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She knew from the moment she stepped onto the premise that the Aavan was dying. The weakness hit her so suddenly, her knees buckled, and she had to stop and lean against the wall to catch her breath. She felt the dismal hopelessness just as fiercely as the hunger and cold, but her mind was focused on one thing: she knew for a fact both Risa, who felt everything in passionately fiery waves, and Sumilah, the only person she'd ever loved, were both in the mansion, and likely closer than the beast. So why was he the only one she could feel? Size, she knew, had nothing to do with it, so even if the Aavan -- Mori -- maintained his larger form, there was no reason for his senses to overwhelm hers like that. Not at this distance. Not with two other powerful spirits around.

Perhaps it was only the reek of death she felt, but the revelation made her feel no better. She shivered, cold despite the blazing suns, and made herself walk forward.

---

"Punish him for what?"

She found Risa exactly where she knew the future Dottir would be after her extended training with the current Scryer -- gloating in front of her prize. Rora had no doubt Risa had already spread the gossip of her success with the Aavan to her friends and cohorts, both within the Council and without. Just as she knew Risa's presence would ultimately have no effect on the Aavan. The thing was dying. And she told herself half a dozen times that was why she'd stayed away for so long now.

When she'd proclaimed her intent to help train the beast, she'd been angry, hungry, tired, hurt. By the light of day, with only her own thoughts to push her, she could see she'd been wrong. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she thought it had spoken to her, or that she'd felt the unforgettable agony of Risa's torture. It was not guilt, only stubbornness. Logic, even. As the only Empath, she was well busy training. No time for fool's errands with fancy new pets.

And yet here she was again. Standing outside the care, eyeing Risa wearily. She felt too weak to fight with the Dreamer. But she had no intentions of allowing Risa to inflict more horrors upon her person.

Risa turned to smile at her. "Hello, sister. I understand you haven't been here in all the time I've been gone."

"I told you I'd help train. What's there to help when you're not here?"

Risa's smile widened almost imperceptibly, giving her whole expression are dark tinge that made the hairs on Rora's neck rise.

"Indeed," was all the other Cerebra said, then moved toward the cage. Rora felt herself inexplicably drawn after, and for a moment, she thought she would tell that the Aavan had spoken.

Instead she said, "Leave him be. He's ill."

"Are you a healer now?"

Rora scowled. "I'm an Empath. I can feel it. Whatever you want from him, you won't get it. Not when he's like this. He needs to be fed, and kept warm. And...and..." And something else, some strange, wordless longing she couldn't name. For the briefest moment, Rora's eyes flicked to the large, dull violet pair behind the cage -- the first time she'd looked at him since she'd arrived -- and then away, the sense of weakness redoubling.

She shook her head after a moment. "I offered my help in training. This is my advice: let him get well, or you'll have nothing for your troubles but bone and scale."
 
He'd thought he sensed her before he saw her, but Mori couldn't be sure, not when his senses were so completely messed up at this point and finding out he was right as her voice came into the courtyard caused an unexpected shudder of relief to sweep through underneath his scales. If he'd been in his smaller form - he couldn't shift as he'd been drugged to prevent it by the Keepers before being chained - he probably would have sagged but as it was, the oddest urge to move toward the Cerebra made him shift in place. It was partly in reaction and partly in confusion as to the strange desire.

Since when had Crazy become someone to crave safety from? That didn't make sense. She'd given him food, that was it. Risa had done that, too, as had many before both of them. She hadn't been warm or kind, rather angry and waspish, and cold...and yet he'd spoken to her. He still didn't understand why he'd done that. It wasn't like she was the first Cerebra to talk at him before and certainly not the first one to irritate him with her words. There was nothing different about her from the others. There couldn't be. Right?

And yet, here he was, watching her every move, wishing she'd come closer without even knowing why. Maybe it was because she was not going to torture him and he knew Risa was. That made more sense. He just wanted the lesser of two evils nearer than the other. He wanted her to stay simply because she might stop Risa from sending him to the brink of death again and the brink of his sanity. For whatever reason she was trying to lessen his pain and any sane person would want to be closer to that kind of person than the one who took pleasure in causing it.

Right. So that was reasoned out.

He wanted to take a nap now, even that mental thought having been exhausting, but Mori knew he wouldn't be allowed to and at Crazy's words, he looked up, blinking in confusion at what she said, their eyes meeting for a brief moment and causing a surge of further weakness to sweep through him. He couldn't understand it. But wait...had she said Empath? He knew of all the power classes in the Cerebrae culture, but he'd never heard of an Empath. Was that why she'd been behaving so oddly the last time they'd met? Like she was sick...

She could feel him.

