(A/N: Spoilers for Roses and Thorns below.)

On the second day I rise while the moon is still overhead. I can not confirm this beneath the white walls, the building pressing down on me and holding me there by the wings (oh, plaster, liberate me), but I also realize that I am a little brighter than yesterday almost immediately, and things are no longer calm on the pond. I let a faint breeze carry across my consciousness but recoil fast as I hit something, tasting metal in my mouth.

"What do you want from me?"

Gale's eyes are bright in the dark.

I sit next to him. "Do you hear things?" I ask in so low a voice as to be imperceptible.

"No," Gale says, with a half-bark. Oh, that's so funny, Rena. You're very funny.

'Rena'.

"I don't know where I got my name from."

"I gave myself my name. There's a good chance you made yours up, too."

"It doesn't always feel like it belongs to me."

"Most Sentients get theirs from their pack or kin. No one's name actually belongs to them. It's a way for others to keep identifiers on you, isn't it? I know you. I know your name. If you didn't have one, you'd be practically a ghost."

"I am a ghost, Gale."

"Of who?"

"I have no clue, but I don't think they like me very much."

"Me neither."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing as in you don't like me, or... nothing as in someone doesn't like you?"

"You say things in your sleep sometimes."

"Do I?"

"Yep."

"Should I be worried?"

"Do you want me to lie?"

"No."

"Very."

"Are you..."

"Am I what, Rena?"

"The others say they hear things. Glaze did, at least."

Gale's breath strokes across the silence, culminating with a cough. Outside, a stray light passes below, possibly a civilian, and the light through the windows lays bare a legion of shadows which seem to warp around it as it passes. "I'm fine."

---

That's the last time we talk for days. The heat outside intensifies, curdles past the apex into something more powerful and yet so much more sour, and Gale disappears into the shadows as the light rises around us. The few Sentients who they keep indoors with me, often but not always Indy, are in good spirits for most of the time and terrible for the rest of it. We have some Canis-centric game out on the table that requires us to move pieces around with telepathy to conquer territories, a bunch of kinegraphs sprawled across the floor, and if I've learned anything it's that my interest in stories either only extends to pertinent ones. I also apparently hurled a kinegraph across the room after someone on it mentioned... I don't remember. There's something broken against the wall, still bubbling up with magic, and the paint smear has been washed over several times but still remains, like blood.

"At least someone was kind enough to stock the back room with a whole keg of cider." Kairu says. "Could make the day a lot more interesting."

"The drink is for tomorrow's party, at the end of the Dog Days." Indy surveys Kairu's bowl, which he is standing over with an almost guilty expression, his tongue suspended over the coppery, foul-smelling liquid. "You might want to put that back."

Kairu presses his face against the liquid and takes a deep slurp.

"Does it help?" I ask. My body flutters with the idea of relief. I hadn't realized how much I was waiting on it until this second, and my head pulses in time, compelled.

No.

"Didn't ask," I say to myself.

"Rena, are you okay?" Indy asks. "Do you need to lie back down?"
"I've been lying down all day." I say. "It's past noon. I need to see the sun. It's nice outside."
"Ma-a-aybe later." Kairu and Indy are looking at each other in a way that implies I will not be leaving the premises any time soon. My paws itch.

"Can you at least explain what's going on?"

"Magical instability. They don't want you to go out on a mission and get yourself hurt." Kairu explains.

They should be afraid of you.

Why?

No answer.

"I'm going to get food. Feel free to barricade the entrance in case I make a run for it." I call.

"Alone?"

"Alone," I confirm, and pass the meat closet into the basement instead. Meat-ing room. A smile flickers across my face.

The basement is even hotter today, but I familiarize myself quickly to the fire. Adrenaline rushes and ebbs in my veins, interchangeably, and I lower myself into the shadows.

"Damnit damnit damnit damnit--"

"I came again."

He looks back at me with abject puzzlement. "How'd you get down here?"
"I don't know, but I'm here."

"They're still keeping you in?"

