Amiela set a rapid pace again, but she took more caution than before. Her footsteps fell light and intentional, careful not to step over any branches or disturb the scattered prairie rocks. Olive tried his best to copy her, but it was difficult enough just to keep up an adult’s length of stride, much less mimic what she did.

Whenever Amiela caught wind of an irregular sound or hint of movement, she would abruptly halt and crouch low for a moment, frozen in search of the source.

Olive stilled himself beside her each time, wide-eyed, waiting. He held his breath for as long as he possibly could. The steady ache over the back of his head would not yield its grip, or stop blurring his vision. It made his ears ring beneath the cracking bursts of weaponfire.

The rapidly sharp blasts still echoed off in the distance. With great care, Amiela leaned herself forward to peer through the curtain of dense prairie grass. Olive fought to keep his arms and legs steady beneath himself, to not tremble in anticipation.

“We have to get past this. To get out from the fields...” Amiela hissed under her breath once she finally crept forward again. Her words were barely audible through the creaking static from her voice modulator, but her voice rang out more clearly given the lack of mud she’d already cleaned from it. “There could be any number of soldiers running around in here. We need to be as quick and quiet as we possibly can.”

“Right.” Olive hurried to keep himself close beside her. “Um, if we get separated, there were those big canyons south of us, by the end of the fields.” He panted quietly to try and catch his breath. “The closest part, it sort of looked like it made this huge, rocky bridge thing-”

“Good idea.” Amiela pressed her way forward through the grass. “We’ll meet up there if anything goes wrong.”

They both crossed a weakly trickling brook. Olive glanced down at it when his boots squished over the burbling waters. His eyes could not miss the way the thin, clear liquid was carrying a bright crimson gleam. He realized the soldiers must have camped somewhere further upstream, close to wherever the water flowed from.

Heavy footfalls suddenly sounded off to the side. Amiela drew her switchblade in a flash just when the glint of a crossbow leveled itself directly towards her chest. She flung her unarmed hand sidelong, shielding Olive from the weapon’s path.

“Olive, run.” Amiela’s voice rang thin beneath the feedback of her voice modulator. “Go!”

But they all just stood there at an utter standstill, weapons drawn. Olive swore his limbs might as well have been frozen in place. He felt like his heart had already dropped out to the bottom of the earth somewhere, dragging his dizzied vision in a plummeting lurch right along with it.

“Go, Olive!” Amiela hissed and briskly side-stepped to position directly herself in front of him. Her gaze never left the loaded crossbow. “Now!”

“Hey, he’s...” The soldier hesitated. “He’s only a kid? And you, you’re just-” His gaze looked pale and wide, glazed over with equal parts panic and shock. “Okay. Okay...” He still kept his crossbow leveled right at the center of Amiela’s body, but the man did move to shuffle himself backwards with careful, cautious steps. “You just stay back. Stay there.”

Amiela kept her blade ready. She held her other arm out beside her, poised to deflect any-

A shot rang out elsewhere, echoing from a place not far afield of the swaying grasses. The soldier fired in succession. The metal bolt whistled forth for only a split second of time.

Because Ranya, in all her glistening brusqueness, suddenly chuckled aloud into the air, dark and smug, rumbling her deeply leonine voice when the steel shards of projectile force shattered between the grip of her shimmering, translucent teeth.

“Don’t-!” Amiela choked over her own words. “Ranya, stop!”

But she was already upon him, snarling hard, fangs ripping down past reinforced cloth and leather strapped over the soldier’s chest and vitals, drawing scarlet and harrowing cries from deep within his bloodied windpipe. Her claws dug down as fierce as butcher knives into his body, sharp and swift and utterly ruthless.

“Enough!” Amiela nearly stumbled when she swiped her unarmed hand into the space between them. Her entire limb went stiff with sheer force, caught by the intensity of striking the air itself. The motion sent a brief rippling shockwave that buffeted the grass in a coursing burst of summoned wind. “Stop it!”

Even beneath the wave of billowing magic, the harsh wave of a gust that merely ruffled her starlit fur like a firm breeze, Ranya only leaned back and sat there, pinned firmly atop the flailing soldier. She tilted her head aside to lick the blood dribbling down over her lips. Ranya spoke her words low and measured, humming each note of sound over the panicked gurgling and muffled screams fixed tight beneath her claws. “He was about to kill you, you know...”

“You don’t have to return the favor!” Amiela’s voice hissed through her modulator. “We’re wasting time! Stop it, now!”

“Fine.” Ranya sighed aloud with a dramatic flair. She yanked her claws right out from the soldier’s chest with an abruptly wet shlick. “Guess it’s your lucky day, my guy.”

Amiela backed off a few paces. A harsh shiver ran down her spine at the sight of blood gushing freely from where Ranya’s claws had just been. The tremble coursed through her visibly, gripping Amiela’s limbs. Her eyes went distant and wide. She took off once more in a dead sprint, but not before sharply pelting the fallen crossbow away with a hard kick into the grass.

Left there in the wake of it all, standing as gracelessly as a newborn fawn before the sudden sprawl of carnage, Olive had to urge himself out from a complete and total sense of stupor. Ranya just smiled at him from atop her perch, still sitting with all the casual poise in the world over the twitching soldier.

It certainly was not the first time he’d ever felt fear pool inside his heart from the sight of her. But it was the only Olive could recall feeling as if he was staring back at someone truly inhuman, unearthly, uninhibited.

“Better not lag too far behind, now.” Ranya laughed as she disappeared in a whirl of glittering smoke.

Olive finally forced himself to move, to budge his feet a single inch, finding even the slightest bit of active physical motion. He shook himself from the trance that claimed him, stumbling past the body of the maimed soldier until he could rush off into the fields in the direction Amiela had fled.

But it was difficult to tell where she’d even gone. All that remained to Olive’s line of vision were the faintest marks of broken grass and the occasional half-visible bootprint.

He followed the trail for as long as he could. But then Amiela’s path seemed to disappear. Olive stopped short. Panic gripped his heart, a shivering pulse that simply would not let him go. He felt a frigid sweat prickle over his arms and neck. He turned back and hurried to try and retrace his steps.

The leafy edges of the grass stung at his skin, catching over the worn surface of his clothes in a wild, tangled snag. Olive lifted his arms over his face to try and brace himself from the worst of it. When he finally broke past the dense snarl of greenery and caught a glimpse of those familiar bootprints again, he ran right off to follow the trail.

He swore he saw his mother’s face. Olive whirled around where he suddenly halted, staring out into the sheer and absolute nothingness, the empty canvas of dry straw green looming there over the space all around him.

“No...” It felt, somehow, like his breath began to die inside his throat. “You’re not really-”

For he did not see it there, not with his eyes, Olive knew, but he still felt that whispered rush of footfalls, the sudden muscle memory of her hand swiftly grabbing his own, dragging him right forward.

He could feel it then, while he watched his own sense of vision shiver and detach and spin wildly out of place. He swore he could just start to glimpse her, the panic fixed over her features, even though he surely did not; that image of her darting past the clearing, urging his younger self along, the desperate, cinching warmth of her hand that never, ever did let his go while they were fleeing, not even when the embers bit at her heels and flickered.

Olive felt himself lurch forward before he could even think. His gaze whirled, searching all around through the wisps of smoke for those faint prints left behind in the dust, the marks over the grass where Amiela must have gone, but he wasn’t standing inside the same moment in time, not entirely.

A fierce crack of fire made his head spin and ring. Olive’s breath faltered, gasping out a sharper, stuttering yelp at how close the sound rang out. His hands clutched numbly over his ears.

His feet stumbled forward, searching for that little trail of echoed footsteps, the only scare path she’d left behind, but he swore he saw torchlight flashing between the longest blades of grass, those tall, lurking figures calling out, the braying voices left to linger without end inside the shadows.

Their fire moved just like polished steel, well-honed and oiled, bringing those fields low, dry, fallow. Olive’s eyes flew open wide.

He surely did not belong there, after all. Didn’t he?

His mother’s hand had tightened. He could not even remember the sound of her words in his ears, the response of shouted barking, the twisted grimaces from those faces he once knew, voices he once recalled as well as his own.

But that look in her eyes, the stern willfulness of his mother’s face as she faced them down with only her clenched fists and her little child sheltered behind the steady form of her back, before steel swiped forth to skitter over the stones and send her reeling, grabbing for him there and forcing them both into a run.

Olive stumbled onward, alone. He wished he could have felt her hand again, even when it tightened and forced him so quickly along, urging him forward, even though the muscles of his legs ached and howled and his feet felt like they’d surely crumble apart into nothing, if only to feel some small ghost of her there for just one more fleeting moment.

His arms trembled when he reached past the tall stalks to part his way forward, pressing the dry, shriveled plants away as his body wavered through the haze of the fields. Olive searched for those scant few traces, over and over again, but every time he turned back to find the faint footprints beneath the scattered embers, they never seemed to continue for very long.

His entire body slowed, breathing each ragged, gasping breath as Olive teetered aside. His mind swam like it was trying desperately to float away from him, to escape out into the clouds somewhere, a place beyond the smoky blear of warfare, blurry and distant and entirely unresponsive whenever he tried to grasp over any small semblance of a plan.

Olive finally sank down to his knees.

By some instinct he could not possibly name, his fingers grasped for the satchel at his belt. He could barely even grip his trembling digits down over the clasp to pull it aside, much less reach for that hidden pocket just within.

Metal and glass, looping in over itself, finely forged. Shimmering there beneath the firelit haze, Olive stared at it as he lifted the soothing little object into his hands: that warm, brassy shine of long-aged, tarnished gold cradled over rounded, colorless crystal.

He reflexively cringed, shying away from the sharp echoing cracks of artillery fire. Olive rushed to stuff the secretive little object back into his satchel pouch.