The realization came suddenly and Mori looked more closely at the Cerebra. He'd been right. She was different. She could feel him, perhaps feel all of them...and yet she was here. Why was she here? Why intervene for HIM and not others before him. Why now? Why him? Why, because he was the only one among his kin? Did it all come down to that value thing again? His kin were just as precious as he was! Why was she doing nothing to help THEM? He felt anger kindle inside him then and Mori's tail lashed, hitting the bars behind him with a loud banging sound that made Risa jump, startled as she'd been staring at her sister with a suspicious, calculating look, trying to reason through why she seemed to be advocating for the Aavan...and whether there was truth to it. Mori's movement, though, as his head thrashed against the muzzle for a moment, made her smile slowly.

"No, sister, I do think it's well enough to still be defiant and therefore well enough to learn." she concluded and watched with both anger and yet admitted awe as the black Aavan rumbled like thunder in his chest, still able to look dangerous despite the true state he was in. The fact that his body wanted to collapse under him was Mori's secret as he glared his loathing at Risa. Crazy might have been trying to help, but they both knew Risa wasn't going to listen and Mori knew he was dying. Maybe he was just getting to the point where he'd like to get it over with. Risa was bound to go too far at some point.
 
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For the most part, Rora was only half listening. Once again, the Cerebra she'd known for years, now standing only feet away from Rora, and with some of the most powerful emotions the Empath had ever known, was nearly non-existent. At least in comparison to the deluge of physical and sensate things she was getting from the Aavan.

Relief was first, so pure and so calming, Rora herself felt better for a moment. The relief didn't last long, though, as it was once again swept up in a tangle of pain and hunger and the bitter tang of desolation. The Aavan knew he was dying.

Stronger, though, than any of the others was that selfsame sense of longing. Yearning like she had never known. Not for food or water or warmth or any physical comfort. But for companionship. Companionship deeper than any she'd ever known, even with Sumilah. Even as an Empath. Part of her was curious. There was no name for what the Aavan wanted, and the desire and longing was so great, she felt fit to weep. What could drive a creature on the edge of death to wont so?

Then, there was a bright, crisp moment of realization, once again cutting, however briefly, through the pain and sadness. Rora glanced at him again, wondering what epiphany had shocked him so. When she realized her was staring right back at her, she frowned and stepped around Risa without realizing what she was doing. She was nearly at the bars of the cage when Risa spoke, and this time, Rora was struck with anger -- both the Aavan's and Risa's.

Rora turned a suddenly smoldering gaze to Risa, and even with her back to the Aavan, she felt him rise, felt his exhaustion well up around her own shoulders. She wanted to sleep for a hundred years.

"Leave him be, Risa," she said. "Let me feed him, and then you may try whatever tricks you have planned."

Her voice was calm and even. Quite enough to hear an errant tinkle of glass at the other end of the courtyard, despite the lack of any wind whatsoever.
 
"Do not tell me what to do with my own pet, Aurora." Risa snapped back at her, chin rising in a haughty manner as she moved past her sister and toward the gate, unlocking it and opening the giant door, easily swinging on its hinges despite the massive height and width. "I am hardly going to feed it first and let it regain strength. How foolish that would be. It may eat when it's shown it will obey. I broke it once, I will do such again." she replied confidently.

She approached Mori then, keeping well out of reach of his claws and tail and head, coming to stand before him. She pointed a finger to the ground, tone commanding and cold. "Down." She fully expected to be obeyed and in that moment, Mori did everything in his power not to collapse, looking down at her with a snort before his head lifted and his clouded eyes found Crazy's instead, the anger having passed, nothing but the profound, confusing longing instead and the deep weariness he felt, the dread as he knew very well what his defiance would cost him.

And part of him wanted to live, but part of him wanted nothing more than to submit and die.

Everything he'd come here for was lost to him now and he felt he'd wasted the last six year of his life on a fool's errand. And for what? To die at the hands of a creature he could kill with one lightning strike. And yet....he wouldn't. He couldn't bring himself to do it. It wasn't cowardice or the reluctance to kill...it was a conscious choice. He would not become his captors. He would not lash out because it was the easier option. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of being proven right. He wasn't an animal and he had control over his actions, even ones that would have been warranted in many situations. Deserved or not, they were still his choices to make and he had so little control in anything else. At least if he died he'd know he'd done so with a clear conscious.

Risa would never understand that, though, and right now she simply looked livid, containing it well, but frustrated enough to do something stupid...or cruel. Her eyes glanced to the Keeper standing by the gate. "Go get the Nuathal." she ordered and Mori's eyes came back to her, feeling dark amusement. Stupid Cerebra. She couldn't pull that trick again no matter how hard she might try. The bond didn't work like that. He purposely snorted hard enough to shoot some snot in her direction and she leaped back with a sort of disgusted shriek, but didn't get to start ranting as the Nuathal was being escorted into the cage. Engel came willingly, not knowing any different and she clasped a pair of hands in front of her, the other two held out a bit in question. "How may help, Mistress?"

Risa seemed to gain composure quickly and she smiled in her sickly sweet way. "Nuathal, have you been visiting my pet without permission?" She already knew the answer - nothing went on in this household that she did not know about - and she also knew the Nuathal wouldn't lie, pathetic species that it was. Sure enough, Engel simply bowed her head a bit. "I have, Mistress." She offered no excuses, no explanations.

