Ah, the sound of human ineptitude, thought Elira thankfully as she waited for the crashing shadows in the forest to resolve themselves into the three missing members of their small, disparate group.

Her sigh of relief was cut short as the two humans stumbled out of the dark trees and into a patch of moonlight filtering through the foliage above. She muttered an particularly foul invective she had heard Talis use only once in the two years she had been with the mercenary. Behind her, Doku stiffened at her tone, though she doubted the snake understood the meaning. Elira herself had needed it explained more than once, and it still left her how it was physically possible, even if you were a human god. Somehow, it seemed the most appropriate at the moment.

"Where is -" Elira stopped mid-sentence, realizing her mistake as she looked up. The fairy was there, but flying silently - silently? A frown creased her face as her reason for not registering the insect's presence became obvious. There were no wingbeats in the now still night. The slim body of the fairy hung in the air through no action of her own. In fact, as the moonlight caught her face, it was obvious that she was barely conscious, let alone able to support herself.

She motioned to Doku, leaving her previous words unsaid. "Help Devon." Doku stepped forward to relieve Ria of her burden, placing Devon's arm around her own shoulders. Ria sagged slightly even after the weight of the other girl had been shifted, but the expression on her face caused Elira to revise her earlier opinions. She's stronger than she was. More confident? - a moment's more study - Maybe. Or just too tired to worry about anything but survival.

Doku checked Devon's injuries - a wound on the human's leg mimicked the one Doku had removed an arrowhead from earlier, and it would do no good to keep moving her if the shard was still embedded. The snake's frown signalled that it was.

Elira settled down on to a fallen log, ignoring the fungus that touched the back of her legs. With a heavy sigh, Ria did the same, though with a little more difficulty as her tattered clothes caught in the new growth by the dead tree. Despite their situation, Elira smiled slightly. The brush in the forest was thinner here, perhaps as thin as it would get on the island. The trees around them were far enough inland that they lived longer lives that those touched by the storms, so they let less light down for underbrush to grow and survive on. Still, when one of those trunks fell, new trees would always take their place. It was the way of life. The way things should be.

With a slight nod toward the hovering fairy, Elira suggested, "You can put her down now. We'll have to wait for Doku to remove the flint from your companion's leg." She looked at the human, who was biting down on a branch as Doku worked the chipped stone from her.

The fairy slowly drifted down toward the ground, Ria nodding slightly. Her eyes - dark even in the moonlight - then widened and she found her voice. "Wait, I'm not... I mean, it's not me-"

Elira cut her off with a glare. "Don't." She could feel herself tense, barring her teeth in an almost involuntary reaction. "Don't lie to me." With a concentrated effort, she sheathed her claws, but her ears stayed flattened back and her tail twitched irritably through the moonlight and shadows. "Just... don't."

The human looked more puzzled than worried, and Elira realized that the dark of the night must have hidden her reaction from the human's eyes. With a sigh as the insect finally reached the ground and lay softly among the leaves, Ria turned back to Elira, meeting the cat's golden eyes with her own slivers of blue, before lowering them. "Fine." The passive voice didn't match the frustration that had flashed for a moment, but Elira shrugged it off.

"Can you continue? Carrying her?"

A pause. The girl seemed to be taking stock of herself, perhaps for the first time since the frantic fight that afternoon. From behind them, a muffled cry as Doku pried the shard of arrowhead from Devon's leg, and began the task of bandaging the welling blood from the wound.

Elira turned back to Ria. "Until morning. Can you?"

With the hardened look of someone who no longer knows or cares what their limits might be, the black-haired girl lifted her chin and met Elira's questioning gaze.

"I can."

--

As the gray light of dawn crawled through the forest, dulling the contrast of the world around them, Elira called for a halt. Around her, the four girls looked exhausted, but she was impressed at how they had held up. Still, there was nothing to be gained from pushing forward at this point - if they weren't far enough from the R'lau by now, they wouldn't be able to outdistance them in the day.

