Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Something went wrong.

skekMal remembers it like the flagging of a ship from its careful course, undoubtedly led astray by blinding lights and false pyres burning on the shore. And it all crashes, crumpling and tearing, the hull ripped to shreds in a matter of seconds as the cold waves consume him until it leaves him hollow.

Voices, someone is- no, someone was singing, and there was shouting, screaming, something important… something he'd forgotten, a sickness curdling in his insides that yearned for… home.

Stumbling to his feet, he lists to the side, the ground brushing against his soles like razor wire. Everything is too loud, too bright, even his skin feels too tight, constricting him with an invisible fist as if he's been crammed inside an infinitesimally small space.

It's stifling.
No... it's hollow. skekMal raises a hand to his chest, feeling the sharp pin prick of his own claws, he digs deeper into the physical barrier that shouldn't be there.

Something touches him, a strong grip and scaly hands, blunt nails and a brush of softness at his elbow that leaves him recoiling, snarling in disgust, trying to form words that won't come.

He doesn't stop to consider, instead he stumbles away from it, that blur of colors with its blinding light, that incessant warmth beside him that radiates energy. It tries to soothe him, soft whispers against his ears and he can't stand it.

It grates at him just as it pulls ferociously and he squints his eyes, blinking away the blur like a newborn.

urVa… urRu… A beautiful voice whispers in his mind, a song that twists golden threads in his psyche trying to spin a tapestry that's forever incomplete. He brushes it away like a fly, sending it scattering as his hackles raise along with the feathers across his skin.

Dipping his head he tries to speak again, hot fury boiling up his insides when again the words don't come.

The urRu with it's soft edges and bright skin reaches for him once more. A deep voice like the stones of Thra leaves its throat and skekMal sees blinding red.

Without forethought, he stands to his full height, curving away from that choking concern, feeling the muscles tug along his spine and pull beneath his skin, thrumming with a new life he looms over the urRu and looks into its gentle eyes.

In the dark of its pupils, he sees himself, a monstrous and twisted silhouette.

With a furious shout he slashes down, twin wounds of red scouring its muzzle. Anything, he screams silently, anything to keep its misplaced comfort to itself, to keep its pity at bay.

skekMal screams, every nerve igniting like acid splashed across his face.

He curls away, all four hands coming up to try and rip it off, peel the sensation away, pry it from his very matter. His hands come away slick with blood, dripping red that stains his skin and spreads across his feathers, mingling with the rusty pigment that already stains them.

He can feel it now, a binding to the urRu that winds deep down into the pit of his fractured soul.

Self preservation stays his hungry hands, unwilling to feel such agony again he turns away with a frustrated whine. Retracing steps that are not his own but he remembers nonetheless, they are a vast echo in his memory, the path so ingrained it needs no reiteration.

With each step he feels stronger, curling his fingers he rolls his shoulders, testing out the new motion, feeling the bones creak and the flesh stretch.

Standing taller with each bit of space that brings him further and further away from that creature, the pain lessens and the bleeding slows. His tail lashing against the ground he relishes in the sensation and raises his head as he steps into the Hall of Reflection.

The chamber is still lit, the power of all three brothers beaming straight down as one and refracting about the room in an endless dance.

He raises a hand as their brilliance rips across his corneas and filters through his fingers until he can see the bones within, dark rods and lines that shouldn't exist.

"You lied the crystal has not healed us, it has not purged our darkness- only ruined us!"

A voice cries, and skeMal faces it, an image of ethereal light and a branching crown briefly replaces the disappointing flesh of the other skeksis. A purple beast with four limbs and clenched fists as it tries to steady itself against one of the thousands of lesser crystals in the chamber.

No… skekMal shakes his head, trying to stave off the bristling sense of unease, he can't remember the name, what they're supposed to be, there's something missing and yet the name skekSo persists as if it's always been.

"Mother does not lie!" Raunip shouts, every bit the feisty creature that floats in skekMal's memories like wisps of candle flame. Standing beside his mother, the smaller creature steps forward, a challenge in his voice. "You have brought this upon yourselves!"

Raunip spits at skekSo's feet thrusting a finger to the dimly glowing crystal. "The crystal was never yours to meddle with and it has seen fit to punish you."

The skeksis lunges forward coming terribly short with limbs like a swothel calf, awkward and new he doesn't quite know his reach.

Augrha easily stops him, pulling a hissing Raunip behind her, she thrusts a hand out, equal parts holding skekSo up and keeping him back.

skekMal hears her words like a distant drone and he watches eighteen of his newly born brethren stumble into the dimming light of the suns. He recognizes them, knows their strange shapes in a way that makes him inexplicably upset, an emotion like sadness but tainted so dark it wavers into fury as if it has nowhere else to fall.

He watches as the soft urRu retreat, the gelfling and podlings scuttling in front of their saurian feet, all stinking of panic. It makes skekMal's breath come faster, the salty sweet tang of fear making his head swing to follow them as saliva gathers, slipping past his lips.

A hunger, a craving so powerful that makes his vision narrow and his ears ring until he can barely make out anything.

"-nothing else to be done."

"Wait for the next conjunction?" skekSo growls, swatting Augrha's hand away with a snarl. "Out of the question!"

Looking affronted the maker steps closer. "You must listen to Augrha, must fix this, so you may return home!"

A distant part of him knows that staying here is wrong, a voice, deep like urVa's, resonates in his head and rattles his bones. It pleas and it cries, an incessant drone that begs him to flee with it, to abandon all that makes him feel powerful, in control, force him away from all that corrupts him.

skekMal twists his beak into a snarl.

He eyes the retreating urRu in a new light, a darkening one that has his hands twitching with want but his toes curling in with a sickening nausea.

Weak.

He grabs the straggler that flees too close, flesh connecting with flesh, he knows the urRu's name like his own, urYa, Thra whispers in his ears as the creature struggles, panic swiftly overtaking its features.

He closes all four hands around its throat, feeling the thin flesh give way to strained muscle and finally bone that crunches and grinds. It spits and sputters, foam gathering on its lips as its eyes fill with tears and its muzzle darkens, a blueness like a great bruise spreading from its lips to its cheeks.

He takes no notice of skekYi's sudden collapse.

Warm and wet, saliva drips onto skekMal's forearms when the creature's frothing grows so virulent that its desperate attempts to inhale sound like the gurgle of a fissimmer in the Black River.

"Unhand him!" A deep voice booms, words drawn out in a lengthy drawl that vibrates the very air.

The urRu in his grasp has gone limp but this new adversary, this new prey, is fresh and it scrabbles at his limbs, blunt nails carving red lines as its warm breath pleads in his ear.

skekMal relents his grasp just to grab the smaller urRu about its thin neck, claws digging in until its lifeblood flows and splatters hot against his skin.

He tosses it even as skekHak cries out for mercy.

The newborn creature cannot catch itself and goes tumbling limb over limb, straight down into the glowing depths of the hole beneath the Crystal, straight down into the inner sun.

skekYi crumbles into dust just as skekHak bursts into flames, both with parting, agonized screams, they die before they ever lived.

Horrified, the skeksis look on as the very fundamental law of their existence is upended, immortality unwritten in piles of ash.

A fear unlike any other runs through them, echoing to the urRu who have make their swift escape from the castle. skekMal feels that churning despair as his own and he looks to the Crystal, that confounded thing that's ruined them, doomed them.

It has only brought them misery.

skekMal lunges, grabbing up a star staff that lay discarded amongst the crystal shards, he brings it down upon the top of that shining cursed thing.

Augrha's screams rumble through every fiber of him as the Crystal cries out beneath the thunderous blow.

It breaks, a single shard arcing through the dying light before it disappears from sight, lost within a maze of lesser crystals and mirrors, down into the depths of the castle's caves.

Clutching her chest Augrha falls to her knees, a wail unlike any skekMal has heard before leaps from her mouth. Raunip tugs at her, pulling his mother out of sight, safe from the curved claws and gnashing teeth that seek untoward punishment.

And skekMal moves forward, spurred by some remnants of guilt, to see Mother Augrha in such agony, to watch the crystal as it bleeds from clear to purple, a darkness spreading like ink in water, it frightens him.

That fear, oh how it spurs on the anger in his chest, igniting his temper, like a raw nerve exposed to the air. Clenching his fists he licks the blood from his face, relishing the taste as much as he despises it.

The other Skeksis look on with gasps and cries, it seems their shock is short lived, shifting to cruelty and wicked intent as there desire to lay blame burns brighter than the Greater Sun.

"You imbecile, you repugnant cretin! What have you done?" skekTek lunges for skekMal but he easily dodges the smaller skeksis, a grace and speed to his step that is unparalleled.

"The Crystal, it's broken!" skekEkt cries, an arm thrown across their face as they taper off into a shrill cry.

"It's useless." skekMal snarls, "We were always destined to rot on this pathetic planet. " The words finally spill from his throat but he hates them, hates how they sound, how they grate against each other how they rumble in the air. He hates how he doesn't understand them.

"You." skekSo grabs him, a strength in the other skeksis grip that leaves skekMal twisting and thrashing to escape. "You were always the worst of us, the darkest, leading us astray with your madness. And now-" skekSo punctuates his words with a tightened grip, "you've doomed us all."

Then so be it! Is what he nearly croaks, as skekSo heaves him into the air but the words settle like ash on his tongue, dry and wrong, holding no more weight than the lightest feather.

He's thrown on to his back, skidding and rolling across the ground until he's littered with cuts from the fine crystal edges. Levering himself up with shaky arms, he crouches on all fours, his other limbs outstretched, talons curved towards the ground.

He can still feel where the blood gathers at his fingertips, cooling streams that congregate and drip to the ground with the softest of patters.

skekSo doesn't approach, instead he looks down his toothy beak at him, as if he is just a lowly fizzgig, mad and rabid with sickness. The others gather behind him, looking down at him just the same, until the whites of their eyes become too much to bear.

"To fail ourselves is to fail each other. And you have failed us time and time again." skekSo hisses, a finality to it like the falling of a star, like the realization that it will never know the vastness of the cosmos again.

They are words skekMal has heard before, from a different place, a different time; where speech did not require tongues and lips, but thoughts and songs of the soul.

skekMal curls in on himself, forearms tucked across his chest as he ducks his head, he cowers like a lowly crawlie, utterly unlike the great being he feels he is meant to be.

This anger, this rage, it's all he has left to hold on to, like it's home, but even so, blood does not stain his brothers' plumage or decorate their skin like war paint.

"You are not skeksis." skekSo's words fall upon him, hammering against his chest like physical blows.

With judgement cast and the hammer of exile fallen upon his neck, skekMal tosses his head and lashes his tail. No, he thinks, he has become cruel thoughts trapped beneath crueler flesh, with no chance of escape.

If this is what it means to be skeksis he wants no part of it.

Mal's mind quiets with the revelation and without a second thought he turns tail and runs.

Chapter Text

Approximately 112 trine later

Mal falls heavily against the ground, his loud grunt echoed through the night like the stamping of a landstrider.

Sami Thicket is quiet, the three sisters high in the starry sky as the croona sing their nightly tune and the glowing fyrna flit about the tall grass.

For a moment he presses himself low, belly brushing the dirt as he forces a palm against his aching chest.

Warmth spreads across his hand and he presses harder, grimacing when it burns something fierce.

The Archer must think him a masochist, Mal muses darkly, but the Mystic is as high as the three suns about now, judging from the floaty sensation just behind his eyes.

His careful gaze flits from house to house, lingering on the ones where the tell tale glow of a hearth burns.

One in particular grabs his attention, an herb garden surrounds the entire abode and fyrna seem to congregate around it, as if drawn to the energy that the place exudes.

The circular window holds no light but that certainly means very little considering who dwells there.

Slinking forward he enters the village, passing through the market and its empty stalls, being careful to taste the air as he creeps about, a shadow in the night.

Already he can feel his fingers going numb, a fuzziness leeching to his limbs as he approaches exsanguination. He nears his target's home, nearly trampling through the beloved garden, but he's careful to catch himself, hopping over it with a clumsy leap lest he face her wrath again.

He knocks over a few pots, sending them clattering to the ground, all of them breaking with a crash as the fyrna scatter in panic. Their clicks and chirps fill his ears and he swats the pests away, sputtering when they try and cling to the spikes on his brows and crowd too close to his eyes.

"Still louder than a z'nid bird and twice as stupid, I see." Sylen's voice cuts through the fog in his head, quick and whip-like, she never seems to sound any older even as her hair greys and her skin wrinkles.

Feeling a sharp tug on his tail he turns, having to brace two hands against the sturdy stone walls of her home. His world spins out of control and he lists to the side.

"In, in." The stout gelfling ushers him through the door, tugging at his hand with a strength that belies her stature. "Come on you big feathery brute, I'm not as strong as I used to be."

Ducking, he follows her, the familiar scent of sedge flower and dried huyka bark hits him immediately, it's as pungent as always and makes his beak crinkle without fail. Hunching awkwardly, he lets her usher him to a sturdy table near the back of the room, where the ceiling arches high enough for him to stand.

It's the very same table he's nearly died on many a time.

It seems he's doomed to repeat history.

"Lucky for you-" She calls over her shoulder, moving to the brimming and cramped shelves, stoking the fyrna lamps into life as she passes them, "-this old gelfling can't drag you about by the tail anymore."

Mal gives a pained huff in reply, but he can't manage more than to lay back and stare at the ceiling, going nearly cross-eyed as the bushels and baskets above start to double and sway.

Closing his eyes, he listens to the comforting scrape of stone on stone, Sylen no doubt mixing a salve, crushing it in the mortar.

"You can't keep showing up here." Her voice is closer now and he can smell her, a scent like dry grass swaying beneath the suns fills his nostrils. He didn't realize he'd missed it and he'd be damned if he ever admitted it.

"I know, healer." He growls, words heavy with pain and a considerable tinge of anger. It seems he hasn't quite burnt his rage out on those rakkida because there it simmers, a tight ball in his gut, and he has to focus on stamping it out like an ember in dry grass.

"Mind your tone with me, childling."

Mal swipes at her head, a half hearted thing that misses by far too much, and he lets his hand lay limp, palm up on the packed earth.

"You're still so young in so many ways." She tuts, setting the mortar and pestle aside.

He feels her rough hands scoop up his own, placing the limb back at his side with a gentle pat to the back of his palm. It's a tender gesture, one that he's gone so long without that to have it back is something that he craves even more than the taste of blood on his tongue.

His fingers twitch, so starved for contact that they move of their own accord, clenching his jaw he reigns the urge in, burying it as he often buries his anger.

But Sylen notices, she always does, her eyes keener than a Grottan's and her mind sharper than a Sifa's.

"Mal…" She sighs, saying his name with the air of a disappointed caregiver. "You shouldn't do this to yourself."

She lays her rough hand against his cheek, thumb brushing the feathers below his eye, gentle and paternal.

"I won't always be here, you know."

"You? Die?" Mal gives a breathy laugh, swatting her hand away, turns on his side, curving away as much as he can from such gentleness. He looks at the wall and mutters, "You'll be older than Mother Augrha one of these days."

Sylen places a hand on his shoulder, prompting him to turn back to face her. Tense, he lets his back and arms settle against the tabletop once more, the rough grain digging in with it's splintery teeth. Still, it's nothing compared to the fire lancing across his chest.

He avoids her gaze, he avoids looking at the feathers woven into her white hair, he avoids that pity on her lips and a nausea builds in his stomach, twisting his midriff until he itches to race out the door. He'd risk death just to sink his teeth into something.

With a reverent gentleness, Sylen's hands flutter over his bandages, stained nearly black with blood, she mutters a familiar phrase, words Mal still can't understand but it lessens the pain.

Drawing her hand away, the healer tsks, dipping a bone needle into the huyka paste at her side. The ivory glistens green and slippery, a thread of tanned mounder gut at its end dances about when she sets it aside.

"My part of the song will end one day, just as yours will." Sylen affirms, her voice much softer than he's used to.

Pretending to ignore her, Mal continues to stare at the ceiling. He knows what she speaks is a lie, there is no song for him, but he can't remember how to say it, it's tarnished and old, faded like dyed cloth left in the suns.

She continues to ready her supplies, shuffling things about before she stops, a silence stretching for a moment before she fills it.

"You're lucky you weren't spotted. Not everyone remembers you so fondly, least of all the Lords."

Phantom pain spreads down his back like icy claws and haunting laughs.

He remembers too well. It was a fool's plan, born of unchecked feral desire, a long festered regret and a cold rage.

All because Elder Carn had struck a deal with the skeksis and Mal knew; he knew that the Emperor was walking the gelfling into a trap, eternal servitude in exchange for false promises of protection.

Head bowed and back bent, he too would be subjugated and while he found it nearly impossible to feel even a farce of compassion for the gelfling, he felt anger, he felt fear. And it trapped him, cornered him until he headed for the castle doors.

But he was young, and stupid, still so new to the world, and the skeksis were quick, cruel and above all, they were cunning.

It was how he'd received his first punishment. The deep gouges still mar his back like jagged valleys, the Ritual Master's talons leaving gaps in his feathers where the follicles were ripped straight from the skin.

They threw him out, with a warning and a promise, skexish carved deep into his skin.

"I'd like to see those pathetic spitheads try-" He cuts off into an undignified yelp as Sylen rips the crudely placed bandages away.

Trying not to writhe or lash out, Mal bares his teeth and lets out a hissed curse between them.

The bite mark is worse than he remembers.

It's a mauling that punctures his skin, leaving it ragged and torn until the white of his bone is revealed, smarting as the last of the dirty wrappings are lifted away.

Sylen eyes the rags, noting the grime that seems to permeate the very threading.

"I see you've been hanging about the podling village."

"Good at brewing… Not so good at healing." Mal breaths, tensing up as Sylen upends a bowl of cold water across the lesions. "Been having trouble with rakkida, again."

"Of course, by yesmit, you can't resist a hunt."
Sylen rolls her eyes with a huff but, there's a quiet resignation there, almost a relief.

He wants to sneer, be crude and ask her what of it? He hunts because he has to, just as she heals because she has to.

Already he feels his skin start to prick and his teeth start to ache. His thoughts turn bitter, and when he closes his eyes all he sees is the Castle of the Crystal on the horizon, a dark twisting pyre that breaks the landscape.

The rakkida would not be so rampant if not for that damn castle and its occupants.

<Fucking fools> Mal curses in skexish, the only phrase he happens to know with any ounce of confidence. "Cooped up in their pathetic castle, all vain and so damned petty, the lot of-"

He cuts off with a sharp hiss, the needle driven into his skin, Sylen's timing is impeccable as always.

"Watch your language." She swats the side of his beak. "They're still the lords, whether they command my utmost loyalty or not, they protect the crystal."

Guilt settles like smoke, snuffing out the flames, and Mal is left to stare quietly at the ceiling.

She tugs the thread through, pulling the wound's edges together, the huyka paste numbing its sharp path.

With each pass she whispers ancient words, sacred and strong to weave Thra itself into his skin and speed along the healing.

"I owe them my gratitude, for the food on my table and the medicine in my stores." She ties off the stitch, snipping it swiftly before moving on to the next one, mechanical and efficient with hands that have done this a thousand times before.

"Without them-" Sylen pauses, taking care to look Mal in the eyes, "-you'd be dead."

He grumbles, discontent with her sentiment, but even he's not stubborn enough to deny the truth in her words.

By the time Sylen finishes wrapping great swathes of bandage about his chest, the first sun's rays filter through the window, dim and rosy, they light up the room and cast great shadows against the floor.

