Dichotomy

[DotCom]

Jack, in his conscious mind, didn't understand Kohe's movements, and did indeed chalk it up to fever or delirium. Eyes still blank, he added another root to the one currently on his list, one to give her energy, and he was certain she may have been concussed. It would not be serious, not life-threatening. But it would make it difficult for her to focus, or think along any rational lines whatsoever. That worked for him. Let her become confused, weak, pliable and emotional like her sister.

And yet, in his basest self, that same self that emerged when he descended into a Blood Rage, taking on the Hunter form by accident and not by design...the predator in him understood.

If he did not have the control over himself his father had given him, he might have let loose a soft growl on inexplicable satisfaction. Even pleasure.

But Jack did not let himself linger on that. Instead, he tore the last of the two strips of shirt into one long bandage, and one small cloth. The latter, he doused in a bit of snow melt he knew Kohe would shy from, not that it bothered him. It would be best to clean the blood from her head, perhaps her face and hair, before he tried to find anything else. Something to help with the pain and slow bleeding, something to help ease her into sleep. Something to keep infection at bay. They were easy enough to find. His father had ensured a great many uses -- and needs -- from them when Jack had been young and stupid himself.

Leaning close, avoiding her eyes, he dabbed gently at the cut, patient as he could be in cleaning away the blood. He had a feeling that, like all head wounds, it looked worse than it was, but he could not afford to take that chance. Mission or no, he would not even make it back to Tai if Kohe could not get herself together. He cleaned away the blood and dirt as best he could then bound the bandage loosely about her forehead and hair before straightened and shifting again, shaking himself free of snowmelt and cold.

He hesitated at the mouth of their small cave. It provided insulation from the worst of the cold and protection from the wind...but how much use would it be if Koheera was unable to produce her own heat as it were? She would be safer, too, with him, though more exposed to the cold. He growled at the back of his throat and turned away in a sudden frustration. When had he become so beset by indecision? A few short days ago, he had been mere moments from completing the mission he had nearly given his life for. Now he stood by, playing guard dog to the Shaman's sister, trying to ignore the way his belly had tightened at the sounds of her small whimpers of pain...

Finally, he turned back, baring his teeth in futile irritation.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You must come with me. I will keep you warm enough. I cannot risk you falling asleep or freezing here on your own. It will not take us long to find the herbs we need." Another pause. "It will help with the pain."

--

The last thing she remembered was somehow calling the lightning from a once-cloudless sky. There had been surprise, wonder, perhaps a moment of short-lived, if bewildered, glee. Then utter horror as she watched purple arcs strike the earth all around Eliko.

Somehow, she did not hit him.

Somehow, she kept the rsio from killing him.

But it came at a cost greater than any she had ever witnessed before.

She felt the rsio die. She felt her lightning burn through it like fire, drilling a white-hot hole in the space between her shoulder blades, plunging through to the first of her three hearts, meeting the ground again at the contact of each of her four paws, ricocheting through her every fiber of her being before burning itself away. She pain was dizzying, maddening, but nothing so sharp as the fear, the anger, the desolation and hopelessness that came with the fact that she was going to die. She did not know much else -- she did not recognize either of the creatures that had woken her from her hibernation, called her out to protect her young. She did not know how the air suddenly smelled of water-from-the-sky when it had been clear as she'd run through the forest. She did not know even the name of the Bad Thing that burned worse than fire or the acid geysers where she had birthed her young. She knew only they would go hungry now, and that only if they lived long enough. She knew she had failed them as a mother. She knew she was breathing her last in the grips of a pain she could neither name nor understand.

A terror like nothing she had ever known swept over her, erasing first her sight than her senses of smell and hearing. Then the pain was gone, then the knowledge. Then there was just darkness and desolation.

And she was dead.

Tai screamed the death howl the rsio had not been able to give, her entire body going rigid as though she had been the one struck by lightning. The moment passed as swiftly as it had come, but to Tai, it seemed to linger for ages.

Around her, the lightning fizzled and died. Overhead, the clouds began to roll out again. Somewhere nearby, someone was speaking. Tai saw none of it.

She rolled quickly, trying to get her arms under herself, and only half succeeded -- her right arm felt unwieldy, too heavy to move -- before she, like her sister, maybe miles or years or both, away threw up into the scorched soil. She retched once, then again, expelling bile thinned with water. She realized vaguely she wasn't eating, couldn't eat anymore, and was briefly thankful, before horror and agony swept over her again. She vomited once more, though it was little more than a dry heave, her body still working to expel the evil her mind knew was there, though her belly was long empty.

She coughed, gasped, threw up again, then rolled wildly to her feet. She was unsteady, her hair and eyes wild, and it was some time before she saw Eliko -- Eliko? Not-Eliko? -- there. She backed away from him. She could not kill him too.

"...killed her..." she heard someone half scream, half gasp, and after several reiterations, realized she was the one speaking, if it could be called that. "...wanted to protect her babies...starving...scared...killed her...I killed her...I killed them! Goddess, I -- " She tried to throw up again and found herself beset by a pain like burning acid spreading from her right shoulder down her arms, toward her fingertips, toward her chest and neck, burning away flesh, she was almost certain. She screamed with the pain, and then again when it didn't stop, and again when she realized she no longer had any control over her body.

Was this how Kohe felt?

"Kohe?" It was as calm as she had been since the attack. Violet eyes darted around the forest that now reeked of hot metal. "Kohe?" An image flashed through her head -- Kohe and Rask, Kohe no older than six -- and then Jack and the silver wolf again, Eliko and one of his Icehounds -- and then the pain was pulling her back.

Her eyes fell on the charred corpse of the rsio and she was moving before she knew, weaving wildly as her head began to pound. The burning in her shoulder had increased, moving further down her arm. But where the pain had been worst, it was numb now. Cold. Her fingers her growing stiff.

Tai dropped to her knees beside the rsio and laid one hand on its furry head. Siya had once brought her aunt back to life. Could the same be done here? Tai didn't need forgiveness. She just needed to make things right. She had killed something, a living creature, and she could not let that stand.

Trembling, she turned to Eliko, only half seeing him. She was so tired suddenly...

"I need your help," she said evenly, knowing he would not listen, would not trust her, otherwise. "Help me turn her over. I can help her. I can bring her back. I can make it okay."

 

[Kaisaan]

Sorry? Why was he sorry? Had he done something wrong? How had she not noticed that? Perhaps it was a good thing Tai was not here if Kohe couldn't even keep aware for more than a few minutes.

And Kohe was finding it difficult to focus, all her energy now centered on simply staying in this time, here and stable. She frowned slightly at his last words, shaking her head slowly. No. There was no pain. Everything was wonderfully numb. She'd not even flinched at the cold material on her forehead. It had only been a few degrees colder than she was. Nothing to bother her. But that...that wasn't good, was it? The Demisan let that thought linger within her as she used its small surge of awareness to struggle upward and onto Jack's back. Unlike last time, Kohe didn't immediately register that he was warm, not until her limbs started to prick with sharp needles of pain.

She shivered as she curled as close to the Venatorus' body as she could, wrapping her tail tightly around her waist and shoulders in an effort to keep herself from trembling for another reason entirely. It was the same reason she didn't open her mouth, teeth grit to keep the sounds of pain silent. Kohe was past the point of understanding why she did it, only that she had to.

Jack would keep her alive. He would keep her safe because he needed her. But he would not care about her....perhaps for a very long time. Perhaps never at all. And that hurt more than anything else. More than the returned bloodflow to her limbs or the pressure building within her to Jump. It hurt so that Kohe found herself subtly wiping her eyes with her arm, getting rid of the evidence of tears long before they could freeze to her face.

And all the while, the whispers kept growing.

--

Not-Eliko didn't know how to handle this.

He knew, vaguely, that he'd handled distraught people before. Mothers whose sons had been killed. Sisters who hit him over and over until they collapsed sobbing. Lovers who were so distraught they stopped talking for months, refusing to eat, to drink, to function. He'd seen children shrieking in an agony they could not understand as their parent's body was brought back, no longer breathing, no longer moving. Gone. He understood hysteria. He understood grief. Not-Eliko understood and could handle what Tai was doing.

What he did not know how to handle was his own reaction to it.

Every scream tore through him like the most intense kind of heat, centered not in his head, but in his chest and such pain, such a reaction even made the Midnight hesitate, undecided what it wanted to do, what it should do. Eliko, he wanted to come forward, to merely hit Tai over the head, to make her shut up and tend her shoulder so she wouldn't die, but not-Eliko could not take that approach.

He wanted to go to Tai, to help her as she vomited, but did not dare to. She was unstable, had moved away from his initial touch and hadn't seemed to take note of him yet. And then when she did, he wished she'd not. He could see the poison working its way through her body, but more than that, he could see the raw grief within her eyes and while Eliko scoffed at it, uncaring, not-Eliko felt it keenly.

The Ashkerai didn't let it stop him this time, though, as he approached the desperate and pleading Demisan.

Not-Eliko crouched slowly before Tai, his brown eyes, somehow both cold as was the way with his species and yet strangely soft as well, finding her violet. He took a breath, pushed Eliko's snark from his conscious thoughts and silently prayed that he could get through to the lightning-wielding, overly-emotional Demisan whose sister would blast him to kingdom come if he harmed her or made her worse - and not-Eliko didn't care what Eliko thought about that. It was true. And that's what Kohe would do if Tai didn't zap them first.

That shut Eliko up...momentarily. He still thought they should knock her out and be done with it.

Not-Eliko ignored him. He was in charge right now and they'd do what HE wanted....at least until the Midnight dragged him under again and it would, soon. He could feel it.

"Tairisa...she's gone. I'm sorry, but she is." He kept his voice gentle and moved just a little closer, risking touching the Demisan again, her hand this time, the one not connected to her injured shoulder. "I'm sorry, but you can't bring her back. She's gone...but..." He needed something....something to make her calm, to give her...give her...hope. Eliko seemed to shrink from the word alone, almost hissing, but strangely enough...the Midnight didn't react and not-Eliko knew Eliko would ponder that later. Not-Eliko already knew the answer, but refused to give it to the more arrogant, coldhearted and cruel personality sharing his body. Eliko would have to work to figure it out.

"But we'll find her babies. We will. We'll find them and take them with us, and we'll care for them. I promise, Nesar Re'." The name slipped out before he could think about it, like his mouth had a will of its own, but not-Eliko didn't retract it...even if Eliko was raging against his mind now, furious.

Not-Eliko held him back and in check. He wasn't leaving yet. Not before he had Tai taken care of and safe. Eliko might be brutal, but not-Eliko never had been. He wasn't going to start now.

--

If Kohe had been more lucid, she would have known why Jack couldn't hear them, but as delirious as she was now from cold, blood loss and exhaustion, nothing was truly making sense to the Demisan and if she could have questioned the Venatorus, she would have. Perhaps it was better that all she could do was sling thoughts into that dark void that swallowed up the yellow strands connected to her mind.

Jack...Jack, they're getting louder. They won't leave. I can't...I can't make them leave.

We're part of you, Kohe'Erana. We can not leave. It was the clearest she'd heard the words now and Kohe started upon Jack's back, sitting up abruptly and moving her head from side to side, feverish mismatched eyes searching the mountains around them through the flurries of snow. Her hair curled about her head and neck, obscuring her vision, but the Demisan didn't seem to register that, nor the fact that she'd started to shiver violently as the wind swept through her clothes, biting the skin beneath. No, Kohe's focus was inward even if she didn't realize it, on something Jack could not see, though, perhaps if he were more attuned to Kohe he would have sensed it.

Tai would have.

It was a crackling of subtle, foreign energy around Kohe, a shift in the very thought process of her mind. It was something she was connected to, intimately, but it was not her. It was like Time and yet different even still, though, it possessed aspects of Time, too. All three were converging together slowly within the Demisan; Kohe, Time and this unknown entity that was made up of more than one consciousness, though, they were faint.

Just whispers.

You can feel it. Pulling, demanding. In your weakness it is strong.

The Eternity wants you. Fight it.

The Eternity? There was no answer, only more voices and Kohe brought her hands to her ears, trying to block them out, unable to. They continued to swirl around her much as the wind did, chilling from the inside out and the Demisan felt a scream building in her chest just as the pressure within her body was, her form starting to flicker, to fade, being pulled at by Time. If Jack was speaking to her or had moved or shifted she didn't know it, lost within the battle she was desperate to win but did not truly know how to fight.

You must fight it. We did not and were lost. Fight it.

Your purpose is not yet complete, Kohe'Erana.

Fight.

I don't know how!

The answer screeched through her mind, just as powerful as the pressure within her. Pain! Pain will ground you. Use it!

But...but Jack-

He will not help you. There was a finality there that scared Kohe and brought the weight of everything crashing down on her. She'd been hoping, quietly, so quietly that not even she'd noted it until now, that Jack would aid her. That he'd ground her. That he'd...be her mate and she knew that was too much to ask of him. Too soon. Too much, too little time and now too late to help her - if he even had any idea what to do at all. The pressure was building, her form disappearing and Kohe finally did as the voices told her, seeing no other way.

There was no blood, not cuts, but there was pain as the Demisan turned her telekinetic energy inward, sending ripples of concussive blasts across her own body. Kohe did scream now, the sound nearly inhuman as the power building within her was slowly released with the sound until she was solid once more, shivering violently even as she passed out.

 

[DotCom]

His reaction to her pain, her fear and confusion, was not what he might have guessed, and yet he was not surprised. Jack knew that from precisely the moment he had seen Keeva in her place -- and perhaps before, even well before -- nothing else would matter to him but her safety. It was a dangerous place to be, he knew. He had seen what that sort of weakness bought, and he had promised himself on that night he would not allow anyone to weaken him like that again.

But this was not anyone. This was Keeva. Somehow, she was Keeva, even as she was not at all like Keeva.

Jack knew he was wrong. He would pay for his foolishness at more than just his father's fangs, with more than just his own blood and the blood of his people. But it did not matter. He was helpless to it. He smelled blood in the air, felt her tremble against him, and knew he was lost.

He didn't panic, though. Weak or not, he was his father's creation, and he had trained against fear and panic half a hundred times before. Where others would begin to shiver and shake, to break down under pressure, to recognize the tightening he now felt in his chest as the beginnings of fear, Jack's mind shut down, narrowing only to the most necessary of factors.

First: Find the root.

Finding Kohe the medicine she needed hardly seemed important, not once she sat up and stared around the swirling whiteness, not when her shivering increased to the point where even he felt cold. Anyone else might have abandoned his first project to try and get through to her, to get her warm again. But Jack only increased his pace. He would get her back as soon as he could, but he would not make the minutes already spent in the cold an empty metric. He had not made her colder for no reason. The cold would not kill her just yet. And it was, he reminded himself, more important that she did not sleep.

Second: Get back to warmth.

The root was easy enough to find, even under two feet of snow. They grew best in colder climates, though they froze in the winter, rendering the first batch he found inedible. Behind him, Kohe had gone from simply shivering to flickering again, just as she had back in the forest before finally disappearing. Between the cold and the blood-loss and the exhaustion, he was almost certain she would not survive another jump, whether he went with her or not.

A snatch of bulbous roots clutched between his jaws, the withered greens poking from his muzzle, he turned back, perhaps intending to bark or growl or bite to bring her back, because even without looking at her, it was clear no part of her was fully there, neither body nor mind.

