Kire pouted when he insisted that she lay off the cake for breakfast, but nevertheless waited for him to heat up last night’s pork. As he busied himself, she set plates down for the both of them and reread the letter. “Aside from the peculiarity of waking up to a forest at your doorstep?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t say much in the report. Only that they’ve been ‘seeing things’, like dreams. Strange noises. Shadows.”

She considered his offer, unsure about how she felt about it. “We do make a good team,” she put in, but even as she knew this to be true, and knowing he and Ysaryn were more than capable of holding their own in a conflict, magical or not, she couldn’t help remember the terrible recovery Ruli had gone through with the poison. Asking him to help set up wards around a Palace now that they’d won it back was one thing, but jumping back into potential danger that she had no clue about was another. “I suppose…if it’s just reconnaissance for now, wouldn’t hurt to have more eyes on the thing.” She set down the papers in her hand and leaned back.

To his answer about the wards, she gasped in mock indignation. “You mean bedding the Empress of Amria isn’t compensation enough?” She chuckled, shaking her head. “That can be arranged. I was thinking more proper compensation though, as in monetary. If the previous decrees against large-scale magic and sorcery are going to be lifted—especially since we’ve been mucking about with wards, ourselves, anyway—it’d be nice to have things standardized for reference. We can talk later about pay, and goods in exchange for your services, plus covering whatever expenses are involved in the making of it.” She paused in thought. “Before the ban, this was maybe three or four generations ago, the Capital used to have a High Sorcerer employed by the Emperor.” Kire rested her chin on her hand as she watched him, smirking. “’Rulitus, High Sorcerer of Amria’.” She snorted a bit at that. “That should amuse Envy.”

--

Ed was about to answer Zeke when Ysaryn’s angry voice called out to the both of them. Ed offered no rebuttal, lips pursed as she rounded on Zeke next. He felt sorry for the man for an honest mistake. Really, you should’ve known better, he chastised himself, watching the sparring match begin. Or it wasn’t so much a sparring match as a way for Ysaryn to take her frustration out at them. Not too different from Kire there. Though Zeke was correct; Ysaryn was vicious. Ed took off his coat as he observed, then loosened the cuffs of his sleeves, rolling them up.

Zeke wasn’t a bad opponent, either. Had they had the leisure of time, and better circumstances, he would have offered to spar with him, too. Instead, he watched the two of them, noting strengths and possible weaknesses, all while wondering whether or not he should let Ysaryn win, if he had the upper hand. He couldn’t help but smirk though; seeing the elf fight, there was no guarantee at all that he would even get the opportunity to have the upper hand in this match.

When it was his turn, he sighed, taking the training sword from Zeke after giving him a pat on the shoulder. He didn’t speak, knowing anything he said now would just irritate her further, and knowing Ysaryn would launch into an attack immediately. She was quick, having the grace of Jan and the temper of Kire rolled into one, if Ed were to compare her with anybody he knew. But now that she was angry, definitely more similar to Kire there. He blocked and parried, bidding his time, keeping pace with her, until he found an opportunity to deploy a maneuver, he had learned from the Raielwen, combined with an Amrian technique.

Let her win. At the last second, he fumbled it, and he felt the hit from her sparring sword. He went down hard, wincing as he hit the ground. He hissed as he rolled onto his back, panting. “Yeah. I deserved that.”

"No offense, but I don't really consider you to be empress." Ruli voiced. "I mean, you are, but, I see you more as that stubborn woman who shows up demanding cake and research." He smirked at her, taking the meat off the pan and setting it on a plate for her. After rifling about for a moment, he sliced some bread from last night and warmed it, spreading a herbed butter over its soft middle.

"Don't," Ruli sighed, lowering his hands to pause his work when she teased about a title. Gael's voice echoed for a moment in his head, his cold voice confirming that Ruli was her sorcerer. Gazing at her for a moment, he twitched her shoulder. "Actually, no, that's fine. I wouldn't mind High Sorcerer. Taking Gavin on as middle sorcerer, to annoy Daryll." He chuckled, sitting down with the plates across from her.
"Accept the offer. You don't have to do this all alone anymore, you know."

~

Zeke didn't last long at all. Ysaryn was hard to beat when she was in a good mood, and with her viciousness against his bodily aches and pains, he fell quickly, feeling several welts on his limbs already. He limped to the side, grumbling as Ed took his place.
He put up a good fight, but fell, the elf standing over him with her sparring sword pointed at his throat. Her nostrils flared, her eyes narrowed, and if Zeke knew her any better, he would have marked the disappointment on her face.
"Do better." Ysaryn ordered before she turned and strolled off, disappearing down the steps again.
"She is terrifying." Zeke muttered, rubbing his neck to try to ease some of the pain.

