For Those Nocturnal

A storm screeched just beyond the walls of their temporary roost, shrieking and yowling and trying to rip their humble shelter to shreds. White winds twirled in dizzying circles just beyond the stretch of oiled hide pinned tightly across what served as a door, battering the layers of beast-skin with hail and sleet. New snow would soon fall, and the barren icescape would be empty momentarily, both soothing the world and covering their tracks. It was impossible to tell how long had passed since the storm had begun, nor how much longer it would rage; however, were one to venture as far into the frigid Outlands as the average harbinger did, they would soon find that it didn't matter. This deep within the Fell moon, and this far into the frozen wastes, time ceased to exist.

There was only snow and wind and endless cold.

Velid leaned his head deeper into his gold-haired cousin's shoulder, sighing softly as the fire crackled. Their whole family was nestled up together, taking shelter from the ice; but even in here, his flat, sharp-tipped nose had failed to lose its numbness. He bitterly reminded himself that, even if he left these miserable barrens behind, he would probably never be warm—after all, it wasn't like there was any sort of sun to ease the chill that had settled into his bones. Much to his annoyance, he seemed to be the only one bothered by their current situation. Everyone else was the picture of calm. The older members of the nest-family were talking softly among themselves, while many of the younger ones had drifted off to sleep—his cousin included—and settled into sleeping furs or drooped like abandoned dolls against their caretakers. Though usually one of his younger aunts or uncles would be keeping watch over their little family, they were in the heart of a whiteout. It had been judged too risky to post someone outside. The nest didn't like to leave a trail of dead bodies in their wake—or, if they could help it, any sort of trail at all.

An elderly aunt of the nest had been recounting an old tale to some of the children, attempting to speak them to rest. She had finally succeeded in her task, and let her last sentence drop with a soft smile. She hadn't even completed the story, he thought bitterly as his scowl deepened. Seeing his displeasure, she chuckled in that soft, creaky way that only elders can, and shifted to sit closer to him. 

"Gentle yourself, kz," the elder said, softly patting him on the head. 

She looked at him with four kind, wrinkle-lined eyes, then moved to stroke his cousin's cream-blonde hair once his sharp frown refused to fall. He liked his cousin's hair. It fell in tresses down her shoulders, long and luxurious, curving elegantly away from her single spear-like horn. It was straighter than string, softer than sleeping furs, and not a glowing beacon calling attention to her exploitable power and value. He lifted a hand to his own fluffy white crown of hair, self-consciously drawing a nicked hand through it. It was nice enough—he particularly liked the look of the crescent-shaped curl that rested upon his brow—but much too bright, standing out with an arrogant starkness against his lavender skin and rust-red eyes. The snowy fluff framed him like a halo, blending with his pallid antlers and sticking out nearly as starkly as his cousin's blonde against the grays and blacks borne by the rest of the nest that had taken them in. Theoretically, it was excellent camouflage in the barren white wastes of the Outlands—though only from everything except for those who actually wished him harm.

Something thudded outside, resounding with a force that made the few hanging sunshards falter in their honeyed glow. He could not remember whether it was still full bright, or if time had slipped out of his paw-like hands and dim was already upon them. He hoped fiercely for the former, because if it grew late, his elder ilun would insist on tucking him in so that they could converse in peace. And they certainly would, even though he himself was nearly old enough to join on hunts; but even mere moons away from adulthood, he was still treated like a freshly-dropped snow kit. Velid huffed at the thought. He didn't want to sleep, though it was not for the reasons a stubborn kit wished to abstain from rest. He had no carved or stuffed toys he wanted to continue playing with, or stories he would stubbornly sit awake until the end of. Sleeping meant leaving oneself vulnerable, and even if he wouldn't end up hurt at all, he still wasn't confident enough to risk it.

A loud scrape, and there came another thud—this one more purposeful, and too soon after the first to be a mere coincidence of nature. A charcoal-skinned harbinger by the door, standing as a pseudo-sentry, pricked her ears up and lifted a finger. Her copper eyes narrowed, and the nest of harbingers fell silent. All of them held a single breath, feline ears lifted as they listened for whatever had alerted the sentry. Velid straightened up, craning his neck higher to try and join in on the nest-wide endeavor. He was more alert than ever, but couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary; just the sounds of crunching and shuffling, as if something large was taking great pains to hide its prominent presence, and the storm outside that had refused to calm. A sudden moment later, the silence seemed even thicker. Understanding passed through the nest like a wash of snowmelt.