But when he saw the fear in her face, clear even in her fevered delirium, he only touched his cold, wet nose to the back of her hand.

She didn't so much as blink, and then suddenly, through no volition of his own, Jack was running.

They reached the cave again in a matter of minutes, Jack panting, now vaguely aware his hind leg was growing numb, wet with his own chilled blood.

But he had eyes only for Kohe.

He wriggled gently until she was curled on the ground, her tail wrapped around her in fear or defense or both, and then he crouched over her, his furry flank protecting her from the wind and the biting cold, all the while knowing it was no longer the cold that plagued her. She was cycling again, flickering in and out of existence, too weak, too exhausted to fight, and the cruel irony was that the fighting was only making her weaker.

He stood over her and growled and snapped and barked and tried not to let any of the sudden, inexplicable nerves he was feeling reach her. He tried, he tried hard not to see Keeva.

But he was finding even seeing Kohe was nearly too much.

Kohe! his voice was hard and cold and their small space echoed with the sharpness of his barkings. Koheera, control yourself. Listen! Come back! Come back to me!

She trembled and writhed beneath him, her eyes wild and blind, and he knew she could not hear him. His father had said time and time again it was nothing less than insanity to try the same methods and expect different results. But what else could he do?

And then, suddenly, she was screaming and panic exploded in his chest, all heat and pain and confusion and fear. Anger evaporated as Kohe passed from consciousness and Jack found himself pawing at her chest, nuzzling her cold cheeks, and begging. Begging.

Wake up...wake up, please wake up...

It was a long moment before he realized what he was doing and stepped back in alarm and confusion.

He had been whining and whimpering over her like a pup at its mother's side! The Shaman's sister, one of the Demisan he was meant to kill. His behavior was appalling to say the least.

And yet when he laid down beside her, curled around her still form to protect her once more from the cold, he found his muzzle resting close to her face so he could listen to her breathe.

And despite the exhaustion washing over him, he did not sleep.

--

For a long time, Tai didn't, couldn't register anything but the eternity of depth she saw looking into his eyes. She didn't know who he was now, and didn't care. She hardly knew who she was. What she did know what that she had not been herself a few moments ago. She had looked over and seen the rsio descending on him and something unidentifiable had come over her. She had seen danger, grief before. She had seen Kohe injured and attacked, and she would not, would never hesitate to give her life for her sister. But she had learned long ago not to kill. Lyra had taught her that. Her own Empathy had taught her that. To kill, to feel something die -- and she would, did now more than she ever had before -- would be to die herself.

And she had killed anyway. She had looked over and seen him about to die, and lightning surged forth in an unrecognizable fury of passion, for the first time since she was six years old, drowning. And it had not killed then.

No. She had not killed. She had never killed. Not until tonight. And the fear, the hopelessness, the icy cold touch of despair and utter desolation filled her until she shivered and froze.

Tai would have never come back from that, she knew. Even here, even now, she knew it. Kohe was gone, sick and hurt and maybe never coming back. Her family was far away on another world. She was here with a creature of darkness who wanted her dead. And she had killed. Tai was a happy person by nature, but in that moment, she felt all the hopelessness -- the very antithesis of her being, to hear Kohe tell it -- of the world on her shoulders, and she wanted to die. She wanted to break apart and float away on the wind, anything would be better than this grief.

But Eliko, or Not-Eliko wouldn't let her. He held her there with his gaze, both cold and warm somehow, just as Jack had once fixed Kohe. She wasn't aware of who he was, or where she was. But she felt his eyes on her, and it touched something within her, the last fragment of light or warmth or hope that hadn't been smothered by sadness. It bloomed and flickered in the darkness, wavered, but did not die. She had killed the rsio, and the planet was dying. Kohe was gone, and it was dark, and her shoulder hurt, but she could hold on, she thought. With just that flicker of light, Tai could maybe believe things would be okay. Somehow, things would get better.

And with that realization, movement and pain and light and sound came back. It hurt, all of it, some more than others, but it was better than the darkness.

As her senses came back, Tai realized the air buzzed with static and stank of burnt grass and hot metal. The dead rsio lay near her leg, and if she wanted, she thought she could have found its young, but she was too tired now.

Hearing returned, too, and slowly, slowly, Not-Eliko's words sank in. Tai was nodding even before she understood what he was saying.

"Find them..." she repeated slowly. "We'll find them." Then, as understanding struck, a flicker, a gleam of hope, small, but shining like the sun from the depths of darkness that had been so close consuming her. "Really? You -- we can find them? Keep them?"

She knew she wasn't speaking to Eliko. She didn't know where he'd gone, or who this person was, how long he would stay. But she knew he was speaking from his heart, his soul, whatever part of him would become her mate. He was being as honest as he could, and Tai could trust that, however slight it might be.

She nodded once, still trembling, but settled now. "O-okay," she said. "We'll find them. I'll find them. I...I can feel them, but..." she broke off, frowned, then whimpered as nausea and exhaustion washed over her again.

"I can't trace them right now. I have to k-keep Jack and Kohe. It...it hurts, I -- " And then all of them at once were in her head. The dead rsio and her three young. Eliko and Not-Eliko, raging, fighting against each other. And somewhere, far away, Jack, terrified. And Kohe -- screaming.

The reach was too far, the emotions too many, the pain too much. For the first time ever, Tai wanted to shut down, turn off her Empathy and exist just here, just for now. But she didn't dare let go of her connection to her twin.

She shivered and shut her eyes and flexed the fingers connected to her bad arm reflexively. The fire that had died down to a numbing cold sprang back and she whimpered. The pain had progressed from her shoulder, across her chest, settled in her belly, flushing her neck and face. She whimpered again as the pain registered with a new vigor, and then she was struggling not to scream, not to writhe. It would be better if the numbness spread, if only so she could have a moment's relief. Even now, her arm and shoulder felt blessedly cool.

"I have to lay down," she said, breathless, weaving.

She opened her eyes, looked down at her hand, pale with a pattern like bruising spreading over it. In her head, Kohe was still screaming.

She flexed her fingers and watched as nothing happened.

When she looked up at Eliko and Not-Eliko again, it was through half-lidded eyes, her voice a mumbled monotone.

"We need t-to get the babies," she said quietly. "And then we need to...to make Jack and Kohe come b-back." She felt her chest tighten as the numbness finally began to spread there. It made it harder to breathe, but it cooled the fire that had seized her belly, so she was glad. The babies would live. Kohe was hurting, hurting bad, but she could be okay. Tai would help. She would help them all. She just needed to...to...

She shook her head to try and clear it and nearly toppled over in the process. She caught herself on her good arm and was only mildly surprised to find herself nearly in the lap Not-Eliko was sharing with Eliko. She beamed at him.

"Sorry," she giggled. "I'm gonna lay down first, okay? Before I find them."

She was shivering by the time the managed to maneuver herself into a sort of half-crouch. When she looked back to Not-Eliko, she smiled again and reached out to touch his cheek.

"I know you have to go away again," she slurred. "It's okay. I'll remember you were here. He will, too. Next time he wants to hurt me, he'll remember you were here."

She blinked slowly, the effort of opening her eyes feeling monumental.

"Hm," she said quietly. "I can't move my arm."

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe didn't know where she was.

Well, no, that wasn't entirely true. She was in Time...or rather, the cracks between Time. Those very still, rare, minuscule places where Time flowed around but did not touch. She'd found one, a place of refuge, of safety and yet Kohe was not stupid. She knew she couldn't stay here. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be to leave...and she had no way of knowing if Time was passing slowly, quickly, forward or backward beyond this haven she'd found. She had no idea where she'd end up, WHEN she'd end up when she came back out.

And yet, Kohe knew she NEEDED to stay here for a little while. In this place, there was no pain, no nausea, no demands, no cold and no threat of dying. There was no death without Time and while, yes, she was Time, she was also obsolete in this place. Herself, as Time, didn't exist. It was wonderful and terrifying all at once, but she didn't leave.

This rest was needed and she'd return stronger for it.

How long Kohe stayed, she didn't know. All the Time in existence and no Time at all. It was both and neither at the same time and she didn't mind either way. It was long enough that she didn't feel weak anymore. It was long enough that if she went back, the Demisan knew she would be able to Jump again, though, she would not. Not right away. If she did, all progress would be erased and she'd be right back where she'd been before. No, Kohe had gotten a boost, a stable point and she'd keep it.

Getting back, though...she wasn't entirely sure how to do that as she stood on the precipice of the place outside of Time, looking into the Timestream that raged like the fastest river beyond. She knew that to jump back in would send her careening out of control. It was the danger of going into the cracks outside of Time.

You had to get back into Time eventually and without knowing where to land, how to navigate, Time itself would swallow you whole and never spit you back out. Even Kohe was in danger of that and so she stood, and she waited and the longer she waited, the more she knew that the chance she'd never leave were increasing.

And then, in the darkness and the light, in the swirl of Time and the stillness beyond it, the voice reached her. It came when no other would have reached her, came where it should not have been able to go, following her across centuries and lifetimes, across Eternity itself and into the nothingness to whisper in her ear.

Wake up...wake up, please wake up...

Kohe's eyes opened and the smile that swept over her face was pure joy as she laughed. She jumped then, letting the currents of Time close over her without fear.

She had her destination now.

--

Gods above, she was a mess.

Not-Eliko thought it and in his head, it wasn't harsh or disgusted, just factual and worried. Tai was all over the place with her emotions, with her speech and with her actions. But then, he'd been that way after his first kill, too - though, that had been another sentient, intelligent being like himself - and he'd known he was going to do it. Tai had not and as an Empath, if what he understood about them was correct, doing what she'd done had to have screwed with her head as it were. Being poisoned on top of that AND the stress of having her sister gone....well, not-Eliko wasn't going to hold her state against her.

Eliko would have. Did.

But he wasn't Eliko. Not really...well, actually that...nevermind....it was complicated and not important right now.

Making sure Tai didn't die was...and not for the reasons Eliko wanted to insist on. They didn't agree on THAT at all, but at least they agreed that Tai needed to live, no matter what the reason, and Eliko was reluctantly willing to back down - for now - and let not-Eliko do things his way since they seemed to be working right now. Not-Eliko didn't care if Eliko agreed or not. He wasn't coming back until not-Eliko was satisfied that Tai would live...and he fulfilled his promise to her to get the Rsio cubs.

He'd just started to move - or perhaps he'd just thought about it - when her fingers graced his face and not-Eliko stilled again, brown eyes snapping to her violet, her words bringing wonder rising up within him. How? How did she know that? How did she know, understand, see that he wasn't Eliko? Yes, he was acting different, but... There was so much he did not know, not-Eliko was aware of that. Eliko and Elitoro both had kept things from him, shoved him away so that he only got bits and pieces of information. So perhaps that was normal for Tai to be able to do, but it completely blindsided him.

And for some inexplicable reason, it brought to mind the words the Demisan had said not even an hour before, ringing clearly through his head. You're the one Kohe says is supposed to be my mate.

He still didn't know what to make of that, what to feel about it for she'd not been talking to Eliko, but to HIM and now not-Eliko knew that. She'd been talking to him and it was HE who got to make any decision based on that information, whether Eliko liked it or not - and he most decidedly did not.

They could argue about that later, though. Right now they had something much more pressing to attend to and not-Eliko shook off the spell Tai had placed on him with naught but a touch.

"Yes, and that's not a good thing." the Ashkerai replied to her last comment, moving his own hand to touch her arm, fingers trailing up her skin to her shoulder, nothing suggestive or double-meaning in the slightest in the gesture. He was checking the degree of her skin and his fingers proved it by jumping to her other arm, feeling the difference in the two. The severe discrepancy in temperature made him curse under his breath and not-Eliko frowned, touching under her eyes, drawing Tai's eyelids down a bit to look more closely at the changes coming over her systems. Damn, this venom moved quickly.

He made his decision in a moment.

"Nesar Re', this is going to hurt." Somehow, for reasons he couldn't focus on right now, his hand had found her face, his palm covering her cheek and not-Eliko attempted a smile, the expression feeling strange even to him. The words...they just felt right. Damn, it was good to be himself again, even if just for a time. "It will help, though. I promise. And then we'll find the babies." he assured her, knowing - and not understanding how he knew - that she needed it.

And not-Eliko...he wanted to give Tai what she needed, though, the reason why eluded him. Or perhaps he was just pretending it did.

--

Sapphire and scarlet eyes opened slowly in the dimness of the snow cave, but it wasn't to the ceiling or the storm beyond, not the walls or herself that Kohe looked. It was to Jack curled around her, it was to the yellow eyes that did not sleep, had not slept for a time that Kohe could not yet measure. It was to the Venatorus who had pulled her from Nothingness and Time itself. It was to Jack who held more power over her than he could know, but an entirely different power than he would ever suspect.

It was to him that the Demisan looked and it was to him that she reached, her hand catching in his fur, warm and comforting against the coldness of her skin. It was a cold that nearly hurt now that she knew what warmth was again and Kohe knew it a good thing.

Her time away had been a good thing, too.

Her mind was clearer, the nausea gone and the haze of fever, of delirium had left her gaze entirely. Her mind had healed itself in this place between Time....and Kohe had found her voice. It was steady and calm, both powerful and soft and her eyes didn't leave his, neither smiling nor frowning.

"I heard you." Now a hint of a smile touched her lips, something glimmering just out of understanding in her gaze, mystery that would keep him on edge for some time to come. "Thank you."

--

He'd closed his eyes. He'd not needed to, but not-Eliko hadn't wanted to see the pain that would fill Tai's vision, increasing what was already there. Eliko mocked him for it, but the Ashkerai didn't care. He blocked Eliko out, everything out really, as he attempted to do something he'd not done for a long, long time, something he'd not been able to do until now: control the Midnight.

It fought him every step of the way, no longer recognizing him as anything but a foreign threat it could not yet eliminate, but not-Eliko had always been stronger than the Darkness when he'd lived his own life, in his own time and now he had a reason to be stronger again...and he was. It was a small control, just enough for what he wanted, needed done, but it was control nonetheless and it shut Eliko up like nothing else had EVER done before.

Not-Eliko didn't pay attention to that as his eyes opened, completely black and even more quickly that blackness was seeping up his arm and then into his hand...and then into Tai.

He'd told her it would hurt and he'd not been lying. It would feel like the coldest, darkest ice creeping into her veins, it would feel like the Shadow possession that it was, but it would not linger, not like it would have if he were attacking her. No, it swept through - though, it would feel like it crawled with the most agonizing of slowness, he knew - and it pulled the poison with it, absorbing as it was meant to. It took all of three minutes - three minutes that would seem like eternity to Tai - and then the Midnight was retreating, poison, coldness and Darkness all back into the Ashkerai.

Every sound of pain from the Demisan rang in not-Eliko's mind and in that moment he wanted to gather her into his arms, to comfort the damage he'd done, not wanting to do it at all, having no choice, but while the poison was gone from Tai...it was just starting to take effect in him. With the Ashkerai, though, it started in his chest and the pain made his eyes dilate, his breathing harsh as he grit his teeth, the burning unbearable.

How had she withstood that!?