"As long as they can."

"Why?" Twitch asks. "If they really wanted you to... I mean, if you're that important, they need you right now more than ever."

"They don't explain anything to us, Twitch." I snap.

"Us," whispers Twitch. His eyes flicker around, violently, as searching my body for something past me. "Us. Of course. Of course, of course, of course... I mean, wait. They'll know soon. I'll know. That's a really rash assumption."

I didn't mean you and I.
"What?"
"I ramble when I... never mind. Look." Twitch says. "Furnace of pure energy over here. Expect nothing coherent out of me."

The flames stroke both of us. I feel their familiarity fall over me like a wave, and I am wading through fire like water, far in the past. An elegant beast strides between embers, the ruins of her kingdom blazing, and she turns to me, through me, and I look at her blistering eyes and feel my entire body shake. She takes me to a spring, a plume of elemental energy deep in the forest, and a small Sentient, similar to Twitch in form, lies curled up in the center, the tendrils of magic framing its body.

"What are you?" I ask.

"Teeyu. Tiayou." Twitch says. "We come from--"

"Plumes. Magical plumes. Caused by irregularities in the magic system of this world, generally acting as a counterbalance to..." Not my voice, not my knowledge. "Great fall-offs in the population."

"Do you know the origin of the name 'Teeyu'?" I ask.

I shake my head. I can't control the spontaneous ebb and flow coursing through me. It has a will against and contrary to mine.

"The story goes some Felis found the first recorded spring after a great war, when the land's population had been almost entirely wiped clean. When asked what they found by another patrol, they only responded in an older Felis tongue: tiayou. 'I don't know'."

"Me neither." I whisper.

Twitch looks into my eyes. I feel ashamed for having spoken, but he doesn't seem to notice. Instead, he continues, "I'm not going to be around here very long, Rena, and when she says my name... that hurts as much as 'Forhaga' hurts for her."

"Oh."

"It doesn't matter now." Twitch manages half a smile. "You know, it h-helps to have others around. Theoretically."
"Thistle should be here, then, shouldn't he? Because you're companions."
Twitch looks back at me. "You should leave."

"But you just said--"

"I shouldn't get, shouldn't need, and don't deserve help. Is that clear? Get out."

I take the first step onto one of the stairs, the heated metal burning my paws. The pain races up my body, the immediate sensation clearing the fog of my head, and I dash forwards onto the main level. I only realize I'm sobbing once I hear the pitiful noises coming out of my mouth echo around the empty hallways. I have no idea how long it's been, or where Indy and Kairu are-- Indy. I long for that comforting blue gaze so much that when I hit fur I almost nuzzle it, only to embrace the curly pelt of Nina.

"You're a mess." Nina states.

"Sorry."

"Talking to Twitch." I said. "I was-- he's hurt, and he's angry, and I couldn't help." I say, still dizzy. "I'm awful. I feel awful." I explain when Nina doesn't seem to budge an inch.

"Twitch is what you'd expect from a Tiayou, really." Nina's eyes are cut gems, glinting with the cruellest light. She flicks me off with a twitch of her muscles, which tremble beneath her fur--her litheness conceals surprising bulk.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I ask, tentatively.

Nina snaps, "I have no idea why Gale likes you so much. You really are impossible, Rena."

"He's barely talked to me since all of this started," I complain.

"He's been at your side the entire time." Nina fires back. Her eyes glint, and I feel the thin, curly fur of her tails as she rolls them across my back. "He talks about you constantly. You don't understand a thing and yet everyone is smitten with you, Rena. It could be because you're so easy to manipulate, so trusting, and I'm shocked no one has taken advantage of that yet."

"The Defenders are good." I state.

"Ah, sure, but the world isn't."

"They are my world." I insist. "Is Gale back?"

Nina nods. "You know where to find him."

"No, I don't."

"Then maybe he doesn't want to be found."

"He's not talking to you either, is he?" I ask.

Nina's face grows cold. "Everyone gives up on me eventually."