"So that's how it is, huh," Kire said, grinning when he told her he didn't see her as Empress. "No offense taken. I rather prefer it that way, honestly." She smirked when he responded to her teasing, pulling the plates closer to her. "That would piss Daryll off, yes. But he's easy to please. Just let him join you." She grinned before starting on breakfast.

She sighed when he insisted she accept his offer of help. "I know. And I do need help, I know that, too. We make a good team, like I said. It's just--every time, you suffer the consequences of running into danger with me. I feel like with each new quest I rope you into, the consequences get worse."

--

Ed let his head fall back to the dirt as she pointed her sword at him. Do better, she said. He could see she was disappointed. Could she tell, then, that that wasn't his best? He sighed, pushing himself up to sit, watching her stroll off. "She is." He chuckled, before standing with a groan. "I'll have to apologize properly later." This is going to bruise badly.

"Kire." Ruli started softly. "A dog bite and a poison we not have an antidote to. I have been bitten by worse. And I have survived the poison." He reached over and took her scarred hand in his, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "Look what happens when you face anything on your own. I'm not the only one facing consequences."
He looked down at his plate and went on eating, though without releasing her hand. "Besides, I shouldn't have to remind you that it's my choice. I don't exactly answer to anyone."

~

"Remind me not to be in town for that apology." Zeke cringed, offering Ed a hand to help him onto his feet. "I might take on Gavin later, help my ego a bit."

Sighing, Zeke gestured. "You heading back down to Kire? How are things going on your side of the world. Uh. Gate?" He wondered. "And, uh, how is Elva doing?"

It wasn’t just that. Drugged in the mines of Cordon. Locked up in Lithilote. Pulled into my world unwillingly, twice. Blood used to open the gate. But Kire kept quiet. “Fair enough.” She glanced down when he took her hand, lightly squeezing his when he brushed his thumb against her knuckles. “I know. I’ll always worry, though.” She pursed her lips. “Probably why Daryll complains a lot about my having a savior complex.” She went back to eating just as he did, liking the warmth from their joined hands. “Quite an understatement, that,” she said with a smirk at his last comment. “Fine. I should listen to the High Sorcerer after all.” She still wrinkled her nose saying it, imagining him in obnoxiously long robes and a tall hat. “I’ll come back with Ed and discuss the details of the report with him, then later after lunch I’ll meet you at the Tower. With Ysaryn, if she’s coming along.”

--

The Captain chuckled. “I’ll try and warn you.” Ed took Zeke’s hand and stood, wincing when he felt his muscles ache from the blow. “Funny, I’ll probably do the same with Kire. Though that carries the risk of being on the bad end of another tantrum, too.” He nodded when Zeke asked about going back. “I had better. I gave her a grace period to, ah, finish up business, but if I don’t remind her of work she’d probably tarry much longer.”

He started down the steps. “Things are as alright as they could be, with the exception of some new oddity Kire wants to investigate. Other than that, you can imagine mending the empire takes up a lot of time and energy. Elva has gone back to the North. She’s still the steward of the region, and with Kire back on the throne there’s no reason for that to end anytime soon, but her status there is complicated by the fact that her late husband had been the Lord of the Northern reach. Ah—that reminds me though, she did mention something about coming here sometime to exchange healing knowledge with someone named Sid. The family still gathers for dinner as often as the occasion allows, so you’ll probably see her again in the near future.”

Ed rubbed his shoulders. “I’d better go fetch my cousin before I’m tempted to just sink into bed. I’ll let Elva know you give her your regards.”

--

Ed knocked again just as they had finished their meal and started cleaning up. “You decent?” Ed called.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, come in,” Kire yelled back. Ed entered, then stepped into the kitchen. Still cleaning her plate, Kire missed the raised eyebrow Ed threw their way when he noticed the clothes Ruli was wearing. “Ruli will be joining the investigation. Possibly Ysaryn, too.”
“I…see.”
Kire noted the tone in his voice and turned around. “What happened? Did you get chewed out?”
“I got beaten very decisively at sparring.”
“You?” Kire crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. “Are you unwell? Did she win fair and square?”
“I don’t know what you’re insinuating.” Ed raised a brow.
“If it was that easy to kick your ass, we should go a few rounds again later,” Kire teased, grinning. “Could finally end my losing streak with you.”
Ed snorted. “Time to go back, Akire.”
“Oh. ‘Akire’. He’s serious.” Kire turned to dry her plate properly, setting it aside. She turned to Ruli. She glanced for a moment at Ed, who rolled his eyes and looked away. Kire leaned in and gave Ruli a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later.”

