We move out almost as soon as we've come back, even though it's early. We don't need to worry about the lingering smells of Thistle and Auma on the air due to the smell of new paint. The new sleeping room for the girls is oddly silent, as if that walls had become far thicker, but it also might just be that the strategists no longer sleep in it, leaving me with Blossom, Nina, Glaze, Ignis, and Fyera. We sleep spread out across the large room, in between layers of blankets, and Glaze occasionally curls up to me, her breath soft against my side, but she looks across the room for two Sentients who aren't there and won't be coming back.

Gale doesn't speak to anyone that morning at breakfast. Neither do I. His ear twitches, and I tilt my head until my own ear is in my milk. Do you want to talk about it?

He huffs. I killed someone last night.

Thistle's bloody body stretches out across my vision, the way his uptilted head seemed to catch all of the stars in his lifeless eyes still making me shiver. Do you regret it?
No. It was a mercy killing. I was doing her a favor. I was doing what she asked.

The table is nearly empty this morning. They're not going to forgive you.

Aren't you afraid of becoming like them, Rena?

He couldn't possibly know. I take in a breath. "I'm invincible." I say.

"Of course you are." He gets up and descends back into the basement, presumably to stare at weapons, like he does.

I walk away in my own, parallel huff, and wander back to the strategist's room. I'd missed these white hallways, even though their endless, featureless innards are maddening. When I step through them, I can see all the Sentients who once roamed them walking alongside me. Their breath is warm against my neck, close to where the wound was. Auma didn't see it. No one saw it. It was so small that I can convince myself my body is not spilling over with poison.

"It'll take you slowly," warns Twitch.

"I'll win first." I promise him.

"There's no endgame," he tells me, as I nose open the strategist's room. "It's not that simple."

"You should leave. You hurt them. They won't be happy to see you back around." I warn him.

"Rena," Rain asks, "Who are you talking to?"

I blink. Twitch stamps a paw impatiently, but he's already fading out. I'm well aware they're not going to be able to see him, so I just sigh, "Myself."

"You're not... guilty about what happened yesterday, are you? Because it wasn't your fault."

"I know," I drop my eyes. Could have been there faster. Could have done something. Anything. My face twitches, trying to shake off the bad thoughts that soak my pelt like a fine mist, slowly penetrating every fiber of my being... I imagine myself below the teeth. Surra and Axel are both watching in the corner. The latter looks withdrawn today, her thick ears pushed back. It occurs to me we haven't spoken much, that the only true moments I've had with her have been colored, now, by that crack of bone. Could I ever forget something like that, no matter how I tried?

But I killed Auma, too.

"I'm so sorry," I tell them. "I only came in here for the knife."
"Ah." Axel picks up the 'sacred' package in her mouth and drops it before me, and I levitate it out. It yields no better than before, the blade stubbornly resisting my mental grip on it, and I take it in my mouth instead, drawing it upwards. The others watch me, as if to discern answers from the way light glints off the blade. "Do you hear anything?"
"Nuh," I affirm, and swing out. "But I'll tell you if I do."

The morning is several funerals. We let the reserve corps go out, although even doing this makes the group more uneasy, and I lay the knife down on a counter while we bury Auma's body. Thistle's horn is buried as well, in part because it was hard to get the body back, and in part because no one wants all of him here. Inevitably, said horn is buried with the body of the first Twitch, and some of the ashes of the second. It is a brief affair, while Auma's is longer. Her body is wrapped in a long copper silk and the whole group stops to whisper things to the dead.

Gale does not approach. When he leans away from her, he is perked ears and half moon eyes, not quite barring his teeth but nonetheless entirely on edge. He looks back to me, inquisitively, and I step forwards and bury my face in Auma's fur.

At once, I am grabbed back by Indy, the smell rising in my nostrils as I'm thrown back. "Woah, there." Indy warns. "What part of 'Plague victim', do you not get, Rena? I know you want to see her again-- we all do-- but that doesn't mean you should rush to join her."

"I'm invincible," I insist.