Beneath the ashen fog of the battlefield, Olive trembled. He tried to cover his ears with his hands, but his face and his limbs felt too far away. His arms would not stop shaking.

Positives, he had to remember. He’d promised her that much. But how in the world was he ever supposed to do that, Olive’s feverish mind wondered, when he couldn’t even figure out which way was up or south or spinning right around on top of itself, one uncertain blur of woozily skyward shapes and harsh colors and burning inner pain.

But it was in that very same instant where a particular sound purred steady and low, rumbling her way right back into the smoky air of the treacherous stretch of grassland. She was suddenly so close to him once again, even though her full body did not yet physically appear.

“Hey, you.” Ranya’s eyes became translucent shards of heat glinting through the hazy shadows. “Ami wants me to help you find her. She didn’t realize you weren’t still following. Poor thing just about had a conniption when she got her senses back.”

It was somehow both a relief and a cold shock of dread to even hear her voice again. Olive kept himself utterly silent before the mere sight of her, skin prickling with cold sweat as he fought not to move so much as slightly from where he’d stumbled, shivering past the uncertainty to try and catch his racing breath.

Ranya simply stared down at the young boy before her, pondering the sight of him without fully manifesting herself. Those past few moments, the trickling span of time just before Ranya turned back with a heavy sigh and followed after his scent, hunting the soft little sound of Olive’s drumming heartbeat wherever it echoed loudest in her ears, she could still picture that particular look caught and brimming in Amiela’s eyes, that very same flash of panic.

The way the girl had darted through the sea of grass, sprinting ahead like a startled doe, swift and unrelenting and primal. She was, in that way, faster than any human being had any real right to be, magic sparking at her boots no matter how hard she tried to stifle it, that faint little twinge of conscious thought that warred against her panicked instincts and told her not to race through the fields as fast as any antelope with a lion at her heels.

So Amiela ran, breath fleeting, eyes wide and wild and flashing back and forth for any hint of steel and iron-hot scents of blood and madness, until her sense of higher reasoning finally rose high enough to override the wash of boiling fear.

Amiela had skidded to a halt. She’d struggled to catch her breath in a similar way, gasping quietly. She turned back to glance all around. “Ah, we... Olive?”

But only the noise of dissonant, unceasing weaponfire echoed through the tall grass to meet her. Pale flecks of ash whirled through the heavy wind, flamewashed and gray. Just beside her shoulder, Ranya could only just barely start to hear Amiela’s voice beneath the solid glass of her helmet, even when she raised it above a murmur.

“Olive? Where...” Amiela paced a single step back towards the north. She halted. “Ranya, do you see him?”

That little tremble in her throat, the faraway look that unfurled across her watering gaze. It might have been several long years since Ranya last truly saw it, close enough to hold between the points of her claws and cradle, but she could still remember the fierce glow painted far across the midnight sky, the way those soft, delicate flakes of snow looked when they melted in the heat of her blood.

But Ranya could only shrug and shake her head for her there, though it was more of a telepathic suggestion than any true gesture made physical.

“Ranya!” And there it was, that vivid brightness, the gleam of pure, total fear, the shine in her eyes that flashed like falling starlight. “Ranya, where-?!”

Ranya could observe it there as well, within the frightened gaze of that lost little boy. Mammalian panic, the uncertain look that gripped fast over their faces, the odd waver locked in their eyes, the sharp scent rising from their skin that prickled with blatantly timid pheromones.

They never were a very subtle species, those humans, Ranya supposed. No good at all when it came to hiding themselves away. Especially from much keener things, like her people.

Olive’s words became soft and hazy. “I’m... Slowing her down, aren’t I?”

“Yup.” Ranya’s sleek body coiled forward to unfurl back into existence before him. Her face became narrow, pointed, the more elongated guise of a slyly knowing jackal rather than any bloodstained lioness. “I did tell her, you know...” Ranya sighed. “I warned her, back when you first started following us, that this would happen.” She reached out to pat one of her hands over the soft curls of Olive’s hair. “This is no place for a little human kid.”

Olive squeezed his eyes shut and cried. He sobbed quietly into his hands, unable to truly stifle the sounds of anguish. Every approaching burst of artillery, the panicked shouts and distant screams of fleeing soldiers, the sheer and utter din of it all, the full brunt of it made him just want to curl up tight and try to block out the whole entire world and everything in it.

“Alright then.” Ranya lowered her voice to a softer murmur. “Hold still, okay?”

He did not try to fight her. Olive found he did not even struggle or twitch when she first touched each of her direly clawed hands over his forearms, when he felt the velvety pads of her palms brush over his skin, even when Ranya took a firm hold beneath his knees and wrapped one of her arms close around his back, lifting the boy high into the air. Olive simply let himself lay slack and sink deeper into the solid hold of Ranya’s grip, allowing her to maneuver his shivering body away from the dusty ground.

Olive came to realize he did not think he even could have fought, much less had the strength or effort left to try, whether or not those hooked claws would choose to dig in deep instead and tighten. His mind burned just feverish enough to wonder, for a moment, why in fact they did not.

Ranya hefted the winded little child against her chest, letting him rest his chin over her shoulder. “If you need to cry any louder, just try and keep it inside for now, okay?” She rumbled her words to him with a touch more gentleness than before. “We need to stay very quiet here.”

Olive kept his eyes shut tight, but he forced himself to nod for her. He could already feel the way Ranya’s body was gradually moving below himself, standing up, perhaps, but then she was off all at once.

Ranya picked up speed at a breakneck pace, dashing off into a full sprint before she had even truly started walking.

Beneath the sudden whirl of smoky air and weaponfire sparks ringing mercilessly in the depths of his senses, Olive slowly came to realize a certain, innate truth: although Ranya may not have had a human sense of restraint, her heart, as it was, could not truly have been evil. Not in the way he knew of such things.

Not when she just kept carrying him there with such immense care while she raced her way all throughout the prairie grasses, holding him close against her body.

The tuft of her tail, vivid and dark, flashed with faint golden light each time the grass touched it. A fiery shot roared out somewhere nearby, singeing the fluffy hair of it, but Ranya only grimaced and kept running.

“It’s okay.” She whispered to him in a low sing-song tone. “Have you seen those TV specials, the ones with the big sparkly fireflowers in the sky on New Year’s Eve? This sort of noise won’t hurt you, just like that.”

Olive sniffled and wiped at his eyes. He slowly moved his arms, hugging them just a bit tighter around Ranya’s neck. He forced himself to try and speak without his breath and his words both wavering. “What’s TV?”

“Oh. Sheesh. Uh.” Ranya’s voice trailed off for a moment or two. “It’s like a thunderstorm, then? Scary, but not so bad. Anyway. We’ll be alright.”

Olive did not think he should really tell her that being out in an open grassland during a thunderstorm was not exactly a safe thing for human beings, much less someone of his vulnerable stature. Not that anything about their current situation was remarkably safe for anyone.

Even then, Olive could already tell Ranya was lying right through those pointy teeth of hers. Only the steady strength of her arms wrapped close around his body really made him feel better about anything.

The heavy winds picked up through the prairie. Embers whirled and swept far across the open fields, bringing along the acrid stench of smoke and burning flesh.

Olive shook and squeezed his eyes shut. He gripped his arms closer around Ranya’s neck. Thankfully, at least, she did not seem to mind. A dense flock of birds screeched and cackled far up ahead, but their cries faded off when Ranya fled further into the distance.

“Soldiers are always doing silly things like this.” When Ranya leapt out high to cross a massive stretch of boulders, she pushed one of her hands to press against the back of Olive’s head, protecting him from whiplash. “At least it keeps them too busy to notice people like us much.”

The sheer crashing din became very distant yet close all at once, spreading out further across the full breadth of the plains. Further away, the fiery bursts were more like faintly echoing pops on the smoky horizon, but nearer towards where Ranya ran, the rapid weaponfire still struck like furious thunderclaps in the air, firing off with quick succession.

“We’re not too far now.” Ranya breathed a quiet little laugh. “They’re pretty feisty today, mm?”

Olive finally worked up the courage to squint open his eyes again, even just a tiny bit. He could start to see just how far Ranya had truly carried him above the fields by then, traveling high over the rocky canyon slopes that swung back and forth instead.

Off in the distance, towards the sunswept east, a deep orange glow spilled all across the indigo horizon. Smoke swirled high before it, twisting in strange plumes above the fading light, forming a long, billowing wall of gray before the strong evening hue.

Amiela had been right, Olive realized, in some belated form of reason: it would have been very hard for anyone to see even a glimpse of the gorgeous sunset colors through all the surrounding chaos, but she could not possibly have known that when she told him.

Olive watched the raging sparks of those weapons, how the firelight flickered and flashed, spilling all throughout the dry prairie grasses. He could watch each of them there, how so many soldiers were each scattered far across the burning plains by then, calling out for one another with hoarse voices and even more desperately gasping cries.

But over to the west, Olive could also find how the warm light of the sun was setting over the mountains. His eyes just barely caught the soft glitter of snowcapped peaks beyond the brilliant glare.

“We have to keep going.” Olive mumbled his words against Ranya’s fluffy shoulder. “We have to get out of this place.”

“Well, yeah. That’s the plan.” Ranya glanced back at him with a somewhat curious gaze. “You holding up okay there, kiddo..?”

Olive felt his eyelids drift low again, resting halfway shut. “I don’t want to slow you guys down.”

After a long, wordless moment, Ranya reached up to pat a steady rhythm between Olive’s shoulders. “We won’t let them hurt you. Listen now, Ami really doesn’t want to leave a kid like you all by yourself out here. We’ll try and be more careful to avoid folks like these in the future.”

