Avishraa Reloaded

As they traveled, Ilirith found herself with some thinking to do.

Now, at least, she understood why she'd kept catching Demarath stealing glances at her. In hindsight, it seemed a bit obvious, but she'd never really expected anyone to find her beautiful - she knew well enough that, in many respects, she wasn't conventionally beautiful. While she'd had some thoughts about getting closer to Demarath, she'd fully expected that it would involve, well, more effort to see her in that light.

And her? Well, certainly she liked him. He wasn't spectacularly handsome; royal palaces tended to attract all sorts of good-looking males looking for careers in decorating some rich female's harem, so she'd seen plenty of them around, and he wasn't quite in their class. But being a telepath tended to make personality important, and an awful lot of them had made themselves repellent by being, not to put too fine a point on it, arrogant pricks. She was quite happy to accept average looks if they came with a personality she found pleasing.

It had therefore dawned on her that, although the Matriarch had commanded her to look but not touch, said Matriarch was now gone and her successor was a traitor and had no rightful hold over her, and that she could therefore touch as she liked; and that, in addition, she was now in the company of someone who seemed like he might, at some point, be amenable to some friendly touching with her.

And in fact (and she was very proud of this logic), knowing and suspecting what she did of the Matriarch's last commands to her, it could even be construed as an act of loyalty to put herself in an unparalleled position to watch Demarath and ensure his wellbeing, all from up close.

It was a very conveniently self-affirming thing, she thought cheerfully, when you could get personal desire and duty to run in perfect parallel.

They had by this point entirely left the lands that Ilirith was familiar with, and so now Zadireth led them. They had come down out of the hills into a wide, flat swamp, studded with crooked trees and devoid of clear trails. Zadireth, at least, seemed to have been here before, and knew how to move through in a way that didn't involve swimming (much).

“This particular swamp is a bit too unfriendly to civilized use for many people to come in here,” he explained, as they slowly picked their way through. “It'll make it a bit unpleasant for us as well, but also less likely that we get seen. There are certain steps I can take if we are, but that's something to avoid if possible.”

Moving through this environment involved some cautious manoeuvring. It wasn't nearly as problematic as it could be if they were alone, but occasionally, paws sank a little deeper than the owner of those limbs wanted them to sink, even with due diligence. Even those sinks were not usually deep, however, and they were not at any risk of drowning in the muck - but it made speedy progress impossible.

Running, for example, would just make someone painfully faceplant once a foot was caught in the mire, and likely break some ribs.

In any case, it was painfully obvious that Zadireth was right about his observation of how well-travelled this stretch of the landscape was likely to be - both a blessing and a curse.

Despite all this, Demarath had become a little less tense. Now that he could fish and make himself tangibly useful, he no longer felt like an automatic burden - although he was certainly still largely questioning whether there was any use other than novelty for his powers, and if so, if he had much of a chance of learning how to make them useful.

“What steps?” Demarath asked, tone one of curiosity. He knew that Zadireth could alter his appearance, of course - it was hard to forget his entrance - but he struggled for the moment to picture how this might translate into a useful countermeasure once they had already been spotted as they were, so he presumed there was more to it.

“I'm capable of shifting the appearance of others besides myself,” Zadireth replied, pausing and peering carefully ahead. There were mists starting to rise from the muck, which made it hard to see very far ahead. “If they're close enough. Ilirith should be able to pick up the approach of other takmar before they see us, which gives us a bit of time to act.”

He glanced at Ilirith, who still looked a bit abstracted. “You are keeping a watch, aren't you?”

“Yes, yes,” Ilirith muttered.

Zadireth appeared to decide not to press the issue. “Anyway, if you're both close enough to me, I can make us all bigger - for a while. Hopefully long enough to pass as normal. If not, then we may have to fight our way out and run - or fly - for it. Ordinary travelers will probably be too scared of us to follow.”

Demarath was quite unsure how to feel about the prospect of Zadireth making him bigger - the revelation that Zadireth could do that rather alarmed him, especially for its suddenness. It took some willpower not to stop in his stride. And indeed, as soon as he came to terms with the idea that he might be made bigger to appear as a normal takma, he began to wonder what else Zadireth could do with his body…

At least common sense returned quickly enough. If he wanted to, he might be able to make their blood boil - or something like that, the mechanics of anything useful were still a bit beyond him, after all - and he knew it was a ludicrous thought to assume he would. No, Zadireth had only helped them so far; there was no particular reason to assume he wanted to mangle their bodies.

If the effect was physical at all; it seemed so from the narrative so far, but he'd have to ask to be sure, and he wasn't sure he wanted that confirmation at the present time.

“Okay,” he said, his acknowledgement rather revealing his apprehension about it, but no less sincere for it. “Let's… hope it doesn't come to that.” For many reasons, naturally, totally unrelated to Demarath's very specific discomfort at being shifted. Not that comfort in general had been high on their list of options lately.

“Mind you,” Zadireth went on, “it's come in handy a few times. Free Chosen can't afford to pass up an escape option when they have it-”

“Shh!” Ilirith hissed abruptly, motioning for the others to stand still. Zadireth immediately stopped and went silent.

At the very edge of the assassin's senses, there was a mind. A very odd mind. ~Someone's out there,~ she told them silently. ~Only one, I think. Not moving.~

Zadireth sighed, very quietly. ~Of course there's someone else here. Can you pick up anything else?~

~They're angry.~ Zadireth shrugged. He could certainly imagine that someone sitting in a swamp would be angry about it. Ilirith continued, ~I think they're looking for something.~

The bronze considered this. ~Well,~ he concluded, ~best to try to avoid them, then.~

Demarath took no further urging to pause, either, though his silent cringe was perhaps a little elevated for the anticipation of Zadireth messing with his body. Now it was certainly too late for him to say something like 'can you just… not'.

But as far as encounters went, one takma was as good a news as they could get. A single takma was unlikely to be a threat to the three of them. A single takma they could handle

Pretty sure.

They continued onward, angling away from the presence at Ilirith's direction. After a while, however, Demarath's chances of coming out of the situation unaltered appeared to be damaged when Ilirith spoke up again. ~I think they must have noticed we're here - somehow,~ she said, tension in her mental voice. ~They're moving this way.~

She peered into the thickening mist, and then nodded at an area where the muck looked far more liquid than that on which they stood. ~Swimming, I think. If they're below the surface, we won't have much visual sign that they're coming.~

At that point, however, Demarath began to feel a tingling sensation in the back of his head. It was very much like that he'd started to feel when he'd first met Ilirith and Zadireth - though, in their cases, he'd gotten so used to it that he barely notices anymore.

From the look of surprise and, in all honesty, glee that passed across Zadireth's face, he'd felt it too.

Oh. Oh. It wasn't a regular takma at all. Somehow, despite the odds slanted against it, they were about to, in the middle of nowhere, come across another Chosen. Demarath's relief at that he likely wouldn't be adjusted to appear differently mingled with the spiking anxiety that he had no idea what to expect.

At some point during his attempts to sort his thoughts, it occurred to him that a fellow Chosen was perhaps not necessarily by definition going to be friendly, and he took a misguided, instinctive step back - thankfully onto solid ground.

Zadireth stared out into the muck, trying to spot any sign of the hidden presence. “Ilirith,” he said quietly, “could you call out to them with your mind? Let them know that there are other witches here and we mean them no harm.”

Ilirith looked dubious, but aimed a half-lidded gaze toward their observer.

