Garrod kept easy as a serpent laying in wait. Single eye watching the stranger as signs all too familiar to the hunter flicked across the white of the other man's eyes. Their Pupils darting. The pulls of his lungs shortening.

If he was a demon wearing mortal skin. He hid it well.

And you would know, more than most, would you not, Oh Bearer Mine? Came a feint whisper between Garrod's ears. Like so much broken glass stirring across stonework.

A huff from the hunter as he tied the scholar's camel down. Rope looping and winding with all the certainty of a hangman's noose as it came tight about the trunk of a sturdy palm leafed shrub, too short to be a tree.

Brinda felt that mix of hot and cold so many did feel when in the presence of one they admired. Her youth, and inexperience, turned all to tumult and swirl.

To hear the lady lark say so sweetly that same moniker she had bestowed upon her after a silly mud crab slaying. It made her heart swell. Helped her forget the aches and pains that blistered the soles of her feet, or gnawed at the lengths of her bones, and that part of her left short by demon's bite.

She could not help but blush, and turn away. "Here's to hopin' I can live up to such promises," the youth sounded far off as she mulled over the bard's words.

A few adventures the wiser. Ears learned to lesser songs sang by lesser bards. Some pestering part of her did not want to believe what the Lady Lark had put to the air between them.

Anira wasted no time in setting the score. She too gave hunt to the lost city, and all the mystery it held behind whatever veil hid it from every seeker's eyes. Though she had trusted those that warranted no trust at all.

Garrod had half the mind to dig that barb in. Settled on a huff, and a cut of the eyes that weighed the endless grains of sand, rather than torment the song bird any more.

If Omari took note, he made no sign of it. Steady as the sovereign as it climbed the sky, he went on, setting his portion of the camp. Sand colored tarps, set to shield the sun, and let breathe cool breeze.

"Temhalir castrates, and Scorpions," Garrod sounded off in the near distance. Shook his head. "And the Vaggan tripples," he remembered.

"You forgot the Wawik Company," Brinda tacked on.

Omari slowed some as he tied down to the last of stakes.

“Would you mind terribly if I joined you on this adventure?... at least until I can find my way back to Aetochi…”
​
The professor wasted little time in occupying Omari's tent. Some tome, near the same size as he was, wrestled under his arm.

Omari but stared at the tent flap through which the professor had vanished through. "Well," he said softly. "This won't do," he stepped through the tent.

"What! Unhand me! Savage!"

Garrod's eye went flat. Tracked back to Anira and Momoshiro.

"... I would advise against volunteering... Cindersend has ships... Turn back with me. We will find you a ship."
​
"Well, there's something I did not expect," Garrod confessed, as he began to unpack his own tent. Brinda already there, helping lay down the stakes. "To hear the Lady Lark of the Lanes wave the white flag when so much glory was afoot," he said with a smirk. A daring. Almost an invitation. If only it didn't stab to the heart of a proud soul's pride.

He went on with the work.

The professor was thrown out of the tent on his ass with a thump. Omari, gently and with all the grace of a dancer upon the stage, bowed and offered the man back his book. All the picture of courtly grace as his robes flowed behind him.

Indignation writ plain on the scholar's face. Spectacles askew, hat frumped and near falling off.

"You are more than welcome to join us, Mister Momoshiro," Brinda affirmed. Stopping her one armed work, and wiping the sweat off her brow as she looked up at the man from where she crouched. "If what the Lady Anira says is true, we'll need every able body we can get, to beat the others to the City."

Wholly undisturbed, after settling down beneath the shade of a wide leafed palm frond, the scholar cracked open his massive tome, and began to pass over the scribbles and writwork. "It is very likely," he went on. "That something will be revealed to us come the zenith of the Thief's moon," he nod along.

"That will be this night," Omari said from the inside of his tent.

Garrod looked to Anira once more. "You can take my tent," he offered. Almost sounded angry about it. "Decide what you are going to do after a full night's rest," he added.

Omari was checking the heads of his arrows. "We'll be having Dune Scorpion tonight," he said with big smile.

Garrod grinned. "Almost as good as mudcrab,"
 
Momoshiro listened intently as Anira recounted her journey, his attention fully captured. With each detail she shared, his excitement only grew—likely the opposite of her intent. That became clear when she offered to guide him to the nearest port instead of allowing him to continue on with them. At that, his ears dipped slightly, the spark in him dimming.

It was a kind offer. A sensible one, even.

But the promise of adventure was the one thing keeping the weight of his situation at bay. Without it, the reality of being stranded threatened to settle in. He could already feel that familiar darkness stirring at the edges of his thoughts, creeping fingers of doubt and loneliness reaching for him. The idea of traveling forward—with purpose, with companions—kept it from taking hold. Even if some of those companions seemed less than thrilled about his presence.

His gaze flicked briefly toward the man with the eyepatch before returning to Anira. He opened his mouth to respond, but the others spoke first. By the time their exchange settled, Brinda had extended an invitation for him to join them.

Just like that, the smile returned.

Taking the scholar’s lead, Momo moved to sit beneath the shade of a wide palm frond, grateful for even a small reprieve from the relentless desert sun. His eyes drifted to the book in the man’s hands, curiosity lighting his expression as he wondered what knowledge filled its pages. His ears stood tall, his tail swaying idly behind him.