Olive shook his head. “It’s not that-”

“I just got a bit too confident about those guys, this time.” Ranya’s words rose stronger than before. “Ami was right to be paranoid. Just, ah... Don’t tell her I said that, yeah?” A feeble little chuckle almost betrayed the rest of her tone. “Not exactly, at least. Her instincts are real good, that’s all.” Ranya sighed and clicked her tongue to scold herself. “These folks all looked lazy to me, at first. I guess I’ve never really seen things escalate so fast with soldiers. Not like this sort of mess.” She paused with a testy hum. “But even now, these guys are still easy enough to rip up if they misbehave.”

Olive felt his fingertips grip tighter against Ranya’s fur without really meaning them to.

Ranya’s voice rumbled with an even deeper chuckle. “Funny how their armor works. Flimsy stuff, when you really think about it.” She hummed a bit more to herself and nodded. “Like tearing open a birthday present... It all just gets in the way.”

Olive forced himself not to tremble or dry heave from the sticky iron scent still clinging to Ranya’s claws. He realized he had never once felt so simultaneously sickened and utterly relieved.

With a soft grunt, Ranya jumped up to let her hind claws seek out and grasp an even higher ledge. In a swift turn of foot, she veered herself off towards the side with a shimmering flick of her sleek tail, just enough so Olive would not have to fully witness the chaos erupting below any longer. Ranya ran far along the narrowest ledge of the canyon wall, traversing the uneven stone pathway with dexterously canine legs.

“Anyway. We both need to pay more attention to Ami when she gets like that, I guess. She’s not always right, but when she’s right... Well.” Ranya shook her head. “Oof. You’d better darn well listen.” She dashed her way along the thin stone trail with fleeting steps, agile and swift. Her claws clicked down against the solid platform with each rapid step she took. “Witches have really sharp senses. Ami’s no exception. She’s always been real good about figuring out the safest way for us to go.”

Olive tried his best not to look down at the grassland so dizzyingly far below. “I thought you said she gets into trouble a lot?”

“Look at you, paying attention.” Ranya chuckled for him again. “Yeah. She does. But it’s hardly ever her fault for it. And, well... There’s a reason that girl usually gets herself out of these things unscathed.” The mirth that had twinged Ranya’s voice faded off. “Gods, I just want Ami to be able to relax from all this stressful garbage, get her mind off it for a minute! But if her being on edge is always keeping us alive, how can I really tell her she’s wrong?”

Olive frowned to himself. His heart pulsed with a pang of displaced guilt, fretting in silence over how he’d wondered whether or not Amiela always was just a bit too sternly rigid and leery, even in a place as treacherous as the sinking wastes. “She... She wasn’t wrong.”

“Yeah.” Ranya’s chest rumbled from deep within with a gathering sigh. “She wasn’t. I just wanted to let you guys rest back there for a while, you know. But both of you would’ve been sitting ducks up on that pillar by now.” Her long ears flicked low when she sniffed at the thick haze of smoke. “Who knows how fast it’s going to spread through grass as dry as that.”

Olive watched it there, the searing swirl of vivid orange and tongues of sour flickering scarlet, even though he could just start to see some other color whirling around inside it, some bizarre, unnameable shade. He hugged his arms even more snugly over Ranya’s neck. “Um. For the first time, in a long time... I’m glad my mom isn’t here.” He mumbled his words against her soft fur, trying to take whatever small comfort he could in the unshakable way Ranya held him. “She’d hate to see all of this.”

“Ah.” Ranya hummed at him again, almost a laugh. “Where’s your mum, then?”

He took brief notice of the specific accent she put on it. Ranya had most likely picked up such a thing from somewhere in the central continents of the known world, or possibly wherever else Amiela had traveled from. But the two of them did not have the same way of speaking as one another, not at all.

Olive wanted to shrug, but he could only move his shoulders so much against Ranya’s solid hold. “I don’t know. We got separated. And I don’t know where she went, after.” He squeezed his eyes shut again, closing them so much tighter. “I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

“Well. I’d bet wherever she is, she’ll be very glad that you’re alright now.” Ranya slowed her pace when the canyon ledge flattened to become a proper path instead, a long, narrow passageway that wrapped deep between two vertical walls of rock. “What’s her name?”

“Ziuna.” Olive could not even remember the last time he’d spoken it aloud. He always just called her ‘Mom,’ anyway. “Do you... Do you really think she could still be out there?”

A shallow brook wove over the way ahead, fed by a vast number of trickling water trails that dripped down the russet canyon walls.

“You’re here right now, aren’t you?” Ranya deftly hopped across the mossy riverbed, claws brushing over the dry and scraggy tufts of green. “I’m sure with a tough boy like you, your mum’s doing just fine.”

Olive sighed. “I wish I was tough.”

“Hey, now. Listen to me, a whole lot of humans would’ve never made it so far in this sort of place. Much less younger, littler ones like you.” Ranya flicked the water away from the pads of her paws, scraping her clawed feet over the dusty rocks by the riverside. “You’re tougher than you think.”

Olive finally opened his eyes and blinked at the sound of that. He began to wonder what Ranya’s face could have even truly looked like that time, whichever expression she might be showing with such an oddly slender, doglike head.

But he could not tell very much about her, not with his chin perched so close against her shoulder. Olive could mostly only see the thick ruff of fur his face was resting by, as well as the way Ranya’s long tail waved back and forth behind her. The limb was quite sizable where it began, but the middle of it was mostly thin and lithe, except for the long feathery tuft over the furthest end.

Ranya walked in that form with a somewhat forward-leaning animal shape, but her arms and legs were both sapiently bipedal, standing regal and tall.

Olive blinked to himself in sudden memory. Many years ago, he had gazed over several depictions of painted murals of upright animal gods, photographs printed in his mother’s books of dusty stone-wrought etchings from long-forgotten, ancient times. But those bizarrely forged, likely fictional beings usually sported fully-fledged human bodies just below their animal heads.

Could Ranya have possibly descended from whatever once inspired such things? But no, Olive reasoned, she did change her shape so very often, and Ranya usually did not stand upright except when the whim seemed to take her. Unless, by some chance, those strange creatures could change their earthly shapes so drastically as well.

“I... I wish I knew what you were.” Olive stared down at his clasped hands. He observed how he’d already twined his fingertips deep into the plush, silky material of Ranya’s body. Not quite fur, he realized, but close: thick sheets of soft, dark starlight fibers made to appear more like fluffy hairs than any otherworldly matter. “I wish it had a name.”

“Mm. I wish I had an answer for you.” Ranya’s tone began to sound just a bit wistful. “I mean, humans have given us countless names over the years, you know. Demon, specter, efreet. Djinn, fae. Shadow... Some of those are downright wrong. Some are more accurate than others.” Her tail wagged slowly back and forth. She shook her head in a similar fashion. “But my people, we really just don’t think of ourselves as anything else but ‘us.’”

Olive wondered if it might not have been the wisest thing to ask the newest question brimming over his mind, but he voiced it softly anyway. “You’re not, um... A deity, do you think?”

“No.” Ranya scoffed for him, but her voice chuckled even more so when she did. “No... Not from what I’ve heard of human gods.”

“Oh.” It made him feel a little bit better, surprisingly. Olive hugged his arms as close as he could around her neck. He mumbled deep against her fluffy shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He could feel Ranya’s laughter then, the deep, gentle rumble of warmth rising steadily through her surefooted self.

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

The noise of the battlefield gradually faded into the distance. Ranya traveled farther along the winding canyon paths, until one of the lofty walls finally gave way to a much sharper drop.

Olive wiggled against Ranya’s arms to try and turn himself around, just enough to look over his own shoulder instead. Out there, across the long, winding slope of the massive gorge, he could finally glimpse the vast shadow of the arched landmark he’d spotted from so far away.

Below the mighty curve of rock, farther from the ledge where Ranya stood at a delicate perch, both she and Olive could just start to distinguish the slightest, most faint outline of a figure hiding there.

Amiela was crouched low, sheltered between the tall shadows of jagged rocks. She remained mostly concealed by the scattered piles of boulders, still cloaked within her suit and mask.

“There’s our girl.” Ranya briefly waved at her from afar, careful not to drop Olive in the process. “Looks like she probably took the more straightforward path to get here. Hmm. Seems we’re a bit late to the party.”

Olive tried to turn even further to see Amiela more clearly, but Ranya held him secure against her chest.

“Hey now, hold still just a bit longer for me, yeah?” Ranya gave Olive’s body a soft squeeze. “We’ll be down there soon enough.”

Before long, Ranya’s hind claws dug deep against the steep slope as she angled her first few steps. She took a more cautious approach than before while descending the rocky face, given that her arms were still quite busy holding Olive secure, and could not help her stay balanced while she clambered her way down.

Her tail did most of the work in that sense, swaying lithely and pressing close against the rocks to keep her path steady. The limb almost moved like it had a mind of its own, some sleek serpentine thing she could coil and tighten to help her feet slide down a particularly smooth patch of rocks. But it was never so much that it seemed like a different part of her, only some bizarrely animate limb that swirled in concert with the rest of her physical being.

With a quiet huff, Ranya sniffed at the dusty air. “We’ll meet up with Ami once we’re past all of this.” She began to take a more serious tone with Olive, though her words were still quite mild. “And listen to me: she might still be wanting to act all cranky about it, but I’m sure she’ll be glad you’re alright.”

Olive did not want to say much of anything to that, at least not aloud. He merely watched the way that tufted tail of Ranya’s curled up higher to help balance her descent. It looked more like a lion’s tail to Olive’s eyes than anything a dog or jackal might have.

The longer they slipped down the incline, the more Ranya’s tall shadow danced further across the looming canyon walls, illuminated by the sunset light.