"Nuathal, you know very well that I instructed for no one to visit the Aavan while I was gone."

"Yes, Mistress."

"And you know the punishment for such a crime of disobedience."

"Yes, Mistress." Engel answered calmly, softly and Mori felt confusion and then horror sweep over him as he saw the Keeper produce a whip. Primitive, yes, extremely so but still very effective. Tried and true some might say. Of course this was a sterilized one, highly advanced in its ability to cauterize a wound closed even as it inflicted it. More pain, but less chances of infection. Mori had felt its bite more than once with three of his former owners and now he jerked tight against his chains with a savage snarl verging on a roar past the muzzle as Engel was made to kneel and Risa merely looked to the black Aavan with a glimmer in her eyes.

Mori's eyes widened, meeting Engel's accepting ones. No! No, why had she done this?! Why would she try to help him if this was the cost? She shouldn't have done it! This was his fault! He did not truly know Engel, but they'd started to form a connection and that was enough for the Aavan to be hurt by her own pain and that's exactly what Risa wanted.

She made a gesture for the Keeper to begin and Mori no longer thought, he merely acted, fighting like a possessed thing against his chains and bindings, bloodcurdling growls coming to blend with the sound of the whip hitting flesh, the sizzle of the cauterization and Engel's whimpers of pain. It wasn't until the Nuathal finally cried out at the sixth lash that a keening wail of grief left the Aavan's throat.
 
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Risa had changed.

Rora could feel her sister's intentions even before she began speaking, and was at once rooted to the spot. As both Risa and Mori began to realize what was happening, she could feel emotions vying in her, so strong, her head throbbed. Abject terror and loathing. Hysterical anger. And something thick and heady and black pouring from Risa, enough, even, to drown out the despair that had quelled the Aavan. Rora had no name for it save...save perhaps madness.

A momentary insanity brought on by unbearable desires to win, to be the best and brightest and strongest.

For a moment, Rora pitied her sister. Something had happened to make her this way. Risa was haughty and proud, but she was not cruel, and she was not mad. It was strange. For all the welling pain and anger and sadness and confusion growing inside Rora, the thought, the certainy, was cool and calm. Almost refreshing. It pulsed through her mind again.

Something had happened.

Risa had changed.

It was the last coherent thought the young Empath would have for some time.

---

Whatever else had happened, however poorly she felt from the Aavan's despair -- she'd felt him give up on his life -- or the Nuathal's guilt as she was led out to be beaten -- the first lash falling across the Nuathal's back cut through the haze of gloom like a red hot brand through butter.

Rora had been watching, blank-faced, as it happened, but it still caught her by surprise.

She didn't scream. She couldn't. She might have, were she able. She might have even wanted to, if only to give Risa a chance to see her actions had moved beyond the realm of normalcy. She had to know beating the Nuathal would affect Rora. She had to. ANd yet...

The second lash nearly undid her, and she might have screamed again, but her back muscles had seized up so fiercely, she could hardly breathe. Her face had gone deathly pale beneath its strange palette of colors, and the imagined searing of her own flesh made her vision cloud with spots.

It was the third lash that loosened her tongue with a choked whimper that echoed the Nuathal's. The Aavan was thrashing, straining at his chains, nearly mad with anger and grief himself. Risa watched, her mind clouded with something darker, worse. Even the Keeper felt sick at her actions. Rora wanted to speak, tried to speak, to say anything, if only to remind her sister that she felt every burning lash across her back like the Nuathal --

The whip fell again. Four times, and Rora felt her knees buckle beneath her, her legs threatening to give up her weight. She took a step to keep from falling, and found herself walking, staggering, toward Risa, a cry bubbling at the back of her throat.

Five. Rora flinched violently. She could almost feel the welts along her spine.

"Risa..."

Six. The Nuathal screamed. The Aavan cried. Rora stumbled and almost couldn't find it in her to stand again. If Risa knew what happened just behind her, she gave no sign. Her eyes were fixed on the Aavan, who did indeed seem to be breaking.

Perfect. The first half of the plan was coming together.

Seven.

"Risa!" This time, the Cerebra's name was not a strangled whimper, but an agonized scream, echoing that of the Nuathal as the whip continued to fall. Risa turned, and to her credit, seemed almost surprised to see Rora there, back on her feet, though only just barely. A stiff wind would take the Empath down where she stood, pale, shaking, sweating.

"Stop it," the younger Cerebra demanded hoarsely, and with none of her usual disdainful stoicism. "Risa, you have to stop this. There're other ways -- "

"Oh, I know, sister dear. Believe me, I know."

The whip fell again, and Rora staggered wordlessly. Risa covered the space between them in half a step, easily supporting her smaller sister against a hip.