There were a few moments of silence, in which a shape of a head, barely protruding above the surface, became visible, moving slowly and cautiously. As it came within empathic range, Demarath and Zadireth could feel the anger Ilirith had spoken of - not ordinary anger, but rage, hot and overpowering, poorly contained by an empathic shield that seemed to flicker. There was a sudden spike of surprise, and then panic-

Ilirith abruptly pulled out her daggers. “I think we-”

A small, tight ball of light flew from the region of the swimming figure. It shot straight toward a nearby tree, gnarled and struggling to grow up from the swampy ground, and caused its boughs to burst into flame.

But this was not the end of it. There was a feeling of effort on the part of the stranger, and the flames began to bend and twist, as if being shaped by invisible paws, and formed themselves into the shape of a takma's head - rough, yes, lacking great detail, but its stiffly erect antennae and snarling mouth set in an unmistakable display of warning.

The pyrotechnics caught Demarath's attention. He stared blankly at the display. Anyone looking at him without the aid of mentalist powers might assume him frozen in terror, but this would be a grave, grave misunderstanding of the emotions running through him right now:

Demarath had transitioned from a brief alarm, over confusion, to exuberance. There was a familiarity to what he was seeing, a part of him convinced that, with due effort, he could perhaps learn to do the same thing, much more easily than he'd tried to learn telekinesis.

Not quite having the good sense to cower from the display, Demarath instead cautiously reached toward it, careful only not to let himself get drawn in deeply enough to forget everything else, and like someone respectfully unwrapping a present that they had been given began to do what he was still best at: Drawing the heat out of the angry flames.

Ilirith, daggers at the ready, had frozen in utter astonishment as the tree burst into flame. Any opportunity for mental rebalancing was interrupted by the sight of Demarath reaching toward the fire.

Zadireth, to her horror, was not much more help. He looked… pleasantly surprised. Did males have no concept of 'threat analysis'?

As Demarath drew the heat from the flames, they changed color from yellow to a cool red. The empathic presence in the muck radiated momentary astonishment, then a welter of confused emotions ending in a sort of sullen resentment, and then, abruptly, the flames snapped out, as if snuffed, the reservoir of heat jerked away from Demarath's magical grip. The barely-visible head sank beneath the surface - at least, far enough that it could no longer be easily seen.

Ilirith kept a dagger aimed at the spot where it had been, watching for any further sign of activity, but finally found her voice sufficiently to shout at her companions, “What is wrong with you? Both of you?”

Ilirith's outburst prompted Demarath to snap out of his contemplation of the gesture just exchanged and into a confusion centred on her.

…wrong? It took some effort for him to truly remember that fire was a hazard for most people (really even for Demarath, he just had a different relationship with it, so to speak) and Ilirith was probably reacting to him not having viewed it as such.

On the other hand, Demarath could only guess what Zadireth might have done to attract her astonishment, not having witnessed it at all, having been a little… distracted.

“It wasn't much of a threat,” he tried to soothe, his tone friendly. “It gave us an excellent opportunity to show that we're witches– Chosen, too. And in drawing the heat from it rather than…” – he paused, glancing at Ilirith's daggers and stopped himself. It wasn't like he thought she'd done anything wrong, so contrasting it with her approach wasn't going to help any of them. “It's a peaceful gesture.”

Ilirith jabbed a dagger emphatically in the direction of the empathic signal. “That wasn't! The correct response to a threat is not to stand still and, and play with it to show peaceful intention!” She started to calm down. “I've spent the last cycle or so as a bodyguard, remember? That was a classic case of how a bodyguard does not want to see her charge behave in a potentially dangerous situation. I don't know whether you could have been hurt by fire if something had gone wrong, but that was the wrong damn way to find out. Not to mention what could've happened to either of the rest of us.

“And you-” she added, rounding on Zadireth. ”-you haven't mentioned anything about being able to control fire-“

“No, not really,” Zadireth murmured, evidently fascinated by the tirade.

”-and yet you just stood there grinning at it! You could've been fried to a crisp!“

Zadireth looked at her blankly for a moment. Finally, he said, as if unsure what the problem was, ”…yes?“

Ilirith's antennae flushed; she squeezed her eyes and mouth shut as if trying to physically hold in her frustration, then whirled around and hurled her dagger at a tree further back along the path, embedding it in the wood with a loud thunk. Casting a withering look at the two males, she marched off to retrieve it.

Demarath's gaze followed Ilirith, his expression uncomprehending. Nothing bad had happened. As far as he could guess, his reaction had contributed to de-escalating a potentially tense situation - had it not? He let his attention sift through the landscape, his antennae tentatively curving to express doubt, both at his own assessment and the situation at large.

The source of the magic had disappeared into the muck, by the looks of things. With that thought came a mild pang of yearning - someone out there knew how to handle fire. It felt like potential of kinship had simply been withdrawn by fate, just tantalisingly out of reach.

With a sigh, he sat down. In a way, it was the strangest way he'd behaved so far - previously, he'd been eager to internalise any reprimand. But this was so foreign to him that he couldn't convert it into self-loathing - at least not yet. Once the wonder and vague daydreams of kinship wore off, unless Ilirith's mood improved, he would no doubt start acting like a scolded puppy.

Zadireth likewise gazed after Ilirith, then twisted his head in a helpless shrug. “I wouldn't take it personally, if I were you,” he murmured, quietly enough to avoid Ilirith hearing. “She's Srian and she's trained to guard against potential threats: put those traits together and you get a personality that will have very definite feelings about how cautious one should be situations like this.

“I imagine that once she reminds herself that nothing bad happened, she'll calm down a bit.” He grinned, and added dryly, “She'll need some calmness, because I intend to try to find whoever that was and convince them to come along, and I'll probably need Ilirith's help. I don't imagine she'll be enthusiastic about the idea.”

Demarath's expression, on the other hand, while betraying mild surprise, made it quite clear that he was not at all opposed. Another addition to their team, if they could indeed be convinced to join forces, would increase the safety of all of them while they travelled - and add new potential topics for conversation.

He opened his mouth to say something, but noticed a bit belatedly that he wasn't really sure what. Instead, with only a slightly awkward delay, he asked: “When do you think she'll calm down?” It was an odd question to ask Zadireth, really - out of the two of them, Demarath knew Ilirith better, but was of course far less confident in his assessment.

Zadireth evidently felt the question to be odd as well, since he looked particularly amused by it. “I think you're asking the wrong person,” he replied, as Ilirith wrenched her dagger out of the tree and start back toward them. “She's the only mind-reader in this bunch.”

To both their surprises, Ilirith stopped in her tracks, the affronted expression sliding off her face. The she scurried over to them. “Someone else is nearby - a lot of someones,” she murmured urgently and pointing in the direction they'd been heading. “They're coming this way from over there.”

“Hm,” Zadireth mused, glancing in that direction. “Inconvenient. What do they have on their minds?”

“They're looking for something - or someone. They don't seem happy.”

Demarath's instinct was to take a look - although without sacrificing safety in the process. “How many?” he asked, softly.

'Looking for someone' suggested that perhaps they were after the Chosen who had introduced themselves with the flames - there wasn't enough kinship as that Demarath wanted to risk anything to rescue them, hiding or fleeing seemed like the better option, but if 'a lot' was a manageable collection of non-Chosen, they might have a good chance of doing something.

He was at least curious - while maintaining that the best battle plan was always not to battle at all. Which prompted his second question: “Would it work to fall back?” Ilirith was no Oracle, of course, but if she sensed anyone in the other direction as well, they might have to figure out how to hide more quickly than strictly comfortable.

Ilirith closed her eyes. “There's no one behind us - yet - but I think they've got someone in the sky. Not close enough to see us yet, but it wouldn't take much for them to catch up to us if they did. We might be better off if we do what that other witch is doing and hide in the muck.”

She paused again. “There's a lot of them, though,” she added. “At least… ten? Fifteen? Maybe more still coming.”

