The days since Ink-Talon had come clean about his promise to the Scholar had been chaotic and busy. The potential of answers and knowledge that could help those left suppressed or unconscious by their conditions was more than enough motivation to push everyone to act. They had decided that their best shot at emancipating themselves was to work on things from two distinct fronts.

Maggie had begun formally petitioning Arbitrators for a Consensus on their release. Her flying lessons were a work in progress, but she could take off and land reliably, provided she had flat ground, the wind was gentle, and she flew in a straight line. It was enough to get her close to where she needed to go to plead their case each day.

The second plan was to send word of their detainment to the Explorer’s Guild in the Highnests. Verdant-Trail, Eager-Horizon, and Valiant-Claw were all ranking members of the organization, and the Guild had close ties with the College, outfitting research settlements and providing personnel and survey data to aid in field study. Putting strain on that relationship would not be seen favorably by the Scholars, which was likely why the Guardians neglected to deliver Verdant-Trail’s message. Better that the Guild think that their afflicted members were lost on the journey. Thankfully, they had a potential way to circumvent this.

Scribe Swift-Paw was not under the same restrictions of movement as the rest of them, nor under the same scrutiny that Seeker Sunny-Plume or Archivist Sharp-Search would be in their own roles. It was a simple matter for the Scribe to seek lodging outside the campus, citing a lack of need for its constant presence now that Song no longer had to live in a bathtub, and then wait to pass on a message from Verdant-Trail. The Guardians were not monitoring all of the regular Messengers coming to and from the city, the invasion of privacy alone would have been enough for the citizens to disavow their authority, not to mention the utter lack of resources needed to even attempt something so complicated.

Things were finally moving forward at a steady pace. Of course, Ink-Talon had his own job to do in all of this. A job only he could do, and one that he hated with every fiber of his being.

He was going to lie, sneak, and outmaneuver his way into the city unmonitored, passing off Verdant-Trail’s new letter to Swift-Paw without the Guardians ever knowing one had been written. It had to be written by Verdant-Trail’s own claws, or else it would not be believed, given the outlandish nature of the claims. Swift-Paw was a skilled scribe, but forgery was not among its talents, nor was smuggling, and the Guardians had inspected its baggage when it had formally moved out earlier that evening.

No. It has to be me. Ink-Talon took a deep breath as he carefully watched the angle of the sun from the ledge in his room. I can fly. I have the precision and control to evade notice. And… I could probably say whatever I wanted and come off as genuine. We need to press that advantage while our enemies are still unaware of it. The thought stuck in his mind, eating at him. Enemies. Can I really think of them as enemies? They’re just people doing what they think is best.

They stand opposed to your very existence, the more pragmatic side of him answered. If they get their way, you and everyone like you will cease to be. It doesn’t matter what their motives are. They want you dead. That makes them your enemy. The sun outside dipped low enough to almost touch the top of the courtyard’s far wall. In about a minute it would be right in the eyes of the Guardian perched on the roof above him, and that eagle would be right at the end of its shift watching the place. The combination of twilight and exhaustion would be his cover, one far better than pure darkness in a world filled with creatures with excellent night vision and other senses.

He adjusted the small straps across his breast securing a tiny satchel containing the folded note and a few other useful tools he’d been able to gather. Chase had put it together the previous day, repurposing the material and hooks from Quiet-Dream’s kit-carrier. The guy was apparently really good at designing things like that on the fly, and it was a shame he refused to give himself more credit for it. But that was a problem for another day. Right now, he had a job to do.

Time to go.

Ink-Talon fell forward, flaring his wings and bringing himself into a low, high-speed glide, flapping as little as possible in order to remain quiet as he positioned himself right in the long shadow of one of the courtyard’s trees and gently banked around its trunk to land behind it. He peeked out to confirm the Eagle Guardian’s position, and it was more or less where he’d expected it to be, shielding its eyes from the sun with a wing and tapping a talon on the roof in annoyance. It wasn’t looking his way, and almost certainly wouldn’t be able to see him if he took to the skies right now. This was his only chance, so he took it, launching into the sky and soaring over the roof, shutting his eyes himself to block out the setting sun as he flew right towards it.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five… The crow counted each of his wingbeats as he powered forward blindly, having worked out with the bat ahead of time exactly how many he would need to clear the building with his eyes closed. All it took was a little testing and demonstration for their calculations. After the thirteenth flap, the crow began descending, opening his eyes once he was angled down far enough. The bat’s Attunement was right on the money, as usual, and he slipped below the rooftops and into a nearby alleyway just off-campus to catch his breath and make sure he wasn’t being followed. As far as he could tell, the coast was clear.