Blinking against the light, he shuffles off the table, huffing as the motion jars him and he's forced to curl in on himself.

"Stay." Sylen insists, hand at his elbow, silently urging him to sit back down.

He huffs, pulling the limb away. Already he feels more focused, energized despite the lingering pain, and that fuzziness has all but lifted. Coherency brings thoughts trickling in like poorly damned streams. Violent things like the pop of bone from socket and the wet crunch of muscle between teeth.

The violence morphs and shifts, oil in water, it is slick and dark across his mind, coiling about his brain until it chokes the dredges of empathy from him.

He can't stay here.

Pushing past Sylen, he makes for the door, feet catching clumsily on the furniture, he hastens his steps, as if he can outpace his own shadow, that dark part of him that looks at the healer and sees just another meal.

The door bursts open and Mal leaps back, crouching on all four, he arches his back, hissing lowly at the offending object.

It slams against the opposing wall, a bang and a crash, hinges creaking under the stress as a young gelfling rushes in, cheeks flushed and breath frantic.

"Healer Sylen! Healer Sylen!" For a moment the wide eyed creature looks about, eyes roving the shop, the whites flashing. "The Lords have-"

And the Spriton spots him, color draining from its face, ears twisting back, and eyes locking with his own.

"Thats- that's--" The young gelfling dissolves into stutters, stepping back it draws the shears from its belt, lofting them like a sword.

Mal crouches lower, baring his teeth like a cornered fizzgig, all he can focus on is the glint of silver in its hand and the blood he hears pounding in its veins.

He hasn't eaten gelfling in so, so long.
And there's no sentiment or peace of mind to stop him, his sanity crumbling to blood thirst, hunger and pain, exhaustion and weakness craving the taste.

Salivating like a hungry beast he prepares to pounce on the little creature a small part of him screaming and thrashing, mind still addled by injury and fatigue there is no stopping this hunt.

Sylen storms over, grabbing the gelfling by the wrist, trying to pull him further inside. "Can't you see that my door is shut?"

The healer's silhouette crosses into his vision, like a cloud blocking out the suns it leaves Mal abruptly snapped out of his stalk.

Sitting back on his haunches he keeps his back bent and his head low, sniffing at the air he's overwhelmed by that perfume stench of skeksis on the gelfling's clothes.

"Sylen." The gelfling hisses, a low thing that it probably thinks Mal can't hear or perhaps it doesn't care. It keeps its eyes trained on him, whites flashing like a frightened landstrider. "That's- that's the Trai-"

"The Traitor? The Outcast?" Sylen cuts off the stuttering, her words quick and clipped. "Yes, yes, so many flattering names, now come sit down before the whole of Sami Thicket hears you!"

The gelfling backs away, shaking its head, its ears bounce with the frantic movements. "I… I must tell Maudra Creyla."

Sylen moves to close the door, Mal stepping in line behind her but the frightened Spriton trips backwards with a shout, blocking the doorway.

Lunging, Mal moves to scoop the creature up, knowing Sylen's livelihood depends on it staying put.

"Stay back, beast!" The gelfling screams, scrabbling backwards it throws the shears in its grasp and beats a hasty retreat, fleeing into the safety of the rising suns.

The round handles bounce off Mal's snout. It forces a sharp roar of surprise from him and by the time he recovers the door is being shut by Sylen. The young gelfling is long gone.

"Thrice damn that childling and his blind rush to fealty." Sylen sags against the door, a hand comes up and twists the braid in her hair as she pushes off the wood.

Crossing and uncrossing her arms she moves about in a huff, stacking up bowls and clearing up the bloody rags scattered about.

Mal watches her, sharp eyes tracking the tense line of her shoulders and the slight pout of her lips. She keeps her back to him but her hand, it keeps twisting that braid, toying with the feathers there, all varying shades of rust and copper.

Similar feathers lay scattered on the table, little wisps and downy that follow Mal everywhere he goes.

Sylen reaches out, picking up a particularly long one, she twirls the shaft between two fingers, watching as it dances like a flame in the golden sun.

Swiping the back of a hand across his beak, Mal stands, not realizing he'd sat back on his haunches to watch her.

He can't be here when the whole of the guard descends upon her home, they'd arrest her if the evidence he left behind wasn't already incriminating enough.

Forced to lumber about on three limbs, he stumbles to the window, peering through the wooden slats.

He can't make out much with the glare, but he can hear the sharp notes of skexish on the wind. It bites at his ankles and eats at his chest, his back tightens and crawls like a thousand ants beneath his skin.

Gritting his teeth, he moves to the door, heavy breaths punctuated by a pathetic whine. He grabs for the handle.

"Sit down."

Turning on the healer he snarls. "You don't order me, witch."

"Foolish childling." She meets his fury head on. "You cannot spend your whole life running. The pains of the past will only grow unbearable the longer you stay frightened of them, like a nurloc hiding from the light."

"You've no idea what I've done." Mal heaves a wicked laugh. "Who I am." He spits, abandoning his escape he stalks towards the healer, so determined, so brave, she faces him down with fiery eyes.

He looms over her, his hands coming up to curl at his sides, one unfurling to flash his talons in her face, feathers rippling down his spine, his vision fills with red and swirls of purple haunt the edges. "What do you know of pain-- of mercy, stupid gelfling?"

She relents, her determination trading for rapid backpedals, instinctual steps taken to avoid a predator, glass jars rattling like angry insects when her back hits the shelves.

"More than you could imagine." Her voice is shaky, her hands even more so but she reaches for him, impossibly delicate fingers, worn and weathered by time. They brush his forearm, tracing the thin cloth and leather bracers.

He turns with a snort, flinching back from her hand.

Mal snarls, shuffling his way to the door, swatting baskets and plants out of his way and knocking some to the floor, but he hesitates, lingering at the threshold, caught between two worlds.

"I'm an old crone." The words spill from Sylen's mouth, unfathomable in their depth. "I was there the day the Conqueror came, I was there during the Makrak raids and I was there when my childling died. A small price to pay, the Skeksis said…"

Sylen's voice grows soft. "That I was lucky to still have my life."

He can hear her footsteps draw closer, turning his head he watches her approach, slow and careful, measured steps and measured breaths. "But luck doesn't let a childing die in their caregiver's arms."

Mal hunches in on himself the words curdling his insides, discomfort making him shiver.

Sylen steps up beside him, so much shorter and yet Mal feels so small hunched beside the healer. He can't meet her eyes but her small hand gripping his fingers is enough.

"It won't just be my neck under the knife." He mutters, staring at the ground, tail twitching in the dirt.

Sylen nods, her jaw set as she grabs the door handle, tugging it open with a small huff, light spills in and shadowy figures blot out the suns like statues.

A phantom frown tugs at Mal's lips and he pulls his hand away, the grip starting to feel oppressive and heavy, wrong, as if his arm was turning to metal under her touch.

He can still run, he thinks, a flavor of panic creeping in that makes him look to the open plains, freedom incarnate in the green grass and blue sky.

Before he can slink away, gelfling surround them, lance tips thrust in his face as the noisy armor of the Castle Guard clinks and clanks like a horrid symphony.

A smattering of Spriton guards in their brown leather take up ranks with bows drawn and arrows notched.

"Not another step."

Crouching low, he throws his secondary arms out to the side, other hands going for the crude knives on his belt. Quick slashes across his knuckles leave him disarmed and so he falls back on tooth and claw, snarling and spitting as froth gathers on his lips and drips from his beak.

The guard only closes rank and he can see Sylen, for as delicate as she appears, trying to push past the bodies into the circle, her hoarse shouts falling on deaf ears when two gelfling grip her shoulders, yanking her away.

It makes him scrape great furrows through the dirt, toss his head and lash his tail, what he wouldn't give to crunch their pathetic skulls.

"Halt, beast." An authoritative voice orders. "Or you'll be killed where you stand."

He offers only a wordless snarl in return, keeping his defensive stance he steps towards Maudra Creyla, hiding just beyond the line of soldiers, safe from his scorn. The lance points cut his flesh anew, slicing right through his threadbare clothing and fresh bandages but the line does not falter.

Scoffing, Maudra Creyla shakes her head. "I should've known you were harboring this fugitive."

The Spriton Maudra swings her head towards Sylen, looking down her nose at the healer. "Your bleeding heart will send you to Thra one of these days."

"There is no fugitive if there is no crime." Sylen counters, struggling briefly against her captors before she's forced to give up in favor of catching her breath.

"Oh, but there is." skekGra walks onto the scene with all the careful grace one can muster when dressed in shining, regal armor. The dark crimson plates like jagged wounds clank softly, accompanied by a darker helmet that curves like teeth against the sky.

The skeksis motions to the guard to stand down, and with a touch of hesitation they do, drawing back their weapons they leave Mal to his own devices, wary eyes cast on him like nets.

But there is no running, not from the Conqueror.

Mal studies the skeksis, his voice is that same crazed drawl, but his eyes, the way he holds himself, the madness in his pupils seems far too controlled, contained, a restraint that hadn't been there trine ago.

It's as if the hungry orange flame that burns bright in skekGra's mind has finally been tamed.

<You've been causing trouble again.>

Skexish leaves the Conqueror's lips, his head tilted ever so slightly to the side, as a sneer crawls its way across his painted beak.

Mal blinks, shifting his feet and opening his mouth, he glances to the castle guards, searching for a hint, a clue, but all of them stay quiet, eyes trained on the Lord of the Crystal.

He defers, trading speaking for silence, he meets the Conqueror's gaze and waits.

skekGra's gaze flickers over his body, scrutinizing him before he delivers a pointed look followed by a roll of his eyes. More words, leave his mouth, this time muttered darkly. <And you're still as ill-mannered and dirty as ever.>

Those orange eyes stay locked on him, they make Mal's skin itch and his feathers raise, agitation sending great shivers down his spine until he's forced to speak lest he lose his temper.

<I stay from Castle, you order.>

His skexish is rough, too long spent in the wilds had scrubbed the language from his tongue, and he'd always hated how it felt, how it tasted.

Mal braces himself for the jeers, the incessant cackling that starts up when he attempts to speak his mother tongue.

However, there is no room for mirth on the Conqueror's face today. Where normally the cruel skeksis would break down into incessant cackles at Mal's fumbling words, skekGra stands, hand on the hilt of his sword, and something like pity across his brow.

"How disappointing, even podlings are more accomplished at speaking than you." The deep reverberating voice of skekZok cuts across Sami Thicket like a whip.

It instantly sets Mal on edge, his hands itching to pick up his knives, lest he be unarmed in the same vicinity as that sadist. He can only be thankful that they've switched to speaking in gelfling.

"Hmm." The Chamberlain's telltale whimper follows not a heartbeat later and Mal watches as the two sidle up next to The Conqueror.

Dressed in fancy robes, ornaments and shiny baubles, the two look as vain and pompous as ever, excess dripping off of them in each bead and jewel.

"Still fumbling with words like childling, I see." Chamberlain hums, swinging his head towards the Ritual Master, the self-serving snake always hunting for approval.

"I've kept away from the castle, as you ordered, my Lords." He repeats himself, with a small bow at the end that leaves fire coursing through his veins but he steadies himself, catching the spark before it can drop into the oil.

"Hmmm, not what Castle Guard says." skekSil steps forward, his iridescent feathers flashing violet in the sun. "Say you've been stalking patrols, killing Landstriders, injuring gelfling." He stresses the last word with a slight hiss, but the Chamberlain composes himself, standing taller to deliver his next sentence. "Guard says you killed Captain Savan."

"I haven't killed any gelfling, my Lord." Mal's words trail off into a growl as skekSil cuts in.

"But you have in past, no?"

Mal looks to Sylen then, the healer standing silent and resolute, no longer restrained she's held in place by demands of obedience.

She watches him, eyes pleading and mouth moving, silent words on silent wind, she knows who he was, who he is, a hunter. And gelfling were always his first prey.

"No outright denial then, hm?" The Chamberlain pushes. "You are killer, always have been. You cannot change your nature, only hide it."

"I'm no more a killer than you lot." He straightens his back, accusatory finger thrust towards the Chamberlain.

Undeterred the silver tongued skeksis draws closer, circling Mal.

"Hmmm, and what of blood on feathers? Flesh under claws and between teeth? Pink like gelfling blood." skekSil's voice cracks, dropping an octave into a throaty growl.

The Chamberlain grabs up Mal's hand, forcing the palm into the sky, for every Spriton gathered to see the damning evidence.

Gasps and cries fill the air, a rippling chorus that spreads from the epicenter and leaves harsh whispers and calls for justice in its wake.

"Rakkida blood, any creature worth their vliya can see that." Sylen challenges but Maudra Creyla motions for the older gelfling to stand down.

"Watch your tone, gelfling." skekGra warns, voice grave and rough but he makes no command, no order to have Sylen punished aside from a stern glare.

"We bring evidence of the Outcast's transgressions. He is not so innocent and you would be wise to stand down, lest you be tried for treason on his behalf."

skekGra pulls a gelfling up from its place hidden behind him, the plates of armor clanking as he pushes it before him.

Mal steps back, the smell of fresh blood slamming into him, he watches the battered creature get to his feet. There is a twisting desire, bending and breaking behind his eyes but he holds it back, like gripping the reigns of a wild daeydoim.

It's a castle Guard, beaten and bloody, claw marks that Mal knows too well to be by skeksis hand slash great wounds in his leather armor and down his cheeks.

"Well go on, tell them!" skekGra cries, swinging from regally composed to crazed impatience like an inexplicable pendulum.

The castle guard looks close to tears, he's so young, almost certainly a gelfling who's just come of age.

It tugs at some half dead part of Mal's heart, so he crouches lower, hoping to appear less threatening to the childling but this only serves to make the little creature quake more.

"W-we were walking the perimeter when we spotted landstrider carcasses on the banks of the Black River." The guard gulps, looking to skekSil he flinches when the skeksis gives a deep nod as if to say, go on, go on.

"They seemed to head off into the forest, as if something was… was hunting them." Now the guard's eyes flicker to Mal's, and the gelfling tries to make himself look even smaller.

"I… I reported to Captain Savan. I was in her delegation that rode out to the Dark Wood but we were attacked."

Murmurs resound through the village.

"I couldn't see what was happening, I'd been thrown off my strider." Fat tears gather at the corners of the guard's eyes, his voice wavering as he struggles through his next words. "And when I crested the top of the ditch I…"

"He was there." The guard thrusts a finger in Mal's direction, voice ringing out for all to hear. "He was eating her!"

Lies! He wants to snarl but he knows this game, there is no outcome in which he wins.

The pitiful creature breaks down crying, unable to carry on with his recount he seems caught between trying to compose himself or allowing himself to collapse.

"All is well now, childing." skekSil comforts the gelfling, pulling the young guard away with a hand on his shoulder, but it lacks any actual tenderness as the Chamberlain levels Mal with a wicked sneer over his shoulder.

"Stone-in-the-Wood calls for justice, they call for your head, skekMal."

Shouts and jeers fill the air, demands from the Spriton to see the murder's head on a pike, to see him strung up for his crime.

skekGra steps closer, plates clinking ominously but the Conqueror does not draw his sword, instead he offers his open talons. "Come back to the castle, so the Scientist may heal your mind and you will be absolved of your crimes."

This starts up a series of boos and distasteful cries but skekGra stands firm, open palm unwavering. "Be skeksis again, live as you were meant to. A Lord of the Crystal, not scrounging for food in the dirt like some podling slave."

Mal hisses, he knows how the Scientist heals, he knows the Conqueror's words are as empty as his hand so he bares his teeth and crouches low, threatening the skeksis with a nasty wordless screech.

"Then so be it." skekGra narrows his eyes, retracting his offer, he lays his palm against the hilt of his sword once more and turns away.

skekZok looks to the Conqueror, and upon seeing the other skeksis small nod he steps forward, pulling something from underneath his golden robes.

"Oh, how I've been anticipating this very moment." The Ritual Master licks his lips, bright blue eyes blazing with excitement as he lofts the thing in his hands higher as if to show everyone gathered.

It is a collar, a cruel contraption with a ring of hooked crystal spines facing inward and skexish carved into its iron surface, curving beautiful letters that Mal cannot read.

Panicked, Mal shuffles away, breath coming faster as realization dawns.

The Spriton gelfling become blood hungry, nearly as ravenous for pain as the Ritual Master himself, they crowd closer, the guard having to hold them back.

Sylen struggles to make them see reason, tossing curses at her clan, shaming them for their cruelty but they ignore her, pushing past the old gelfling.

Claws grip his shoulders from behind and he thrashes, but the Chamberlain's grip is strong, much stronger than his weakened state and he can feel the stitches on his chest rip open, spilling hot blood under his clothes and against his skin.

"You live like gelfling, dress like gelfling, even smell like gelfling." skekSil whispers into his ear, hot breath ruffling his cheek feathers and Mal tries to twist away from the sensation. "And so, Outcast must think he is gelfling."

skekSil punctuates the last word with a harsh kick and he forces Mal down to his knees. "But you are not gelfling."

Mal kneels in the dirt, skekSil's wicked talons grabbing the bottom of his beak, forcing his head up and exposing his neck. He tries to force his jaws open, tries to bite the Chamberlain's fingers or even spit in his face, he tries to use his arms to rip out the skeksis heart but his claws only tear red robes and lace.

"No more shall you tarnish these lands and corrupt these naive creatures with your sordid wickedness." The Ritual Master latches the wicked collar around his neck.

Mal scrabbles at the contraption, claws scraping harshly against the metal, it only serves to drive the thin spikes further in, an iron vice puncturing his flesh with crystal teeth.

And then skekZok turns it, a sharp twist of his wrist that wrenches a shout from Mal's lips and the curved spikes hook into his muscle, scraping and stabbing wicked spines into his throat, through his trachea, and he can feel the blood like hot lava drip down into his lungs.

It makes him sputter and cough, choking on his own life force he falls forward the instant he's released. Red slips from his mouth, soiling his tongue and staining his teeth, he heaves, beak open and throat working desperately, but still he only drives the hooks deeper.

Wheezing he looks up at the Ritual Master, neck straining and pain igniting as the sadistic skeksis kneels down, getting far too close to him.

"Let this pain serve as punishment and this collar suffice as a reminder." skekZok traces a talon along the iron, pushing in cruelly with a grin on his beak. "For every time you breath and for every time you speak, may you recall your atrocities."

It's a brand, like the one on his back but this time he cannot forget it so easily, for each breath is like swallowing glass.

Overwhelmed, he curves his talons under the iron, desperate to remove the damned thing, lest he be marked like chattel. Writhing and bucking he tosses his head, shaking and straining, his eyes rolling with pain and panic but still he chokes, and still he bleeds and the collar does not budge.

"Try and remove it and you'll soon find yourself without a jugular." skekGra's words ring out, the Conqueror looking on from further away.

They leave Mal panting harshly and swallowing, but his hands stray from the collar and he lets his head hang, slumping forward as the gathering starts to disperse, as if they've had their fill of violence.

Hands in his lap, Mal watches as red splashes against his dirty palms, the smattering of brown feathers there glittering and clumping with blood.

Disturbed, Mal watches as the red trades for clear, droplets falling like rain to dilute the small streams running across his skin. He blinks, trying to clear the sudden blur and clenches his jaw, feeling the spines shift against his trachea and his resolve cracks.

But he hardens it, with anger and vows of revenge, hatred and cold denial. Still, the tears fall, pathetic and disgusting.

Crouching before him, the Ritual Master brushes them away with a cruel thumb before lapping up the salt with genuine ecstasy.