The wind was not the only thing howling.

With a click of her fingers, the sentry flattened her ears. A warning gesture, signaling the others to prepare. The more seasoned rhiai pulled their hunting spears out from the bundles beneath which they were stored, removing the sheaths from their tips and gripping their weapons for combat. Someone strangled the fire, as if hoping that deadening the eerily merry crackle would somehow ward off whatever was prowling outside the large tent's barriers. All of their efforts were in vain, though; for a moment later, the side of their shelter was split by a blackened-glass blade.

And then the screaming began.

Snowstrider rhiaeki had surrounded the tent, all baying like the wolves they so closely resembled. Some stalked on all of their lanky, knotted fours, like the ice beasts his ilunrhiai would slay on their hunts—such a creature had left a fearsome scar on one of his aunts' throats, a mark which he viewed with morbid envy—while others, clutching swords and spears, moved with the bipedal purpose of those very same seasoned hunters. Some carried spears, while others held short, serrated swords or wielded knives, but more still relied on teeth and claws alone. They all wore similar rugged armor, made from the same black leather as their tent had been, stamped on shoulder or chest or belt or back with two black-and-white crescents that one of his elder uncles had said represented a waning moon. 

The crest of Frostguard skin-takers.

In that moment, everything clicked; and then the world blurred out as the rime poured in.

He scrabbled to his feet and tried to run, but the throng of terrified harbingers was too much for him to pierce. Aunts and uncles tried to hold tight to cousins and children, and to gather up personal belongings as they ran; others struggled to yank on coats or armor, desperately hoping that thick clothing would protect them from both the wolf demons' greedy teeth and the uncaring hate of the snow. Those who could fight back did so, or at least momentarily attempted to, and the vicious snowstriders took great glee in tearing them apart. A few made it through the carnage and fled swiftly into the snow, but the majority were struck down; the old, the capable, the young. White-death was not a discriminating force, in any of its forms; neither tooth nor frost nor plague showed mercy, and that was simply the way of things. He knew that truth full well, but such carnage was a foreign sight to him. It was the sort of barbarism only those of frigid cruelty could find pleasure and purpose in—but outpost cities' markets dealt in flesh both dead and alive, and would not hesitate to claim more.

Snow blurred his vision, and he grit his fangs against it. A useless and impractical gesture, but one that helped him to concentrate. He took a deep breath and pressed through the crowd. Tearing and biting and shoving with all the force in his body, Velid surged along with the tide of living things. The little creature kicked and shifted and struggled, fighting with all the strength he had, drawing nearer and nearer to the exit of the fray. And then, with victory in sight, he was yanked to a halt. Something seized him from behind, snapping at the scruff of his neck and yanking him up into the air. Velid instinctively curled in with a yelp, wincing when his attacker let loose a triumphant growl. A moment later came the sensation of rough rope being tied around his wrists, and then thick, bulky claws digging into his skin and holding tight onto him to keep him from squirming away.

"Got one," it roared, shifting him onto its broad shoulder with dizzying force.

The air twisted around him, swamped thick with frozen ice, and then the world was gone.

Velid could not tell how long he'd been trapped in the thick dark of condemnation. 

Time passed, even in the Outlands, but he couldn't tell for anything how far it had marched on. As it had been told to him by proxy of whispering captives, few of the former nest escaped successfully; most were killed by the starving wolves and their remains disposed of in the typical gruesome manner, with the only known survivors snatched up by those same rhiaeki and shoved in that very same choking darkness with him. He had found himself locked alone, perhaps to prevent contamination of any sort, but not completely on his own; in the cage next to him, chained nearly as thoroughly, was the sentry. Her black hair had been bound into a tight, braided coil at the nape of her neck, and she stared flatly down at the base of her cell. Now that he'd gotten a good chance to look at her, he noticed that he wasn't as old as she'd seemed at first; she could hardly be much older than him, maybe three or four full cycles at most. Had he any interest, he might have thought her rather beautiful; but he'd never seen the point in such romantics, so he simply saw her for what she was.

