"Ask it?" I said. "How in the bloody gods are we going to do that?"

In the faintly flickering firelight, I could see clear bags under Keeper's eyes, but that didn't stop her from tilting her chin up and looking proud. "What? We catch it, we ask it some questions. I don't see what's so hard to understand."

"Wouldn't that require it to… talk?"

Wanderer raised a finger. "To communicate."

"You've met Kafk," Keeper said, "she could talk."

I supposed she could talk, but I wasn't so sure it would count as communication.

"Besides all that, how do you plan on catching it?" I asked. "I can't imagine how strong it has to be if it held back the wanderer's blade."

"Definitely strong," Keeper said. "That tail hurt like hell—" She stopped and went quiet.

"What?" I asked.

She glanced up at me, then shook her head. "Nothing."

"Is it because you said Hell?"

"What? No, it's nothing."

Wanderer looked back and forth between the both of us. "I feel as if I have missed something…"

"I'm feeling similar," I said. Hell… what did it mean again?

"Whatever, it's not important," Keeper said. "It hurt, that's what's important. Moving on, this thing is strong, but we've got some clues to work with. I'm pretty sure I recognize one of the parts of this compound."

"I think I do too. Eater was using its invisibility, right?"

Keeper nodded. "That part of it is probably a Lurker. But what bothers me the most is the way it's been acting. Doesn't it feel a little…"

"Like it's playing pranks on me?" I asked.

"That would explain the foot stubbing," Wanderer said.

The girl nodded again. "And Lurkers aren't known for mischievous behavior, they're usually creepier than they are playful."

"It would follow that there is another creature with a Nature so powerfully playful that it overtakes the Lurker's personality entirely," Wanderer said.

"And what would that be?" I asked.

Keeper rested her chin on her knees. "That's where I'm stumped. It could be a Swindler, but they're usually too sinister to do something as innocent as stubbing your toe. It could also be some manifestation of a Tattler, maybe the Lurker's Nature encourages it to take action?"

"In that case, I would expect it to retain some habits of social jeering," Wanderer said.

"Yeah, me too. The only other I can think of is… not a pleasant thought."

"A triple compound?" Wanderer asked.

"Even less pleasant. I was thinking it could be a Bundle of Laughter."

Wanderer's face went grim. My eyes darted from one of them to the other, but neither gave any indication of what that meant. "What? What is it? Laughter doesn't sound so bad. Laughter sounds pretty good to me."

"It is a Dream," Wanderer said. "A Dream and Nightmare compound. It should be impossible."

Keeper stood and began pacing back and forth. Her oversized coat swaying whenever she turned, following her. "There have been plenty of impossibilities made possibly as of late, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was Laughter. Either way, we can't know for sure how it'll act given a new situation, but we can use what we do know to help us with some ideas."

"Of how to catch it?" I asked.

"Exactly. We can give it a scenario we've seen before and it will probably act how it did the first time."

"Probably…" I muttered. Certainly doesn't inspire confidence.

"We know it'll mess with Ferro when it doesn't have an easy way of snatching his bag, but when presented with a situation in which it could steal it and mess with him, that's when it acted without really trying to kill him."

"Have you ever had a pillow pulled out from under your head?"

Keeper dismissed me and kneeled back down. "The trick is to recreate that exact situation. Where it feels safe to steal Ferro's bag while still getting a laugh."

"So, I just go back to sleep?"

"No, it'll know something's up if we make the context too similar. We want it to be confident."

"To allow it to believe it has outsmarted us," Wanderer said.

"Yes!" Keeper jumped up. "We set a trap disguised as another, simpler trap."

"And what exactly is this trap going to be?" I asked.

----------------------------------------

After a grueling day of travel, in part due to the difficulty of dragging the creature's tail, and in part due to the ever-building fatigue of half a night's worth of sleep, we finally found a spot that would fit our needs. Part of me wished we'd continue through the night, reaching the Seers before the compound caught up. At the same time, Keeper had been dragging her feet all day, and I was fairly certain she'd begin to float-sleep-walk at any moment.

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Wanderer got to work setting the fire and preparing his spot to hide. Beyond the edge of the trail, there was a lip where he could sit undetected. Keeper prepared the fake trap, while I was in charge of setting stones in the shape of Wanderer's sleeping form and laying loud clanging metal pans all over the severed tail.

"I can't imagine it'll fall for that," I said, coming up to Keeper's makeshift guillotine. It comprised solely of her scissors suspended by a rope she'd borrowed off me.

"That's the point, idiot. It won't fall for it."

"That's not what—Oh, whatever. I'm more worried they'll behead me in my sleep."

"You can just reattach it, can't you?" Her nonchalance was concerning.

"Let's not test it."

"Are all parties finished with preparations?" Wanderer peaked his head over the edge of the cliff.

"Just about," Keeper said.

He nodded, sluggish. He looked tired.

"Hey," I called out to him, "don't go falling asleep on us. We're counting on you."

His weary eyes stared at me. "I would not dream of it."

