Shade growled in his ears, the sound vibrating through where his brother’s mouth met the nape of his neck.

Nameless had held on for far longer than he reasonably should have, persevering despite the pain to make it to his den… and the rest that awaited him there. However his body had very much reached the limits of what it could endure; his every step had grown more difficult to make, his bulk leaning upon Shade more and more, his reliance on his brother’s guidance becoming greater and greater…

Until his body had merely… given up.

At the bottom of the last climb to the den, he had collapsed – falling off of Shade – his body drained and unresponsive, forcing his brother to drag him upwards by the scruff.

"I… am sorry… brother." Nameless apologized once more within the confines of his mind, feeling guilty and burdensome for his weakness, unable to so much as try to walk on his own.

In reminder of said weakness, his sight swirled with a nauseating maelstrom of motion and hues; the pinch of his brother’s fangs, and the scraping of his body against the ground, unable to pierce the increasingly delirious confines of his mind.

A groan rose from his throat, a wave of bone deep heat sweeping through, with a teeth rattling shiver following closely behind, Fever….

Even with all of [Mythical Constitution]’s benefits, just as it did not make him invulnerable, so too did it not prevent him from suffering the eventual effects of such amounts of injuries and fatigue. His moons worth of mindless conflict and accumulated injuries had exhausted him completely, overwhelming his [Constitution]’s capacity for healing, and leaving him… infirm.

And ripe for malady.

"How long… has this sickness… lurked?" Nameless wondered, his thoughts as weak and stilted as his breathing, the ill heat in his chest ebbing and flowing like a lake’s waves. "From… the first cut… of a Splinter’s claws? Or from the… fangs of one of the… Blossom’s?"

Fear swam within the febrile waves, the possibility that – for all he had suffered and survived through – he might be felled by illness a terrifying and very real one. "Just as… the Jaguars… it waited… for just the right time… to strike."

Another shiver, even more violent than the last, made Nameless’s teeth chitter against one another, the fevered tremor causing his brother’s hold on him to slip.

Shade snapped forward, catching Nameless before he could drop, his fangs piercing the hide and fur at his nape. With a harsh tug, teeth pulling skin taught, his brother pulled him back up, snarling in frustration and exertion… but never letting him go.

A string of [Telepathy] slinked into his mind, barely audible against the susurrus of delirium and pain that roiled within, [Hold. Brother. Almost. There.]

The thoughts were heavy with his strain as well as a shaky effort at comfort, but also… a deep concern, that his brother failed to hide. There was an agitation to Shade’s assurance, his insistent dragging growing more panicked and rushed. "He is… worried."

There was a certain morbid humor to his having made the most unflappable of his siblings display so many emotions. However, that they all arose from his rapidly failing state, made it far more morbid than humorous.

Nameless moaned once more, trying to spin together some semblance of directed intent to create his own telepathic thread, from which he could reply… only for it to slip from focus like water through his claws. His soul was as exhausted as the rest of him – unable to move to his desires and will just as his limbs had – leaving him trapped within the turbulent currents of infection, powerless to so much as send a single amount of his support or appreciation to his struggling sibling.

"I… am sorry… for my weakness… Shade." The thought – laden heavy with his regret and chagrin – whispered insidiously inside his already battered psyche, speaking to the very same doubts that had led to his current state. It twisted and surged around his infirmity, nipping at the raw instability of his mind, goading him into succumbing to further miseries.

However, his complexes had little time to dig their malevolent fangs into the addled and fragile meat of his mind, yet another shudder jarring him from their grasp…

As well as Shade’s.

Even more brutally, he began to convulse. Vision becoming a rapid flicker of sight and darkness – with the uncontrollable flutter of his eyes and lids – his body spasmed and thrashed with such sudden violence that Shade’s teeth split straight through Nameless’s hide, dropping him heavily to the ground.

The impact and the blare of concern from Shade were unrecognizable behind the chaos of his seizing brain, nothing beyond the barest notion of sensation perceptible through the scintillating light burning through his entire consciousness. He could control nothing, not even a singular thought managing to coalesce into completion… but so too were his emotions lost beneath the harsh tide of fever.

In a perverse manner, with Nameless’s mind receding under the deluge of sickness – unable to withstand the latest crest to smash down upon his weakened psyche – he found a peace that he had been lacking. Muted and distant as his senses were, so too were his emotions, leaving nothing but an odd, delirious tranquility to consume his thoughts… and, soon after, the all-encompassing darkness of the depths of unconsciousness.

―――――――――

Moments of dazed consciousness flitted in between large expanses of nothingness; Nameless’s few awakenings marred by agonizing instances of sickness. Time had little presence to him, the passage of it marked only by the repeatedly emptied contents of his stomach as well as the continued comings and goings of Shade.

The sound of yet another of his brother’s returns roused him from the throes of delirium, the heavy scrape of a body dragging through the plant cover at the mouth of the cave – and across the stone – alerting him to what was likely another of Shade’s successful hunts.

He couldn’t move to watch though, his entire body suffused with a bone-deep lethargy, the act of even opening his eyes a monumental one. So, on the floor he remained, still, forced to wallow in sickened sour scents and burning pain.

