Time seemed to pause as I watched Clara’s eyes widen, a foreign look of panic in her eyes.

Clara’s not going to survive a fall from this high up. Shrouds were durable, lending their wielders supernatural durability, but even they had limits. A fall from— what— miles up?

Before I knew it, I had lunged towards her, my hand stretched out over the void in a vain attempt to catch Clara before she fell. My fingers missed, and the momentum carried me over the ledge before I could find my balance. Clara’s eyes widened farther, her expression strained. Panic flooded my mind, but an instant later ether burst like cold fireworks in my mind, stinging and calming, pushing the panic and nausea away.

I eyed the distance from the rapidly approaching ground, tilting my body until I caught up to Clara—

She screamed above the roaring wind, her hair whipping out of her ponytail around her: “You idiot! Why would you—“

“Shut up!” I screamed back, voice nearly drowned out.

Panic screamed through my brain, but I could hardly feel anything beyond the warm wind whipping past as I wrapped my arms around Clara. I didn’t have either of my Focuses, but I knew I could survive this— I’d resolved to re-learn the spell after falling the first several times. I took a deep breath, refining my intent and shoring my resolve.

Incremental, counteractive force— localized over the area directly below us— not too much or else bones will break— not too little or bones will still break. Has to be recursive, with successive attempts losing force and gaining frequency.

Clara stiffened, grabbing onto me tighter as I wrapped my hand around the back of her head. I couldn’t grasp the exact focus for running runoff etheric output, or the precise counterforce needed— of which, a small, non-screaming or calculating part of me noted, was increasing the longer we fell. Regardless, I forced the spell into activation, and felt my breath knocked from me as we jerked abruptly mid-air, before continuing to fall.

I coughed, pain and Burnout dragging sandpaper through my throat— the spell dangled by a thread.

It was simple enough, in theory— the spell was taught in my first year, and while awfully inefficient, was still simpler and currently the only available option I had. An active Conjuration point would knock me unconscious before we hit the ground, Biological Transmutation was inherently incredibly risky and not a field I was at all versed in, and I was— putting it generously— very lacking at air-aspected spells.

Evocation was a standard part of Belfaust’s curriculum, and the basis of every Evocation working could be split into three divisions: direction, force, and mass, disregarding the secondary effects of whatever material one worked with. That said, what I was using consisted of releasing multiple evocative forces in quick succession, and slowly using the recoil to slow my fall. Some people were good enough to use it to maintain a psuedo-flight, or land incredibly smoothly.

I was quickly proving to not be one of those people.

The next couple attempts didn’t prove much better than the first— they were coming out sloppily, hastily thrown together with inconsistent parameters and changing external factors, causing us to do anything between jerking painfully mid-air as our momentum got temporarily arrested, to twisting in uncontrolled circles.

Nausea accompanied each attempt, compounding the burning behind my eyes, and exacerbated by the occasional spinning we’d do. Moments before we hit the ground, I forced another attempt, then watched the world blur and twist as pain exploded through the back of my hand, and Clara’s body rammed painfully into mine, knocking the breath from my lungs. Pain lanced through the rest of my body a moment later, before we were rolling towards the side.

My heart leapt into my throat a second time when we began falling again, only for us to slam into the hard stone floor before I could muster a spell. The workings slowly fell from my mind, like blown-out cobwebs. The stone floor was wondrous cool and damp against my burning forehead, my heart pounded in my ear, and my limbs felt chained with lead. We laid there for some time, neither of us really moving. It felt as if I’d been dragged through a meat grinder, smacked by a spiky mallet across every limb and joint, then forced to inhale flames. If pain was quicksand, then I was barely floating on its surface. I was in no hurry to move and sink lower. Fortunately, Clara seemed to be of similar mind, her limbs resting by my side, and her ragged breath brushing my ear.

“You’re not dead, right Laurent?” Clara tiredly gasped, her arms fell from my side, but she didn’t move farther.

I groaned in response, and couldn’t muster the energy to move.

“Great,” she bit out, though any harshness was undercut by her ragged breathing.

“… hurt… no?”

“Everything hurts, Laurent.”

“Broken?”

“I’ll check the moment you stop straddling me.”

“Oh— Hells…” I took a deep breath that burned, got halfway to my feet, only to sway drop back to my side on the ground besides her. “Sorry.”

As the adrenaline slowly bled out, I ran a bleary inspection over my quickly bruising body— the entire back of my hand throbbed with pain, all but guaranteed to bruise. Scrapes raked along my arms and hands, my pants had been torn in several places, revealing fresh scrapes that were quickly beginning to sting.