A whisper came from Ria. "We can keep going." Elira looked at the girl in the washed out morning light, a silence stretching between them as she took in the condition of the group. The wounded human had not faired well over the long night, and, during a brief rest, Doku had mentioned that Devon seemed to be feverish. The stress of supporting her has taken its toll on Doku, though she said nothing.

Ria, although she bore no major injuries, was perhaps the worst off. Her face looked pale and drawn, an effect added to by the darkness of her eyes. Even as she faced Elira, the Myr'l got the impression she was not looking at her so much as through her. Disconcerting. But at least the insect hasn’t become worse. she thought to herself, looking at the fairy, who was lying unconscious, but breathing steadily, on the forest floor.

Elira shook her head. "Too dangerous." With a flick of her ears toward the birds singing in the trees, she explained. "The animals are awake now. Active. What could be stumbled past during the night," She smiled despite the exhaustion that clung to her, recalling the momentarily traumatic moment when Doku had literally kicked a sleeping huura, which had attempted to bite her, only to discover that the snake's scales were stronger than its own teeth, "will react now."

The human nodded passively, and Elira made her decision. "Sleep here. I'll watch." The others seemed too numb to protest, and fell quickly into the deep sleep caused by the day's - and night's - exertions. Elira choose a large-branched tree and scaled it, perching above the camp on a low branch. I'm going to collapse when we get to the port. With a drawn out sigh, she dropped her veneer of confidence. She shook her head, regarding the acres of unfamiliar forest around her, and her complete lack of direction to follow. Assuming we do.

--

"Sir?" Commander Gidall looked up to see his lieutenant peeking nervously around the cabin door.

He scowled. "What do you want? We're still on course." He said it more as a statement than a question. The commander had a sixth sense for knowing when his navigator changed course that was lengendary in the fleet.

Lieutenant Amsel pushed his hand through his hair, having removed his fleet issue hat. "Yes sir. About that, sir." He almost stopped there as the expression on Gidall's face darkened further, but pushed on. "The crew - that is, the crew and I - have been wondering... we were supposed to return to Tancred days ago..."

"Get to the point."

Theoderic swallowed hard. He'd been warned that this posting would be a hard one, but to pass up an officer's station on the flag ship of Tyball's navy would have been suicide for his career. Over the past few days, though, he'd begun to wonder if maybe a quiet posting to some minor ship wouldn't have been better. Like a raft. In a pond. He thought to himself, wryly. An ornamental fish pond.

"We wanted to know what our orders say, sir."

Far from the explosion Amsel had been expecting, Commander Gidall leaned back in his chair, touching his cheek thoughtfully. His lieutenant stared at him in shock. Had he asked the same question a week ago, he'd have been thrown overboard and told to swim home. Then again, a week ago I didn't need to ask. We were following orders then.

Gidall carefully removed a map from his desk, turning it to face Theoderic. He pointed to the island in the center of the sea. "That's where they are, Lieutenant. We'll get them." A sudden ferocity entered his voice as he finished the sentence.

"We'll... we'll get who, sir?"

"We'll kill them."

Dead silence.

The commander's eyes narrowed, suddenly focussing on his lieutenant again, as if he’d just noticed him. "What the hell are you doing standing around here for? The crew'll be slacking off on deck. Dismissed."

Theoderic Amsel backed out of the cabin as the commander of the Tyball navy turned his map back around, murmuring to himself.

"I'll kill her."

--

Doku frowned as Devon stumbled in front of her. The girl was better than she had been - Damia had helped her to heal her infected shoulder before it could cause more than a fever - but the travel still seemed hard on her. Not surprising. Elira had been pushing their limits as she guided them through the island. There had been harrowing moments as the small group had hidden from passing Myr'l, sometimes only seconds before the cats would have seen them. But we are still alive.

The fairy darted around above them, moving more erratically than she had before and glancing all over. A nervous twitch, maybe. Like she is waiting for arrows to come flying out of the trees. Doku grimaced, reminded of her own arrow wound. It seemed to be healing, and she hadn't wanted to stretch Devon's waning stamina unless she had to.