"Pity." skekZok purrs, low and dark.

It makes Mal cringe, sickness stirring in his middle like a fire being stoked too aggressively.

"That's enough, Ritual Master." It is skekGra who orders the sadist to retreat, disappointed skekZok slinks away, and with almost a hesitance to his words the Conqueror continues. "Go on, say your goodbyes, gelfling."

Sylen steps forward, the guards parting like the sea as she walks, head held high but eyes wet and cheeks damp, her lips twitch and her fists clench at her sides.

He watches her, framed by the esoteric beauty of the suns, of the rolling fields and the markets of Sami Thicket.

Stopping in front of him, he can look her in the eyes now, and he sees too much there, to much pity too much fear and so he looks down and away.

Sylen reaches for the iron collar then, tracing the words, dragging through the sticky blood, a shaky hand flies up to her mouth.

Before he can form any words, Sylen pulls his face into her chest, resting her cheek atop his feathery head.

He's so much bigger than her, he could snap her in two, crush her under his thumb alone, as old and fragile as she is. But here, on his knees in the blood soaked dirt, she seems so much larger, her hands so much stronger than his own could ever be.

He feels as if he's been enveloped by Thra itself, all loving, and all powerful. It's home… and he's losing it all over again.

He can hear the sneers of the gelfling and skeksis alike, disgusted murmurs and scoffs that such a beast could be afforded comfort.

Even so he cannot stop himself from gripping the back of her tunic, talons fisting the fabric, as her blunt nails fist in his feathers, fingers grabbing at the little spines along his jaw until he's sure he will be pulled straight into her soul.

And too soon he's being pulled away, hoisted up by that infernal collar until he's forced to stand and follow along behind the Conqueror, scampering at his heels and whimpering like a fizzgig.

"Wait." Mal slurs, voice nearly unintelligible, a gurgling wet mess of noise. Reaching out for Sylen he does something he thought he'd never do again, he begs.

Whether the Conqueror hears a single word of it goes unknown, and Mal is dragged all the way to the edge of the village, the pleas coming faster and easier the more they spill from him.

He watches as Sylen tries to run for him, only to be stopped by Maudra Creyla, the younger gelfling wrapping her arms about the healer when she collapses.

Every time he's left the old gelfling, it's been by choice, even if it was for trine at a time, he always came back, always stumbled up to her door, bruised and bloodied and every time she patched him up.

And now he understands, luck did not bring him to her, just as luck did not keep him alive, and luck did not make his hunts so successful, it did not heal his wounds or calm his mind.

It was fate, doomed from the beginning and strung along with false promises, it had brought the healer a son and it saw fit to take him away just the same.

Tired of Mal's pathetic words or just out of cruel necessity, skekGra throws him to the ground, watching seemingly unphased as Mal stumbles and squirms, trying to catch his footing.

Then the skeksis does something odd, looking over his shoulder, the Conqueror eyes skekSil and skekZok alike, the duo now a sufficient distance away.

And when his eyes fall back upon Mal, they're softer, so different then how they were not a few heartbeats before, Mal is certain the Conqueror has been possessed.

"Go to the Dousan." skekGra orders, his voice doesn't even sound like his own, so strange in its new lilt and lacking its dark edge. "I do not know if they'll grant you sanctuary or swift death but, go you must."

skekGra continues, tossing another look over his shoulder. "If you stay, a fate worse than death awaits you."

Mal tilts his head, shaking it slightly as if to realign the image before him. "What're you prattlin' on 'bout?"

The words make him grab for his throat, only to wince when it makes the burning worse.

skekGra moves forward, impatience to his step. "I speak of your continued survival. Of the survival of Thra."

Mal leaps back, frightened by the metallic sing of the Conqueror's blade being drawn.

"What's 'at got t' do with me?" He spits and coughs, words coming out garbled and wrong, but their intention is clear. Eyeing the sword in skekGra's hand he hunches, back arched and wary.

"No time for that now." skekGra reassures but it only leaves Mal more confused, mind scrambling for an explanation that won't come.

Squaring his shoulders, the Conqueror stands tall once more, he levels his blade at Mal's chest and his eyes turn icy, strange persona falling away as if it never existed.

"Run." skekGra's voice is grave and his sword does not waver. "Run to the wasteland, find the Dousan, and do not return. The fate of Thra depends on it."

And for the second time in his life, Mal runs without looking back.

Chapter Text

"Remember, A'kyr..."

Bedan's voice floats over his head, swirling into the desert wind to join the never ending sky and stretch across the Crystal Sea. A'kyr swears he can see it, glittering like quartz above him, and so he tries to grab it, little hand reaching for the invisible notes.

"A Dousan only fires their bow when they must."

The dromza beneath them sways with each step, wide hooves keeping it afloat atop the ever shifting sands. There's an expectant silence and A'kyr realizes he's meant to fill it, young mind too distracted by the shape of swillya turning lazy circles in the distant updrafts.

"And a Dousan never misses." He whispers, lacking a certain confidence that comes with age but his father always hears him, no matter how soft he speaks.

"And?"

A'kyr doesn't have to turn his head to see his father's raised brow, he knows it's there just as he knows the sky and the sand.

Holding back an annoyed huff, A'kyr answers with old words he's said so many times. "And a Dousan never leaves a creature to suffer."

"Good, so you have been listening to me all these trine." His father gives a small chuckle and A'kyr leans back into the vibration, finding comfort against his father's chest.

Tilting his head back he stares up at the Sandmaster, studying a face and chin painted with a swirl of greens and blues, gold and silver cut sweeping lines like forks of lightning across his brows and his cheeks.

Sighing, A'kyr looks out to the desert, out across that glittering expanse. He wonders when he'll be able to ride out there, to find his story, to earn his place, to be free.

"You'll find your story yet." His father reassures, voice as calm and deep as ever."There's more to life than chasing danger."

"But isn't that what you do?" A'kyr challenges, tilting his head so he can meet his father's eyes.

Bedan laughs, ruffling his son's hair. "There's more to it than that, you'll understand someday."

By Thra, A'kyr couldn't stand those words. Swatting his father's hand away he mumbles the phrase mockingly under his breath and hunches his shoulders.

The dromza stamps on, the Wellspring's greenery sprouting into view on the hazy horizon, great orange crags of rock rising up as its backdrop.

"Everything is a gift from Thra." His father's words sound far away now, echoing as if submerged in water yet they ring clear, rippling across his ear drums. "Your life, your eyes, your hands; all of it will return one day."

The Wellspring grows bigger and bigger with each step but, suddenly it's moving backwards, flying away from them, and A'kyr clutches the dromza's saddle feeling the wind whip through his hair and miniscule crystal grains cut his cheeks.

"Without death, we cannot have life." His father continues, as if nothing has changed and A'kyr turns in his seat, panicked he tries to shake his father but the Sandmaster does not budge, frozen stiff and staring, his mouth continues to move. "It makes them both precious, beyond that of even the brightest jewel or the rarest metal. It is two halves of a circle, two parts of a song."

And the light slowly starts to leech from the world, as if being sucked down into the sand itself, darkness consuming everything with white hot flashes of violet lightning.

"And one day, when I'm gone…"

Even through the peeling roar of thunder and the scream of the wind, his father's last words drift to his ears.

"You will carry on that song…"

A'kyr wakes with a start, hands flailing and legs kicking as he tries to fend off the darkness that… isn't there.

Breathing harshly he looks out his bedside window, multicolored curtains tied to the sides, the sky is bright and blue, not even a wisp of fluffy white to be seen for miles.

Sighing, he scoots to the edge of his bed, the wicker of the circular frame creaking with the movement and the various furs and linens shift like a great rainbow sea, edges falling to brush the ground.

He doesn't bother to fold them back onto the bed, knowing he should lest he face his mother's wrath when she sees her handiwork dirtied by the ground. But he can't be bothered, not when his mind races with anxious thoughts, whirring like the rapid clicks of a moog.

A'kyr grabs up his bow, feeling the weight of it in his hand, fingers curved around the pliant leather grip he traces his thumb against the runes of the horn and wood of the weapon.

Many hands over many trine overlap his own, as if he can physically feel their impressions, he knows that as long as he holds this bow, he is not alone.

But those are empty words now, from a mouth that no longer speaks and a face he finds it harder and harder to remember.

Now, it is just an old bow passed down to a son far too soon.

Picking up his quiver and pack, A'kyr moves to the ladder, he hesitates on the rungs, gazing up towards the roof and then swinging his head back down in contemplation.

Up there, all alone, he could sit and watch the world, one gelfling lost among the Wellspring's red cliffs and greenery, no one would ever notice.

But his mother, A'kyr forces his eyes down, guilt washing over him as his ears set back. It's such a weak feeling, soft and muffled as if it's been wrapped in far too many layers, but it's enough.

Sturdy rungs guide him down to the ground floor. Hopping down the last few feet, he surveys the humble kitchen, the fire has long since died and the air is still chilly, the walls resisting the early morning heat.

His mother's loom leans against the wall, a beautiful pattern of sweeping circles and lines within a large triangle is beginning to take place among the sapphire and gold warp threads.

She must still be asleep, no doubt tired from a long day spent preparing for the annual tithe.

Glancing over his shoulder, he looks towards his mother's chambers, curtains inlaid with swillya keel bones conceal the entrance, and little dromza hide charms drift to and fro in the draft of the room.

He decides to let her sleep, heading as quietly as he can towards the abode's entrance, he cringes with each soft crunch of his leather soles that grind red dirt and rock beneath them.

Nearly at the exit, he reaches for the leather flaps that separate the inside from the outside, almost to freedom, he can feel anticipation thrum through his veins, excitement and trepidation, he can't wait to go riding across the desert.

"Where are you racing off to, nahnin?" His mother's voice drifts to his ears, curling about him like the desert winds.

Turning to face her, he scoffs at the pet name but a smile still stretches his lips. "I'm not a childing anymore."

"I know." There's a touch of sadness in Ney'dyr's voice, and she steps closer, wrapping her robes tighter about herself. "I worry… You seem to be rushing off to Thra knows where, as of late."

A'kyr studies his mother's face, eyes tracing the purple swirls that mark her as an accomplished seamstress, the blue lines that kiss gold and speak of her past, and Bedan's silver lines dance alongside them, a telltale promise of reunification.

His own face bares a similar mark, much smaller and hardly as noticeable, just a glittering fracture across his brow.

Frowning, his eyes fall to the ground. He knows why she worries, with his older brother gone for unum at a time and A'kyr's tendency to go running off and find trouble, it's little wonder that she manages to stay sane at all.

"I'll be fine." He reassures, stepping close enough to grab up her hands in his own and look her in the eyes. "I always am."

Ney'dyr smiles, a soft little thing that never quite reaches her eyes before she pulls him in for a hug that leaves the air rushing from his lungs.

She lets him go with a certain reluctance and A'kyr steps back, trying his best to keep his back straight and his smile wide, but it's not just the smarting of his ribs that yearns for him to curl in on himself.

He moves to leave, feeling awkward and tense but his mother gives a sharp exclamation, motioning for him to wait as she grabs up a satchel from the kitchen.

It's beautifully embroidered, with the finest silks and jewels, it looks like it should hold something precious, but A'kyr knows it's simply spiced swothel jerky.

Although, cooked and dried by his mother, it might as well be all the gold in Thra.

"For you and Kasha." She presses it into his hands before continuing, "and this time, be back before the last sun sets."

A'kyr rolls his eyes, tucking the jerky away he hikes his pack further up his shoulder and lets his hand fumble awkwardly across his bow.

"A'kyr." His mother's exasperation is palpable. "This is serious, you can't miss the samalzyn, again."

A'kyr fights the urge to snort, instead he opts for chewing on his lip and giving a solemn nod. He doesn't want to have this conversation for the thousandth time and he fully intends to miss this evening's samalzyn, as well as the next one and however many it takes before they finally exile him from the Shaman's Circle.

Eating berries, drinking goridiga, and sitting about with his eyes closed under the ozah staba wasn't what he wanted from his life.

It was a pointless endeavor, he never saw anything, never heard anything, except for the same terrifying images of swirling dark and ivory teeth, some beast racing about just out of his vision.

Finally walking over the threshold and out into the world, he escapes his mother's withering gaze, always equal parts love and disappointment in her gold eyes that leaves him itching for the loneliness of the wasteland.

Jogging to the steps that lead down the cliff face, he hops up onto the ledge and leaps.

Spreading his wings, the muscles strain and tug uncomfortably, so untrained for flight but still decent enough for clumsy gliding. He always finds it the best route to avoid the awkward pleasantries of the morning, not to mention the pitying looks that still plague him.

He makes a rough landing on the pathway far below, nearly dropping his bow and dislodging his quiver of arrows in the process. Straightening up with heat rising quickly to his cheeks, he brushes imaginary dirt from his clothes and looks down the winding path of the Wellspring.

"A'kyr." A voice calls, shaky and gruff with age but no less chipper.

Cringing, A'kyr hurriedly tucks his wings away, leaving no evidence of them before he turns to face the older gelfling.

"Rijem." He gives a polite bow, nearly thwacking himself in the head with his bow.

"Headed out to the wasteland, I see." The elder gelfling looks him up and down, adjusting the grip on his walking stick. "You'd best stay away from the Southern Xeric, there's been murmurs of some beast roving the sands there."

Rijem pauses, looking out across the Wellspring before he turns his gaze back to A'kyr. "Certainly dangerous for a young Dousan lady like yourself."

A'kyr feels his heart seize up, not for fear of some beast or the possibility of meeting it, but for the elder's words that punch a hole in his gut.

Holding his tongue, he bites out a quick gratitude. "I'll keep an eye out."

The old gelfling simply gives a deep nod in reply before he's hobbling away with the clack, clack, clack of his walking stick.

Muttering darkly to himself, A'kyr continues on his way, hands glued to his bow and his pack as his feet kick at the stones in his way, he feels like a childing all over again.

His wings burn red hot against his shoulder blades, twin brands that make him hunch lower, his stomach roiling and lurching like a Sifa ship on the Silver Sea.

The pastures with their thin grass and succulents pass him by and still he treks on, heading for the entrance to the village.

Kicking a particularly large rock in his path, he watches as it ricochets off the uneven surface and flies into the midst of a herd of grazing swothel. The creatures startle, bleating and calling to each other as they run to the opposite end of the pasture, the gelfling working to shear and milk them shoot A'kyr dirty looks.

All he can offer is a sheepish smile but their whispers and sneers still reach his ears as he quickens his pace.

Bad luck, that one is.

It was all they ever said, bad luck this and bad luck that and ill fated superstition on the eve of his birth was gospel from the mouth of the Maudra herself.

He makes it to the edge of the Wellspring, the vegetation dwindling to nothing and the shadows of the great tree's massive leaves disappear just the same, leaving the ground to bake and crack in the sun.

Breathing in, he savors the arid taste, whisking the moisture from his tongue and his nose, it's so sharp and clear unlike the air within the verdant oasis.

Standing safely where the rocks begin to slope down and disappear into the Crystal Sea, he gives a sharp whistle followed by a trill. He waits then, a hand over his eyes as his braids whip in the wind.

It takes a few heartbeats but a braying call answers him from across the glittering expanse. A large shape dashes across the sand, expertly staying atop the crystal ocean as she dodges great pillars of quartz and amethyst.

Soon enough her wide hooves thunder against the stone, and she tosses her head with another call, dorsal fins waving with the motion as the saddle and its adornments jangle with each step.

Racing to meet her, A'kyr wraps his hands about the dromza's massive neck, having to stand tall on his tippy toes and still his arms barely encircle her.

The dromza offers him affectionate nuzzles and snorts in return, pushing at him with the flat of her head and her dull tusks.

Checking her saddle with a hand down her flank, A'kyr tugs on the ropes and nets, making sure nothing is out of place before he hoists himself up. Sitting right where her shoulders meet her neck, he feels like he actually belongs and if he leans back he could feel her breath, great rushes of air that would make him rise and fall like the waves.

Patting her neck, he takes up the reigns. "How about a little trip to the Southern Xeric?"

Kasha tosses her head, hooves stamping briefly as she rolls her eyes to look back at him, little ears flicking up in interest. It's the best answer he'll get from her and so he offers a smile before he kicks his ankles against her thick hide, steering her towards the open desert.

After a good while spent galloping, A'kyr slows Kasha into a trot and reaches into his pack. Pulling out the swothel jerky he whistles to get the dromza's attention before he tosses a hunk of meat out in front of her.

Expertly, she snaps it out of the air, and A'kyr continues to throw her pieces as he munches on his own.

Once the satchel is empty he slumps back in the saddle, an arm slung over his eyes he thinks that even the samalzyn would be more fruitful than this.

So far there's a whole lot of nothing, except for the occasional Crystal Skimmer racing by overhead or some swillya squabbling over a half eaten carcass.

A sound breaking the harmony of the desert's acoustics has him rocketing up however, ears twitching to catch it.

"Kee, Kasha, kee." He urges the dromza to a full stop, hand reaching for his bow as his other seeks out an arrow.

Kasha's demeanor shifts, her dorsal plates vibrate and grunting growls leave her throat as her nostrils flare and she flashes her teeth.

Without prompting, she inches closer to a rocky outcrop, hooves clicking as they hit the solid surface and A'kyr leans forward, tempted to stand in the saddle.

There, laid out over the rocks is a large intact corpse, tattered cloth, feathers and skin barely discernible under the swarm of swillya, their sharp beaks picking at the remains of the dead.

Relaxing, A'kyr lets his shoulders fall and a quiet laugh escapes him. "Just some swillya, girl." He scratches his nails against her scales, seeking to calm the tense dromza. "No beast to be found besides the imagination of some old fool."

Except he's spoken too soon, the corpse gives an audible groan a pained cry that tugs at A'kyr's heart and has Kasha nearly rearing up in terror.

"Whoa, easy." He calls, feeling her flanks heave under him, he tugs the reigns pulling her attention away from the not-so-dead creature.

The swillya abandon their meal in a frenzy of leathery wings and squawks, frightened by the sudden movement as the dying creature rolls onto its back, eyes closed and beak open to the sky.

A Dousan never leaves a creature to suffer.

He dismounts, words circling in his head as he recalls his father's lessons. With a hand on Kasha's snout he prompts the mount to stay back. She bumps her nose into his palm, warm breath huffing against his skin as her ears set back flat against her head.

Stepping away from her, she gives a panicked whine that tapers off into a low growl but obedient as she is, she does not follow.

Creeping forward, A'kyr draws a knife from his belt, bow left in the saddle, he approaches the fallen creature with a low stance and quick breaths but a determination to see it returned swiftly to Thra.

To hear its labored breath, its wheezing and its whimpers make his chest ache, like a fist rummaging through his insides.

Standing within a stone's throw of it, sudden realization has his fingers going slack, the knife tumbling a short distance through the air before he catches it and sheaths gracelessly.

He races forward, falling to his knees next to the skeksis he hovers his hands over its body, eyes bouncing from injury to injury, trying to decide what needs addressing first.

Cursing himself for his ineptitude at the mystic arts he sits back on his haunches.

Thra, he can't even be sure it is a skeksis, he'd only ever seen the Conqueror and that was from a considerable distance. The other Lords never come to the desert, or so the village claims, not that he'd know either way, he avoids the tithing at all costs.

Wiping a frustrated hand down his face, he pulls his knife out once more, thumbing the ivory handle as he holds it in his lap.

This skeksis, if it really is one, wears a collar, shackled and injured like some escaped monster but does that forfeit its right to mercy?