Decent marks for effort, Estelle. I stole a glance at Clara, still laying on her back. Her expression was dry and vacant. But you could certainly use some work on the tail-end bits of that spell. You’re supposed to keep the force dispersion uniform, remember?

The exact area we landed in wasn’t familiar to me— not surprising, given that I’d literally never been here before, but, I digress.

We’d landed in a small clearing between buildings— if buildings were the right term. The majority of them were single-story, with rotting wood making up its walls, and a generous smattering of holes that peeked into the building itself. The ground was rough, uneven stone, caked with sharp pebbles digging into my back. Dark puddles lingered and grew in the dips of stone. Waterstained, empty crates and moldy, open barrels were jammed up against walls, seemingly forgotten. There was barely any light. Despite the awful conditions we’d found ourself in, it wasn’t the appearance that riled my nausea once more—

No— it was the smell. It burnt and clogged in the back of my throat and my nose like chemical cleaner mixed with mucus— and that wasn’t the Burnout speaking. The Underhollow was humid and slick with the smell of rotting wood, grave dirt and cold grease. It smelled like a sick ward and a forest consumed by mold, and lingered enough to set a bitter, slimy aftertaste on my tongue. Oddly enough, it bore reminiscence to that of a nursing home, people halfway in their grave.

I sighed, pushing the thoughts away and shutting my eyes. Everything hurt, everything stunk, Clara still wasn’t moving, and just as I was about to speak, she drawled, her displeasure all but returned: “Thanks for using me as a cushion, Laurent.”

“Oh,” I slowly bit out, scowling. “Sorry for saving both our lives, then.”

“Whatever,” she responded, quietly groaning as she scraped herself off the ground. A moment later, she staggered, her eyes widening as she clutched at her side and fell against a damp crate. Alarm rang in my head and she slowly sank to the ground, a look of dull alarm in her eyes.

I blinked, pain and nausea muddled my senses, but I shuffled over to her side. “What’s— what’s wrong? Broken rib?”

As I got closer, I noticed a dark splotch of red slowly bleeding through her tunic. “Oh yes,” she drawled, tone forced. “The broken rib is bleeding me out like a pig at the moment.”

I clicked my tongue, blinking the nausea and pain away. “Stop snarking me for like half a second, and let me look at it.”

“We don’t have bandages, Laurent,” she tiredly stated. The edge that she had forced into her voice had begun to fade once more, and she didn’t resist me pulling her hands away and unwrapping her tunic. There was a large, bloody wound, round and actively leaking.

“I can stumble through a healing spell.”

“You have enough ether to cast one? But not unlock those doors?”

I mustered as much as my exhaustion into my expression as I could to meet her eyes. “Eigenlicht, that was when I still needed the ability to properly walk. Also, we’ll have bigger problems if you bleed out. I’d rather a headache than lugging your unconscious body around.”

“Glad to see you care.”

I bit my tongue, a memory of Dream-Clara playing through my head. I ignored the little voice in the back of my head telling me I was delusional for pursuing a heavily biased dream-version of a person. “I do, now stop bickering with me and keep an eye out, okay?”

Couldn’t hurt to at least be civil.

Clara groaned in acquiescence, her head falling back against the wood, and I set to work cleaning her wound. There wasn’t much light to work by, but given that she remained lucid, and that the wound wasn’t actively worsening, I took my time slowly working a bare sliver of ether into a basic water conjuration spell. I splashed water on her wound, and didn’t comment when she flinched.

“If you work any slower I’m going to bleed out before we get out of this alley.”

I clicked my tongue— Clara’s hand reached out towards me, a soft look of concern knitting her brow, haloed in the light of an evening’s celebration. Moments before, her brown eyes had been warm with amusement; her tease lacking her usual barbs. We had been friends, actual friends— and shut my mouth. “Sorry. I’m trying.”

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Clara stiffened beneath my hands, a moment later relaxing. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine— I just— I don’t know the specifics of how to treat this…” I muttered. The wound looked akin to a small projectile wound— not an arrow, and the weapon Scabs was holding didn’t look akin to anything I was familiar with. The smoking end seemed to imply it was magical—

“A gun— it seems,” Clara ground out through a heavy breath. “You don’t know what is?”

“I’m not a weapon fanatic like Arthur, Eigenlicht.” I scowled. “How did it even get through your Shroud? I thought you could Intuit someone firing at you?”

Clara let out a sigh, tinged with pain. “I tailored my Shroud for speed. I only really thicken it when I know I’m about to get hit. Also— I wasn’t expecting it. It was out of sight. My Expression doesn’t exactly lend itself to total awareness of my surroundings, Laurent.”