It was creeping through him quickly, but not-Eliko wasn't alarmed. He'd not done this without a plan and his plan had not included dying. No, he simply closed his eyes....and his form started to fade, to become the Shadow form that was second nature to him - or first nature depending on how one looked at it - and the poison had nothing more to contain it. The liquid of it fell to the ground as the Shadow moved away and then not-Eliko was materializing again, his brown eyes not for the poison on the forest floor, but for the Demisan he knew he'd badly hurt even if it was to help.

"I'm sorry." he said softly, meaning it.

 

[DotCom]

She could feel him changing. She could feel him feeling a hundred thousand different things, and wondered if it exhausted him like it did her. She wanted to try and calm him, both of them, Eliko and not-Eliko, soothing Eliko's anger and frustration, easing not-Eliko's sharp-edged concern. But she could hardly focus to discern the different between the two, let alone change anything they were feeling. She could hardly stay awake as it were. The poison burned through her with a strange, inexplicable fire that seared with agony and yet left her shivering in its wake. It was getting harder and harder to hide the pain from him, and when he told her it would hurt, she could no longer suppress a whimper.

"It's okay," she started to say. "I'm okay. I just want to sleep. Please just let me -- "

For a moment, when the Midnight first hit her, Tai was so shocked by the complete and utter undoing power it had over her. It was everything she was not: cold, fear, darkness, desolation. Hopelessness. It seemed to carve, burning, freezing, down into her flesh, her bones, her very soul, before she realized how much it hurt. She clamped down on her Empathy without realizing she was doing so, trying, maybe failing to keep the pain from the others. And the guilt from not-Eliko.

She was screaming before she could help it, before she could even begin to find the strength to hide it from him, and then, a moment after that, she was begging, too far gone to realized she did. She didn't beg with words, or with actions, or even full thoughts. But her mind was spitting out images, silent pleas as the Demisan curled into a fetal position on her side, her wounded arm forgotten. Her vocal cords had seized so that she could not even scream anymore, and every muscle in her body seemed to ring with tension and agony.

This was death, and if she ever recovered, it would be far too little, far too late. How could anything come after the pain, when there had been nothing before it, and nothing else during?

But through it all, she could only hear that one name in her head. Nesar Re'. She did not know what it meant, but it meant a good deal to Eliko and not-Eliko both.

She held tight to that thought as the pain grew and ripped her from her body.

Tai screamed once more, an agonized, tearing sound that would leave her near-mute for hours, if not days after, and then went very, very still.

--

Jack did not know how much time passed while the storm grew outside. He did not know how long it was he refused to sleep, sometimes reaching around to lick at the wound on his hind leg, using the pain to keep him awake as he stood in silent vigil over the Shaman's sister. Over Kohe. He did notice when her body began to relax, when she began to shiver again, and he curled closer around her, dwarfing her lithe, slender frame easily. It offered no protection against the cold, her body, her species, or at least that of the species she had become. That was, he knew, somehow, their Aavan heritage. He didn't know what to make of that, and he didn't much care. He knew it made her all the more susceptible to the cold, so when she began to shiver again, he did not hesitate to draw her closer, his tail wrapped around her ankles, his furry flank pressed up against her side.

He was, however, surprised, half dozing when she finally awoke. He tensed, expecting anger, wrath, or worse, more delirium. But her strange eyes were bright and clear. She was far from well, he thought. But he also thought if exhaustion tried to claim her again, she might fight it a bit longer.

Still. She was in no shape to face the storm outside. They needed to get back to the Shaman and the Ashkerai.

Thinking of the Shaman sent a jolt of cold so deep it was almost painful through his mind, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and he could not explain it, so his attention was back on Kohe soon enough. He watched her warily as she spoke, smiling, then...thanked him.

At that, he did draw back, watching her suspiciously, wondering if she was still delirious, though he could feel no strong heat from a fever this time.

He was so distracted by that strange and mysterious sparkle in her eyes, something he might have called beautiful if he had not been so staunchly sure of himself...he almost didn't notice she had spoken.

He did, however, realize abruptly that it was the first time he had ever heard her voice. Something unnamable stirred within him, and if he'd been in his smaller form, he might have blushed.

Instead, he shifted uncomfortably, giving her some space, but sure to still protect her from the cold. He did not acknowledge her thanks, or not directly, instead saying only, Are you well enough to eat? You must take something or your wounds will be slow to heal.

--

Tai was Lost.

It was dark where she was, an unrecognizable ocean floating on some invisible ether, but swirling, moving around her, so she felt dizzy, nauseas, and she worried she would be sick.

But she knew where she was, if only vaguely. She had been in this place before, years ago, when Rask had been separated from Lyra, and they had been unable to find their way back to each other. When Tai had become the Guiding Light, the Luximaos, Rekuhisha for the first time. When she really had been Hope. She didn't know how she'd found that place again, or why she was there. She didn't know how to get back. She had gotten back before with Kohe's help, Kohe's lux, that small pink butterfly that was always there, even when Kohe wasn't.

But Tai couldn't find Kohe now. And the dark was closing in.

Kohe?

There was no answer. Tai felt the darkness press in closer. In the waking world, Tai's frowned and whimpered as her heart began to slow.

Kohe? 'Setta, please...I'm scared.

There was nothing and no one here. Any light she might have found had been chased off by the lightning, the deadly light and heat too much for its gentler cousins.

Kohe? Please...

Something touched the nothingness around where her feet might have been, if Tai could be in a place like this. A screamed a voiceless scream, and the darkness seized its opportunity, closing in suddenly, strangling smothering --

A piece of the nothing broke off and became simply black. Not darkness, not nothing. Just a small patch of black, both playful and fierce in its fluid movements.

Somehow, she recognized the creature right away, and that touch of hope was enough to keep the blackness back.

Kohe?

It was spoken quietly, cautiously, but even as the rsio cub turned to look at her, Tai knew she was not looking at her sister's lux. That was a pink butterfly. This was a small black almost-cub, curled in front of her, curious and unafraid. For once, it seemed to know more about the darkness around her than even the Luximaos herself.

Where am I?

There was no answer, but neither did the rsio cub leave. Tai took a careful step forward.

Who are you?

There was no answer to this, either, but Tai, whatever part of her remained amongst the Luximaos, didn't think she needed one.

Can you take me home?

This time, the rsio cub moved forward until the two were nearly touching. Tai bent and ran a hand over rounded ears and silky fur, giggling quietly despite herself. She said, Thank you. The rsio cub looked up at her, something going between them she could not hope to put words to. The moment passed quickly and before Tai could react, the rsio laid its muzzle against her leg, and the world exploded into light.

She woke to find herself speaking, or trying to, as she fought the pull of unconsciousness.

"'s...kay..."

She could not remember where she was, or where she had been, or whether she had been anywhere at all. But two images swirled in her mind. One was of Eliko, or rather, of not-Eliko, brown eyes soft with an edge of compassion she had not seen before.

The other was the rsio cub she had no explanation for. For a moment, the two figures seemed to join in her mind, brown eyes warm and wise and impossibly deep. Then the rsio and not-Eliko were gone, replaced by the cold touch of reality.

Pain. Exhaustion. Confusion. Where was she?

"I-it's...okay," Tai murmured, her voice sounding distant in her own ears, so impossibly small, she barely heard it herself. Speaking hurt, and she whimpered quietly. That hurt, too. "Alright...it's...I'm..." Those waves of darkness kept crashing over her head, so warm and heavy, it seemed like insanity not to fall into them, when they were so inviting, so clearly meant for her. But not-Eliko...she sensed he would not be around for much longer, and after what he had done for her, she did not want to leave him so alone, so steeped in his guilt, as it were. She fought hard against the darkness, exerting as much force of will, as much light as she could summon. She had things to do. She had to remain tethered to Jack and Kohe, could not lose her connection to Eliko or the burgeoning one to the person he had become.

And she would not leave that person alone.

"It's okay," she said again, her voice a little stronger now, her teeth grit as she tried to sit up. Her eyelids fluttered, her good arm trembled under the weight of her body, but she did not pass out. The pain had mostly gone, but the memory of the pain was still fresh, floating in her mind like a thundercloud, dangerous and impenetrable. She pressed hard against it, using the fear, the lingering agony in her arm to force it away.

"I know you don't want to hurt me. You saved me," she said, and this time let her eyes drift shut. There was a moment of nothingness, when all four of them would feel their connections shudder and weaken. And then a thin spindle of pale moonlight night itself from the ether, and Tai put out a hand and hauled herself to her feet, staggering briefly before she could find her balance again. She used the light to make a sling and bandage for her injured arm. It still ached in a way that made her shiver, but the pain of the poison was gone now. Full mobility would be slow in returning, and yet she was already beginning to feel the tingling buzz of the return of sensation in her fingertips. In all, Eliko and not-Eliko had taken an injury that might have killed her and made it something much less. Neither she nor Kohe -- or any of them, really -- were out of the proverbial woods yet. But Tai knew she could survive at least until Kohe was safe, and that was enough for her.

When she opened her eyes to smile weakly at not-Eliko, her gaze was much clearer, and she was nearly able to speak aloud again. She still trembled slightly, and it would be some time before the sickly pallor left her face -- the darkness, the cold, the sheer vastness of the Midnight had unnerved her thoroughly -- but already light, Hope, was shining through, whether Tai realized it or not.

"You saved me," she said again. Her voice was a husky whisper, but she wanted him to be able to hear her. "You both did. Thank you." She shut her eyes, frowned for a moment, then opened them. An rsio cub passed through her head, somehow different from the three she held in her mind. Strange.

"Jack and Kohe won't be back for a little while still. I'm going to try and find the rsio cubs. Do you want to come?"

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe watched the Venatorus, a great towering wolf, far bigger than she was, inch away from her and nearly laughed. She kept the emotion to herself, though, and instead sat up slowly, shivering at the new kind of cold that greeted her, created by the chill air on her wet clothes as the snow has soaked through long ago. She'd been dressed for her own home planet and it had been summer there, so Kohe's outfit consisted a short-sleeved shirt that just hit her hip-line and a long skirt with a slit up the left side that nearly reached her thigh. It wasn't often that she wore any kind of dress and after this, it wasn't likely that the Demisan would do it again anytime soon. She wore no shoes and Kohe knew that if she'd not had some Aavan in her, she'd be frostbitten all over. Yes, as an Aavan the cold itself would kill her quickly, but that was because the slowing of her blood, not because it would effect her skin or make her sick.

Right now, Jack was keeping her just warm enough to make sure she stayed alive, but not enough to help her build back her strength and Kohe knew it. She often hated how much she knew.

The Demisan wrapped her tail around her waist and then over her shoulders, the thing long enough for it and she brought both legs under her skirt, holding the fabric close to her body in the absence of the canine who'd been pressed so close before. She could still feel his body warmth, but it was like feeling the very edges of a low fire. Kohe knew he'd backed away from a reason, though, and if she tried to move toward him, he'd resist.

Asking for help would only be seen as weakness to him. It was the way he'd been raised and she knew that, understood it in a way that was not normal considering her own upbringing. She should not have understood, should not have been able to relate, but she did. Kohe was Time, though. She'd stopped questioning, even inwardly, why she could do or know the things she did.

She brushed her wild white-black hair away from her face and nodded to Jack's question, allowing him his change in topic without protest. The sound of food made her stomach growl and Kohe raised a brow at the Venatorus. "Unless you have some kind of food source I can't see or smell, that means we have to go back out into the storm, right?" Sapphire and scarlet eyes looked to the opening of the snow cave before Jack could answer and Kohe shivered again, rather violently, but there was a stubborn set to her jaw that Tai would have known well, and her twin would have known well what it meant. It was the same look their father always got when he knew he was right and had to convince someone else to see things as he saw them.

"We can't stay here anyway."

Kohe hissed, bringing the heel of her palm to her forehead and she gave a growling sound deep in her throat, pain and such cold lacing through her mind that she nearly screamed with it. She knew it was Tai in an instant, just as she knew that somehow Jack had felt it before she had....just as she knew the reasons she'd not felt it until now. The Demisan released her next breath in a cloud of white vapor and then drew in the biting air just as harshly as the cold in her mind died away again and the cold of her body returned once more to remind her just how pressing her own situation was.

She continued as if the interruption hadn't happened, showing no weakness as she forced her body to move despite the way she shook, reaching for the plant he'd set down, knowing that Jack would not respect anything less than strength from her. Not yet. Maybe never, but she tried not to think of that. Kohe had relied on him to be her mate once when it was too soon for him to do so and she wouldn't do it again, not until he showed some sign of becoming the Venatorus she could fall in love with.

The Demisan knew this burst of awareness and strength from her would only last so long. She had clarity, no nausea and the voices had gone for now - she'd use that to her advantage, but she wouldn't be so foolish as to think they wouldn't come back if she stayed here. The cycle would only continue again.

"I'll freeze if I stay here. I can't work on growing stronger to Jump if I am fighting just to keep my blood from slowing." Kohe glanced up from what she was doing - tearing sections of her skirt to wrap around her feet; it was better than nothing - to look at the male, piercing mismatched eyes meeting the palest of yellow. "You should let me wrap that leg."

--

Not-Eliko watched the Demisan with worried, flinching brown eyes, following her halting, painful movements with his body wanting to reach out and help her, half-moving to do so once or twice before stopping again. She was far stronger than she looked and he felt some strange relief to see her eyes were clearer as she spoke, slurred at first and then growing stronger. He couldn't understand why he'd hated the hazed look about her, though, he did know why he'd disliked seeing her in pain.

He wasn't a killer, not like Eliko. He was Ashkerai and not-Eliko had learned, over time as Eliko and then as Elitoro that this supposedly meant that he was meant to be evil, that Ashkerai were to be feared, were violent and merciless and BAD. He.....didn't understand that, but even so he knew how others viewed the body he was in, the species he was.

But that didn't make what they thought true. He wasn't like that at all, not even during war. So yes, Tai's pain had affected him and anytime he had control, things like that would continue to affect him. Right now she was just confusing him, though.

She was thanking him? He'd nearly killed her!

I will kill her.

Not-Eliko stilled at the voice, the sheer hatred and calculation in it sending a dark shiver through his soul. His expression outward became entirely blank, and inward he looked at Eliko in his mind with something between a stunned and angry expression. No, you won't. You won't lay a finger on her. It wasn't emotional, wasn't shouted or fierce. It was calm and controlled, almost cold in its certainty and Eliko's eyes narrowed dangerously. Suddenly not-Eliko felt he couldn't breathe as the darker Ashkerai approached and he knew that his time in control was drawing to a close. We will kill her, Jack and I. They will both die and our people will know justice!

Don't you mean revenge? not-Eliko rasped and Eliko grinned. If you'd like to call it that.

The darkness was closing in on him again and not-Eliko knew he'd be gone soon, repressed again, sent back to his cage. The thought distressed him, but for the first time in a long time, it wasn't for his own sake that he tried to fight it but for Tai's. She was so vulnerable right now and the thought of letting Eliko have access to that sickened him. No matter how he fought, though, he knew he couldn't wrench control away from Eliko again, not so soon.

There is another way. You don't have to kill them.

The invisible grasp on his throat, cutting off his oxygen, tightened as Eliko grew closer on this gray, substance-less plane of existence. You have no right to speak. They are monsters and I will protect my people from them! You know nothing!