Ruli rolled his eyes softly at the title again, deciding it was at least better than many other titles he could hold. Or had held, once, in the past.
When Ed knocked sometime later, Ruli rose to his feet to tidy the kitchen, listening as he came in and greeted his cousin. WHen Ed commented on Ysaryn's involvement in the forest work, Ruli glanced his way. The fact that Ed lost sparring didn't surprise Ruli, having little knowledge on the captains skill, but Kire's question made him arch an eyebrow.

Then, again, with her quick kiss while Ed wasn't looking. Having been quite sure her family knew what they were up to, Ruli kissed her back with a furrowed brow, nodding. "After lunch. At the Tower." He confirmed, watching her leave. "Nice to see you, Ed."

After earning his coin for both breakfast and lunch, with a break in the middle to work with Gavin and Envy, as well as hunt down Ysaryn and fill her in on the growing situation in Amria, Ruli crossed over into the Tower room. A second later, Ysaryn appeared, her lips pressed thin and her combat leathers visible beneath folds of dark blue fabric. Her Amrian blades were at her sides, her hair pulled back into a neat braid that forbid a single strand to fall astray.

Ruli rolled his shoulders, wiggled one of his feet to adjust the boot he wore, then started for the door and wandered down the stairs.

Downstairs, Kire was nursing a few welts from sparring, while Daryll and Ed stood around the table, observing a map and some sheafs of paper with writing on it. She had leather armor on over her travelling clothes, and a thick cloak folded over a chair nearby. “Boy, you really were in a mood,” Kire muttered.
“Sorry. Just had a lot on my mind I needed to get out.”
“That’s usually me, though,” Kire replied with a smirk. “But I already had my workout today.”
“Children,” Daryll muttered, shaking his head, despite the fact that he was the junior of the three.

When she sensed the others approach, she turned towards the staircase anticipating their arrival. Once the two came into view, Kire grinned. “Hey. Afternoon.” Daryll raised his hand in greeting, while Ed nodded solemnly, his eyes on Ysaryn.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he commented in Elvish.

Kire looked between the two of them; Ed told her what had happened after the quick and brutal sparring match the two of them had just before lunch. She cleared her throat and turned to Ruli. “Would you confirm something for me?” she said, taking one of the letters. “So in one of the reports, they had one of the afflicted try to write down an account of what they had seen. He had apparently had difficulty talking about what was happening. While the villager spoke common tongue well enough, he seemed to be finding it hard to understand Taakalon, despite having spoken it all his life. He wrote this, then after a few hours, he was himself again, and couldn’t understand what he had written.”

She showed the letter to Ruli. While to the Amrians around the table the script was incomprehensible, Kire recognized the characters from the signs she had seen around Cordon. To the residents of Úvano, the untidy scrawl would have been difficult to read, but still understandable: an account of how the man had fallen into some strange trance, wandered through the forest, and emerged on the other side feeling hot and stark naked, like he had walked through a desert, his clothes completely burned off.

"Afternoon." Ruli greeted in return. Ysaryn, just behind him, wore an expression that very clearly stated she'd debated on not coming along. The idea of a possible fight, either against Ed or some strange entity, convinced her. When she said nothing, Ruli nudged her, and she snarled silently.
"I am here."

When Kire asked for his opinion, he stepped forward, mindful of his distance. After she'd meekly avoided kissing him in front of Ed, he wasn't sure about how affectionate she'd be in the presence of anyone. He took the letter and skimmed it, finding nothing odd with it. "He wrote this?" Ruli asked, glancing at Kire, yet unaware that it was something they couldn't read. He turned it over, glancing at the other side, then went back to the front rereading. "This was all what happened when they went through the forest? Were the rest naked?"

Ysaryn's eyebrows rose, suddenly looking less cross and more intrigued.

The Wyvern cousins glanced at each other after Ruli spoke. "Were the rest-- did I hear right? Naked?" Daryll asked.
"Could you read it aloud for us? We can't read that," Kire explained. "Not our alphabet, but I figured you could; the characters seemed familiar, I must have seen it in your world."
When the contents of the letter had been explained, Kire frowned in thought. "Huh. That-- certainly is weird."

"But more importantly, if your alphabet suddenly manifested in someone's mind here, does that mean this outbreak of magical energy is coming from your world, or has something to do with it?" Daryll wondered aloud. "Could there be a gate at the heart of this?"

"Well, we'll know soon enough," Kire murmured before turning to Ed. "Manning the fort while we're gone?"
"As per usual," Ed smirked. "But Myka should be there to meet you. Narda's turn to stay behind the Wench and babysit the old gal."