That curiosity didn’t last long.

Garrod’s offer of a tent to Anira shifted Momo’s attention immediately. The realization hit him a moment later—he didn’t have anywhere to sleep either.

His eyes swept the makeshift camp as he chewed lightly at his lip. The Raakgui he used for storage held many things, but not a tent. Weapons, tools, his suitcase—items meant for survival in a different sense. Back home, he rarely needed to think about shelter. Work usually took him to towns or cities where lodging was easy to find.

This… was different.

“Is there perhaps a tent I could borrow… or share?” he asked, tone hopeful.

He managed to hold back a grin—at first.

“We foxkin are excellent bedmates,” he added, the smile slipping through despite himself. “Very comfortable.”

As if to prove his point, his large, plush white tail curled around his front, and he leaned into it with a small, contented nuzzle.
 
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Anira didn’t look up from the ground when the scholar began his muttering about moons and revelations. She listened, of course she did. “Something will be revealed,” she repeated under her breath. Voice both dismissive and hollow.“Yes. I imagine it will.” A small pause. “Clouds, perhaps.”

“Glory?” she echoed, lifting a brow at Garrod. She tilted her head, studying at the rest of them. The one armed girl, the foxkin, the scholar and Omar. No, they wouldn't be legends. They would be a pile of bodies. “You all sound very certain,” she added, softer now. “Like this ends with us walking into something grand.”

Her gaze drifted toward the dunes, where the heat warped the horizon into a liar. “It doesn’t.”

When Garrod offered the tent, she looked at him again. Really looked this time. The grin. The dust. The general aura of questionable life choices. “Your tent?” she repeated. A pause. Then a smile bloomed, bright as a dagger’s edge in the night. “Oh, how generous. How unexpectedly gallant of you!”
Another pause.

“I would rather be buried alive in sand again.” Anira shifted slightly against the palm.

Then came the talk of scorpions. Her eyes lifted slowly toward Omari, then to Garrod, then back again, as if perhaps she had misheard. “Dune… scorpion.” she repeated. Her nose wrinkled. Offended on a deeply personal level. The minstrel pushed herself up. She had been beaten, robbed, abandoned, nearly killed, and dragged herself across half a desert... And she refused to add eating insects to that list of indignities.

A small breath, steadying herself, smoothing what little remained of her composure.

“I am not hungry.”

Which was a lie, but a dignified one. Her hand curled slightly at her side. She turned from them before anyone could answer, leaving behind the talk of fire and food and tomorrow, and walked deeper into the oasis. The air shifted as she went. Cooler. Damp. The scent of water and green things pushing back against the endless dust. She followed the persistent whisper of the spring and stopped at its edge.



Night fell. The desert’s heat lingered stubbornly, radiating from the dunes like a living thing.

The bard had been right. The night was cloudy. The moons was smothered beneath a restless quilt of clouds. A heavy, low hung cover, stitched with the faint, shimmering trails of Shroud drifting just beyond sight, swallowed the stars whole.

Clouds could hide the moon. Clouds could hide the stars. But they could not hide what was set in motion.
 
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"Glory? You all sound very certain... Like this ends with us walking into something grand... It doesn't."

Garrod grinned at that. "What fare, must we all pay, for but the grandeur of another morning's ray, Lady Lark,"

Then her eyes hit him. The smile. Saccharine as all the world's poisons. The build up. Added age to the sentiment sliced open between them. Spoiled it to fine and potent vintage.

"I would rather be buried alive in sand again."

He couldn't help but snort a laugh. Sound sharp as a tanning knife. "Well, in case you change your mind," he said, gruff with his amusement.

Brinda blinked. Not so sure as to what was happening. "It's a big tent, Lady Lark!" she assured. "Got plenty of blankets!"

"Is there perhaps a tent I could borrow... or share?"

Garrod's eye slid to the white tailed wanderer. Narrowed with all of the suspicion he still had for him.

"We foxkin are excellent bedmates... Very comfortable."

Brinda's cheeks turned rosy. A little catch in her throat as she blinked and turned away. Fingers grasping about her arm opposite. "I mean, It's a big tent," she said, sheepish.

Garrod glared at the man. "Bedmate, huh?" clipped words rasped out.

The scholar looked on wide eyed at the lustrous tale. "You can share my bed, if you'd like, foxkin," the man still had his book open. But his eyes were full of the glimmer and shine of that white tail. Looked at it like a thing he wanted nothing more than to ware. If only to see how it felt. "I have cushioned bed roll, and linens from the semorael itself,"

Omari laughed easy. "My tent has room as well," he said, cool as breeze through a palm frond. "Should any one save the good Professor wish to shelter in it," Shouldered his bow. Whistled two sharp notes. "Come on then, Mouse, let us go and gather the night's fare,"

Come the cool of night, and the catch of scorpions were staked through, put over open flame. Pieced out as the were, stingers chopped. Claws and legs parted, carapace butterflied, their innards blossomed to white fluffy meat.

The strong seasoning of chili powders, turmeric and coriander only brought out the mild sweetness of the meat the more.

Omari and Garrod grinned about the fire. Laughed as they swapped stories. Brinda had first watch. So she got first digs. After their employer. Who didn't say a word save the mutterings and ramblings of one possessed by an obsession only they understood. Their vision, their understanding, too far above any around them to be repeated. Let alone translated.

