch, but that form of long-range telepathy would take far more energy than either of them possessed. Ami, I wish I’d paid as much attention as you did to human sociology... Ugh!

Silence met Ranya in the outer reaches of her mind. She knew it was futile to even try, but she still craved the comfort of asking someone who might actually have known a fair bit more about the local status of civic affairs than her, much less the larger, wider-reaching geopolitical implications.

The humans below Ranya’s tree each kept grumbling to themselves and squabbling about the quality of food rations, but she was already starting to lose interest in what they were saying.

Ranya clacked her beak and adjusted her talons over the branch. She tried her hardest to refocus. So, these guys are a private military corporation. Definitely foreigners like I thought, given the accents and everything. And they’re hired by the Tanican kings, maybe? Wait, what are their kings even called again? But I thought the whole point of the Liberated Nations was to have no kings. Unless other countries are getting involved? Oh, they’ll be even more unpredictable, then... But if we give them a wide enough berth, then they really shouldn’t care too much about a rogue witch and some lost little kid.

The first soldier glowered down at a box half-filled with dry, blocky food rations. “At least Kjerin would have probably sent half decent-!”

“Hey!” Another human who wore far more elaborate uniform trappings marched right out of the tents between rocky crevices to scold them in a harsh whisper-shout. “If you two don’t shut your fucking holes already-!”

A sharp, deafening crack sounded off somewhere in the distance. Ranya was skyward before she could even fully realize what was happening. Her broad wings caught the hot burst of air and took her higher, flapping herself further from the sudden din that thundered into the encampment. She caught the sight of the human who’d last spoken, the way the decorated man was falling, crumpling down to the dust with a muffled, scarlet thump.

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

Only miles away, Amiela jolted up out of a fitful nap. “What-?”

“What is it?!” Olive woke as well, wide-eyed, sprawled out on his side while he listened to the echoed crack crack crack of rapid fire bursts sounding off in the distance. “What-!?”

“Stay down!” Amiela snarled her words. She lowered herself to lay as flat as she possibly could against the tower platform. “Gods, what is that..?” Her eyes flashed wide and bright. “Ranya said there were soldiers, but they have cannonfire?! Out here?!”

High above the billowing clouds of dust, Ranya swooped herself into loftier circles, hurriedly rising from the gathering roar of chaos. But back on the ground, she could already see from her far corners of vision that the encampment was utter warfare.

They were swarming over the edges of the canyon, humans covered with thick ghillie suits of dried sand and mud, flashing those strange wooden sticks out high into the dust-choked air.

The projectile bursts rang all too much like mortar fire. Ranya had heard them a few scarce times before in attempted city sieges, from the massive artillery machines stationed high atop fortress walls. But those had usually only been routine drills or simple warning shots to drive away foreign marauders, hardly ever anything more than a brief skirmish or two, rarely so much as to ruffle Amiela’s aunt into making them seek shelter.

Hell, Ranya considered, even those scuffles had barely ever been enough to make the evening news.

And so she wondered, while Ranya flapped her wings hard to lift herself further, how in the world those humans had ever turned such enormous armaments into something small enough to carry with only two hands.

A soldier cried out below, stumbling backwards in a haze of bright, wet red. His jugular exploded when his grip went slack, dropping his crossbow down to the dirt. The sight of it made Ranya want to salivate. What efficient killing that was, those long sticks of noise and smoky fire.

Deep below the billowing haze, Ranya realized that at least a few thousand scores of actual birds had sought refuge in the grasses of the prairie fields, but they were all rushing out in fear of the sudden chaos, taking wing from their hidden shelters and screaming up into the sky beside her.

Ranya flapped her wings harder. She keened a harsh warning call and flashed her claws to keep the flocks from battering into her with their sudden panic, but the mass of shrieking animals kept pushing against her all the same.

The starlings’ frantic terror of artillery fire overrode their base instincts to avoid a corvid in flight. Ranya was forced to make herself expand, becoming larger again, far more enormous than before. She slid into the form of a vast eagle with a broader wingspan, bearing much sharper, potent talons to slash at them and drive the swarms of tiny beasts away.

With a hiss of breath rattling through her beak, she angled herself to avoid the harsh whizzing bolts that shot into the air beside her. When the flash of a projectile suddenly screeched up nearby, a clever twist of Ranya’s leg caught the passing slab right out of the sky. Her leathery skin hardened beside her hooked nails, gleaming deep with vital energy to protect her flesh from the extreme heat.

