Aura did not talk after the incident. She did not scream. She did not cry. She did not laugh. She did not fume. She did not smile. She did not fight. She did not sleep. She did not dismiss her crows. There was comfort in them.

“Again, really?” Syllis said, looking at Aura. She sat, staring off into the distance behind them. Towards Korman, towards where they left their hope behind.

“Yes, again,” Clyde answered with a sigh. There was a pained expression on his face.

‘Even if he knew the risks… none of us expected it to pan out like this.’ Syllis thought. Clyde was guilty but not this guilty. Clyde had killed Korman but this fable was abnormal as far as most went. ‘This is like the sort of fables that are described by nomads with at least five anathema. The kind that my short time in Lurgica had taught me, the kind that Aura used to tell me about…’

The night was dark and the suns were nowhere near lighting the sky aflame. Since they were closer to the opposite edge of the chasm, nights were longer. The large stone wall that they were moving towards—its shadow—was keeping the suns’ flames from reaching them as it used to.

Syllis found a strange comfort in it. There was an eeriness. ‘So what? Does anything in this place not carry a sense of this eeriness? In such a desolate and twisted place, one must seek solace in the few places they can.’

“Aura.”

The ashen ground was slightly crushed under Syllis’ steps. Like walking across hundreds of thousands of leaves. Despite the still glowing embers, scattered amongst tattered black and grey, it almost felt like that time in winter. That time when Syllis would see the leaves fall from the trees in Asanoch.

‘That government, they always spent quartz on unnecessary things. The changing of the seasons, Aklilan, Anahita’s stupid ascension.’ Syllis kicked a decent amount of ash up into the air.

Of course, Aura did not respond. Her demeanor was that of a corpse. It almost seemed like her soul had been lit aflame and lost when Korman had. A twisted form of love.

‘I wonder if I’ll ever have that feeling?’ Syllis thought. Then, the scattered memories of her ritual flashed throughout her mind. She was left with only a frown, spearheading her very pained expression.

“Aura, please talk to me.” Syllis almost begged her as she sat down beside the entirely lifeless woman.

Still, Aura looked forward with her forlorn expression. She had entirely torn through her grey, fabric gloves when she tried to claw out from Clyde’s grasp in the small abyssal pocket. The integrity of her jacket had been compromised along with Syllis, Clyde and Korman’s at the beginning of their fable. Now—almost every day—large patches would almost shed, littering the ground like the familiar ash.

“Please Aura,” Syllis continued. “Please, please, please. Just speak to me, please.” The secare nymph repeated, over and over. Tears began to fall from her eyes.

Syllis turned to Aura with her red, sullen eyes, their muddled green color burning a hole in her side. She moved closer and reached for Aura’s shoulder. Shaking it slightly, she called out again.

Nothing, just nothing. She was beginning to grow frustrated. Eventually, she got up in a fury, stomping away. Another attempt, nothing.

The secare nymph laughed wryly. ‘Why did I think it would be any different with me? Clyde tries time after time and what? Nothing, just nothing, again and again. Why would she want to talk to me anyway? I’m the reason Korman died. If it had just been the three of them, they all would have lived.’

Syllis clutched at her stomach. It churned, begging for any sustenance. Originally they thought that taran would be commonplace in the abyssal pockets. Most pockets near Abyssia held them within. Past the half-way mark though… nearly all of them had migrated from there. There was nearly no food.

“Clyde, any luck?” Syllis asked the man.

“Yes, finally, some luck.” Clyde said with a half-baked smile. He was sitting on the edge of the pocket.

There had been a couple taran inside. They were mangled, brutally. No way they could have survived the journey to Abyssia. So they were left to rot. Like Korman, to rot. Like the world, rotten.

“It feels almost inhuman to devour this creature. I’ve always seen the taran as exceptionally intelligent.” Syllis said with discontent.

“I agree with you but what choice do we have?” Clyde asked. He hoped that Syllis would have a better idea.

Syllis merely shook her head, from side to side. Her wavy cerulean hair followed her movements. It was unruly and entirely too long. She had never found a reason to cut it. It did not get in the way. It was not very pleasing to her all the same though.

Clyde thought the same way. He had a ramshackle sort of beard growing. And Aura… she did not have reason to do much of anything anymore.

Every day of hers was spent the same. Clyde would drag her onto the back of one of her crows and they would head for the next pocket. Then, she sat. She looked towards Korman’s demise, where it happened. Never away until they were to move again.

It was especially difficult to feed her. Aura wanted to die. But the constant draining of her ephemeral creatures on her sanity kept her in an odd state. She was assuredly sustaining the maximum brunt of recoil from whatever god she was bonded to. She did not exactly have the mental capacity to try any real method to die.

This was to Clyde and Syllis’ advantage. They could not let her die, she needed to live. It might be cruel, subjecting her to so many whispers and fallacies. But they needed her to live, so that they could. Besides, once they escaped, she would return to normal.

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“She will be happy, right?” Syllis asked Clyde. Her muddied eyes watched his face carefully.

“I hope so. I really hope so,” Clyde answered. There was worry on his face. He was not great at hiding it.

Syllis looked over to the ephemeral crows. They were peculiar. Rather what was behind them. She was exceedingly interested in why they had not deteriorated. With her own bond, all of her ice would shatter and disappear the second she ran entirely out of room in her mind or at least once she reached a certain threshold. Even when the burning suns had nearly killed them, it took begging Coryzan to give her the leeway to break into Abyssia. Aura by comparison was unique. She should have long reached her limit. The crows had been active for half a month. Unless she had some absurd circumstances surrounding her or her bond, she should be at the limit. Her mind was broken, so why was her bond active?

Syllis scrutinized the woman under her gaze for a moment.