They'd spoken only once. That conversation had lasted only long enough for them to exchange names, and recount the circumstances of how they had arrived in this current situation. Her name was Druzzun, and she'd been kept alive only because she was harmless, quiet, and pretty enough, with slender fingers and short fangs; she'd make a decent mouse, if she could keep her head down and work quickly. She seemed to think the same reasoning was behind his capture, but when he explained the cause he suspected, her brows nearly shot off of her face. She opened her mouth, presumably planning on asking him to elaborate on the why and how of the situation, but then thought better of it and simply dropped the thread of speech. 

The two of them had not acknowledged each other since. 

Now, he was simply waiting.

Guards came in, and guards came out. Most of the lot were snowstriders—Frostguard was their city, after all—though some were more feline than normal, a few were buglike, and one or two were harbingers like himself. (They never looked at him.) One day, though, that comfortable rotation shifted suddenly. In a moment, the heavy doors creaked open; his breath caught in his chest, and the ground felt like it would slide out from beneath him. The normal rotation of guards had entered, though they stood up straighter than usual. Their weapons were held with precision, and they were arranged in formation around what he could only call a monster. She was a tall creature, like a snowstrider but somehow worse, who had passed under the open archway and into the dungeon. Her face was like a particularly ugly wolf's, had its snout been repeatedly and mercilessly smashed in with a rock, trimmed with short, unkempt fur the color of dried blood. Two curved horns arced up from her sturdy brow; an unusual feature for a snowstrider, but remarkably similar-looking to those of more foreign demons. She carried no visible weapons, but considering the way her servants edged away from her, and the acrid reek that clung to her pelt, he knew she must have deadly fangs beneath her metaphorical mask.

Maybe, he realized with a shiver, she was her own weapon.

"Where is the damned kz'eket?" She demanded, head whipping back and forth as she searched the dark, cage-clogged room. With each pacing step she took, her claws clicked on the hard, cold floor—she went barefoot, as most snowstriders did—and the sense of foreboding grew stronger. Despite himself, he shrank away. Maybe, if he was small and weak enough, she wouldn't-

"Here," came a gruff voice from above him, and the last of his hope shriveled and crumbled into the void. 

The blunt end of a spear bashed against the metal grating of the cage, and he hissed rebelliously at the noise. A cruel chuckle came from the guard, who smacked their spear again. He flinched at the noise. The guard, amused, lifted their weapon once more; but a sharp growl cut them off mid-swing. A sudden wave of blistering heat swished by, then abruptly halted. The scraping sound of a key in a lock clattered near his ear, and then the click as the door of his cage swung open. He would have tried to run, but rough hands grabbed him before he could even move. They bound his wrists with an icy-cold metal that made him wince, but he soon found the sensation vastly preferable to that which came next.

The red snowstrider drew nearer, watching him with a glint in eyes the hue of embers. She glanced to the guard, who bowed and drew back, then abruptly grabbed the harbinger's cheeks and tilted his face up to look into his eyes. The look in her eyes made his skin crawl. It was hunger, and it was greed; it was the rabid bloodlust and the utter madness of a starving wolf, mixed with the ruthlessness of a woman desperate to survive and the cutthroat opportunism of a seasoned businesswoman. And yet, it wasn't even the worst thing about her. No, her being simply terrifying would have been too much of a mercy; for her very touch... it burned.

It was a sensation he'd experienced before—as a kit, he'd brushed his paw up against the nest's fire pit, and had walked with a limp for more than a few weeks after—but this was infinitely worse. The wolf-woman's fingers blazed with a horrible heat, as if a concentrated, purified inferno burnt in the tips of her claws. Her touch invoked a feeling that was much like what he imagined touching his face to the Core itself would be like; he felt as if the very flesh would melt from his face and expose his pearly white bones. And then, from there, he'd continue to disintegrate, until there'd be nothing left of him but soft gray ash. Ash that no snowstrider could ever turn him into, for no natural being of the Outlands could command fire in such a way—because, he realized, she wasn't a snowstrider at all.