Brown eyes met brown of the same shade and not-Eliko gave Eliko a saddened look. I know more than you think. He started to disappear then, pulled back into the recesses of their body's mind and he only had one more message, a command really. Help her find the cubs. Give her something to do until her sister returns.

Brown eyes lost their softness, ice-shards both sharp and cold reentering their depths and Eliko sneered at Tai's suggestion, but his eyes narrowed as he looked her over and finally the Ashkerai gave a curt nod. "Fine. We'll find your runts, but I'm not carrying you, Demisan. You fall over and those cubs can die for all I care."

He meant it, too. The only reason he was going to go with her was for two simple facts. Number one was that he couldn't let her out of his sight and he was willing to bet she'd fight to get her way. Might kill the little idiot. The second reason was that if she wasn't in the best shape and mindset possible when her devil of a sister returned they'd all be staying here a lot longer and he was already sick of this planet.

"Well, lead on, princess."

 

[DotCom]

Jack said nothing for a long moment, simply watching the Demisan proceed as though nothing were wrong. Convincing, perhaps, were it not for the pallor of her skin, or the shivers that plagued her sinewy limbs. Or the bolt of pain her felt cross through himself and seem to pass into her as she winced just a moment later. He wondered just briefly whether it meant the Shaman had died, just then, or yesterday or whenever she existed in this world into which her sister had brought him. The thought first intrigued, then angered him, before disappearing completely. For all the Shaman's sister feigned strength, he did not think she would have remained so calm if she had any reason to believe her sister dead. Not given how she had reacted after the first time he'd attacked her. Or the second. Or third.

He didn't speak until he watched her grab the plant root, yellow eyes distant, but intent.

Can you eat it raw? he said after a moment. It will have thawed a bit, and the flavor is strong, but it will help if...when the nausea comes back.

He did not know how he knew she would become sick again, and in the same way tried to ignore the pang of almost-concern that went with it. In any case, she was right. She would not survive another bout of the weakness that had overtaken her in this storm. He needed to find a better shelter and some way to warm her beyond his own body heat, or he would never return to finish his goal. And while he had no doubt that the younger of the sister's would eventually waste away without her elder twin, he knew his people did not have the time to wait.

He'd lurched to his paws again, turning to sniff the air and try and suss out a new location for the Shaman's sister, when she mentioned his leg, and he growled, both in the sudden pain of recognition, and a second, stronger feeling he could not name.

You should focus on keeping warm and lucid, he said, almost impatient. A simple scratch is not enough to kill me, Demisan, despite what you may wish.

He did only a fair job at keeping that second emotion from making an edge of his voice.

--

Tai knew not-Eliko was gone before his counterpart could speak again. She didn't know precisely how she knew, only that Eliko's appearance was immediately preceded by a slight shiver running up her spine. She smiled at his words despite their hard, cold edge. He'd been unsettled by not-Eliko's calm, his gentle demeanor and apparent concern for her. He'd been unsettled by the former occupant temporarily retaking his body because of something that had happened to someone he was going to kill. Tai felt and understood all that. It didn't surprise her.

What surprised her was the sudden pang she'd felt when she realized not-Eliko really was gone. For just a moment, it threatened to undo her.

Then she realized she was only tired, missing Kohe. She needed to lie down and sleep. She needed to eat and bandage her shoulder and rest her aching arm and try and call Kohe back. She needed her sister, now more than ever, especially since she was feeling so horribly, terribly alone with no warning whatsoever...

But Kohe wasn't coming back yet, and when she did...Kohe would need her, too. So, she had to find the babies now, make sure they were fed and safe, because for all she was prepared to make up the murder of their mother to them, she knew if she was made to choose between the rsio cubs and Kohe, she would choose her sister.

So Tai smiled sadly before closing her eyes, the connection between the four of them wavering slightly as Tai rocked back on her heels, the velvet pull of sleep calling hard. She ignored it and focused instead on the three small lives she had seen in the rsio's mind.

She found them easily enough. They were still together and fairly close, though they were beginning to mewl for food and warmth. Tai shivered again and opened her eyes to look at Eliko.

"I found them," she said quietly. "They're not very far, and I...I think I can carry them on my own." She hesitated a moment before loosing her arm from the light sling. Kohe would say she needed to save her energy. Her sister's name made a lump rise in her throat, but she swallowed around them. Not-Eliko might have understood the longing for her twin that went beyond words, but Eliko would never admit to the same, even if he knew full well what longing was.

She turned half-lidded violet eyes to him.

"Are you hurt?" she asked quietly, scanning his body with as much concentration as she could muster. "The...the poison, I felt it trying to hurt you. I know you're not him. You don't have to come." She shut her eyes and sent him a thought.

'We're still connected here, so you'll know if I try to run. You can rest, if you like. I'll be back.'

 

[Kaisaan]

When.

Yes, unfortunately it was a 'when' and Kohe resisted the urge to sigh, already tired again with just the thought of another bout of nausea. But she didn't voice it and didn't answer Jack's question except to take a bite of the root. He was right, it was strongly flavored, bitter and she almost spat it right back out on instinct alone. Stronger wisdom and self control kept her from the action and against every inclination in her body to expel the nasty remedy, the Demisan swallowed it and then swallowed a few more times before scooping up some snow and letting it melt in her mouth, trying to dampen the taste of the root and hopefully let it settle in her stomach with some of the water.

She watched the large Venatorus rise, caught for a moment by the sheer fluidity and strength beneath his pelt of black, a darkness deeper than even the night sky. She had seen many Aavan with the same kind of strength, the same kind of movement, but somehow, this time to Kohe there was more to it and even with all her wisdom, with all her knowing, she could not accurately pinpoint what made her want to watch the way he moved or what prompted her fingers to curl with a sudden longing to feel his fur between them.

It was strange and primal, and the Demisan was almost relieved when his words jolted her back to their reality again. But his words also made Kohe's eyes narrow, something both very dangerous and yet incredibly soft settling in her mismatched gaze as sapphire and scarlet pierced burning coals of pale suns.

"Do not presume to know what I wish, Jacken, Son of Elias Blackheart." Kohe did not stutter in her words, did not show any hesitation over them, did not speak them at all and in her eyes was the barest inkling, the faintest wisps of the vortex, of the Eternity she was both master and slave to. Just that hint of it caused a tension, an almost audible buzzing in the air around them, but Kohe seemed not to register it at all. What was a little power, a hint of noise when you had the entirety of Time constantly running through your head?

"You, who has been manipulated and trained from childhood, do not think your mind is clear concerning me. You know nothing of my heart and you have not yet the eyes to see it, nor the ears to hear it, so do not presume to know which way it leans concerning one topic or another. I have no wish to see you dead, only to see you take another path. It will be laid before you sooner than you know and no one will force your paws from it or to it, but the path will only present itself once before it will be lost to you forever."

The essence of more, of something untouchable and ancient faded from Kohe then, draining out of her and she nearly swayed, but managed to keep her feet despite the shivers that raked her frame and the pallor that touched her skin. Staying warm was going to be a problem, but Kohe hadn't felt so lucid in a long time. Eyes that had closed for a long moment opened now and the Demisan merely gave Jack a steady look. "What I wish for you is something you can not even begin to comprehend because you don't want to, but I can assure you, it is not pain or suffering, and it is certainly not death."

And without another word, Kohe turned and walked out into the storm.

---

Eliko rolled his eyes at her silent words, not deigning to respond to them as he moved toward her, slipping his tunic off and tearing a long section of it as he did. The temperature of this place already bothered him, but no amount of clothing was going to help him with the heat. He didn't mind going shirtless. His skin was without flaw, almost impossibly so, but such was the way with all this people. They didn't scar outwardly. Every injury inflicted upon them was mentally stored away, scarred across their mind in a way, but one wouldn't know it to look at their physical forms. And Eliko's was, frankly, perfect, though he didn't take note of it, didn't care to. And he really didn't care that in light of such flawlessness, the blood from a jagged cut along his rib-cage and the livid bruises from impacting with the earth were more than apparent.

That was answer in and of itself about whether or not he was injured.

No, what he was grudgingly focused on right now was wrapping Tai's shoulder. His fingers were skilled and quick, having become so during many a war, but the Ashkerai was shockingly gentle about it, too. That was harder to determine the cause of. Was it simply habit after dealing with his own people for so long or was it something else, something about Tai herself?

That was anyone's guess as it wasn't likely Eliko would have answered the question.

Ever.

He was only doing this because he couldn't have her bleeding out. At least not yet. They all had to be off this life-forsaken planet first before blood would be allowed to spill in a great deal more abundance. Not-Eliko cringed at the very thought, but Eliko ignored him, now making a sling for Tai's arm before he put some distance between them again, brown eyes hard and cold.

"You're right, I'm not him and as soon as I kill him, he'll never come back." he stated harshly, starting to walk in the direction Tai had indicated...or had she? No, she had to have done so, otherwise how would he have known what direction to start walking? "That's not your concern, though. Your job, princess, is to stay alive and conscious until your sister gets back and you're more accident-prone than a walking dafvekno, so hell no you're not going alone. You can hardly stand, you stupid Demisan."

The words were far from affectionate, more exasperated and frustrated than anything else.

 

[DotCom]

He stood, perhaps frozen, as unlikely as it seemed, for several moments before a snarl ripped from his throat almost of his own accord. It was two long bounds to catch the Demisan again, and when he did, he stood, he trapped her between himself and the snow cave, growling dangerously, every bit of his body radiating the anger that had sprung up in him in such a way even he was surprised.

How dare she?

How dare she?!

He had felt and dismissed the strange...presence that came with her voice, his pride momentarily overpowering his curiosity and his concern, if it could be called as much. She had dredged up far more than she knew, skipping across sacred ground as though she owned the land at a steal.

She may have been shown images of his life, but she could not understand what it was, what it meant, to him, or anyone.

Jack crouched low, his limbs quavering, tense, teeth bared, his black fur raised along his flank. He growled once, loud, the sound shattering the near-perfect silence around them, as even the storm seemed to have stopped to listen in.

"If you ever speak of me or my past again, Demisan, know you will not live long after to speak again."

His words were simple, short, and clear, but punctuated with a growl she would feel even through the cushion of snow beneath her feet. Even in this form, on all fours, he met her nearly eye to eye, his dark fur marking a wicked contrast to the blinding whiteness all around him. He held her gaze perfect, defiant, dangerous, and waited for her to respond.

A moment passed.

He did not expect her to cow, he realized abruptly, though it did not make his stance any softer. In fact, he'd have been disappointed if she did, and it was only then he realized if they were much younger -- cubs, perhaps -- he'd have just challenged her to a gentle play fight. Teeth and claws, perhaps, and a challenge, certainly. But one blunted by respect. Curiosity. And something else he dared not name. It was a game he'd not played in many, many years.

So, instead, he dropped out of his defensive position and turned to lope back along the path, irritation clear in his gait, though his mind was now focused -- mostly, and certainly necessarily -- on other things, namely, finding suitable shelter for the strange creature beside him.

Jack thought he had never been so happy for the inscrutability of his four-legged form.

--

If Kohe had been there, she'd have teased Tai mercilessly as both twins fell back into roles they had not played in some time. Tai was not even aware of the way she stared, equal parts curious and awed, at the smooth planes of stomach and chest revealed by Eliko's removal of his shirt. She hardly noticed he was moving toward her until he touched her, when she started and flushed as pink as a starfruit, turning away quickly. Or starting to, and then seeing the jagged gash across his ribs, and the bruises like dark, mottled spots on an otherwise blank canvas.

Tai gasped, one hand flying to her mouth in a cartoony pantomime of shock. But she really was surprised. The pain of his fingers against her shoulder was immediately lost in the moment. She'd felt a dull ache from him, more overwhelmed by exhaustion and irritation than anything, but she hadn't known it was that bad. How had she not known? She was not so closely bonded with Eliko as she was her sister, but he was standing right next to her, touching her, even, and she hadn't suspected. Was she that tired? Or was she just so wrapped up in her own concerns, in Kohe and the rsio cubs, and her own hurts and pains that she hadn't noticed his?

Her first thought was to chide her selfishness, and burning tears sprang to her eyes as she watched him, turning away when she suspected he might see them. No, it would not do to cry. That would only upset him more. But the idea that he had been suffering and she had been oblivious woke something like a deep ache in her that burned cold, for a moment worse than when the shadows had overtaken her.

Then the moment was passed, and Tai forced herself to take a deep breath, trying to imagine how Kohe would handle the situation.

"You're hurt," she said finally, knowing already what his response would be, almost word for word. Deciding she didn't care. "When you...when you saved me, she hurt you, didn't she? I'm...sorry." She took a cautious step closer, her good arm extended. "Here. Let me help."

She fully expected him to bristle, to back away, calling her names again, but she didn't mind. She understood now, at least a part of it. It was hard to feel anything but defensive when you were hurting. Especially when you were raised with a world on your shoulders.

"I won't hurt you," she promised. "And I won't tell anyone you let me help."

His last words made her look up in surprise and smile, though, an unbidden giggle tickling at the back of her aching throat.

"You sound like Kohe," she said, now almost frowning as she studied him carefully. "She used to say you could give me anything in the world -- a bowl, or a blade of grass or a breath of wind -- and I'd find some way to hurt myself with it." She paused, waiting for the swell of pain that came with her twin's name when her twin wasn't there, but it never came, and Tai exhaled. She knew his words had been meant to hurt. And yet somehow, they hadn't.

No, not hurt, per se. Push. Keeping his distance, though Tai was too tired to see exactly why -- whether it was her Eliko was battling, or his unlikely counterpart, she wasn't sure. But he was pushing back against her now, as he had been before, but with more purpose. Or perhaps he was simply just more tired now. They were not meant to stay on this planet so long, she knew. It was affecting them all in different ways, Jack included.

Tai chewed her lip for a second then tried again. He was right: she was so exhausted, even standing seemed a chore, let alone searching the traitorous woods for a trio of cubs that may well prove as vicious as their mother. But here or not, some part of Eliko had saved her life, and she had no intention of letting the favor go unpaid.

"You really should let me help," she said again as he turned to walk away from her. "I won't wrap anything if you don't want me to touch you, but I think I can at least ease some of the pain." She looked at him, exhausted and edgy, but all underneath a brighter layer of curious sincerity.

 

[Kaisaan]

----

Kohe didn't speak to Jack again as they trudged through the storm and the snow. It wasn't a power-play, not sulking or fear that kept her quiet, but rather an innate knowledge - whether from simply being female or from being Time was something unimportant - that bid her keep to herself for the time-being. She'd said what she could say, but how the Venaturos reacted was his choice, just as it was hers not to speak to him. There wasn't much to say between them right now anyway.

There was nothing but snow and more snow to be seen, no true change in their situation and Kohe focused her mind on other things. Like how to keep up a constant, low stream of Telekinetic power around her body to keep the snow and wind from hitting her.

She was just on the very edge of freezing, but said nothing to the wolf ahead of her. The Demisan just continued to walk, letting her mind drain of anything but the next step, the next small pulse of fading energy being transferred to the shield hovering just over her skin. For the first time in a long time, Kohe's mind was blessedly, wonderfully blank. It made her smile to herself, lips shaking and blue, but the happiness in her mismatched eyes genuine. Perhaps nearly freezing to death was good for something - clearing her mind!