Raising the knife over its head, he hovers over its closed eye, poised to strike down into its softest meats and let blade tip meet brain, he whispers the rites for swift passage and tenses.

But it jumps up, eyes snapping open as it nearly impales itself on A'kyr's blade with a shout.

Falling over himself, A'kyr scrambles backwards, weapon flying from his hand. He swiftly scoops it up and sheathes it, backpedaling away from striking range as the incensed skeksis lashes out, writhing about on all fours.

Its eyes are glassy, pupils dull and grey, moving about frantically as if the beast can't see.

"Who's there?" It sniffs, getting to its feet like a marionette on strings. It grabs for that strange collar, other hands going for empty sheathes, and dried blood flakes off in tandem with fresh streams of red.

A'kyr puts his hands out, a useless placating gesture as he continues backwards, terrified of the harm an injured, sun frenzied creature of this size could do.

Kasha comes up behind him, a roar building in her throat but A'kyr signals for her to stand down.

"My name is A'kyr of the Dou-"

And A'kyr immediately realizes this is the wrong thing to say.

It growls in gelfling, murder dripping from its rough and garbled words. "Archer!"

It snarls, lunging and snapping its jaws in A'kyr's directions.

When its efforts prove unsuccessful it seems to vibrate, matted feathers rippling and mouth hanging open as it pants harshly. "I should'a known it was you… Infernal fuckin' Mystic, enough of your damn riddles…"

It shambles forward, slurring its words with heavy gasps. "Leave me… t' die already."

Panicked, A'kyr grabs his bow from Kasha's saddle, notching an arrow and drawing back the string, he aims at the advancing, shambling husk of a thing.

It takes three steps towards him, each more cumbersome then the last before it collapses onto its face, slumped into the rock face and wheezing.

He waits, a long silence punctuated only by raspy inhales and Kasha's dissatisfied snorts. Still, he stares down the arrow's length, face pressed to the fletch, and the beast does not move.

Lowering his bow, he makes a decision, then and there, and one he knows he will come to fiercely regret or be praised for in turn. It's a chance he has to take, if not simply to earn some semblance of respect but to also prove to his clan that he's more than a bad omen walking.

To save a Lord of the Crystal, he'd be a hero. To save some exiled beast, well it's not like his social standing could get much lower.

He grabs the creature's ankles, trying to drag its bulk back towards Kasha with little success, but thankfully the dromza catches on and treads forward, steps still lighter than usual.

Kasha helps to scoop it up, using her tusks, she slides it over her flat head and then wriggling and shaking until the body is draped across her back, tucked behind her shoulder blades and against her first dorsal plate; right behind the saddle.

"Good girl." A'kyr praises her as he grabs the ropes, tossing them over Kasha's bulk and then ducking beneath her belly to lash them tight.

Checking to make sure the body won't move with a few tugs on its tail, A'kyr climbs into the saddle once more, careful to leave one hand on the reigns and one hand on the hilt of his knife.

He can't help glancing back during the entire ride, checking to make sure the creature's chest still rises and falls but also out of some innate curiosity.

It reminds him of something, its ivory teeth and feathers, the way it lets loose a raspy growl every once in awhile. It's so familiar, and not just because it's skeksis in appearance.

It's on the tip of his tongue and he can almost taste it, like trying to remember his first sip of swothel milk, foggy around the edges yet the sensation is clear.

As he approaches the entrance to the Wellspring, it dawns on him slowly, just as the three brothers fall below the horizon, casting long shadows in their wake.

Guiding Kasha through the streets, he watches as the lamps are lit for the approaching evening.

Gelfling milling about while others prepare for the samalzyn, families heading to the great tree, childlings in tow as they point chubby fingers in A'kyr's direction before being quickly led away by glaring caregivers.

All head to the base of the ozah staba, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Shaman Circle's infinite wisdom; something he, as an apprentice of the great Dousan samals, never had to offer.

And still, he remembers his one and only vision, of a beast just out of his sight, ivory teeth and spreading purple, that Thra saw fit to deny him all but this singular premonition.

Be it warning or not, he was neck deep in it now, a beast at his back with the unknown ahead of him and by yesmit, he hopes beyond recognition that Maudra Dhinza is in a forgiving mood.

Chapter Text

"Excuse me." A'kyr holds his hands up, trying to shimmy through the throng of gelfling to the best of his ability. Some stand while others sit about on the various boulders and flat stones but, all crowd so close together that it's nearly impossible not to brush against them or tread on a few feet.

"Pardon me." He continues, murmuring quick apologies under his breath as he carefully steps over a gelfling's hand. Said gelfling glares up at him and he offers an apologetic smile in turn, it has them rolling their eyes in response.

The closer he draws the better he can hear the samals' voices, all together they form great soothing songs that weave stories into the air and control the wind itself.

"Good riddance, that boy, no sense of responsibility." A caregiver murmurs loudly as he finally pushes through to the front of the crowd.

The singing stops almost instantaneously, feeling like a crawlie under a predator's gaze he falters in his step, watching as the Shaman's Circle swing their heads collectively to pin him under their gaze.

Shaman Aniq gives a pointed look, mouthing very clearly a question of Where were you?

He can tell his mentor resists the urge to place her head in her palm, something she's often prone to do whenever he's involved. The other mentors pity her, all having brought up excellent students, who are now accomplished samals across the Xerics, and here he is, standing before them, late once more and still barely an apprentice in name.

"What's that he's got with him?"

Awkwardly, he still clutches a length of chain in his hand. Bloodied and tarnished he'd managed to pry it off that infernal collar.

The collar itself, cruel contraption as it is, he couldn't figure out a way to get it off and as he'd tried to work his fingers under it, the skeksis' breathing grew harsher and so he'd quickly stopped.

Now the feathered creature lays unconscious across Kasha's back, safe at the edge of the crowd, he can only hope no one gets too curious.

Instead of simply dropping the chain to the ground, he grips it tighter, unsure why the cool metal against his warm flesh makes him stand up straighter.

He steps up to the point of the triangle, etched deep into the sandstone, the samals sit along its sacred interior, the base of the polygon ending at the massive trunk of the Great Tree. He does not step over that line, knowing full well that he can yet, he feels as though that right has never belonged to him.

Disrupting the peace has its effect like a tiny stone dropped into a lake, the ripples getting wider as they flee from the disturbance.

"Late again." Shaman Belyn scoffs, palm shielding their lips but, not their words, as they lean over to speak to the samal beside them. "Wonder what excuse he'll come up with this time."

"A'kyr." Maudra Dhinza begins, quiet falling over the gathering in a swift hush. Eyes closed and hands clasped in her lap, she continues, "Wonderful of you to finally join us."

The wide trunk of the ozah staba serves as her backdrop, little crystal crawlers occupying its smooth bark, glowing their vibrant light as the street lamps of fire and oil illuminate the air in tandem.

She is bathed in light, ethereal and otherworldly, truly worthy of the tattoos on her skin and the title which she bears, Maudra Dhinza the Dream Walker.

It's so rare that he actually speaks to her that for a moment he's at a loss for words. It's one thing to sit along the triangle and see her from the corner of his vision but to actually face her is unprecedented.

"Maudra Dhinza." A'kyr gets down on one knee, neck growing hot and uncomfortable under the continued stares. A childling starts to fuss and a caregiver shushes them, a gelfling to his left gives a cough while another mutters low under his breath.

"I offer my humblest apologies-"

"No need for that, young gelfling." There's mirth clear in Dhinza's voice and A'kyr looks up, dumbfounded. "You've arrived precisely on time."

Shaman Belyn gives an incredulous exclamation, looking to the Maudra as if she's grown another head while Shaman Aniq simply sags with relief, glad that she won't be on the end of another scolding.

Startled A'kyr stands there, jaw slack and ears swiveled, still too stunned to stand from his kneel. Maudra Dhinza opens her eyes, mismatched irises locked onto him, one blue and the other gold, it feels as if she's staring through his soul.

"Follow me, and bring along your new friend." Dhinza stands, robes swishing around her as she clasps her hands behind her back and waits with an infinite air of patience.

Friend? Startled, A'kyr looks behind him, hand coming up as if to point before he drops it. He could hardly call the skeksis an acquaintance let alone a friend.

"Erm," A'kyr starts, hand awkwardly going to the hilt of his knife as he fiddles with the chain between the pads of his fingers, he clears his throat. "I don't actually know-"

Maudra Dhinza cuts him off, not turning her head as she addresses the samals still seated.

"Shaman Belyn, I trust you know the ritual well enough to continue this evening's samalzyn?" She arches a brow, her eyes finally drifting to fall upon the samal in question.

The gelfling scrambles, getting to their feet they give a bow, brushing off their vibrant robes in the same breath. "Yes, of course, Maudra Dhinza."

"Very well." Amusement chimes in her voice like a firca flute and then she walks away, dark green robes twirling in the night, gold trim glinting like flames.

For a moment, A'kyr is starstruck, studying her as she retreats, he's never actually been in her presence long enough to study the patterns on her clothes.

All of it tells a story he can barely begin to read, what little knowledge he has gleaned from his mother's late night lessons in weaving seem to have fled him entirely.

A pattern of gossamer wings and the runes of the dreamspace trail down Dhinza's cape, bones like brilliant stars gleam across her shoulders, and a beautiful headdress conceals her hair and ears.

Bells hang from the wrappings, jingling softly with each step, whispered stories said to keep her from straying too far into the dream space and as always she moves about barefoot, floating across the ground in all her elegance.

She stops, looking back at him with an expectant gaze, a slight upwards tilt to her lips as if she knows all, sees all, and for all A'kyr knows, she does.

Scrambling, A'kyr heads back through the crowd, finding it much easier as gelfling part for him like the sea.

The skeksis still hangs there, arms and legs dangling, tail nearly dragging against the ground but it gives a slow, wheezing breath and A'kyr knows it lives.

Grabbing up Kasha's reigns he pulls the dromza along behind him, having to give the creature a few comforting scratches as she eyes the gathering nervously.

Skirting around the samalzyn, he heads up the sloping path that winds up behind the Great Tree, his feet never having tread it and it feels as if he's entered hallowed ground, skin crawling as the hair on his neck rises.

Nervously, he looks back at Kasha, the dromza offering a quiet snort in solidarity.

Soon, they come to the Maudra's abode, a simple, ancient thing nestled into the cliff face behind the ozah staba. From its vantage point she can look out upon the whole village, meditating by the rushing water that falls down the red stone and feeds the oasis below.

Kasha eyes the waterfall nervously, stepping away from its noise and moisture with quick measured hoofs steps.

A'kyr is just as unsettled but, not from an innate fear of water; in all his twenty-five trine the Maudra had never spoken with him. Sure, she'd indirectly addressed him and she'd had plenty to say to him when he was too young to even remember but for her to invite him to her home was simply out of the realm of possibility.

She motions for him to come inside, and he notes that there is no wall that separates the interior from the elements, instead it is more cave like in appearance, thick tapestries providing the only cover.

Pushing his way past the fabric, he coaxes Kasha inside, the ceiling high enough that she doesn't even need to duck.

Looking about, he didn't expect it to be so... plain. There is a place to sit in the center of the room, a simple mat woven with the fibers of a desert plant while veils and curtains of various colors separate the rest of the interior.

A bowl of berries and leaves sits beside the mat, and of course a pot of what he can safely assume is some type of gordigia ta, but there are no servants, no other gelfling in sight to serve it.

Dhinza sits on the mat, cross-legged and calm as ever she motions to the space across from her.

"Set him down here."

Kasha obeys without hesitation, understanding the words more clearly than ever or perhaps eager to escape from such an enclosed space.

A'kyr releases the reigns, moving quickly to undo the ropes that hold the skeksis in place he helps the dromza as she kneels, tipping her shoulders until A'kyr is able to help slide the creature off onto the ground, careful to try and hold up its head as he does lest its skull go careening against the stone.

Maudra Dhinza reaches a hand up to touch the mount's tusk. "You've done well to keep him safe, rest now."

The dromza gives a quiet purr, eyes closing for a moment before she turns away, eager to rest outside under the open sky.

Silence falls, and it only drives A'kyr's mind to work faster, frantic thoughts and questions that outpace his desire to be respectful. He sits down, across from the Maudra, the skeksis between them and he looks down at it, mouth twisting into a pitiful frown. "Do you know this creature? Why was it out in the wasteland?"

"Patience, A'kyr. The sand does not go shifting all at once." Dhinza reaches forward, grabbing the chain from his hand, he lets her take it, feeling the cold coils slip between his fingers.

Dhinza tuts under her breath, hand tracing the collar as she sets the chain aside, a hint of disgust dancing along her voice. "Wicked beasts, to punish and brand their own in such a manner."

"What does it mean?" A'kyr leans forward, trading crossed legs for kneeling so he can try and read the words carved in the iron.

Dhinza shoos him back without looking up from her task. Falling back on his haunches he watches her, eyes tracking her movements like a fizzgig begging for scraps.

"Tell me, why did you bring him back?" Dhinza answers his question with her own, tossing dried leaves and mashing berries beneath her fingers, the dark juices flow into the pot of ta in her lap, that has begun steaming and roiling without any discernible heat source.

"Oh..." A'kyr rubs the back of his neck, trying to scrub out that uncomfortable prickling that's started up again. "Well, I rode out to the wasteland this morning-" He catches himself, "-fully intending to be back for the samalzyn, of course-"

Dhinza holds up a hand, stopping him. "I asked why, A'kyr, not how."

Deflating, A'kyr looks down and away, feeling like a chastised childling despite being trine away from his teenage years.

"I… right..." He looks at the skeksis now, studying his face, the rusty feathers there, some darker than others while many bleed into a grimy white at the tips, his face is so much calmer now, beak just barely open and resting to the side, the crease in his snout and along his feathered brows has smoothed out.

He looks dead, finally at peace from what ails him if not for the wheezing whistle of his breaths and the rise and fall of his chest.

"I'm not sure. I thought he was a Lord of the Crystal but... I suppose I was wrong."

"And you're quite certain it wasn't to spite a certain traditionalist?" There's a teasing lilt to her voice and still she doesn't look A'kyr in the eyes, rather she holds a delicate hand on the lid of the ta pot, holding the ceramic in place as she gently tips it until steaming liquid flows from the spout.

He watches as it is poured, not into the skeksis open beak but rather onto his chest, flowing across his feathers and his tattered clothes like roots of a tree, cleaning and healing in its wake. Everywhere it touches it whisks away the blood and wounds close under its touch. It does not burn despite its heat.

A'kyr sighs, watching as the dark liquid gathers around the skeksis' collar, seeping beneath the metal as if searching for what ails the creature.

"At least every other gelfling this side of the Crystal Sea despises me for being nahdzyl and not for my damn wings."

Frustrated by Dhinza's unresponsiveness and the dredging up of past incidents he gives a tsk, air rushing out between his teeth and along his tongue. "No one has ever bothered to explain it to me, you know?"

"You foresaw this-" A'kyr waves a hand in the air, as if he could gesture to that oppressive fortune that stalks his very steps, closer and more intimate than his shadow. "You let my parents give their own vliya to make me, you stood by their side, and you watched me grow. And you warned them, you said I was a bad omen, misfortune walking."

Frustrated he grits his teeth, remembering his father's laugh and his smile, the way he'd ruffle his hair and set him on his shoulders so he could try and touch the moons.

"So why did you let them do it?" He lets the question hang knowing it will go unanswered.

Dhinza has the sense to look guilty, eyes downcast and spine curved as she lays a string of daeydoim bones across the skeksis heart to ward off infection.

"If I'd never been born he'd still be alive."

He sees Dhinza flinch at these words, and there's something cruelly satisfying about the way her hands pause in their work and her fingers curl to tuck against her chest.

And it all just starts tumbling out of A'kyr's mouth, past transgressions and frustrations coming to light, all hanging out to dry over a skeksis who's little more than a warm corpse between them. He can't stop the tears, that mounting anger that makes his fists clench and his chest quake as he tries to suppress the sobs that so desperately want to rack it.

He doesn't realize that he's tucked his knees up to his chest, bent double with his arms wrapped about them and with his face buried in them. So unlike the grown gelfling he's supposed to be.

"Do you remember why I asked you to be a samalnin?"

Wiping away his tears, he gives one last pathetic sniffle before composing himself with a deep breath. The fight has fled, replaced by bleeding numbness like the settling waves after a storm.

"Because I am ji'yaehn. It was expected of me." He spits it like a curse, when most gelfling say the words with reverence, always in association with the greatest samals in Dousan history.

"It was not because of your wings, A'kyr." Dhinza reassures, palms resting against her knees as she looks him in the eyes, pity swirling in those irises. "Although you speak the title with such distaste. You are a gift--"

"Maudra." He cuts her off. "I mean no disrespect, but I've heard that so-" He pauses to let out a long breath, "-so many times and I know, I know it with every fiber of my being, with every drop of vliya in my veins but I just wish I was…"

For a heartbeat the word alludes him. "Normal."

"You did not let me finish." Dhinza chides softly, she speaks with all the clarity and confidence in the world but does not turn up her chin.

"You are a gift, A'kyr. Your life is a treasure and your wings, they are a challenge. For Thra is not infallible, just as Mother Aughra herself cannot see all." She rests a hand on the skeksis shoulder, a small gesture of comfort to the unconcious beast. "I could not understand what it meant when I was given a vision of a young gelfling and told by Thra how his future must play out."

"Like all visions, for one to know them is to change them irrevocably. And yet, I regret my decision. To give a childing the title of nahdzyl, to force him to be a shaman, and to ostracize him, just so he'd go running to the desert precisely as foretold?" Dhinza shakes her head softly, a long sigh escaping her lips. "It was beyond cruel."

A'kyr doesn't know what to say, caught between simply storming out to yell his frustrations to the endless sky or to revel in her guilt, to know that she regrets it and to know that he's been lied to all his life simply because the thrice damned Crystal of Truth said so.

She retracts her hand, offering A'kyr a smile that crinkles the corner of her lips but so much like his mother it doesn't quite reach the Maudra's eyes. "But if normalcy was truly what you desired, we would not be here, now would we?"

A'kyr mulls that over, looking down at the skeksis, he doesn't regret saving it but he could've done without all the emotional turmoil.

"You rescued this fugitive." Dhinza continues, standing up from her seat to head into another room, her voice drifting like muffled bird song from behind the curtains. "You brought him back against better judgement, so keen to see where this story takes you."

A'kyr stands, stepping away so that he can lean against the wall, arms crossed and suddenly wary to be in the same room as the unconscious creature. "We're harboring a criminal then?

"He committed no crime other than that of being in the wrong place at the wrong time." Dhinza explains, stepping back into the room with a large bundle of cloth in her arms. She sets the fabric down at the skeksis feet, grabbing up a long thin strip of sapphire before moving to kneel by the creature's head.

"How do you know so much about him?" A'kyr asks, brow arched and head tilted ever so slightly.

Dhinza does not answer him and for a moment A'kyr reasons that she isn't going to say anything more to him at all. So entirely focused on her task, she wraps a piece of cloth over the collar, hands working to pull the deep blue fabric around the skeksis' neck before she ties it off and folds the ends to conceal them.

Still even when she finishes she does not address him.

It is for the best, A'kyr reasons, the less he gets involved in this matter the better off he is. He's overstayed his welcome and the Maudra's silence is a clear dismissal.

He treads lightly, headed for the entrance to the abode, wondering if he should continue to revel in his invisibility, knowing he can escape the Wellspring anytime and live with no responsibilities, entirely and utterly free.