Food acquired. Back to their book. Back to their plans.

Plate piled high with a hunk of claw meat, golden and drizzling with a bit of curried oils they'd caught off the scorpion drippings, and a roasted yam they had dug out of the ground and stuck by the fire. The spud, steaming still, its sweetly scented swirls, ignorant to all the stirrings of the stars and the cosmos above them.

Nor the curtains of shroud that danced through the mists that rolled across the distant hills, and toward the oasis.

Brinda sat down beside Anira, and gave her the biggest smile she could. "The spuds quite good actually," she offered the plate. "Sweet, like marshmallow, after you roast it in fire for long enough, and the scor-" cut the word out. Laughed, nervous. "Meat, is uh, well, wanna try?" she said as she sat down beside the bard.

Garrod whistled sharp to Momoshiro. "You ever have dune scorpion?" he called out, as he hacked apart one of the claws. Steam swirled out from where his knife had cleaved the fire softened shell. Juices dribbled about. Little movements, sharp and clea, flicked the carapace away. Scraped together the meat and its juices on the flat board they had brought.

Horses and camel idled by the stream.
 
As before, Momo found himself doing more watching than talking.

The others clearly shared a history. He could see it in the ease of their exchanges, the unspoken familiarity between them. It stirred his curiosity almost immediately. How had they met? Was it through an adventure like this one? What stories did they carry between them?

Questions bubbled up, pressing at the edges of his restraint. He knew better—he knew how dangerous unchecked curiosity could be—but that knowledge had never stopped him before. At best, it only slowed him down.

Just a little, he told himself.

After the conversation lulled, Anira declined the offer of food and wandered deeper into the oasis. Momo’s gaze followed her, ruby eyes narrowing slightly. There was a weight to her—something quiet but unmistakable, like she carried a burden no one else could see.

He recognized that feeling.

For a brief moment, he considered getting up, following her, asking if she was alright. But he hesitated. He was new here. It wasn’t his place. And if her earlier responses were anything to go by, she likely wouldn’t welcome the intrusion.

So he stayed where he was.

For now, distance felt like the wiser choice.



Night crept in slowly, like a blanket drawn over the world. The light faded, but the heat lingered, stubborn and unrelenting. Momo wiped at his brow and glanced up at the sky. Through breaks in the clouds, the Shroud shimmered—an ethereal curtain of shifting lights, appearing and vanishing in soft, flowing patterns.

It was beautiful.

It always was.

He only wished the clouds would part more often, especially out here where the sky stretched so wide and unobstructed.

His earlier question about lodging had been answered—some offers more enthusiastic than expected. The scholar’s eagerness, in particular, had caught him off guard, and Momo had politely declined. Brinda seemed kind, but there was a nervous edge to her around him, and he didn’t want to add to her discomfort.

Omari, however…

There was something about him. A quiet distance, an aloofness that didn’t push Momo away so much as draw him in. It made him curious—perhaps more than was wise.

A small grin tugged at his lips before he smoothed it away.

His attention shifted as Garrod let out a sharp whistle. Momo looked up, brow lifting.

“You ever have dune scorpion?”

Momo shook his head as he rose and made his way over, watching as Garrod began preparing the creature.

“Can’t say I have,” he replied. “We’ve got similar cousins back in Aetochi, but I’ve never had the… pleasure.”

His expression twisted into something caught between skepticism and mild disgust.

His grandparents had told stories, though—stories of harder times, of scraping by on whatever they could find or steal. Poverty had a way of reshaping a person’s standards. Hunger, even more so.

But those were stories of the past.

They had built something better since then—a life, a clan, a name. And they had made certain their children would never have to live that way again.

The foxkin smiled to Garrod and would take the food without complaint. He lingered at his side for a moment, looking from the meal and then to the man.

"How long have you all known each other?"

Damn that curiosity of his...
 
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She knelt at the spring, hands slipping into the cold. Water ran red for a moment. Then pink. Then clear. She scrubbed carefully her face, hands and the worst of it. Trying not look too closely at her reflection. But when she finally did, it was with a small, tight breath.

Disastrous.

Her jaw tightened. A tangled, matted ruin. Stiff with sweat, grit, and dried blood where fingers had not been gentle. She leaned closer, as if there was some angle, some trick of light that would restore her to something recognizable.

There wasn’t.

Anira had not gone far. She heard them. The crack of shell. The low laughter. The easy, careless way they spoke around the fire... as if nothing had happened. Brinda’s voice came closer. Warm. Kind. Trying. "The spuds quite good actually" Anira turned her head. Her gaze dropped, against her better judgment, to the plate. "Sweet, like marshmallow..." The sunburnt red along the bards cheeks shifted, faintly, toward something greener.

Marshmallow, that is not helping. That was, in fact, making it worse. Her stomach turned. It wasn’t Brinda’s fault. The girl was trying so earnestly. But some things could not be softened with enthusiasm. Anira drew in a careful breath.

“Oh, I’ll maybe eat some later,” she said gently, with a small nod. Her hand lifted briefly, resting over Brinda’s wrist for just a heartbeat. “Thank you.” At least she meant that part. And then she rose again. A little too quickly. “I just...” a small gesture toward the general ruin of her current state. “I need to see to this before it gets to dark." She stepped away before Brinda could insist.

