The light of the Mother had always been Gavin's favourite.

Of course, each of Esternia's three moons had guided him once, each marking West with the Chaos Star to show him South as the Cearte chased his heels. However, the forever full moon of the Mother always brought with it an especially remorseful sort of comfort. It was a shame to watch it dip beneath the horizon, the only light now being the waning crescent of the Crone. It was brighter than the empty darkness of the Child moon, sitting like a dead stone in the sky, but there was still very little light to be had now, whether he truly needed it to see or not.

Then again, the darkness had always been a far better aide to him than the light. He didn't need any Cearte to catch him now, now that the Relic was so close, and, if they did, well... he had people to fight with, for once. They would be there to help him.

"You know, one could almost call that trust."

Gavin's eyes narrowed along the cobblestone, barely listening as Selatan stood up, announce that it was time. I don't trust people, Eldrazi. I rely on them, and stay on my guard.

A sort of strangled, aggravated cry echoed in his mind, although the frustration didn't push into his own emotions, thankfully. "Gav, I can feel their Wills, and I'm telling you, I think they're fine. It's not like with Niamh. Aoife—"

Eldrazi! The blankness broke, a tight rage swirling through him, and Gavin clung to it in the fleeting moments before that too, was whisked away by a cold, hollow nothing. For the umpteenth time, he tried to focus on it. The Nothing. What it was and where it came from and what it meant. Why it sometimes worked and sometimes snapped. But, it was exactly as the name implied, and with no more answers than any other time, he dropped the mental exercise with a sigh. I'm not risking that again. I don't want... we can't go back. I just can't, all right? Please, let it go.

The silence hung long and heavy in his mind. "Fine."

Perhaps he should've feigned a twinge of regret for politeness' sake, but Gavin was quite done with contemplation at the moment, and besides that, an elbow was being nudged into his shoulder, just a bit too high. "Nervous?"

"Hm?" He looked up to find Aoife watching him with a smile on her countenance. She was absentmindedly twirling the ends of her poi around her now, seemingly a perfect balance of bored and confident, but a quick flick of his tongue told him it was little more than a ruse. The scent of stress and vibrations of quickened blood were able to be picked out with ease. "No. Are you?"

"Please." She rolled her eyes before resting a chin on the slightly shorter Demon's shoulder. "We got this, right Selatan?"

He tipped his head back, trying to keep a gruff look on his face, but a quick glance at her own and his expression softened easily enough. "Of course we do, but stop swinging those around. We still want to be as inconspicuous as possible."

"You know, you've gotten so boring in my single year of jail time. What happened to the Selatan who was willing to try anything to show the Cearte what for, huh?"

He remained quiet for a moment. Then he brushed the girl off his shoulder, his eyes dark and downcast. "Nothing happened to him. This is just the most dangerous, and valuable mission we've ever been trusted with. That's all."

Gavin watched the exchange all while quietly trailing behind them. See? It's all lies, Eldrazi. To themselves, to each other... There's no reason to devote my trust to anyone here.

A smile stretched across his own face, as if that emotion was allowed in the apathy that consumed the rest of him. Anyone except you, that is.

The happiness was quickly matched by a second feeling in his chest. "Flattery gets ya nowhere, Gav. You're lucky if I don't keep the Relics myself if they're shiny enough."

As if we're not after the same thing anyway. Gavin perked up from the mental conversation to quickly take note of his surroundings again, the alleyway they'd been walking in falling away to a street dressed in moonlight and silence. At the end of that lay a hill, the path winding up to stone walls of a fortress dressed in green and white flags. The heart of Lorne, and its Cearte. The capitol.

At the sight of it, Talus stepped forward, clawed hands on his hips as he inspected it up and down with a tapping foot. "Wow. She's even bigger than I thought. How are we ever supposed to find the Relic in all that?"

Selatan scrubbed at his face with a sigh. "I mean, Róhain gave us a map and said it was on a lower floor, but he hasn't worked here in six years. Really, it's just an educated guess, which means this is a lot of splitting up, sneaking, and searching until we hit something."

Instantly, Gavin shook his head, stepping forward until he was in the midst of the group, rather than the back he'd been maintaining. "There's no need for that. I'll just taste it."

Aoife brows furrowed as she turned to him. "You'll what?"

"I—" Suddenly his face felt hot as they shifted to look at him, all two and a half pairs of eyes. His eyes dropped along with his voice as he switched to muttering into his sleeve. "I'll just taste it and follow the scent." Was it that strange to say?

