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The world felt so much larger than before. So vast, so expansive, and yet he could not take a moment to enjoy any of it. Aven needed to keep moving, whether he wished to or not. A beast of immense size hot on his heels, he couldn't slow down for a second to chance it reaching him. He saw the corpses of orange and blue it left behind, and he refused to let himself become one of them.
And yet, something in his core was urging him the other direction. To turn around, to leap past it and find the source of that pull. He knew what it was, the source was obvious... nothing had been the same since he had met her. Since he had met that blue star of light. Someone he had been supposed to absorb, to take her place, to finally have a place where he would be stable instead of fighting to maintain his shape. Yet that didn't happen, he couldn't, she had been his equal in every way and had resisted him. And now? Now he couldn't help but find himself pulled to her, even with his life on the line.
He couldn't afford to get distracted. He needed to look forward, keep moving no matter what his core was begging him to do. Move forward, keep going, follow the instructions of his core, the paths of the stars to guide him forward. He'd find a safe place, surely. A hand moved to the back of his neck, to move his hair away from-
He doesn't have that long of hair.
He paused, the realization of what he was feeling hitting him as hard as a speeding comet. Long hair, his scarf vanished from sight. His vision dropped down to his form, and the familiar shape of sharp muscles and black shadows was replaced with white curves that carried so much strength. Hands that were covered in callouses from gripping weapons with so much force, hair that reached his feet, and a tense energy that wished to be released from within. This wasn't him. This wasn't anywhere close to who he was, and yet it wasn't unfamiliar either.
It was her. For a moment, he was in her place.
The realization came with a jolt of pain in his core, collapsing him down to his knees as shocks of energy escaped him. A moment of confusion, of yearning, of his core begging and pleading to move towards the source again. A moment he was himself, warm, strong as the wind, the next he was her, cold, sharp as lighting. Faster, faster, blending sensations until he couldn't tell where she stopped and he began. An aching hole in his chest began to scream, begging for something to fill it.
And then it was over. His senses returned, and only now did he realize how hard and heavy his breathing had become. His core was pulsing in time with a rhythm he had no recollection of, and his body was so tired. He was breathless, exhausted, everything just hurt all over, the empty feeling in his chest only growing worse by the moment.
And yet the sound of wings behind him forced him back to his feet. He couldn't stay. He couldn't risk it.
It was behind him. It wanted him dead. He couldn't let it win...
She was behind him too, only a few steps away.
What would happen if she were the one to find him instead?