The cousins spoke for a bit more, confirming the location and where they were supposed to meet Myka, which was the closest other town to the afflicted one. "It's a bit chilly in that region. There are extra coats if you want them," Daryll said, pointing down the alchemy chamber. Once ready to leave, Kire extended a hand to Ruli.
"Would you mind? Might need to save up on portals just in case." When he took her hand she gave his an affectionate squeeze. Location pinpointed, Ruli, Kire, Ysaryn, and Daryll disappeared into shadow.

The moment they emerged in the other town, however, Kire frowned. "Why is it so hot? It's the beginning of winter!" She unclasped the cloak she was wearing.
Not too long later, they met up with Myka, who was donning lighter clothes.
"Fancy the inexplicable summer heat, ladies and gents?" She grinned.
"From what we've been told, it's positively sweltering in the town-turned-forest. You can see it from the highest tower here. This town is currently sheltering the residents who had fled. Those who didn't want to leave their homes set up camp just outside of the forest."

She took them to the vantage point she had mentioned, and true enough, a line of verdant green occupied the horizon. Just outside it were tents from the camp Myka brought up, and in between the trees they could spot the homes of the overrun town.

"How big is the forest?" Daryll asked.
"Large as the town, and extending around a kilometer from the border on the other side," Myka noted. "No animals, no sounds. Well, unless you count the whispers."
"Whispers?" Kire frowned.
Myka shrugged. "The folk say they hear 'em, but soon forget what it was they heard. Like the guy who wrote the account of what happened to him. So far, though, the whole naked thing happened to just him and a couple of others."

Ruli looked up, confused, until Kire pointed out they couldn't read it. "What?" Ruli glanced back down, finally realizing that it was written in the script of his own world. "Fuck."
Ysaryn chuckled low behind him.
"Yeah, it ... here." Ruli read aloud, glancing up when he was finished. As Daryll asked about the how, he shrugged. "People here speak it, is it so strange?" He wondered.
"If it were to be elvish, yes, it would be." Ysaryn commented, leaning against the far side of the table with her arms crossed, paying attention despite her turned back.
Ruli gestured in agreement. "You all speak the language, surely someone here has some knowledge about how to write it."

As they discussed, Ruli listened, trying to sort out his own theories alongside theres. When Kire approached and offered his hand, he glanced to the other two before taking it, nodding in agreement. Before they left, he and Ysaryn fastened their borrowed coats, and Ruli noted Ysaryn said nothing to Ed before they left.
Into heat.

"I thought you said it was chilly?" Ruli said, looking delighted about the misinformation. Ysaryn, too, pulled off her coat quickly, folding it over her arm.
"Myka." Ruli greeted, and Ysaryn grinned beside him. Then he frowned when she mentioned the camps. "People are willingly residing near it? Without really understanding?"
"Homes are important." Ysaryn commented beside him. "People live in worse."
"Homes an be replaced. People can't." He argued, following Kire and the others to the vantage point to look.

Ysaryn inhaled deeply beside Daryll, her nose pointed toward the forest. "You can see heat." She informed them, raising her arm to sway her hand, gesturing to the waver in the air due to the warm temperature.
"Can you see anything odd?" Ruli asked. "Or smell anything?"
"Not from here."
Ruli squinted, trying to see if there was anything he could see that she couldn't. As Myka went on, he glanced toward Ysaryn again.
"No, I cannot to hear."
He shrugged, then looked back around. "How many in total were affected out of those who were within its grasp?" He wondered. "Anyone within, or is it only a small percentage?"

“People who don’t have anywhere or anything else to turn to can’t always afford to leave,” Kire said about the camps. She and her family had the luck of their status and existing resources to afford to go on exile, but without this support, she wondered how they’d have survived during the war. She listened as Ruli asked Ysaryn if she could sense anything from this vantage point.
“Most of the residents reported the voices and shadows,” Myka replied. “Not all of them had the more vivid visions or hallucinations or whatever you call it—let’s say a tenth of the total population. There might be people trapped inside, too.”
Kire thought this over. “We don’t really know what we’re dealing with. Best thing to do would be to just walk in and see what they saw, I suppose. If it was a temporary effect, we should, in theory, come out alright at the end of it.”
“In theory,” Daryll muttered, though admittedly he was particularly excited. “Shall we?”