"Stop." Elira halted the group, as she had many times before, and disappeared into the woods. It was faster and safer for her to scout alone, and Devon and Damia took it as much needed rest time.

Ria, though... The human girl looked more worn with each passing hour - no more physically exhausted than the rest of the group, but somehow more distant. Doku watched the human as she stared vaguely into the forest, absentmindedly tugging knots from her dark hair. The circles under her eyes were dark bruises on pale skin.

Doku stepped up to stand beside her, following her gaze into the forest. She spoke softly. "The fight. You did what had to be done."

The human didn't turn, but she winced. A songbird called in the distance. "I can't sleep. Not without seeing it again." A pause, thoughtful. "I've never killed someone before." A rueful smile crept into her voice. "Obviously."

She stared into the forest again, silently, as if expecting answers, until Elira called for them to move forward again. Ria's fingers brushed Doku's arm, causing her to look back.

"Thank you." Ria smiled gently at Doku. The Rothelian smiled back, a little sadly, and Ria wondered not for the first time what was going on behind those yellow eyes. Talking to Doku had calmed her a little, steadying her mind, and she breathed the forest air deeply for a moment as she relaxed.

In a heartbeat, that peace was gone. A flash of movement past the shoulder of the snake caught her eye as Elira, without warning, threw herself sideway through the trees. Before anyone else could react, another shape was hurtling at their Myr'l guide.

Not again. Not again!

The shape - a Myr'l - hit Elira heavily in the shoulder, spinning her even as she twisted to regain her balance. Both cats hit the ground without a sound, bounding to their feet faster than seemed possible.

Why doesn't she draw her sword? Ria's mind clouded, the image of a sword slamming through Elira's forehead spurring her to reach for the dagger at her waist. She could hear Damia mumbling something, and saw Doku and Devon moving forward even as she did the same.

Elira threw herself at the male Myr'l, arms open. The group paused in surprise as they processed the fact that this wasn't an attack. It was... a hug? Ria's mind boggled at the the two Myr'l as Elira released the man and stepped back. He was taller than Elira, not to mention wider, though he was still slim compared to a the mercenaries Elira had associated with. Long brown hair - matted with twigs and leaves from the tumble through the trees - fell down his shoulders, framing a wide, tanned face.

"H'rle!" A series of sounds followed Elira's exclaimation, but Ria couldn't follow them. She turned to Doku, who was slowly untensing herself.

"Is this good? What did she say?"

Damia answered, dropping to the ground beside her. "Brother. She said brother." The fairy's brow furrowed, but she didn't add anything more as Elira and the male Myr'l approached the group.

There was a moment's confusion as Elira started speaking Myr'l to them in her excitement, but the baffled looks of the four girls quickly stopped her. "I mean, this is H'rle Yarim. My younger brother." With a smile that had barely graced her face in the past days on the island, she added, "He likes to provide me with... a challenge."

The Myr'l laughed, a genial expression on his face matching the one on Elira's own, right down to their matching tattoos. "Aye, and you're gettin' slow in yer old age!" Between her high strung nerves and the comical juxtaposition of the Myr'l's human speech with his intimidating size, Ria almost laughed aloud as Elira threw a punch at the larger Myr'l.

“Keep that up, and you won’t even make it to the ripe old age of sixteen. I may be out of practice, but I can still take a kit like you.” She mock glared at him, arms crossed. Yarim looked older - no surprise, he’d been barely fourteen when she’d last seen him. He put his arms down slowly, realizing she wasn’t going to throw another punch. The scars are new. Things have happened. She tilted her head up and looked at her smiling brother, and added, “How’d you get so ugly in two years?”