"Aurora, sweet, you don't look well. You shouldn't be here for this." She motioned somewhere over Rora's head to a Keeper. "Take my sister inside and see her rested. She's upset."

"I'm not upset!" The words were screamed as the lash fell again. How many times now? It was the first time, in any case, that Rora had screamed louder than the Nuathal. Did Risa mean to kill the thing?

"Risa, stop this," Rora demanded again, fighting as best she could around the thick arms of the male Keeper now wrapped around her waist. "Stop it! This isn't you!"

"That's where you're wrong, little sister," Risa said coolly, turning her gaze to the keening Aavan once more. "Make no mistake -- the black Aavan will be mine. But he is only the first step. Don't you see, Aurora? I'm to be the next CloudDottir! I must do what our people expect of me!"

The Aavan's mad grief was making her stupid. That must have been it. She thought she had detected a hint of sincere, if hysterical, pleading in Risa's voice. Was it possible?

The last fell again, and possibility fled from Rora's mind. The Nuathal was stilling. The Keeper beating her looked ill. Rora felt her vision going.

"Risa...please."

The whip raised again. The Aavan cried. The Nuathal had stopped moving. The mind of the Keeper with the lash had gone completely blank. Rora cringed, waiting for the whip to fall again. It would be the last time, she knew. The Nuathal had no strength left in her.

"Enough!"

Rora looked up at her sister, echoed by the Keeper behind her, the Keeper with the Nuathal, and even the weakened Nuathal herself.

Risa spoke to the Keepers, but did not take her eyes off the Aavan.

"Enough," Risa said again, and Rora felt a relief so powerful, she nearly collapsed flood over her. She was not sure whether it was her own, or borrowed from a Keeper, the Nuathal, or the Aavan. It didn't matter. Things would be alright. The rush of pain and emotions had been too much. Her back ached. She was exhausted. The large male Keeper still had a hold on her, and she felt herself sagging in her grip as the black spots that had been plaguing her vision began to expand. She heard Risa's voice from the far end of a very long tunnel.

"...take the Nuathal back to her people...not want to see her in my home again...."

"...my sister home...that she is taken care of...tell my mother young Rora is not well..."

"...you, Aavan...for the last time...I have heard many things in my absence...you...skills...gift...water..."

None of it made sense any more. She was vaguely aware the male Keeper had swept her up to carry her somewhere. For once, she didn't care where. She wanted to be far away from here, wanted never again to --

Splash.

It was her own shock as much as the Aavan's, she was sure, that woke her again. When Rora opened her eyes, the wretched creature was shoulder deep in a large pool of water that had been hidden beneath the floor of his cage.

And the look in Risa's eyes was more terrifying than anything Rora had ever seen.
 
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The Aavan had been deaf and blind to anything but Engel, her pain and the horror of it, but that hadn't lasted forever as the first cry from Crazy had echoed in his ears like the deafening sound of a banshee. She'd not been that loud, but that's what it felt like to him and Mori felt it streak through his spirit like his own lightning. He didn't understand it, couldn't comprehend anything right now, but he knew it hurt. It hurt so very much and the overwhelming emotions inside him were threatening to tear his mind apart.

The Nuathal, someone who'd briefly bonded with him, who'd been kind to him when he'd desperately needed that comfort, was being tortured because of him. He couldn't help her, couldn't stop it. He could only watch and listen and smell.

And now the Cerebrae was in pain as well, crying out in a way that pierced him far more deeply than anything in his life ever had. He didn't know why, but her pain caused a new spike of desperation and terror in him, anger unimaginable. He didn't care why, he just knew what was. He just knew that everything was heightened in this moment. His kind were known for their heightened senses and that included emotions, but this...this somehow surpassed it and when the whip finally stopped, the cries falling silent, Mori stilled, collapsing as he trembled, trying to reach toward the Nuathal without success and then, toward Crazy without even realizing he was doing so.

He wasn't really aware of anything as he watched both females being taken away, nothing but the strong desire to have them back, his mind numb. Risa's words fell on deaf ears and so Mori's shock was absolute and complete when the ground suddenly fell out from underneath him. For a moment he couldn't understand what had happened and then the pain hit as lightning flared over his black scales in reaction to the threat his body perceived, from the stress. It was the worst reaction he could have given and the Aavan gave a roar of pain that turned into panic as he started to thrash and lunge, trying to get out of the water with a desperation that went beyond words.

Most Aavan were fine with water - though, fire-based Aavan disliked it - but for Mori it was a death sentence if he wasn't calm or relaxed. It was only in those states that his lightning didn't flare across his body, even if just in small ripples that would give nothing more than a small shock. If he was stressed, though, in any way and his lightning flared, the water acted as a magnifier, but also a container, directing all that energy back into the Aavan. It got into the crevices of his scales, created a wonderful conduct for the deadly electricity. And Aavan were highly sensitive to touch as it was.