His eyes met the bottomless burning pits of hers, and he rasped a frail cry of fear.

"Hellhound."

She grinned down at him—as if in confirmation—then yanked her hands free of his face. Her claws scraped down his blazing cheeks, leaving thin gashes, which she expectantly stared at. He winced and smeared at the wounds, sagging slightly as both the horrid burning sensation and the tingling from the cuts abated. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded at him. 

"That's the one," she said, turning away and flicking a hand at him. "You all know what to do."

Velid drew back, then sagged in resignation. Things blurred around him as he retreated into himself. He barely paid attention as he was gathered up and carried away, clutched to a guard's chest like a small kit. The icy bite in the air might as well have been imaginary, and the harsh angles of the city's frost-covered wood-and-stone fortifications were no different from the slate and granite of the empty ice barrens. The procession of his captors set a rhythmic pace; one of marching feet and swaying tails and icy clouds of breath, a steady beat of one-two, one-two. The faces of strangers observing the procession twisted and melded together, until it felt less like a mire of curious individuals and more as if the very buildings were leering at him with thousands of piercing pupils. Though his eyes were open, he did not see a single thing—until, all too suddenly, it halted.

He hadn't noticed the snowstriders had opened a door until it slammed shut behind him. The sickening, scraping crack of wood against stone made him flinch, and a stifling wave of dry heat slammed into him. Now, more truly than ever before, the jaws of the beast had entrapped him. All hopes for a good outcome were reduced to desperate wishes, as fleeting as flakes of fresh snow. But, as he soon realized, that horrible noise had done him some good. It had shaken him from his apathetic trance, and he was awake again—awake and aware. Once more, he was back to his scuttling, searching, cowardly harbinger instincts. All senses were devoted to searching the room, taking in every detail, every possible hiding place, every possible route out.

But there were none.

Whatever this place was, it had been reinforced to prevent escape of any kind. Its small, high-set windows were set into sheer stone, too high up for him to climb. Those who would manage to somehow reach them wouldn't be able to kick them out and crawl their way through, though. The panels of red desert glass were set in thick iron frames, lined with wicked thorns that would tear any potential escapee to shreds. The only entrances were in full sight of the stage on which he stood—which was itself made of stone, though covered with panels of wood to give it the impression of hollowness—and surrounded by armed guards at attention. Rows of seats that fanned out from the stage in a rippling crescent shape offered up no crowd to escape into, and no conveniently-placed trapdoors to scramble through.

And then there was the fact that he was stuck to the floor. Or, rather, that he'd been chained to it. Shackled at the ankle, his movements were restricted by links of icy-cold metal far too tough for a measly little beast like him to destroy. He couldn't run, couldn't fight, and anyone could yank the chain and reduce him to a shivering heap on the floor. It seemed they'd taken every precaution—except for restricting his hands. Velid gazed curiously down at his paws. Why would they leave him free to work his most dangerous deeds, to weave upon them horrors and aberrations? Didn't such cruel, selfish things value their safety?

He looked around the hall once more, and then he saw. 

Were there anything left inside of him still willing to fight, it would have cracked in two—but there was nothing left. One can only shatter a fragile thing into so many pieces before there's nothing left to break.

All of the other demons in the hall were antsy. Anticipation was eating them alive, rather than being polite enough to wait until natural causes had claimed them, and they could hardly bear it any longer. With every moment they spent waiting, their excitement grew; and, feeding off of it, his own anxiety increased as well. Nonexistent teeth gnashed in the pit of his stomach, starving and wild. He ran a thumb vertically down his abdomen, hoping the gesture would soothe things; but, unusually, it didn't work.

He bounced unsteadily on the pads of his paws.

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then, far too suddenly, the wait was over.

The set of grand double doors that loomed at the other end of the hall abruptly swung open, letting the cold air rush in with a harsh gust of snowy wind. The snowstriders raised their gloved hands, arms outstretched and fingers splayed wide, to push out the frigid outside. A tide of hot, still air overwhelmed again, and he wheezed at the suddenness of the change. Strange things had blown in with the snowstriders' warm winds, but it took him a moment to realize what exactly they were.