‘Now that I think about it… there’s more anomalies in this vein…’ Syllis thought, there were too many bizarre aspects to Aura. ‘She never told me or anyone else what her second anathema amplified. Along with this bizarre interaction with her sanity… Hell if she had a few more anathema then she would have died by now…’

‘Enough!’ Syllis stopped herself. This was not the time. There were much more important things to do.

“So, how do you want to cook it?” Syllis asked Clyde. She was beginning to salivate. It had been an entire day since the three of them ate.

“You don’t want to wait for the four suns to rise…” Clyde said, his voice trailed out. He glanced around. Apparently he was no less hungry than she was.

The two of them got up and walked over to one of the ephemeral crows. Their exuberant, ethereal green flames looked like an excellent alternative to the four suns.

Clyde tried to cook the meat under the heat of the ephemeral crows. Nothing, even these crows could not help them. Their heat was too little and Aura was not in any position to tune it to their needs. Disappointment was left on both of their faces.

“What if… we ate it raw?” Syllis asked, placing a hand over the front of her stomach.

There was a silence that washed over them. It was insane. Eating meat, unsterilized by the sun. All sorts of bacteria could be present. They could contract illness, disease and die. Despite this, the option seemed tantalizing.

“No,” Clyde said, “we better wait until the suns’ flame reaches us. We can’t risk it no matter how… enticing.” He pulled the glow-tree sheet with scattered chunks of juvenile taran meat and wrapped it with another sheet before tying them together.

Syllis frowned before smiling. ‘Thank the lord he decided against it. We can’t risk it.’

“You’re stronger than me, Clyde.” Syllis caught up with him before walking to his side. Both of their steps across the ashen barren created bizarre shuffling sounds.

“Yeah? Well, we have to get Aura home safely,” Clyde said. “We made a promise. We promised him.” He looked up to the sky.

“That we did…” Syllis followed suit, looking upwards somewhat longingly. ‘He’d hate that. His killer looking up, acting out of sympathy? No, this is a pitiful gaze.’

“It’s about time then.” Clyde gestured towards the sky.

“Right.”

Clyde grabbed Aura. She did not react, continuing to look longingly back the way they came. She was pulled into the pocket where she frowned and stared into the abyssal walls.

The pockets became more plentiful the closer they came to the opposing wall. This goal post that they had since they had arrived in Abyssia had a small opening in the front of it. The opening was not as assuming as Abyssia’s, it had not been whittled away as much with the lack of time it was exposed to the suns’ flames.

With this increase in pockets came an increase in space within them. This left ample room for them to leave Aura to wallow, while conversing themselves. One such topic was the possibility of a ‘second Abyssia.’ It was not far-fetched. If there were more pockets and larger pockets closer to Abyssia, then it logically made sense for it to work in the reverse way. The lack of pockets in the center of the abyss was due to its extreme distance from both sides of the chasm.

There was hope. It was faint and vague, possibly foolish. But it was hope nonetheless.

“It's almost time, Syllis,” Clyde said. Pale-white flames had begun to reach their pocket. The abyss fought off the temperature but it remained somewhat.

The glow-tree sheet was raised into these flames like a steel rod to be melded into something greater. This transformed the meat that they had seen as something akin to sinful into a delicacy. They were hungry, they had this. They needed to eat it.

“Finally,” Syllis said. It had been over a day now since she and Clyde, along with Aura had eaten.

Both of their stomachs growled as they examined the meat with the same longing that Aura directed to where they had come from. They took their fill and happily ate. Aura’s stomach growled, she did not act on it.

After Syllis and Clyde finished eating and drinking the latter half of their daily ration of water they turned their attention to Aura.

“Aura, could you eat, please,” Clyde asked. His voice was warm, welcoming even.

Syllis did not even want to watch the scene. Aura was starting to get on her nerves. She understood what she was feeling but… everyone needed to move on at some point, right?

“Syllis, help me with this?” Clyde asked, gesturing to a portion of meat. “She won’t eat by herself today either. Maybe she will only be able to eat again once she is back home. The Thermans’ will surely hire a psychiatrist of the highest order for her.”

Syllis sighed, approaching the glowing sheet and by extension, the meat on top of it. She conjured a small knife of sorts. It sawed through the meat with great efficiency, dirtying the pristine, icy-blue shape.

“She better get it together,” Syllis said, angrily. Red blood dripped from the knife and collapsed to the ground once she dismissed it. The meat was entirely dismembered and pulled about.

Clyde took it to the side. He mixed it into a cup of water, forming a terribly pungent concoction.

“Aura, drink this,” Clyde said, hoping they would not have to do the next step.

Aura did not take the cup, or speak, or do much of anything.

“That's it,” Syllis said. She stepped in front of Aura.

“H-hold on!” Clyde was taken aback.

“I’m not waiting for her anymore,” Syllis said. “We’re just going to need to do this eventually…” She grabbed Aura’s chin and pulled it down. At the same time she tilted her head back and pushed her backwards.

“Do it Clyde.”

Clyde stood still for a moment and then moved. He took the thick-root cup and poured the disgusting mixture of water and meat into her mouth. This was one of the sole active functions she performed.

Syllis closed her mouth and sighed. Aura returned to looking at the abyssal wall as though nothing had happened.

Food was an issue and becoming an even larger one. The juvenile, mangled taran was a one-off. They were pure luck. They would need to figure something else out unless they made it out in the next few days. Water was no problem. One less person to sustain meant they had a surplus.

Once the night came once again and the flames had retreated once again, they began to move. They loaded the jars into the shackles on the ephemeral crows and looked ahead of them.

Syllis walked forward and grabbed Clyde by the shoulder. They saw specks of white, speckled with slight orange and red. There was something approaching them.

“So, what do we do about that?”