Mori was anything but calm right now and his lightning was now causing him pain that rivaled the tearing bond. But unlike the bond, there was no hope of it stopping before it killed him. The currents continued to run through his body now in a horrible cycle and the black Aavan cried out with a high keening sound in anguish, terror and agony the only things he could feel as he kept trying to get out without success. His struggles were weakening fast, though, as every nerve burned with a searing heat, every inch of his body feeling the shock of the lightning that was giving dangerous jolts to his heart, causing his entire body to go crashing back into the water each time.

And then there came the time he didn't get back up, his entire black body submerged, nothing but his head above the water. Sobbing whimpers forced their way past his throat, blood leaking in small rivers from his nostrils and mouth as he continued to spasm. His eyes were nearly translucent now and they didn't look to Risa's gloating face, never hearing a word she might utter but rather to the other Cerebra, the one that had tried to help.

Mori gave her a soft warble even as the life began to fade from his eyes.
 
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Much, much later, when there was time to think, when even the slightest recollection of what happened that horrible night didn't cause her body to rebel against itself, seizing with pain, shaking with a cold sweat, Rora would realize she had, in fact, been present for the entire ordeal. But in the moment, and for some time after, she could not remember what had happened. She saw the whole thing from a distance, as if she'd stepped out of her body to watch the horror unfold.

When the Aavan first began thrashing, so did the pale Aavan in the arms of the Keeper. One second, she had been limp against his chest, and the next, she was fighting free of his grip sprinting toward the dying Aavan and the eerily calm Cerebra standing guard over the small pool.

She stopped short mere inches from both of them, so suddenly, one might think she had run into a wall.

For a moment or and eternity, no one moved but the Aavan.

Then the Cerebra with the rainbow face began pleading.

"Risa...Risa, stop. Stop! You're killing him! You're killing him!"

Rora could tell by the way the Empath who looked like her, and yet could not be her, because Rora was somewhere else, somewhere far away, that the Cerebra was in pain. She saw it in the tense, rigid hold of her spine, in the white-knuckled clenching of her fists, in the veins cording out from her slender neck. But the Empath did not seem aware. She watched the Aavan in the pool with eyes wide and green and horrified, and still she pleaded.

"Please, Risa! You don't understand -- "

"I understand perfectly well, Aurora," Risa answered, and her voice, too, sounded strange, detached. "He will obey. And when he does, the punishment stops."

"This isn't punishment. This is torture. Murder! He's dying! He's going to die, you have to stop, please, I'm begging you!"

"Take her away," Risa said calmly, and Rora watched the dauntless male Keeper come up again behind the Empath and attempt to steer her away.

That was when everything changed.

The Empath stiffened at his touch. It was too much, she decided. Risa's anger and pride, the Aavan's abject agony. The Nuathal's torture. The madness, the insanity that had hounded her since their first meeting...Too much, all too much.

"NO!" the Empath screamed. That was it. That was all she did. That, and push away from the Keeper, nearly twice her size.

But he did not ignore her or merely stumble back as Rora expected a creature his size would.

She blinked, and the Keeper had flown across the courtyard to collide with a wall hard enough to crumble brick. The Empath didn't seem to notice. Neither did Risa. But Rora did, and something pinged against her psyche.

Wrong. That was wrong. The girl with the colored face was an Empath, of that Rora was certain. So from where had the strength come to -- was he? Yes. Dead -- to kill a Keeper?

The Empath strode forward and clutched Risa's arm.

"Risa," she said, sounding wretched and terrifying all at once. "Stop it."

"No," Risa answered. "You will know true power, sister. You need only -- "

That was as far as she got before she noticed the water around the Aavan frothing despite his stilled efforts. Risa blinked once -- and then was knocked over as hundreds of gallons of water and half a ton of pressure washed over her.

In an instant, the pool in which the Aavan had been dying was empty, the water pounding down relentlessly on Risa and Rora both, though only Risa succumbed to the pressure of it. When at last she could breathe, she blinked in horror and confusion, staring up at her sister.

"What -- " she managed, and then the Empath moved her hand again and Risa was pinned to the wall, hovering several feet above the ground.

Horrified, Rora looked at the Empath. She must have been in pain -- the dying Aavan, the dead Keeper, the scared Cerebra -- but her eyes were blank, empty. Wild.

"I told you to stop," she said calmly.

"Have you gone mad, sister?" Risa's voice tried to be sneering but only sounded frightened.

"I'M NOT CRAZY!" The Empath took a step further. The wall to which Risa was pinned began to crumble. The sneer left her face, replaced by horror and disgust.

"Rora. Aurora. Wait. Stop. You know the punishment for...think of our mother!"

"I told you to stop." The Empath was trembling now, coming undone.

"Okay. Okay, I've stopped. You want me to release the Aavan? Done. You can have him. Would you like that? Rora?"

"You hurt him. You hurt that Nuathal. You hurt me."

"A-and I'm sorry." The wall behind her was crumbling faster. Risa's expression was twisting from horror into pain. Her torso was being crushed. "Come, now, little sister, let's just talk!"