“Oh, damn, what are you?” Ranya laughed aloud at the somewhat ticklish sensation that spread fast over her foot. It was burning metal, she came to realize with a mild jolt, only it was liquefied, and actively squirming. Ranya grasped the object with her claws, holding it there like it was a struggling mouse, before she tightened her grip hard. Her talons pierced deep beneath the surface, silencing it for good.

The bizarre little thing dripped a slow, bubbling ooze wherever Ranya carried it off with her through the smoke-streaked sky. She craned her neck down to stare at the odd lump of molten ore.

It was mostly black and shiny, volcanic in an unmistakable way, not unlike some strangely rounded shard of obsidian. But the inner white-hot heat radiating beneath the glossy surface was certainly not red or orange, like any proper magma flow.

With a heavy breath, Ranya turned to flap herself further away from the echoing sounds of weaponfire, flying off towards the tall pillar in the distance instead.

The closer she soared, the deeper Ranya began to feel the first fierce sensation of Amiela’s emotions branching towards her, that desperate little bout of bubbling worry that leaked into the pact stretched between them. It felt like a small voice whispering urgently in her ear from afar, tugging at her heartstrings, swift yet fleeting in intensity. That girl could try all she wanted, Ranya mused, but she always was terrible at hiding the way she really felt.

I’m coming, Ami. Ranya beat her wings faster. I’m alright.

Ranya- The urgent chord of her inner voice sounded just as strained as their pact at such a distance. What the hell is going on out there?!

She did not answer, not quite yet. Because in that very same vein, Ranya knew, in her deepest heart of hearts, that she was loath to leave Amiela far afield without assistance as well, not when there was so much violence erupting through the area.

Olive spotted her from much further than Ranya would have expected from a human. She could already see him waving both of his arms at her past the haze of low clouds, but the boy stopped just as soon as he began. Amiela likely told him not to give their position away, that a demon as keen as Ranya could easily find them out there without it.

It took Ranya less than a few minutes to fly out above the stone tower. She flapped her wings slower and let her body relax back into an even larger, more bestial avian form.

“Are you okay?!” Olive stared up at Ranya’s massive wingspan when she gusted by in a mighty swoop. He squinted his eyes against the brightness of the sun and the tiny flecks of airborne dust that Ranya sent flying when she swept past, steadying himself when the blustery wake of her wingbeats pushed at his smaller body. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?!”

Only a few paces off, Amiela lifted herself to a low, guarded crouch. The din of artillery from the farthest fields was already fading off, but every so often, another echoing round of weaponfire would abruptly sound off in the distance, and it made her startle every time.

Ranya circled her way around to glide low over the stone tower. She flapped her wings sharply to brace herself for a rough landing. She reached forth with one of her legs to help skid her way down over the sandy pillar surface, still holding the strange little fiery rock in the grasp of her other limb.

“I’m just fine, kiddo.” Ranya finally stood there with one of her taloned feet planted firm against the ground, just enough to hold the bizarre metal object high and keep it from getting dusty. “Those dummies didn’t even know what I was. I pretended to be a littler bird.”

“Oh.” Olive slowly stepped up to stand before Ranya. He tilted his head, trying to see what she could have been holding. “What’s that?”

“I don’t really know.” Ranya flexed her talons around it. “But they’ve definitely got some strange new stuff to play around with, don’t they?” She tucked her wings down to rest at her sides. “Humans come up with the most curious things sometimes.”

Amiela crept forward with far greater caution, still keeping her stance stiffened and low. Her gaze was strained, almost completely washed by panic again. Her entire body bristled at the sight of whatever Ranya had grasped in her claws. “What is that?”

“Well.” Ranya hopped her way closer towards Amiela. “If I can say anything about it, it’d be that it’s still very hot.” She extended her foot forward. She then let her grip slacken ever so slightly around the object, revealing the true surface of the fiercely burning stone. “So don’t touch it yet. Just look. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

The softest of inner lights seeped deep throughout the chunks of shattered, half-liquefied rock. It glowed from even further within, leaking a most eerie, brightening color, a seemingly otherworldly sort of blue. The thick metal slag dripped a dark, viscous ooze over the curves of Ranya’s taloned digits.

“You... You probably shouldn’t even be touching it, either.” Amiela frowned and backed herself away from both Ranya and the fiery stone. “We shouldn’t be anywhere near it.”