“We'll hide, then,” Zadireth decided. “Trying to run away while slogging through all this is going to be too difficult anyway; trying to fly away will likely mean we get spotted faster; and, besides, I don't want to leave without trying to get that Chosen to come with us.” He started wading into the silt-choked water.

“Is that really a priority right now?” Ilirith asked, removing her cloak and unbuckling her harness.

“Yes,” he replied firmly. “That's the whole reason I'm out here in the first place. I wandered into the middle of a prison to find Demarath, remember?”

For once, Demarath did not instantly become distracted by Ilirith - the situation was rather alarming, after all. He followed Zadireth's example, while keeping his attention largely on the directions Ilirith had indicated, suspiciously trying to spot motions between the foliage and in the skies. He tucked his wings against his body as to offer the muck less resistance.

The tense situation unfortunately did not make the muck any more pleasant to descend into. It felt more dangerous than a river - as though some creature with an appetite for takmar was perhaps resting within it, out of sight. It was a strange feeling, contrasting sharply to how at home he had felt in clearer waters.

The detritus whispered against his skin, strands of plant material wrapping about his arms, not quite impeding him, but promising that he'd be accumulating more until it did.

Zadireth, after checking that the bag hung around his neck was as cinched as tightly as it could be, slipped easily into the muck without evident discomfort. Some instinct, much like Demarath's, shrieked at the thought of being surrounded by such impenetrable murk; but what little there was of him that was able to acknowledge it found it soothing.

Ilirith chose a dagger from one of its sheaths, then another, and then wrapped the harness up in her cloak and held it awkwardly over her head as she joined the two males in moving out into the swamp. Once they had gotten an appreciable distance from the path, she glanced around and stuffed the dark bundle into a hollow in a tree trunk.

The mists over the swamp began to thicken, but less reassuringly, the sound of voices - male, from the sound of it - called to each other, echoing over the murk. As they became audible, there was a flare of empathically-transmitted rage; the witch hiding in the muck had evidently heard the newcomers as well.

There was triumphant, vengeful shouting in the distance, and splashing noises as the newcomers approached; they had apparently felt the witch's outburst, as well.

Ilirith's voice sounded in Demarath's head. ~It's the other witch they're looking for, sure enough. They're going to kill them if they find them. And maybe vice versa.~

'Vice versa' Demarath only had mild reservations about - it sounded like self-defence to him, so the Unchosen takmar were getting what they bargained for. He narrowed his eyes, as though it made any appreciable difference what he thought - but there was still an instinct of kinship with the anonymous witch and so he found himself wondering if something could be done after all that was nonetheless reasonably safe.

In any case, they were likely to be busy with each other more than the three of them, so they ought to be reasonably safe if they kept out of the line of proverbial or literal fire. And from this relative subjective safety came Demarath's query: ~Is there anything we can… do?~

There were more shouts, and the sounds of the nearer pursuers splashing and slogging their way toward the burst of anger… and then, in the distance, a WHOOMPH and a sudden lighting of the fog accompanied by what seemed to be the sound of someone burning to death, screaming all the while. That someone, evidently, had encountered the other witch, though apparently alone; there was much more shouting and splashing, but no other similar noises.

Ilirith finally replied, and her tone was businesslike. ~We would be exposing ourselves to unnecessary risk. There's a lot of them, we don't know how they're armed, and although we have powers we can use against them, you don't have any experience fighting and I'm not sure- wait, what?~ From the way her gaze had suddenly snapped toward Zadireth, it was clear that he'd said something to her. ~Zadireth!~ Then, aloud, in a hissing whisper, “What in the Abyss do you think you're doing?”

Zadireth, who had turned toward the distant sounds, glanced over his shoulder with a grin, exposing his teeth in the manner of someone planning something very nasty, and murmured, “I won't be a moment.” He lowered himself further into the water and paddled quietly off.

~That idiot!~ she fumed silently. ~He's just going to go in and try to take them by surprise! He's going to get himself killed!~

Demarath made a soft, barely audible noise that nonetheless conveyed his alarm, especially given that his eyes had gone wide. ~Should we help him?!~ he asked, pushing his shoulders out of the muck a little, only to sink back down, his restless body radiating unease.

Ilirith swore in a low voice; by now the excitement had moved far enough away to be out of earshot. “Without him, we're going to be lost out here. He's the only one who knows where this 'Citadel' is supposed to be. We need to at least be sure that he lives through this.” She hesitated, but only briefly. “You come along, but stay behind me. I imagine you could zap people at a distance if you needed to, but I don't want you going face-to-face with an enemy.”

She wished she hadn't removed her harness, but it would take too long to buckle it back on now. She started swimming through the muck and fog in the same direction Zadireth had gone.

In the distance, there was a great, steaming hiss, another roar of furnace-flame and a horrible organic sizzling, and then silence, apart from the shouts of confusion and alarm.

Joy of joys - right into the fray of things. His mind latched onto the most harmless complaint it could by way of mental defence: They'd gotten themselves caked with dirt and grime for nothing.

With an expression much like a frantically paddling dog, Demarath followed after Ilirith, the palpable tension drumming his heartbeat into his skull. His motivation was caught somewhere between 'stay behind as much as possible, don't involve yourself in a fight', 'stay close to Ilirith for the benefit of her protection' and 'stay close to Ilirith to watch her back'.

Ilirith and Demarath swam and, where possible, slogged through the muck. For a while, from ahead, there was only continued shouting at cross-purposes and more splashing. As they moved, the fire-wielder's rage became detectable again, silently screaming out like an empathic foghorn.

Despite the ambush tactics they were employing, the mysterious Chosen was clearly only barely restraining themselves from more precipitate action.

Fearful muttering from ahead signaled that at least some of the group searching the swamp had decided to start moving in their direction, possibly to escape being charbroiled. Ilirith motioned for Demarath to halt - at least it was getting shallower here, so they could touch bottom - just as figures became visible through the fog.

As the approaching hunters caught sight of the two of them, there was a panicked shout and the group of them - four or five were visible - halted in sudden uncertainty, and in that split second a huge, serpentine something lifted its head from the water and struck one of the hunters in the neck and shoulder with six-inch fangs, while muscular coils heaved around a second one and began constricting. They others jumped away, then started flailing at the bronze creature with clubs and knives.

Ilirith watched for a moment in horror. What was that thing? But after a moment, the strange but by now familiar shape of its mind had become clear. “That thing's Zadireth!” she shouted, plunging forward.

…well, that was a neat trick if there ever was one. For far too many fractions of seconds, Demarath's mind snagged against the magnificent display, awed by an ability that seemed so much less crude than his own. Then he snapped out of it and followed his de-facto mentor forward, unsure what he was doing - but some reptile part of his brain was reasonably sure it had it covered.

His feet scrambled against the yielding ground at the edge of the water, dragging himself and his wings out of the muck in disregard for how graceful it might look and brought a sudden laser focus around to focus on one of the attackers.

For a second, the world was still for him, unmoving, a slice of time for him to observe in silent analysis. A vicious part of his mind, fueled by the frustration of having been forced to flee his old home, forced to participate in this fight, took cold inventory of the unfolding scene and asked quietly: Why not draw the heat out of a takma body?

And so his magic reached out toward his chosen victim.

The burgundy male on whom Demarath was applying his power had brough down his club savagely on Zadireth's side, but as he lifted it again, his movements slowed, and he began to shiver. He dropped his forelimbs, the club sliding from his fingers, and he sank slowly to the ground - such as it was, being a quarter-meter under water.

There might have been more to see, but the thrashing of Zadireth's serpentine body sent the victim rolling.