Yarim’s smile waned, and his speech moved to the clipped human that traders to the island used. “Neral killed Tashis Pesra and Opina. Tried again on Melai, at the den,” he spit out the last two words, his anger as blatant as Elira’s own surprise. She attacked her at home? No challenge, no warning? “Almost succeeded. Linked her - stunned her.” A feral grimace twisted his face. “I took offense. Neral was good, better than me, but Melai triggered. Like before, but she’s better at it now.” His muscles unclenched, and a true smile replaced his bared teeth. “Damn near took my ear off.”

Elira nodded slowly, placing everything in her mind. “Melai is Tashi. Neral is dead.” Impulsively, she hugged Yarim again, who was so surprised that he didn’t try to stop her. “It’s good to be back. I said I’d take these females to the port.” Yarim nodded, and they started to walk off, before a small cough issued from behind them.

“Um, Elira? ... where are we going?”

She looked back a Ria, pure joy on her face. “Home.”

--

They rested at a small stream, where Elira intently watched minnows flicker by and leaned against her younger brother. Neither had said much during the trip, content to act as if no time had passed. Doku carefully checked each of the group’s wounds, but the tension of the past days had disappeared with the carefree happiness of Yarim, who would sometimes drop back and talk to them in a half human, half gestural form of speech that seemed to involve a significant amount of talking like a pirate. Elira told him to stop - explaining to Doku and Ria that most Myr’l who spoke the human tongue learned it from the sailors who stopped in the port - but the affable Myr’l continued. Elira threw her hands in the air and walked away, at which point Yarim had winked broadly and switched to a normal human speech.

It must be good to be home. Doku started when she felt a vibration in the tree she was sitting against, but relaxed as she saw another form darting by through the branches. A moment later, a nut bounced off Elira’s head, which she caught on the first bounce and threw back into the trees. To be with siblings. Parents. Family.

Lost in her thoughts, Doku barely noticed the soft vibration as Yarim moving until he flopped rather ungracefully onto the ground beside her. Looking up, she saw that Elira had curled up on the sun-warmed rocks and seemed to be dozing quietly.

“What be ye thinking?” Yarim grinned as Elira’s tail twitched irritably, apparently still awake. He gave Doku a broad wink, inviting her to join in his fun, but even as a smile formed, it disappeared again as she compared the cheerful Myr’l to her own family. “Thinking, mm. About...” She trailed off, noticing that the big cat was now sprawled on his back, eyes closed. He had been leading them across the island for nearly two days, and only now did he and Elira feel they were safely in their own territory. The island was bigger than she had realized. She finished the sentence abruptly. “How did you find us?”

Yarim didn’t open his eyes as he answered. “‘lira, Tashi and I are linked. Tashi,” he waved an arm in the general direction they’d been heading “and I lost the link to ‘lira a few days back. Once we felt it again, I came out to find her.” As an afterthought, he added, “Weren’t expecting to find she’d brought company, though.”

Doku looked at the two cats again. “You just know where each other are?”

“Happened years back. I was a kit-” There was a snort from Elira, and Yarim tossed a small rock at her in response, which bounced off her shoulder and into the water. “Some might say I still am. Elira must’ve been ‘round ten, me closer to eight. We were with our sister, Neral, who was keeping an eye on us, since she was near eleven. Some humans attacked the port, like they sometimes do when the weather’s nice. Only odd thing was that these ones seemed to be succeeding.” His voice was nearly monotone, like he was just reciting a chain of events without being part of it. “Lost a pile of our older sibs that day, all fallin’ down with their ears bleeding - like they’d been hit in the head, but no one’d touched ‘em.”

He shrugged, eyes still closed and apparently oblivious to the horrified expressions on Ria and Devon’s faces, who had moved over to listen as he’d started his story. “Was probably hard to tell in the fight, but we weren’t in it, so Neral noticed that one human was always the one looking at the ones who fell. She went after him - surprised the heck out of the adults, but she looked full grown herself, so it’s no wonder the human nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw ‘er running at him. He started glaring at her something fierce, and Neral went down, but Melai - she’d run from the fight to protect us kits as soon as she saw we didn’t have anyone there - was following right behind her. Human turned his eyes on her, but...” He stopped, furrowing his brow.