That was precisely where Olive could just start to see it: the faint, swirling beginnings of a thousand watchful eyes, of uncountable gleaming talons.

Olive did wonder why the sight of it did not make him feel afraid. His heartbeat fluttered, but it was not a swell of fear that gripped his imagination that time, piercing it with dark teeth. Shadows, he reasoned, should not have been able to stare back at him in that peculiar way, peering out towards him from the darkness. They should not ever be able to look so bizarrely fond and tranquil, much less smile and quietly wink after he’d just witnessed Ranya practically rip a grown man to pieces.

She even still carried a twinge of that sharp and coppery smell, Olive noticed, though Ranya did not have a speck of blood left smeared over her body. Iron and smoke mingled in with it, as well as some other richly earthen scent Olive could not quite place a name for.

But the image soon became too blurry against the face of the tall stone wall, too vague for Olive to make anything else out from the mercurial, drifting shadows.

Amiela watched her companions travel down from afar, descending across the higher wall. She slowly leaned back from the base of the archway rock, where she sighed in trembling relief. The breathy exhalation fogged up the inner curve of her helmet, making a slight few beads of liquid trickle down over the glass, but she could not bring herself to care.

That child truly was a menace, she swore, for making her heart race in sheer terror like that.

There were times where that boy acted just like a puppy, keeping so very close behind her heels that Amiela was afraid she might just step on him. But then, other moments, right when she least expected, he was simply gone.

If only she could just reach for him, Amiela reasoned, to grab firmly at his hand and drag him right along with her out of danger. She made a mental note to double-check that he was actually following her next time. Amiela sighed a bit less deeply. Or, she reasoned, she could always ask Ranya to keep one or two of those few thousands of eyes on him, at least.

Ranya trekked her way down the steep canyon wall, reaching the lower platforms after only a few brief minutes. When those clawed feet finally touched against the lowest level, Amiela left her hiding spot and hurried out to join them.

“Do not do that again.” Amiela tried to make herself sound stern and irrefutable and not quite entirely, fiercely harrowed. “Do you understand me? I had no idea if you were even alive, or-!”

“I’m sorry.” Olive rubbed his eyes with one of his hands. He stumbled forward just a little when Ranya helped set him back down on his own two feet again, where she petted the curls on his head with a soft touch of her pawlike hand. Olive’s face was still a bit flushed from his earlier panic, but his voice had grown mostly steady. “I’m sorry, I just...”

Amiela stared down at him. There indeed, just like a puppy again. It felt much too difficult to even try and scold him. She turned away instead, standing firmly in the opposite direction, some vague effort to help cool her temper down. “You aren’t hurt, right?”

Olive shook his head.

Something about Amiela’s gaze faltered, thawing, reaching the first true stage of softening through such slow, gradual degrees. “Then, we... We’ll have that be another rule, then.” She gave him a stern little glance without even facing him directly. From over her shoulder, Amiela eyed the faint red scratches and tiny welts scattered across Olive’s face and arms from when he’d been racing through the tall grass of the prairie. “If I start to move when things like this are happening, dangerous things, you have to move too, unless I tell you. And when I tell you to run, you have to actually run. Understood?”

“Okay.” Even then, Olive’s voice still sounded dry and raw, like he was left somewhere in a deeper daze. “I guess, um... We should keep going?”

They turned to face the center of the towering ravine. Amiela stepped forward first to examine the path winding back and forth between the canyon walls. She moved to open her umbrella, lifting it high above her head. Ranya’s shadow returned to her with an eager rush of swirling motion and rippled sound.

The southward trail held another river. The water there flowed with much more strength than the tepid little brook Ranya had walked over with Olive before, but it still did not look too wide or deep for any of them to navigate across.

“I don’t like it. But yes.” Amiela shook her head at the sight. “We should make more progress before nightfall. We have to get as far away from those people as we can.” She began to step forward, even though her strides were not quite as steady as before. “But it won’t be easy in here, without as much moonlight able to get past the rock.”

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Olive followed close behind Amiela. When he glanced up, he realized the highest peaks of the canyon walls were indeed already starting to darken. The sky above swirled halfway between the deep orange of late afternoon and the deeper, dusky blues of evening.

Further along the rocky trail, the ravine weaved and wound its way even deeper along the path of the river. The rushing sounds of water echoed all across the smooth stone walls.

Amiela’s arms began to twitch when she felt the invisible swell of starlight circling and weaving all around her, the bizarre sort of sensation that made it feel as if she was being carefully poked and prodded nearly everywhere, intangibly examined with numerous gentle gnawing teeth and blunted claws.

I’m fine, Ranya. Amiela bristled a bit. Cut it out.

You didn’t happen to run into any other jerks with crossbows out there, yeah? Ranya’s influence tightened minutely yet unquestionably, all too much like the vast, stern grip of some unfathomable hand, a coil of sleek digits far larger than Amiela herself. I can’t really feel much from you right now, but there’s still something-

I wasn’t hurt. You stopped the bolt before it could even get near me. Amiela had to blink a few times to try and see past the swirling haze of amber that briefly clouded her field of vision. It’s only... Only my ankle. I slipped for a moment climbing up here, but it isn’t sprained. It was just a short distance. You don’t have to worry.

It’s my job to worry. Ranya’s inner voice rumbled thicker than mounting thunder, but she did so silently. I have to keep you safe.

It’s hard to be anything but safe when you always get all crazy overprotective like this. I’m fine. It’s not like it’s your fault I asked you to go look for Olive. Amiela pushed herself forward faster than before, trying her best to make it look like she was not limping. She still knew, deep down, she could not truly escape the fierce presence prickling faster inside her bones and blood and everything else that awaited beyond it. Gods, and you call me paranoid-!

Her pace was practically forced to slow. Her heartbeat quickened, swifter than the sudden flutter of a skyward bird, but there was no force of reprehension, no pain. If anything, Amiela’s mind feverishly came to realize, it was the opposite: a warm sense of sudden, calming anodyne, the unceasing force of glistening, otherworldly fluid fed into her veins and body, the swirling starlight that made her steps feel hazy and the tingle of soreness in her ankle fall numb. Amiela’s entire body tensed. Her eyes widened, but then her perception blurred.

It felt, in that small instant, as if only the most delicate press of abyssal fingertips caressed a firm yet tender hold just beneath the soft curve of her chin, lingering there, keeping Amiela held fast for a moment that stretched on far, far too long within that tiniest moment, before Ranya finally accepted her answer as the full truth of things between them.

Amiela’s hands shook, whispering close beneath her gloves with sparks of near-silent fire. She shivered when the feeling of being ever so daintily ensnared finally subsided, but she refused to so much as even let herself stop walking.

Not far behind, Olive kept peering back and forth. His body reflexively twitched in a similar way, but he was jolted instead by each small sound of pebbles shifting, or even the occasional stir of the river splashing over the shore of damp rocks. It all just felt so eerily calm and unmoving to him, too easily at rest compared to the open combat beyond the gorge.

Disquieted or otherwise, they both eased into a rhythm of walking further through the wide canyon path. Amiela did glance at the angular rocks ahead and mutter to herself a few times, but it was too quiet for her modulator to catch. Somewhere beyond each passing minute, she moved to hold her umbrella a bit closer to herself.

Ranya’s shadowy form curled up to rest nearer as well, ever watchful. She was mostly invisible again, hidden along her perch beneath the tattered canvas fabric. But sometimes, she would bristle and audibly draw in a deeper breath.

Her finer demonic features, as they were, twitched and swiveled in the way a large set of pointy bat ears would perk when hanging upside-down, flexing to listen to the world around her. Olive wondered how many things Ranya could hear or sense that a human being would never even know were there.

With a quiet sigh, Olive looked down at his boots instead. They’d barely walked the canyon floor for more than an hour, but already, the aches came hurrying right back to find the same places they’d always favored, weary and tender and sore. If only the leather of them wasn’t so loose, Olive wished, or if he could actually start to grow even a little bit more into his threadbare, weatherworn clothing.

Every so often, whenever Olive wasn’t quite looking as diligently forward as he really should have, Amiela would tilt her gaze ever so briefly to glance back from over her shoulder, just enough to tell if the young boy was still following, to make sure he was still trailing close behind her footsteps.

The hours stretched by into early evening. Beneath the dim rays of sunlight, Olive wobbled on his feet. His stance abruptly jerked upright. He tried his best to step forward again. But it was already beginning to feel difficult just to keep his legs moving that way, much less hold his head up high without slumping over or letting his gaze drift too far sidelong.

After a short while, when he stumbled forward yet again, Olive barely even caught himself in time. He grasped his hands tight over a narrow boulder before he could topple towards the ground.

“Hey.” Ranya was suddenly standing at Olive’s side again, but she was not bipedal any longer. She leaned forward on four paws instead, where she huffed a warm breath at the sight of him. “Alright, kiddo. Do you remember how you held on to me before?”

“Yeah?” Olive gradually tried to steady himself. He peered ahead and forced himself to blink many times, enough to keep his vision clear and force his eyes open just a little bit longer in the dusky light. He wondered why Amiela had stopped walking as well.

“Okay. We’re going to have you do that again, now.” Ranya still stood in the shape of a fluffy doglike creature, but her body had grown even larger, with a significantly broader back. Her face was slightly rounded, less angular, so much that her features almost began to look more ursine to OIive’s eyes than canine. “Grab on to my neck and hold on.”

Olive looked over at Amiela again. She still had no words for him. So he did as Ranya asked. But when Olive first moved to hold and hug his arms close around that soft fluffy neck, he felt Ranya use the strength of her front leg and forehead to push beneath his body and help boost him up high atop her back instead, settling him there between each of her powerful shoulders.