Myka and Ysaryn were right about the heat. It was humid, worse than Pokos. When they got close enough to the border of the forest, Kire inhaled, then coughed. The magic permeating the air was sweet, cloyingly so, sticking to the back of her throat, like she had drank pure syrup. A buzzing filled her ears, like being attacked by a swarm of bees. “Give—give me a minute,” she said, frowning as she shut her eyes and tried to drown out the sounds in her head. The buzzing subsided, the forest’s sweet signature lingering in her mouth, not as overwhelming as in their first approach, but just on the edge of tolerable. “Alright. Let’s go in.”
For the first several paces, nothing assailed them yet. Kire, Daryll, and Myka looked around at the trees that had grown in the middle of streets, gardens, homes. It was also eerily quiet. Kire kept swallowing, every now and then taking a gulp from her waterskin. “There’s so much raw energy flowing through here,” she commented. “But I don’t know where it’s coming from. How—"

She was walking on sand. Kire’s lips parted in surprise. It felt so real. She remembered feeling this dry, searing heat in Ziad. When she bent down to grab a fistful of sand, she could feel how hot and course they were against her calloused and scarred palm, could feel the grains running down from between her fingers. “Daryll! Ruli! Ysaryn! Myka!” she yelled, but for the moment she was alone. She could try portaling out of the desert, back to their starting point, but as insufferably hot as it was, Kire wanted to see what else was in this desert, if there were other clues. She was about to turn around and walk, try to get to one of the nearby sand dunes and, perhaps, some shade, when a great shadow passed overhead.

Kire looked up, and her heart almost stopped then and there.
Its hulking body shone with emerald and gold scales, a glittering, serpentine body, with great, leathery wings and a tail that ended in an arrow shaped tip. Dragon, she gasped. Its wings whipped up the sand around her and she shielded her face, coughing, running towards the direction of its flight while blind. When she felt the small sandstorm subside, Kire uncovered her face and looked around.

She was on top of a hill. No, not just any hill. She knew this hill. She could feel her skinned knuckles after she had punched a hole through the temple that sat on top of it, the night she met Ruli. The temple, now whole, cast a shadow over her, and despite the desert heat, she found herself shivering. The dragon was nowhere around. Why was she cold? Why did this temple fill her with dread? Kire frowned, backing away, her hand on her sword but afraid to draw it here. Unaware of her surroundings, she backed all the way to the slope of the hill and tumbled backward, crashing into a tree in the forest-town, back in Amria.

Kire panted, keeping on all fours. “Gods…all my gods….” When she finally looked up, she saw Daryll nearby, his back turned to her as he stared at something. “Daryll! Daryll did you see that?”

But Daryll wasn’t paying attention.
There was a woman in front of him. Small, draped in a tattered dress, with white and red roses embroidered all over it. She had a despairing look on her face. Or was it terror? The woman glanced down at her hands, then covered her face, sinking to her knees.
“Hello?” Daryll called, stepping closer. The woman could not hear him, did not register his call. “Do you need help?”
The woman looked up from her hands and wildly around her, not seeing him. Or not seeing any of it. Tears of fright streamed down her face, and she stood abruptly, running away.

“Wait!”
“Daryll!”
Kire grabbed him and shook him just as he was about to lunge forward. Daryll blinked, taking several moments to realize who she was. “I…I saw someone…”
“I think we’re all seeing things,” Kire said, looking around. “Where are the other three?” Their signatures were somewhere nearby, but her senses were confused, couldn’t pinpoint where exactly. Everything was confused in here.

Ruli felt completely unbothered by the warmth of their surroundings. He thrived in it, really. Even though the air here was different, tangible, almost ... aromatic. Not because of the forest, but something else. Ruli turned his head to glance at Ysaryn, just as she looked his way, the same question written on her countenance. Do you smell that?
They both nodded to one another, then moved forward, following Kire, swords drawn, just in case.

Just as Kire saw, Ruli was enveloped in a shadow that rumbled the sand beneath him. He bent his knees, looking upwards to a desert he knew, dunes he had memorized. Ziad. Above was a glittering view of golden scales, wings of flame and heat, and an aura that shook the air. "What the-" He began straightening again. He turned to see if anyone else had seen it, but found himself alone.
"Kire?" He shouted, turning in place. "Ysaryn? Daryll? My-"
He froze, turning in place to find a figure standing in the sand before him. Gold and fire. Brilliant red eyes, brighter and more alive than Scindere's or even Envy's. Her golden hair moved behind her as if caught under water, pulled slowly by the slightest shift in the air. She was tall, her rounded nose peering down at Ruli, who stood at least two feet shorter.

He swallowed, afraid to look away, to break their eye contact.
Good. A voice said. Don't give her the chance.
Ruli inhaled, fighting the urge to blink.
"So you are the one." The figure said, rather than asked. Ruli didn't move, waiting. "The scion."
"Scion of what?"
Do not engage! The voice hissed again. Ruli finally blinked. It was a woman's voice that spoke in his head, though one he did not know.
The golden figure smiled. It was similar to Akuma's, cold, but there was life there, too. "You knew what you were supposed to become."
Ruli felt the temperature drop around him despite the desert sand that stretched for miles. "I did not wish for it." He could Walk back to Kire. back to the Tower.
No.
Ruli swallowed again. No?
Not yet.