Somehow, she wasn't sure Jack would find that so amusing, but while Kohe wanted to care what he thought, she knew she couldn't allow herself to do that yet. He wasn't what she was meant to have, not yet, too soon for it to be possible, but oh, how the Demisan wished that time was now. She wanted to look at him, awaiting some silent approval, feeling warmth when he smiled, to know that he loved her. She knew it was possible and that was perhaps the most difficult for Kohe.

She'd seen exactly what she didn't have and it was painful to know she might never have it.

That she might never have HIM. Even the thought sent a spasm through her chest, rippling through her body and Kohe faltered in her step, only then realizing that such pain...was actually very real and very present. Her hand came to her chest, rubbing slowly with fingers that were completely numb and pale. Her entire pallor was almost white as her temperature was cold. Kohe didn't seem to take note of it, though, as the pressure in her chest increased, the pain becoming more centered, more focused and it tugged at her as if trying to draw her attention to something. Despite every instinct within Kohe that told her to fight the pain, to make it stop, she relaxed into it, opened her mind to it....and then had to fight a scream that swelled in her throat and the sobs that rose from the very depth of her. The pain left as soon as it had come, but not the vision it had shown her and Kohe's mismatched eyes snapped to Jack and just as fast, her body was moving, all frozen limbs and numbness forgotten as her fingers found his fur, curled around his scruff and the Demisan pulled.

Her weight alone would not have been enough to make him lurch from his feet, only an annoyance, but Kohe's Telekinesis was behind her efforts, knocking the giant wolf completely from his feet, making him roll at least twice, Kohe never releasing him. They came to rest a few feet from Jack's former spot on the snow, Kohe half over him, tail trapped beneath and her hand still gripping his fur atop his neck as she stared at the spot he'd been a moment before.

The snow had collapsed inward, leaving a wide and deep chasm in its place, big enough to swallow four Venatori whole, much less Jack. Kohe remained frozen, looking at it for a long moment, trembling with cold and adrenaline before she finally seemed to remember to breathe again and exhaled heavily, shakily in a great cloud of white mist. Her eyes closed for a moment as she tried to convince herself that what she'd seen was no longer a threat.

But seeing Jack die, feeling it like that...it would stay with her for some time and it was slowly that she looked down at the wolf she was still sprawled on, her mismatched eyes finding his pale yellow with an intensity Kohe knew she didn't dare put a name to yet. The urge to pet his face, to bury her nose in his fur and just comfort herself with his presence was so strong that Kohe forced herself to move away immediately, rolling off of him, though, she could not move away further, her tail still trapped beneath him.

"Sorry."

--

Eliko hadn't let her help him. Despite her words, her reasoning, even her semi-pleading, he wasn't moved. He hardly felt the pain and that was the honest truth. His species, they were more immaterial, even in their solid forms, than they were physical. He could easily distance himself from the pain in his physical body by remaining in a fluctuating inward state of being solid and 'shadow'. In fact, he'd been trained so thoroughly that Eliko did such things without even thinking about it. As soon as pain registered, he reverted to this state until the pain could be dealt with - on his terms. As long as he wasn't at risk for bleeding out - and he could take his shadow form if he was - then waiting wasn't going to harm him.

No, it took something far greater than a deep cut or deep bruising to harm an Ashkerai, and they weren't usually harmed by traditional means. Things like sunlight and fire were more harmful - in both forms - than a beating ever could be. Unless, of course, one weakened them in shadow form, too, and then physical injuries took on a new meaning and threat.

But no, it was mental damage that hurt an Ashkerai the most and damage to their shadow forms that would ultimately break them, or kill them. Eliko didn't need treatment as far as he was concerned, and his pride wouldn't allow it from Tai. Not-Eliko would have let her do something, even minor, for her own comfort, but Eliko wasn't him.

No, instead they walked through the woods and while the Ashkerai made sure that Tai didn't fall on her face, he hadn't been lying when he'd said he wouldn't carry her. Still, with the Demisan's determination, and some tracking - okay, a lot of tracking - from Eliko despite his intentions not to help at all, they found the cave that housed the three cubs. He really hadn't been interested, but had found himself noticing the trail anyway and just...leading Tai on it. Why...he wasn't sure, but it hardly mattered now. They were just some stupid cubs that would die soon anyway. He was just doing this to make sure that the stupid Demisan wouldn't sic her sister on him the minute Kohe got back. That was all. The creatures could die for all he cared.

Somehow, presented with the three mewling cubs, though....Eliko couldn't quite keep that last thought in his mind. They were not Icehounds, but damn if he couldn't help but thinking of his own cherished companions when he looked at them. If there was any creature Eliko actually LIKED, it was Icehounds and these Rsio cubs, well....ah damn.

The Ashkerai's icy demeanor, the sharp edges and aloofness seemed to soften just a little as he entered the cave, approaching the creatures cautiously, an unconscious croon in his throat as he crouched slowly before them in their huddled trio. They growled at him, but it only brought the slightest smile to Eliko's face and a fierce kind of glitter to his brown eyes. He didn't try to touch them, not yet, but finally looked back at Tai and rolled his eyes a little.

"Fine. But we're going to have to feed them soon."

 

[DotCom]

She was strong. So much stronger than her sister. Strong enough that, not for the first time, Jack wondered whether the Ashkerai had been mistaken. Surely this Demisan was his target! Who could be so swift, so powerful, so dangerous and dauntless by turns, at times trying, but never afraid. She was independent and fiery, strong-willed and quick-witted. Not like her sister, who was soft, untried. Too quick to trust, too slow to act, to kill. She could never be a leader. But this one. Her sister...the thought of killing her...

She faltered and stumbled behind him, and he turned, first surprised, then not caring that his heart was nearly in his throat. He had felt the numbness, the strange contended nature of her mind, and assumed she was delirious. He'd tried quickening his pace, but she'd been unable to keep up, and his next step was to just carry her and run the the nearest subterranean heat vent -- they were easy enough to find after the War, even here -- but she came to him first.

It all happened very quickly. One moment, she was screaming, and the next, she was atop him, her face just inches from his, pale and cold and terrified. There was a surge of wretched familiarity in it he had to suppress to keep from nuzzling her.

Several moments passed like that, him looking into her eyes, her half cradled between his powerful forelegs, her hair tumbling into wide, mismatched eyes. He could feel her trembling from fear or cold or both, and it was only when he realized he was staring that he was able to look away...

...and see just what it was she had prophesied.

Because that's what had happened. Of that, he had no doubt. She had seen him fall -- or perhaps just the cave-in -- and she had acted outside of her own self interest to save him.

It made no godly sense.

His mind was awhirl with questions that came so fast, he could hardly understand them. How? Why? Was his life something, anything to her, beyond a threat to her sister? Why had she screamed? Why had she risked herself?

Was she hurt?

He had still been staring at the hole, muzzle thankfully unreadable, but his eyes shot back to her with a speed he hoped she did not notice as he felt her begin to move away.

And apologize.

Why?

But Jack didn't ask why. He merely rolled to his feet and shook the snow from his fur as best he could before turning to her and stretching into his smallest form. At once, the cold began to bite viciously at his bare skin, and Jack began to understand what it was the Demisan had been subjected to. He felt a knot form in his belly, but kept his face blank.

He said only, "Do not be afraid, and try not to sleep. I'm going to carry you, and I'm going to run." He looked her once in the eye, his voice firm, but perhaps more gentle than it had ever been. "I won't hurt you, Koheera."

He reached out and pulled her into his arms without waiting for her permission. When she was cradled close against his chest -- when she could not run -- he began to change again, but not into his wolf form. This was the half-feral Hunter form he had taken on after the rage and fear of his nightmare. His yellow eyes were pupiless and wide, a growl thrummed in his chest. But his first move was only to cradle the Demisan closer in strong, furry arms, before turning his snout to the air to sniff.

He caught the scent and bounded into the white.

--

The trip was longer than he would have liked on one bad leg, but his fur, he hoped, had afforded the Demisan some warmth, or at least kept her from getting colder. He couldn't tell whether she was dozing or not when at last they reached the heat vent just under an hour later, Jack huffing and panting, but satisfied. The vent had been located at the back of a cave that dove deep into the earth. It would have been very dark and very cold, were it not for the thin but bright slit of magma at the cave's throat.

He crept in and set Kohe down as close as he dared to the first true heat source they'd found since her Jump, and then shifted down to his middling lupine form, curling close on her other side to trap the heat between the magma pit and himself.

He was exhausted now, and hurting, but he did not sleep. Could not sleep.

Without another thought, he tucked the Demisan's head beneath his muzzle and waited for the rewarming to begin.

----

It was Eliko who saved her.

He hadn't wanted to, she knew, or not like this, but he had. Again.

Tai had been feeling very little from the rsio cubs when they first found them, very little from anyone, in fact, and it was beginning to scare her. She felt a tight, controlled concern from Jack, and the very edges of...was that fear? from Kohe. It should have been enough to set her off, but the Demisan was barely maintaining the straining link between the four, let alone keeping her feet beneath her. The poison had left her body, but the ache from her shoulder had spread to leech the feeling from her fingers and throb with a deep, resounding burn in her chest. It made her head hurt and her stomach churn, and she was finding it more and more difficult to even keep her eyes open. Fever surged through her body, flushing her cheeks, making her shiver and sweat at intervals. In the back of her mind somewhere, she realized she was no longer leading Eliko, but instead, he was leading her. She didn't know when it had happened, or how. But she knew, vaguely, at least, that it had, and she had let it. Even in this state, she would have fought -- was fighting -- to make it to the cubs, but she had ceded their safety to the Ashkerai without a second thought.

Was it possible she trusted him? Or was it more than that?

She suspected it was more.

She stumbled more often now, and each time sent a new bolt of pain through her shoulder. Her normally pale golden aura had faded completely; if there was light here at all, she didn't know it. More than that, she could feel the planet's dying more keenly than ever, and beyond physical pain. It coiled inside her and made her want to weep, to retreat from everything and everyone she had ever known in a completely not-at-all-Tai sort of way.

But she didn't say a word. Or she almost didn't.

Once, she'd let her eyes drift shut half a moment too long and found herself abruptly on the ground when an errant stone caught between her feet. She fell and only just caught herself on her bad arm, bringing a fresh spurt of blood to stain the strip of linen Eliko had wrapped around her arm. She tensed and almost cried out...but looked back to him instead, arms wide with a sudden, inexplicable worry.

"Sorry!" she'd blurted, her throat still sore from the screaming when the shadows had come. "Sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean...I didn't see..." She leapt to her feet too quickly and felt horribly dizzy, but she didn't dare let herself vomit. He wouldn't like her weakness, she knew. It disgusted him, he who had been raised as a soldier and paragon of strength from birth. He thought himself stuck with her, dragging her along like some ball and chain, and…for some reason, the thought was enough to make her want to cry. She didn't want to slow him down. She didn't want him to think of her as a burden. She wanted, she realized, to make him happy.

"I can keep going," she said again, with a renewed vigor – or desperation? -- in her voice. "I…I just had to reach out for them again. I thought I'd lost them but….but they're closer than I thought. I can fly there and bring them back, if you want."

What she wanted was Kohe. To tell her what to do, how to be. Nothing made sense anymore. Her head and shoulder ached, and Eliko both terrified and worried her.

In the end, it made no difference. She'd offered, and he'd turned her down, again, and Tai was ashamed and afeared by how much she let it hurt her. She was tired and feverish and hurt and hated, and it was eating away at her swiftly.

She was just beginning to feel utterly hopeless when at last Eliko found the cubs. Tai was immediately roused by the sound of the quiet whimpers, but it wasn't until she felt, rather than saw, Eliko approached them that she found the energy -- the light -- to smile.

"I know," she whispered, nodding as she crouched next to him. The cubs lifted their noses and sniffed at her approach, and she cringed, knowing they smelled their mother on her, knowing she could not give it to them. Sending them calm, sending them love was easy. Hiding her guilt was not.

"I know, little ones," she said again as she put out a hand for the largest of the three, a female, to sniff. But it was the smallest the found his way over on paws too large, his tail that of a young rsio, Tai knew, somehow, with tight coils of fur that would fall off in later years, when his stinger began to grow in. Their bites were still venomous, but at this size, they would do nothing more than cause some irritation, itching and bruising, and maybe a mild fever if their target was small.

These ones did not bite. They smelled their mother and surged forward hungrily, and Tai had to hold her breath to keep from crying.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice barely audible as the smallest one with a funny tuft of dark gray fur at the top of his head, settled in her lap. His elder brother joined not long after, both looking for milk as they sniffed at her chest. "I'm not her. I...she's not...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

 

[Kaisaan]

Do not be afraid.

Kohe had nearly smiled to hear that. Afraid? No. Not of him. Not ever. Not even if he slit her throat. She would die without fear of him. How could she feel something that didn't exist? Why should she fear Jack? Because he wanted to kill Tai? No, that just made her angry. Because he wanted to kill her? That simply hurt. Because he was feral and angry, unpredictable, insanely strong, distrusting, reserved, highly intelligent and logical? No. No, that only drew her to him in a way Kohe would not have been able to explain if asked.

But there was no one here to ask.

There was only Jack as he swept her into his arms, as his form grew and the most intoxicating rumble came from his chest, coaxing the Demisan to curl into him completely, compliant and trusting. Her hold over her Telekinesis was gone and his body, his arms provided the only shelter from the storm, but Kohe didn't mind. He was warm and he smelled of forest, something musky and wild all mixed in one. It was impossible for her to care about anything else in that moment, caught somewhere between true comfort and her body going into shock.

It was impossible to keep her eyes open.

--

Warmth, strangely enough, brought her back to the waking world. Or maybe that was the pain the warmth was causing to her frozen limbs. Kohe shifted uncomfortably and then whimpered at the fiery tingles that shot through her legs. She bit down on any further sounds after that and carefully sat up, Jack's head having moved at her first sound. The Demisan didn't look at him, though, her limited energy being focused on getting the process of circulation over with as quickly as possible as she grit her teeth and rubbed at her legs and feet. It was necessary and Kohe braced herself as she started to do the same to her arms and fingers, tension coiled through her body.

She only slowly started to relax as the pain faded and the Demisan finally stopped, looking around slowly at where she was. The sight of the cave made her brows furrow just a little, but finding the heat vent took the confusion away and Kohe smiled just a little, reaching her hand toward the steam rising from the crack. A flash of warning, a purple flare in her mismatched eyes, had her snatching her hand back almost immediately after her initial move and the female growled to herself.

"Poisonous vapors. Right."

Giving a shiver, she took her attention away from the heat source, laying down and instead looked to Jack as she turned over, her scarlet and sapphire eyes finally meeting his pale chartreuse ones. A smile danced at her lips, not quite formed, but visible. "I think you'll like my planet a lot better."

She said nothing more as she curled slightly, subconsciously closer to him as her heavy lids finally drew to a close, the warmth of the cave and the safety represented by the Venatorus - whether he liked it or not - lulling her back into sleep, a far more restful and healing one this time around.

-----

Eliko rolled his eyes at her apologies. Did she really think the damn cubs could understand what she'd done? No. They merely smelled their mother, found it comforting, familiar and were looking for food. They couldn't comprehend that the smell meant Tai had been with their mother when the Rsio died or that their mother wasn't coming back, and this guilt was not going to get them anywhere.

So the Ashkerai did what he did with all his young soldiers.