Everyone is too honest in the heat of this. I can see the way it plays with their secrets, water bubbling up and over the pond, and my ice is melting. The entire surface of the pond is pale, the curved edges of a massive bubble trembling beneath at my every pawstep as it waits to get out of me. "Gale wouldn't. He's just hit hard by this."

Nina's eyes flick towards the basement. "That means something, coming from you."

"I'm glad I could help," I say, my face lighting up.

"You didn't do that much. Don't be so proud of yourself." Nina responds, defensively.

"Sorry," I bark as Nina flicks me in the face with three of her nine tails on her descent into the basement. I can hear the stairs whine around her, creaking, creaking, and it reminds me of a branch, about to give under the weight of something.

Sun.

I get caught.

Downstairs.

I get caught again. Kairu is kind when he pushes me back. "We really can't."

"Why?" I ask.

Sun. Sun. Sun. I feel my back about to explode. I haven't seen her in so long. I need her all around me, I need breath, I need air, I need something to numb the terrible pain, and I think I might die if I continue like this. I pant, body emptied, and it is Avery who takes me back upstairs. Her body is covered in new wounds, most of them magical singes, and her lightning runs over me. I feel my whole self shake, going electric, as she lays me down.

The room smells wonderful even if it is wonderfully fake. I dream of forests, lapsing in and out of sleep, while Glaze prepares dinner. The rest of the group engages in carols and Avery uses magic to enlarge a kinegraph I'm assured is a classic.

"It's a semi-dramatic reenactment of a local tale, a narrative from the reign of the Second Auspicia." explains Rain. "It's wildly inaccurate, which it shouldn't be, given that we have the original text which has been verified a dozen times over..."

"Rain." groans Axel. "Please."

Despite this, Rain speaks up across the bulk of the scene to offer where she feels historical inaccuracy has taken root. She critiques everything from the composition of the forest's trees to major plot points. "Oh, you know that meeting halls were never that nice. The Glade was a very, very, very small town, with a population around twenty. Yet we're giving them a decked out stone building?"

"They get the banners right." Glaze offers.

"Oh, absolutely! We have the originals around here somewhere." Rain says. "Basement, I believe? It was a gift from someone when we started our work."

Auma barks sternly, "Blossom wants to hear."

"You have big ears, Blossom. I think you'll be fine." replies Glaze. "Plus, we've already seen this a thousand times. The murderer iiiiiiisssss...."

"I haven't watched it!" I retaliate, jumping back into consciousness. "Please don't tell me it's Ace!"

"It's not Ace," Indy says.

"That's just as bad as spoiling it." Avery puts her head in her paws. "All of you are impossible..."

"I could quote this entire thing without even watching it from beginning to end. We watch it every year at least three times." Glaze yawns. "It's fine by me if you all want to talk over it."

"Not everyone feels that way," responds Auma, "and you're the one talking over it."

"Put your claws where your tongue is." Fyera says, eyes flashing defiantly.

"Wait. We should..." Glaze's tail waves furiously. "Do our own reenactment! I call playing Rye, since she's the baker. I mean, that's superficial, buuut..."

"Are we all in agreement on--"

"Auma's Tammory!" Blossom says, hugging Auma, whose face falls slightly. Tammory is the curt but inevitably loveable lawmaker, one of the leading figures of the town. "Who's going to be Alabaster?"
"I'll do it," Indy says, ambling forwards like the protagonist's cynical old mentor. He manages the perfect condescending scowl. "Get off my lawn or I'll throw you in a jail cell."

"That's so out of character." quips Glaze.

"Get off my lawn or I'll--" begins Ace.

"No spoiling the ending!"

"How are we supposed to reenact it without explaining all the parts to Rena?"

"We can queue her into her lines, or she can watch. Either way... we need an Ace, don't we?"

A Canis wearing a cape, walking towards me... silver fur turns under my pale flesh.