“Oh-” Olive struggled to keep his balance, not to mumble or whisper his breathless words. He wobbled and tried not to feel too dizzy again. Even then, his eyelids just would not stop slipping, threatening to droop shut from near-total exhaustion. “You don’t have to, Ranya... I can keep walking-”

“I know you can, kiddo.” Ranya flicked her pointy ears at him. “Hey, now. Close your eyes for just a minute, okay?” She chuckled at his dubious look. “Come on, then. Do it for me?”

Olive did so with a quiet sigh. His eyelids did feel so very heavy, after all. It surely would not hurt if he rested them for only a small moment or two. But before the time Ranya asked for could even pass, Olive’s entire body wavered. He slumped forward. His face rested snug against the thick furlike material of Ranya’s body, sheltered in the plush ruff of her neck.

“Well.” Amiela quirked an eyebrow. She pulled her helmet away and held it beneath her arm to get a breath of the fresh evening air. “That’s one way to do it.”

“Yup. Out like a light.” Ranya chuckled and wagged her tail. “Hmm. A whole lot easier than carrying him around in my arms, I’ll tell you that much.” She adjusted her shoulders and stepped ahead to try walking forward. “Let’s see...”

Ranya could feel the way Olive remained mostly secure upon her back. The boy did not even wake from the slight jostle of movement, but Ranya stopped in her tracks when she felt how much Olive’s body was gradually slipping over the smooth fur of her shoulders.

She hesitated. Ranya narrowed her eyes to focus. With only the slightest of visible shudders, she forced the physical reach of her body to shift further, reforming aloft with a subtle, swirling shimmer.

Half-tangible limbs unfurled themselves and reached high, far enough to wrap a translucent layer of shadows close over Olive’s back, holding him steady and still from where he kept dozing in early dreamland.

“He should be alright like that, won’t he?” Amiela took a small step closer. “If I could...” She looked away then, shying back from whatever sentiment she did not have the nerve to say.

“He’ll be fine.” Ranya ambled forth again. She only glanced over her shoulder to make sure Olive did not fall away from the grip of her ethereal arms. “I’ve got him, Ami. He barely weighs anything at all, so it’s no trouble on my part.”

But the look on Amiela’s face only intensified. After an instant of motionless doubt, her expression slowly evened, becoming something that resembled a sense of silent yet unsure gratitude. She still avoided Ranya’s gaze, preferring to stare down at the flowing water that swirled before her instead.

Ranya wondered if she even should say it. “It’s not your fault, what happened-”

“Of course it is.” Amiela stepped even nearer to the riverbank. “Who else could have been at fault?” She slowly drew her umbrella shut. She knelt close beside the water’s edge. “I led us all out here, right into the chaos. I started panicking before anything even happened. And I panicked again, when we left... I went running off right into it without even looking behind myself.”

“You can’t help your instincts.” Ranya padded forward as well. She leaned close enough to peer down at herself in the surface of the gleaming water. “When you get scared, Ami, you usually run on reflex. That’s just how you are. Fight or flight.” Ranya kept quiet for a while. “And if you’re flight, sweetheart... Then I’m fight.”

Amiela stared deep into the blurry image of her own reflection, at the soft lines of worry tinged over her face. “It wasn’t just instinct. I wasn’t even thinking. I assumed he wouldn’t just stop there.”

Ranya laughed quietly. “Then I guess, out of fight or flight... Kiddo is ‘freeze.’” She gave Amiela a more toothy little look. “But, Ami, your first instinct, really, was to protect him.” Ranya waited for that sullen witch to meet her gaze again, even briefly. “Instinct is tough. Neither of you can help it. But at least it means we all know now what to expect, out of problems like these. That way we can handle it next time.”

Amiela still fretted to herself in the dark.

Ranya moved to breathe her next words in a soothing hush over Amiela’s shoulder, teeth drifting close beside her ear. “Listen, Ami. If you and I walk close together now, we should be able to make a good deal of distance tonight before I have to go back to you. We can get ourselves far enough away from this place that we won’t ever have to see those people again.”

As she stared into the moonlit waters, the nearest depths of Amiela’s eyes gradually filled with a different sort of luminance. She finally turned her head, lifting the quiet light of her gaze to find a similar glint mirrored in Ranya’s watchful, patient amber. “Then we shouldn’t wait around.”

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

When the sunset glow gathered before them, so did the darkness. Amiela focused her attention solely on the inner parts of her eyes to help catch any small snippets of remaining light, dilating her pupils further with the slightest boost of latent magic.

It made the first traces of glowing moonlight all so much easier to pick up, for her senses to seek out and find the smooth curves and winding dips of the damp river rocks, the cold splash of midnight blue beside the river’s edge. And just like anything she channeled into herself, the effect passed fluidly along to Ranya.

The stars washed high above, speckling the thin band of sky above the shadowed ravine. They both moved like a pair of coursing beasts in the glittering dark, swiftly yet methodically traversing the canyon floor.

Ranya occasionally stepped forward to take point. She huffed at the dry air to breathe in deep, but her nose could catch no more hints of soldiers, and especially no strange, reeking swirls of metallic sulfur in the dusty canyon wind.

She padded forward with her nostrils flared to scout the next treacherous stretch of terrain. Ranya knew her senses were far keener than any human ever could claim, even without the added benefit of witch-magic. She blinked and crouched low to peer down over the next steep incline.

With a soft growl, Ranya called out to warn of the sharp drop further along the curve of the path. Amiela paused to look at it. She reached for her climbing pick and made her way down with greater caution.

Waiting just above, Ranya crouched low in a bunched up stance until Amiela had nearly reached the bottom. Ranya leapt forward to find a lower ledge, then another, before her swift paws finally brushed neatly against the lowest surface. Amiela’s boots touched down at almost the exact same moment.

“Oh.” Amiela kept her voice to a hush. “The current’s getting stronger.”

Ranya turned to see as well. It was in that very spot that they each found themselves standing between the junction of twin canyon paths. The waterways joined to crash against each other in a sleek rush of frothy foam, swirling together and surging on ahead.

“Wow.” Ranya whistled through her pointy teeth. “This must be a really old place, yeah?” She paced forward a short distance and stared up into the vast stretch of open starlight beyond the canyon walls. “So much water like that... It all carves a path down into the rocks over the years, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” Amiela briefly looked up into the heavens as well. “Thousands of years ago, this place would have been entirely underground. Just solid rock. Nothing else.”

“It’s still underground, in a way.” Ranya peered over her shoulder to check if Olive was still sleeping soundly. “Underground, but with no roof.”

“I guess so.” Amiela stifled a quiet yawn with her arm when she started forward again. “At least it means we won’t be as visible from a distance.”

Ranya did not yet step away from where she stood. “We could stop and rest for a while, you know.”

Amiela did not hesitate, though she did ease herself down into a slower, less hastened sort of pace than before. “We should take advantage of the darkness while we can.”

“Alright.” Ranya walked forward again, keeping close by Amiela’s side. “So. He’s pretty resilient, yeah?”

Amiela’s expression softened even further. She finally peered over to fully meet Ranya’s line of sight. “How... How was he, when you found him?”

“Scared. And frozen up. Again.” Ranya stared deeper into the look lingering over Amiela’s face. “Poor little kitten. He didn’t take it too well.” She breathed a rumbling hum. “Seemed like he was off in his own little world for a minute, back there. He even asked if I was a deity.” Ranya’s voice was caught by sudden laughter, even when she tried her best to stay quiet and not wake the boy slumped over her shoulders. “I mean, sure, I am more than pretty enough to be a goddess!”

Amiela peered back ahead and mumbled the words far too gently for what they really were. “You wish, dogbreath.”

Ranya’s upper lip quivered in an unexpected grin, eyes squinted softly with equal parts mirth and brief astonishment. A brief little cackle left her body when she walked, tail wagging faster while she trotted to keep up with Amiela. Ranya shook her head and sighed, smiling in that toothy way, but the look eased out when her voice evened back into seriousness. “Ah, well. But that didn’t quite seem like why he was asking.”

“What can we really expect?” Amiela forced herself to drag her gaze further from the canine form keeping close at her side. “No child should have to face these kinds of things. Especially alone.”

“He did open up a little about that, actually.” Ranya paused to sniff at a rough shard of ancient pottery. The pointy clay piece was sticking out at an odd angle, jutting up from between a pile of dusty rocks. “Sounds like his mother might actually have a chance of being out here, somewhere. But I didn’t learn very much else.”

Amiela went quiet again for a while. “See whatever you can find out, I guess.” She paused to climb a steep shelf of rock in the forward path. “You’re good at talking to him.”

“You’re not so bad at it yourself, you know.” Ranya wagged her fluffy tail back and forth while she waited, gazing at Amiela from below. “You could ask him things, too. I bet he’d tell you. He already seems to look up to you.”

Perched atop the higher ledge, Amiela shook her head. “We’ve only just met.”

“I haven’t known him very long either. Not even as long as you have, technically.” Ranya hopped forward to clamber her way right up along the rocky ledge as well. “Sure, he was pretty damn scared back there, with all the craziness going on. But there’s just something about the kid... He toughened up real quick. Got himself together while I was carrying him, after he’d had a good little cry to help let all that stress out.” She peered back over her shoulder to stare at him. “And I mean, earlier... Well.” A different, softer sort of gleam flickered through Ranya’s eyes that time. “He wasn’t quite asleep, you know.”

Amiela seemed to startle slightly in place, even though her suit hid most of it. “What?”

“I heard his heartbeat go a bit quick before. Back when we were having that little tiff.” Ranya yawned wide, easing a hazy breath into the crisp midnight air. And though it was a slow, lazy sort of gesture, it still revealed the full span of her massively pointed teeth. “He’s dead asleep right now, sure, but who knows how much the kid overheard this morning. If he listened to us bickering around like that and still hasn’t given us the slip, then there’s got to be something we’re doing right so far in all this, hasn’t there?”