The bard went canning the edges of the oasis until she found what she was looking for. Desert aloe. Low, thick leaves, clinging stubbornly to life. She knelt beside one plant and broke off one leaf, the gel inside cool against her overheated skin. She hissed softly at the first touch, then kept going, smoothing it along her arms, her neck, her face. The bard did not need a mirror to know how it looked. She could feel the aloe gel ruining what little dignity she had managed to salvage.

“Absolutely radiant.” she muttered under her breath.

She turned.
Took three steps.
And walked straight into something that was not there.

The impact was sudden, her breath knocked from her lungs as her forehead met it with a dull, unforgiving thud.

A shape before her rippled into existence, as though her collision had dragged it out of hiding. Lines shimmered, edges forming from absence, until a figure stood before her. Tall, unmoving. A statue.

But not of stone. It gleamed in strange, shifting hues, like the fragile sheen of dragonfly wings caught in sunlight, colors that did not quite settle, flickering between one and the next, impossible to name and harder to look at for long. Greens deepening to gold. Blacks splitting into blue. This stone had no name in any language because no language existed when it fell from the stars. Anira staggered back a step, one hand flying to her forehead.

Brinda’s voice cut through the hush behind her, bright and startled and too loud. “WOOAH! What is that?!”

The statue was stained with the ochre dust of a thousand cursed dynasties. The body is that of a man. And its head, not a man’s. A jackal. The snout is long and scarred. One ear ragged. And where one mouth should be, two tear open the face. Each lined with teeth of polished bone, each curled into the same slow, patient grin. Two mouths that have never once spoken the same words to the same person.

One strong and long arm reaches outward. The long finger points; there, go there, the road is safe, with the calm, absolute certainty of stone. His head looks the other way entirely. Against his chest, pressed by his other hand, rests a scarab, all lapis and carnelian, wings spread wide across his sternum, held directly over the hollow where a heart was removed and never returned.

The scholar had been drawn by Brinda's voice. “The Ancient Liar,” he murmured, voice thin of excitement.
 
Garrod stared down Momoshiro with his lone eye. Measuring and measuring. Squint with something like amusement as his lip curled up. "Hear you got some mighty fine crab out that way," he said grabbing up a pop-corned carapace. Cracked it into two pieces. Caught the juices that spilled out of one hunk with the other. Handed the man the wetter of the two halves. "Well, this is a lot like that," he almost laughed. "Gamier, less sweet," he explained.

Omari slurped clean a shucked tail, already half done with his portion. Laughed hearty and with teeth. "Gives the body energy," he said with a slap of his inner thigh. Tossed a chunk of carapace into the flame. Cracked open the stinger bit, white meat dangling from the shell. He pointed at Momo. "Even a Djinn would be better for having it, eh?" he said with a wink, and sucked the stinger's meat down.

Brinda's gaze was cast over her shoulder at the campfire. Turned back to Anira, and could see the toll the desert had taken on her more clear now that the rush of seeing her again through the haze of heat had worn off. Could tell that, for the moment, it was just best to be there. Set the food down easy, and.. tidy up.

Leaving didn't feel right. But the Lady Lark seemed such an indipendent soul. Self assured and self sufficient. Grabbing what she needed and tending to the hurts she had.

Superficial. Brinda could hear the One Eye's low rumble, and feel the green stare, just kindling there in the back of her mind. She squint, and humphed, and decided that was wrong.


"Absolutely radiant."
"Resourceful, I call it," the girl tacked on, voice full of cheese.

A thunk. A ripple. A shimmer of something coming to being.

"WOOAH! What is that?!" The young Cazadore cried out.

A twang ripped through the black of Garrod's mind. A chord struck, dissonant across his psyche. Enough to have his right hand sieze. Twitch and tremble. Crush the scorpion carapace it had been holding moments ago. Meat and juices splatted out as he growled and hissed through his teeth.

Omari watched. Calm. Easy. Finished one last leg as the vision came full. Lapis and carnelian, covered with all the ancient dust the color of a madening yellow.


"The Ancient Liar,"
Garrod breathed hard. Eye wide as he stared down at the mess on the floor. What fun awaits us, Oh Bearer Mine. The chartreuse whisper echoed in his skull.

Omari stood up, bow grabbed, strung, and arrow knocked as he approached the statue. Cautious as a cat. Mindful of its shadow an its reach. "Well, it seems to be missing something," he stated flatly.

The scholar blink blinked, and strode right up to it. Stared up, and tilt his head as he studied its expression. "Its twiniform grin, yes, snout pointed to the south east, whilst the finger points toward the south west," he reached out a knobby finger.

"Don't Touch it!" Garrod snapped from across the sands.

The scholar froze. The Jackals body shimmered as if carved from shroud itself. Everycolor at the take of breath, no color as it spilled.

Somewhere in Garrod's pack, a box laced by sea shells rattled and shook.
 
Momo went on quite the journey of expressions as he watched Garrod and Omari prepare—and then eat—their scorpions.

At first, it was curiosity. Then hesitation. Then immediate regret.

His eye twitched.

Color drained from his face, leaving it a faint, sickly green. His ears slowly folded back against his head, his tail puffed up to twice its usual size with fur bristling in quiet protest, and his stomach gave a sharp, unforgiving lurch.