"As much as I support the random licking of things," Talus began, immediately confirming to Gavin that that was indeed a notion that sounded strange aloud. "How do you know what the Relic tastes like before we've even seen it?"

"Um." Gavin froze, his gaze warily trailing to Selatan's face, and even with the man currently wearing bulky pants to hide it, he could easily picture his striped tail twitching behind him in suspicion. "Well, magik is always very easy to pick up, and it was directly made by the gods, right? I'm sure it'll be hard to miss."

"Honestly," Gavin continued, eyeing the road once more. "The only difficult thing here is going to be getting there without being seen in the first place."

"Oh that?" Talus asked, the smirk easy to pick out in his slowly fading voice as his form began to liquidate into shadow. "That you can leave to me."

"Wait!" Aoife called, reaching to snatch at the Shar Drak'na's wrist.

He flinched under her touch, the both of them drawing back until he stared at her, nothing but an inky silhouette with a single, white iris. "What?"

"You can't possibly think that you can pull enough shadows to cover all of us." She gestured to the long path stretching to the grassy tops of the hill, and Gavin noticed the few guards lining the dirt path's winding curves. They'd certainly come at the right time, with so few Cearte to be had, but even one of the five catching sight of them was enough to ruin the entire plan, and that was just the entrance.

"Aoife, trust me. I got this." The words edged on annoyance as Talus' form swivelled back to the road.

"No, you don't." Aoife's fists clenched, wisps of violet flames darting around her before Selatan stepped in front of her. "I know the limits of your magik, and there's no way you're doing that. It's nothing to do with trusting you, all right, so don't go dragging that into this."

"Aoife." There was seriousness behind the word, and Gavin could begin to pick up on the strange hollow feeling of Talus' energy again, far more prominent than the last time he had sensed it. "It's... different this time, all right? When we were at the gate, when I reached for the shadows—" He broke off the sentence, as if he was searching for the right words. "When I closed my eyes, I swear I could feel a god."

Gavin's eyes widened, but as much as he couldn't sense a lie, it couldn't be true.

"A god?" Selatan asked incredulously. "Like Uldyŋ? Or Akasha?"

"No, it wasn't them, and there was no magik." He circled a claw around, continuing to think. "I could feel someone, with cold, empty energy. They didn't say anything, because their mouth was stitched shut, but they were watching me with a smile."

Another pause. "I couldn't see much else, but it's how I was able to confuse the guards before. After that, I feel... more connected, in a way. Stronger. So when I say I've got this Aoife–" He turned to her once more. "I mean it."

"But that doesn't make any sense, Talus," Selatan argued. "There's no sixth god, and while you know I have nothing against the Shar Drak'na, there's nothing out there able to lend you their Will, or energy for you to pick up on, or—"

"Let 'im do it."

There was a prickling feeling as freckle-like scales darted across Gavin's face once more, Eldrazi drawing their shoulders into a casual shrug. "If 'e says 'e can, what's the 'arm in lettin' 'im try?"

Selatan's arms crossed. "How about the very real possibility of a large display of magik right in front of where the Cearte can see it?"

"Ever heard o' a distraction?" The barest hint of an idea tugged at Gavin's mind, and with no reason to disagree, he followed Eldrazi's instructions to step forward and keep Selatan's eyes on him. Surely Talus didn't need long, right?

Selatan raised a single brow, looking bewildered. "Well of course I have. But-" Then his eyes flicked up in panic, and he pieced two and two together. "Oh no."

"Oh yes!" Talus cackled in a way that made Gavin snicker as the Shar Drak'na raised his claws higher. The night drew closer, the path impossible to make out until Gavin fully eased his hold over the bond. Even so, it was dark, the guards now wide eyed with weapons at the ready as they brandished them wildly against the shadow, unable to see. "Now run!"

"Well yes! Now we have to— Argh!" The aggravation in Selatan's voice wasn't hard to make out as he grabbed at Aoife's hand, tugging her out. Still, as fast as he was, Gavin could tell his steps weren't entirely surefooted. As if it was only Gavin and Talus that could see, though that made little sense, given that he was simply borrowing Eldrazi's sight, and Selatan was just as much a Demon as he.

The four of them tore out into the street in a frenzy, the grand, wooden door of the building drawing closer. Instantly, Selatan's fingers wrapped around the latch, yanking it forward, but the only thing to follow was a loud bang.