Meanwhile, a thrown dagger hissed through the air and caught one of Zadireth's attackers in the face; Ilirith herself arrived soon afterward and leaped onto another's back, plunging her other dagger into the side of his neck.

It took some effort to dislodge that focus, not to keep a near-useless anchor on the battered body after its chances of survival had already plummetted, not to try to freeze the water it had sunk under - which would have been beyond his ability, anyway - but he managed to pull his desperate, vicious energy free to latch onto something else.

Demarath's wings snapped up angrily, as though he wanted to take to the air, flicking the mud on them to the sides - thankfully not onto anyone. Heart hammering in his chest, his attention snapped up, scanning the skies for any flying takmar that might yet try to do his companions harm, his subdued nervous edge twitching at the muscled of one wing shoulder.

Just as he was about to draw his attention back down and help one of his travel companions in their own fight, even though they hardly seemed to need it, a shape emerged against the sky. The laser focus returned, narrowing Demarath's eyes, priming his body for a fight as though it weren't already, drumming into his mind that the takma in the sky had come to attack while the others' eyes were on the ground–

The discharge of energy crackled upward, lashing toward the target with an aim so certain as though it weren't moving at all, as though the takma's veering to the side were of no consequence, driven by fear and cold rage and desperation.

As Ilirith leaped off the tumbling body of her and Zadireth uncoiled from his, there was a terrible fwump as the discharge struck the flier - who had, evidently, not been watching the ground. There was a short, shrill scream and a horrible sizzling noise as the stricken takma lurched in the air and then plummeted abruptly into the water.

The water extinguished the flames instantly, but the way that the fallen takma's motionless body was still visible sticking out of it suggested that it hadn't been deep - and that, if the attack hadn't killed him, the impact had certainly finished the job.

Zadireth's body was - well, the least horrifying description was simply that it was returning to normal - and Ilirith had prudently looked away from him, but the look she was giving Demarath instead, with the occasional glances at his victims, was a mix of awe, and respect, and utter shock. The only though in her head was: I didn't know he could do that.

With the most immediate threats gone and the monstrous serpent returning to a more familiar form, Demarath's body sagged forward, shaking with spent energy and a confused terror that now ran through him in erratic sparks. Gradually it dawned on him what had happened, an inkling of what he had achieved, what it meant for his friends and what it meant for his enemies.

He shuddered, his forepaws sunk into the moist ground, his posture awkwardly hunched. In any other situation, he would look pitiable, like a scolded dog that had come in from playing in the mud, but in the present context he looked distinctly Kaean, touched by an edge of madness that effortlessly married confused exuberance and fear.

If anyone had asked him earlier whether he could take down two takmar that posed a threat to his friends, he would have frightfully scoffed at the notion. Now he frightfully scoffed at that he had achieved it.

Self-conscious of his appearance and scattered drops of emotions that leaked out of his mind, he poured effort into pulling himself back together - and managed, if one subtracted more shaking that happened in the process.

They weren't done yet, potentially. There was a Chosen battling the rest of the takmar troop and possibly in need in their help, still.

Ilirith didn't know whether she wanted to congratulate him or scold him. She was the bodyguard here - and yet he'd stayed out of reach, hadn't even touched his targets - but he'd never killed anyone before, as far as she knew - but he'd done a pretty thorough job of it now - and that look, that feral look…

“That…” she began, “that was… it was very…”

Zadireth, who had returned to his natural form, cleared his throat. “Do excuse me. An unexpected assist and an appreciated one, very well done, but… we do have to get on. Ilirith, can you tell where our hidden friend is?”

Ilirith hesitated, her eyes blank, and then pointed. “The pursuers are converging over there.”

“Good enough,” he responded, and started moving in that direction. A slight catch in his breathing and some serious bruising around the chest suggested that he was at least in pain, if not seriously injured, but he seemed determined not to let it slow him down. The path led onto ground that was, if not exactly dry land, at least enough above water to be no more than damp.

As they started to follow him, Ilirith placed a thought into Demarath's mind. ~Are you all right?~

~Yep,~ he responded, although it sprung back at her with too much immediacy to be entirely convincing. It did seem clear it was the most useful answer she was likely to get out of him until they were out of here, though - the glimpses of his psyche were quite a bit too disordered to be smoothed out in the near future. Even his antennae seemed unsure what emotion to convey. But at least the shaking had stopped now, even if the underlying stunned emotion had instead simply been directed into arms clasped against each other. From the brief impressions, it all seemed to be confusion, not guilt or regret, although it gave no guarantees that this would stay that way once the confusion resolved; but for now he could probably repeat his party trick if need be, which was perhaps the best they could hope for in the circumstance.

Ilirith looked doubtful, but seemed to understand that there wasn't any point in pressing him about it.

After a few minutes, after which the land had firmed up considerably and the trees were less scraggly, Zadireth slowed down, paused, and then slipped behind a tree, peering into the thick air; Ilirith did the same, telling Demarath, ~There's a lot of them up ahead. A male band of some kind, I think.~

Ilirith led Demarath behind a larger tree than the one which shielded Zadireth, and peered around it. Ahead of them, at least a dozen shapes milled around. Muttered conversations were audible, echoing among the trees.

“-should've never tried to keep hold of a damned witch. I told Jekkath, I said to him-” “Oh yes? You were happy enough to have a new little playmate, though, when we got her, same as everyone else.” “Well, it was done and she was there, right? But it doesn't mean it was a good idea. Bloody Kedrath forgets to dose her once and now we're bein' torched left and right…”

If Demarath had been lucid enough to think about it, he might wonder why there were trying to go after the escaped Chosen at all, if the price of doing so was so high. How many people had they lost so far, in sum? There still seemed quite a few of them left, but poorly equipped to handle the threat they faced. Yet they chose to face it.

Instead he stared silently toward the group, his mind still lost and confused. There was no space in there for fear of this comparatively large number of takmar; there was no space in there to actively wish them harm. But he was ready for it, ready to continue fighting, the wire of fatigue that ran through him still thin for now.

Ilirith had tensed up at the conversation. Her antennae barely twitched, no feeling escaped her empathic shielding, but something about her manner nonetheless suggested her ire had been roused, a fact that was confirmed shortly thereafter when her voice inserted itself in Demarath's head. ~Did you hear that? The sick bastards.~

She glanced over at Zadireth, who was peering calmly at the gathered males with something like a grim smile. Demarath could only dimly hear what she sent to him: ~So what do you intend to do now? …wait for what?~

Among the males, an argument was breaking out. Some of them, evidently having followed the same line of thought that Demarath had, had lost patience with their leader. “This has gone far enough, Jekkath! We should give up and go back to camp!” “I'm not going to leave an angry witch alive to follow us until she finds us with our backs turned. We take her out, then we can go back.” “Don't give us that, you just want to get us killed cramming more meekleaf down her throat-” “I'll cram my sword down your throat if you don't shut up!”

In the background, the witch's blaring emotional output began to fade. Clearly the crowd of males felt it too. “See? She's leaving! Now let's go while-”

There was a terrible, bubbling hiss from across the clearing, where the land plunged steeply into the water; a cloud of steam and vapor erupted, and a thin, tight beam of radiance stabbed outward from it, nailing the speaker in the head.

Amid the shouting and confusion, a shape lurched onto the shore, its form obscured, but it carried the hissing noise with it, in higher and louder pitch. It stood upon two legs, grabbed onto a spear that was being pointed at it, and snarled - the water behind it suddenly acquired a thin scum of icy slush - there was a sputter sound, and then… the figure erupted with flame.

When he'd been younger, among the books in his mother's library had been a children's primer in religion. One section had dealt with the attributes of the Lamnar, the gods of nature and the cosmos, fickle and dangerous, and it had contained fanciful illustrations of them. Among the most memorable had been that of Idrizal, the Queen of Flame, arising from a volcano, a thing of takma-shape but composed of lava, dark, cooled plates with inner fire seething between the cracks, lava dripping from her maw, her eyes twin infernos.