The foxkin, usually composed if not playful, looked anything but.

With a shaky hand, he passed his own overly moist scorpion off to Omari with little ceremony—far more urgent than polite—and promptly turned on his heel. A few hurried steps became a brisk retreat, then a full-on escape toward the edge of the oasis.

Moments later, from beyond the firelight, the night was pierced by the unmistakable, violent crescendo of Momo emptying the contents of his stomach into sand and scrub alike.

And then… silence.

He remained gone for some time, tucked away in the shadows—likely attempting to salvage both his dignity and his composure—until Brinda’s sudden shout cut cleanly through the quiet.

Momoshiro reemerged soon after.

He stepped from the darkness with a measured calm, as though nothing had happened at all, though the faint pallor of his complexion and the careful set of his posture told another story. A small handkerchief disappeared neatly into his robes as he approached, his attention already shifting to the statue before them.

He lifted a hand, two fingers resting thoughtfully at his chin as his gaze traced the form of the jackal-headed figure.

The dual grin unsettled him.

His eyes lingered on the details—the way the arm pointed in one direction while the head faced another. His red gaze narrowed slightly as he followed the line of the outstretched arm, then shifted to match the statue’s gaze in the opposite direction.

“Hrm…”

The sound was quiet, thoughtful.

He returned his attention to the statue just in time to see the scholar nearly reach out and touch it—only for Garrod’s sharp warning to halt him. Momo stepped in without hesitation, placing a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. His expression softened into a warm, reassuring smile.

“Best to practice caution when approaching the unknown,” he said lightly. “Even the best intentions can backfire.”

He gave the man a small, friendly pat before stepping away, drifting over to stand beside Anira.

“If we assume the name is apt, the likely direction is southeast, yes?”

His head tilted slightly as he spoke, that same easy warmth in his voice.

He was already preparing another question when—

His ears snapped upright.

The shift was instant.

Momo’s head turned sharply to the north, his body following a heartbeat later. At first, it was faint—a distant, muffled rhythm carried across the sand. Then clearer. Growing.

Hoofbeats.

Not the crisp, hollow clip-clop of hard ground, but something softer, heavier—the dull, churning thud of movement swallowed by sand, coming fast.

Too fast.

Momo’s hand moved to the hilt of his katana without conscious thought. His stance shifted, subtle but deliberate, as instinct took hold. He stepped forward, placing himself between the approaching sound and Anira, his posture no longer relaxed. He assumed Garrod on the others would make similar adjustments to meet their guests.
 
Her hand pressed to her forehead. When she pulled it away, slowly, carefully, she felt it... The swelling. The heat blooming beneath her skin. Her fingers hovered, then touched the bump again, gentler this time. Her eyes filled at once, lashes clumping as tears gathered whether she wanted them or not.

She leaned toward the water despite herself, looking. The water was honest in a cruel way. Red skin. Bruised cheek. Split lip. Her fingers hovered near her forehead, then pressed experimentally and she hissed as pain flared sharp and immediate. “Oh, that is...no...no, that is not...”

And now..
That.
Rising, unmistakable.

A lump. Right there. Center enough to be seen. Impossible to hide. Impossible to ignore. Her lips parted, but no words came at first. Just a tight, silent inhale as her throat closed around something sharp and humiliating. “Oh, this is perfect,” she whispered, blinking rapidly trying to force tears away.

Behind her, people shouted. Something about liars and statues and not touching things. The bard did not turn. “This is not happening,” she murmured. “This cannot be happening to my face...”

Garrod’s warning still rang in the air, but it slid off the scholar like oil off water. Professor Harcor did not hear the hoofbeats. Or rather, he heard them, distantly, filed them away somewhere beneath the far louder machinery of his own fascination. Round spectacles slipping down the bridge of his nose, eyes wide and glittering in the dim, shrouded light. And the scholar forgot the world. Every inch of the thing drank him in, the iridescent surface, the twin-mouthed jackal grin, the contradiction of limb and gaze.

“Exquisite…” the professor whispered. His head tilted.

Finger points one direction…
Eyes look the opposite…

“Yes, yes, yes… a contradiction, a paradox...no, no, a deliberate misalignment of intent” he muttered, pacing a half-step to the side, hands twitching with the need to know. He stepped closer, boots sinking softly into damp earth at the edge of the spring.
“Direction is the least honest language in a desert,” he went on, almost giddy now. “It shifts, it lies, it devours the uninitiated... no, no, no, that is not the message…”

The jackal-headed figure loomed above him, regal and terrible, its twin-mouthed visage caught in an eternal, knowing smile. One arm stretched outward, commanding the horizon. The other... Held close. Guarding. The scholar’s face softened, slow as a priest before an altar. “Yes… yes, I see you,” he murmured, voice dropping into something reverent, almost devotional. “Mm,” the scholar hummed low in his throat. “You’re a wicked thing, aren’t you…”

“The deceiver of roads… the keeper of crossroads… oh, you are not meant to guide, no…” Two paths and two lies. Harcor inhaled sharply. “Ahhh…” He smiled and turned to Brinda.

"Two roads for the fool,” he said, “Send him wandering till the sun peels him down to bone.” And so he went on, “In the old stories, they said the beetle rolled the sun itself across the sky. Carried it through the dark places. Brought it back again each morning.” His fingers rose, slow and unsteady, drawn toward the scarab like a compass needle. The jackal’s twin mouths seemed to curl just a fraction wider in the shifting light. “Girl,” he said to Brinda “you have the faster legs.”