I dropped the topic, and focused on her wound. It didn’t seem to have hit anything vital— usually gut wounds were awful to treat if they punctured a bowel, but it seemed she’d gotten lucky. There was no exit wound, which was either a good thing or a bad thing. I lay my hand on her wound.

It’ll probably be fine, just cast the spell and localize it a little deeper than usual. There shouldn’t be much resistance seeing as there’s a hole in her.

Clara let out a harsh breath, but otherwise didn’t comment when the spell started. I let it slowly run, feeding it ether with half a thought. The pain behind my eyes were worsening again, but I’d live. I’d been through worse. What I was concerned about, however, was the time it would take. Every second we stayed here was another second we didn’t spend in safety.

Not like you’d know where safety is, down here.

I bit my lip, throwing a wary glance towards the opening of the alley. It was still empty, and I heard nothing but Clara’s breathing, the soft dripping of water, and distant electrical humming.

Empty for now, but you’re in an unknown location with unknown dangers.

“Something wrong, Laurent?” Clara murmured, her gaze still fixed to the alley’s opening.

“I dislike how open this is,” I quietly admitted, turning back to Clara’s wound. I let out a cold breath, gritting my teeth as heat turned my thoughts fuzzy. I stopped when the wound seemed to mostly close up, looking red and raw, and the heat settled into a blurry buzz at the back of my head. I swallowed, the dry pain felt like swallowing knives.

“Not really open, but I get the point,” she responded, equally quiet. “Finish first aid, then we’ll find somewhere to camp out for a bit while we think out our next move.”

“Understood. Any ideas where we should head?”

"… We could head to a church. I’m sure they wouldn’t turn us away.”

“… you don’t happen to know any churches down here, do you?”

“… no.”

My eyes strained against the cloying darkness of the alley. I wrapped her tunic back up and cleared my throat, voice low and raspy. “I’m hoping you’ve got a contingency plan, then, Eigenlicht.”

I pushed to my feet, swallowing the nausea at the back of my throat and ignoring the ache in my bones. I held a hand out for Clara. She paused, glancing at it before begrudgingly letting me pull her up. She used the moment to step forward and sling an arm around my shoulder, and I barely bit down a flinch.

“Sorry,” she murmured, sagging.

I forced my shoulders to relax, as we stumbled out into the street. “It’s… fine, lean as much as you’d like. I’m just not the most fond of…”

The tight alleyway opened out into the street, which ran far beyond our sight on either side of us. Crates clogged the stone road, designated by nothing more than the absence of detritus present in the alleys. Crumbling, thin buildings lined the road, crumbling and leaning towards one another as if a stiff breeze could blow it over. Some of the street lamps buzzed and hummed at regular intervals, but many more cast long, shimmering shadows atop the puddles, their wires exposed and popping. Smog rolled along the ground, bearing the stench of fried metal. Piercing the horizon, gargantuan towers of smooth, shadowed stone reach for the sky, disappearing up and into the shadows. Monolithic— like a tree to an ant.

But it was quiet. Nothing but the slow drip of oil and muddy water, the low, but constant hum of the electric lights, punctuated by our breathing.

All at once, I could tell even the little rumors about the Underhollow were true— the city sleeping beneath, forgotten and left to rot in the shadow of another. The simple expanse of the empty air we’d just tumbled through, the seemingly innocuous fact that— this was a cavern, at the end of the day— reminded me of the first time I’d viewed Tisali’s gates up close. It made me feel small, like a fly atop the back of a giant. A chord of uneasiness crept up my spine like a spider.

Quiet, and unnerving. Clara’s stillness and silence seemed to share my sentiments. Clara forced out a quiet, teasing snort, catching my eye. “Is that what this is? Affection?”

It was an offer, however forced, at light distraction.

I wet my dry lips, focusing on supporting her and walking instead of the anxiety pooling in my chest. I forced a long sigh. Even breathing hurt. Focus on the pain, focus on anything but the gravity of the situation you’re in. “I’m tired,” I dug out. “I forgot the proper term.”

“You know, there’s a term for that.”

“… is there?”

“Anomia,” she said, voice laden with false solemnity.

“Fancy— get it from one of your classes?”

The smugness in her voice betrayed her solemn tone. “It’s a condition resulting from damage to a specific part of the brain, I believe.”

I sighed, though the edges of my lips tilted up— whether from amusement or exasperation, I wasn’t certain. “I’m relatively certain I don’t have brain damage, Clara.”

“Woah,” she muttered, tone dry. “We’re on a first name basis now?”

I blinked. The exhaustion must’ve been getting to me. “I… sorry— just whenever I think of you it’s—”

“No— no,” Clara let out a weak chuckle. “It’s fine. It’s fine. Thanks, Estelle.”