Yet his heart still yearns for the ranks of the rangers, to one day be a great Sandmaster and fly on the back of a Crystal Skimmer as his father once did.

"Come here a moment." Maudra Dhinza calls, waving him back inside.

Carefully, A'kyr makes his way to stand beside the skeksis, shifting awkwardly before Dhinza motions for him to sit. "Kneel beside him and place your hand upon his heart."

With great hesitance, A'kyr hovers over the skeksis' chest, unsure where exactly his heart lays beneath the ribcage and especially wary of the scars that stand out like pink brands across grey skin. Maudra Dhinza grabs his hand, firm grip guiding his open palm to rest slightly higher. "Gently now."

She places both her hands over his, warm and soft, his palm now trapped in place. He can feel the thudding heartbeat, slow and soft it registers like the beat of a swoothu's wings against his skin.

"Concentrate, channel your vliyaya, let it run through you like the wind runs through the canyon."

Despite his ineptitude at the mystic arts, he can feel the shift in his veins, like a thousand rivers changing direction all at once, they flow to his finger tips, a brilliant blue glow emitting from the gaps in Dhinza's fingers.

Smiling, the Maudra lifts her hands but she does not retract them, letting them hover over his own.

"Repeat after me." Dhinza orders, sentences spilling from her mouth in a language that is not gelfling in nature and A'kyr does his best to keep up, speaking each word after her with careful reverence.

Something tingles at the back of his head and nips at his soul, twisting and turning as he tries to remember why this all seems oddly familiar. It thrums in time with the beat of his heart and it grows like a sharp whistle building in his ears that makes him want to recoil but stubbornness leaves him statue still and determined.

The last word falls from his lips on the tail of Dhinza's own and the brilliant glow of his hand stops instantaneously.

Confused, he blinks, eyes flickering up to hers and then back down to the skeksis' face and finally sweeping across what remains of his wounds. Nothing's changed, withdrawing his hand he opens his mouth to ask her if he's done something wrong.

Pain has his jaw snapping shut and his teeth clicking.

A'kyr recoils at the sensation, curling away as if to stave off the smarting in his chest when his neck starts to prick uncomfortably in tandem.

Gasping for air, he braces a hand against the ground, fingers twisting in the fabric over his heart. He feels weary, exhaustion sapping the strength from his bones. Confusion settles against his mind just as a peaceful oblivion lashes against it, threatening to close his eyelids.

Blinking against the sensation, A'kyr tries to stand, hand going to his throat as that vice like pressure continues.

"Careful now." Dhinza urges him to sit back down and to weak to protest, A'kyr collapses beside her. "The binding is still fresh, it will take a bit to settle."

"Binding?" He breaths, words sluggish and slow but coming stronger as he continues. "I thought you were using my vliyaya to help heal him."

"Calm down, you're safe now." Dhinza reassures, voice low and soothing, and frankly it just leaves A'kyr more confused.

Looking up is a struggle, his head feeling as if it weighs more than a thousand dromzas but, he manages and realizes that Dhinza isn't talking to him.

The skeksis has opened his eyes, bright green and no longer dulled or frenzied by the suns, they roll about for a moment as he tries to sit up, a frustrated snarl escaping through his sharp teeth. Mirroring A'kyr, he places a taloned hand over his chest, looking up at Dhinza with a downright nasty glare.

"What charm did you place on me, Dousan?" The anger in the skeksis voice bleeds into exhaustion, making that rough voice sound less intimidating with each syllable.

Still terrified that the incensed creature will lash out any second, A'kyr shuffles away, moving back just enough to be out of reach.

Dhinza however does not budge, unafraid and back straight, she speaks matter of factly. "Ozahleshia." Dhinza continues, looking to A'kyr, "I trust you know it's nature."

Affronted he struggles to find words, mouth moving and hands flailing, energy flowing to his limbs like a damn bursting. "Marriage?! You're saying I'm married… to him?"

No, no, it's a mistake. A'kyr tries to reason, a cruel prank played on him but, the Maudra is serious, no smirk on her face, no crinkle at the corner of her eyes. Fuck, he really regrets not attending those samalnin lessons.

The skeksis for his credit simply gives a roaring laugh, hysterical enough to find the situation even remotely hilarious, he lets his feathered head fall back to the sandstone an arm flung over his eyes as if he can block out the nightmare with flesh and bone. "Wonderful."

"Maudra..." A'kyr trails off into silence, too incensed and stunned to even form a coherent thought. "You can't be serious? I don't even know his name, or- or who he is! He's a damn criminal for Thra's sake."

"As if I would ever stoop so low. Pathetic." The skeksis scoffs in turn, rolling to his side with a bit of struggle, he clearly intends to stand and walk right on out of the Wellspring.

"Remove this, now." On his feet, he thrusts a claw at Maudra Dhinza, meant to be threatening yet it falls short with its shakiness.

Unphased, the Maudra brushes the appendage aside and instead pushes that bundle of clothes into the skeksis arms. Surprised by the sudden offering, the creature takes them up before realizing what he's done. A dark scowl crosses his beak and creases his brows but the skeksis does not protest, instead he stands begrudgingly with a murderous look.

"The ozahleshia was not always for unions." Dhinza explains, putting her hands on her hips as she addresses them both. "It began as an ancient charm, used during a time of great turmoil, when wars waged endlessly and warriors were cut down faster than they could be trained."

"Soldiers on the battlefield would use it to fight like one creature, bound to each other with soul and mind, they knew when the other was hurt and when the other had died."

"What in Thra does that have to do with us?" A'kyr demands, mounting fear that he'll be stuck attached to this renegade skeksis for the rest of his days only ever growing with each breath. By the Crystal, he really wished he'd just killed the damn thing back in the desert.

Dhinza holds up a placating hand. "It is to keep you both safe, for there are things that must come to pass. The Lords will come looking, and they will not be so forgiving... but, to outright harm a gelfling goes against their alliance, it goes against their word. And now, to harm him is to harm you."

There's something important there, something stressed that A'kyr doesn't quite understand, the Lords would never hurt those who did not deserve it and yet… His eyes shift to the skeksis and then back to Maudra Dhinza.

"I don't have time for these incessant games." The skeksis barks, standing to his full height with a great huff he makes for the entrance tail swishing in great angry arcs behind him.

"And where do you intend to go, skekMal? Running back to Sami Thicket? You'll only get her killed." Dhinza calls, a thickness to her voice like a great thundercloud approaching on the horizon.

The name sends the skeksis whirling about, crouching low as spittle flies from his mouth in rage. "And what do you care?"

His voice becomes gravely, head dipping as his tail lashes furiously behind him. "Safe here in your little desert, what is the life of one puny Spriton even worth?"

Maudra Dhinza clenches her fists at her sides, jaw working for a moment as she chooses her words carefully. "More than you could imagine."

A'kyr doesn't know if the words themselves are laced with magic but it has skekMal bending double, looking as if he'd been punched right through the sternum. And a deep sorrow like a fist on his heart starts up in his chest and ever so breifly, A'kyr knows the skeksis' inner turmoil like his own.

The skeksis sits back on his haunches, hands clutching that bundle of fabric tighter. "You cannot stop me."

A'kyr is taken aback by how lost skekMal sounds, so unlike that snarling beast it nearly makes him want to comfort the big creature if only to settle that startling ache that lingers uncomfortably.

"And I won't." Dhinza affirms. "But so long as you remain in Dousan territory you are under my protection, leave and I cannot guarantee your safety nor hers."

"If I stay…" skekMal starts, tilting his beak to look the Maudra in the eyes. "Then she lives?"

Dhinza nods, grave and deep.

"Very well." The feathers on his neck and head lie flat once more.

The ensuing silence draws on for far too long leaving A'kyr to fill it himself with an awkward clearing of his throat and his voice spilling out an octave too high.

"Great, great... just comforting. I'm sure mother will be leaping for joy when she finds out I've finally settled down." Akyr crosses his arms, leveling Maudra Dhinza with a disapproving look that she returns with a comforting smile, just on the side of teasing.

"I'll be sure to attend the leshia-zyn." Dhinza continues, flashing a hint of her teeth. "It will be a grand occasion, truly a party for the ages."

Stunned, A'kyr uncrosses his arms. "Was… was that a joke?"

Maudra Dhinza only closes her eyes in response, clasping her hands together before she speaks. "Best be on your way, the samalzyn will be concluding shortly and I've yet to announce our guest."

skekMal grumbles, looking anything but pleased with his arrangement but, he does not fight it, weariness tugging his anger down until A'kyr can barely feel it through the bond.

"I trust he will be staying with you."

A'kyr fights the urge to sigh as he straightens his back and lays a hand on the hilt of his knife. "Yes, Maudra Dhinza."

The Maudra nods, bells tinkling softly as she dips her head. Walking past them, she calls over her shoulder, voice echoing slightly in the night. "You have a winding path ahead, do not be afraid to tread it together."

So there A'kyr stands, the life of this cantankerous skeksis now in his hands. He's known him longer as an unresponsive lump than a living, breathing creature, yet there he stands at his shoulder like a giant loyal fizzgig.

He fully expects skekMal to go galavanting off, sprinting for the desert as soon as Maudra Dhinza is out of sight.

Much to A'kyr's relief and chargain, he doesn't, and now it really starts to sink in that this is indeed his reality. He's the glorified babysitter for a damned bird that could snap his spine in half without warning.

Yet skekMal trails behind him without incident, even as A'kyr gathers his things from Kasha's saddle and dismisses the dromza, he lumbers but a few feet behind, breath slightly laborious but thankfully that wheezing has dissipated.

Awkwardly and with many glances backwards, he leads the skeksis back to his home, having to tug at the creatures fingers when he lingers too long at the steep path up the cliff face.

skekMal gives a startled growl, snapping out of whatever daze he's in, he retracts his hand as if it's been dipped in the River of Fire.

Throwing up his hands in a wordless apology, A'kyr continues his trek, fingers going to the bow strapped across his chest as he briefly worries his tongue between his teeth.

Every step he's terrified the skeksis will turn on him, with those teeth and those claws, eyes
mad with bloodlust, and with every passing heartbeat he's proven wrong.

Approaching his abode near the top of the cliffs, he notices that the windows are dim, the dark shape of the curtains blowing in the wind. Great, he thinks, at least this will make things easier.

Fortunately, the adobe house has high enough ceilings and wide enough entrances to allow skekMal to pass through with ease. There is no comment from his beak other than an occasional mutter as he brushes low hanging tapestries out of the way.

Finally, he's back home, dropping his things beside his bed he contemplates showing skekMal to one of the old guest chambers but, the skeksis curls up on the ground beneath the window before the words leave his mouth.

Keeping as far away as possible, skekMal molds himself into the corner, back to the wall and eyes trained on A'kyr as if he's the one who's dangerous, and not the other way around.

Those robes from Maudra Dhinza are tucked under skekMal's chin, secondary arms gripping the fabric as well, and the skeksis takes on the air of a frightened childling, eyes tracking A'kyr's every move and twitch.

Still, despite the endearing innocence of the scene, A'kyr keeps his dagger in hand, eyes trained on the skeksis until the length between blinks becomes far too long and he falls into a fitful, unbidden slumber.

Chapter Text

It's always a fire.

A little round thing, encircled by a ring of smooth stones, and it's always burning, no ash, no embers, no white bark peeled by heat, it always crackles and pops, sparks jumping as if the wood has been freshly fed.

And he stares at it, stretching his talons to warm them, knowing it's not real but indulging in it all the same. His tail curls up close by his side, tucked beneath his knee as if seeking shelter from the oblivion that lurks beyond the flame's light.

"skekMal."

He doesn't bother turning his head, he knows who approaches even if they make no sound and have no scent.

He can not rely on the senses of a predator in the dream space, after all.

"Archer." Mal growls, voice still gravely, a rasp on the tail end of the name, it seems even here he's plagued by his wounds.

"It has been quite some time since we last spoke." urVa speaks in that long, drawling cadence, words rolling like the sea and his voice deeper, smoother, unaffected

It only sets envy ablaze in Mal's chest.

"Unfortunately, not long enough." Mal hunches further, "what-- did you miss me already, Longneck?"

"Or did you come to offer your pity…" Mal digs a talon under the collar, yanking on it to really hammer the point home, relishing in the sting of pain and the hand that flies to urVa's throat.

The urRu lumbers further into the light, materializing particle by glimmering particle, as if he's stumbled into his own being only to crouch humbly by the fire.

"You do not bare these wounds alone. I am you, as much as you loathe to be reminded."

Mal's eyes flicker up, tracing the scars on the Archer's snout and now the ones that grace his thin neck, crisscrossing the natural swirling grooves of his skin. Clenching his fingers against his knees, he curls the flesh of his beak, and unable to see it, he knows it furrows the matching scars there.

"What do you want?"

"Why do you assume it is I who's in need of guidance? Was it not you-" urVa points at him, "who arrived here first?"

"Gah, your brain's been addled by all that fuckin' smoke, Mystic." Mal rockets to his feet, incensed he whirls about stomping into the darkness, uncaring of his path or his destination.

He walks, no sound accompanying his steps in a jarring, surreal way that has him going nowhere, and leaves him racing faster and faster until finally he's on all fours, desperate leaps and bounds, claws digging into nothing over and over.

And then he's back.

Panting in front of that cursed fire, he straightens up, flashing his teeth and narrowing his eyes.

"Ah, you've returned, and so desperate... come sit by the fire and calm yourself, Skeksis." urVa mocks, patting the spot beside him.

Mal snarls, spittle flying from his mouth in his rage. If it wasn't a dream he'd take the risk of strangling the smug Mystic, just to see those eyes blown wide in fear and not crinkled in amusement.

Once more he tries again, this time deliberately clawing at himself, tearing at the places he knows hold the most nerves, wrists and ankles, where bone lies so very close to skin, trying to wake himself up, anything to escape this fucking nightmare.

Again, the fire appears.

Begrudgingly he sits, exhausted even though there is no physicality to this plane. Still, he bleeds as if it's real.

"And back once more..." urVa states, ever quick to point out the obvious, two of his limbs clutch at each other, grasping forearms that spill unbidden blood and hold the ribbons of skin together.

Good, Mal sneers.

Sighing, urVa shakes his head, letting it hang low to his chest. "Stubborn fool."

"Least I'm not a coward."

"Yet you run from every challenge you have ever faced?" urVa challenges, raising a brow as that ridiculous knot of hair on his head bobs with the movement.

Gritting his teeth, Mal turns his head sharply away, as if physically smacked across the cheek.

"Shut it. You know nothing." He bites out each word with a hiss, callousness hanging upon every syllable.

"I know well enough." The Archer stands, looking out to the darkness like a bird surveying the forest, eyes wide and unblinking.

"I know that we do not share this space alone... I can hear it, like a song out of tune, written between the notes of our own." urVa breathes in, eyes falling shut and head tilting as if to listen.

Nothing reaches Mal's ears aside from the noise of the fire.

urVa opens his eyes, turning to shoot Mal an accusatory stare. "Bonds of the soul are not something to trifle with… especially where gelfling are involved."

"You think I've gone and fallen in love?" Mal laughs, hearty and deep, shaking his vocal chords until he can feel the spikes dig in anew.

Wheezing, he calms enough to lean forward, hands braced on his knees, a wicked smile curving his lips and bending his beak. "You insult me. Gelfling are barely worth the meat on their bones."

urVa does not back down, rather he leans forward to match, face harshly illuminated by the direct light. "You played childling to one for over fifty trine… It would not come as a surprise."

Giving a frustrated scoff, Mal gets to his feet, pacing back and forth, cursing and muttering under his breath he finally stops, heaving a sigh he lets his arms fall to his sides, head tossed back as he stares up, up, up... into the nothing.

"Give it up." He doesn't know if he's speaking to the Mystic or perhaps he's calling out whatever force traps him here.

"I'm not soft…" He starts, looking over his shoulder with a venomous smirk. "I'm not kind." He spits the word, letting it fall from his mouth like acid, before he whips around, stomping towards the fire, feeling its heat lash against his thighs, curling against his calves, licking his skin and melting his feathers, it doesn't stop him. "I'm not you."

Reaching through the flames, he grabs the Archer by his long neck, talons curling around it with ease, he drags the startled creature towards him.

"We will never be the same." He growls in its face, snout touching beak.

Skin burns and sizzles, fire lancing up through both of them, setting them ablaze until they're one pillar of light, one being bound by pain, bound by unyielding claws and unbreaking contact.

Through the roar and the blinding light, Mal watches as urVa pats the back of his hand, soft hands and gentle fingers against those hardened and strained. For one blinding heartbeat, they are MalVa, twisted and out of shape but, a singular form all the same.

He blinks awake, dizziness overtaking him as if he'd drank a hundred podling brews. Scrubbing the back of his hand across his eyes he heaves a great sigh, the meeting with his other half leaving him disgruntled and on edge, it never ceases to leave him otherwise.

Sitting up, he lets his back hit the wall, secondary arms helping him stay upright, talons scratching roughly at the adobe walls, until finally the room stops spinning.

For a brief moment he expects to still be wandering that wasteland, and the homely sight before him conflicts so strongly that he's left to stare dumbly.

Until a sound drifts to his ears and his eyes lock on to subtle movement, a shifting body beneath furs and fabric, the snuffle of a smaller creature locked in slumber's grasp.

Sniffing the air, he creeps forward to loom over the creature's bedside, Mal watches the gelfling's painted brow crease and his lips twist, teeth flashing as he murmurs and tugs the blankets tighter about himself.

A'kyr… ah, yes, that's the name, something far too similar to the Archer's title for Mal's liking.

His insides twist and his throat constricts, and a feeling that he'd only ever remembered like a distant memory worms its way into his mind. It makes him feel sick, overcome with discomfort it bleeds into agitation and finally it fades into numbness.

Mal stands there, knowing sorrow isn't meant for him, not designed for it like a nebrie is not designed for land, it's simply wrong.

He turns away, climbing out the window, outpacing the feeling until he's racing faster than the wind and every molecule thrums with rage in its stead.

Calm washes over his mind when the first drop of blood hits his tongue. The sweet iron tang of a daeydoim calf's insides, armored hide cracking under his teeth, the stupid thing bleating and calling, thrashing even as he grips its jugular tighter, wrenching its neck to the side until he feels it strain and then give with a snap.

Paralyzed, it twitches, beady eyes rolling as it watches itself be eaten alive.

He leaves the carcass, moving onto the next, a trail of bodies left in his wake until he has satiated that cavernous expanse in his chest, piling it high with offerings of suffering and pain until it quiets once more.

It's one of the only ways he knows how to shut it up and he's honed it to a craft, perfected it even.

Mal returns, feathers a considerable shade darker and stinking of death but the urge to kill is now a slumbering beast, biding its time for the next hunt.

The first sun is peeking over the horizon, rosy tints cast across the red sand and stone, distorting the green of the oasis into a myriad of browns, it's a beautiful sunrise and it's the dawn of the first day he's wound up connected to another idiot.

Back through the window, Mal nearly crashes into the gelfling, little thing nearly colliding with him as it stinks of panic.

"Why are you…" He trails off, eyes narrowing and nose scrunching. "What did you kill?"

Mal turns his back on the gelfling dropping the bones stripped clean by teeth and tongue on the ground. When he finds a knife he'll carve them, if only to pass the time in this prison.

"You can't just go running off to Thra knows where, killing who knows what simply because you feel like it." A'kyr presses, voice rising and hands moving wildly about in the air.

Unimpressed, Mal crosses his arms, voice still rough yet the words hurt less and they're far clearer. "Aren't your kind obsessed with death?"