For a very brief moment, seeing the thing rising out of the steam, it looked just like that.

But it was quickly clear that the creature was mortal. The shining in its eyes was mere reflection from its own flame; the plates covering it were evidently swamp mud, instantly baked solid by the sudden heat and already cracking and falling off as the figure moved, revealing glittering scales beneath; and the inferno around her was already dying down. But it - she - was clearly no less dangerous for being mortal; the shaft of the spear had caught on fire in her grip, and she dealt with its horrifed wielder by then biting his muzzle.

Some of the males broke and ran, or struggled to take off. The others started charging the enraged witch. Zadireth, nodding to himself with evident pleasure, stepped out from behind the tree; the scaly hide on his forearms and the end of his tail seemed to be hardening into some kind of armor. “I think perhaps we should intervene at this juncture.”

For all the manner in which Zadireth's observation was spoken with civility and rationality, Demarath's own brain still resisted anything approaching analysis. Instead, it latched first in terror and wonder onto the image of Idrizal, then lurched into a confused notion of a fight, a urge to strike something without a clear, single target.

Guided by instinct, Demarath too stepped out, and some tiny kernel in his mind hoped that the remaining band of males had the good sense to see that there were now others and flee, to save their own lives - to spare Demarath the potential experience of having to kill someone again.

But it was only a tiny kernel and automation took care of the rest with a frightful speed, his heartbeat drowning out any conscious thought that might have made great tactical decisions for him. Fortunately, the crude tactic his instincts shouted down at his tense limbs and guided his magic toward could work: Shock their brains through their eyes.

Some of the males, though apparently fewer than they'd assumed, had clearly been prepared to face one witch. Not a one of them had been prepared to face four, especially when three of them were coming from a direction they weren't facing.

Demarath's lightning scythed through several of them. Spear-points skittered across Zadireth's armor with an unpleasant scraping sound as he slashed at them with his claws, evidently enjoying himself. Ilirith went through opponents one at a time, but quickly, parrying one here, stabbing one there, telekinetically yanking another's feet out from under him.

And the fire-wielder seems intent on burning every member of the band she could get near. And other things, as well: she blasted a cone of fire at a nearby bush, made motions with her forepaws like a puppet-master manipulating marionettes, and send a dozen burning figures - like minature takmar formed from flame - scampering towards various targets, who they leaped onto and clung to.

They began breaking and running, or flying. It was reasonable, under the circumstances, though the way some of them randomly glanced fearfully at Ilirith as they went suggested that she might be doing something to their minds to assist the process.

But one of the retreated males, maddened with panic, fled directly toward her as she struggled with another combatant, and, evidently seeking to get her out of the way rather than change direction, leveled his spear at her. With one forepaw she drove a dagger underneath her opponent's muzzle and up into the brain; she flung out the other and telekinetically pushed at the spear, which deflected it away from her chest but caused it to drive into the meat of her thigh instead. Her leg buckled and she went down under the weight of her dying oppnent, while the spear-wielder leaped over them to continue his escape.

Some instinct of kinship was puppeteering Demarath before he was even conscious of it. If pressed to recount the situation at a later date, he might have ascribed protective rage to his actions, but it felt nothing like that at all from the inside - just like relentless functioning. He was barely aware of what he was doing, mentally floating between gestures, attention dragging behind the fleeing takma that had thrust the spear to send a crackling jolt at the back of his skull. And yet he did not pursue too far, drawn back by the same disembodied automation to Ilirith. His mouth opened and some words came out, his hands helping to peel the corpse off her and reaching to help with the spear where possible, where he would not get in the way. He wasn't sure what the words were; perhaps something soothing, perhaps an expressed indignation at the damage caused by the takma that had leapt past her, perhaps simply Ilirith's name.

Off in the distance, the fleeing takma jerked and writhed as he fell, his muscles overloaded with electricity.

As her foe was levered off her, it was clear that although Ilirith was in pain, she was quite alert enough to be dreadfully angry at having been caught by the attack, as she swore through her grimace at the spear and its wielder. She had the presence of mind to stop long enough to caution Demarath as he took hold of the spear. “Ease it out carefully, or it'll just worsen the wound.”

There seemed to be no more attackers around to interrupt them. The few who had unwisely attempted to stand their ground, thinking themselves safe from the strange Chosen's fire by staying in the water, were even now being gruesomely electrocuted instead, their shrieks mingling with the enraged, and largely incoherent, screaming of their tormentor.

Zadireth, his extremities still covered in armor and his claws covered in blood, wandered stiffly over and assisted Demarath in getting the spear free from Ilirith's thigh, then casually removed a cloth hood from a nearby corpse and handed it to Demarath. “It might be of use as a bandage,” he said, eyeing the blood streaming down Ilirith's leg. “Will you be all right here? I may need to go talk to our new friend over there.”

“Yes,” Demarath hissed, not meaning it as a rebuke of any sort, but too tense to react in a strictly friendly way. It was Ilirith's prerogative to answer the question, besides, but with Demarath guided in large part still by instinct, he didn't stop to think about a social pecking order.

He took the proffered cloth, adopting the worried, fussing mode of a father in regards to Ilirith's wound, only just barely resisting the urge to make cooing, soothing sounds as he tried to dress the wound.

Of course, Demarath had never dressed a wound before. With this in mind, Ilirith, with a certainty that suggested she'd done it many times, gave him directions, including one to bind another strip of cloth higher up her leg and tighter, to restrict the blood flow a bit. “It'll keep the wound from bleeding quite as much,” was her explanation.

Ilirith was… not exactly calm, but clearly the source of her agitation was clearly not from the pain or blood; she kept muttering things like “I must be losing my edge” and “Should've pushed that spear into the other one and taken them both out”.

When she seemed satisfied that the wrappings would hold, she dragged herself upright with Demarath's assistance. It only then began to occur to her, as her temper cooled off a little, that in most other contexts having a male put his hands all over her thigh would probably have been much more enjoyable. Strange were the workings of Seluurin. Carefully testing how much weight she could put on the leg, she murmured, “Thank you,” in a subdued sort of voice.

Demarath was quite beyond feeling confused or offended about any detail of Ilirith's reaction, nor particularly flattered by her gesture of appreciation. It wasn't that he didn't hear it or didn't acknowledge it - there was a friendly sound from him that was unmistakably that - but simply that he was struggling to articulate much more than raw protective emotion.

It took him long moments after Ilirith had risen to calm down to the point of true coherence.

Somehow, they had fended off a whole band of takmar together. It had cost them an awful wound in Ilirith's leg, but they had done it. They were still alive. A lot of their assailants, frankly, had been less lucky by far.

“We did it,” he said, a little numbly, even as he dared to take his eyes off Ilirith for a few moments to scan for Zadireth and the Chosen they'd come to the assistance of. He lasted a few seconds before his unhappy attention was back on Ilirith.

“Yes, I suppose we did,” Ilirith replied. It was dawning on her that Demarath seemed a little stunned. She supposed it was a bit of an achievement - she'd killed people before, quite a few of them, but she'd never been so unwise as to take on an entire troop of them at once, in the open.

“Of course,” she mumbled, “we had magic, and the element of surprise, but still…” She trailed off, frowned, and then turned to look in the direction of Zadireth and the new Chosen, because things there were getting rather noisy.

“Please understand,” Zadireth was saying, in an exaggeratedly soothing voice, “we are not here to harm you. We, too, are witches. We are friends-” He ducked flat as a narrow cone of flame roared over his head.