His hand found Tai's chin in a grip that was neither painful, but nor was it compassionate, gentle. It was simply firm and he made her meet his hard brown eyes, voice just as firm and unyielding as his grip. "Enough, Demisan. The Rsio is dead and nothing is going to change that. Not apologies, not guilt and certainly not wallowing in it. It was either kill her or be killed, the both us. You chose to live and if you want to honor that creature's death, you can suck it up and take care of what she left behind. If not, then you're right, you don't deserve to live in her place." Eliko released Tai's chin then, but his eyes still held her captive, all the authority of a Commander, a Prince in his demeanor, neither cold and uncaring, but also not warm and comforting.

It just was.

"Death happens, whether it's purposeful or not, deserved or not, and those that live have to learn to cope with it or dishonor all those who've gone before them."

The Ashkerai held her gaze for a moment longer in silence before he stood and looked around the cavern. "We'll stay here tonight. It's sheltered, familiar to the cubs and it'll be warmer. Try to get some sleep. Your shoulder isn't going to get any better if you don't. I'll see what I can find for them."

And with that, he left the cave.

 

[DotCom]

He was dozing when she began to whimper and stir, and the sound woke a fiercely protective rumble of a growl in his chest. He had not expected the sound, but he was no longer surprised by it. It would have been better, easier, if he had been, even more so if the noise had never come at all. but it had, and with it, a realization that both terrified and intrigued him.

He had never been convinced the Shaman's sister needed to die. She was too like him for that. he would not shirk his duty, but neither could he bring himself to harm her if it wasn't necessary. She would come to see his way, of that he was certain. She was smart, frustratingly so. She would see her sister was too weak, too stupid, to lead. The 'path' she had spoken of was clearer than ever.

He didn't speak when she moved away, though he felt his body tense traitorously at the cold spot she left against his flank. He watched her grit her teeth and rewarm herself, marveling again at all that she had that her sister did not. Again, he wondered whether it was Tai who was the Shaman truly, and then how weak-willed and emotional creatures the new Cerebrae must have become for them to choose this younger of the two twins as their leader.

All too soon, and somehow, not soon enough, she was curled at his side again. She turned to him, began to speak of the plush planet that had made her people so soft. He growled softly in his throat and bared his teeth at her, but she knew she would not take the threat, and he didn't mean it as one. He was far from friendly feelings...but he was irrevocably fascinated by her.

And now he owed her a debt of life. He already knew how to repay her.

--

The dream started simply enough, but he could sense its insidious nature straight away. Somewhere far away, Tai would be sharing the far edges of his fear soon enough. Some small part of him knew this, and was angry, murderously so.

But the anger was drowned out the moment he heard her whimpering.

It wasn't Keeva.

Gods, no.

The dream slowed his movement, and he couldn't seem to turn fast enough. It was the same cave, reeked with the same tang of blood in the air. He could still smell his father behind him, waiting. But he himself was different. Older.

And Keeva was gone.

In her place, still bloody and beaten, her blood dripping down into her hair from his father's jaws, was Kohe.

Jack felt his stomach lurch and immediately dropped into a defensive crouch. He was bigger now. He was certain he could take on his father, even this half-demon nightmare form of him. His eyes kept flicking down to where Kohe lay, entirely too pale, unmoving, hardly breathing, below Briar.

Will you do it?

Jack growled. It isn't necessary, Father. The Ashkerai were wrong. It's not --

Briar growled once, deafening, and silenced his son. Kohe whimpered and trembled, and Jack -- dream-Jack -- fought the urge to go to he side.

Do not be so blind! Briar put a heavy paw down on Kohe's chest, and for the first time, he could see the likeness between Kohe and Tai. And his father and himself. A low whine struggled at the back of his throat, but he swallowed it.[/I]

Do you not see what she is, what she's doing to you? She must die. Soon. Now. He leaned down over her, his jaws brushing the softness of her neck, exposing her throat --

Jack lurched forward, caught in the sludge of an impossibly slow loop of time. He didn't care. He couldn't watch his father take the only person who had ever mattered to him. Not again.

--

In the warmth of the cave, Jack whined, shivered, and curled closer to the Demisan he had claimed.

----

Tai's hands moved of their own accord, perhaps more in tune with her Empathy than she was, touching the cubs, stroking rounded, furry ears, scratching under small, wet muzzles, coaxing them into submission. Within minutes, all three were crawling about her legs, the smallest toddling around her shoulders and wings, the largest curled in her lap, asleep. The middle cub was still looking for milk, and Tai was feeling her eyes filling with unshod tears when Eliko lurched forward to make her look at him.

People had always been gentle with Tai. Perhaps not intentionally so, but they had. It was the air she brought with her, both on her own -- with her prediliction for light and joy, with her ability to make those around her warmer, happier, there came a sense of boundless youth and innocence -- and beside Kohe, who had always been precocious, much more independent and mature than her sister. Kohe was only a handful of minutes older, but everyone, Tai included, forgot that. In the same way that Kohe had always been burdened with too much responsibility, Tai had always been, if not doted on, somewhat sheltered. Oh, she knew suffering, that of others, if not her own, but that was precisely why those others tended to be so careful around her. Even a heated argument between two strangers gave her a headache and left her feeling anxious and edgy. No one wanted to guess what all the evil and hatred and bitterness in the world could do to her. It was natural, almost a compulsion to want to protect her from it. Kohe had done a good job toeing the line, teaching, leading her sister, while still protecting. Most others -- particularly her mother -- could not find that same balance.

Eliko was different.

When he reached out to touch her, she was too startled even to jump. She stopped crying straight away, but it was not out of fear, or that same nameless desire to appease. It was only surprise and a faint hint of Tai's natural curiosity. She stared at him, wondering, expectant, eyes wide, and when he spoke, she did not flinch from his words. She listened, quiet. Waiting.

And then she realized who he sounded like.

It was what Kohe would have said. Or rather, it was what Time would have said, if Kohe had not been around. Kohe doted on Tai. She would have been gentler, less direct in her approach. She would have hugged and waited and dried Tai's tears, and made a silly joke to get Tai to laugh. She would have said the same thing, whatever Time would have said, but in a kinder, softer way.

Eliko was not Kohe. But Tai understood him. And for those few moments, when he spoke, Tai felt Kohe closer than she had since her sister had disappeared. She wasn't thinking about how this was the longest she'd ever been apart from Kohe in her life, or how much her head hurt, or why she couldn't stop shaking, or how she felt so guilty, it made her stomach ache. She was only listening, caught in Eliko's gaze, hearing his voice, but Kohe's words.

You have to keep living, Pejkia. For them. For us.

She'd have nodded if it weren't for his hand on her chin. Instead, she just kept staring, wide-eyed and unbelieving. But she heard him. And she listened. And when he left, she stared after him for a long time, before curling on her side, a tiny giggle escaping her throat when the three rsio cubs quickly waddled in closer, curling close to her, over and on top of each other, tiny noses buried under mismatched paws and furry bellies.

She ran a finger down the length of the smallest's side. He gave a soft growl of approval, inching up to tuck himself beneath her chin. His fur tickled and Tai smiled. The cave grew warmer by a fraction of an inch, but the Demisan, still shivering in a cold fever sweat, didn't notice. Instead, she drew that warmth closer around her and the cubs, pulling the light from the air. Eliko didn't like the light.

"I'm going to let him name you," she said as if sharing a secret. And then she drifted off to wait for Kohe to return. Or Eliko, in her absence.

 

[Kaisaan]

Koheera had always known that she would keep discovering things as she got older, experienced more, came into who she was. She'd known that despite her powers, she would never unravel every mystery and she'd known that despite what she already knew, could do, there was still more to learn, more the universe wanted to teach her. Tonight, in this cave, curled against the Venatorus beside her, Kohe was about to come to a revelation about herself, about something she had been trying to do for years without success without even realizing it. Only now finding the ingredient that had been missing did her secret efforts bear fruit.

The Demisan wasn't sure how or why she felt the change in Jack, even in sleep, but she did. It was like a fire had been lit in her mind, but it did not burn. It was just the smallest flicker of a flame in the darkness, but the even the darkness was not unfriendly in the same way an empty room was not unfriendly. It was just anticipating, waiting for every possibility to take place, for every purpose; a bedroom, a study, nursery, observatory, library. What would YOU do with it? The darkness was a room yet unfilled, but willing, oh so willing, to have that remedied and this...this was the first change to the darkness. A bright flame, a flickering, but unfading light that drew Kohe like a moth to a flame.

She circled it, the pink strands of her mind practically purring, crooning around the small, distinctly yellow, light. Hers. It was hers now and the very thought sent a ripple of delight through her as she strongly resisted the urge to touch the flame, the threads of her mind trembling with longing, but showing some self-control.

Well, part of her did.

It was an entirely different part of Kohe that seeped slowly into the darkness, dark purple strands of light that started toward the yellow flame, weaving between the pink threads that both let the purple pass, but also seemed wary of letting it so close to the pale light. There was no stopping the darker threads of light, though, and the lighter shade seemed to watch with baited breath as the dark purple reached out without hesitation and touched the flame.

There was an instant explosion of light and Kohe understood instantly what she was witnessing now that it was happening, the pink mixing with the dark purple even as the yellow light entwined with them, though, not in the way the pink longed for. It was something, though, something so incredibly powerful and intoxicating as it flooded through the Demisan that she forgot to breathe.

It was energy. Pure, warm energy that flooded her body, her mind, her power and as Time she didn't hesitate to use it. The world lurched around she and Jack even as Kohe opened her eyes, waking, and then she was falling, spinning out of control....and yet knowing exactly where she was going for the first time in many Jumps.

--

Eliko wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when he came back to the cave about two hours later with some unnamed bird in his grasp, but it certainly wasn't to see that Tai had actually obeyed his words to her. The fact, and that one alone, made him pause, studying her. It wasn't the adorable pose she struck with the three Rsio that he cared about - though, something (Not-Eliko) saw it very clearly - but rather the calmness he could sense around her.

Calmness meant acceptance. It meant control. Strength, if he dared call it that, and when it came to Tai, Eliko was more than hesitant to bestow that attribute to her, but in this case....he almost couldn't deny it. The realization stirred something within the Ashkerai, something that was not HIM, but neither was it not-Eliko, and for the life of him, Eliko could not have said what it WAS. He just knew, that for the first time in a very long time, he didn't want to push a foreign emotion away but rather found himself....well, not CURIOUS, but perhaps INTERESTED about it.

Not-Eliko seemed to stir slightly at the strange feeling, too, and that's what broke the Ashkerai from his musings, making him glare at nothing as he shook the thoughts away...but not the feeling, storing that away for later. For further examination, of course. He needed to understand it, dissect it before he could discard it. That was all.

Satisfied with his reasoning - and ignoring not-Eliko's snort - the Ashkerai sat down near Tai and very precisely, he slit the throat of the large bird he still held. Blood dripped to the stone floor and his cold brown eyes watched as three small noses twitched, wiggled, searched and then young eyes opened, finding the meat.

Not even Tai's warmth or smell could trump meat in hungry bellies and the three Rsio cubs moved from her with growling, mewling sounds and toward the offered bird. Eliko laid it down and watched with a trained, intelligent eye as sharp baby teeth started to try and work at the feathers, trying to spit them out just as quickly with growls of frustration.

Hmm, so they weren't ready to handle their own meat yet. Good to know.

Calmly, the Ashkerai took the bird from the protesting cubs and just as calmly, he cuffed the female who nipped at his fingers, sending her sprawling with a yip of surprise. She got up without harm, though, and crowded around again as Eliko started to pluck the bird, none the worse for punishment. It was no more than her own mother would have done for misbehavior. She came back with a bit more respect for his strange smelling creature that brought meat like their mother had before him.

The bird was ready soon enough and Eliko used his fingers - uncaring of the blood - to rip shreds of the meat off the bones, tossing it to the cave floor where it was immediately set upon by devouring mouths. Eliko was controlled about that, too, though, stopping the female from taking the brunt of the food and setting aside some for the smallest Rsio - giving them all a fair share according to their weight and dominance. Soon enough there were taunt tummies and yawning maws stained red. The three cubs tumbled about a bit but soon enough they made their way back to Tai, curling up with her much more happily this time.

Eliko watched them mostly impassive, but there was a satisfaction about his mouth that he hadn't felt in a while.

--

Kohe knew it was night when they 'landed'. She didn't need to look around, she just knew and as she set herself and Jack down - surprisingly soft - the Demisan immediately moved toward where her sister was as if drawn to a magnet. Her steps were confident as she moved past a wide-eyed and then narrow-eyed Eliko, her finger coming to her mouth in warning when he opened his mouth to speak...and for some reason, the Ashkerai shut his own, almost looking shocked as the black-white haired female passed him.

Slender fingers found Tai's unruly white-purple hair and Kohe brushed the tendrils from her twin's face, feeling the tension in her chest relax even as she sighed out slowly and moved from a crouch to a seated position, legs crossed as she continued to card through the younger Demisan's mane. Her mind drifted gently into Tai's sleeping one, pink curling around violet lovingly, reassuring, easing tension where there was stress - and there was quite a lot - and Kohe's voice was soft within her twin's head.

She knew what all of this had cost Tai. She knew better than anyone and she knew how strong and brave her twin had been. Hope incarnate, just as Kohe knew she was. The elder twin couldn't have been prouder of her sister.

"I'm back now, Pejkia. There's no need to be afraid anymore. I'm right here and everything is going to be all right. You did so well. I love you so much, Tai."

It was whispered lovingly, not to wake but to soothe so that upon waking Tai would be calm, happy. It was all she longed for her little sister and Kohe smiled softly even as she stood again with all the grace afforded an Aavan, moving back to Jack and Eliko. The Ashkerai was watching her with eyes that were icy, but watching him, Kohe instantly understood why and her grin grew, but she said nothing, looking instead to Jack.

She knew he was exhausted, could sense it, feel it and she wanted nothing more than to go to him, soothe him - knowing she couldn't. Not yet, but she had more hope now than she'd ever had before and the feeling was intoxicating. It didn't make Kohe foolhardy, though. It never had. She was too logical for it. Knew too much. No, instead of wrapping her arms around him, kissing his muzzle, rubbing behind his ears and whispering how thankful she was to him, the wild-haired female merely dipped her head, voice very calm, but also incredibly warm.

Kohe could not quite hide that.

"Thank you. It was your energy, shared so willingly, that got us back here. I wouldn't be alive if not for you."

She didn't miss the look Eliko shot Jack and her brow rose, turning piercing, mismatched eyes to the Ashkerai, flashing purple, knowing what he did not want her to even suspect.. Her words were no less piercing, calculating. "And to you, Eliko, I thank you for caring for my sister. Tai is very important to me, to many things and I am know you risked a great deal for her."

Kohe left it at that, moving back toward Tai and laying down near her sister, curling around the younger Demisan....effectively leaving both males in the position of knowing exactly that they'd BOTH saved a twin....something completely against what they were SUPPOSED to be doing.

It rather amused her.

 

[DotCom]

She would not be aware of it for some time, but Tai felt Eliko return. Not like she had felt not-Eliko depart, and not like she knew her sister was coming. But she felt him reenter the cave. She didn't wake. She hardly even moved. But the tension eased from her shoulders just a bit, and in the space close around her and the cubs, the air grew warmer.