But Olive only leaned forward, increasingly transfixed. He watched the pale blue light as it pulsed, rippled, and then somehow breathed from within the jagged little piece of ore. “It’s like magic...” His words broke yet fluttered in a breathless sort of murmur, as if he could not even believe what his own eyes were seeing. The ache in the back of his head blossomed and flickered just like before, dizzying and impossibly deep. “It’s almost like... Firefly light?”

“Get away from it.” Amiela sharpened her tone. “Olive, don’t be stupid!”

After only a breath of hesitation, Olive obeyed. He hurried off to stand behind Amiela, though he could not help but peek back out towards that strange lump of molten metal, hiding just beyond the shelter of where Amiela rigidly stood.

“I think it’s already darn well ‘dead,’ whatever it is.” Ranya tipped her head back with a yawn. She gripped her claws just a bit tighter around the oozing chunk of rock. “They fired them from a bunch of weird wooden sticks they kept waving around, then these things flew out faster than any arrow or crossbow shot I’ve ever seen.” She peered back at it again, observing how the strange dark stone still bled and quivered against the surface of her palm. “But this one really didn’t want to cooperate much when I grabbed it.”

“We should get rid of it now, and go.” Amiela had already stepped off in a rush to get her suit and helmet back on over herself. She began to pack up her other gear with rapid efficiency as well. “I don’t care if it’s not dark enough yet. We’re leaving.”

Ranya spared one last lingering look for the bizarre little object. With a shrug of her wings, she hopped over a few paces to try and drop it from the edge of the tower platform. The liquefied rock oozed along over her skin like a smear of congealed sap, so much that she needed to scrape her foot down against the solid surface of the ledge just to peel the rest of it away.

Olive already had his own meager belongings ready to go. “How come that didn’t burn you?”

“That’s easy, silly. I’m not like you.” Ranya hummed at him and stuck out her tongue from the side of her beak. The gesture looked incredibly strange for a bird to even attempt. “Heat doesn’t trouble me much.”

“Oh.” Olive peered over at Amiela. He could already see how she was hurrying to snuff out the campfire using only her bare hands. “It doesn’t trouble her much, either.”

“True. But that’s different. It’s her fire.” Ranya held out a single claw to point into the air, gesturing with it while she continued. “Ami can’t just go around touching any old fire and get away with it, you know.” Ranya blinked a few times to reconsider. “Well, not without prepping herself a bit first, at least. I have a lot more natural resistance to things like that than any human being. Even a witch.”

Olive stared at the fiercely hooked talon Ranya held aloft between them, the formidable curve that stood far longer than his own fingers, or even the full span of his forearms.

But Olive’s head began to hurt when he tried to figure out how that sort of heat resistance could even work. Or maybe it was just the supposed concussion Ranya spoke of earlier. “That’s because... Because you’re a demon? Or, uh, a different species with no name?”

“Exactly.” Ranya would have smiled for him if she did not currently possess only a beak. “But even that little thing gave me a bit of a nasty shock.” She curled her leathery digits, flexing the scaled palm where she’d gripped the rock before. “I actually had to toughen up my skin a bit more to make sure it didn’t start to hurt.”

“Wow.” Olive stared at the solidified smear of earthen muck that coated the flesh of Ranya’s foot. “How did you-”

“We are leaving.” Amiela called out from the far side of the pillar. She had already tied the cord of jute rope around one of the stone formations jutting out from the upper platform. “If you don’t want to climb down this thing all by yourself...”

Olive hurried over to stand close by Amiela. He nearly tripped over his own feet with residual dizziness. Ranya watched how the two of them each ventured beside the ledge and prepared to descend. She closed her eyes and sighed a soft hum, breathing a quiet little tune to herself.

Amiela only winced for an instant when she felt the intangible rush of Ranya’s presence filling her body and limbs again. Her arms and shoulders shivered and twitched at the feeling.

Olive waited for Amiela to relax. “What are we going to do?”

Once everything inside herself finally settled, Amiela grabbed for the loose end of the rope. She tossed it over to him. “Tie this around your chest.”

Olive got the idea right away. He knew how to fasten a proper knot as well. He remembered spending countless afternoons casting his line from one of the little wooden rowboats of his hometown on the hunt for seabream and amberjack, paddling all around the village shore. If that sort of watercraft was not tied down properly in the dusky light of evening, the river’s flow would surely take it away, washing it far out to sea, almost certainly never to be found again.

“Good.” Amiela nodded at Olive’s handiwork. “Now hold onto it. I’m going to control your descent.”