Bugs, of all shapes and sizes, were streaming in through the doors and crawling on the walls and windows.

Something that vaguely resembled a large black cricket with glassy yellowish wings landed upon his bare shoulder, and prodded gently at him with a spiked claw-foot. For a moment, he considered flicking it off; however, his mind was changed as the great hall began to fill with swarms of insects. Hordes of ruby-red flesh-flies, striking green scarabs, and gold-and-black wasps zipped and dashed around, their erratic wingbeats filling the air with a buzzing drum. Swiftly, they descended into columns roughly the same size as his canine captors and planted themselves firmly upon the ground. The armored snowstriders lifted their wolfy heads at the buzzing, and the hellhound sniffed at the air with her ears eagerly pricked.

He knew what had arrived before she even spoke the word.

"Nadirites," she breathed.

He'd never seen them up close, but he would take her at her word; for what else could have come for him? The strange insectoid demons rarely ever ventured this far south; the ice barrens of the south were said to be too cold for their comfort. They'd adapted to the scorching winds along the north face of the Nadir mountains—the peaks that stood as a natural barrier between the sand and the snow—and the cold, gale-wrought air of the southern badlands was far too much for their fragile chitinous bodies.

The cricket-thing leaped from its perch on his shoulder and joined the clouds of insects in the air. Each variant of bug began to sort itself into a column approximately the height of the hellhound, standing in some odd formation, until there were four in all. From there, they began to coagulate, taking on vaguely humanoid forms. The last of the swarm soon cleared, unveiling their true forms.

One stepped forward from the formation, quick to assert themself as the one in charge. Their cheekbones were high, their features sharp, and their eyes a startlingly vibrant blue. They wore armor not dissimilar to that of the snowstriders, though in a notably different style; embroidery and metal detailing rimmed the edges of each panel, geometric and perfectly even. They wore their hair long, as any nadirite would; unusually, though, it was twisted into precisely coiled crowns upon their head. A blood-red sash wrapped around their thin, bony waist, tight enough to suffocate them. A complex-looking medallion bearing a large, ruby-like sunstone pinned it in place, serving to display both wealth and power. An unamused, coldly formal expression graced their disdainful face, and they seemed to regard the very world as being unworthy of their luminous presence.

Two attendants framed them, hovering at each of their sides. One was tall and bony, with a triangular face, junebug-green skin, and a slight but knowing smile. Her wings were folded behind her, trailing like demure and elegant panels of stained glass. The other was stoic and the same dark grayish-black as a wasp, with threads of gold outlining each panel of chitin on their skin. Elaborate earrings, indicating a particularly high status and high-achieving life, studded their pointed ears. Sharp scimitars hung at both of their sides, forged from the same black glasslike substance as his captors' weapons had been; blades born in the subterranean forges of the Nadir mountains, in similar nests to the bug-like demons.

The last of the swarm, the one who had formed from the locusts, was different from the rest. They were barely older than him, but their haggard, haunted face made them look nearly ancient. Heavy bags hung in the soft space beneath their eyes, and their jutting, hungry cheekbones were sharp enough to function as impromptu weaponry. Only a single earring pierced their top left ear; identical to his in every way, except for a bright red gem that dangled from it. They were hunched and defeated, meeting no-one's eyes but his own; acid yellow-green locked with rusty, bloody red, and for a moment there was understanding. Their gaze was the only thing that had not yet tired of captivity. There was a sharpness in those acerbic eyes, a hyper-awareness and quick intelligence that he hadn't thought someone so unfortunate could still possess.

He shuddered.

"Madame Zzzkhaar," the leader of the procession said, dipping their head in acknowledgement. "We are pleazzzed to do buzinezzz with you once more."

The hellhound—now, at last, named as Skhaar—lifted her chin. "Prince Aelzelus," she greeted, her fangs twisting into a rough approximation of a pleasant smile. "A private audience, as you requested. Do you find this hall to be suitable to what is required of you?"

They simply brushed past her attempt to chat. "Where izzz the kz'eket? You informed uzzz that you had finally obtained one."