“I don’t think-” Amiela clenched her hands at her sides, pressing the fingertips of her gloves deep against her palms. She wracked her mind to try and recall just how much she’d spoken of so freely back then, when she believed no one else but Ranya could hear. “Anyone as young as him, stranded in a place like this for so long-” She fought down a grimace at the thought. “He’s probably just desperate not to be all alone here with himself.”

Ranya gave Amiela a partway dubious look. “Sure, yeah. I think he also just wants someone to talk to. But he’s shy, like you.” Another clever grin tugged at her lips. “And he probably doesn’t want to feel like he’s bothering his new big sister too much, really.”

Amiela coughed over the slightest note of surprise. “You... Shut up!” She simply could not fight down the tiniest, most involuntary little smile of sudden embarrassment, so Amiela merely glowered and covered her lower face with one of her wrists, promptly turning aside to conceal it all from Ranya. She hurried off, stalking away with an awkward sense of briskness. “I’m... I’m not good with kids.”

Ranya smiled as well. She curled and waved her tail all around for a bit, slowly wagging it back and forth, before she moved to pad her gentle paws wherever the moonlight shone brightest, following along after Amiela.

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

The riverbed swept back and forth with every curve of the canyon walls. The steep ravine only grew broader when each terraced split widened the main path. Even more rivers joined in along with the first watery surge, gathering into a deceptively calm flow of rushing, churning liquid.

Amiela and Ranya both began to catch glimpses of long green bulrushes poking out from the shallowest waves, growing taller and more dense wherever sunlight could meet them during the day.

Tiny river frogs chirped into the darkness. Amiela did not give them much more than a quick glance, but Ranya occasionally paused to see them perched all along the arched river grasses. Sometimes she waited long enough to look back and watch how the delicate little amphibians darted out in the wake of their footprints, curious about such odd newcomers.

Amiela moved to slowly squeeze one of her hands over her forearm, steadying herself with the sensation of pressure before she spoke. “You shouldn’t keep giving me your magic.”

Ranya lifted her ears higher. She gazed all around at the nimble frogs hopping back and forth between the swaying reeds, fighting down the fiercest of urges to pounce at them. “Ah. What a thing to say, out of the blue.”

“You knew this was coming. It isn’t good for you.” Amiela’s fingertips clenched. “Nothing is ever free, Ranya. You can’t just pull energy out of nowhere, like it doesn’t matter. It has to come from something. From someone.”

“Yeah, well.” Ranya flicked her tail towards one of the most wayward little frogs, a tiny green fellow who dangled upside down to stare at the starlight glistening in her fur. “I have more than enough to spare.”

“For how long?” Amiela stared forward into the dark. She lifted each of her arms to loosely grip at the straps of her backpack instead. “For how many times? How much more can you keep doing this, giving so much to me?” Amiela braved a quick glance back at her strangest of companions. “You look... Tired, tonight.”

Ranya pretended to briefly curl her lip and hiss. “Pfft. I’m just dandy, thank you.” She flexed her shoulders to adjust Olive’s slumbering figure a bit more comfortably over her back. “No need to worry.”

Amiela’s gaze sharpened to a steely glint. “You can practically molest me looking for injuries, but I can’t even comment on how exhausted you look?” Her hands grasped even tighter. “Talk about a double standard.”

Ranya’s fur bristled and flashed. But she only shook her head and moved to trot forward in a fierce yet stilted jaunt, pushing away any small hint of fatigue. “Oh, and here I thought I was still the big, bad demon you swear secretly hates you, yeah? Wants to rip out your insides?” Ranya curled her lip even higher when she passed by Amiela, crooning a melodic little tone of mockery. “Then why not let me help you while I ‘still care about you,’ hmm?”

“Because it would be selfish.” Amiela did not even try to hurry her steps to match Ranya’s forward momentum. “Taking someone else’s power for your own...” She refused to look up from the ground beneath her boots, much less meet Ranya’s eyes again. “It would be wrong.”

Ranya sniffed at the air and grumbled. She stalked her way forward into the taller reeds of grass. She then huffed a great, heavy sigh, where she abruptly sneezed on the willowy scents of bullrush fluff and pollen in the misty canyon atmosphere.

Another small amphibian croaked at Ranya. It advanced without caution, walking in the wobbly, wet way tree frogs always seemed to do, before it hopped right off from the reed it had been clinging over. Ranya perked her ears slightly and blinked when the little frog bounced right away into the night from atop her forehead rather than any grassy perch.

Beyond the next bend in the canyon path, through the span of space where the main river split, the great rush of waters poured forth over a steep ledge to crash against a series of smooth, rocky shelves, stirring up a veil of mist and aromatic sediment. The river churned hard before it calmed itself again, flowing onward to become a realm of more shallow, flattened pools, a surface filled with emerald curtains of waterlogged moss and lush, tall reeds.

In that place, the smooth stone platform just before the span of the naturally-formed river dam, that was where Ranya and Amiela each realized they were standing atop another junction point, of sorts.

The network of rivers had roared along for years to carve great channels into the solid canyon walls, tunneling along deep to create the several distinct waterways snaking up ahead. The two of them would need to choose a single path out from the numerous tunnel passages, Amiela realized, but that was not what drew her attention first.

Closer to the place they stood, not far away in that very clearing, where the swift river currents fanned out to become much less murky, calmer pools, that was where they both first saw it: the softest, gentlest hint of a watery glow.

“Is that..?” Amiela paused. “Fireflies.”

The luminous creatures swam along in steady, unhurried circles, drifting just above the water’s surface. Shimmering blues, pale verdant greens, their tender inner lights cast long waltzing shadows from between the tall reeds, rippling far across the smooth walls of the canyon.

“Oh.” Ranya cooed at the sight of the glowing animals. “Hm. They must’ve gathered here because it’s so damp.”

“There’s so many.” Amiela took a slight step backwards. “This isn’t... That’s not normal, is it?”

Ranya shrugged. “I’ve never seen this much of them. Wow.” She lifted one of her paws to try and reach for the nearest group of fireflies. But Ranya’s ears drooped when she saw how they all swiftly scattered, hiding themselves deep in the dewy river grass. “Nervous, too?” She frowned at the way they all fled at once. “Maybe something spooked them in here.”

“But why would they even be concentrated in one area like this?” Amiela peered all around to look higher at the bare canyon walls, but she could not find anything obvious there, nothing but solid stone and gleaming moonlight. “It doesn’t make sense...” Her gaze dipped low. “Not that anything about this place even makes sense to begin with.”

Ranya began to speak sweet nothings into the moonlit darkness, trying her best to coax out a few of the least wary, fluttering little fireflies by laying low on her belly to look less threatening.

When a couple of the tiny creatures finally reappeared from the grass, floating up high to inspect Amiela instead, she drew her arms close beside herself. “Or, maybe if-” Amiela found her attention drawn back to the flowing waters. “If they’re survivors of the initial war, then they might have been forced to make their nests here, in this kind of place, where they can all find enough moisture together.”

“Maybe. Look at that, Ami, they like you!” Ranya chortled aloud when Amiela offered her a flat look, but neither of them could deny the way the curious fireflies began swirling faster all around her. “You’ve got your own fan club now.”

“I doubt it. It’s probably just the magic in my eyes.” Amiela blinked a few times. She tried to step away from the floating animals. “Bugs are always attracted to light. Even if these things aren’t really insects.”

“Well, whatever they are, the rest of them sure are skittish.” Ranya turned her head back to face the dense green wall of reeds, where she waited for the more reluctant little wisps to feel curious enough about her as well. “Maybe they’re escapees from folks like those soldiers. Those ones seem to like you well enough, though.” Half of Ranya’s gaze tracked the small group of fireflies that kept swirling closer to Amiela. “Say, Ami... Maybe they’re the ones you saved the other day?”

Amiela watched the creatures drift in such slow, soft circles before her eyes, coloring the air all around her. Surrounded by each wisping swirl of pastel light, she could only shift her gaze aside from them and turn away with a tiny shrug. “I guess anything’s possible.”

Ranya swished her tail back and forth. She crept further through the tall grass, moving along on the padded tip-toes of her paws to nudge and bump her nose against the nearest of the weightless little creatures.

The startled firefly bobbed aloft and gradually spun through the air before her. The bizarre little creatures usually only made soft ambient whooshing sounds, but that particular one squeaked in the same way a squeegee would screak and wibble its way over glass.

Amiela shook her head at the sight. “Don’t bully them.”

“I’m not bullying anyone.” Ranya scoffed a quiet breath. She watched how the dizzy little firefly reoriented itself in midair, before it and a few others finally moved to float a bit closer beside her face. “Listen, if those trigger-happy jerks had them locked up in jars like that bottle you found, then maybe these other ones managed to break themselves free somehow, and made their way here to find all this water.” She sniffed at each of the bizarre little animals, gently pushing them around with the warmth of her breath. Ranya was already well aware that fireflies were mostly odorless, oddly enough, though they always did smell faintly like oncoming rain. “That’d explain why they’re a bit nervous, too.”

“It’s not like we could ask.” Amiela shrugged once more. “But if I had to guess... Yeah. Those ones, they were probably caught up and sealed so they could be released later to lead the way to water.” She sighed in distaste. “It’s a clever trick. But cruel.”

Ranya inhaled a deep breath of the misty air. She watched as even more of the glowing fireflies began to wander out from where they’d been hiding. The animals moved to cautiously drift around her face as well, examining her odd glistening pelt and the way her whiskers would twitch and shine like gossamer beneath the pale light of the moon.