Olive blinked several times. He did trust her. She would not let him fall, just as she’d made sure of before. Of course he trusted her. Didn’t he? Olive shivered and stared down at the sturdy length of rope, the looped line tied fast by a solid knot around the boulder, where it led on to the grip of Amiela’s hands, held firm, until it all connected back to the makeshift harness fastened to Olive’s waist and chest.

Even if the rest of the rope was securely tightened, Olive knew any small mistake could knock the wind right out of him. It would surely break his ribs, or worse, if he was to slip and free-fall away from the heights of the towering pillar.

Amiela’s gaze began to soften at Olive’s visible hesitance. “If anything goes wrong, Ranya will fly down and catch you.”

It did make him feel just a little bit better to hear her say so, Olive began to realize, if only from the fact that Ranya had indeed saved him from the angry serpent before, even without Amiela’s direct influence. His head and heart still kept pounding with a painful, tender ache. Olive’s vision remained more than slightly dizzy, but he nodded and grabbed hold of the rope.

“Start over there, where the slope is less steep.” Amiela looped the cord over her arms and cinched it around her waist to keep it from slipping away too quickly. “Sit down, and then slide.”

Olive felt his entire body tremble. He inched forward to peek ever so slightly over the sheer drop. His stomach suddenly felt as if it was only made of nauseating air, drifting out so far away, so achingly far, so far that he could barely even make out the faintest details of the grass below-

“Look up at the sky.” Amiela’s voice became much more calm. “Or the mountains. Look under the sun. It’s going to be a good sunset soon. Lots of colors.”

Olive did what she told him. And as he sat there, teetering beside the sheer rocky edge, he kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, gripping his arms over the musty old rope with all the shaky strength he could muster. When Olive first felt his feet abruptly leave the pillar, when his back slid down fast against the dusty slope and skidded off into open air, he yelped aloud with a breathless gasp and squeezed his eyelids shut.

But then, nothing more than a slow, gradual give of the rope awaited him. Olive kept trembling for a moment in time, drifting there in the open wind, before he ever so slowly dared to open his eyes.

A flock of pale geese soared high above the western mountains. The sunset lit the faraway flock from behind; they each shimmered at a distance, flickering shards of airborne silver in the open light. Snowfall capped the pointed tips of each cloudy mountain peak. The world there stood entirely pure and still and frozen, untouched by living hands.

Olive could no longer see her, but he knew Amiela’s grip held strong.

The distant crack of weaponfire almost felt like nothing then. Olive breathed in deep, exhaling slow. He exhaled each shallow little breath while he watched, observing the world as it changed ever so slowly all around him, shifting in tones of pearly gold to shadowed green as he was lowered closer and closer to the grassland.

A herd of deer sprinted over the far end of the prairie, frightened away by the harsh sounds of combat. Olive watched the tips of their antlers and tails disappear in the glare of the sun slipping deep below the horizon.

The fields rose high around him. His boots touched the ground before he even knew it was happening. Olive drew in a softer breath.

Up above, he could just barely see the outline of Amiela looking down at him from atop the faraway pillar. Her figure moved a bit, before the rope lifted and tugged a few times at Olive’s chest in a prompting sort of rhythm. He knew she wanted him to untie himself.

Once he was free, Olive sat down beneath the tall grass. The dry stalks towered above him in a somehow protective embrace. It began to feel like all those years ago, holding his breath and slipping below the seawater.

The sound of the wind rushing all through the fields became the waves lapping farther above, the soft green murk of drifting ocean kelp keeping him safe and hidden deep beneath. The scent of smoke became woodfire, but only for an instant. He could not fully imagine the reeking whiff of sulfurous ash away.

Olive’s heart ached, yearning for the cool windy breeze over the surface of the water beneath his home village, the smell of salt, spices, and cook-fires burning long into the moonlit night.

Amiela lowered herself with far greater haste. Her thick leather gloves protected her hands from the scraping burn while she slid all the way down towards solid ground. Each of her boots hit the rocky dirt in a firm rhythm, before she let go of the rope without even pausing.

Olive tried to look up at Amiela’s face, but the tinted helmet was already fastened back over her head. Why was that, Olive wondered, with no signs of an approaching sandstorm? Maybe she was afraid of the soldiers seeing her without it.

Amiela started off into the fields without a single word. She left the dangling cord of rope behind. There was no use trying to salvage it, she reasoned, not when it was tied down tight from so far up above. She did not seem to want to ask Ranya for help retrieving it.

Olive gave the swaying rope one last lingering look, before he followed out after Amiela’s footsteps.