[Need. Eat. Brother.] With the thump of a corpse hitting the ground, Shade’s voice came as a whisper in his head, a soft touch of [Telepathy] that brushed lightly against his mind… yet resounded with the force of a roar within the aching and addled confines of it.

Nameless winced, hissing through his fangs, mind recoiling as though struck. The malady running rampant throughout his body made even the lightest touch of [Telepathy] aggravate the throbbing headache draped across his skull, [Try…]

His telepathic intent trembled like scared prey caught in his claws, barely capable of creating an audible thread through which he could reply… however, it was significantly better than the “movements” that followed, despite its weakness.

With a deep and rolling rumble of discomfort, Nameless shakily pushed himself up, releasing heavy pained breaths as his muscles struggled to act to his desires. He swayed on three paws, balancing precariously: his left hindleg preventing him from standing on all four – the limb a hot and swollen mass – without collapsing under an excruciating wave of pain.

Legs quavering underneath him, the loud gulping of air filled the confines of the cave. His lungs yearned for air, limbs threatening to collapse with their every jerk and buck, the entirety of his body reacting as though he had been chasing down prey, rather than merely forcing himself up.

[Brother. No. Nee-] Shade started, [Telepathy] heavy with hues of concern, only to abruptly stop at the snarling hiss that snapped back.

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[No.] Nearly making himself black out, the flare of emotions – mingling with his intent – straining his already drawn mind and soul, Nameless’s telepathic string undulated and wavered wildly with frustration and stubborn commitment.

He opened his right eye – the other shut tightly by swelling – squinting towards where Shade’s [Telepathy] emanated from through flickering sight, [I… must not… let it win…]

With a lurching gait Nameless staggered forward, growling as his movements tugged upon swollen and tender flesh, every shaky step threatening to send him back down to the ground. Physical pain melded with a deep nausea, his sight whirling dizzily, causing his stomach to roil and the familiar sting of bile to rise in his throat.

However he did not allow the pain or discomfort to stop him.

In his lucidity, Nameless realized he stood on a precipice, one that – if he faltered – would see him succumbing to the malady running rampant throughout him. "To stop, to fall, would be to submit to my illness, weakness… and the death that would surely follow."

It was fear and frustration, anger and determination that resonated through his every quivering step, each press of his paw announcing to the World his desperate conviction for survival against an enemy he could only weather.

He swallowed constantly, saliva dripping from between his fangs, long strings trailing down to the ground. Even the struggle of subduing his nausea – forcing the bile that swirled in his throat back down – was a daunting task, another of the myriad internal battles waging incessantly within, gnawing at his already fragile consciousness.

Pain, vertigo, delirium, and more ripped through him, leaving no fibre of his – from muscle and bone to mind and soul – untouched…

Yet he persevered.

Paws scraping the ground, he staggered on, fighting for every step. The closer he shuffled, the greater he felt the distance between himself, Shade, and his kill were, his body shuddering with an exertion akin to his navigating some wide and rough land, rather than the short length of cave that he had truly crossed.

The sight in his one eye wavered, Shade’s face undulating like a rippling reflection, the concern and confusion upon his features warping with Nameless’s vertigo. "He probably thinks… I am mad for pushing myself so much… for what seems so little."

"But it is far more than… some conviction or base stubbornness that moves me." He winced at another ripple of agony, cold waves of fever making his fur stand on end. "No… there is much more."

He felt the wounds crossing his body in utmost clarity, the memories behind each of their origins flickering past his mind like shoals of fish shimmering under the Brothers. From the first made by an Onyx-Fang all the way to those left behind by the Dark Luster Jaguars, with each echo came a flash of the pain felt at the time, until it fell to the last…

One wound not of flesh but of soul…

The looming visage of the final Jaguar gazed down upon him, the fear and regret, sorrow and rage, he had felt collapsed before it, swimming within its eyes.

In its face he had given up, he had lost. Even if he knew deep down that his failure had come only once all the fight in him was gone, the impotence and disappointment that last moment had conjured lingered even now. Twinning within the shadow of his infirmity, aggravating and prodding his fragile psyche, It – that memory and the emotions it elicited – more so than any other reason, pushed him onward.

His singular eye gleamed with determination, a harsh growl curling up from his chest like the rumble of thunder before a storm, "I will never allow… myself to feel such… weakness again. For so long as I yet breathe… I will struggle."

While the battle with the Jaguars had come and gone – incapable of being changed – how he acted now, against the malady that wore at his flesh and blood, was a different matter.

"Even if… I do not need… to go so far." Nameless stumbled, catching himself by splaying his legs out wide, his stomach nearly touching the stone. "It is far more so that… I must. For whether I survive… this illness, or not, if I do so… without trying my utmost… to overcome it, I will have disgraced myself… more so than ever before."

With a grunt he collected himself, his limbs wobbling with exertion, the breaths leaving his maw like great gales at the center of a monsoon. One paw was placed before the other, his focus narrowing down to just the act of walking, the pain and exhaustion drowned below the tide of his conviction…

Until it was broken by the slightest of changes.