The Chosen he was speaking to was, now that she wasn't moving around and on fire, much more visible. Though she was still mostly covered in dried mud, there were silver scales visible where it had fallen off. She was rather taller and more heavily built than any of the rest of them, but appeared to have suffered, and healed from, some terrible injuries; something seemed wrong with her muzzle, she moved one of her forelimbs very gingerly, and one of her wings was… well, mangled was about the only good word; it was as if a giant hand had taken it and crushed it into a ball and snapped most of the bones.

She was also staring at Zadireth with wide golden eyes and a wild expression verging on panic. Her good forelimb, trembling with fear or panic or possibly both, was extended toward him. She snarled, and then shrieked - haltingly, as if trying to remember how to form the words - “Get… away!”

With Ilirith's attention firmly shifting toward the new commotion, Demarath's too wandered across.

The stranger's appearance came as a bit of a surprise to him, given how capable a fighter she had proven herself to be - but perhaps it was less surprising in the context of that a whole band had been hunting after her, presumably after physically abusing her in some fashion. It made her achievements all the more impressive.

As he watched and his thoughts continued to thaw back into rational processes, a few thoughts occurred to him - but they were perhaps a bit rude to shout across. 'Have you tried taking a couple of accommodating steps back?' was one of them. 'Have you tried having a more deferential body language?' was another.

Not that Demarath was doing a better job, stupidly staring across to the scene and doing exactly nothing.

He blinked slowly, trying to will himself out of the molasses, rolling his shoulders to regain his own physical awareness. He was definitely here. This wasn't a dream. In theory, he had enough agency to do something other than gawk.

And this was a fellow fire witch - to whatever degree concrete manifestations of magic reflected the underlying skills. Not that Demarath had made pictures with fire before, but the sense of kinship was still very pronounced.

Finally, an urge took him, and he began to approach with some caution, his own air leaning toward apologetic. He was pretty sure he had burnt his energy reserves on the last sparks he'd set off and had thus lost any chance of trying his hand at communicating with fire from afar, much as it would have been a welcome challenge and no doubt a good gesture, both.

“Hey,” he said to Zadireth. “Give her some more space?” he suggested - not by way of accusation, but as a suggestion. There was, after all, already a good deal of space between them; Zadireth wasn't looming over her, or even at wing's reach, just at a comfortable talking distance.

Maybe an uncomfortable talking distance would be better for first contact.

“I'm not really all that close,” Zadireth muttered, but slowly withdrew to a less intimidating distance.

If Demarath had expected any gratitude at his intervention, however, he was quickly disabused of the notion. The stranger whirled to face him instead. “Why,” she snarled, “why are you helping? What do you want from me?”

Next to Demarath, Ilirith's eyes narrowed. She couldn't interpose herself between the angry Chosen and Demarath without visibly encroaching on the former, but she eyed the dagger at her feet. If she had to, she could hurl it without physically picking it up, though not with the same amount of force.

Fortunately, Demarath hadn't expected much of anything, still affected by a dull trance from the battle, although its ill effects had by now dissipated far more than its beneficial ones.

'Fellow fire-witch' continued to do a lot of work for his psyche - while he flinched a very slight bit at the sudden attention, it didn't set him into panic, as the same might have coming from nearly anyone else. Some part of him evidently felt like there ought to be connection here and was willing to risk some scorching.

He tilted his head with some curiosity. “I… don't know how to frame it in those terms,” he admitted readily. “'Want' isn't a word that comes to mind, certainly not with 'from you' attached. If you just want to be on your way, you absolutely can, though you should know we're going somewhere where there are no takmar but those with our inate abilities. That's probably safer than roaming on your own.” Especially given what happened to you last time.

The girl seemed to have difficulty following what Demarath was saying, particularly the word 'innate'. At last, she barked, “What are you talking about?”

“He's saying,” Ilirith spoke up, using the excuse of speech to ease herself between the girl and Demarath, “that we're all witches - like you - and that we're going somewhere where there are only witches. You could come with us and no one would hurt you for having magic.” Ilirith used a different accent and vocabulary than she normally did - it was much more like Ferleth's, and, as he came to think about it, something like that of the guards in the Matriarch's palace, when they talked amongst themselves. He'd never heard her speak like that.

The girl looked slightly less panicked, but far more baffled. “Like… me?” She glanced uneasily between them. “A place with-” She stopped, and then bared her teeth. “That's stupid. There's a… a witch-land and, and if I were dumb enough to come along, you'd let me for no reason? 'Cause you're just that nice?” The last words were spoken with intense contempt and bitterness. “I'm not an idiot, y'know, I'm not getting caught like that again-”

Zadireth, a cunning look on his face, smoothly inserted himself into the conversation. “Ah, but what about a deal?”

The girl's head snapped around to look at him. Her gaze was venomous; however mistrustful she was of them in general, it was clear that she had already formed some special dislike for Zadireth. “So you do want something.”

The bronze nodded agreeably. “The type of magic that you and Demarath here have-” He pointed to the copper. “-is very useful in fending off attackers… and since the way to the Citadel lies through the mountains, having someone else around who could provide warmth would be a welcome addition to the party as well.” As the girl opened her mouth, he added quickly: “And aside from a promise of a home where you won't be hunted, surely Demarath might be able to teach you what he knows about the use of Spark magic-”

Ilirith had acquired a flinty look in her eye. “Zadireth-” she began, but was waved into silence.

“-as you no doubt have things he would like to learn,” Zadireth finished. The girl eyed him suspiciously, then turned to stare hard at Demarath.

Demarath had gotten stuck on the words 'teach you what he knows about the use of Spark magic', so by the time Zadireth finished his spiel, he was unsure where the conversation had gone.

“I may not have a lot to teach?” he said, hesitantly, by way of an apology he wasn't sure was needed. “Not too long ago, all I was doing was, ah– was cooling provisions, really. I'm still getting a hang of this.” A pause. “Although I guess I did fry a few of the– the takmar, that were troubling you.” It was more of a mutter.

It was just about possible to see a grimace spasm across Zadireth's features as Demarath replied; evidently he'd been hoping for something more helpful. Fortunately, the mud-caked witch hadn't been watching.

For the first time, she approached them more closely. Though smaller than an ordinary takma, she was rather taller than him or either of the others, and loomed ominously over both him and Ilirith. This close, he could make out eyes of an unusual color, like pale gold, and it appeared that one side of her muzzle had been dished in by some heavy blow.

She seemed a little bolder now. Was it because they were all witches? Maybe because she finally had the opportunity to be taller than someone else? Maybe she was simply less threatened by Demarath's uncertain attitude. Regardless, and pointedly ignoring Ilirith's increasingly unfriendly scowl, she glared at him. “You were the one who changed my fire earlier?”

Despite the glare, he took it as encouragement. “I– yes, actually!” he said with mild enthusiasm. “I couldn't make something like that myself, I don't think - shape fire like that. I mostly, ah, froze and zapped the takmar. No shapes with fires. No mud-fire armour – oh, are you, ah, familiar with Idrizal at all?” He was doing a poor job of hiding that he was quite delighted by her abilities, likely because no one had told him he shouldn't, and he didn't have the good sense to be intimidated by her glower yet.

The girl was obviously baffled by his attitude toward the conversation, though it wasn't quite clear why. It was rather more clear, though, that she didn't like being baffled.

She seemed to like even less the mention of Idrizal, though - insofar as it was possible to distinguish - not actually enraged. She thrust her muzzle into Demarath's face. “You keep Her out of this-”

There was a faint noise as her nose, much to her surprise, smooshed against an invisible barrier before it got too close to Demarath. She blinked in confusion, then looked at the curled fingers of Ilirith, who had fixed her with a chilly glare. “Do not,” the green said very quietly, “move in on one of us in that fashion, please.”

