"Thou seeks destruction?"

With every breath from the lips of Sayanastia the Dark Dragon the torch flickers - torn equally between extinguishing and joining the dark, and sending loose a curtain of flames to seek purchase in the deep tangled roots. 

"My dreaming sister may be less storied in thy cultures, but she is no less perilous. Nor does she guard her sleep any less jealously. Her rage if awoken would rival my own."

Injimo looked up. The Dark Dragon was cast in a million shadows, shivering through the infinite twisted trees and branches of the Wildwood. She swims through it as though a part of it, everywhere outside the dim light of the torch. Her little fire and scarlet hood and beating heart seemed like small things indeed.

"I do not intend to fight the Maids," said Injimo. "I intend to join them."

"[i]Join [/i]them?" Branches snapped; leaves tore apart, trunks went dry and brittle, and a shock of bloody autumn ripped through the twisted green. In the breaking was the sound of laughter. "The Heroine's shadow, abandoning her post?"

"I have lost fighting them twice now," said Injimo. "They know a style of warfare that I do not know how to counter. I must submit to them and study under them. One day Heron might have call to learn, and I must be able to teach her."

"Is that so?" said Sayanastia, her shape silhouetted in cascading crimson leaves like scales. "And you would leave your fellow handmaidens alone?"

"They have a quest," said Injimo steadily. "I have a duty."

From the autumn leaves came antlers of shadow, red sap dripping from razor fangs. "Even if that means defending the manor against them, when they move against it?"

"I have a duty," said Injimo. She stepped into the Dark Dragon's jaws - and in a flicker, the shadow was gone, and all the leaves fell to the ground in a crimson pathway through the woods.

"Then I," said the void cat, nestling on her shoulder, "would see where it leads you."