She gestured to the stage on which he stood with snowstriders gripping his shoulders.

The prince glanced to him, tilted their head at a jarring angle, and then turned back to Skhaar.

"Have you tezzzted? If I learn that you have brought me here for no reazzzon, your den of mizdeedzzz will be razed to the-"

"Gentle yourself, lltet," she said dismissively. "I did the deed with my own hands. Burns and gashes, both vanished in seconds; guess is that he's untrained, but powerful. Stronger than the last one, on top of that. What he was able to do took her twice the time, and the marks scarred over. His are completely gone."

They sniffed. "Then prove it. Again." The prince lifted an arm from its place tucked behind their back, and the locust nadirite stepped forward. "Alate Virdizzz, cut. From bone to bone."

Eagerly, the green nadirite sauntered towards the locust. "Of courzzze, my Prince."

She unsheathed a smaller blade from a hidden spot upon her leather armor, and flicked her hand upwards. The blade rose into the air of its own accord, hovering as if it bore its own wings, and slashed a jagged, diagonal line across their gray face. Green blood poured forth from the fresh wound, eager to make its great escape from the skin that had contained it for so long. The only sign of the nadirite's pain was a twitch of their eyelids. Judging from the nicks in their ears, the cuts on their cheeks, and the dull, scuffed nature of their chitin skin, he assumed they were hurt often—how else would they have grown used to it? It was almost pitiful, really—but, as they were presumably in near identical situations, any comfort would be an unappreciated waste of breath.

The prince lifted their chin and gestured sharply to him. "Heal them, and I will take thizzz one. Fail, and I will zzzurrender itz fate to another."

Skhaar nodded in agreement to their request, then yanked the locust nadirite by their elbow. Their pierced ear twitched, but they allowed themself to be hauled along anyway. The swarm followed close behind, curiosity mixed with formality, until all of them stood upon the stage. It was claustrophobic, to be surrounded by so many. Each of them loomed expectantly over him, staring at his hands as if they could mend worlds.

The nadirite was pushed forward, and their eyes met again. That blaze of rebellion hadn't left. In fact, to him, it seemed to have grown stronger with every cut. Their eyes were haunting, he realized; the longer he looked, the more he saw, and the less he felt he could look away. Deep within those pools of acid was something stronger than their shell of a self, waiting to burst free. Insects emerged from chrysalises and pupae and cocoons and cells, and he had a feeling that was what their body had become. They wanted to be free, to live without burden or demand, to burst loose from their chrysalis and dry their wings in the wind of a bright new day; and he wanted, more desperately than he'd ever wanted anything, to help them pry open a way out.

"Heal them," the prince demanded; a sentiment echoed by the crowd.

The nadirite gave an imperceptible shake of their head.

He ignored them.

Velid lifted his hand. Gently, he pressed his fingers to the bloody gash. He touched one hand to each edge of the cut, ignoring the unpleasant wetness and squelching. With the utmost care, as if closing a seam, he started to slowly draw the edges closer together. The pulsing heat of an infection had begun to crop up, but as the flesh mended it began to fade. The nadirite's brows shot up. It was a small movement, but it shifted the muscles of their face; he had to be careful now, so as to not meld the wrong things together. The end of this ordeal was in sight.

"You are a bloodhealer," they said, the slightest hint of awe in their voice. 

They were right to be surprised; bloodhealers were rare, and good bloodhealers even rarer. The fact that he'd been unlucky enough to be born as one had put a target on his back from the moment his hair had started to grow in white. But he'd counted himself lucky. He'd made it nearly twenty full cycles of the Core without getting found out; he'd healed scrapes and cuts and hunting wounds here and there, and only occasionally unveiling his true strength. Somehow, though, he'd been sniffed out—and now he was here, in the belly of the beast, mending a wound from one who meant him no harm to prove his worth as an investment to someone much greater.

Mere moments after speaking, the nadirite jerked away. The greenish tissue of their new-formed scar bubbled over, knitting itself back together in an uneven and ugly pattern. 

He squinted at them and bared his fangs.