----------------------------------------

There were no guarantees that the creature would show up that night, but we didn't have much other choice than to lie waiting, expecting it. While I was supposed to be sleeping, or at the very least nodding off to sleep, I could barely even bring myself to close my eyes. This is stupid. It won't work. Wanderer will miss, Keeper won't make it in time, it'll be safe and kill me first. There's far too much that could go wrong, far too little we know about this thing.

I began to stiffen—no, to twitch at the slightest of sounds. The breeze picking up. A rock tumbling down the mountain. My memory made noise, too. I remembered the thud of Keeper against the wall. I remembered the clash of the creature's beak with Wanderer's sword. Each memory played and made the real ever less distinguishable. If I heard the creature sneak up to kill me, would I even know it?

Then, the softest click to ever grace my ears. One step, two. It was sneaking. I could hear the creature. My breathing grew staggered, less relaxed. Calm down, it'll hear me. Calm.

But my breath only grew shakier, it would not move smoothly, as it should. And the creature drew closer. It must know I'm awake. Will it kill me, after all? If I don't do something it'll simply crush my skull. Cave it in with one heavy—

A faint pressure rested against my chest. I only barely noticed it because of my rapid breathing. I couldn't make out what it was, but the pressure was growing heavier. As if someone were trying to sit on my chest, careful not to crush it all at once. Heavy. What is this?

My breathing grew shallow and I could not help but panic. Was it the creature pushing down on my chest? It didn't feel like scraggily clawed hands though, it felt like one large mass. Is it placing rocks? Is this pressure even real or am I imagining it?

The realization came in an instant. The creature's tail. But it couldn't be the severed one, we would have heard it. Either this is a new creature or it has a new tail—Oh gods, Wanderer won't expect it. But… how do I warn him?

In an instant, the weight lifted from my chest and my pack was tugged out from underneath my head. Before my head even hit the ground, I pressed my hand below for leverage and swung my legs out. My knee slammed hard into the creature's ankle. It tumbled to the ground, its tail thrashing out and banging against the stone. I sprung to my feet, but before I could tackle or pin it down, my vision went dark.

I recognized the sensation immediately, it was Wanderer's Mauler trap. I froze, unsure what exactly to do, before my hands came up on their own. They pried themselves underneath the edge of the bag, trying to peel it off.

There was a clattering in front of me, and the long, clean ring of Wanderer's sword being drawn.

"Its tail!" I yelled. "It still has its—"

Crunch.

It was the sound of bones breaking. But not my own. In a frenzy, I tore the rucksack off from over my head. The creature stood tall. I could see its grotesque features much better in the dimming firelight, an unreal mix of reptile and bird. Thin limbs like twisted branches, and its thick tail. Patchy feathers covered scant parts of its body, too, mostly around the chest.

Beyond the creature, Wanderer lay on the ground. His arm bent backwards.

The creature's head twitched back in my direction. Beady, pitch-black eyes.

I stared back at the abomination. "You're dead."

"Ferro, no! We need it—"

The thing's face ducked. I jumped immediately, dodging over the tail that burst through the spot where I was standing. My claws materialized and instantly came down on its back, colliding with the thick scales that covered it. I pressed down with every ounce of power left within me, but they didn't tear the creature to shreds.

Instead, Keeper crashed into the both of us.

In a pile of confusion, we tumbled to the ground. My shoulder crashed into the stone and when I opened my eyes, Keeper was sprawled out over top of the lizard. Her hand pinned its beak down to the side, and the rest of her limbs held down the thing's legs and tail. But its arms were free. It scratched desperately at her back, tearing into her coat.

"Ferro! My scissors!"

I fixed my eyes on her makeshift guillotine and quickly snapped the rope that held them up. They clattered into the ground. I brought the—surprisingly light—scissors to Keeper, and somehow, she managed to replace herself with the scissors, which were now pinning the creature to the ground.

I stared at it for a moment, thrashing its limbs underneath a pair of scissors.

Wait—Wanderer.

My head spun on a swivel and I rushed over to the wandering vigilante.

He hadn't moved. His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing. Slowly and methodically, as if to distract from the pain.

"We got it," I said.

He grunted, then groaned, as if the grunt had hurt. "I… I apologize."

I shook my head, but he couldn't see that. "I didn't follow the plan, it's my fault you got hurt."

"I had not noticed."

I let out a pitying smile. As if to interrupt the moment, a squawk pierced my ears.

"Ferro!" Keeper called.

I kneeled down to Wanderer. "We'll get that arm set in a moment, hang in there."

He only groaned.

Back where the creature was being pinned, Keeper had managed to take its tail off. It continued to strain and struggle against the weight of Keeper's sheers, crying out in discordant screeches over and over again.

"Is it calling for help?" I asked.

"No, at least I doubt it," Keeper said. "But listen to this."

She crouched beside the creature, just out of range of its thrashing. "Recount."

Like a raven, the creature squawked out. "Stop him!"

Keeper and I looked at each other.

"More," Keeper said. "Who told you to stop him?"

The thing's head twitched. It looked to Keeper, then back to me, tried pecking at one of us from a distance. Pecked at the scissors holding it down. They didn't budge.

"Recount!" Keeper yelled.

It squawked again. "Seers! Seers! Stop for the Seers!"