"It's locked! How are we supposed to get in?" Aoife asked, throwing a panicked glance at the sphere of black that surrounded them. Already, it was waning, the white of Talus' iris– the only visible part of him– quivering under the strain of holding onto it so tightly.

"Well since Talus threw all secrecy out the window, I guess we break it," Selatan answered, his voice tight and overly happy from pure aggravation.

"There! I heard voices!" someone shouted from behind them, and the footsteps became more even, more together as opposed to individuals thrown into panic. They were coming.

"So then break it!" Gavin cried, and the Demon finally pulled his broadsword free, angling the hilt up and over his head. He sent it through the boards with a crash, a few snapping, others only crumpling in with the promise of a metal bar on the other side. He froze at the sound, watching the door with horror.

"I can't!" he shouted, and suddenly, Gavin could hear something else in his voice. The sound of not a man, but a boy. One far too young to be playing the role he clung to, and now, now that confidence was faltering. "It's barred!"

"But I can't keep this up!" Talus argued, the scene around them drastically starting to brighten. "My head feels like it's going to burst!"

"Then—" Whatever Aoife was going to say was cut off as arms wrapped around from behind her, a shining blade sitting at her throat. Only then did the wave of shadow cloaking them completely fall to leave them standing before five guards.

The woman holding Aoife was tall and stiff, her eyes falling on each of them, landing on Gavin's tail and finally, the whole of Talus' black outline. "Mm. What an unusual bunch you are."

"Let her go." Selatan growled, lowering his stance.

"I will not," she said dully, the four other guards stepping in. Most of them bore glaives, much like the woman, though one man sported a warhammer, raising it in preparation to fight. "I don't know what that thing is." She tipped her head in Talus' direction. "But they-" Her focus turned to Gavin. "-are exiled and to be captured alive on sight, and since you are working with them, that goes for all of you."

Biting his lip, Gavin removed an arrow from the quiver on his hip, pulling it back at the ready. Perhaps he shouldn't have let Eldrazi and Talus have their way. He would've much rather saved his energy for inside, once he'd already found the Relic, but it was too late for that. And yet, as he raised the bow to the guard's face, he couldn't help but smile, because a strange feeling had begun to start in his chest. Or perhaps it was more of a realisation that for once, there were people beside him, willing to fight for each other, and in a way, he was a part of that. So he turned his head back a little to look at Talus. "Ready?"

The boy was gone.

What? Gavin's eyes darted frantically, heart sinking, but he was nowhere to be found, and his search was quickly broken by a short grunt. He turned to find Aoife elbowing the woman, throwing her off balance as she yanked out of her grasp.

"Excuse you?" The shrill tone to Aoife's voice raised, and Gavin watched her right hand begin to swing the poi. Already, he could imagine the haughty remark to follow, of how they put their hands on her and captured her, of all people. He rolled his eyes.

The spiked metal cages at the ends of the chains ignited violet, swinging around her to form loops and swirls of fiery amethyst. Her eyes burned with rage, and as she stepped closer the group stepped back. "Don't you dare call Talus a thing!"

The tails of her coat fluttered as she spun, circling the first poi towards the side of the woman's head. She barely managed to duck in time before Aoife hauled the second from the other side, careening it into her hip.

It sunk through the padding of her armour, throwing her violently to the ground. Gavin watched, mouth falling open as he expected blood to leak onto the grass.

Yet, there was none, the wound closed from the fire leaping over her clothes and tearing at her flesh hungrily. Scream wasn't a strong enough word to describe the agonising cries coming from her mouth, putrid not enough to describe the smell of flames lapping at her black ponytail. She rolled on the ground desperately to put it out, twitching and shaking.

"You soih!" the guard with the warhammer roared, stepping forward to hit Aoife with a large swing.

The end of the hammer was blocked by a loud clang as Selatan dashed forward, catching the rod on the flat of his sword. They stood there a moment, watching each other. Then with a yank, the man flipped the warhammer, the curved, spiked end hooking around Selatan's weapon until it was tugged from his hands and onto the ground.

The Demon's eyes shot wide, and he pounced for the sword, but the man turned on his heel, sending the hammer towards his head. A crack echoed through the air, sending crimson drops askew, and Selatan collapsed into the dirt. His cowl slipped off as he fell, though it might as well have stayed with his striped hair matted in just as bright a red beneath.

"Selatan!" Aoife called out, although she was quickly distracted by two more guards coming for her, glaives raised high. She ducked back from a swipe, falling close to Gavin. "Where did Talus go?"