"Stop fucking squirming," he seethed, rising higher up onto the tips of his toes in an attempt to pull himself closer. He couldn't stare at them eye-to-eye, not like this, but he would try anyway. They were no threat, not really. If he put his mind to it, he could overcome and endure things far worse than some miserable insect. Better folk had conquered far worse. "You're wrecking it."

"That izzz my plan, kz'eket," they retaliated, under their breath. "Prove yourzzzelf weak, and they will not take you. They will not hurt you. Not as they have hurt me."

"But I'm not weak," he protested. "They know that."

The nadirite sighed. "Then may the Elder zzzave you from my fate."

Velid gave them one last sharp glare, then returned to his work. 

Under his quick hands, the wound soon healed. All that remained of the cut was a jagged scar that struck like a bolt of lightning across the nadirite's long face. They stepped back, rubbing at the new mark with a disgruntled look on their face, arms folded away from their face. The Prince stepped up to examine the finished work, their sharp brows lifted so high above their diamond eyes Velid was half-certain that they would leave their face. Suddenly, striking like a mantis, they grabbed the nadirite's face, twisting and tilting and turning it until they dropped it just as suddenly and moved back to their previous spot.

The Prince folded their arms behind their back once more, and glared sharply at Skhaar. "You told me yourzzzelf that thizzz one would not leave zcarzzz."

"But he did heal them," she shrugged. "Better than letting them bleed out. It'd be exhausting to have to clean off the platform again."

The Prince sighed. "Very well, you damned dog. I will take him."

Skhaar grinned and dipped her head. "We'll discuss this further later. But, for now—" 

The hellhound flicked her hand, and her entourage of guards split apart. Moving like a lycan tide, they slowly coursed closer to him, only to come to a sudden halt as the Prince sharply said-

"Do not."

Aelzelus lifted their chin, their impressive array of piercings shaking and shivering like dewdrops in a gale wind. "He izzz mine, hound, and yourzzz no longer. I will take him with me."

The wolf lifted a brow. "Are you certain? He's still a little... rough. Wild caught and all."

"He will be taught," they said. A harsh glint in their bright blue eyes made it clear that no protest would be allowed. "They all are, in the end."

"As you wish, then," Skhaar said, dusting off her hands. She turned her glare sharply to her guards. With a bark of "You heard the Prince," they were in motion once more.

The snowstriders briskly set him free, and the chains fell loose from his ankles. In that moment, the urge to run sparked; but as soon as that thought crossed his mind, it was snuffed out. There was nowhere to run; the nest was gone, the city was a maze to the uninitiated, and the Outlands proper sure to claim his bones even if he did manage to escape. All he could do now was try to keep his shaking hidden, and wait for a more opportune time to flee—and then there came a tap on his shoulder. He recoiled, glaring up to the strange tall shadow beside him with annoyance. As soon as he saw them, though, the anger drained away. Confusion was quick to replace it.

It was the one he had healed. That gray nadirite, with those strange acerbic eyes he couldn't stop looking at. Their coldness had retracted, and something gentle crinkled the edges of their hooded, haunted eyes. They offered him their hand.

"May I?" They asked gently, their voice strangely soft.

Velid hesitantly nodded. He kept his gaze cold and flat and straight ahead, but soon he felt the cold impression of their bony fingers, gentle against his. It was a simple gesture, of comfort rather than of any personal affection, but one he appreciated nonetheless. Despite everything he wished of and for himself, he relaxed.

"We will dizcuzz the detailzzz of thizzz tranzzzaction later, Zkhaar," the Prince dismissed. "You know where I am to be found."

The Prince strode down the steps of the stage, and returned once more to the shelter of their guards. With a whistle, they called the gray nadirite—and, by extension, their new bounty—back to them. They dipped their head deeply, and followed at a respectful distance. The four nadirites--and now, Velid, too--fell back into formation. The doors opened, once more stirring the snow, and they marched through the gaping hole left in the barrier's absence. In any other instance, he might have dissociated, but something kept him grounded. He lifted his chin; when marching to slay a beast, one must hold their head high. A silent whisper in the icy air promised that things would change.

Velid believed it. Something greater was afoot, he knew, and the winds were blowing strong.

If he was to go north, then the future would not be frigid for much longer.