“Quickly, girl! They are here for the same thing we are!!”
 

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A rough hand grabbed up the bard. Black gloved, clumsy and stiff. It snatched hard. "It's bloody happening, Lark! Now get up!" he drew her to her feet. Pulled her steps toward the action. "Less you want to loose more than just that pretty skin of yours," he grinned, wicked.

Omari let out a string of sharp whistles. Three beats. His dream blue cloak whirled about him like dust storm's swirling devil, and the shadows gathered about him. Glimmered like glass, and he was but a cold mirage against the darkening sands.

"Great," Garrod hissed, and let the bard go. "The triplets," ran toward the danger with duelist's sword drawn. Wind swept behind him. Carried him forward fast, all snap of cloak, and trail of linen.

Down the side of the dune, the three horseman raced. Ierro, with his lance couched, and his shield readied. Fierro, with his bow knocked, and its string drawn. And Pierro, with his book of spells splayed, and his wand of casting drawn.

Fierro loosed his bow. Arrow whistle whipped and sailed. The One Eye's green gaze glint, sword flashed, arrow cut down, arrowhead sliced open cloak in its wild spin. Come Pierro's ball of wyvern spit, and out went Garrod's gloved hand. Silver stitches glowed white across the pool of its black Windrider's leather. A gale wind whipped and knocked the flaming sphere off course.

It bloomed. Hard and fast beside the Cazadore. Knocked his step off stride. Thunder, canter, crash and charge. Ierro's lance did loom large.

From the shimmer of mirrored shadows, an arrow flew and struck true betwixt Ierro's plate. The deadeye shot loosed from Omari's bow, had the Hunter smiling as that rider fell to floor.

Quick work had Garrod's boot slam down the armored man's weight, as charging stead raced by and other brothers changed course.

Fierro's bow loosed second arrow. Missile sank hard into mailed chain, which saw the hunter's deathstroke fail. Fierro drew their own steel. Panic there to save their kin, while Pierro willed the shroud again.

Brinda's eyes were huge on the Scarab's most beautiful blue and daring red.

“...you have the faster legs.”

She gulped. Looked beyond the blue-red beetle.

“Quickly, girl! They are here for the same thing we are!!”

She ran. Ran toward where the Scarab lead. Could hear its wings buzz betwixt her ears. Its shell. Glitter and gleam ahead. A trick. Surely. A play of the stars against the sand. But what hope did she have, save to act.
 
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Momo’s instincts had been right—but what he hadn’t anticipated was just how formidable his new companions truly were.

Omari and Garrod moved like seasoned veterans, launching into action with the kind of practiced precision that only came from experience hard-won. There was no wasted motion, no hesitation—just fluid grace sharpened into something lethal. Steel, instinct, and discipline. Together, they were like a perfectly rehearsed dance, each movement feeding the next.

It was, Momo had to admit, genuinely impressive. For a brief, stunned moment, he could only watch.

But only for a moment.

His focus snapped outward again, red vulpine eyes scanning the oasis and the surrounding dunes with sharp urgency. The desert stretched wide beneath the dark sky, shadows shifting over sand and stone, but he saw no immediate sign of additional attackers.

At least… none he could spot.

His crimson gaze darted from the skirmish, to the three mounted riders, then back toward the others closer at hand.

Anira was still behind him. The scholar remained near the statue.

But Brinda—

His stomach dropped.

Wait… where did she go?

A quick turn of his head, a spike of panic, and then he saw it: The scholar staring in the direction of footprints in the sand.

A clear trail, leading away from the oasis.

“Aww, crumbs.”

His eyes flicked once more toward Omari and Garrod’s battle before returning to the tracks. He clicked his tongue, muttered a sharp curse in Aetochan, and made his choice.

Momo drew his free hand inward, fingers curling as though seizing hold of an invisible tether. Instantly, black and violet wisps spiraled around his arm, gathering fast. Then, with a forceful thrust, he cast his hand outward.

The energy erupted.

To those capable of perceiving such things, it would appear as though he had thrown a living storm into existence.

A massive serpent burst forth.

Its long body gleamed with iridescent white scales that shimmered like sunlight through rain. A flowing mane of pale hair trailed from head to tail, rippling as it moved. Four powerful legs tipped with razor claws caught the air, while branching antler-like horns crowned its regal head. Its great yellow eyes burned with intelligence.

The Rainbow Dragon.

“Protect the man and woman by the statue!” Momo shouted.

The dragon turned instantly, its immense body coiling around Anira and the scholar in a protective ring. Dense scales overlapped like forged armor, creating a living barricade between them and danger.

It wasn’t a perfect solution. He hadn’t had time for nuance, and there was every possibility the dragon might misinterpret Omari or Garrod if they got too close. A risk, but one he’d have to deal with later. Brinda came first. Without another glance back, Momo sprinted after the fleeing footprints.

Then the voice came.

Low.

Familiar.

Poisonous.

~You’re making a mistake.~

He flinched mid-stride, the words slithering through his thoughts like oil through cracks.

~You’re going to get them killed.~

His jaw tightened.

~You’re pathetic. Useless.~

“No.”

