I wake up surrounded by bodies, all of them dim and dormant in the light drifting in from behind a sheet pulled over the window. The hollowness of their breath turns into soft, gentle sighting as my eyes and ears adjust and I pull myself up from the depths of sleep, my mind gripping at a receding dream. So much of last night teeters on the precipice between the waking world and something darker, and I find myself drawing up blank faces where expressions used to be. If I'd missed... something important...

"Looking for someone?"

I turn, seeking gray fur against a wall, and catch nothing but a shadow. Outside the door stands Rain, and she repeats, in a different voice altogether, "Are you prepared? I understand you haven't eaten, but I've already secured us some guma in the library. Books are a matter of grave importance, and to be quite frank, I wasn't expecting Avery's blessing... I may have been preparing all night." I approach her timidly, and I catch a darkness about her eyes. She smiles so hard that it narrows them into a squint, the shadows of her sleepless state (already made indistinct by her very fine coat) disappearing. "I know I must look like a wreck. Us bibliophiles and strategists have a tendency to be a touch manic about our interests, but I assure you, I did sleep, I did eat, and I'm not going to bite."

"Um, I wasn't--" I begin, tail tucked, "C-can we just go to the library, now?"

She nods. "There's another stairway in the back. It's on the midfloor."

"Midfloor?" I ask.

"Upper half of the entrance hall." she clarifies. "Training rooms, a lot of the more specialized departments..." She touches her nose to a wall, which glitters with glyphs before sliding open. I squeeze my wings back in as we descend through the tiny doorway and down into the dark, rows of lights flashing on just before we can meet them. She steps out onto a new row of rooms, this one lacking windows or any clear doorways, but instead endowed with various scrolls, gashes, and the occasional message or splash of color. It's messy, dissonant, and thick with scent, and I think I love it. The hall has been lived in. I can taste the history with every pawstep, rich on my tongue and free for my eyes to savor, and I think I might sob with joy.

"Gale's with Glaze, but they should be done momentarily. She's baking with him, since he got up way earlier than you, and her missions are all later." Rain says. "Thought I'd mention, since you two are..."

"Close." I finish. Glaze. Glaze? Snow. My mind stirs, and I try to draw myself back into focus. There are so many things bouncing in my head, below the surface, and I am trying to compile a thousand images into a single reflection I can draw from the darkness. The scent of sugar and sentiment wafts over my nose, from beneath us. That's Glaze.

I guess that's an answer.

"Indigo mentioned that you'd only known each other for four days," she says, voice rife with surprise. "Rena, are you entirely alright?"

"I've known him way longer than that," I whisper, although it's a lie at best and true at worst. From where? Are you just going to leave me with that?

"Hm," Rain starts. "Well, I suppose that kills that conversation. Fortunately, we're here, and we don't seem to be alone."

I can't be alone again.

Gale's ears perk when he sees us, and before it is replaced by a sharp coolness, I catch excitement dance across his eyes, complemented by a quickly hidden wave of the tail. We are complicit in this lie: we are not excited to see each other. What irrational attachment? What history?

Rain swings two gold pastries our way, both of which are topped by an orange-brown paste that is in turn topped by a smaller dollop of a sweet-smelling gel. I have the entire thing in my mouth and down my throat before I can even process the flavor, but my stomach is appeased, even if the rest of my body is still buzzing, which isn't my fault, I swear, I didn't do anything. I blink. "That's a guma?"

"Was, Rena. Was." Gale responds. His ears fall back as his eyes surmount a stack of papers, scrolls, and funny bound things (books? Yes, my mind confirms, because it can agree on this--books). "That wouldn't all be our reading material, would it?"

"More or less," Rain says, "I'm going to paraphrase, but a lot of these have pictures, which I thought you two might enjoy."

"Pictures," I repeat. "Those would be..."

"Not words." she says.

"Yes," I verify, with an unnecessary confidence.

Scuffling sounds from the corner, and Gale and I both tilt our ears in its direction. Twitch pulls out a book, which is so large that it takes up most of his chest area, and examines it, his dark eyes racing through the pages. After a drawn-out moment, disappointment flickers across his face and he looks from the book to us. "Problem?" he asks. "What are you up to with the newbies, Rain?"

"We're just reading, like you are." Rain opens one of the larger volumes, flipping pages as gracefully as she can with her paw. The back claw on hers has extended, giving her a bit more versatility, but she's still looking to me like she expects me to do something.

"Oh, that's interesting. Myths?" Each inflection in Twitch's voice is like someone trying to shove sunlight up your throat, but the last word betrays genuine interest.

"No better place to start." Rain settles on a two page spread aggressed with text, all of which has been shoved to the sides for the sake of a picture of a massive beast with six horns that flare out around her and thousands of tails outlined in gold and white, giving them the appearance of the sun behind her. So powerful is the image that I can feel the heat emanating from it.

"We lost a lot when the castle was destroyed. Many of the most valuable documents, most original scripts, the like... up in smoke." Twitch mentions, "Lots of more Canira-friendly scrolls and texts, too."