A sour look purses A'kyr's lips, "No, we honor death, not senseless killing. Hunting is more than just some sport, it's sacred."

"Oh, so you're a hunter now? And pray tell, what great game have you caught-- perhaps a moog… or a little crawler?" Mal teases, cruelty slick in every syllable, he can't stop the haughty smirk that curves his lips.

The gelfling's eyes flicker down, temple jumping as his brows drop to cast shadows over his eyes, "I'm responsible for your actions now, skekMal." The gelfling's eyes bounce back up to meet Mal's. "You'll do as you're told."

"I'm not some pet." Mal spits, blood flecking A'kyr's face, leaving dark spots across his skin that causes the gelfling to flinch and swipe a hand across his cheeks, serving only to smear it into wispy lines.

Mal looms closer.

A'kyr steps back, hand flying to his belt, fingers ready on the knife there. The gelfling squares his shoulders, disguising the quake there, the desire to curl and hide away tell tale in the uncertainty of his voice. "If you stay here, you will listen."

Brave little thing, Mal thinks, relenting he sits back on his haunches, studying the gelfling with a tilt of his head and a critical gaze. A'kyr for his blatant fear, does not retreat, staring up at Mal, eyes trained and unblinking, ears twitching ever so slightly.

"You're like a fizzgig- all bark and no bite." Mal chuckles, breaking the silence, he's tempted to reach out and ruffle the gelfling's hair if only to see the little creature growl and bring the whole picture together. "It'd almost be cute, if you weren't so aggravating."

The gelfling scrunches his snout at this, lips curling and ears falling back, head ducking and his center of gravity shifting as if he is about to pounce or perhaps expecting to dodge.

A'kyr inhales, mouth opening to reply and Mal rolls his eyes with a huff, raising all four hands, admitting defeat. He doesn't want to hear the gelfling's voice more than he has to.

"Don't get your braids in a twist, gelfling." Mal sneers, crossing his arms. "You're amusing. Cease to be…" Mal trails off letting the last word linger, "and I'll eat you instead." 

He snaps his teeth together, letting the clack of ivory ring through the air and the gelfling swallows, an audible click that's like music to his ears.

But instead of staying scared the gelfling seems to be overcome by momentary disgust, distaste causing him to recoil a few steps, looking Mal up and down with the air of someone studying a dirty podling.

"You can't stay in those filthy rags." A'kyr moves to pick up the clothes in the corner, gifts from the Maudra that Mal had left discarded on the ground. He can't help the twinge of anger at seeing the gelfling momentarily turn his back on him, as if there's no threat to be had in his presence.

Embarrassingly, Mal allows himself to be ushered about by the smaller creature, those robes shoved back into his arms as he trails begrudgingly down the ladder after A'kyr.

He asks where they're going, receiving only a hiss in response, something about springs and the Greater Sun. Agitated, he steps after the gelfling, following him through a small kitchen, fire freshly lit in the stone oven, something delicious wafting from inside.

It causes him to hesitate, entranced by the smell, A'kyr tugging at him, a frantic energy to him that has Mal shaking the gelfling off and curving his talons to retaliate, regardless of the consequences.

"Oh, this must be the newcomer Maudra Dhinza mentioned."

The voice is pleasant and distinctly not A'kyr's, it's too feminine, too soothing and pleasant where A'kyr's is sharper, more ambiguous and often exasperated; besides he's looking right at the gelfling and his lips haven't so much as twitched.

Mal watches as the color drains from the gelfling's face, the pink of his ears and the dark blue of his cheeks desaturating as the blood flees for the heart and extremities, fight or flight taking over.

"Shit." A'kyr curses under his breath, an awkward smile twitching across his face as he turns in time with Mal to face the other gelfling across the room. "Listen, I can explain..."

A'kyr's words fade into the background as Mal studies the other gelfling, watching as her hands work to stitch, even as she trains her full attention on them both. He notices her dark eyes flicker to him, that reserved, cagey, nervousness he's used to seeing on Dousan overtaking her features.

Cocking a brow, he notes the similarities between her and A'kyr, registering the differences as well, the greying hair and the wrinkles, a voice that is soft and worn with age, but she has the same eyes and even the way she holds herself is similar, and Mal realizes this must be the gelfling's mother.

It only serves to remind him of Sylen and he vehemently halts that thought before it can even begin to take root.

"Ney'dyr, daughter of the Wellspring." She begins, standing now, she puts a fist over her heart and bows slightly at the waist. Straightening out, her face lights up with a smile, forced and pleasant, Mal knows if she could she'd voice her distaste to his face but the Dousan are not the confrontational type, preferring covert insults and turned up noses. "I welcome you to our home."

Confused, Mal looks to A'kyr the gelfling giving a gesture to his midsection and bending ever so slightly, mouthed words silent on his lips.

Customs and pleasantries, Mal grumbles to himself but begrudgingly gives a bow in return, not seeking to disrespect the head of the household quite yet. Still a bow from him means very little considering he's nearly twice Ney'dyr's height.

"Your title." A'kyr coughs, elbowing him in the hip. Mal forces down a snarl, knowing first hand the wrath of a caregiver who believes her progeny is under threat.

"Mal, son of the Spriton Plains." He speaks the words, figuring they're close enough to the truth but still they sting his throat and not for the collar there. Continuing, he really exaggerates, that gravel to his voice vibrating through his chest like a seismic quake. "I humbly accept your invitation, Lady Ney'dyr."

A'kyr places his head in his palm, muttering a prayer to Thra, and Mal can't stop his smirk even when that phantom embarrassment from the gelfling stirs in his chest, it's easily outweighed by his own sheer satisfaction.

He can practically feel Ney'dyr's distrust, so palpable in the air, yet she swallows it down, perfect image of a good little Dousan. She turns away, setting down her stitch work before running her hands down her robes, dusting off the already impeccable linen. "I suppose we'll be needing bigger meals now."

"No!" A'kyr protests, a little too aggressive and a tad too loud, he steps back clearing his throat. "No, he can fend for himself, trust me, he just needs a place to sleep, that's all."

Damn right, Mal thinks, he doesn't need the pathetic scraps that gelfling cook up and call food. Although… he sniffs the air, perhaps this once he'd make an exception, not that he'd ever admit it.

"Nonsense, it's been trine since this home has seen new faces." Ney'dyr moves towards the stone oven now, Mal and A'kyr leaping out of her way in opposite directions so that she's left to shift the mud bricks and peer into the oven between them.

"I remember when Eygan brought his wife home." Ney'dyr moves the bricks back into place, the scratching of clay on stone ringing in the air.

Mal watches her awkwardly, unsure how to assess this older gelfling who seems so unassuming, moving about the open kitchen, doing homely chores yet there is something like a crouching rakkida in her steps.

She dusts her hands off, moving swiftly back towards her loom. "Oh, I wished they'd stayed, there's plenty of room and the Eastern Xeric is so prone to flash floods."

This prompts a nervous laugh to escape A'kyr, "N-nothing like that, just helping a… friend." He stumbles on the last word, very obviously side shuffling to the door, intending to escape the entire situation. Mal shakes his head, following after him but far more conspicuous, no real attention to tact or subtlety simply because he can't be bothered.

"A'kyr, wait." Ney'dyr calls, pulling something from her robes, for a moment she hesitates, shoulders rising and falling with a great exhale as she clutches the object to her chest.

"I… here." Ney'dyr moves forward, grabbing up A'kyr's hand and pressing the thing into his palm.

Curious, Mal tracks the movements of the gelfling, watching the odd exchange as if he's observing a herd of landstriders.

A'kyr uncurls his fingers, eyes widening as he stares down at the bronze emblem, a simple little thing composed of a triangle bisected by a single curved line.

Mal doesn't have the first clue as to what it means but it's stirring phantom tears behind his eyes and making his heart beat faster, emotions bleeding across the bond like the trickle of a stream overflowing. It makes his stomach roil and he backs away from the domestic scene, watching as mother and son embrace. He turns away, fleeing through the doorway, tapestry billowing behind his abrupt exit.

"It was always meant for you, nahnin. He knew you belonged out there… even when I refused to see it."

Still he can hear Ney'dyr's words, and he's tempted to clamp his hands over his ears, let his talons dig into his skull and drive that sickly sweet sentiment out.

Moving to the ledge that extends from the adobe home and overlooks the cliff face, he leans heavily against it, talons tapping a nonsensical tune against the bricks.

Every gelfling that spots Mal flashes him an ugly look, one that he gladly returns with a glare of his own, but many of the nosier Dousan remain unrelenting in their unabashed judgement, staring him down as they mill about, as harmless as insects in his eyes.

Soon enough, A'kyr's voice rings through the air and the bystanders disband, disappearing like crystal crawlers into the sand, so swift and fast that soon the entire cliff face is abandoned, appearing as dead as the wasteland itself.

Mal snorts, a small huff of breath and a roll of his eyes. Dousan were always so strange.

"Come on, the springs aren't far!" Everything about A'kyr is suddenly different, from the lilt of his voice to the spring in his step, it's as if the angsty gelfling from this morning has fled in favor of an intrepidly stupid one, too damn happy for his own good.

A'kyr's elatement bleeds into him and forces a contagious smile onto Mal's lips that he quickly forces into a stormy scowl. By Thra, this place is already turning him soft.

The gelfling fills the air with nonsensical ramblings, words that would probably make more sense if Mal bothered to spare even the barest hint of an effort to listen. Frankly, he's caught up in watching the other gelfling they pass, most seeming to tense up or shuffle quickly away, A'kyr none the wiser, hands still waving about in the air, braids swinging as he casts looks over his shoulder.

Occasionally he will point to something or someone and Mal will nod along, playing the little creature's game. Each time it earns him a smile, dazzling and bright, and each time it makes Mal feel as if he's accomplished something, like earning a cheap trinket or besting a simple trial, dull and lackluster but rewarding just the same.

It makes the journey worthwhile he supposes, some sense of validation or perhaps accomplishment in going through the motions, pretending.

Rushing water sings gently in Mal's ears and he sees the dazzling mist of a waterfall before it even comes fully into view. Tucked away beneath an overhanging cliff stands the brilliant blue-green of the springs, branches and leaves act as its shelter, a little slice of viridian paradise in an otherwise red washed world.

Mineral deposits cling to the edges of the pool, begetting the nature of the salty water within and where the waterfall kisses the spring below, steam billows and rises, frothing like a pot set to boil.

Lounging about in various states of undress, Dousan in all shades gather at the springs, heads swiveling all at once to appraise the new comers, they all seem to stiffen, a collective tension coiling in them.

Mal eyes them, curious to see them so unabashed about their nudity when normally the gelfling seem to wear as many layers as possible. Odd really, he'd lived half of his life entirely unclothed until the Spriton gelfling, and more specifically a certain healer, forced him into some, still he refused those ridiculous foot coverings.

He lets the gelfling be, figuring their timid, shy and isolationist disposition is what has them so on edge, so unused to newcomers of such a variety as himself.

Swinging his head back to the crystalline water, he notes there's some dark shapes swimming about, much too small to be anything larger than a fissimmer but still substantial enough to make a quick meal. Mal decides he can at least enjoy a snack if he's forced to bath in less than desirable company.

Creeping to the edge of the pool, he hunches over, dipping a claw into the water, a satisfied purr escapes him when the heat cradles his fingertips and spreads up his arm.

It certainly beats the leeching chill of the Black River.

He starts to undo the wrappings on his arms, planning to discard the threadbare fabric before he dives in, he knows too well it will all cling horribly and uncomfortably, tugging at his feathers in all the wrong directions.

Noisy splashing has him leaping backwards, thoroughly ruffled and pleasant mood soured.

Gelfling flee the springs en masse, angry grumbles and sneers bleeding from them as they clutch their robes and cloth things, heading it seems to another area of the spring, this particular pool now left barren.

Good riddance, he flashes them a toothy snarl, watching them go with a certain amount of mirth, easier to be shunned than to be engaged in fruitless conversation or a pointless stare down.

Quickly, Mal realizes that he's not the reason they've fled.

A'kyr wades quickly through the water, back turned to the world, ignorant in his endeavour to submerge himself as quickly as possible. Wings glint on his back for but a heartbeat, shining like a thousand lesser crystals until they disappear beneath the water line.

Anger crawls up Mal's spine like a swarm of bees marching to the source of ire. How dare these worthless creatures flee from their own as if he's poisoned the whole pool simply by standing in it.

"You coming in? You'll end up chasing off the whole village at this rate." A'kyr's laugh rings out, a self conscious chuckle followed by a smile.

The stupid gelfling doesn't even act phased by it, not a trace of anger or discontentment just that damn smile creasing his cheeks.

"You allow them to treat you like that?" Mal questions, not bothering to disguise the gruffness there. "Pathetic. Stand up for yourself gelfling, fight for your honor."

And what do you know of honor?

Tossing his head with a growl he chases off that little voice, sounding too much like Sylen for its own good.

A'kyr ignores him, instead sinking down into the water until his ears are submerged and only his snout sticks above the water.

Fine then, stubborn brat. 

He starts to peel his clothes off, tossing them carelessly aside and tearing the more stubborn articles at the seams, he knows the robes the Maudra provided will be good enough replacements.

He conveniently ignores the way A'kyr's gaze has drifted to stare at him, rolling his eyes with the hint of a snort he brushes it off, chalking it up to mere curiosity and whatever personal issues the gelfling had with nudity.

Mal slips into the water, immediately he finds himself going boneless from the heat, trying to disguise the fact that every muscle from head to toe is now worse than useless.

Like blood, the iron oxide accumulated on his feathers starts to leech into the water, rusting it and forming a foggy halo about him; left behind is vibrant white plumage streaked through with darker quills.

Sighing, he sinks further into the springs, letting the liquid lap just below the holes of his ears, tail moving calm and easy through the water like a fish headed downstream.

"Why were you out in the desert?"

Opening an eye, he levels the gelfling with a look that's meant to be murderous. A'kyr doesn't catch on, or perhaps doesn't care, because the gelfling opens his mouth, questions spilling forth even as he stands under one of the waterfalls, voice garbled by the downpour as he undoes the braids of his hair.

"What are all those scars from? And that collar? Why are the Lords after you? Did they do that to you?"

Huffing, Mal crosses his arms. "Questions like that could get you killed."

"Questions are important." A'kyr reasons, hands combing through his hair, "They're how we learn…" A stubborn tangle has A'kyr trailing off, sticking his tongue out just past his teeth as his fingers thread through the dark strands until they relent and the knot disappears.

"Besides…" The gelfling starts, cheeky smile spreading on his lips, the marker of something ridiculous to come. "I should know these things about my own husband."

A'kyr can't even get through the word without looking as if he's caught between laughter and losing the contents of his stomach.

Of course, Mal shakes his head, annoyance pricking at the base of his neck as he turns his back to the creature, muttering under his breath, "Hilarious."

A'kyr's next words drift to Mal like an afterthought, dismissing and soft but still they sting more than they should, "It's not like you'd have much luck marrying otherwise."

Anger sets his teeth on edge, beak creasing and hackles rising as haunting flashes of blood splatter and screams pound in his skull until he's sure he's moved a few steps closer. But he remembers Sylen's words and they stay his angry hands, promises made and left unbroken, and still he will not break them, not over something so trivial.

So, he does what he knows, he hunts.

Swimming to the deeper parts of the pool he ends up catching one of those fish darting about. They're slippery little things but don't seem to have any self preservation, practically smacking into him as he dives below the surface.

Frustrated by his inability to snatch one, he lets air escape his lungs in a growl. Losing precious breath, he comes up for air, frustrated and soaking wet, he shakes his head to chase off the droplets that threaten to blur his vision.

For a moment he waits, hands hovering over the surface, waiting for one of those shadows to wander too close… With a swift downward strike he pins it on his talons, triumphant grin curving his lips.

Bringing the squirming, silvery thing to his beak he crunches down, letting it slip down his throat as he tilts his head back.

"By yesmit, what the fuck are you doing?"

Mal licks the scales off his fingers, arching a brow at the gelfling across the pool. "Enjoying a meal, what's it look like?"

A'kyr puts his hands on either side of his head, peering down at his own reflection in deep abject horror. "Suns above… those are--" A'kyr cuts off with a distressed whine before continuing, "-you're not supposed to eat them!"

Giving a haughty huff, Mal tilts his head down, hand waving absently in the air as if to elaborate his point, "What else does one do with little squirmy creatures, stare at them?"

"I cannot believe… of all the…" A'kyr trails off into a series of frustrated groans and grumbles, fingers briefly tugging at the hair that trail behind his ears before he sighs, wading quickly in Mal's direction.

Amused, Mal looks down his beak at the approaching gelfling, watching it have to momentarily paddle through the deepest portion of the pool, looking ridiculous rather than graceful.

Soon enough, the gelfling is standing before him, arms crossed and face gravely serious as he cranes his neck to look up at Mal.

"Out." A'kyr orders, as if Mal would ever entertain the idea of following orders from such a nonthreatening gelfling.

And of all the ridiculous, asinine things the gelfling could possibly do in retaliation, pushing his hands against Mal's flank and trying to forcibly shove him out of the springs is the stupidest.

"You what?" Mal snarls, putting a palm on A'kyr's forehead to push the gelfling away at arm's length.

Rather than continue to fight against his stiff arm, A'kyr dives abruptly underwater, swimming much faster than any Dousan has the right to.

He swipes his hand against his side, as if to scrub away the feeling of the gelfling's skin there, a disgusted crinkle on his snout. Brushing off the odd little creature's actions with a shake of his shoulders, he focuses back on his prey, intending to catch one more if just to spite the annoying, uppity creature.

And then something grabs his tail.

Of all the… Mal hunches his back, tail whipping away from the offending grasp to curl around his front. He's going to kill him. That's it; fucking ozahleshia and cryptic Maudras be damned, oh he can't wait to wring his neck. By the Crystal, he won't even make a decent meal but perhaps he'll keep those wings as a trophy, a little reminder to never trust a bloody Dousan, again.

He spins, swiping all four hands through the air with a roar, fully intending to catch the imp but his eyes widen and he realizes his mistake a heartbeat too late.

Snatching nothing but thin air, his feet slip in the thick scum of algae, talons trying their best to keep ahold but there's only water and weightlessness, he goes tumbling forward, arms pinwheeling in the most embarrassing manner possible.

Splashing face first into the spring, he comes up with an undignified sputter and a mouthful of bitter mineral rich water fleeing from his beak in a great river down his neck.

Bubbling laughter answers his ears when he surfaces and it's like crunching on pebbles, it drives his teeth to grind and his talons to curl. That sickening joy and mirth pounding against his own embarrassment until a growl punches from his chest and he crouches lower and lower, chin touching the water's surface as he speaks, "You're dead."

And the gelfling's laughter bleeds away into genuine horror, that mix of blue on his face leeched of its vibrant color as he takes a step backwards, slipping on the rocks in his haste.

"W-wait, hey-"

It seems to finally sink in as Mal advances a swiftness and calculation to his step that's normally reserved for his trickier prey.

He can feel its fear thrum in his chest, a breaking and stuttering staccato so unlike his own heartbeat, so unlike that violent thrum in his veins and screeches in his ears, hounding for blood.

His prey's back hits the ledge, jarring the gelfling out of his blind retreat, and Mal stands to his full height, looming over him all four hands trapping the gelfling on either side.

It tries to crane its neck back, bend its spine and scamper up the slippery surface but its feet can't get traction and it winds up slipping back down.