The silver girl bared her teeth and hissed; Ilirith's lips crinkled as she fought down an equal response, but she lowered her head slightly to make her status-markings more visible. It was difficult to see the silver's under the layer of mud, but after a tense, silent moment she shook her head furiously, whirled around awkwardly, and strode off in a random direction, muttering and snarling.

Demarath's first instinct was to say 'Wait!', but he curbed it, replacing it instead with some mild confusion of his own. Was the implied comparison to Idrizal an insult, or had she not realised that it was leading up to a comparison? Or perhaps she was deeply religious in some way and eshewed such metaphors entirely?

“…do we go after her?” he asked, not making any great effort to hide his voice from the retreating Energist, but intending the audience to be his initial companions and modulating the volume of his voice accordingly.

“I don't think so,” Ilirith began, at a similar volume; but Zadireth spoke over her. “Yes,” he replied emphatically. “At least we need to make the attempt to convince her to come with us. There was a lot of noise here, and bits of the landscape are on fire, and there's smoke, so at some point someone's going to come and try to find out what was happening. She's in danger if she lingers here too long.”

“So are we,” Ilirith reorted. “And she really doesn't seem interested-”

She stopped, listening. There was a sound off in the distance, high-pitched and eerie, and for a moment it was hard to say what it was; but to his surprise Demarath was able to identify it before his two companions, for he had heard it often in his mother's house: the sound of hatchlings squalling. What were children doing out here?

The silver girl, too, had noticed the sound, freezing abruptly in mid-fury; a look of utter horror crossed her face, soon replaced by a terrible rage. Baring her teeth, sparks appearing in the region of her head and scattering around her, she began hobbling as fast as she could in the direction of the noise.

It took all of Demarath's self-control not to laugh. They'd been in a strange situation a moment ago, encountering a reluctantly hostile Energist, yet somehow it had become even stranger. Indeed, what were children doing here?

He took a few steps in the direction of the sound, then paused, beginning a gesture toward Zadireth and Ilirith that couldn't quite decide what it was, either, before in turn simply aborting.

Inwardly, he wondered whether the little ones belonged to their new unhappy acquaintance - but from context it seemed unlikely.

After a moment of stunned inaction, he resumed a curious, cautious stride to follow the sound.

Zadireth and Ilirith followed along with him, the former looking nonplussed and the latter looking confused and reluctant, and both - being injured - with a certain amount of pain. The silver female remained in sight, but only her own injury kept her from outpacing them; it was clear that, if she had been capable of running, she would have.

As they moved onto slightly higher ground than that they'd fought in, a collection of dim, still shapes emerged from the mist; tents, supplies, some firepits. The camp had clearly been here for a while, but one section of it had been badly burned; an indication, perhaps, that it had been from here that she had made her escape from the band.

It was also clear that the camp was mostly abandoned; a few males could be seen, here and there, hurriedly grabbing things and running, particularly when they saw the silver coming. But near the center of the camp was a bent, somewhat slower-moving figure fussing around an intact tent, and this tent appeared to be the source of the crying. The silver girl made directly for it, screeching incoherently as she approached.

The bent figure jerked to attention, and then shuffled in front of the tent, placing himself in the path of the enraged witch, and waved his hands. An elderly male voice pleaded, “Ferleth! No!”

Demarath was simply following along, not quite sure what to do about the situation. A strange form of exhaustion was starting to get to him - the bizarre medley of emotions, adrenaline and stress came together as something of a dull, disembodied ache, a heaviness to his joints. The overall effect was still light, his instincts not yet convinced he was out of harm's way, but his body was at least already expressing its desire to yield to rest, at least for a while.

The little group came to a halt behind Ferleth, who had extended a hand in the direction of the tent, and who gave the impression, with many tics and twitches, just barely able to prevent herself from incinerating the tent and the crying voices in it.

The fact that the bent figure, a somewhat elderly and non-Chosen burgundy-colored male, had interposed himself between the girl and the tent might have had something to do with this, though he was clearly terrified. He babbled frantically at her. “Don't do this, you don't have to do this, girl, they didn't ask for any of this any more than you did-”

“Shut up and get out of the way!” Ferleth howled, tears streaming from her eyes. “'S not your business!”

“It's bad enough what you had to pay, do you have to make them pay too?” begged the old man. “Just… please, calm down-”

Ferleth did not appear to be on the verge of calming down, but her tics and twitches were increasingly joined by trembling.

Zadireth, eyes narrowed, edged as nonthreateningly as possible around Ferleth to try to bring himself into view of both of them. “Excu-”

There was a sudden turn of Ferleth's arm, and a brief but unpleasant roar of flame, which sputtered out after a moment; but Zadireth, who had clearly been prepared for something like this, muttered from near ground level where he'd dropped, “I really wish you wouldn't do that.”

Ferleth gently sank to the ground, sobbing. The elderly male started forward as if to help Zadireth, then looked at him, then up at Demarath and Ilirith. He stared at each of them in turn, not obviously hostile, but still very nervous. “W-witches? Do you know Ferleth from somewhere?”

Ferleth's - evidently entirely unplanned - attack had come too quickly for Ilirith to attempt to stop it, but at some point before its end had stretched out a hand toward her in the manner of one about to attempt some restraint. That Ferleth now appeared to be nonthreatening was not persuading her to abandon this stance.

Ilirith muttered, without taking her eyes off her target, “Not in the least. We just met.”

Some part of Demarath considered approaching Ferleth to lay a reassuring hand on her, but it was obviously a poor idea given the state she was in. Instead, he made his way, curious, to the tent, wondering if something could be done for the little ones that would soothe Ferleth and keep them safe from her at the same time, cautious in his approach, keeping an eye on Ferleth as he moved.

There were, alongside a basic sleeping mat, a pair of largish baskets. In one of them, placed amid bits of blankets and rags, were a trio of hatchlings. They looked frightened, though now that things were currently quiet seemed to be quieting down themselves somewhat; they peered at Demarath in bewilderment.

The other basket contained a heap of decaying vegetation, mostly moss and leaves, but the purpose of it was explained by the small area of eggshell visible through a gap. It was nothing like the nesting material his mother had used for her own eggs; but then, his mother might well have been able to afford to swaddle them in cloth of gold if she'd really felt like it. Presumably this was the commoner way of doing it.

Over his shoulder, the old man murmured, “This wasn't the kind of place for children, really. But I wasn't going to be able to sneak them out of camp without getting caught.”

Demarath crouched carefully beside the basket with the hatchlings, smiling gently. “Hello,” he said to them, warmly. “Everything's all right, I think,” he added, reaching gently toward them with the back of one forepaw, to let them investigate a part of this stranger that had come into their tent. He wasn't altogether sure that everything was all right now, but it didn't feel to him as though he were lying, either.

To the old man, he asked, his tone gentle: “Do you have any plans what to do with them?”

The hatchlings sniffed his paw cautiously, one of them licking it - whether as a gesture of bonding or simple investigation for taste was unclear - and, together with the sound of his voice, it seemed to soothe them. There was that, at least; he'd spent enough time around younger siblings to have an idea of how to talk to children.

The old man glanced back. “I suppose I'm not the one to ask-” he began, but was cut off by Ferleth's voice; it was low enough that it did not disturb the children, but dripping with misery and bitterness.

“Don't you involve me in this, Librith,” she croaked. “It's nothing to do with me.”

“Ferleth,” Librith replied in a wheedling tone, “That's not really the case-”

“Yes it is. I didn't ask for them. I didn't want them. I didn't get a choice about them. They're not mine. You've been looking after them; they're yours.” At no point from where she was curled up on the ground did Ferleth look up at him.