I did it. I actually did it! He hopped up and down a few times before reigning in his excitement. Those had been the most elaborate flight patterns he’d done yet, and he’d pulled it off effortlessly. Too effortlessly. Too easy. Don’t let it set in. He tried to stamp down on his excitement even harder, forcing himself to focus on his mission as much as possible. He’d kept his flying to a minimum since arriving in Darksoil, and not entirely out of necessity, either. Sure, spending so much time indoors and in the tightly monitored courtyard prevented him from taking wing on a whim for more than crossing a room or flying to a perch, but even when offered a flying tour of the city by Seeker Sunny-Plume, he’d declined, making up an excuse about taking a nap in a bad position and waking up with a sore wing that day.

Yet another lie I’ve been able to tell without even thinking twice. The crow shook his head, trying to dismiss the unhelpful self-criticism.

No, the reason he’d kept himself mostly grounded was out of fear. Not just his fear of heights, which was still present, if manageable, but his fear of himself. What he might do if he embraced the skies, embraced the boundless freedom they offered. He feared that he may never be able to let it go.

Ink-Talon had realized something about himself during his conversation with his Scholar counterpart. He wasn’t human. Not anymore. Not just in the physical sense, that much had been clear from moment one, but rather the core of who he was had shifted. He’d tried to imagine fantasy scenarios in which he got to go home, to resume his previous life. He easily could, but there was only one fantasy he could ever imagine himself being happy in: One where he somehow remained a bird.

Most of the others? They’d have taken their old bodies back without thinking twice, and still held their humanity as a part of their identities. But Ink-Talon was more like Song. Both of them considered themselves to be fundamentally different in a way that made “being human” feel… uncomfortable. For Song, it was because she was effectively a gestalt being, and “salamander” had taken precedence at her core. For Ink-Talon, it was more like he was made to be a crow, like he’d always been one and just didn’t know it. He’d never been unhappy with being human, at least as far as he could tell, but he’d sure as hell been bored by it. Maybe it was just his Attunement warping his perspective on his own body, but he didn’t care. Being like this was just better than being human.

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All of his protesting and insistence that he was human in his first few days in this world, all of his anger and worry… All of it was just insistence that he was still a person. That he was still himself. And he was still himself, of course. But if he let himself just fly freely… Then he might just fly away. It would be so easy. To just fly, and fly, and fly. To experience every inch of this world, to be free, and be happy. He wanted it. He yearned for it. And he knew that he could never live with himself if he did it. If he abandoned Quiet-Dream and the others who needed him, then who would he really be? Not himself, that much was certain. Above all else, he needed to remain himself.

“Are you okay?” A very concerned snort yanked Ink-Talon out of his post-flight rumination. He squawked in awkward surprise and found himself beak-to-snout with what he could only assume to be a reindeer, judging from its sheer bulk and impressive, velvet-covered antlers. Larger than the white-tail deer he was familiar with, but not nearly big enough to be a moose. Even so, it was by far the tallest creature he’d ever interacted with at this size. “I apologize for startling you, but you seemed somewhat distressed. Is there anything I can do to help?” Its “voice” was a low groaning sound, one that would almost certainly shift to a harsh bellow if pushed to a higher volume.

“Oh! Yes, actually!” Ink-Talon cawed gratefully, snapping to a much more relaxed stance as he did so. The last thing he needed right now was to come off as nervous or suspicious. “I only recently came to Darksoil, and am not yet familiar with the city’s layout. I can usually navigate well enough from the air, but tonight I stayed out too late and lost my way in the twilight. My latest attempt at flying home had me accidentally blinding myself going duskward, and I needed a moment to recover.” The crow put on his best approximation of a cute “pleading” face as he stared up at the deer. “I can probably make it if I take my time, but it will be a slow journey in the dark. Are you able to give me directions to the Aqueduct District from here? I am staying with a friend there.”

“I can, but I can also simply take you there, if that suits you better.” The deer looks down the street and away from the College. “You would be a negligible weight to carry, and my own destination is within sight of the aqueduct. You will have a much easier time navigating from there.”

“Thank you!” the crow croaked excitedly. “The help would be greatly appreciated, as would the opportunity to rest my wings.” The misleading omission that he wanted to rest his wings because he was too eager to use them twisted his avian guts into a tense knot, one that he easily kept from coming through in his posture or movements or voice or even the grip of his talons on the reindeer’s back as they began the journey. If the pleasant conversation hadn’t helped him ease that tension…

He honestly wasn’t sure what would happen. Was it even possible for him to reach an emotional breaking point like he’d seen Quiet-Dream do multiple times by now? Was his self-control actually that good? He hadn’t found his limits yet, and he sincerely hoped he’d never have to. Right now, though? Right now he was making pleasant small-talk for what was probably the first time since the cart ride to Darksoil, and he was going to relish every moment.