The future CloudDottir had chosen the wrong words. In an instant, Risa went from the wall, to the base of the pool where the Aavan had been. The Empath seemed nearly oblivious to the suffering creature, lifting his massive body with a flick of her wrist. His chains shattered in an instant, and then the pool was empty, save for Risa, pinned to the floor, red eyes wide.

"Talk?" demanded the Empath, who was showing signs of fatigue as well as pain now. It occurred to Rora there might well be no survivors from the tragic and strange experience. "Talk! I -- you mock me. The others...they say...when I told them...the trees...the Aavan -- "

It was clear Risa did not understand the Empath's scattered mumblings, but she tried, too terrified to notice the water slowly trickling back into the pool with her.

"Alright. No talk. We'll...we'll release the Aavan, wait for Sumilah to come home, and -- "

That name. A flash of clarity, studded by pain. "Sumilah?" the Empath sounded herself again, small and hurting and afraid. "Sumilah...I...Risa? Risa, something's happening, something's wrong, I can't -- I can't -- "

But the Empath had made a fatal mistake. The madness that had come upon had lifted for an instant, and in that moment, she was herself -- she was Rora -- and she was reeling from a death she'd caused, and the Aavan's pain and Risa's fear. Too far gone to realize that Risa had been released from her invisible prison until the older Cerebra wrapped a hand around her ankle and yanked.

Rora went down hard. There was a moment where she looked over to see the Aavan's limp form, clouded violet eyes half shut. She heard once more that sad, soft sound he'd made --

And then she was gone again, and the Empath had taken her place.

Only this was no normal Empath. The Empath wrenched herself out of Risa's grasp and resumed her place on the edge of the pool. The water she'd called swelled around her, a storming tsunami for a moment before rushing in on Risa.

The Empath did not hear the Cerebra's last words. But Rora did.

"Freak! Monster! Murderer! Kin-slayer! You will be cursed, Rora! Mark my words, I've seen it! You will not survive the -- "

And then there was silence.

---

Rora came back to her own body like stepping off the edge of a cliff. There was a moment of vertigo, then pain like she had never known. Sadness. Loss. Anger. Death. Insanity. Grief.

She blinked and looked around. The courtyard had been destroyed. A high keening sound, half agony, half desolation, filled her ears. A face watched from the window. A Keeper -- a Cerebri Keeper -- was dead. Risa was dead, floating in the pool, face down and so, so still.

Rora turned to the Aavan and only then realized the wailing sound was coming from her. She stopped abruptly as she looked down at the Aavan. She could not move or breathe or blink.

There were only three thoughts in her head.

The first:

Run.

The second:

The Aavan had killed Risa.

The third:
Then why did Rora feel so horribly, horribly guilty?
 
The pain stopped.

Darkness.

There was only darkness and then flashes of light. Sounds. Such sounds that he could not understand.

Was he dead?

No. Death would not hurt this much. He was wrong, the pain was not gone. It just wasn't as acute. And the darkness was not absolute. There were images, blurs of movement he could not make out, but they seemed to go with the sounds. Was he moving? The Aavan didn't know. His mind wanted to slip away into the beckoning oblivion that called, but something stronger called him still. Something forced his mind to stir, forced his spirit back into some semblance of life as his eyes slowly opened fully, the color nearly leached out of him as happened to all Aavan who died....or nearly died. It would be days before it would be back. At this point they appeared as glass with the small tint of violet to them.

And they slowly searched his surroundings, uncomprehending at first. He was not where he expected to be. He was not chained, though his muzzle still present. His wings, though and his neck...they were free. For a long moment, Mori wondered if he'd fallen unconscious and had simply been taken out of the pool somehow. But no. There was the smell of death in the air. It came to his bloodied nose strongly despite the scent of iron, but a stronger smell still drew his attention to the Cerebra.

She was making the most horrible noise and he found some odd strength, lifting his head, wanting to move his body as well toward her. He didn't know what he felt in that moment, if he felt anything at all. He was merely reacting on an instinct deeper than any primal urge, but his body didn't want to cooperate. He was too exhausted, too broken and Mori slowly let his massive form shrink down into his smaller one, the drug having long been burned out of his system.

He coughed then, blood splattering the stone beneath his head and he managed to get his arms under him, continuing to cough. The internal damage his body had taken would repair itself over time, but right now he just hurt with a pain that would not abate and the blood just kept coming until finally it seemed to slow just a little and Mori attempted to breathe, his entire body shaking. And still he looked back at the female past wet black hair, somehow worried for her.

Something had happened here. Risa. His eyes finally landed on her. She was dead. And the Keeper, too. That was where the death smell was coming from. And the smell of power....was coming from the remaining Cerebra.

