Crackling hot magic pooled into Rasp’s hands so quickly it made his head spin. His stomach lurched as he doubled over, fighting the acidic heaves of vomit clawing its way up his throat. Fuck. He clenched his teeth, struggling to remain standing as wave after wave of stomach-curdling nausea flooded his insides. Sweat beaded down his forehead as the blistering heat spread across his skin like wildfire.

His incessant need to overreact had truly cost him this time. He was overspent, having depleted nearly all of his magic before the fight was even half over. Weak or not, he had to finish the bear before it finished them.

Rasp raised his trembling left hand, eyes straining to pick out the bear’s blurry form from the rest of his muddled surroundings. The beast’s shaggy outline drew closer, huffing and snorting as it ambled towards him. Rasp opened his mouth to scream, but a swell of sour bile crested over the top of his throat and swamped his tongue, turning his hollering into sputtered gagging.

“Get…back!” he managed, angling his open hand at his slowly advancing quarry. The last of his magic swelled within his palm in anticipation for the final blow. Gods, he hoped this worked. He had one last good push in him before his powers were spent. Timing it just right required both patience and precision–attributes that weren’t exactly his forte.

Hold it, hold, hold it, he told himself as the lumbering shape neared. Miss now and you’re royally screwed.

Power built within his hand until it was too hot to hold any longer. The magic pulled at his flesh like an unruly dog on a leash, begging to be let go.

“Rasp, wait!”

Faris’s warning sounded a split second before something slammed into the back of Rasp’s head. He lost his footing, spinning to catch himself as the magic shot from his hand, sending a torrent of howling wind hurtling in the wrong direction. The gale thundered across the battlefield, snapping several spindly trees from their roots as it tore a path through the forest.

The aftermath of his blunder probably would have been a lot louder had it not been for the raven currently attacking the back of Rasp’s head. It was difficult to hear much of anything over its ear-piercing shrieks. The bird was a furious flurry of feathers and fast beating wings as it stabbed at the back of his neck.

“What the fuck?” Rasp stumbled forwards, throwing his arms over his head to shield his face from the raven’s razor sharp talons.

The raven continued its noisy assault, yanking at his hair as its large wings beat him into submission.

“Who the fuck are you calling a spoiled mountain brat?” Rasp’s desperate attempts to fight the raven off had the opposite effect. Instead of proving victorious over his smaller, albeit vicious assailant, he ended up falling over himself in an undignified pile of flailing arms and legs. “Get off me, stupid bird! I don’t even know you! You’ve got the wrong Stoneclaw!”

Croak! Father’s call rang out as he swooped down from the treetops to assist. The feathery snap of Father’s powerful wings stirred the air as he battered the other raven into a forced retreat. Having successfully warded off the other bird, Father settled onto the upturned rubble with a hiss. He waddled over and delivered Rasp’s elbow an admonishing peck for losing to a bird a fifth his size.

“I take back everything nice I said about you this morning,” Rasp moaned. He laid still, refusing to uncover his head in the event the fighting was just getting started. “Why is Miss Angry Feathers over there attacking me and not the bear?”

Father gargled his reply.

“She’s family?” Rasp lifted his head, confused. “Wait, the bear or the raven?”

Unfortunately, Rasp wasn’t able to get anything further before Father and the mystery raven turned on one another. If nothing else, it at least explained the newcomer’s tendency for unbridled violence. The rancorous screaming match taking place certainly felt like the family reunions Rasp had grown up with.

He eased into a sitting position with a moan, running his fingers through his tangled hair. Parts of his scalp were wet and sticky with blood, but aside from a little pain, the damage didn’t seem detrimental. If anything, the pair’s obnoxious croaking was doing more damage than the attack had. Rasp plugged his ears, trying to lessen the verbal assault hammering away at the inside of his aching skull. Each harsh croak felt like a red hot poker being driven further into his brain.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said, “use your inside voices, please!”

To Rasp’s surprise, the ravens listened. They were still too preoccupied with slinging insults at one another to address his mounting questions, but at least they were doing it at a more tolerable level now.

Faris crouched down beside him. “That was rough to watch. You alright?”

“No!” Rasp’s hands dropped uselessly to his sides. “I’m so confused right now. I don’t know who the fuck that raven is, but they seem to know me. Father’s not being any help and nobody seems concerned about the fucking bear!”

“The bear’s on our side, actually.”

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“Since when? You hate bears!”

“Look, I’ll explain everything, I promise. Just give me a minute here. Lots of fires to put out.” The direction of Faris’s voice changed, as did the volume. “Will you please go change already? Over there in the bushes out of sight, yeah? Just like we practiced? And for muck’s sake, do something about your face before you come back over. Dinglehead here may not be able to see it, but I can. It’s disgusting.”

Rasp could just barely make out the bear’s hazy shape across from him. It halted, stomping its front foot with a powerful thud.

“I don’t care if it’s natural,” Faris replied. “So is shitting, and you don’t see me pulling up a chair to watch that either.”

The beast produced a high-pitched, wavering grumble as it turned and lumbered away.

“Dingle, I…” Rasp’s voice trailed, uncertain of whether or not he’d truly lost his mind. “I think that bear just called you an asshole.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Faris sighed. “She’s almost as bad as you.”

