Dia watched in horror as the thing screeched, a sound like metal and pain, arching its back and shrinking. The harsh edges and lines of its body softening and curving into something once again human. Hard, blacker-than-night flesh eased back into tanned skin, feverishly pink and shining with sweat. Damp cornsilk hair sprouted from the head, now closer to the ground.

The thing morphed and changed until, for a moment that stretched with terror and bewilderment, it was Shane standing with his back to her in the middle of the clearing, blood oozing from cuts and scrapes all up and down his arms and legs, seeping through ragged clothing, face turned to the night sky, looking limp on his feet. Then the moment passed and he was falling to the frozen ground, shuddering and trembling, barely holding himself up on his hands and knees. He made a horrible sound, raw, choking. A sob. Shame swelled in Dia's chest and throat, twisting her innards.

What was she doing? Shane, her oldest and most reliable companion, closer than a friend or even a brother, was not more than twenty paces from her, weak and scared and needing, and she was standing there in fear. There was nothing to fear in Shane. He was Shane, calloused and sometimes cold but protective and loving and constant and strong, He was the boy who sat with her when she was sick and told her stories when she couldn't sleep and hugged her when she cried. He was Shane, and whatever had happened to him didn't change that.

Dia threw her hood back and ran, skidding as she knelt, frozen leaves and snow spraying behind her. Her bow dropped beside them, her hands coming to his face and shoulder. Shane lifted his head like it was the hardest feat he'd ever attempted, face crumpling and head hanging when he saw her face. There were tears on his face, filling the premature lines that Dia was sure hadn't been there the last time she had seen him. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling her rivsharhati close. He was still shaking, his breath rippling the fur of her hood, stuttering past her neck and ear, his cheek brushed hers, sending shivers down her spine from the icy contact.

Shane stumbled over her name, cut off by his own heaving chest. Dia shushed him gently, one hand smoothing over his hair. She couldn't feel much through her gloves, but she could see the half-frozen damp clinging to her palms. She held him tighter, begging his body to absorb her own warmth. His cold fingers brushed her neck, clinging weakly to both her hood and her hair, which, true to pattern, had almost entirely escaped both her braid and her coat. Shane felt so small, held in her arms like a child, shivering and weeping against her.

A shout sounded to her right, answered by another, then another, gradually accompanied by the pounding and snapping of running feet on a frozen forest floor, reminding Dia of the hunting party. A spike of fear shot through her but she tapered it. She was the diplomatic one, and she needed that to be true now more than ever.

She took the calm courage of necessity from every heave of Shane's chest, feeling it build a fortress of strength in her heart and mind, and feeling it fall to a pile of rubble with the first step the hunters took into the clearing. Fifteen to twenty men and women in furs and leathers, each with their hood up and bow loaded, though they did her the courtesy of not aiming at her, for the moment. Two hunters at the front stepped forward, lowering their hoods, Nokia's dark braid spilled from one, streaked with gray, Monte's shaggy beacon of moonlight from the other. If Dia had been hoping they'd missed the monstrous thing shrinking into her friend, the foolish thing was crushed. Shane, who, by good fortune or bad, was beyond his surroundings, choked on his own misery and coughed twice, violently. Tension swept through the small crowd, bows twitched, weight shifted, and Nokia and Monte paused. Monte raised his bow.

"Get away!" Dia snarled, hearing the animalistic threat in her voice and turning so she was glaring at Monte almost over her shoulder, blocking Shane with her body. "Get away!"

Nokia slowly laid her hand on Monte's guard arm. He didn't look happy about it, but lowered his weapon. Just as carefully, Nokia pulled the arrow from her bow and returned it to its quiver, re-slinging her bow across her body. She raised her hands pacifyingly and stepped forward.

Dia hunched around Shane's body. He had sunk into her, holding himself up finally becoming too much for his strained body and mind. Nokia kept moving closer, steadily closing the distance between herself and the pair on the ground.

When she was within a pace's distance she lowered herself to a crouch and extended her hand, halting when Dia made a hissing growling sound that didn't sound human to even her own ears. "Don't touch him!" She clutched at Shane's shirt and hair, both of which had grown stiff with his freezing sweat.