The word barely escaped him, more breath than sound.

His pace didn’t falter.

~That’s why your family doesn’t want you around.~

His chest tightened.

~You get people hurt. You always have.~

Momo’s teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached. His hand clenched into a fist as he pushed harder through the sand, refusing to slow.

He had heard it all before.

The doubt. That darkness that wore familiar voices like masks.

~Push it down. Ignore it. Keep moving.~

His breathing sharpened, ears pinned back as he forced his focus forward—on the tracks, on Brinda, on what mattered.

Then—

His eyes caught movement ahead. A flicker in the darkness.

Red eyes narrowed.

He saw something.
 
“It's bloody happening, Lark! Now get up!”

Garrod’s hand closed around her arm like a beartrap, hauling her bodily upright before her thoughts had even caught up with the movement.

“Gods...” she gasped, stumbling as he yanked her forward. The jerk jarred through her skull. The bump on her forehead throbbed in time with her pulse, her skin still burning beneath the drying aloe. Anira felt brittle as old parchment. “You oaf! Stop pulling me!"

The instant Brinda’s fingers touched the scarab, the relic tore free from the jackal statue with a shriek of living metal. The scarab unfurled delicate jeweled wings with a sound like a thousand whispering knives. The fine ocre dust exploded outward from the statue as the creature rose spinning into the air, scattering impossible light across the palms and water.

Blue. Gold. Crimson. Tyrian.

The scarab circled once above the statue, then it shot away into the night.

Around Anira, suddenly, everything was happening at once. The sharp, cutting whistles and riders bursting over the dunes. Omari vanished into swirling shadow and blue cloth, becoming something unreal beneath the dome of cloudy night sky. The riders silhouettes black against the sandstorm haze, cloaks snapping behind them like banners of war. Hooves thundered down the slope. Steel flashed. Magic bloomed blue-green in the dark. Sand spiraled through the air in choking curtains as the Vaggan triplets descended upon the oasis.

And through it all, Brinda ran after the scarab immediately. “Brinda!” Anira cried instinctively, stumbling forward instinctively despite the sickening roll of dizziness that nearly sent her to her knees again.

The air split apart with a sound like silk tearing inside a thunderstorm. Young palm trees bent low as something vast and luminous unfurled from the dark in a sweep of gleaming scales and flowing white mane. Its long body coiled through the oasis in one fluid motion, iridescent scales flashing blue-green-gold beneath the hidden moons as it swept around Anira and the scholar... and sealed them inside. Sand hissed beneath the dragon’s coils. The creature settled, enormous and immovable, forming a living ring around them.

“No, no, no!!” The professor lunged toward the dragon’s coils immediately, shoving both hands against the scaled wall. “The scarab! The SCARAB!” The professor looked like a man watching the doors of paradise slam shut in his face. He slapped both hands against the dragon’s coils again, furious now.

“Move!” he shouted at it. “Move, you giant enchanted scarf!”

The dragon rumbled softly.
Its breath smelled faintly of rain.

Anira pressed a hand to her aching forehead, eyes squeezing shut. “Well,” she murmured at last, with resignation "I would like it noted somewhere that this was not remotely my fault...” She had warned them about the triplets. And now, of course, the universe had rewarded her efforts by trapping her inside a dragon bracelet so she could do the one thing she excelled at in moments of crisis.

Absolutely nothing.
 

Swords clashed across the Suldazan sands, still bleeding their heat from the day's sun as horse's hooves thundered their turn and charge. The harsh ring of steel, punctuated by the horrid bray of mares and trumpet of stallions as the desert's air turned colors pulled to rainbow flares.

A turn of sword's cut. A leap out the way of steed's mass.

Thump and tumble against the sand as Pierro willed another lance of shroud from the eye of his mind, and twixt the fork of his fingers, pointer and little planted there about his brow. Tongue spilling phrases in High Imperial. Thrust his hand out like a spear only to catch a barbed arrow's head ripping through. Bone, flesh, and sinew. Ripped bloodied and torn. The imperial trained weaver's eyes went wide.

"A tear of the firmament," he choked as the jewel shaped arrowhead gleamed. Drank in his blood. Glowed white hot.

A white flash cracks like lightning. A boom ripples like thunder. And light engulfst the mage brother Pierro and his horse.

But Brinda just kept on running. Feet pounding fast against the desert sands as she chased the glittering beetle and all its promise. She had to catch it. She had to reach it. Find whatever it was taking her towards. She just knew it!

She would apologize to Anira later. She would apologize to Momoshiro too! They would understand. Surely! And the One-Eye? Well... He would live. He always did.

Down the beetle zipped. Into the sand with a twift and plume. Little legs and wings scrabbling. Into the sand.

"Wh-what?!" Brinda cried out, reaching out desperate with her only hand. As if touching the glimmering trail there in the scarab's wake would help her run any faster. "H-hey!" She cried out to the little bug. Gone in the sand. "Come back here!" she reached the spot where she had seen it burrow. Dropped to her knees and dug as furious as she could with her single hand. Cursing and growling as she shovled and shovled. Fighting back the sand that spilled in ever bit that she took out. "You stupid little, pretty bug!" she smacked the dirt. Thumped a fist against it. Again and again. She thrashed in frustration. Head arched back. A shout ripped out of her throat.

Something beneath her pulsed.