Before long, perhaps emboldened by the nonthreatening nature of their guests, the far greater majority of the fireflies slowly rose out from reeds to swim in the air around each of them, becoming a vast, rippling wave of luminous motion. The floating wave of creatures gathered into languid swirls of meandering, fluid movement, rising aloft to observe those strange three newcomers.

Amiela retreated a few more paces. She frowned when the nearest flock of fireflies moved even closer to her instead. “I don’t want to hurt them. I wish I could tell them to just stay back-” She slowly lifted one of her hands to wave at the animals in a foreboding motion, trying to shoo them away. “I’m sorry. Please don’t come close.”

But the shimmering creatures just floated there passively, drifting all around her body in slow whirls of color and light.

“They can probably feel your energy.” Ranya moved to sit on her haunches. She yawned when one of the boldest little fireflies, the very same one she greeted before, decided to perch itself along the very tip of her nose and settle there with a quiet shimmer. “If they can sense anything about this world like I can, Ami, then they’ll be able to tell you’re just like a steady little furnace inside. All pretty and bright.”

Amiela tried her best not to wince when more of the fireflies flew up to circle before her, whirling around in ceaseless floating patterns. “They don’t exactly feel like magic, themselves... Not like how you feel, or how it feels when there’s another witch.”

“That’s true enough. A bit of a mystery, aren’t they?” Ranya sneezed again at the misty air, but her favored firefly just floated aloft to perch atop her forehead instead. “Well. I think those ones have got to be the ones you saved, Ami. They like you too much. Can’t be a coincidence.” She waved one of her paws in a decisive swish. “And at least they mean this place is safe, if you believe the folklore.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t.” Amiela felt a most unusual shiver trail down her spine when the fireflies each slowed their intricate dances before her eyes, rising, falling, moving aside to part the space between them so their fellows could each rise forth, all twirling together in some grand repeating pattern, truly and fully synchronized. “I don’t know what they are, if they’re even capable of protecting places, or people, but whatever it is, it isn’t anything we can possibly know.”

When the firefly resting on Ranya’s forehead drifted away, teetering in the air with a slight wobble of farewell, she lifted her chin to watch it. She observed how it fluttered right up to rejoin all the others, hovering there in the air above those three strange travelers.

Olive muttered softly in his sleep. The fireflies each seemed to ripple at once at the quiet sound, flowing in midair as one reactive force; the very same swirl of sudden movement as a murmuration of starlings or amassed school of fish.

Amiela and Ranya both watched, stances tensed, eyes raptly fixed as the wave of glowing creatures drifted forward to inspect that one final person of their haphazard little group.

Olive himself did not wake. But he did seem to stir there, disquieted from his more restful sleep. He pressed his face even deeper into the warm, velvety surface of Ranya’s back. He mumbled and curled closer against himself.

In one singular rush, the fireflies swirled high into the air.

Ranya rose to her paws. Amiela stepped back as the vast gathering of creatures spun and wheeled and rippled fast over the full span of the canyon clearing.

They moved like starlit raindrops suspended in midair. Liquid, luminous, a concerted force of flowing light that whirled higher and swam to travel swiftly southward over the rivers and reeds like some brilliant comet shower, racing against the soft whispering winds, soaring off towards the place where one of the waterways split off from the rest to plunge deep beneath the solid earth.

That was where they all stopped. The massive swarm of glowing creatures all waited in silence before the mossy entrance of the tunnel, lingering in place with a deliberate air of fortitude.

Amiela gave the hovering animals a dubious look. “Now they’re all hanging out over there?”

Ranya smirked to herself. “They must want us to follow them.”

“You can’t possibly-” Amiela looked on in total disbelief when Ranya stepped forward. “Ranya!”

Ranya laughed. “Have a little faith, Ami.” She grinned back towards Amiela, wagging her tail and eyeing the young woman from over her shoulder. “I’m still your demon, aren’t I? I won’t lead you astray.”

Amiela crossed her arms over her chest. She exhaled only the most silent, weary hiss of a sigh. She lowered her voice to a more breathy mutter, even though she knew full well that Ranya could still overhear. “You’re not even the one I’m most worried about...”

Before long, Amiela treaded her way right along after Ranya, wandering through the marshy floor of the canyon. But she did hesitate before the vast, yawning gap of inky darkness. The path that led beneath the curve of solid rock sloped deeper through water-slick ledges and winding curves of shadowed stone, where even the light of the moon could not reach in and help guide their way through the shadows.

Amiela steeled her nerves. She forced herself to slip down beneath the lip of the cavern, enough to follow after Ranya and the fireflies. Amiela glanced all around while she crept deeper into the tunnel, watching that mysterious glow glide further and further through the depths of the earth.

“Like a secret passageway.” Ranya gave the murky shadows a contented rumble. “What do you think, Ami? Almost cozy, isn’t it?”

Amiela glared out at nothing in particular. “This is stupid.”

“Oh, lighten up.” Ranya brushed her fluffy tail back and forth against the smooth cavern walls. “Grumpy, grumpy. Grumpy little witch, my Ami is. It’s really not so bad down here.” She grunted to herself when she had to squeeze herself past a much narrower bend in the rock. “Ugh.”

Ranya was careful not to jostle Olive from her back, making sure especially not to let either of them fall from the steep ledge and crash right down into the underground river. The fireflies all paused to watch her.

“A little musty and damp, sure...” Ranya’s nostrils twitched at the stale, wet scents in the air. “And just a bit crowded with everyone along for the ride, maybe. But I don’t mind.”

“I meant-” Amiela cautiously made her way past the tight rocky gap as well. “Stupid, as in: probably going to get us all killed if we fall into an underwater current and drown.”

“Well, aren’t you just as cheerful as a funeral pyre?” Ranya rolled her eyes. She moved to keep walking onward. “If you were really scared of that, Ami, you could always just reach out and sense it.”

Amiela found she had no retort. She moved instead to keep closer in step with Ranya, trying to make it look as if she wasn’t so unnerved by the looming depths of the coiled tunnel.

They moved together in silence for a time, past the deepening slopes and sleek curves of rock where the floating fireflies became their only true light. Amiela pulled off one of her gloves to lift her hand and snap her fingers against the humid air, but only a weak, flickering flame hissed alight over her skin.

It still illuminated the mural swirling far across the wall beside them.

Ranya halted in her tracks. She inclined her head to stare at the weathered old surface, the near-faded, crumbling remnants of chiseled carvings and dusty imprints over the hallowed stretch of stone. Her gaze drifted along to hone in upon the painted face as delicate as powdery blue pottery, yet still cradled by claws sharp enough to rend the greatest of beasts from the sky and furrow them deep into the ground, blood staining the earth itself to nourish the budding fields.

“Oh. Explains all the pottery, back there.” Ranya’s voice echoed far over the firelit walls, even in a low whisper. “Ami. What are the kings and queens in Tanica called?”

Amiela had to force herself to stop staring in total attention at the foremost image, mouth slightly parted at the sight of such ancient whorls of meticulous artistry. “That isn’t a queen, Ranya.”

“Hm.” Ranya turned her attention towards the plumes crowning that lofty figure in the very center of it all, the multicolored scales of countless serpents wreathed deep between leaves of green, the feathered woman who tore similar beasts from the sky and yet held the tender sprig of rice as delicately as glass within her claws. “What are they called, anyway?”

“Rani. Or Raja, for king.” Amiela slowly gestured her hand towards the painted figures standing on the platforms just above the flourishing rice fields, yet still never as high as the winged woman sheltering them beneath her dappled shadow. “They’re here.”

Ranya spared only one small glance towards the tiny yet regal etchings of humanity poised on their temples above the workers toiling at the very bottom. She turned her gaze higher, towards the deep swath of clouds swirling highest of all. “All of this. Lost down here in some dingy old cave.” Ranya frowned and curled her tail close. “Pagan stuff, you think?”

“No.” Amiela barely moved enough to shake her head. “There are thousands of Tanican gods. Maybe even more than thousands. Most of them hardly known, or remembered, so people only think of them that way.” She hesitated on a quiet breath. “But this isn’t obscure. Not even close.” Amiela’s hand lifted high for only the briefest moment, waving a small gesture as she stepped away beneath the image of wings and skin and deepest blue eyes, the image half-lost in the clouds that surrounded the sprawling rice fields. “That is Maiuri.”

Ranya listened with her ears perked when Amiela stepped forward, moving past the place where her demonic companion sat. Ranya’s paws did not yet lift. She watched the fireflies twirl and glitter in the dark. She watched how the creatures spun and drifted closer to the image of once skyward beasts depicted in their final descent, the flash of fear, the flesh flayed outwards, the rivers of blood painted in deepest ocher red.

“Hmph. I never knew Tanicans thought so low of dragons.” Ranya looked instead at the serpentine creatures coiled close around the tallest figure, gazing at the masses of forked horns and tiny clawed legs half-hidden beneath the shawl of leaves. “Or... Maybe just the wrong kind of dragon.”

Ranya’s ears barely twitched when she heard the whispered muttering that somewhat passed for calling her. Ranya ignored the way Amiela stood there so stiffly beneath the furthest echo of light from the fireflies, waiting at the opposite end of the painted tunnel.

Amber eyes spared one more lingering glance for the portrait twice as blue as the richly inked sky, the face with eyelids dipped so serenely, the feathers that curled and flowed much like the sprig of rice in the open palm of a goddess’ hand. Ranya finally, gradually leaned away and tossed her head high with a satisfied hum. “Told you I was just as pretty.”

The fire at Amiela’s hand flickered faster for a moment, but she calmed it just as quickly. She had to blink back a visible wave of weariness. “As arrogant as a goddess, at least.”