There was half a moment of peace, and then the air seemed to tighten before chaos erupted in a slow burn.

--

Jack was woken by myriad feelings he could only collectively describe as being thrown from a cliff and simultaneously sucked into a wind tunnel. All around him, a heavy nothingness seemed to snatch at him, at his fur and flesh and his very being, as he fell, sprawling, into a nameless void.

He could feel Kohe very close by. There was just enough time to realize his only fear, despite this unfamiliar nightmare, despite his utter lack of control, a thing he had detested nearly from birth, was of losing her in the darkness.

--


It took Jack a long moment to realize the nothing had retreated, that they had stopped falling and simple were again, though he did not know where, or how, or for how long. He had missed Kohe's thanks (though he could feel her gratitude), and the Ashkerai's bewilderment – or even his presence. He only knew – and he did not know how he knew, though his every instinct, both lupine and warrior, shrieked with knowledge of a different kind – that Kohe was in danger.

The fact presented itself, first slowly, and then like a bolt of lightning in a dark sky, providing a clarity the confusion had not. He realized Kohe had Jumped again, and again with him in tow. They were standing in a cave or den, presumably a night after their initial disappearance. They had Jumped back, somehow, finding the Shaman and the Ashkerai. The place the two had taken shelter was not safe. His body was tense, crouched low, hackles raised, a growl forming in his chest. But of all these things, Kohe's position relative to Jack's own shone brightest. She was nearish the Ashkerai, but closer to him, and even closer to her sister, who slept, curled on the floor. Her face was flushed, but her sleep was shallow. She was waking, stirring slowly. Jack's instincts were still screaming at him in bright, hot letters – DANGER, DANGER – but he still couldn't figure out why or for what.

The Shaman woke suddenly, sitting up, blinking blearily at her sister. She murmured, half sleeping, "Kohe?" Something moved near her belly.

At the same time, Jack's instinct caught up with his conscious mind. The air was thick with a scent that made even newborn Venatorus's fur stand on end. It was rare enough, but instinct ran deep.

Rsio.

He snarled then once, loudly, the noise ripping through the silence in the cave. He could feel irritation from the Ashkerai, faint confusion from the Shaman, even a lick of fear – somehow? – from the three vermin young clustered around the Shaman like nursing cubs, but he ignored it all in an effort to get to Kohe – or more importantly, between her and the rsio cubs…and between her and Tai, who reeked of the beasts. The elder Demisan would be angry with him for it, he knew, but he was coming to admire the righteous, loyalty-driven rage that so mirrored his own…however much it irked him. Jack himself was at the very edge of his feral form, keeping himself on all fours only because he knew he would have to convince Kohe to get away from her sister before the rsio female returned to see her young in danger. That the Shaman and her Ashkerai gaurdian were alive at all amazed him. That Tai had slept with the young might have begun to convince him she could become something more than she was...if it had not also convinced him she was insane.

But that was not for now. What mattered was spiriting Kohe away from this place before the den mother returned. Rsio were his people's only real enemies, and the most feared predators on the planet. It had been years since anyone had seen one near the wandering Venatori clans. But then the twins' arrival had changed much.

Gingerly, quickly, he clamped powerful jaws around the fabric of Kohe's tunic, and, using his muzzle to assist, helped her to her feet before shoving her behind him, teeth bared at Tai and the cubs. The former was still in a slow waking, but the latter had woken at his initial roar. The middle one burrowed deeper into Tai's belly, while the largest and the smallest were growling as ferociously as they could manage, their hackles raised, their still stinger-less tails lashing the air viciously. It might have been sweet, had he not known what they would become. Jack ducked lower and snarled again, wondering whether his feral form wouldn't be better after all.

"Kohe?"

Tai's voice, small, and uncertain but near bubbling with hope, briefly broke his concentration. The Shaman seemed hardly aware of him, staring over his tensed shoulders at her sister with a fever bright gaze. ""Setta, you're back?" She reached out a hand and started to stand, but Jack followed keeping himself between the Shaman and her sister, driven half blind by a desperation he could neither name, nor understand.

"Get away from her," he snarled. "You'll be her death!" He didn't attack her, though it was poor restraint. When the mother returned, she would wont for blood, and the more targets he left alive, the better his chances were of getting Kohe out alive.

Tai, for her part, seemed almost not to hear him. Her eyes were glassy, wide, confused, almost doubtful, as if afraid to believe her sister really had returned. "'Setta, what's wrong? Are you hurt? What happened to your leg?"

Jack growled and leapt forward again, warning. Threatening. Finally, Tai blinked at him slowly and frowned a little.

"Jack, please..." she said shakily, her gaze now back on Kohe. She was unsteady on her feet, but the air was warm around her, and she felt happier than she had in hours as she beamed at her sister. "Please let me see my sister. I won't hurt her. I won't let the cubs hurt her."

The Venatorus snarled in frustration, refusing to budge. "It isn't the cubs I'm worried about, you little fool! Do you know what this place is? You have disturbed an rsio's den! The mother – "

"She's dead," Tai said quietly, and her voice wavered just a little...before her gaze flicked, oh so briefly, to Eliko. The moment was so short as to have been imagined, but when Tai looked back to Jack and Kohe, it was dry-eyed. One hand made a white-knuckled fist at her side. The smallest rsio wound around her ankle, yipping to be held again. Tai went on.

"I killed her," she said again, and kept speaking, even when Jack, stunned into stillness said, "You...killed..."

"She was going to hurt not-Eliko," Tai explained calmly, though she could feel her composure slipping. Kohe was back, and she wanted her sister in her arms NOW. "And Eliko. She heard you howl after your dream and she came but you were gone, so she was going to kill him, and I…" she trailed off, almost whimpered. "Kohe?"

Jack hadn't moved from where he stood between Kohe and the Shaman and her cubs. She trembled, glassy-eyed, her face flushed, her hair clinging to the sweat on her brow and cheeks. There was a suspicious-looking wound on one shoulder and the smell of blood in the air. 'Not-Eliko'? The Venatorus shot a quick glance to the Ashkerai, untrusting, but questioning, and when he turned back, Tai was moving toward her sister.

"You're hurt," Kohe said quietly. "'Setta, c'mon. Come lay down. It's not dangerous, I promise. I...I made it okay. You can trust me."

 

[Kaisaan]

The moment, the instant Kohe had felt strong, powerful jaws on her tunic, she'd become aware of so many things, so quickly that it would have made someone else's head spin with a migraine from hell. As it was, it only made the Demisan cooperative as she was urged to her feet and then behind the massive body of the Venatorus who was so tense and bristling with both a feral, protective instinct and subtle fear he hid rather well...but not from her.

It was the protectiveness - and knowledge known only to her - that dampened Kohe's anger. Oh, it was still there, but compared to the calmness she felt as her sharp, intelligent eyes watched the scene playing out before her, it was controllable. But it would only stay that way if Jack kept his paws and jaws off her sister...and in most timestreams, he did. It was enough for the Demisan who held the foreknowing of this situation like one would hold a fragile porcelain figurine. In most futures, this outcome was good, beneficial, important, perhaps even a true turning point...but only if she let it play out, so Kohe did. She restrained herself with each snarl Jack aimed at her twin and she brought her claws into her palms when he leaped forward, containing her own growl of warning to the Venatorus.

No, she had to let this play out. She had to, but only to a degree, to a point and the time to step forward was fast approaching.

Kohe kept her mismatched eyes on Tai and Jack, but that did not mean she was less aware of Eliko. The Ashkerai had not moved, in fact his arms were crossed as he merely watched the scene, but the Demisan could sense - knew - of the struggle going on inside him. His frown, turning to an outright glare, deepened with the mention of 'not-Eliko' and his gaze was hard when it briefly met Jack's, but the Ashkerai was not as stable and unfeeling as he seemed.

No, there was the smallest flicker of what could only be respect toward Tai - respect for the kill she'd made and now how she was handling it, hell, even some respect for the fact that she wouldn't back down before the threatening Jack - and a small itch of irritation in his mind toward the Venatorus....like the beginning of possessiveness toward the younger Demisan. It was rather blatantly apparent that Jack had laid claim to Kohe in some manner and perhaps it was prideful inclination or maybe some deeper instinct that made the tickle of a thought flow through his mind, but Eliko was starting to feel that if the Venatorus could break the rules by trying to keep Kohe alive, then why could he not do the same with Tai? He'd do it - at first - if only to spite the arrogant wolf male.

He just wasn't quite sure how to act on it yet - or even if he wanted to - so the Ashkerai didn't move, but he observed, eyes missing nothing and they constantly returned to Tai, gauging her reactions, subconscious ready to jump in should she need it.

Kohe knew this, sensed it, and felt a smile tug at her mouth. It was a start.

A start that wouldn't come to fruition, though, if Jack wasn't calmed and while the Demisan had very many doubts that she could calm him, she did know that she could make him back down. But first to reassure Tai. "I do trust you, Pejkia. I always have and that won't change, I promise. Wait just a moment, Tai, I will be right there. Just stay where you are." she told her sister in a soft, soothing tone, giving the younger twin a gentle smile before her attention shifted to the massive Venatorus and with calm, fluid movements, Kohe moved from her current spot at his side and behind him, to his shoulder and then, finally, his head. Her hand found his muzzle, bared fangs and all, without hesitation and it was with insistent and yet strangely patient pressure that she turned his massive head away from her sister and to Kohe herself.

Mismatched eyes held fast his pale suns and her voice was no less soft, but an intensity was behind it where it had been absent with Tai, a strength and command when dealing with the male that she would not soon drop, not until he proved to her that she could. Until that day, she would not just be Kohe with him, but Time as well, representing all the authority that came with such a title.

"Jack, you don't trust Tai, I understand that. But you would be a fool not to trust me, not to trust what I am and what I know, and what I see. There is no danger here except that which you are representing now. The mother is dead and there is no threat from her cubs. There is no threat from my sister toward me and there never will be. She is not weak," And here Kohe's eyes pierced him, knowing his thoughts toward her twin, "but her power is not against me."

Kohe took her hand from his muzzle then and placed it instead on his shoulder and like the wind trying to move the mountain, she pushed. It wasn't a shove, nor was it truly insistent, one-handed and with little effort, no power to back her up, but somehow, even so, she made the wolf take a step back. And yet that was all she did, not going around him, not walking away.

"Let me go to my sister."

That....had not been a demand, but a request...as if some mantle of authority or dominance had been passed over to Jack and Kohe waited, not telling what she'd do if he said no. Just waiting for something only she seemed able to name.

There was a subtle shift there that even Eliko caught as it made the Ashkerai's attention sharpen as he took his eyes from Tai - and the female Rsio cub crawling toward him with whimpers of protest, not liking that Tai had moved and was ignoring them - and watched the interaction play out....but not before he picked the cub up, automatically quieting the creature. Some habits were just too strong to break.

If only he knew that Tai had already started to wiggle her way into that part of his mind, too; a habit that was just going to be too strong to overcome.

 

[DotCom]

Tai stayed where she was, but it was hard. Harder than following Eliko to the rsio den, grief-stricken and half conscious. Harder than killing the rsio female, and harder than facing the horror of it afterward. It had been twenty-four long, cold hours since Kohe had disappeared, all the time only half knowing if she was alright, and more than that, always suspecting far, far worse. That Kohe had spent those interminable hours alone with Jack...and that their relationship had changed drastically for it hadn't even struck Tai yet. All she could see was her sister, who had never been gone for more than a few hours at a stretch, returned and bleeding, and standing almost near enough to touch, but separated by a wall Tai couldn't see yet.

Oh, but she could feel it. Just as she could feel Kohe's forced calm, an enigmatic blend of anger and knowing and patience and respect and frustration and something else she couldn't name, she could feel Eliko's aloof curiosity, and was keenly aware of both the way he instinctively picked up and soothed the rsio cub and the way some small tension eased from her shoulders when she realized they were in his care as much as they were hers.

She could feel Jack, too, perhaps strongest of all, though maybe that was just proximity. Like the others, his mind was awash in a haze of emotions, turning a circle so quickly in his mind, even he struggled to read them. He had calmed slightly when Kohe turned his gaze from her errant twin to herself, the physical touch as much as a reminder as actually looking at her that she was, for the moment, alright. It was entirely too much of a relief, something he'd have to deal with later, but only once he was certain Kohe would survive the night. The thought woke the protective rage in him again, too strong to be reasoned with, and he was growling again, straining against her hand, while the Shaman -- not weak indeed! -- made a sound perilously close to a whimper. She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet, but didn't move, and before Jack could make sure she got no closer to Kohe...Kohe had pushed him back.

It was not her physical strength that did it, though Jack had no doubt of that.

In fact, he could not say what it had been. The movement defied any and all logic. The Demisan were not exactly paragons of strength, but neither were they so frail as Jack had once imagined. Even the Shaman could exert herself when she so chose, even if only through her light shows, and the elder twin had proven herself agile, graceful, and dangerous on more than one occassion.

She had used none of it in pushing him away from Tai, and for a moment, he was utterly perplexed.

No. Not perplexed. Transfixed.

Jack stared at her, the growls having died in his chest, and sat back on his haunches, just watching, as if looking for something he knew nothing about, hoping that he might find it in the depths of her strange and beautiful eyes.

The mewling of the rsio cubs, the smallest still winding around Tai's ankles, the middle now having waddled off to join his sister, broke his reverie after hours or days or perhaps just mere seconds lost. Jack turned away from Kohe with a sound that would have been a reluctant, but sheepish, grunt of admission had he been human. As it were, he simply turned away, wrapping his tail around his paws as he watched the rsio cubs, the Shaman, and the Ashkerai with cold, hard eyes.

"Very well, then," he said as coolly as he could muster. "But the little ones are still poisonous. and they will not be so tame forever."

Tai didn't, couldn't wait another second. Kohe had told her to stay where she was, and she knew she was maybe ruining whatever tenuous control she'd kept Jack under, but she didn't care. The younger Demisan rushed forward so quickly, she stumbled and went sprawling, and would have sent both herself and Tai tumbling to the cold cave floor were it not for her sister's expert reflexes. Jack tensed, growled, then relaxed again -- mostly -- when he realized it was, in all likelihood, less an attack on the part of the Shaman, and more evidence of her unlikely relationship to the other Demisan.

A moment later, Tai was all but wrapped around her sister, shaking and gasping and trying very, very hard not to cry. She had promised Eliko. Perhaps not in so many words. But somehow, she still wanted to make him happy.

"Kohe? Kohe, are you okay? Kohe, you're back! You were gona, and I thought...I thought you..." Tai shook her head, breathless. "Please don't leave again, Kohe, okay? I'll stay right here, I promise, I won't let you accidentally Jump anymore, and you can use all the energy you want. I promise, Kohe, just don't...don't go away again. Please."

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe couldn't help her smile when he assented to what she wanted, but anything she might have said or done was stalled by Tai's stumble and the elder Demisan could not help but grin more widely as she caught her sister and then enveloped her younger twin in a hug, inhaling Tai's scent and feeling some of the tension drain out of her body. Her sister took up a place in Kohe's heart that could not, would not be filled by anything or anyone else and that would never change. Tai was...her other half in a way a mate could not be. They were twins, had shared everything since before they were born and that bond had not broken or grown strained as they'd gotten older, but stronger by far.