"Greatest tragedy of our generation." Rain mutters, a sharp edge peeking through the sadness. "Greatest heroes of any time, up in flames with all of the bodies."

"Don't get them too hung up on that," Twitch slides bach his volume. "Definitely don't leave out the parts where--" his eyes shine, but he doesn't continue. Gale's ears slide even further forwards. I can feel his heart skip a single beat.

"We'd like some space." Rain says, curtly, her own ears in an interested but perhaps not amused position, angled just forwards. "You and Thistle have... accommodations, don't you? Do you think it might be more prudent for you two to do your reading elsewhere while I attempt to educate the newbies?"

Twitch sighs. "Have it your way. I couldn't find what I was looking for, anyways." With that, he slides outside, and I catch sparks before the door closes behind him, leaving little more than a wall.

The library returns to silence, the stacks of books seeming to lean off the walls towards us, and I notice for the first time crude wooden carvings and paintings. Rain places a paw tenderly on the volume. "This is Verhamera," she says, "A deity outside of creation, born and attended to by the Terreskians, world watchers. They know every story that has ever been and will ever be, every slip of the timeline, the singular point at which the last breath in any world is drawn, and who draws it. Omniscient as she was, she had but one flaw--she was terribly bored... though more faithful texts often say lonely."

She flips to a page laden with text. Gale snorts and I try to peer through the words, as if an image might arise from them and bring clarity to the incomprehensible swirl of words. "So," Rain says, flipping again, several times, "She made thousands of creatures with her tails, each time giving a little of herself to cut into being. However, they were scattered across worlds, and they were all infinitely lonely as she was. At last, upon deliberation with the Terreskians, she gave up a great deal of her power..."

Another picture emerges at last, this time of a world made of those wrapped tails, folded into an orb. "This is our world. Land of the Dreamers, which is often shortened, naturally, to Dreamland. Dreamers across the dimensions saw stars across their skies that night and followed them into the new world, which the Terreskians were breathing flora and fauna into. Only there did they become truly awake."

A congregation waits hungrily below the figure of Verhamera, who looks no less powerful for the loss of tails. She is drawn in white, so she steals all the light from the waiting crowd, who are drawn not in black but in dark shades, just more than silhouettes. "She brought each kind up by name and endowed them with powers. Canii were given the power to freely manipulate space, and Canira, the powers of all the land to protect them with. A few more species, six or so (admittedly no one knows how many of the current species were there are the very beginning, as many species have attempted to 'insert' themselves into the myth), were brought up, and then they were all given the world as their domain, eternally. That's how we came to be."

"That was beautiful," I say.

"You'll be excited to know that they tell it a lot, then." Gale adds. "They really don't know what species were there from the start?"

"A lot of it was in those pages I skipped, but truthfully... no. I suppose that's the problem with myths, isn't it? They don't provide much room for nuance, and as a result, things are oversimplified or just incorrect, even when there's an element of truth to them. As a result, they're either thrown out entirely or assumed to be correct down to the word, and assuredly neither works out."

"Why this one?" I ask.

"We preface everything with Verhamera's myth." Rain looks skywards. The ceiling possesses a singular Canis-like shape, curled about the world, her many tails spreading out into other stories, other beings. "Where would we be without her?"

Gale narrows his eyes.

"We should continue," I say.

She turns to a page with nine circles arranged such that they form a much larger figure, with lines drawn in intricate, colored patterns between them. "These are the nine alignments. Fire, nature, water, light, dark, lightning, ice, air, earth... sometimes they're also referred to as 'Virtues', because of their connection to certain desirable qualities, but nonetheless, they're all components of a mesh that overlies not only our world but all possible worlds, though due to our origins, our mesh is significantly stronger. This mesh is magic, sentience, the ability for living things to create change and thus impact the course of timelines... some call it free will, others destiny, so you can imagine that how it has been interpreted over the ages is entirely contradictory. It's something we harness, sure, but it is unclear if we create it or it creates us. Some say there's no way to distinguish between the two."

I take in a breath. "And?"

"Every dimension gets one living being extraordinarily powerful in each of the alignments. Due to our position, and the cyclical nature of life and reincarnation on our world, it is likely most of these alignment holders, also known as Virtues, are still around. That is, all except one."

"I've heard this. It's fire." Gale says.

Rain nods. She slides the book away and knocks over the next volume, which falls open of its own accord to a picture of a white Canis with eyes like Verhamera's tails, two suns, and three horns on each side, like her... mother. I choke back something that is condensing in my throat, thickening, and which relieves only when Rain turns the page to two Canii, one of whom is cloaked in fire and the other of whom has large protrusions from her back somewhere between butterfly petals and wings. "Lotos and Vivian came at a chaotic time for our world, during our first battle with the Obsidians. The two of them, Lotus's sister, Natrina, and Aislyn, first Auspicia--" I can feel all the nerves in my body snap, "--were trying to fight back a force greater than themselves. Eventually, they only succeeded in shielding the world. However, Vivian, Virtue of fire and determination, was so enraged by this that she jumped into the future to fight the Obsidians far in the future, in a time where they might be more vulnerable, or where she might receive support. Due to the nature of time, she could never return, and Lotus was so saddened by the loss of her lover and the weight of the war they faced that she wasted away and died."