He knows it's true, so he lets me go. I can see the sun overhead like fate's angry white eye. She knows I have pressed myself upriver, along the path that might lead to death, or whatever even crueller fate awaits seraphs, the holy kind. Nonetheless, the dirt is moist today, and when the trees rustle, their silence brings peace with them.

Avery stands over the group, looking ashamed. "And so soon.... after everything." she whispers to the open morning. "I'm sorry. This is a lot to take in."

"It's hard to process that we were taken advantage of again." Axel agrees. "I just... wish I'd smashed his skull in a little faster..." I am never going to be able to separate her from that line. The others watch, silent.

Avery opens one wing and drapes it around Axel's shaking body, and Ignis and Fyera press against Avery, too. Indy walks in, always a sucker for a warm group hug, followed by me, and soon all of us are huddling with Avery, a warm ball of sorrows and grief. Even Nina and Gale take up the flanks, and the Felis swings her tails around the edge of the group. The whole world pauses for us, letting us breathe, but it allows little more than that. Cruel mistress that time is, she leads us to part, and when the moment is gone, the job settles back in like the air of the starving moons.

I can feel her teeth in my neck.

"I guess I'll go... see if the blade is responsive." I say. "Again."

The group mutters assent.

"Do you want help?" asks Ignis, following me as I step back into the kitchen and draw the blade over with telekinesis, picking it up and moving it in arcs with my mouth.

"We, id like tu--" I take the blade out. "Well, I'd like to know what this thing wants out of me."

"I could help you with that." she clarifies. "Come with me."
I'm in no position to argue. I follow Ignis into the labyrinthine mid-layer, passing the stairs and taking a right on this floor into what seems like a dimly lit cul de sac, our own pawsteps echoing out behind us. Ignis allows me into the room and as soon as the door opens for us, my senses are overwhelmed by the aroma of candles. Within, the room is dark, with honeyed walls, but hundreds if not thousands of scented candles adorn every spare inch, leaving only room for a limber Sentient to walk through and a space in the middle with a red carpet drawn across. Ignis slaps her tail down a few times. "Sit," she insists.

I sit.

Ignis lights the first candle with her breath. The scent of hyacinth drifts across the air. "This is a tactic known as scent therapy."

I can feel it pulling all the bones out of my body, as if a string attached to my spine were being pulled taut. "W-what do I do?" I ask.

"Let it take you?" Ignis suggests.

"I don't think this is the right scent." I say. The tugging is strong, but it's not enough to take me where she wants me to go. I need a path. "Do you have others?"

Ignis looks around the room. "No," she says, "obviously all of these are decorative," and begins lighting another candle. I take in its scent, letting it flush out my body, and the ocean rushes through me. It's a start, but I shake my head again. Lilacs. Nothing. Cut grass. Close, but nothing sticks out. Thick insence. Now this is familiar, but I don't...

"Woods," I say. "Do you have woods?"
"I can do woods," Ignis grunts, and she snuffs out the last candle with her paw and steps across the room to breathe a tiny ember into the next one, bringing a pine forest to life.

The Auspicia finally comes back for me. I see her approach, coming up behind, and when she steps through me, I take a full, gasping breath, my whole body glittering with light and substance. We walk into a deep forest together, step following step, our bodies superimposed atop each other... she knows the way better than I, so I let her lead me further down the road. She pauses, and I feel a smile crack our faces. A small green Canis wedges her way out of the brush, her mouth agape.

"Natrina?" I ask.

The Auspicia bounds forwards, dragging me along, and I practically fall on my face just to realize that's exactly what we're doing. I jerk my head up. "Who are you?" asks the green Canis, holding back another, white Sentient with a tail.

"I'm Aislyn!" I tell her, enthusiastically. The little wanderer. The trees nod. They know I've been here before.

"You have wings," Natrina says, "And too many horns."
"This was our first conversation?" I ask the Auspicia.

The first conversation of thousands of first conversations.

"Oh. It's a little dull," I say, lowering my head. "Not that I'm judging."

Thank you for your input, the voice rings through my head.