"Dia," Nokia said, her low, motherly voice hurting more than Dia thought an arrow might, because it promised care and safety when she knew she wouldn't get it, "I do not wish to hurt him."

"That doesn't mean you won't!" Dia thought she might have felt the sharp words slice her throat on the way up. "You will! Don't touch him!" Nokia's lined face crinkled with sympathy.

"My dear, has it yet occurred to you, that it might be for the best?" There was pity in her voice. "You saw what he is."

"No." Dia wasn't looking at her anymore. Her face was bowed over Shane's shoulder. When she shook her head, his hair tangled with her eyelashes. "No. It's not his fault. Something else did that to him. You can't kill him for it." There were tears on her face, she couldn't remember when they had begun to fall. Shane gasped in a breath. Dia buried her face in his neck, squeezing her eyes shut against his hair. He didn't deserve this. No one did, but especially not Shane, not the boy who was so essentially good, who loved what was right and despised what was evil, he didn't deserve to be turned into the thing he hated.

Shane shuddered against her, jostling Dia's head. She turned her teared face back to Nokia. "Please. Please don't hurt him. We don't even know what's wrong with him. Maybe it can be fixed." Nokia searched her face, lips pursed, brow drawn, then lowered her head, conceding. Dia sobbed in relief, pressing a kiss into Shane's hair.

"Nokia," Monte snapped, stepping closer and brandishing his bow. Nokia stood and turned to face him in a single movement. Monte froze.

"Do you question me, Monte? Is yours a word I need be wary of?"

He looked highly affronted at that, and Dia could hear actual offense in his voice as he said, "I would never betray you, Nokia." Dia knew it was true though she barely spared an ear for the exchange, she had pulled Shane back from her, holding him steady by the shoulder and his head up with a hand to his cheek. His lips were tinted blue.

"We cannot allow a Carpoli to live!" Monte was spitting, gesturing around Nokia to Shane. Nokia's voice, though quite calm, held the hidden tone of irritation when she replied.

"It is possible the boy is not truly one of them. I cannot condone the murder of an innocent."

Monte scoffed. "Carpoli or not, we all know that 'boy' is not innocent. We should rid ourselves of his stained being while he cannot take any of ours with him to death's door."

Nokia may have been about to respond, but Dia beat her to it, Shane's head once again buried in her furs.

"If he is so much as bruised by your hand I swear to you, your death will not be painless."

He barked out a laugh. "You would make such bold promises on behalf of a boy who is neither your brother, nor your lover?"

"He is my rivsharhati," she said, "which makes him closer than either." Dark amusement lighted on Monte's face. Nokia raised a hand, curtailing the exchange.

"If you wish to gripe your grievances, Monte, we can continue this another time. Go with your riders, tell the healers to prepare their tent. We shall follow."

The muscle in Monte's jaw worked furiously, but he bowed his head and gave an order in Chif. Half the hunting party followed after him, disappearing into the forest. A beat of tension lingered in their absence. "Please," Dia whispered, "he's freezing."

Nokia looked behind her and nodded slowly. "Moria," she called with a wave of her hand. The slightest figure of the remaining eight bounded forward, knocking back her hood to reveal a girl, younger than Dia but not by much.

The healer's daughter knelt and, with a hesitation Dia pretended not to notice, reached forward. Shane let out a startled cry when she touched his shoulder, pressing himself a little closer to Dia. Moria scrambled back in fear. Dia turned her face to his ear, shushing softly, rocking gently, rubbing her hand over his back.

"It's alright," she whispered. "It's alright."

Nokia looked from Moria to Shane and back, met Dia's eyes, and said, "Perhaps it would be best if his injuries were handled by a more... experienced healer. At camp." Dia nodded, pressing her mouth to Shane's shaggy hair, appreciating Nokia's valiant attempt at tactfulness.

She and a number of other hunters helped to pull Shane first to his feet, then onto the back of a summoned rarhiham. Dia clambered up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him to her chest. Cara-- who had always been sweet to Dia-- draped one of the large saddle blankets around their shoulders, only meeting Dia's eyes once, before quickly flicking away. Dia tried to push away the small pang of hurt in her chest, busying herself with the blanket and keeping Shane's hair from her eyes, it wasn't Cara's fault she was scared, she had every right to be. If Dia was honest, she was scared too.