“She?” Rasp angled his hands back in the direction of the retreating bear. Naturally, the one time he truly needed his powers to volley someone over the trees, it wasn’t there for him. Stupid magic.

Faris slapped Rasp’s hands back down as he eased into the dirt beside him. “Cut it out. You’re going to get Dagmar all worked up again.” Fortunately, he answered Rasp’s next question before he was even given the chance to ask it. “Dagmar’s the other raven. Your mother’s sister, I think? Anyway, she hates your dad’s guts.”

The picture was starting to grow a little clearer. Not enough to make out any of the important details, but there was some shape to it now. Unfortunately for Rasp it was a shape he’d never encountered and was, therefore, just as lost if not more than before. “How do you know all this? Last I checked, you can’t talk to ravens.”

“The bear told me.”

“Huh.” Exhausted both mentally and physically, Rasp gave up trying to make the nonsensical pieces fit nicely together. There was only one real explanation for what was taking place. He slumped against Faris like a boneless bag of meat and ran his dirty fingers down the faun’s scruffy face, knowing he had to enjoy the dream for as long as he could before he woke up again.

“Again with the face touching?” Faris said. “Why can’t you just shake my hand and say thank you like a normal person?”

“Psh, you wouldn’t have chased a normal person halfway across the United Territories.” Rasp felt the warmth in his chest start to fade as the trickle of sadness returned. It felt so real this time, too. The highs, the lows, the throbbing pressure in his skull, all the way down to the numb tingle in his fingertips – it was disturbing just how accurate his imagination had gotten with this one.

“I wish you would stay this time,” Rasp said.

“Am I going somewhere?”

“Afraid so, Dingle. Any minute now I’m going to wake up.”

“You’re not dreaming.”

“That’s just what Dream Dingle would say.”

“If anything, this would be a hallucination. Considering one, you’re not asleep, and two, you’re interacting with your environment.”

Now that really was something Faris would say. There was only one way to know for sure. “Hop?” Rasp’s voice rang out, bouncing along the surrounding trees as the echo faded in the distance. “Are you still there? I’m not hallucinating again, am I?”

“Are you hallucinating that you’re cradling a very uncomfortable looking faun’s face in your hands?” Hop called back from further away. The fucker was probably still hiding amongst the cranberry bushes, sticking to his tried and true strategy of ‘don’t get involved until the last second’.

Rasp’s fingers stopped curling through Faris’s beard in order to think about it. “Yeah?”

“Definitely not hallucinating then.”

“And the bear?”

“Also real.”

“Huh,” Rasp said again, still not fully convinced. Oh well. If it meant extending the dream hallucination a little longer, who was he to question it?

Faris grabbed Rasp’s hand and yanked it from his face. His grip was stronger than Rasp remembered, capable of crushing each individual finger to pulp. “Who is that?” The faun’s voice was low and marked with caution. “Have you had someone else with you this whole time?”

Rasp wrangled his hand free, shaking the sting from his smarting fingers. “I am allowed to see other people, you know. You found yourself a bear and I got myself an artificer. I’m not saying it’s a competition or anything, but I definitely won.”

Faris responded with an irritated ear flap.

“You can come out now, Hop. The bear is Faris’s girlfriend. She won’t eat you.” Rasp paused, allowing a shit-eating grin to pull across his bruised face. “You know, Dingle, I remember Rali mentioning something about you liking bears once. I didn’t think she meant it literally.”

“I don’t believe this.” Faris’s voice was low and laced with the slightest hint of jealousy. “Another faun, really? Did you seriously try to replace me?”

“Faris,” Rasp gestured from the smaller fuzzy shape to the larger fuzzy shape. “This is Hopalong Humphry.”

“Hop, actually. A pleasure to meet you, Faris. I have heard so much about you.” There was a notable pause before Hop found the courage to ask, “May I ask about your companion? It appears that she just shifted from a bear into a human woman.”

“She did what?” Rasp whipped his head around, straining to catch some sort of glimpse of the shapeshifter, all while silently cursing his stupid aura vision for fading so early.

“Hello!” A cheerful voice hailed to them as soft footsteps crunched in the curled leaves.

“So, a lot’s happened since we last saw each other.” Faris stood and yanked Rasp onto his feet. Placing one arm firmly behind Rasp’s back, Faris forcibly walked him closer. “And, frankly it’s hard to explain so we’re just going to jump into the thick of it and wade our way through, okay?”

Rasp found himself fighting his next step, not entirely sure why. Standing made his head all woozy again. Light and dark shadows danced along his vision as his sense of balance started to slip from his control. “She’s your girlfriend, Faris. I get it. Why do you have to make this so weird?”

“Rasp,” Faris said, “meet Juneberry.”

“Unfortunate name.”

“Your sister.”

Too much, his brain decided. Faris, shape-shifting bears, and a sister, which he most certainly did not have. What a shame. Once more, for what would hopefully be the last time, Rasp had managed to die without realizing it. As his world started to spin faster, growing dark along the edges like burnt paper, he heard Hop’s voice murmur something a split second before everything went impossibly black.

“That certainly explains the enthusiastic lack of clothing.”