Like the beat of an ancient heart.

It thrummed.

Brinda's eyes went wide. Slowly, she looked down. And she could see something. Stirring the sands to the rhythm of a pulse. She gasped. Reached down into the sand and grabbed it.

Thump thump. She felt the mechanical walls move with such precision. They practically bled. Thump. Thump. She pulled out the heart from the sands. The scarab, there in its valves. Machinework so fine her mind couldn't make sense of it. Obsidian. Opaline. Gold. The heart itself was a treasure worth an army.

"Woah," she gasped.

Garrod growled as he shook the sand out of his hair. spat it from his mouth. Felt the hooves pounding through the sand. "Eight fucking take you," he dragged himself up off the ground. Coughed. Wheezed. Saw the coiled dragon. Glimmering and glittering as it loomed. He grinned, wicked and full of blood and grit. "Yeah, that's it," lurched up like a thing possessed. Sprint right for it.

Heard the hoofbeats behind him. Kathump. Kathump. Kathump. Drew a knife from his belt. Flipped it. Planted his boot in the sand as his fingers snagged the flat of the blade and flung the fucker fast and hard with a whip of wind their behind it.

The knife sailed, all slice through the air. Thunked. Right in the dragon's eye.

The creature shook its head. Huffed. Roared. Thrashed. Snapped. Struck out at Garrod who but grinned the wider at the beast.

The rider running him down had no idea.

A wind step. Garrod leapt. Up and over the rainbow dragon. Whose massive jaws opened wide and... Chomped! Fierro down.
 
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The dunes ahead shimmered wrong.

Not heat-haze wrong—something deeper. Like the desert itself had begun to blink.

The sands no longer felt like empty distance so much as a held breath, something vast and waiting just beneath the surface of the world. Momo’s pace slowed for half a step before he realized he had done it, crimson eyes narrowing as the air ahead warped in a way that had nothing to do with heat or wind. The desert wasn’t simply shifting anymore—it was reacting. Like it had noticed him noticing it.

Behind him, the oasis had collapsed into chaos: flashes of steel and movement, the distant rupture of battle, and the oppressive presence of something enormous and coiled that now dominated everything behind him. He didn’t look back. Whatever they were doing back there, it sounded increasingly like the sort of problem that solved itself one way or another.

The tracks were still there, but they were no longer behaving like ordinary footprints. Each impression Brinda had left behind seemed to throb faintly in the sand, as if the ground itself had begun to remember her weight.

Thump. Thump.

The rhythm was subtle at first, almost imagined, but it built with every passing stride until it became impossible to dismiss. Momo’s ears flicked sharply as instinct tightened across his spine. This wasn’t pursuit anymore. It felt like approach—like the desert wasn’t being crossed, but opening in response to her passage.

Ahead, the distortion sharpened again, and the air itself seemed to fracture into layered wrongness. Momo’s hand lifted slightly without thought, violet-black wisps beginning to coil around his fingers in slow, controlled tension. Something beneath the sand was stirring now, not just reacting but recognizing. A pull formed in his chest—low, insistent, and utterly unfamiliar in its clarity. He exhaled through his nose, jaw tightening as he forced his focus forward. Brinda was still moving. Still ahead. Still the priority.

Then he saw her.

Down the line of disturbed sand, Brinda was kneeling where the scarab had gone under, the desert around her subtly unsettled, as if something buried had begun to shift in response to her presence.

“Brinda!” he called, voice cutting across the dunes. “Don’t—”

The sand answered before the warning could finish.


Behind him, the oasis was no longer just chaos—it was impact. Steel rang out in fractured rhythm, sand and magic tearing at the night in overlapping waves of violence and motion. Garrod’s presence cut through it like, ironically, a thrown blade: reckless, direct, and far too willing to meet catastrophe head-on.

And then there was the dragon. It felt the dagger before it understood it.

A sharp intrusion—foreign metal biting and sensation—followed by a sudden, searing point of violation at the edge of its awareness. The impact in its eye wasn’t just pain; it was disruption, a fracture in the seamless field of perception it had wrapped around the oasis. For an instant, everything narrowed into that single, burning point of contact.

The dragon growled past the corpse in it's jaws. It spat the dead body away, breath hissing through clenched jaws as light fractured across its vision. One eye flared with irritation and purple blood, the other snapping into heightened clarity—alert, calculating, and suddenly anchored to something more important than retaliation.

Instinct surged upward—but it was not alone.

A deeper directive held firm beneath it.

Protect the ones within the circle.

The command lingered in its awareness like a woven thread, and the dragon obeyed it without hesitation.

Its coils tightened—not outward, but inward—reinforcing the living barrier around Anira and the scholar. Sand hissed as scales shifted, adjusting the structure of its body to close gaps, to absorb risk, to become harder and more immovable. The world outside the ring of its form was secondary. Movement, threats, chaos—all of it was reclassified as external variables.

Only the protected space mattered.

Only the circle mattered.

The dragon’s head tilted slightly, Garrod’s movement registered—not as an immediate target, but as a hazard passing too close to a perimeter that must not be breached. A low, resonant rumble rolled through its chest, not aggression but warning—pressure in the air, a boundary being reinforced.

In an instant, a blur of white slashed through the night air as the dragon's tail whipped around to meet Garrod as he sailed overhead.
 
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