The change of texture beneath his right paw was abrupt and startling, the cold stone giving way to the warm and supple hide of Shade’s kill. He tripped – falling forward – only dazedly managing to brace himself as his body fell atop the dead one below.

A forceful groan escaped his lips as he landed, the impact shuddering up his body, consciousness fleeing for a moment as though it were smacked out of him from the fall.

[Alright?] Shade’s voice flitted into his head, dry and flat as a crisp wind over a drought-stricken lake, though a subtle tremor of distress and anxiety writhed beneath his tone like Rock Worms under soil.

Pushing himself tremulously off the corpse, another groan slipped through Nameless’s fangs, his eye pressed tightly shut as a headache bloomed across his brow.

[Yes…] His [Telepathy] rumbled and flashed with strain, annoyance, and a slight hint of embarrassment [I am… fine.]

The skin of his face was slick with sweat, every breath was a rattling wheeze, and his body ached from bone to hide – with even the touch of air and the slightest shift of muscle causing him to wince. However… his state mattered little to him in the moment.

Looking blearily downward, his eye traveled the length of Shade’s kill; a squat head with small, rounded ears, connected to a long and sinuous body covered in slick fur the colour of mud. "I… made it…"

Standing above the dead Giant Murk Otter Nameless felt… relieved. It was a small, rather inconsequential success in comparison to his having fought against five Second Stages and lived, however it almost carried just as much significance to him.

All life was one of struggle, a demand of the World itself for one to grow and develop. But, while It valued the greater ones most – where life and death balanced on the tip of a claw – that did not make the smaller struggles any lesser.

His struggle to stand and walk, may well have been meaningless in the eyes of the World, but… even if his illness stuck him down in the end, and all his fighting against it was for nought, the act meant something to him.

It was step towards giving voice to his determination; that in the face of strife and defeat he would persevere and survive, to never allow himself to be brought low until there was no more fight left for him to give.

But so too was it one towards understanding; he could feel the sting of his failures as vibrantly as the wounds on his hide, however with the bite of shame, so too came the realization of defeat’s necessity. The difficulties – both small and large – he experienced, and the choices and consequences he created in confronting them… made him.

"I will… strive to make my failures… few." Nameless inhaled, allowing for the familiar realization to swirl through the haze of his delirium. "But from those… inevitably made, I will bare them… just as my scars… and learn from each."

This time the realization seemed to settle far deeper into his mind than before, as though the myriad wounds allowed for the lesson to seep into his very being, penetrating all the way down to his core. The hollow victory against the Jaguars and the sickness that followed, carried the heavy weight of repercussion and humiliation – firmly embedding the risks his living entailed within his mind – but so too did Nameless sense a possibility of… growth within the wake of their happening…

Only, not one of Power, but of Self.

He turned towards Shade, the thread of [Telepathy] between them still weakened, however now seeming somewhat more… solid than before, [I… made it.]

Shade chuffed, [Did. Yes.] Nameless could sense that his brother didn’t quite grasp the significance behind his utterance, Shade’s words carrying a sort of exasperation at his having put himself through something he considered unnecessary.

However that was of little surprise to Nameless, he could make no claim to being the “normal” one betwixt them; his thoughts, considerations, and the path he tread likely as abnormal as the Trait from which all of his oddities stemmed.

[Now. Done. Eat?] Tracking him with his head, Nameless followed his brother as he winded to the opposite side of the corpse from him, a sharp bite of pain coming from his neck at the movement.

He snorted, wincing slightly in discomfort, [Yes. But before… we do… I would like… to say something…] A whisper of his brother’s impatience and irritation swam down their connection before it was quickly dispersed, replaced by a weary assent, the only sign of Shade’s continued restlessness, the rapid flick of his tail against the ground.

[For saving me… protecting me… and providing for me… you have my adoration. And, for so long… as I draw breath, I promise… to do just the same for you…] Nameless’s [Telepathy] surged – the seriousness of his devotion overwhelming the exhaustion that had limited him – the full breadth of his telepathic capabilities causing their connection to swell with his emotion.

Like crashing waves – engulfing his brother in the shocking expanse of his mind – Nameless’s intent slammed into Shade’s consciousness. His conviction, appreciation, and the honesty of them swirled down the length of their connection, splashing across his brother’s end in a scintillating cloud of emotion, Shade’s mind shivering under the deluge of shaped [Telepathy].

Nameless bowed his head, his chest feeling tight from emotions and strain, [Thank you, Brother.]

Even if his brother’s eyes were not wide with surprise, he could feel how overwhelmed and shocked Shade was through their shared string. "Not very… surprising… that he would be caught… so off guard."

The clarity and amount of emotions were far in excess to those of his earlier telepathic communions… and likely any other communication Shade – or even himself – had received in the past. It left his oft taciturn sibling unbalanced, his mind a flashing maelstrom of stunned confusion and erratic feelings…

But, even through the chaos of his brother’s mind, did Nameless catch scent of an emotion that caused the air to be instantly stolen from his lungs…

Fear.