Librith shook his head in defeat. “If I can find a settlement nearby, maybe… but if they grow up to be witches, they won't be safe.”

Demarath was gradually sticking his paws into the basket, gently touching fingers to the hatchlings as it seemed safe to do so. His attention still mostly on the little ones, he thought out loud: “Maybe we could take the little ones with us?”

His uncertainty about it was clear in the tone of his voice - he imagined it was perhaps doable, but the journey was already interesting enough without three babies to deal with.

Still, it seemed as though the fathers had abandoned the babies, the mother didn't want them, and the caretaker doubted his ability to keep them safe. Maybe they wouldn't do any worse than that.

Zadireth, peering into the tent, gave the babies a speculative look, but replied to Demarath in a matter-of-fact tone. “No - there's a long way to go, and too many risks on the way. They're not likely to survive the trip into the mountains at that age - and, on top of everything else,” he added, “they wouldn't be allowed in.”

“In?” asked Librith. Zadireth treated him to a grin that, friendly as it appeared on the surface, was rather unnerving. “Our destination really shouldn't be discussed with those who are not Chosen - witches, as you would say. …No, I fear we must leave you to do the best you can with them. If any turn out to be Chosen, then with any luck one of us shall find them and take them to safety some day.”

“Is there any way we could tell now?” Demarath wondered aloud, running fingers along the little ones' heads. Just because he didn't know of a way didn't mean there was none - and Zadireth, having had interactions with the Citadel before, might know about such things.

“If the mothers and fathers of a child are all Chosen, the children will also be Chosen,” Zadireth said, apparently losing interest in hatchlings in the tent, “but otherwise, no - not until they are older.”

“What does it matter?” Ilirith said, finally relaxing slightly. Ferleth seemed too occupied with her own problems to be hostile at the moment, though she was directing a tearful glare into the tent. “They're too young to be a threat in any case!”

“The Unchosen are not allowed in,” Zadireth replied absently; he was now looking at Ferleth once again. “Even family members. Even by accident. Were we to bring them and any turned out not to be Chosen… no, they cannot come along. That said,” he added, addressing Ferleth, “it does mean that, were you to come with us, they would be far away from you…”

Ferleth turned her glare on Zadireth, but this time, at last, there was a hint of thoughtful uncertainty in her expression, if not actual temptation.

Demarath was still touching the hatchlings, which wasn't helping him form an emotional distance. The idea of just leaving them here felt wrong. His brain was crunching the proverbial numbers, trying to solve the problem for x. The notion that dragons would not be allowed in if they were not witches bothered him; he could understand not wanting someone who had grown up in 'normal' takmar culture in the settlement, but these little ones had barely formed opinions about anyone yet!

If he at all thought the journey was safe, he would have risked a fight with Zadireth and insisted on bringing them. Fortunately, he didn't think so, and so he didn't raise a fuss, intellectually rejecting his second-hand parental urge.

Reluctantly, he pulled back from the little ones, silent.

Librith seemed to be absorbing the fact that no one was going to help him be a father to a brood that, very likely, would contain at least some witches. “Is there nothing I can do?” he asked, plaintively, as Zadireth held Ferleth's gaze.

“That depends on what way you mean,” Zadireth replied. Then a faintly annoyed expression crossed his face, and he sighed. “There is one possibility,” he added. “I hear there's a city across the sea where they don't mind Chosen being around - Aadihash, or something like that. Assuming its neighbors don't get around to conquering it, it might be a safe place for the hatchlings to grow up… but we're going in the opposite direction, so you'll have to make it there on your own, I fear. If nothing else, they're too young for anyone to guess about witchcraft yet, so no one should stop you on that account.”

Ferleth gave the interior of the tent, and the children, a brief glance, and there was, very briefly and very faintly, something like regret there, but it hardened quickly, and she rasped, “If I'm going to go with you, then let's get going.” Zadireth nodded, turned, and motioned for the others to follow.

Demarath dithered for a moment, realising there was another option: He could accompany Librith to this 'Aadihash' place. It wasn't a good option - it would separate him from Ilirith, for one, which he'd rather not, and from Zadireth's choice of wording, their current destination was a safer sanctuary than the strange city.

The only reasons for changing direction would be indulging the second-hand parental urge he'd already told himself he'd dismissed… and curiosity about the alternative.

He followed after Zadireth.

After a few steps, still technically in hearing range of Librith and with no particular interest in hiding the conversation from the takma, Demarath asked: “So, why are we going into the opposite direction?” He didn't pause quite long enough to let anyone answer immediately, instead amending: “I guess what I'm trying to say is that it seems… odd, maybe, that the two witch-friendly places would be so far apart.”

He was having trouble putting an articulable finger on what he meant - but from Zadireth's short description, Aadihash sounded to him like a potential ally, and it might be in the Citadel's interest to have at least some cautiously covert communications with it.

Zadireth mused that it was always tricky, mentioning the distant city.

In fact, Dlyss had rather specifically told him not to do so in front of other Chosen, and as in most things, he preferred to humor her wishes. But Dlyss had given him any number of instructions, and it was only possible to obey them all when they weren't mutually exclusive. Given the choice of preserving possible Chosen lives, he believed he'd picked the more important directive.

Of course, the price was having to explain the situation to the curious, while trying to limit them to what they needed to know.

He rather deliberately waited to respond until they were somewhat further from earshot, before saying in a low voice, “The two places have nothing to do with each other besides a concentration of Chosen; they are… independent developments, and share no history.

“I am told that Aadihash is a relatively recent city; the Citadel, by contrast, has existed in some form since at least the days of the Empire.” Zadireth shrugged. “You can ask Oghwess about it when we stop at the refuge, if you're interested; she's a bit more acquainted with the history of the Citadel than I am.”

Demarath was, by quite many a measure, somewhat naive in his dealings with other takmar, having spent much of his life as a refrigerator, but something about Zadireth's answer made him identify it as a dodge. Something was being kept from the narrative.

His scepticism was likely visible in his body language - he had made no effort to hide his emotions - but he did not press the matter, instead simply quietly filing away that his friendly guide might not be as friendly as assumed. It was only a small mark, the kind you might place on someone if you caught them on an almost inconsequential but obvious lie, but after the recent fight had done much to emotionally bind them together, it was the first thing to set them apart.

Silent, accepting that it was all he was likely going to learn, he focussed instead on the journey ahead of them, letting his attention be consumed by the newest addition to their strange crew - Ferleth.

She didn't give an impression of being interested in conversation for the time being. There was clearly a long history that needed to be digested, consequences that needed to be properly accepted, neither of which would accelerate if they spoke to her, but he started to form questions in mind - some easier to ask, others harder - that he might ask of her a little later, when she looked less lonely.

That was what she looked like. Lonely. She was travelling with them, but it seemed rather like a physical thing, an automation.

Given what she'd been through, it was perhaps not surprising that she didn't want emotional contact with much of anyone.

The whole gamut of adrenaline, excitement and stress finally started to deconstruct in Demarath's body as he moved, dissipating out through his moving limbs. The motion helped. Slowly, the pent up tension gave way to a confused tiredness.

What had just happened?

It felt eerie, as though it were a story of someone else's adventure. He ran the battle and the negotiation with Ferleth and Librith through his mind's eye, but he didn't recognise himself in the scenes.

A trace of Ferleth's stubborn loneliness infected him. He was far away from home. Although it had surely saved his life, he was running from some kind of definition of justice that he'd grown up with. Something expected. Something that was, to some degree, predictable. The battle had not been predictable. Ferleth had not been predictable. The change was exhilerating, but there had been so much, all at once, and for a few minutes, he felt afloat in some alternate universe.