"I—" Gavin clenched the bow tighter, an arrow still at the ready. "He fled."

Disappointment flowed through him with the words, but it made sense, he supposed. Selatan had made it clear he might not be able to handle missions like this, so to flee...

The sensation dropped away as quickly as it had begun. Trust no one. No one but Eldrazi.

Simple words, repeated to himself time and time again. They were what pushed him forward to aim his bow. He couldn't trust himself– he'd learned that long ago– and others were far too finicky, but even now, his Demon lent him the speed he needed to dart to the side, the sense of taste to pinpoint each guard's location, and the confidence to let the arrow fly. Every victory he had he owed to him, and as the shaft sunk deep into the neck of a man at Aoife's side, he knew there would be many more, with, or without the others.

A wince flashed across Aoife's face, but she did little more than nod before launching once more into the attack. She gripped the chained handle of her weapon tighter, whipping it forward to aim at the man who'd struck Selatan down. But, despite his large stature, he dropped beneath the end effortlessly, letting it sail above his head. It gave him the perfect angle to swipe the spiked back of the hammer directly into the side of her knee.

Gavin paid them little attention, far more concerned with the last two guards moving for him. Granted he could easily make shots from up close, but as they slowly backed him up against the wall, his arm could only pull the string back so far, until he could no lower pull it back at all. His eyes had been trained on that, fingers too concerned with reaching for his knives to have noticed what had happened to Aoife until he heard both a crunch, and a scream.

Instantly, his head tore towards the noise to find her leg crushed in at an unnatural angle, and her falling to the ground. He watched, frozen in place by the chill webbing through his limbs.

A mistake.

The next feeling was a blunt force being thrust at his ribs. At first, it felt like a punch, until the pressure released to leave him feeling wet. Far too wet.

Gavin glanced down to the front of him drenched in red. A cough escaped him, but it was hard to breathe after to replace it. The guard pulled back her glaive, crimson dripping off it as she lined it with his throat.

"You know, I'd received orders about you in my training here," the girl whispered, tossing short, spiked brown hair out of her eyes if only to give Gavin a sharper look. "We were told if we ever found the Undying Serpent, to catch him alive. That your regeneration is far, far faster the larger the injury. So!" The blade began to press against his flesh, a sharp burn spreading as it split. "Lots and lots of little cuts it is."

If breathing had been hard before, the struggle only grew as Gavin flinched under the woman's excited tone. "Let's see how long you last."

His hands trembled, and his eyes slid shut as he reached for Eldrazi's presence, holding the warmth close. If he was being honest, he'd expected to come further than this, but if he was going to fail, if he had to die here, without saving Cynwrig, without finally being a family again... The fear wormed further into his spine. Well, perhaps it was foolish, but if he had to fail, he didn't want to die alone.

Tears blurred at his vision.

I wish Talus hadn't left.

That was the last thing he thought as he stood there, waiting for the stings of an untamed blade, and with it, the cold promise of Astren. So what if he was Human? So what if he came back to life again after? He stared blankly through the woman's face, mind stuck on only one concept. Everything he'd strived for would be gone, and it all would've been for nothing.

The woman's face suddenly burst with blood.

"What?" Gavin shouted, expecting for a moment to see Eldrazi forcing their knife through the next guard, but their hands were still at their side, their entire body paralyzed.

The woman toppled back, both the other guard and the man with the hammer darting to catch her in rapid confusion. With her further back, Gavin could feel a warmth spring up in their ribs as Eldrazi threw his attention into healing them, but he was more concerned with the three, claw-shaped cuts carved across the woman's nose, and where they had come from.

"Talus?" he wondered aloud, but the darkness around them lay untouched. The cuts had come from nothing as Gavin's gaze shot to Aoife shaking and clutching at her leg, to Selatan still lying motionless on the ground. No one and nothing. Nothing at all.

"You!" the man screamed, glaring at Gavin through thick, dark curls. "What did you—"

A slice cut deep through his stomach as if from a massive slash. He bent in half, gasping between ragged, choked cries, hands clutching for a waist quickly falling apart into ropes of organs freed from their prison.

Vomit shot to Gavin's throat, the fear returning and cutting far deeper as his brain scrambled for an answer. Spirits? No, they stayed in Astren. An invisible ally? But he couldn't sense Talus. Trembles wrenched through him until his gaze finally caught Selatan pushing himself off the ground. The man rose, a calm surety to his cat-like stare. His hand raised at his side, nails lengthening into razor-sharp claws.