He watches its wings flicker, contemplation crossing its face before it folds them back once more.

And it gives in, chest heaving and breath hitching, wide eyes unblinking, ears pinned back and lips pulled up in the barest hint of a panicked snarl.

"I see you two are enjoying yourselves."

Mal jumps away instantly, splashing noisily in his haste and nearly tripping as his feet catch on the stones below.

He stands there, eyes wide and metaphorical ears pinned back, as if he's a scolded child.

He wraps his arms around his midsection, suddenly feeling unsure, so unused to the feeling that creeps up his spine and nibbles at his heart, making him duck his head and avoid the Maudra's gaze. He has no need for embarrassment, yet there it bubbles in his stomach like he's swallowed acid and he can feel it heat his cheeks in the most degrading way possible.

It overshadows the anger by a landslide, and frankly it's so disconcerting it has Mal looking to A'kyr to try and comprehend it.

The gelfling won't meet his eyes, looking equal parts shaken and something else as he waves his hands quietly through the water, fingers spread as if to feel the rush of liquid between them or simply to pretend he's doing something. Acting so nonchalant and unaffected, A'kyr stands there with the inside of his ears burning a bright red, his cheeks and nose flushing darker in tandem.

Maudra Dhinza for her part, sits above them, on a nice outcropping of smooth sandstone that ever so slightly protrudes over the springs. Dressed only in a sheer robe with a thinner scarf covering her head, she's a far cry from the gelfling in full regalia from last night, yet she retains her elegance and her power as she gazes down at them.

He'd heard stories about her, tales from other gelfling that she'd become a Maudra much too soon, her mother dying under mysterious circumstances. He knows that the Spriton gelfling had often commented about her lack of wings, spreading gossip and rumors that she was unfit, undeserving of the title altogether.

Such trivial notions never concerned him, practical matters such as the Maudra's inclination to withhold information and meddle in the affairs of others were far more pressing.

Every time he hears the debate among gelfling, it makes him glad he's not one of the squabbling creatures. He'll never understand why wings determine much of anything besides a gelfling's ability to fly.

"I hear you'll be joining the rangers soon. What a pleasant surprise that must be."

"I'm sure Sandmaster Zymira would rather eat her own shamshir than take me on as a ranger." A'kyr starts, it is but a mumble under his breath before he seems to catch himself. Standing up straighter, his composure suddenly returns in the demand to appear presentable and respectful before higher authority.

A fist over his heart, A'kyr's voice shifts, "I offer my eternal gratitude for the opportunity, Maudra Dhinza."

Dhinza returns the gesture, closing her eyes with a nod. When she opens them, they glitter with something Mal can't quite place but it has him on edge, moving away just enough to feel less like he's staring down a horde of arathim.

He doesn't realize that his steps have brought him closer to A'kyr in the process.

"Don't be so quick to place judgement, A'kyr. Zymira's father once bore the title of nahdzyl, she knows the weight in which it carries."

A throaty huff has Mal swinging his head, undisguised surprise flitting across his features as he watches anger overtake A'kyr. Side by side, he can practically feel the gelfling's blood boiling hotter than the springs themselves.

But it is a careful anger, contained where Mal's is not, the flavor all wrong.

"Quick to judge?" A'kyr glares, baring his teeth in an ugly grimace. "Isn't that what the entire Wellspring does?"

"My apologies." Dhinza sighs, her ears twitching back ever so slightly. "It was a poor choice of words."

Without elaborating, she lets her robe fall to the rock, turning her back to them as she delicately step down the rocks. Mal notices the intricate silver tattoo of wings on her back, in lieu of the shiny gossamer appendages that other gelfling have.

She gets into the water, gliding like a spirit, in fact for a moment Mal thinks she'll simply step across the water. It unsettles him, that aura with which she moves and breaths, as if she's caught between life and death itself.

"skekMal…" She addresses him directly now, the full title making his skin crawl momentarily. "I know these are not the plains you are used to, but I certainly hope you will find a semblance of home here."

Her pleasantries burn and rip at his insides, making him feel as if he wants to be sick, her eyes are sincere, her voice careful and measured but he knows the Dousan, he knows this will never be a home, not for him.

"Oh, don't pretend you're suddenly so accepting, Maudra. I know your kind." Mal can't stop the mocking tone that drips from his lips, A'kyr's distress at his blatant disrespect ratcheting up with every heartbeat.

Dhinza only purses her lips, the slightest crinkle of her brow as her mouth moves and her eyes search the air for a moment, seeing and hearing something that Mal cannot.

Her ignorance only makes his temper burn hotter but he's not so unchecked as to lash out at a Maudra in broad daylight. Instead he simmers in it, stewing in past memories of a much younger Sylen and her late wife.

He remembers when Sylen had told him the story, laughing it off as if it was nothing but it certainly was everything, and she'd been unable to wipe away the tears in her eyes fast enough.

The Dousan were the ones who had kicked Sylen's wife from their clan, threatening death and exile for their union when they approached the aging Maudra Amadyra for blessings.

The healer had told Mal the tale, many trine ago, warning him of the Dousan's fear, their cruelty and their xenophobia, isolationists who would let all of gelfling kind die so long as they could keep their precious desert.

She said they treated her so kindly at first, smiles to her face and sneers behind her back, finally they showed their true colors when Sylen returned one unum, her hand in her wife's and the announcement on their lips.

It's why when the words fell from the Conqueror's lips he'd fought so hard to stay. Skirting around the edges of the village waiting and watching, lungs filling steadily with blood. Finally, they chased him out and not once did Sylen leave her home, door firmly shut and the fires dimmed.

He tried to sneak in out of pure desperation and curdling fear, but nearly earned an arrow to his chest. Finally, on the seventh night, he left, turning North, for the wasteland.

"You act so pleasant, so damned cordial." Mal ducks his head, as if sizing up an opponent in a fight, the Maudra only appraises him with a neutral stare.

"But I won't be made a fool." He continues, voice getting rougher as it drops to a darker tone. "Make no mistake I stay, I endure this humiliation for her, and her alone."

Curling his lips, he raises a claw swiping it through the air. "If she dies against your word, I'll tear this whole village apart, break every bone, and kill every last gelfling from here to Ha'rar."

And he knows, knows so very well that she could already be dead. That old age and a broken heart could have already done the fragile healer in, gelfling so prone to weakness and emotions but he refuses to face that, for death is like an insult, mocking him in every way because for so long he knows that he was something that could not die.

Dhinza looks off into the distance, whispering something under her breath as if she's speaking to someone else.

"Kill…" She starts, echoing him as if it's the only word she'd heard of his entire spiel. "Yes… that reminds me, you are forbidden to kill. These are not your hunting grounds, Outcast, and I will not have the creatures of the Crystal Sea suffering under your talons, their lives are not yours to claim."

A'kyr looks surprised by this, a hard blink cast the Maudra's direction.

Bristling Mal stares her down, it seems this Maudra was too intune with Thra, practically having eyes everywhere. It makes him feel trapped, pinned, useless and weak like he did under the hands of the skeksis. "And do you punish the rakkida as well?"

"They do not kill for pleasure." Dhinza counters, "You will take your meals like the rest of the clan and you will not leave the Wellspring, again. Trust is something that must be earned, and you have yet to prove yourself deserving of it, skekMal."

"You mock me, Dousan." Mal laughs, a cruel, wicked thing, "I will hunt as I please." He purrs the last note, pure mocking and arrogance, as if he'd ever take such an order from her.

"Then I suppose you'll enjoy being brought to the Castle."

"That a threat?" His voice drops into something truly dark, damn collar scraping the words until they come out more growl than syllables.

"Only if it has to be." Dhinza's tone darkens along with her eyes, an air of something ancient and powerful consuming the space about her until the shadows seem to grow longer. "I will do what I must to ensure the safety of my clan and the well-being of Thra. You are here under my good graces, do not make me change that."

Cowed, he steps down, that confidence abandoning him like a great exhale. He's trapped, how pathetic, he thinks. It seems that leash still tethers him, choke chained once more by an invisible force, another creature holding his fate like it's a polished stone, a fancy trinket that can be tossed aside any time it ceases to be entertaining.

Wordlessly, Mal gets out of the water, snatching up those robes he swiftly stomps away. Heading for relative seclusion until he's far enough away to not be bothered, he finds himself among a cluster of desert trees, leaning against their smooth trunks he lets his feathers dry in the suns, lukewarm water clumping them against his skin.

Trying to figure out the infernal clothing, he tugs the garments over his legs and wonders how in Thra the Maudra had the measurements to craft it all so perfectly to his form. Sitting there, fitted in typical Dousan indigos and gold trims, he leans back against the trunk, hand coming up to adjust the robes' collar so it conceals the iron ring around his neck.

He listens then, ears keen and tuned to their voices, having half a mind to just walk away but curiosity wins out, and something embarrassingly childish spurs him to eavesdrop.

"How do you know he'll listen?" A'kyr speaks, voice muffled by distance and vegetation. "It seems like he almost needs to hunt." Mal can almost see the open palm A'kyr puts to his chest, he only knows it's there because he's straining so hard to feel the other side of that weak bond.

"Don't worry yourself. Fear will keep him here and he will survive as he always has."

"I…" A'kyr trails off, sound distinctly dissatisfied with the Maudra's answer. "There's something else I don't understand."

"Why are you so interested in me all of the sudden?" Wariness bleeds in every note of A'kyr's voice, in fact the gelfling sounds more apprehensive in the presence of the Maudra without Mal there.

"Making up for lost time, I suppose." The Maudra's voice is quiet, distant in a way like early morning fog. "Do you know why we call these springs stazaya gid'hn?"

There's a pregnant pause, Mal opening his eyes and turning his head back towards the duo, the cascade of the falls and muffled conversations of nearby gelfling are all that reaches until finally A'kyr speaks up.

"My father... he told me that a comet fell from the sky and landed in a lake, back when the desert was ocean. And he said it plowed so deep into Thra that the crater touched the heart, sending up its heat and steam and that the desert formed in its wake, drying up the water until all that remained was the Wellspring…" A'kyr lets the last word linger. "He said the star still rests at the bottom of the spring, so deep that no gelfling, nor creature can reach it except for the star-scaled fish."

"That is certainly quite the tale."

"And I suppose you know a better one?" There's venom clear in A'kyr's tone and it sets Mal on edge, making him twist his body as if to go back, but he stamps down on that urge, forcibly burying it. The gelfling is not his concern, he chides himself but it means so very little in the face of his choice to linger.

"Not better, simply… different." The Maudra reassures, careful and measured. "Stories are the backbone of Dousan society, the thread that weaves the tapestry between the living and the dead. Your father lives in that story, his words become your own, and you are never far from him."

Again, there is silence and Mal can feel A'kyr's discomfort stir like a shifting locksnake against his ribs.

"When I was a childling my mothers brought me here…" The Maudra begins, taking A'kyr's silence as permission to continue.

"They told me that long ago, when Thra was young, Mother Aughra plucked a star from the sky. She was one of the dimmest and the dying, so shunned by her celestial brethren simply for her dullness that she'd nearly gone out in her grief. And thus, she longed to be among the many creatures of the surface world which she gazed upon for countless trine. Her sobs became so loud they shook Thra itself in their wake and Aughra took pity on the star."

For all the tales he'd been told, Mal had never heard this one, and intrigued he crept closer until he could see the Maudra as she tells the story, brilliant tale weavers as the Dousan are, she is certainly no exception.

"And she became beautiful once more, so brilliant and radiant, she lived among the creatures for many, many trine for Aughra had given her reason to shine."

The Maudra's hands fall to her lap, wistful smile falling from her lips. "Soon enough, she'd met every creature, spoke to every river and every tree, and sat with every wind and travelled every tunnel, and still she felt something was missing. So, she walked and she walked, over grass, and swamp, and dirt, walking across water until finally she reached sand. Traveled she did, long and far to the most desolate place on Thra, hoping, praying that hollowness to go away. And her light dimmed."

The Maudra clasps her hands in prayer, eyes turning skyward as if she herself is playing the part of the star. "Finally, she prayed to the stars, begging them to take her back, but they could no longer hear her, for her light had grown so dim and her voice so quiet, and they had no care in their cold hearts for one pitiful little star."

"With no hope, she laid among the grains of the Crystal Sea, still so young that much of it remained ocean and the Claw Mountains were but sharp peaks, growing higher everyday."

"What happened to her?" A'kyr asks, just as Mal mouths the very same words to himself. It causes an intense wave of unease to wash over him but he ignores it in favor of remaining motionless, a silent predator among the foliage, his prey the story on the Maudra's lips.

"A gelfling found her."

"A Dousan?"

"Not quite." The Maudra gives a smile, "They were an ancient ancestor, barely stepped into their sentience. They befriended her, trading solitary survival for companionship, a bargain they would not regret."

"And she no longer needed the stars, or the wind or the grass or the rivers. She grew brighter and brighter, so bright that the stars grew envious of her radiance."

Suddenly the Maudra's entire persona seemed to shift, hands on her hips as she held her chin up in snobbish disgust, and spoke with a deeper voice. "'Unbefitting of a star so bright', they said, 'to mingle with the dull creatures of the world below and waste your light. Come back', they demanded. And she refused."

"'Traitor!' they screamed, 'vile little star how could you refuse such an honor.'" Maudra wags a finger at A'kyr, the gelfling now leaning against the edge of the pool, eyes trained on the Maudra as she pretends to cower throwing up her hands to shield herself from an invisible adversary.

"And the star frightened by the booming of the star's voice, frightened by what they might do, cowered, for she craved life and she craved her brightness, afraid of what might happen if she were to be snuffed out. The ground shook and the seas frothed with the stars fury, and she could not escape it."

The Maudra swipes an open palm through the air before clenching it into a fist, as if snatching an insect from the sky. '"Then we'll smite this precious planet and leave no trace of it behind.' the stars decreed, 'you will come back to us, we'll make you come back.'"

Letting her hand uncurl slowly, the Maudra's next words flow from her unlike any Mal's heard before, they ring in his ears like a thousand bells, "'No', she replied, now scared for the life of the gelfling who saved her and so she faced the stars, screaming to the endless sky. 'This is my home, these are my friends, I love them!'"

The Maudra settles a gentle palm over her heart, "And the stars, for their arrogance they did not listen, only obsessed with illuminating the sky, cold and unfeeling, they had no concept of love… but she did. 'Blasphemy!' they scoffed, 'heresy!' they cried. In their rage, they burned hotter and brighter, a great beam of light thrown down upon the planet to snuff her."

"She took it all, shielding the creatures of Thra, shielding the gelfling from their wrath, and the pain, and the agony; and she knew that she was dying. A crater formed beneath her feet and she was driven into the ground, the ocean filling in around her, boiling and disappearing with the heat to form this very desert. Yet Thra did not die, for one little star had saved it. For the stars, arrogant as they were turned away the moment her light no longer shone."

The Maudra looks out to the deepest part of the pool, where the water turns deep blue with its depth, a fondness in her eyes. "And they say here she rests, beneath the springs, heating the melt water from the Claw Mountains. Healing and protecting gelfling just as she did so many trine ago."

"That was … beautiful." A'kyr rests with his hands on the edge of the pool, gripping rough stone he props himself up, suddenly less careful to conceal his wings beneath the waterline.

The Maudra gives an appreciative smile, moving to slip back into her robe and adjust the scarf on her head. "Remember, training begins tomorrow, when the Rose Sun crests the horizon. And please, by Thra, do not be late, I hear Zymira is not soft on the new recruits."

A'kyr nods, seeming to think for a moment, face lighting up and ears swiveling foward as if he's just remembered something.

"Another time, Maudra Dhinza." He frantically slips into his clothes, racing away to Thra only knows, that frantic energy returning to the gelfling's steps.

"Another time, A'kyr." She calls after him, her eyes shifting to where Mal stands, the barest hint of a smirk alighting at the corner of her lips.

Stars could not love… but she did.

Mal bares his teeth at her in return, backing away and retreating swiftly from the springs he can't help mulling it over in his mind. Over and over, he hears the sentence, practically dancing in his mind as he tries desperately to forget the way that the Maudra's eyes had pinned him like an insect.

Stars could not love…

Pain starts up in his chest, suddenly and unyielding, but now there is no easy remedy, no option to chase it away under the guise of adrenaline and the crunch of bones.

He walks faster, every gelfling he sees is suddenly her.

He doesn't want any of it, he doesn't need her. She means nothing. Just a delusional old gelfling who thought she could replace her dead son.

His feet move, nose leading him to where he needs to go, following that scent, sweet and pungent he hasn't touched it for trine, it curdles his stomach already, and he knows, by Thra, he knows it will quiet his mind.

He heads towards the village market, following the smell of dried meats and spices, tracking the sound of gelfling negotiating prices until finally he sees the rows of colorful stalls. Pinpointing the one in which he needs, he heads for it, gelfling leaping out of his way.

The shopkeep gives him a nervous look, eyes shifting across his body, checking for knives or some indication of a threat.

Wordlessly Mal grabs up a handful of inconspicuous berries and throws down payment, a few coins he'd swiped from a gelfling back in Sami Thicket and had tucked away for such an occasion.

"Are.. are you sure?" The shopkeep's eyes bounce up and down, from patron to merchandise, startled by the sheer amount demanded.

"That'd be enough to knock out a herd of dromza…" the shopkeep pushes, cringing when Mal snatches up the berries, tying them off into a square cloth, he tucks it away in his robes. Five are left out and loose in his palm, more than enough to do the trick.

Accepting it with a level of reluctance, the shopkeep flashes a shaky smile, nervous gratitude fleeing his lips.

Gripping the berries he heads through the streets, steps getting quicker as pressure builds behind his eyes, twisting his windpipe and forcing his breath out faster.

Concerned murmurs and questions start to drift his way. A gelfling, against their better judgement asks if he's alright, and he offers them a snarl, watching them backpedal in panic but it brings him no satisfaction, in fact the fear on the little thing's snout makes his insides twist harder.

Fisting talons over his heart he crouches low, ducking into a quiet alley, dark and cool, safe from the suns, safe from wandering eyes and pitiful stares.

He lets his back hit the adobe wall, legs stretched out before him, uncaring, ungraceful, undignified in appearance but it matters little in this moment, when no being aside from the suns themselves will see him.

And so he brings those cursed berries to his mouth, forcing them down his throat despite the bitter taste they leave in their wake that threatens to gag him. Almost immediately, warmth starts at his fingertips and spreads upwards, a sweet, intoxicating nothingness left in its wake that burns out everything else, like a raging forest fire it knows no bounds, no mercy in its consumption.

It's everything he craves and more, that haunting sense of incompletion, a fractured soul, an unending desire to hunt and seek out prey, to repair an ancient wound that's not his to bear alone; all of it disappears. So blissfully and peacefully, he smiles, weak and thin, knowing now why his other half takes such a liking to drug-induced hazes.

It washes him away, in a swirl of colors behind his eyelids, knowing where this path leads, addiction at the end of a rapidly approaching tunnel, and not caring all the same.

Chapter Text

After that first high, things get easier. The stupid Dousan don't question his sudden docility, only welcoming his silence, his dazed looks, and lumbering steps. They praise his increasing reclusivity in sighs and grateful whispers, moving about with less fear, less hesitance, he watches them from the rooftop of his prison with dull eyes and duller thoughts.

The only gelfling who seems bothered is A'kyr, but Mal doesn't concern himself with the agitation that stirs near his heart or the disappointment that settles heavy in his throat. He rarely acknowledges the smaller creature beyond a gruff growl or dismissal, knowing he arrives precisely at suns set.