The red-eyed woman smiled once more. "But you had let it begin." One of her long, powerful legs stepped forward, the sand hissing and steaming beneath her fiery feet. Ruli took an involuntary step back. "The blood in your body, the magic flowing, belongs to me. Your mothers soiled it by breeding with your fathers. With your kind."
Wait. Wait.
Another step back, just as she stepped forward again, closing the distance between them with her long legs. "But, in their mistake, you were born. A gift I never foresaw. I have a desire to take you back."
A little longer.
Why?
Wait and see-
As she raised an arm, the red-gold wing behind her stretched like a canvas. Within it, Ruli could see images, clear and vivid, as if he were looking through a window. Himself standing at an altar, a scar-less Envy standing happily beside him as they watched someone walk down the aisle. Kire. Ruli inhaled. The flames shifted, and the vision showed him a pyre lit, like a beacon in the dark sky. The pit in his stomach told him who lay upon it before his eyes could see it. Then, in his arms, a wriggling infant, red hair matted to his sweating head; beyond him, just out of view, a redhaired woman smiling at them. She bore no scars, but there was something so familiar about her face.
"You were to give birth to a new power." The giant woman said, her wing folding again as she lowered her arm. Ruli looked up, meeting her gaze again. "Fire of Amria meeting the Fire of Persis to create an heir so powerful both worlds would covet him."
See him! Hold him! The voice urged, her tone desperate.
The baby. Ruli couldn't see the vision anymore, but tried to keep the image in his head.
He did not like the smile on the fiery woman's face. "You will sire the child. But on a woman of worth. On the Fire of Persis. And the other world will fall to its knees."
Now! The voice said, and Ruli didn't need a second order. He turned and fled, feet digging into the hot sand, his shoes gone, his clothing no longer the mutes tans but the suffocating black of his old life. His old skin. He could hear the thing roar behind him, the heat growing as she gave chase. Run! Run! Run!

"OOf-!" Ruli hit someone, bounding off of them as they both clattered to the ground. He heard a hiss, the familiar, viscous tone of Ysaryn, and he flipped around quickly. He wore his muted tones again, his boots, his sword still in his hand. There was no sand. No fire-engulfed giantess threatening him with a smile. Exhaling, he dropped his head on the ground. "Fuck."
Ysaryn said nothing. He'd knocked her off her feet, but she sat up on her knees, looking forward as if she were searching, as if she, too, had seen something, and was still searching.
"Tell me you saw something." Ruli said, still sprawled on his back. Despite his comfort in the heat, he was sweating. When ysaryn didn't answer, he raised his head. "Ysaryn? Did you see something?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "I d-don't know."
Her uncertainty made Ruli sit up, leaning to the side to peer at her face. She looked ... not frightened, but confused. Contemplative.
"Kire?" Ruli shouted, deciding to focus on regrouping. They could debrief later. "Daryll?"

“Let’s keep walking. We’ll either find the end of the forest or run into them. Either way, we’ll get our bearings back.” Kire was glad there was still some water left in the skein she brought, and she drank the rest of it. Gods, she was parched. Eventually, they came to the middle of the forest, where the trees seemed to grow closest together. She could sense Ruli and Ysaryn’s signatures a little more clearly now, and she surmised that if they continued along this way, she’d spot the two. Daryll kept quiet, his expression disturbed. “You alright?”
Daryll huffed. “I—I don’t know. Let’s talk about it later when we’ve met up with the others.”
“Hang on—look.” Kire pointed ahead of them. A man and child were cowering nearby, near the ruins of their home, where a tree had punched through. When the father and son saw their approach, they started to back away, till Kire came forward, hands raised. “ We mean you no harm,” she said. “We’ll get you out of here.”

The man kept his son behind him, shielding him, unsure if he was seeing some other illusion or if they were real people, indeed. But when it seemed that Kire and Daryll weren’t going anywhere, the man took a few tentative steps forward—and recognized Kire. Fear crossed his face and he stumbled into a bow, pulling his son down with him. “H-he didn’t mean nothin’, Your Grace,” the man said, stammering, head still bowed even as he hugged his son tight.
“It’s alright,” Kire assured, bending down on one knee, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder and another on the boy’s head. “We’ll get you out of here, and you can tell us more about what happened. You won’t be blamed for this.”
The man looked up at her touch, then spoke softly to his boy, coaxing him to show the Empress what it was he had found. “He was playin’ in the hills outside town an’ found somethin’ in the dirt. Go on, lad, show it to the Empress,” the man urged again.
The boy meekly stepped forward from his father’s arms and fished something from his pocket. It looked old. A well-worn statuette. Kire took it from him, examined the smooth stone. Time and the elements had smoothed out many of its features, but she could tell that it was a woman’s shape. Traces of rust—or perhaps, red paint—clung to what looked like the woman’s clothes. On her back, where her shoulder blades should be, looked like nubs where wings used to be. “Alright. How about you tell me the story of how you found this, and what happened after, when we’re out of here,” Kire said, smiling at the boy. “Deal?”
The boy nodded, then clung to his father again.