“Hmm. I know what this is. You’re only cranky because you’re tired.” Ranya eyed the pale little plume of fiery green from the far corner of her gaze, but she did not let her words ring in a truly mocking way. “Don’t worry. Something’s already starting to smell really good up ahead.” She lifted her snout to inhale the first true whiff of fresh air drifting down from the higher tunnelway. “Can you smell it too, Ami?”

Amiela blinked a few times when she realized just how much her steps were lagging. Her boots dragged with each step she made against the dusty cavern floor. She paused and tried to shake away some small part of the bone-deep weariness, but it gripped down hard over her limbs and simply would not let go.

Even then, Amiela could just start to smell it. Her deepest senses trembled with what nearly felt like relief when she finally caught that faint scent of something uniquely liquid and pure, the earthen scents of moss and dewy petrichor clinging to the moisture in the air.

Ranya swished her tail faster when the luminous fireflies seemed to hasten before her. “I wonder if our little bugs here let their friends know what you did before, Ami...” She watched how the all creatures gathered up and swirled in place further along down the passage, as if beckoning them both. “Maybe that’s why they’re helping us.”

Amiela sighed. “You’re projecting intentions onto them, Ranya.”

Ranya paused. “No I’m not.” She patted her paws down against the earthen floor, fully halting in place. “Look. They’ve stopped for us.” Ranya tipped one of her ears towards the fireflies lingering there by the corner of the tunnel ahead. “It’d be pitch dark down here without them, even with your fire, but they’re just waiting there for us. They can’t be bad news, Ami.” She moved to point a few of her claws at them as well. “They know we don’t mean them trouble. So they want to help.”

“They can’t possibly know.” Amiela fought to try and keep her eyelids from drifting, or even indulging the ever burgeoning desire to simply stop there for a moment, to lean herself against the steady cavern walls and breathe deeper, giving her weary legs reprieve. “If anything... They’re just probably grateful we aren’t chasing them around with jars, or butterfly nets.”

Ranya peered back fully over her shoulder. “So you do think they’re helping?”

Amiela merely stared into her there, the far depths of that awaiting face, those softened yet narrow features, the visage that was somehow just as bearlike as it was canine. She could already see them there, if she really tried: the unearthly, shimmering outline just beneath Ranya’s physical form, those thousands upon thousands of such vigilant eyes, those keenly hooked fangs just waiting to leap out past the surface of her assumed guise.

“They’re only animals, Ranya.” Amiela gazed beyond the far reaches of the wolf waiting before her, the ceaseless, watchful shadow of a demon hidden deep within plain sight. “Not like you or me.”

Ranya’s ears swiveled back, but she said nothing. She only turned around to take point once more, following along after the patiently hovering fireflies.

Amiela closed her eyes for a moment while she walked. She listened to the sounds of her boots scraping over the solid earth. She tried her best to follow the faint brushing click of Ranya’s claws wherever her companion padded.

That was where Amiela finally let her eyes slip open, where she first saw the rough point of breakage in the far-off passage, beyond the narrow walls of cavern rock, where the tunnel itself abruptly gave way to a similar open trail as before.

The fireflies each waited for them, floating in the serene evening air beneath the first clear rays of moonlight.

“Oh, I smell it even more now!” Ranya simply could not stop the eager little gleam that yelped in her voice, the hushed breaths of excitement stirring through her nose from such a sudden whirl of gathering scents. “Ami, come on!”

Amiela sighed. She had to quicken her steps just to try and keep up when Ranya hurried right out from the cave, into the next rocky surface. The glowing fireflies wheeled and spun above like tiny meteors as they carried along with her through the crisp midnight air.

Far above the river, a set of ravine walls spanned out further south. The path ahead began to widen noticeably wherever the water ran, where the force of erosion had long since carved an even more exposed area than the previous firefly pools.

The stony terrain sloped down steeply to hide beneath a dense, deep fog. Amiela watched how Ranya ran right off and disappeared inside it. The fireflies twirled faster while they followed her, but some of them stopped at the edge of the mist to hover in place and wait behind for Amiela.

Beyond the spires of looming rock, a realm of jagged, earthen things that lurked deep inside the mist, tall stones that seemed to scrape even the moonlight out from the air, Amiela could just start to see traces of flitting insects wherever she walked, tiny leaping creatures with glassy green wings that shone clear beneath the starlit sky.

Amiela soon drifted up to her waist in the fog. She found those keen golden eyes waiting just beyond the veil of vapor. Ranya blinked back at her, half-hidden within the dense swirling curtain.

She nearly looked like a ghost, Amiela reasoned: some grim, lupine specter with a little child draped limp over her back. It would only be fitting, she thought, if such a thing were about to leap out and sink into her, rip those fangs deep into her flesh, rend and tear at it until she found what waited just inside, bite her soundly and never let go. It would make all the sense in the world.

Ranya’s eyes shone sharp and bright, flickering only once. But her doglike tongue suddenly lolled right out from her mouth in an utterly affectionate manner, a prelude to so many soft panting breaths.

One of the fireflies dipped back down to rest atop Ranya’s head again. The demon whined aloud at Amiela and wuffed out a low, muted sort of howl, calling for her from beyond the obscuring mist.

Amiela almost felt too weary to roll her eyes at the sight. “I’m not as fast as you, like this. Be patient.” She watched the way Ranya’s various puffs of breath and muffled barking kept fogging heavily at the humid air, how that bizarrely eager demon sniffed ahead and wagged her tail in anticipation of whatever else was waiting for them beyond the gloom. Amiela looked away and muttered. “Gods. Don’t have a conniption for my sake.”

When Amiela made her way through the field of rocky grass to return to Ranya’s side, they each stepped further along the misty embankment. More and more fireflies began to appear from deeper in the shelter of the grass. The ones Amiela and Ranya had not yet met peeked their tiny bodies out from the greenery with much greater caution than their fellows.

Most of the newer fireflies remained there, staying hidden among the reeds to watch such bizarre travelers moving by with their braver cousins. But a few of them were bold enough to swirl out and follow after their strange little group for a while, bobbing along with them in the moonlight.

Amiela and Ranya both finally paused when the main flock of glowing creatures led them to the long base of a hill. The winding slope reached up far throughout the encompassing mist.

Ranya stepped forward first, but she hesitated when she felt a sudden soft touch of material under her paw pads, the unmistakably plush suppleness of green. She looked down at the springy earth beneath her claws. Lush, living mosses stretched on without end between the shorter tufts of grass, swirling far away, out from sight into the dense layer of fog.

“Oh.” Ranya almost felt reluctant to press her full weight against it. “It’s not dead.”

Only after Ranya began to move further, padding her way across the grass to lead her companion across the steep span of the hill, it was there where they both finally stopped atop the height of the misty peak, to truly realize the scope of the realm spanning out before them.

The valley proper ran at least a few miles in either direction. And yet there was only so much of it their eyes could see, with the vast majority obscured past the thick cloak of fog. The immediate stretch of open wetland sloped gradually downward, trailing along with the steady flow of each rushing stream.

Countless waterfalls spilled from the high canyons, tumbling over the ravine walls to pool deep into the verdant valley. The clear rivers snaked and coiled, weaving and winding until they all joined together into a vast network of branching waterways, filling the sheltered area with even more numerous scattered ponds.

“He was right...” Amiela’s voice barely left her throat. “It really is like an island, in the middle of this mess.” She gently recoiled one of her arms from another curious firefly. “You’d never even think there was a wasteland, just outside.”

Ranya swiveled her long ears at the sight. “If there’s water here, it means there’s food.”

Amiela’s words became even more faint. “It also means we might not be alone.”

“We’ll just have to be extra careful, then.” Ranya stepped aside to find a loose trail of rocks that wove past the longest stretch of the hill, leading down towards a patch of tall reeds. “So, not that I mind carrying him around like this or anything...” She ambled her way deeper through the dense stretch of grass, moving towards a particularly velvety patch of moss. “But kiddo here is going to have a much better time sleeping if he can stay still someplace for a while. And you’re running on almost no sleep, yourself.”

Following the outline of Ranya’s soft pawprints, Amiela tried to summon enough energy to protest, some will of effort left in her withering gusts of fire, but she simply could not find the strength. “They say fireflies gather where it’s safe, but is it just folklore?” She let herself slump down to her knees.

Ranya sniffed at the air and wagged her tail even more.

Amiela gradually leaned over on her side, settling her body down to droop close against the dewy surface of grass. The tall reeds were more than strong enough to support her slight weight, creating a sloped sort of hammock bed beneath her. “Alright... We’ll rest here. Only for a little while.”

Ranya laid herself down as well. She slowly tipped her sloped outline aside while releasing the force of her ethereal grip. The motion helped Olive slide away from atop her back and shoulders, where his body gently touched down against the plush bed of cushioned earth. She let him settle there, waiting until he was similarly sprawled over the softness of emerald moss.

Amiela murmured her words into the dark. “Ranya?”

Ranya pressed a single nudge of her nose against Olive’s forehead. She breathed over his soft scent and hummed. Ranya then padded aside and dematerialized. Her shadowy visage floated beneath the faint light of the fireflies, beneath the glow of the moon, sweeping fast over Amiela’s body to join with her again.

Amiela felt her eyes drift shut. Ranya...

Yeah.

Thank you for finding him.

Don’t worry about it.

I know I don’t really know him, but... I don’t want him to die. Then, this... This place really never would have been redeemable.

I know. We’ll keep a closer eye out.

In the bleary realm of her own thoughts, Amiela felt herself drifting beneath a deeper grasp of slumber. Her mind became so entirely held by it, so unaware, so blissfully, peacefully numb beyond the point of anything tangible, so much that she did not even notice the vast spectral image of the beast looming inside her own mind.

Neither did Amiela realize how that hazy, angular starlit creature curled up close all around her, humming and rumbling, twining a strong tufted tail over her body in a warm, protective embrace.