Mori looked back to her and attempted to speak, but it only resulted in more coughing, more blood leaking from his mouth before he gave up on the effort. He put more effort into trying to stand, using the bars near him as something to lean again, one arm wrapped around his torso as his eyes once more move to Risa. He could not feel anything for her. Not anger, not grief, not sympathy or pity. Nothing and he supposed that the emotion might come later, but right now...his mind was too fried to think much on anything.
 
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When the Aavan shifted to his smaller form and began to cough up blood, Rora's first thought was that she should help. She didn't know how, or why, only that is was a simple, straight-forward thought. One that didn't hurt, like everything else did right now. One that wasn't as bewildering as Risa's corpse, or the broken chains or the destroyed walls, or why she couldn't remember any of it.

But when he moved -- or tried to move -- toward her, she only flinched away with a hoarse gasp. It was then she became aware of the fear, hot, and carnal and eating through the pain and the anger and the sadness. Fear, raging in an amorphous cloud above and behind and all around her, consuming her from the outside in. She was shaking, she realized. It might have been with cold -- she was soaked through to the bone for some reason...maybe she had tried to save Risa? Yes, probably.

It could have been from pain. Risa hurt. The dead Keeper hurt. And more than either of them, the Aavan hurt, setting every fiber of her being aflame with every breath.

It might have been from exhaustion. Whatever had happened during her blackout -- maybe she had tried to fight off the Aavan when he attacked Risa -- it had left her more exhausted than she'd ever been in her life. That she was still standing was a miracle, and even that felt tenuous.

The Aavan coughed again, and this time, she stumbled away from him. No, the tremors racking her body had little to do with sadness, cold, pain, or weariness. She was afraid. She was more afraid than she had ever been her life. She was afraid of the Aavan. However different he had seemed, he had finally snapped, breaking his chains and killing --

No.

Oh, no.

"R-Risa?"

For some reason, her voice was hoarse, as though she'd been screaming. Screaming at the Aavan for mercy, most like. Yes, that sounded right. "Risa?"

Rora turned to rush to the pool and nearly stumbled, ending on her knees beside her sisters floating corpse. There was no love lost between the two Cerebrae. But Risa was nonetheless a fellow Cerebra, and moreover, her sister.

"Risa...please...please...please..." She didn't know what she was asking for, and she didn't have the strength to haul the corpse out of the pool. There was a close splashing sound, and she found herself in the pool at once, trying to breathe life into Risa's limp body.

She was nearly unconscious, exhausted by the effort when she realized how it would look.

Her eyes flicked back to the Aavan, leaning against his cage, sucking ragged, painful breaths. She stared at him, unable to form the words she wanted to say. But she tried. She had to try. If she didn't...he had already caused so much death.

She was at his side, as close as she dared, before she remembered how to speak again.

Even then, it was a struggle.

"Y--you...you killed her," she said dully. "You...we have to run. They'll find us, and it will be worse, we have to run. We have to run."
 
He heard her words, her words to her sister as if they were said right into his ears, everything heightened right now, and Mori winced at the grief in them. He could not feel it, but he heard it, smelled it, sensed it and while he could not feel anything for Risa, he knew Rora - yes, that was her name, though, he wasn't quite sure how he knew that, when he'd heard it - did feel for the other Cerebra and for some reason he couldn't bother to think about right now, he thought he might care about what harmed Rora. Such a strange thought and Mori was sure he was delirious at the moment.

He was certainly too exhausted and broken to care that she was suddenly beside him, closer than he'd willingly allowed any Cerebrae in his six years among them without threatening their lives. Her voice made him wince, ears ringing and then he looked at her in confused horror. He'd done what? He'd....he'd killed Risa? That's not what.....he didn't....remember that....didn't remember much of anything...but...his chains were gone - the muzzle now too as he'd shifted out of it - and...he was out of the pool. How could that have happened if not by his own power?

The Aavan felt a cold seep into him and he looked at Rora with wide eyes. We? Why would she need to run? What had happened here? It hurt his head to think, everything painful and so Mori merely nodded, hanging his head to let his black hair hide everything away. Nothing made sense and he didn't care anymore.

-------------------

She'd led them through the city with an accurateness that would have impressed Mori had he not been focused on merely staying on his feet and not coughing up more blood. How long it took or how they did it wasn't something he overly registered. All he knew was that the Cerebra took them on secret paths at the edge of the city and then they'd been heading into the jungle. The Aavan was too out of it to register that he was free in that moment, that he was back in his own element.

No, all he could think about was sleep and how much everything HURT. Each breath caused a flare of pain in his chest and every movement sent fire streaking through his nerves. His throat was torn raw from screaming and his insides were....it didn't bear thinking about, though, the word 'fried' came to mind. He didn't know how far they went, but when it started to get dark, but Aavan finally stumbled, fell like he'd done a few times before, but this time he didn't get up again.

He couldn't.

His body wracked itself with coughs, chunks of bloody tissue exiting his system and Mori whimpered, a constant, soft keen in the back of his throat with the pain. He wasn't beyond death yet, and the oncoming darkness and the near freezing chill it would bring would not be his friend. It might very well end his life, was highly possible and Mori knew it. He struggled then, to stand once more, his body shaking terribly as he finally worked his way to his feet, stubborn will probably the only thing keeping him there.