“You can do that? Shave them and treat them to encourage specific growth?” Ink-Talon clicked his beak as he examined the sculpted curves of the reindeer’s uncannily symmetrical antlers.

“Most do not bother, but I consider it a personal challenge,” the deer explained. “I am an Artist. My usual mediums are dyes and canvases, but the idea of using my own body as a medium of artistic expression is intensely appealing. It has taken years of trial-and-error to properly implement the techniques, but once I shed this year’s velvet, I am hoping to have created splits and branches in exactly the spots I intended to.”

“That is an admirable ambition,” the crow chirped. “I had never had much of an aptitude for art myself, but I once proposed the idea of drawn maps representing space in a less-abstracted and more visually appealing way. Unfortunately, I was either scoffed at or met with confusion.”

“I see,” the deer huffed, clearly familiar with such a reaction. “You stumbled into the first hurdle any Artist must face: No one but you will Understand a work that does not yet exist. You can not force someone else to imagine your idea as you envision it. But if you manifest it, make it real, then it will be Understood by those who witness it. Then you will have created Art.”

“That is… Profound.” Ink-Talon squeaked out his meager response, unable to properly respond.

“It is, is it not?”

The conversation largely petered out after that point, and not a moment too soon, as they finally arrived at their destination only a few minutes later.

“The aqueduct is always well-lit at night, so you should be able to see where you are going.”

“Thank you…” Ink-Talon hopped off the deer’s back and paused, tilting his head inquisitively. “I do not think I caught your name.”

“Artist Branching-Tree.” The Artist bowed its head respectfully. “And yours?”

“Ink-Talon, no role just yet,” he squawked without thinking, only barely preventing himself from cringing as a brief flash of satisfaction crossed Branching-Tree’s face. It absolutely knew who he was, and had just gotten proof.

“It has been a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too, but I really must be going now. My friend is going to be worried that I am late.”

“Of course.” Just as the crow turned to leave, however, a heavy tap of the deer’s hoof on a paving stone halted him. “Ink-Talon, have you ever considered being an Artist?”

“I…” The question completely blindsided the bird, and he contemplated flying away without answering. But the reindeer already knew who he was, there was no point in being anything but open. “I did once. In another life. But I decided that I didn’t want to make something like that into an obligation. If I did that, then it wouldn’t have been art anymore. It would have been just an empty product, devoid of meaning. I'd much rather have had it as a hobby than a career.”

“A wise decision, though if I were to give any advice, it would be that your idea of what constitutes Art may have been too narrow.” The artist’s deep, brown eyes seemed to sparkle in the flickering lamplight on the street, but all Ink-Talon could read from the expression was a vague sense of anticipation. “It is just an idea to explore in the future.” Branching-Tree bowed its head once more. “Fly true, Hobbyist Ink-Talon.” If a deer could smirk, it absolutely would have been. “And do not worry. I have always hated talking to Guardians, and have no plans to do so.”

“Thanks again.” Ink-Talon returned its bow, gave his best impression of a beaming smile, and then took off, somehow both relieved and saddened that the interaction was over. He immediately spotted the building Scribe Swift-Paw described. It was a small rooftop apartment, built out of interlocking slats of wood and connected to both surrounding buildings and the ground by a multitude of thick ropes. Spotting an open window, the crow dove in as he had been instructed, easily making a clean landing on the cool stone floor.

“Hello?” The crow cawed into the darkness, tensing for the possibility that he had the wrong house and needed to bail.

“Ink-Talon?” A pair of eyes shone in the darkness before the distinctive click click of a simple striker mechanism was followed by a dim oil lamp sputtering to life to reveal the rest of the raccoon. Swift-Paw seemed somewhat more disheveled and exhausted than he expected, but it was clearly relieved to see him. “I am glad you were able to make it. Did anyone see you?”

“No one who we need to worry about, thankfully.” He lowered his head and undid the simple hook holding his breast satchel shut, reaching in and gently withdrawing the tightly folded piece of paper with the Explorers’ missive on it. The Scribe took it and placed it on a nearby wooden box that seemed to be serving as a table for the still-spartan living space. “And now to sneak back in,” the crow sighed. “Way less likely to succeed, but at least if I fail, I’ll just be escorted back to my room.”

“Before you go, though, we will need to deal with a certain problem that somehow found its way into my bag after the Guardians had finished searching it.”

“What?”

Rather than elaborate, Swift-Paw walked over to the small nest of blankets laid out in the corner of the room, grasped one with a forepaw, and pulled it away to reveal an extremely angry, extremely determined looking gray-furred squirrel kit. It glared at both of the adults in the room, hackles raised in irritation.

“I’m not going back!” Gray growled. “You can’t make me!”

All Ink-Talon could do was groan. This was going to be vastly more complicated than he thought.