“Oyyy!”
Kire heard Myka’s voice calling as she jogged over towards them. “Stars above, I thought I was going crazy!” the pirate captain declared. “You two alright? Where’re the other two?”
Kire turned her head. The sickly-sweet aroma was letting up now. “That way.”

Hearing Ruli call for them confirmed it. “Here!” She called back, waving when they finally caught sight of them. “I think we better head back to camp before we run into any more surprises,” she said, looking the other two over. They didn’t look injured, just—dazed. “And then we could talk about what the fuck we just saw—sorry,” she said, clamping her hand over her mouth, remembering they had a kid along with them. “Are you two okay?” she asked softly.

"Here!"
Ruli turned his head when he heard Kire, his brow furrowed. He rose to his feet, grasping Ysaryn by the upper arm to pull her up as well. "You all saw something?" He asked, feeling Ysaryn yank her arm out of his grasp. He glanced at the elf, only to find her giving Kire a critical glare. Odd. "Ysaryn?"
Her eyes flit to him. "Yes. I saw something."
"Otherwise, fine." Ruli said. He wasn't sweating anymore, but he wiped his brow regardless. "We were all together a moment ago, how did we all wind up in different places?" He wondered.

"This magic is not right." Ysaryn insisted, rubbing at her arms. "Smells like..."
"Smells like what?"
"Smells like you." She said, and Ruli blinked.
'You are the one.' He recalled the winged creature speak. He shook his head, loosing the feeling in his head that he was forgetting something he was supposed to remember.

"Yeah, we all saw something," Kire replied, missing the glare Ysaryn gave her. "Not sure what to make of them, though. We'll have to discuss this when we're back outside."

Behind her, the man and his son gasped, particularly at Ysaryn. Myka and Daryll had to quickly assure them that Ysaryn was their friend and not part of the strange forest and its magic. "Speaking of things I can't make sense of, for some reason they believe they're the source of this," Kire murmured. She showed them the statuette the boy had found. "Apparently, they associate it with this thing. I don't know what it is, and if it's a deity, it's not one we recognize. But yeah, let's talk about it outside the forest."

Nothing else happened on their way back to the camp. Once there, Kire gently questioned the father and son about the artifact. They didn’t know anything else about it beyond where they had discovered it. As for the trees, the boy had thought he had summoned them after dreaming about an enchanted wood, right before the forest itself shot up around them. Was this what the Seer meant by magic returning to Amria? And why was there a connection to Ruli’s world? After refilling her water at a nearby well, she returned to the others.
“Alright. What did everyone see? Did everyone else see a desert?” Kire asked.
“Yeah, I saw that. Same as the fella who wrote the letter,” Myka grunted, likewise drinking deeply from her own waterskin. “Except I didn’t take my clothes off. I realized where I was before that could happen.”
“Daryll?”

The scholar frowned, looking down at his hands. “At the beginning, I did see a desert. And a shadow passing overhead, like some giant creature was flying right above me. But—but when I turned around to look, I was back in the forest, and there was a…woman.”
“A woman?”
Daryll furrowed his brow as he tried to recall what she looked like. His thoughts kept going back to the anguish on the woman’s face, the fear in her eyes. “I don’t know who she is, but I know she needs help,” he murmured.
Kire saw that her cousin was disturbed by what he had seen. Who was she? When Daryll prodded her to tell her ow version of the visions, she looked back down at the statuette in her hands. “I saw a dragon. The shadow passing overhead. The dragon of our house,” she said, looking back up at them. “And after that, the temple on the hill at Ziad.” She frowned. “That’s all. Besides the strange feeling of—wrongness I felt about the temple. I don’t know why.”

Ysaryn was quiet, ignoring the man and his son despite their reaction to her. She was used to it, as much as that bothered Ruli. When Kire mentioned the idol, he merely glanced at it before rolling his eyes. It was always some religion that started hysteria. Some god deciding to meddle.
Like Ysaryn, he was quiet on the way back from camp, sitting himself in a chair to wait as Kire questioned the two they'd rescued. He drummed his fingers on the table they sat around, trying to dig through what he saw. That feeling that he was forgetting something wouldn't go away.