A strange mixture of emotions I couldn’t parse bubbled up. “Oh. That does feel weird.”

“Riiiiight?” Her laughter warbled in a genuine, odd sort of way, echoing syllables, and that strange feeling grew. Her laughter sounded nice.

My mind drifted as we trudged through the damp streets. My eyes trailed towards the pinpricks of green light above. They looked rotten, a gross shade of green that reminded me more of a caustic pool of toxic material. Vaguely, they looked a bit like stars. My voice felt raspier, but I mused, “To think all it took for us to get here was to fall into the Underhollow.”

“We should’ve done this from the beginning—“ Clara coughed, and she nearly staggered. I shifted more of her weight onto me. “Just— jumped off a cliff together and become best friends.”

“We did that already,” I informed her.

“Well, second time’s a charm, I guess.”

“That’s not the saying.”

“What are you? A linguistics expert?”

“Yeah,” I breathed, my eyes scanning the dark. “After numerous attempts on my life, I’ve come to the… very difficult decision of having to withdraw from this team. I’m also going to abandon the decade of research I’ve been doing to pursue a research career in linguistics.”

Clara snorted, a note of genuine amusement. I softly chuckled, before we both lapsed into silence once more. Maybe it was the pain behind my eyes, or the headache blooming in the base of my skull, but being with Clara wasn’t the worst, though, maybe she was being friendly due to blood loss. That was always a possibility.

Obviously, a small voice chimed up, you knew this, and realized it, but you ignored it for everything else.

I stifled the urge to sigh.

“How are you holding up, by the way?” Clara suddenly spoke, her voice straining. “Regarding the fall— and everything else that night.”

“Woah,” I teased. “Don’t you think you’re taking this relationship a little fast, Clara? First our names, then you’re asking after my health?”

She simply sighed. It sounded pained.

“… Sorry. Thanks for asking, I’m doing fine. Some stuff happened, and I realized that…” I grimaced. “I realized that you were right about what you said— how you had to find something worth fighting for… and that you weren’t that bad a person— makes me wonder why we clashed so much the first time.”

“Well—“ Clara started, voice tired, smug, and lacking barbs “— of course I was right— I’m always right.”

“I retract my statement about you being a good person.” I groaned.

“And you’re still an awkward dork who can’t express her emotions properly.” Clara grinned.

“I’m working on it.”

“I can tell.” Clara muttered, her voice teasing, but I didn’t miss the way her voice was slowly weakening the longer we walked. “Want me to congratulate you?”

“Heavens— no. That sounds awful.”

“You wound me.”

We traveled in silence a little longer, propping each other up. Despite how long we must’ve been walking by now, I couldn’t tell how much farther we had left, and concern brewed in my chest. It didn’t help that Clara’s breathing had slowly grown heavier, and had begun leaning against me more and more. I felt my own strength flagging, my legs ached between our shared weight, and the burning in my lungs were beginning to get worse.

Each street was beginning to blur together in my mind, we’d stumbled around a corner only to end up with another street that showcased the same crumbling building facades, the same flickering, buzzing street lights with exposed wiring, and the same stagnant puddles. I could feel my attention flagging, my eyes simply… not focusing when I wished them to, even with the banter. My body demanded rest of any kind, even if it meant collapsing in the street.

“Estelle.”

“Mhmm?”

“Sorry I couldn’t get us out of this.”

“… It’s fine—“

“No, no— It’s not.” Her foot caught and we nearly tripped. “I have an obligation to both of you— you and Arthur. And I failed that— and now we’re both in danger.”

Silently, I mulled over her statement. This had begun treading into uncomfortably open ground— where I couldn’t ignore the desperation of the situation. I softly snorted. “I can’t believe I’m hearing the Clara Eigenlicht acknowledge that she made a mistake.”

She coughed, more exasperated than actually pained. “You’re actually insufferable, you know that?”

I laughed, even if it hurt. “Well, that makes two of us.”

I shifted more of her weight onto me, and she silently acquiesced. “You’re awful,” she softly let out, though I could hear the smile in her voice.

What was that about moving forward? A guilty part of me echoed. I frowned, clicking my tongue. “Sorry— I… thanks for not leaving me, Clara, truly.”

She let out a breath. “… Feeling’s mutual, Estelle.”

“Arthur’s going to be terribly confused when we return.”

Clara let out a low laugh, and after a moment I joined her, which devolved into a dry coughing fit. Clara reassuringly pat my shoulder. “There there, ‘Stelle.” She singsonged. “Everything’s gonna be allll right.”

“… I want to lie down,” I admitted.

“Me too.”

“Come on then, little further,” I encouraged, though I wasn’t certain if it was for me or her. “I think I see something vaguely church-like.”