"I'm sorry, Natrina," I tell her, and to my surprise, she tilts her head in response.

"What are you sorry for?"
"I don't... actually know." I admit, straightening up. "But I don't think I ever apologized for it."
Natrina glares. "Yes you do."

"I'm sorry for bringing you with me. I'm sorry for leaving you behind. I'm sorry for lifetimes of dragging you along, far after all of your loved ones were gone, for never being honest with you, I don't... I'm sorry, that in all these years, when I just wanted to run away and start over, I never even thought about allowing you that chance." The Auspicia says this through me, and Natrina's face warms. I return to myself, "But I'm too late to say all of that, aren't I?"

Natrina's spectral body shakes, and I see the darkness through her, as if the facade of space had been ripped away and its illusion scraped from her skin. "Wherever I am now, let's assume I can hear you, Aislyn."
"Rena." I correct her.

"Rena, then." Natrina nods. "See, I really... want to forgive you too, but it is too late. It's not too late for her, though."
The vision begins fading out. "Who is she?" I ask. "Another candle, Ignis--"

Ignis attempts to put another candle on, but this only imposes new, foreign trees upon the wood. "Try more trees." I say, as Natrina fades from me, as I grasp for her, falling through myself back into reality... a scent assails my nose, little more than a wisp of it, and I'm thrown right back into the dream world. Natrina has disappeared, but the Canis who stood behind her now stares down at me, her eyes watery and full of fear.

"Hello, Lotus," the Auspicia says.

Beautiful, cupped-petal wings unfold on the Canis's back.

"Keeper of Hope."
When I return to myself, the knife glows beneath my grip. Tears stream down my face, and I blink my eyes to rid myself of them.

"Did that work?" asks Ignis.

"Yes," I say, removing the knife from my mouth, which causes its faint glow to fade out. "But I'm not sure I got enough of it. I guess we'll have to try again?"
Ignis nods. "Tomorrow. Early. There is no time for hesitation, Rena."
I know this too well. I open the door, and Indy recoils, as if he'd been hit. We stand facing each other, his eyes wide, and I try to step around him and he, too, moves to step around, although we end up blocking each other. I remove my paw, he removes his, and we stare at each other more, both of our faces blank.

Ignis moves around me, her tail hitting my flank. I catch a knowing stare.

When she's passed, I ask, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." he says.

"Oh, you're definitely lying." I insist. "If I hadn't worked it out a moment ago, you just had to go and say 'nothing', like that was going to hide it from me."

"Rena. Don't be like that." he says, flashing me a weak smile. "I really am fine."

"So you just came to see me."

"I've done with with Ignis before," he says. "I heard you were, and I came down, but then something stopped me in my tracks... there was something familiar in the air."

I nod. "You might be part of all this, then?"
Indy looks desolate, as if shrinking into his own pelt. "Sure, Rena... but what part?"

We end up holding each other again, neck pressed against neck, heads buried deep in each other's fur, and I'm the one who whispers, this time, that things will be alright. I have to force a smile when he pulls back, and the two of us nod at each other, briefly, perfectly in sync. He follows me up to dinner, and I sit between him and Gale, who takes the head of the table in Auma's absence. Fyera and Flare sit across from him, while Avery is by Gale's side, head lowered. She looks like a guest.

We eat in near silence tonight, devoid of quips, and I offer, "I think I'm making progress, finally."
"Thank you, Ignis." Avery says.

"Welcome." Ignis responds.

"We're making good time in the field, too. Afternoon patrols went well," says Gale.

"Congratulations." I tell him.

"It's not a big deal. They'll be back tomorrow, long as it takes, 'til everyone's gone." Blossom says.
"That's real sunny of you, Blossom, thanks for the tip," snarls Gale.

"It's just life," Fyera concedes, eventually.
"Better here than anywhere else." I confirm.

We continue eating hashed meal and don't look each other in the eyes. The tension in the air is so thick that someone could cut it with a knife, but I hardly know how to wield mine.

(A/N: Six chapters to go.)