When Kire barged in and demanded to know what everyone else had seen, Ruli and Ysaryn didn't move, listening as Daryll and Myka spoke first. Daryll's despair caught Ruli's attention, and he glanced up at the man curiously.
But when Kire mentioned Ziad, Ruli turned his full attention to her, frowning. "The temple?" He asked. He froze, trying to think. Pieces of the figure he'd seen floated into view.
Her red eyes. Her golden hair. The flames she'd been wrapped in. He could remember her voice, but not her words.
"I saw Ziad, too." He stated. "Well, not technically. I saw the desert. I knew them. But there was no city. Just sand."
"I saw jungle." Ysaryn admitted. "No sand. My people." She glanced toward Kire again. "And Amria people. Both."
Ruli frowned her way again, then back to Daryll. He'd also seen a woman. "Can you describe her?"

Kire toyed with the statuette as she listened to Ruli and Ysaryn. While the majority of them saw sand, possibly the same desert that surrounded Ziad, none of their visions were identical. She furrowed her brow at Ysaryn when she described what she saw. A jungle, with Shadow elves and Amrians? None of this was making sense. She didn’t speak just yet, letting them process this, hoping some other prominent detail would emerge that would tie all their visions together.

When Ruli asked him to describe the woman, Daryll leaned his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together. “She was small of stature. Brown hair, brown eyes. She was wearing a dress—blue and green, with white and red roses on it. She looked—afraid.” He glanced at Ruli. “Did you see the woman, too?”

Something about the description made Kire’s brain itch. Where had she seen something like the dress before? Besides the heat getting to her, the vagueness of it all didn’t improve her temper. All the other things she had done at the behest of the Seer—save a world from a dragon, hunt down a murderous, deranged blood mage—these at least gave her a target, a concrete goal to accomplish. How was she supposed to do something when she didn’t even know what, exactly, the problem was? “I guess we’ll really need those wards around the Palace, huh,” she commented with a huff, looking at Ruli.

"So, all of you can recall your visions that well?" Ruli asked, looking around. He shook his head at Daryll. "I don't think so. The woman I saw had red eyes. Not like Envy's. Just completely red. And wings." He paused, frowning.
Something was so familiar about her.
He rubbed at his brow. "Erg. I don't know. I can't remember most of it. It was like a dream. Pieces are slipping away." Ruli sighed, looking up to look at Kire. "Yeah, I'll get back and grab Gavin. Maybe even Envy, we can all work to-"

Finally, Ruli's eyes fell on the idol Kire toyed with, and the details of it sunk in. "Where did you get that?" He asked, going still. "That's from Ziad. The temple. You mentioned the temple, didn't you?" Ruli glanced up to meet her gaze, looking alarmed. "She's ..."
Holy Gods.
"I think thats who I saw. I think I saw the goddess."

Daryll looked immediately disappointed when Ruli said it wasn't the same woman. Myka, meanwhile, shrugged. "It feels like a dream. I can remember seeing it, but the feeling feels vague now," she replied. Kire watched Ruli, frowning when he said his visions were slipping away, wondering what else he had seen that was now fading from his mind.
Until he stopped and looked at the stone figure.

A goddess.
The Amrians looked his way. Kire pursed her lips. "Fuck." Gods-be-damned twice over.
Myka looked at Kire, anxious, before glancing at Ruli. "Is-is she, err...a benevolent goddess?"
Kire frowned. "Which goddess?" she asked Ruli. "You told me about one goddess in your world. Solaralai, was it? If that's her, then, Myka, the answer to your question is 'no'."

She leaned back on her chair, arms crossed. "Hopefully it's somebody else. Gods, really?" She asked, looking up and frowning. "That's what They're sending me against?"

"Well, we don't know yet if that's what you're supposed to do," Daryll put in. "We at least should learn more about this goddess, and these visions. Why we saw what we saw--or, maybe why it's us who saw it. From the reports, most of the people here saw the desert but none of the other things."

"So. Find out more about this goddess, and find out who that woman was in Daryll's vision?" Myka asked. Kire nodded.

Ruli only shook his head to Myka's inquiry. He couldn't recall the conversation at all, but he knew he'd been uncomfortable. Afraid. And ... comforted.
There was another voice. Someone else. Someone else was there with him.

"We have to go back to Ziad." Ruli whispered, feeling condemned. "We can talk to the Ziadi, and we can try talking to Envy, but chances are, we'll have to go back to the temple."
Ysaryn shook her head. "Even my people know to avoid her. Solaralai." She said the name with such distaste.
"Can only imagine why." Ruli agreed. He sighed. "So, why did we all see what we saw? Why did I get spooked by some cuckholded goddess and the rest of you see ... dragons and frightened woman." His gaze landed on Daryll, his leer flat. "Are you secretly a god going around frightening people in visions?"