“That’s when the screaming started.” Elira’s voice was soft, as she rolled over to face them. “You blacked out pretty fast, and you were lucky for it. As soon as that human looked at Melai, everyone started screaming. Melai went down, same as Neral, holding her head, but so did every human and Myr’l within thirty paces or so. The humans screamed, and a lot of the younger Myr’l blacked out from the pain, I guess. We were all feeling what Melai felt.”

“And it wasn’t pleasant. It felt like being hit with a rock, but underneath the skull. Like all the protection was gone, and something was putting a huge pressure straight into your head.” Everyone spun as another Myr’l walked into the clearing. She looked at them, then added, “Elira, you were gone a long time.”

“Melai. Good you’re still alive.”

“Tashi now, though. Pesra and Opina died.”

“I heard.”

The exchange of pleasantries apparently over, Tashi leaned back against a tree and continued the story from her point of view. “For some reason, I got my wits back first and killed the humans. Our family got back up after the screaming had stopped, for the most part, though, of the survivors, we all had pounding headaches. They,” She gestured to Elira and Yarim, “all recovered fast. But those of us who’d been directly attacked took longer, if they survived at all. I had all the signs of having been hit with a club, but with no actual wound to speak of.”

Yarim broke into the monologue with a laugh. “But don’t be takin’ her too seriously. She used t’excuse of her head hurtin’ to get more time with her books. Figurin’ out what happened kinda became a purpose of hers.”

Tashi grinned, and the family resemblance was obvious in her smile. “Someday I’ll teach you to read, and you won’t think I’m so strange anymore. You can learn a lot from those old texts, you know.” She paused as if thinking about it, “Like how to speak properly to humans, say.”

Shaking her head at her two siblings, Elira continued. “Anyway, thanks to Yarim, we soon realized that something else had happened that day, other than us all getting headaches. She turned to Damia conversationally, “Did you ever have a younger sibling who wanted to follow you around a lot? More than you wanted?” Elira rolled her eyes toward the sky in mock despair, even as Yarim stuck his tongue out at her. “Now can you imagine what it’s like when they can always tell where you are? Exactly where you are. It seemed that those of us closest in to Tashi at the time were linked. Neral, Yarim, Tashi and I had the unusual ability to be able to find each other from then on.”

There was a long silence as everyone contemplated the story - or just stared at Tashi, who was unbraiding and rebraiding sections of her hair constantly as they talked, and seemed to have no interest in the newcomers to her territory.

Doku finally asked the question that was still on her mind. “Then why could not Elira find you?”

“Elira, point at Tashi.”

Elira immediately pointed... almost a full compass point off from where Tashi was clearly standing. Yarim sighed, speaking mostly to Tashi, but in the human language. “It’s been like this since I found her. Whatever she’s pointing at, it’s been moving around the island for two days. But hey,” He brightened up, but it seemed to take some effort, “at least she’s pointing toward home now. Shall we?”

Elira and Tashi nodded at the same time, and answered almost in unison. “Let’s go home.”

--

The room spun in hazy circles, fading in and out as Jer struggled toward consciousness. Someone is hitting me. Why is someone hitting me? He could feel liquid dripping down the side of his face. It seemed somehow more real than the distant pain as a hand slammed into his head, closing his barely open eyes.

"The dose was too much."

"It was exactly what I was told to give him."

The voices felt like they were coming through water at him. Or maybe blood, he thought to himself, thinking of the warm liquid trailing down his face. Yeah, that's probably blood. He studied the whirling ceiling with half closed eyes, keeping the room too dim for him to make out more than shapes. Why am I bleeding again?

"Well, he's no use to us like this. You might as throw him with Gidall's other prisoner." The voice - female - had a ring like iron. I'd hate to be the one making her mad. You'd have to be steel to survive tha-

Steele.

Bloody hell.

Jer Riven finally felt the floor beneath him as the guards slammed the cell door behind him.