Tai's semi-panicked questions sobered Kohe a little, though, and she pulled back just enough to look into her sister's dilated, partially fever-glazed eyes. Her cool hand felt Tai's forehead even as she spoke to her sister in a firm, but soothing and gentle tone, hardly worried by Tai's state. Her arm was infected, but Jack would have the knowledge of what might heal it and Eliko could draw out any remaining poison, but ONLY if thins became desperate...and if either of them wanted to go anywhere, they were going to make sure Tai was well enough to travel there with them or Kohe wasn't taking them. Simple as that. Oh, they'd put up a fight - Eliko and she were going to have something to say to each other soon enough - but in the end, all futures where they got to Jump was if Tai was healthy. Kohe wasn't going without her sibling. "I'm not going anywhere again, Tai. I promise. I'm all right now, Pejkia. You don't have to do anything at all, I promise. You just need to rest, all right? You've got a little bit of a fever, Taibug. You need to lay down more than I do."

She laughed softly, guiding Tai back down to the ground, following without hesitation. Her leg twinged now that it was away from the cold that had kept it numb and then the heat that had lulled the muscles. It was just truly starting to hurt at this point and Kohe was grateful to get off of it as she sighed and leaned her forehead against Tai's, reassuring her brave little sister that everything was all right.

It would be. Kohe had more hope and faith in that than she had in a while. It was a nice thing and her mismatched eyes strayed to Jack, flickered to Eliko, before they came back to violet eyes that were no doubt watching her closely, gauging her emotions to see if she was being truthful. Tai would find nothing but true and sincere calm in her elder sister.

"I'm not leaving again, Tai, but you need to get well again so we can go home. Sleep, Pejkia. I will be right here when you wake."

---------

It had been near another day before Tai's fever had broken and Kohe relaxed her defenses concerning her sister. Just as she'd known he would, Eliko had tried to speed the process up. Tai had been delirious with fever and Jack had just returned with something for it, something to use on the younger Demisan's shoulder - he'd had be convinced, just a little, to help at all, but the Venatorus wasn't stupid and he'd done as Kohe wanted - when the Ashkerai had started to approach Tai, instantly making Kohe's hackles rise as she paused her journey to Jack and the herbs to look upon the Prince.

"What are you doing?"

A sharp look and a smirk answered her as Eliko crouched beside Tai, ignoring the cubs that mewled at him. "Like you don't already know the answer to that question." he dismissed, starting to reach for Tai before Kohe's voice stopped him, sharp as a whip snapping stone. "Don't touch her." She'd started to move very purposely, every muscle tense, a coiling, dangerous, warning tension in her body language. Eliko saw it and paused, not worried, cold eyes far more interested than anything else.

He'd seen Kohe protective of her sister, but it had been more...dutiful than anything. Like she knew it wasn't REALLY needed, but did it to warn back anyone who might think about harming Tai just for the fact that she didn't want Tai to have to face it. Not because the younger twin was incapable. But this....this was different. This was far too intense, too emotional for the elder twin. She was...afraid.

Of him....or what he could do and that intrigued Eliko, very much so.

"And why would I do that? Those herbs are going to take far longer than what I could do to rid her of this fever." Of course, what he would do would be painful, just like removing the poison had been, but the younger Demisan had endured before, she could do it again. Besides, it would get them back faster and in the end, that was all Eliko cared about.

"Don't. Touch. Her."

It was snarled now, but Eliko, while he knew there was threat there, wasn't taking it seriously. She was too far away to do any damage, would be too late to stop him...or so he thought. Even as he smiled and reached for Tai again, a force like that of a full-grown Aavanian tail slammed into him, sending him to his back and then there was a pressure on his chest and fangs merely centimeters from his face as Kohe released a roar that was near deafening in the cave. Her eyes blazed feral anger and a killing intent that made even the Ashkerai still.

Ah, now here was the threat and it just increased as Kohe flicked out her hand and a barrier of Telekinetic energy, stronger than any light shield Tai had created, came up between Jack and herself and Eliko. There would be no interference there.

"I said don't touch her." Kohe hissed between her fangs, between fierce, rumbling snarls as her claws bit into the Ashkerai's throat and her knees held his arms down with a crushing pressure. This wasn't Time, calm and collected, this was the child of a Black Aavan, of the Kaloranis, this was the daughter of an Empath of legendary powers called the Maiden, this was a sister protecting everything that was dear to her, a powerful creature in her own right and there was no predicting her actions.

Of course there was no predicting Eliko's either. He could have gone shadow beneath her, could have lashed out and hurt her, but the Ashkerai stayed where he was, interested in this less than rational side of the elder twin. "What's the matter, Koheera? Afraid your baby sister isn't as strong as you believe? I did it to her once and she lived." he spat at her, almost wanting her to lose her temper, to lash out so he'd have an excuse to do what he'd been itching to do ever since they'd met.

But Kohe pressed her claws deeper into his throat, drawing blood, pain that Eliko hardly cared about, but the blazing purple that flashed through her eyes did suddenly cause a twinge of unease and her words, whispered into his mind alone, gods above, her words left him feeling like the breath had been robbed from his lungs for she spoke of things no one knew. No one was supposed to know. In that moment, Eliko was truly scared of the female above him...and the presence within him was elated, finally given a name.

"You didn't do anything. You I would not trust with Tai, not one hair on her head. It was Eliakor DarkFrost that I left her with. It was the True Prince of Midnight, the First Son of Elijeven SilverIce that I entrusted her to and it is to him that I will trust my sister sister to once he again emerges. Not you Eliko NightShadow. Your days are numbered and while it won't be by my hand that you'll die, you WILL die."

Kohe rose then, all fluid animal grace and she walked away with the stalking gait of a satisfied predator as she released the shield keeping Jack away with but a flick of her hand.

Eliko didn't go near Tai again.

Kohe had been alert ever since that moment, but now, seeing Tai waking, she relaxed and a smile finally found her lips again as she smoothed Tai's damp hair back and met her twin's violet eyes.

"Hey, sleepy. How do you feel?" Kohe had water close by for when Tai needed it, but she had a feeling her sister would want to know the state of everyone else first - that was just how Tai was - and the elder Demisan lifted the smallest Rsio cub up and showed him to Tai as the little thing squirmed in protest. "See? He missed you, but they're all good. Eliko found food for them and Jack found herbs for you. Everyone is fine, me included."

Kohe grinned. "I can speak again. I call that definite improvement."

The Demisan pretended not to hear the slight snort Eliko, a few feet away and hand-wrestling with the female Rsio, gave to that statement.

 

[DotCom]

Tai woke to several things -- a heady, almost warm feeling of content, streaked through with apprehension, anxious boredom, frustration, confusion; a small, furry body pressed to her stomach, fast asleep; the smell of approaching rain in the air; hunger -- but each and every one was trumped the moment she realized her sister was not only beside her, but speaking.

Tai opened her eyes, blinking blearily, before sitting up too fast, waking the middle rsio, who growled and batted at her knee with a clumsy paw. Tai automatically soothed him back to sleep with her mind, but she was still staring, beaming at Kohe, feeling tears of joy threaten again. She wanted to speak to her sister, thank her for watching while she slept, for caring for the rsio cubs, for keeping Jack and Eliko from each other's throats. But none of it conveyed the happiness she could now feel was genuine, instead of lined with the delirium of a fever.

She lunged forward, throwing her arms around her sister again, for the hundred thousandth time nearly knocking the both of them over in her excitement. She still couldn't speak, but she knew Kohe, and she knew she didn't have to. Her own mind, her eyes, and indeed, even the faint aura of light around her seem to glow with unparalleled joy, and dark, vibrant strands of indigo wrapped close around her sister's pink, moving so quickly, they seemed almost to dance.

Tai didn't really know how long she stayed like that, and didn't care. The smallest rsio had wriggled out of Kohe's grip to settle on Tai's shoulders, balancing on her wings under a curtain of tangled white and purple hair. Eventually, she leaned back to scratch the furry head, though she still hadn't looked away from Kohe, as though she was afraid she would lose her sister if she so much as blinked.

"Hi, 'Setta," Tai said, still grinning, after a long moment. "I missed you."

Some feet away, Jack watched, impassive as per usual, his muzzle resting atop his large paws. He neither said nor thought anything, though he kept a careful eye on the Ashkerai -- and the rsio cubs -- as he had since the...altercation between Eliko and the Shaman's sister. Jack had remained silent for the most part, still vaguely annoyed that Kohe had managed to convince him to go find something for Tai -- in his mind, in the same way he'd been taught by his father, the Shaman deserved nothing she could not obtain herself...though he willfully ignored the fact that he'd done the same for Kohe just one day prior.

Seeing the Ashkerai agitated was nothing new, and Jack himself made no moves to interfere with Eliko's plans, for once actually agreeing -- if Tai had survived whatever it was Eliko was about to do once, she could do so again, and the four of them be on their way faster -- but when he felt the unmistakable lick of fear crawling through Kohe, he was on his feet snarling quietly before he'd even realized he'd moved.

Whatever had happened between them in the snow had not gone unnoticed, not by Eliko or Tai, or either of the participating parties themselves. But neither did any of them speak of it. In one very long day, Jack had seen Kohe delirious, ill, angry, distraught...but never truly afraid. The thought gave him pause even as it pushed a surge of unmistakable rage through his own belly. He recognized, however vaguely, the feeling of wearing your heart outside your body. Jack cared nothing for the Shaman...but her strange and beautiful sister?

Whatever she was, he had already made the decision he would not bear her pain.

Kohe, as if sensing his movement, put up her shield, and Jack just kept from careening into it. He stared, pacing, snarling through at Eliko. Kohe was clearly handling herself, but Jack would find a way through if it killed him.

Tai, who had been sleeping, however fitfully, ever since Kohe returned, began to stir at her sister's absence and subsequent spike of fear, and the rsio cubs, who had been clustered at her side, whimpered and mewled their own distress.

"Kohe? 'Setta, what's wrong?"

Jack stood over the Demisan, who was now struggling to rise, weaving on her feet as she joined him to lean against Kohe's shield. When Kohe called it away, they both surged forward after her. Tai reached her first and clung to her sister. Jack got as close as he could without looking overtly concerned before snarling at the Ashkerai to keep him away.

Jack had kept himself placed carefully between Eliko and Kohe ever since.

Tai, for her part, had only vague memories of the last day. She would half wake every so often if she got too hot or too cold, making sure Eliko was watching the cubs and that Kohe was still around and alright. She always was, and hearing her sister speak made her smile again. She sat up slowly and took the smallest rsio cub in her arms, giggling.

"Did you name them yet?"

Jack, behind them, gave a warning growl to Eliko, showing his teeth, though there was no real anger behind it.

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe laughed, one of the first she'd given in a long time, certainly the first while on this planet - and Kohe suspected that not a great deal of laughter was heard here anymore - and the Demisan shook her head, reaching up to tuck beyond wild white-black hair behind an ear. "No, not yet. It's not for me to do now, is it?" The elder twin gave the younger a knowing look that only Kohe could pull off as she tapped Tai on the nose. She refused to look at Eliko, though. It was not HIM who'd be naming these cubs who had a purpose greater than either male - or even Tai - could foresee right now, but another, buried deep but growing stronger daily.

She could not tell Tai of him yet, though, Tai already knew of him. No, what Kohe could not tell her little sister was OF him; his past, his name, his purpose. That was for Eliakor to share, just as it was for Jack and Jacken to share with her...when the time was right...if the future took the paths she so hoped it would.

Kohe had learned long ago, however, that her own future and Tai's...were not set in stone, but neither were they able to be manipulated by Kohe herself. It was outside forces like Jack and Eliko, and Uncle Rask who would do that, who would save them if that was the way it was to be. Such thoughts didn't worry the older Demisan to the point that she couldn't sleep anymore, but they were a constant nagging in her mind and it was moments like these, though she was laughing and happy, that Kohe could not help but think it might all come to naught. Glancing toward Jack, mismatched eyes studied him for just a moment, easily able to picture those jaws clamped around her throat, around Tai's. It wasn't just that she'd seen it happen over and over again, but rather being near him, feeling the strong binds of duty, manipulation and false truth he held so tightly to...she could see him doing exactly what he'd been told he had to for years....and that, more than anything ever could, truly scared the Guardian of Time.

Such fear, she kept to herself, locked away deep where even Tai would struggle to find and Kohe chose instead to have hope, to let her sister's influence wash over her daily, to present a strong, confident front that, universe willing, would not be false in the end.

"Naming the little runts isn't what we should be focused on."

Eliko's voice snapped through the warmth in the cavern, leaving a cold to settle in its place as the Ashkerai stood from his place on the far end of the cave. Sensing the lack of safety the male was now providing, the middle Rsio, male, scuttled away from him and raced to Tai with a mewl of protest. Eliko ignored the creature, just as he ignored Jack's warning growl. Oh, he wasn't going to approach the twins, he knew better than that at the moment, truly didn't care to either, but he wasn't going to keep silent either.

So Kohe had gotten her way and wasted time letting her sister heal naturally. Fine. But there was no more reason for delays now, no reason to keep them on this dying planet for even another hour. "Take us back, Akatikari." Glacial brown eyes, ringed with black, held mismatched ones of fiery scarlet and blazing sapphire as Kohe stared back at him, unblinking, and her hand brushed Tai's in reassurance as she stood. It wasn't anger coming off of Kohe, though, rather it was an authoritative power as she looked to him and then to Jack, addressing them both.

"I gave my word that I would take you back to your people, Eliko, and Jack, that I would take you and yours to our world. That hasn't changed, but if either of you think I am stupid enough to simple whisk you where you want to go so that you have absolutely no reason left anymore to keep me, and especially Tai alive, then you are about to be severely disappointed. I am neither stupid, nor easily manipulated."

Kohe's gaze snapped to Eliko exclusively and there was something decidedly unfriendly in her expression. She didn't like him. Not one part of Eliko, not one bit of what he was. He was duty-driven to the point of obsession, full of hatred, self-pride and he lacked any empathy. Jack had the same traits, but they were counteracted by his spurts of compassion, understanding, loyalty and Kohe understood that where Jack was concerned, he was extremely misled about everything going on.

Eliko was not.

Eliakor, however, now that was a different story entirely and Kohe held nothing but hope that he'd emerge soon, but Eliko would NEVER be in her good graces.

"Eliko, I will take you back to our world, but not anywhere near your people and while that will not entice you to keep me or Tai alive, I know Jack will make sure you don't do anything to jeopardize his own people." Here Kohe looked to the Venatorus and while her gaze didn't soften, there was something less...sharp in her tone. She had no wish to hurt him, but the fact of the matter was that he wanted to kill her sister and Kohe wasn't about to let that happen.

"Jack, I will bring your people to my planet, but they will remain three minutes out of time for the next three months. Not in the past that they can change the future, not in the present where they could find me and Tai, and not in the future where they can lay traps for the past. Three minutes out of time where they can influence and harm no one. Three minutes for three months and after that time has passed..." The Demisan finally looked away and toward her sister and her voice was far quieter, softer. "Then we will let Fate decide. Their restriction will be lifted and if our death is still wished for, then so be it. "

It was the last thing she wanted to say, but Kohe said it anyway, her gaze holding her sister's with an unspoken message of encouragement and strength before she looked to the two males again.

"These terms are not up for discussion."