Rain moves through a few pages, and I stick my paw out to stop her at a familiar drawing.

A crooked tree graces the middle of the page, spiralling up and around itself before cascading back down in a hundred drooping branches laden with leaves. "That's my tree," I say. "There it is."

"You've been to see Lotus's tree?" asks Rain. "No one's seen it--her--since the Plague began. The tree has moved around across the years, but it just... Rena."

"I met her right before Gale," I confirm. "She wanted me to find something."

"Do you remember what it was?"

"No, but I think it might just have been something. I think she was worried that I was alone." I say. "Is she the tree?"

"They buried her body beneath it. As a first incarnation of a Virtue, she was extraordinarily strong... of course, a third of that power would be passed on to her heartline... who's been missing since Illuet, thousands of years ago. We could use hope right now. Personally, I elect to believe she'll be around."

My mind is still stuck in the last story. Against my own will, I ask, "Who's the Auspicia?"

Rain's eyes brighten. She leafs through the book again, landing on another picture. A speckled Canis, white flecked with rose, stares back at us through twin suns. A multitude of sketched in wings emerge from her back, six in total, and her tongue lolls into an easy, confident smile, far from the triumphant or solemn figures of the other myths. "The Auspicia, Her Highest Auspicia, ruler of all Dreamland, fashioned from the heart of Verhamera herself. Emissary. Vessel. Protector of the realm, destined to incarnate again and again endlessly, the three parts of her spirit bound to each other by Verhamera's raw strength... until her most recent death. Missing ever since."

My ears fall. I can feel everything in my body shaking, the earth turning beneath me, flickering memory threatening to eat me from the inside out. "She's beautiful," I murmur, but she is so much more than that. She is terror incarnate, a light blossoming in my ribcage that wants to get out of my body.

Rain nods. "Isn't she?"

The whole room seems to brighten at once and Gale closes the book. "Prophecy decreed an end to her reign, didn't it? A long time ago. It mentioned, explicitly, that she would be cut short before the doubling of a doubling several times over."

"Yes. If she died during her sixty-third incarnation, that would fit." Rain sighs. "I don't think the world is ready to survive without her, though." She's staring me right in the face. My heart begins to accelerate, and I try to fake some kind of neutral expression. What do you want?

"Not that we have much of a choice," Gale says, and Auma opens the door.

The copper Canis is stern but her body language is slack and relaxed. Se turns first to Rain: "Was that sufficient?"

"More than sufficient. I need to speak to you, though, regarding strategy and how best to implement our new numbers." Rain's voice grows colder, darkness crossing her expression. "I have some concerns, naturally."

Auma nods resolutely. "I wouldn't have interrupted you if I hadn't been thinking the same thing. We're facing the harvest season, and that means the landkeepers at the edges of town are going to want additional protection throughout the day. Surra and the others have been on it, but it looks like this year is going to be especially challenging. We might have to bring in.. well, I won't trouble the newbies with it, but you two should know you'll be worked to earn your keep and then some."

Rain turns back to us, giving her finned tail a wave. "Sorry to yap your ear off, and make sure to put the books back when you're done. You've been a lovely audience, and I'm excited to fight alongside you--both of you."

"You too," Gale says, watching the door close. Long after the final thump echoes and dies in the room, he lowers his head and growls, "We can't trust her."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Did you see the way she looked at you when she was telling half those stories? They're trying to... they want something out of us, Rena. You especially." He looks at the stack of books, then back to me.

"Why?"

He sputters to find words, his tail almost knocking the book over as he swings it. "They probably think you're part of one of those stories. You look like you just stepped out of a myth. They want to believe in something. They'll cling onto anything, trust me, I--"

"How many packs did you go through before you came here?" I ask.

"Dozens," he says, lowering his head. "It's the face markings. I'm a bad omen walking."

"I want to believe this will be different," I say, wondering how such small markings (and they're perfect-- a curl, a spot, a line, they remind me almost of an eagle's beak, framing his eyes) could inspire so much hatred. What connotation could one derive from such a simple pattern?

"Me too." I admit, then shake my head, trying to throw the uneasy sensation off of my back. "It doesn't mean anything. What did Avery say about ghosts?"

"Everyone's a ghost, this far down the line. With all this history, this many heartlines... I can only imagine." He looks up at the ceiling. "But I guess I don't want to, anyways."

"Eyes forwards." I agree.

Gale nods, resolutely, and tilts his head towards the door. "Think we can find something better to do with the day than standing around, suffocating in a room?"

 "I want to see the sun," I say, and all the voices in my head still. There's no better time to be alive than the present, and no better way to feel alive than participating in the act of being.

(A/N: Day of update. Haven't done them in a while and this one feels a little rushed. Please point out any spelling mistakes or things that seem fishy to you, as I had to rewrite *half* the chapter last minute.)