Then he shot forward, fingers perfectly raking along the slices on the woman's face, her stomach. Moments after, his broadsword was out, thrusting to draw out where the man had just been. It did nothing though, the damage already done, and the two of them fell to the ground, motionless.

Screaming, the final guard scrambled back, blue eyes filled with terror. "What... what kind of magik is that?"

The look he gave over his shoulder was cold. "Leave before you find out the answer."

She paused a second longer, watching the man continuing to pant with blood-soaked hands, and rapidly nodded. With a mad dash, she pushed herself off the ground, taking off to... somewhere. Gavin doubted even she knew where, but he couldn't blame her as Selatan wordlessly sheathed the sword along his back.

"And 'ere I wrote you off for dead," Eldrazi mused, finally done healing Gavin's ribs. Not that they didn't ache sorely, and wouldn't for several minutes more, but it was as the woman said. Eldrazi never took long to heal from fatal wounds, and most importantly, the bleeding had ceased.

"No." He shook his head. "But from my experience, it's easiest to work from the ground." He helped Aoife sit up, following her hands to where she clutched at her leg, hissing in pain. "Do you want me to-?"

"Nah, I'm good." Taking a shaky first step, she rightened herself and headed to the door, albeit slower than before. "Save your magik."

"Right, which is... what exactly?" Gavin asked, eyeing him warily.

"I'll explain later when we have time. We've made enough of a scene as it is." He paused, glancing around. "Where's Talus?"

"Oh no." Now it was Gavin's turn to shake his head, and he moved closer to the door. "No more pushing off explanations. From any of you." He was sick of this. This had been his plan, his goal from the very beginning. The Eírimach was helping him with that, and yet the only person honest from the start had been Talus, and now he was gone. "You explain this now. What the vaeloc was that?"

"Gavin. Language."

I just watched a man break in half before he was hit. You'll have to forgive me.

A low growl emitted from Selatan's throat, and his eyes threw a quick glance at the fortress before them, all still locked by a half-crumpled door. There were shouts behind it, and no doubt the Cearte were coming as they spoke, but he spared him a few words. "Those with magik don't have to borrow the Wills of their god alone."

Gavin blinked at him. "I'm well aware, but... they bled from nothing."

"Look," Aoife spat, not even looking behind her as she staggered closer to the door. "My leg hurts like a soih, and if we don't have time for explanations, then we don't have time to be cryptic either, Selatan." She tossed her head to look at Gavin. "Basically, he borrows Akasha's Will, looks at the future, and she lets whatever he wants come a little faster so long as he promises to carry it out later. Make sense?"

"No?" he answered before he really thought about it. The future glancing at least made sense, given the Goddess' three faces, and he'd heard of Eunsis occasionally borrowing the Will of her Crone face for such. But to promise to make something happen before it had even begun... He bit his lip, looking Selatan up and down. "What happens if you break that promise?"

"Then I get the same punishment, threefold," he answered, voice flat. As though he was repeating a mantra he'd heard countless times before. "Promises to the gods are not meant to be broken."

A smirk played at Gavin's lips, and with no reason not to, he let Eldrazi continue to push. "So then why dontcha ask your dear lovely Goddess to break down the door and get 'er Relic for us so we can be on our merry way?"

Selatan turned, shooting him a ragged look. "Are you mad? Do you know how far in the future that would be? How many details I would have to get exactly right in order to carry out her vision? If I make even one misstep—"

"Ya throw off 'er whole laws of Balance and perfection and eugh." Gavin felt their hair get tossed about as Eldrazi shook off the notion like a dog to water. "Disgustin'."

"It's also why he is not going to heal my leg before my body can do it on its own," Aoife announced, the emphasis making her hinting more than clear. "We don't need him getting the same injury and worse if anything goes wrong. We can save that for more important things, thank you."

"More important things like... opening the door before you've unlocked it?" Eldrazi asked with a lilt to his voice.

Selatan crossed built arms, eyes narrowing further. "Maybe I would get to that, if you and your Human hadn't gone off on a side-tangent and instead answered my first question, which is where in Esternia is Talus?"

Gavin took in a deep, aggravated breath. "He's—"

"Here!"

And sure enough, slowly pushing open the capitol's gate, was a pale boy with raspberry red hair, brightly grinning with rows upon rows of fangs.