Always there, every aggravating iota of his pity bleeding from him when the shadows stretch too long, Mal can feel the prick of eyes on his back even after the gelfling departs with a heavy sigh.

Food is always left behind like some paltry peace offering. There are many times he doesn't touch it, tossing it to the crystal crawlers or the swillya, watching them with envy in his eyes, desire in his veins and still he does not crush them under his talons. He lets his stomach toss and turn in retaliation, burning his core like a star as it goes unanswered.

Petty emotions with pettier origins, he's forced to endure them every time the urdrupes begin to wear off. It's like a gobbles pit in his abdomen, unrelenting and painful, but it has no real origin in the physical realm, no ailment that he can have stitched up or covered-- it's not supposed to be there.

This overwhelming feeling has no place in his psyche, so foriegn he has no word to pin it down, hold it in place like a unamoth under his thumb, instead it's left to fester, spinning rapidly out of control until his insides are eaten up by the cruel infection of it.

He stops counting the days when they blur together in a dizzy kaleidoscope of time and space. The days he's coherent enough to maintain appearances, he's often roped into mindless tasks, helping Ney'dyr to move one thing or another, push something here, or even hold something as she goes about her work.

She talks at him occasionally, words that bounce about in his mind with no real purpose, occasionally they're questions, one's which he feel his lips answer without thought, mindless murmurs and nods, shakes of his head and eye rolls.

It'd be humiliating, degrading if he had half a mind to care. Instead he does what he's told, like the bleating dromza that frequent the paths, he has no more autonomy than them, led about by an invisible lead, caged, clipped, and cowed. Freedom is not physical, not anymore.

He feels less jumpy, skin crawling less and less teeth no longer prickling and tingling at the roots, he nearly forgets what that craving is. That desire to hunt, and to kill, and to maim, and to replace hollowness with empty catches and iron on his tongue.

For it's been replaced, piece by piece, and day by crawling day, by the bittersweet tang of urdrupes. He hoards them, carrying them about like a lifeline cast out to sea, desperately clawing at the rope of reality that keeps slipping between his talons.

Dressed in blue, he matches the Dousan and he drifts among them, he lives there dull little lives, he eats their food, he does their work, and he nearly forgets what he's meant to be; so complacent, so content, so empty.

It's perfect. So perfect in fact that A'kyr stops pestering him, that pity growing faint with distance and the gelfling's thoughts that used to buzz like insects against his own flee as well.

The gelfling goes to training, Ney'dyr tells him so one evening, she speaks as she works on the loom, Mal cross legged beside her, like a youngling listening to its mother. He helps her tie new weights to the warp threads, talons numb and fumbling but the task of simple knots is second nature, etched into his muscle memory until no amount of urdrupes can pry that skill from him.

She's worried for her son… worried, scared, proud, all of her words join all the other evenings in an incomprehensible mix. And Mal is left behind, each day spent with phantom bruises on his skin, aches in his bones, invisible wind through his feathers and the thrill of excitement in his veins.

Freedom is now a curse, less abode shaped, less invisible, more tangible, on the other side of a bond that he finds himself sinking deeper into if only to feel free.

A husk of his former self, he sits upon the adobe rooftops, staring out at the world, as lost in his mind as an urRu.

And still the craving creeps back in, slow, like the brontide roll of thunder. And then it's fierce, sharp like hunger pangs after an unum without a meal. It makes him curl tighter, try harder, take more and more urdrupes, and for once in his life, he doesn't want it.

If he knew any better, he'd know it was sadness, grief, a terrible sense of loss that rioted against his being and banged furiously against his fractured soul ...but he doesn't.

One evening he watches the suns sink and with them he feels his high spiral down, awareness and clarity curling like smoke, soft and sweet, but clogging and cruel until he's bristling. He reaches for that cursed pouch, talons shaking, desperate, fumbling, ungraceful, uncoordinated, no, no, it's empty.

He'll have to… his mind goes blank, white hot like a brand shoved into his eyes, a false lobotomy that renders him thoughtless and dumb. He stumbles back into awareness, a slow crawl, a slow turn, everything is too bright, sensation too much like the beginning.

He'll… he will… what?

The village, the berries, yes, yes, that's what he needs. Standing, he finds himself in an awful crouch, back hunched and limbs tucked close. He doesn't want to feel the wind on his skin.

Trembling incessantly, he eyes the encroaching suns' set, he hasn't got time…

He can sense someone, coming to stand behind him, small and quiet, stinking of sweat and sand, and salt, as if they'd trekked far, the smell of perspiration beaded on colorful skin and breaths slightly quicker than normal.

Not a word escapes A'kyr's lips, words never do, not recently, not for a long time and if they did, if they have; Mal cannot remember them.

"Get up." A'kyr's voice rings out differently, more mature, more disciplined, the order on his tongue holds more weight than it ever did, than it ever should.

"I said… get. up." A'kyr pushes, this time a quarter staff thumps against his side.

Finally something, a spark of anger has him rising up, turning, finally seeing the gelfling for the first time in such a long time. He's dressed in the garb of a ranger, a proper Dousan soldier, a quarterstaff in hand and a shamshir at his belt. He's older, not so much time passing that he's physically aged but in every way that he holds himself, that he stands before Mal, there is no indecisiveness anymore, no hesitation, he is not that unsure gelfling from before-- or at least, that's how it appears.

"Or what?" Mal slurs, voice heavy and drawling as he leans down into A'kyr's face, sneer curling his beak. "You'll hit me 'gain? Maybe pull your sword?" He waves a hand, dismissive and rude and sharp, nearly smacking the gelfling in the snout. "Go ahead."

And he turns his back, expecting the little creature to leave him be as he's done day after day, but a thwacking hit to his side has him reeling, confused and startled. Too startled, as the effects of the psychotropic berries leech from him.

It's not the only hit, a full on thwack to the back of his skull has his head snapping forward, ears screeching, whistling and the air dancing with bright, streaking stars.

And when the ringing dies down, it's quickly replaced by a growl, ratcheting up in volume.

The little burlap bag in his talons tumbles silently to the ground, no matter he has plenty more, and he finds himself looming over A'kyr once more, not even trying to stoop to the same level this time.

A'kyr only tilts his chin up, stepping back, not in fear but in preparation, squaring his stance, hands gripping the quarterstaff ready to wield the sturdy wood against him once more.

Mal reaches out, making to grasp the gelfling's weapon but his hands snatch only air, no matter, he thinks, stepping closer, saliva gathering in his mouth and on his tongue and his lips. It makes his words thick and sticky.

"Oh, not afraid anymore." Mal taunts, eyes narrowing as he gives a breathy chuckle. "All grown up 'ave we?"

A'kyr looks him up and down, fingers curling tighter about his weapon, eyes flashing with something indeterminate as a slight smirk edges up the corner of his irritating face. "I'm not scared of some, katakontidzeh."

The word crashes into him with the blundering force of a thousand armaligs. It'd been a skexish word spoken to him, cruel and loud, dripping from the maw of a sadist, claws skimming his back, tracing his skin and his feathers, soft and sweet in some disgusting facsimile of intimacy only to curve inward, hook into his flesh and tear without mercy. He'd thrashed and snarled, until finally he screamed, all four arms trapped in cruel grips, outstretched, burning and straining as his knees kissed the cold tile of the throne room.

It's an insult that should not leave the mouth of some weak little gelfling, the syllables shaped oddly but its meaning the same.

It's a taunt, and with his brain addled by unbidden memories and his back burning with phantom pain he gives in to it.

The gelfling expects it, moving swiftly, backpedaling, graceful and measured, a smile flashes his teeth as he leaps from the roof, robes fluttering briefly before disappearing from sight.

Mal stumbles to the ledge, looking down, talons digging into the adobe with a crunch as his eyes scan the sloping cliffs for any sign of the gelfling.

There, in the distance, he spots him, moving quickly down the pathway, headed for the cluster of tents and stalls closer to the center of the Wellspring.

A'kyr disappears into the throng of gelfling, one last look cast over his shoulder and Mal smiles, for once not something born of malice or cruel intent, it's not a sneer or a grimace, it's pure in every sense of the word.

It's born of the hunt, steeped in it as he forgets that empty burlap sack, he forgets his craving for bitter urdrupes and long days wasted on nothing at all.

He relishes it, diving in headfirst until he's drunk on the sensation as he slinks forward, feral and wild and graceful all at once, climbing down the wall as if it were a tree in the forest or a steep boulder face on the plains.

It's second nature, coming to him like breathing, knowing where to place his weight without falling, how to move with the wind and the ambient sound until he's no more noisy than the shadow that follows him.

He avoids the main path, sticking to the background, finding cover in alleys carved into rock and dark corners formed by long shadows, glad to have the navy tones of his robes, for they disguised the brightness of his feathers.

At first he relies on smell alone, tracking a scent that had become quite familiar to him. It'd permeated every surface of the house he'd been staying in, and it was close enough to Ney'dyr's that recognition of even the faintest trace among a million others was an easy task.

But then, as he nears the edge of the market, approaching a thicket of trees with wide, rigid leaves he spots it, his quarry looking over its shoulder. It hesitates at the edge of the foliage, eyes searching but never landing upon him.

A satisfied smile twists his beak, a slight thrill at being so close yet unseen.

As it turns and flees beyond the tree line, Mal eyes the looming cliff in the distance, tracing its sandstone length until he reaches the end. It meets desert, ending far too soon, it would only provide an escape.

Growling softly to himself he sweeps his gaze in the other direction, searching for a solution and losing precious ground with each heartbeat that passes.

There, a round craggy outcrop juts out above the treeline, something not easily scaled by gelfling hand. An opportunity.

Confidence curls in his chest once more alongside the featherlight and impossibly fast beating of a phantom heart in his chest, dashing feet echoing in his own heels, jarring against the ground even as he stands still.

No longer, he moves, taking long strides on all fours. Dipping and ducking beneath barbed and prickly boughss, he feels his robes catch and tear but not enough to slow him down. He slithers belly first upon the sandy ground, tail whipping behind him and saliva gathering in great froths on his lips as his blood sings and he hones in on every foot fall, every crunch of stone beneath small paws and leather coverings. Every inhale. Every exhale.
Every snap of a dried twig. Every pause and swift correction.

They're all his to track, his to stalk, consuming every iota of his senses, he plans his steps, plots his game and executes it with the single-minded swiftness of an apex predator.

Leading it to where he desires, the stupid thing falls right into his trap, turning tail as he cuts off its escape, he watches as it turns, stumbles over its own limbs and quickly recovers with that wooden staff in its paws.

He's right on its heels, a great shadow that looms on every foot fall, he's so close the stench of panic clogs his nostrils, gathering froth on his beak until it drips down his lips and hits the thirsty ground.

They break the tree line, predator after prey, and he does not give it a chance to second guess its steps, realize its doom and attempt to fly.

He lunges.

Claws outstretched, jaws open, there's a split second of doubt as his heels depart from the ground and he's is entirely airborne; Mal's not supposed to hurt him.

Not an it, no, not prey either… not some dumb, dull creature with only the sense to survive but it's far too late to turn back.

And so he bears down on A'kyr, knowing and remembering who this gelfling is but there is no halting that which is already in violent motion, it'd be easier to stop waves from crashing upon the shore or halt the very wind in the sky.

It's only natural, some dark, primal part of his cerebellum purrs with delight as his teeth snap closed like the springing of an iron trap.

No blood sprays upon his tongue, no bone crunches under his jaws. Instead it's only a mouthful of wood, a quarterstaff shoved horizontally into his maw so that he's forced to take on a mouthful of splinters and gnaw upon the grain like livestock to a bridle.

His talons curve into thick fabric hide and puncture leather armor but to no avail, no success, there is no relenting of that force which blocks him. Holding the gelfling down by his shoulders, he's left blinking for a moment, trying to lunge forward, an awful gagging cough leaving his mouth as his jaw aches, the corners of his beak stretching and he feels the muscles beneath his palms strain and quake to hold him back, small hands on either end of the quarterstaff that impedes him.

He shakes and gnaws at the staff one last time, clicking and clacking noisily against it, like a fizzgig biting at its cage only to rattle its teeth from root to crown with nothing to show for it.

An open mouthed snarl punches from him, spittle flying as he dislodges himself from the surprising show of strength. Stepping back, he wipes the back of an arm across the corner of his beak, a mixture of blood and saliva coming away to clump upon his sleeves in a disgusting ooze.

The gelfling, now freed from Mal's pin, stares up at the sky momentarily, quarterstaff held close to his chest as it rises and falls in great heaves, eyes wide and haunted with the knowledge that death had only been held at bay by a sturdy twig.

Mal snorts, shaking his head, the hunt is lost in a sweeping cascade, an avalanche of sudden apathy that leaves his limbs shaking and heart racing, pathetic in every way he's forced to fall back on his haunches lest his vision become consumed any further by the darkness that's creeped in at the edges.

He doesn't realize that despite the steep die off of endorphins in his blood, he's smiling, a thrill still singing in his veins and there's a new life in his step that hadn't been there since he'd swallowed those berries for the first time.

It's addicting, overshadowing the uncomfortable chill beneath his skin and the mounting pain behind his eyes, withdrawals setting in like a hungry, foul beast.

He'll have to remedy that and soon.

"Very good." A voice calls, bouncing off the rocks with it's smooth, confident timbre, slow claps accompanying it.

Standing to attention, Mal feels the feather's at his neck rise as his eyes sweep for the source, A'kyr still struggling to regain his breath upon the dirt.

"You told me he was quite the hunter."

The voice sounds closer, behind him and so he whips around, head snapping sharply from side to side before settling on the approaching shape that scales down the rock face.

It's a gelfling, of course it is Mal sneers, a distasteful chuff punching from him as he crosses his arms, secondary limbs resting at his sides. He eyes the approaching creature with a sour look down the length of his beak.

Her wings are out, spread and twitching as she descends, aiding in her balance. She wears garb similar to A'kyr but it's deeper, richer in make and more regal, her chin and cheeks baring silver marks that echo those he's seen before on the rangers who often follow his every step, ensuring he stays within the Wellspring.

She must be that Sandmaster every gelfling prattles on about and praises so highly, A'kyr ranting and raving about her the few instances he was sober enough to even remember.

"Zymira." A'kyr breathes, leveraging himself up to his feet only to be aided the rest of the way by the Sandmaster herself.

She gives the younger gelfling an appraising smile, one that drives a thin blade into Mal's guts and twists the haft when she reaches out a hand to wipe red dust from his robes.

"I did not expect him to be so brutal." She starts, looking over her shoulder just enough to keep an eye on Mal as she continues, "From the way you spoke of him, he seemed quite docile."

Docile? Mal bristles, tail sweeping against the ground and his head lowering as his focus narrows down into a gelfling sized point, his whole attention latched onto every minute movement the Sandmaster makes.

"No matter." Zymira turns her back to A'kyr, the younger gelfling seeming to sag in relief once her scrutinizing gaze had fled him. Yet, she offers one last word of praise over her shoulder, "You showed exceptional skill in staying alive, A'kyr."

She meets Mal's eyes now, hands clasped behind her back, wings mostly tucked away but still showing ever so slightly as she tilts up her chin and looks down her nose at him.

"I have a favor to ask of you, skekMal."

Oh, so that's what this is? Mal thinks, a growl low and dark under his breath, as anger curls at the base of his spine.

"'M not interested."

Zymira looks taken aback by this for a moment, eyes widening and brows rising before her entire face shifts, features folding in and casting shadows where there once laid light. "Gruenak have been spotted traversing the Claw Mountains, it is a threat to our territory and the Sifa alike."

Mal inspects his talons, a haughty, agitated air to the movement, "Why should I give a damn?"

"The Sifa are our trading partners, invaluable allies and they have asked for a tracker, the best we can find." Zymira reasons, stepping closer, a hand on the hilt of her shamshir, for being so short she has the same air of authority as the Conqueror did and it has Mal backpedaling on his initial assessment of her.

"And while a Dousan knows their way about a trail-" she continues, voice dropping into something bitter, "they can not follow days old scents and those eroded by wind or rain."

"What high praise." Mal puts a mocking talon to his chest, bending at the waste until he's closer to her level, "Am I your hunting dog now? You think I'll just sit and trot at the heel for you lot--" he spits the last two words with a venomous snarl, not caring that it makes the crease in Zymira's brow deepen, "-- oh, that'll be the fuckin' day."

"Unless you wish to spend the foreseeable future high on urdrupes, I'd suggest you take the offer, Outcast." Zymira warns, bringing her snout closer to the tip of his beak, unwavering, unafraid, no hint of fear in her dark eyes, she genuinely was unafraid, not pretending to be so as A'kyr and other Dousan were prone to do. No, she was truly a force to be reckoned with and it had him standing back up, reeling in the beginning notes of pride over this show of resolve.

"And if I refuse?"

"Then it's an order."

"Oh an order?" He purrs, a laugh dancing along the syllables. Circling around her, there is a sashay to his steps, a swagger of confidence as he moves, "And what, pray tell, makes you think I'll listen?"

"Because I'm your only way out of the Wellspring."

Hmph, he pauses in his step, talons scratching softly at his chin… now it was compelling, and with blood still pumping furiously in his veins it's made all the more exciting of a prospect.

"Fine."

"Excellent, we sail out at first light, do try and sober up." She casts her parting words over her shoulder, both Mal and A'kyr left to stare at her retreating back.

The moment she's out of sight Mal swings his head, a dangerous glare aimed at A'kyr, he doesn't say anything, by yesmit he doesn't even need to. The gelfling ducks his head, ears tilting back as A'kyr tosses his shoulders in a shrug, a sheepish smile growing on his lips until his teeth are showing ever so slightly.

It should incense him, make him angry, burn his insides and ignite them with fury that he was ever pulled into the gelfling's little game, falling for his taunt in some rigged hunt meant to test Mal's skill, like the careful judgment of a prized specimen and its worth.

But there's only relief like a simultaneously heavy and feather light weight upon his heart. He says nothing, turns with a roll of his eyes, tail smacking into the gelfling softly, but not too gentle, enough to buff the creature over and chase an undignified yelp from his throat as A'kyr sputters in surprise.

Mal can only laugh to himself in reply, mirthful at the gelfling's expense, already retracing his steps as A'kyr chases at his heels a laugh of his own chiming through the air.

Any outsider would think them friends, but both know where they truly stand, world's apart with no inkling of hope to cross such a chasm. One consumed by obligation, duty, and a drive to be free, but plagued by the looming fear of his past. The other consumed by disturbing guilt, loss, and a feral, crippling desire to be free to cast the collar from his throat and the brands from his skin, to be a hunter once more.

Their goals aligned, their pasts both troubled, loss sung in their souls and resonated between them but they could not be more different, or at least that's how they witnessed each other.

Two strangers from two different worlds, the only thin thread that connects them is a bond forced upon them.

And isn't that a sobering thought, Mal muses, tilting his head ever so slightly to cast a pitying look beyond his shoulder. Watching A'kyr as he kept pace with Mal's longer strides, a far away look in his eyes as he used the end of his quarterstaff to push those giant leaves from his path.

That this gelfling is his only companion and in turn Mal is his.

He shakes the surprisingly tender thought from his skull, disturbed by the moment of weak emotions. Hardening his resolve, he keeps his beak trained forward and hunches lower, talking curving into the fabric of an empty pouch at his hip.

If they are to sail out at the Rose Sun's first light then he'll need to track down some more supplies before the quake in his limbs and the anxious energy behind his eyes is too much to bare.