"Indy is Ace," I say, suddenly sure. Look at that halo. So faint. Long ago, you were the sun. Do you know that? Are you aware? My body strains upwards, like a plant growing upwards into the light. No. Stop being weird. We're enjoying a night together.

"And you're Asha." Indy winks.

The room goes quiet. Avery opens her mouth, closes it, and the two of us share a long, meaningful look. He, too, strains at the confines of his body, of tradition, convention, loyalty, blood, there's something more he wants to say.

"Say. Unrelated note, but have you noticed that the Canira they chose to play Sirius in the kinegraph looks a little like Gale?" asks Fyera.

Gale's not here.

"If we're going to do this, we do this, but I'm not waiting around all night." Auma says. "Can we start?"

Minor roles are decided, the most major role inevitably falls to Avery, who willingly accepts the part of Rose, up-and-coming detective trying to avenge the mysterious death of her sister, and we begin with the scene where she spares Sirius, believing that he may not be guilty as Alabaster suggests. I'm surprised to find everyone legitimately does know every line by heart, and they say each with conviction. We slip into other's pasts easily as our own, even if I'm only pretending I know how to play along, and Indy whispers line after line.

"I'm stumbling," I say.

"It's your first time. You're doing wonderfully." he responds.

He's too nice to me.

We work through a year of history in the ancient Glade, a place bordered by trees, and I try to see past the edge of the room into the forest that used to surround a family of this size in a time that wasn't the end of times. Peace fills me as Indy and I pretend to walk through a forest, lapping around the sofa, and this abates when I see the hole in the wall. In my mind, it is a hole in the ceiling of stars, and it inevitably leads up into an emptiness.

Alabaster hangs for his sins, for attempting to bring back his bastard daughter through black magics using the corpse of Rose's sister. The whole town lifts their head to call out to the stars in unison, though I am still watching the wall through the epilogue.

This city really is founded on a hill of bones.

When everything is done I lope down the stairs, which prompts concern until Indy promises, "Everything's locked."

I could bust the walls down. I imagine myself filling with so much light as to cut the world open. I imagine destroying the barricade. I imagine all the things I could do to ruin their trust, a mixture of elation from the last few hours (I am part of something) and a deep-seated fear rife from the Dog Days (I am parted from it).

Gale turns in the shadows. There is something at his mouth, dark and flowing, and something else close to his head--a weapon almost broken free of its constraints. It swings right back up, pushed by a shadow, when I enter, and his ears stand on end.

"They're upstairs." I tell him, weakly.

"I don't want to be around anyone else." Gale complains.

"Idiot." I say quietly, and turn to go. All the light leaves with me. I can't do this now.

Gale stands his ground. "You don't understand how bad this is."

I turn on him in a blaze of fury. "I want to. What was all that about us protecting each other? Why do you keep... why do you have to make all of these promises? Then you had to leave after that, for days? I don't know what I'm doing wrong! Why does everything have to be weird with you?"

"We are weird. We're never going to be normal, no matter what the context of the world is, okay? If I could, I would give everything just to be able to sit up there around the kinegraph and be happy, then I would do that." he explains. "That's just not how things are."

"What's wrong with your mouth?" I ask.

He slicks back something dark. "They're all over me, Rena. The shadows are inside of my body, too. It hurt so much I needed to leave."

"Sorry."

"There you go. Could've asked that first."

"They could help."

"Or they could turn on me. You know, like Twitch, who I guarantee wasn't up there."

"Thistle wasn't either." I argue.

"Woof. They were missing out, weren't they?"

I face him for a long time, the dialogue between us lost to the winds. The air is dust and a thousand sharp things glint off every available surface, even when there's hardly any light for them to take in save for the moon, who has stopped by the windows to watch our quarrel. I return upstairs and soon to bed, and the end of the world continues outside, the city protected by a small guard of volunteers while we sleep up to prepare to glut ourselves on blood again, and I try to trace myself back past fractured images into a time before the self.

You don't want to come back here.

"Why?" I ask.

You're not going to like what you see.

Oh, like I didn't already know that.