The Aavan sniffed the air then, carefully, swaying where he stood and then he started forward again, glancing at Rora as he went but not attempting to speak as he took them on a more purposeful course through the jungle they'd been half running, half stumbling through for hours now. Soon enough the earth just opened up before them in a small clearing and Mori didn't hesitate in the least to scramble half on his feet and half on his backside down into the gaping maw of the ground. disappearing from sight into the orange glow that exuded heat. At this point he didn't care if the Cerebra followed him or not.

He came to a stop at the end of the slope and looked around at the small cavern, noting the two small magma pools in the center, the source of the glow and the heat that would keep them alive. The black Aavan moved toward them, right to the edge of one and then collapsed. He wouldn't be rising again for the rest of the night.
 
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If anyone ever asked her to retrace her steps from Risa's broken courtyard to the depths of the eastern forest where the Aavan finally took over, Rora doubted she'd have been able to do it if given a map and a recording of that strange night. Her memory of their flight from the city was not like her memory of whatever had happened in the courtyard, broken into jagged, poisonous slivers of danger and mystery.

It was only that her mind and body were consumed as she walked. It was only habit that led them safely away from the only home she had ever known.

Questions, endless questions, and doubts, and fears, swirled in her mind amidst a haze of her own exhaustion and the Aavan's pain.

Why had she chosen to run with the Aavan? Or had she? She had known, somehow, she had to get them away from the city, that the Aavan would be prosecuted for his crimes, and that she could not stand any more of his pain. But why had she helped him? Why had she gone with him when even standing next to him made her want to curl up and sleep forever, pain and rage and sorrow racking her body?

It was a passing tree who answered: He'll kill you. He'll kill you like he killed Risa. For all his imagined niceties, he is a powerful murderer. Be careful. And do not cross him.

Yes...yes, that was right. She could remember now. The courtyard. The torture. Those awful growls, and then...Risa pleading. And her own pleading. The Aavan must have broken free. She was his hostage, simple as that. She shuddered and moved onto the next question.

Where would they go?

Well, wasn't that up to her captor? There was every chance he -- they -- would not survive the night. If that happened...she could finally rest. Or at very least go back to her people and try to explain...try to guess at what she could barely remember.

But if he did survive?

He could speak her language. Perhaps she could reason with him. She was not as hopeless as she seemed. Perhaps if she helped if, if she showed kindness, he would spare her life. Perhaps...

A flash of memory like a spear through the gut. She whimpered. There had been a Telekinetic present when Risa was murdered. How she knew, she wasn't sure, but she was certain of that simple fact.

How? Whom? The Keeper? No, he had been a pusher. The other Keeper had been away with the wounded Nuathal. Sumilah? No, Sumilah was a --

And where had she been? Had she seen...did she know Risa was...?

The imagined grief made Rora feel sick. The Matron would take the loss of both her daughters hard. The Aavan had much to answer for.

And yet...he had taken the lead. Rora had never been this deep into the forest and was no longer following her feet so much as walking to keep from falling over. Her pain and exhaustion did not match what she could feel coming off the Aavan in front of her, and yet she was sure she had never felt so tired -- and so unable to rest -- in all her years.

When the Aavan descended into the earth, she pulled up short, seeing a gaping maw rising from the dark to consume her. A stone whispered at her feet: Dangerous! He is dangerous. He has killed...he is a monster...

Yes...yes. She remembered now. Monster.

She followed anyway, knowing she would die as Risa had if she disobeyed.

When the Aavan collapsed, she flinched, part fear, part pain, and thought again she ought to help him. Show him kindness. Buy her freedom. Weariness tugged at her bones, and blackness at the edge of her eyes, tempting her into unconsciousness.

No. She would not sleep. Not tonight. It was too dark, too far from home. Sumilah was grieving, and Risa was dead, and Rora...

Rora didn't know what she was anymore.

She took a shuddering breath and whispered to the pools of liquid fire: What have I done?

And the madness seized up and swept over her again.
 
Whether Rora ever succumbed to sleep or not, Mori didn't know as he didn't wake but for small episodes where he was not lucid in the least, a fever having set in. At those points he'd called out in his native tongue, voice hoarse and broken, his body shuddering in the pain of healing itself and then he'd drift off again, whimpering and restless into the long night. Morning didn't bring wakefulness at first, though it did bring a bit more calm to his sleep, the fever breaking, and it wasn't until noon that his eyes blinked open slowly.

The first thing Mori noted was the heat, something that had been denied him for nearly five weeks. He looked to the magma pool and without hesitation, dipped his arm into the liquid flame. There was no pain - he held the blood of a red Aavan within him from his mother - only a glorious warmth that crept through his body, easy the lingering chill and the pain in his muscles from the lightning and the running. Mori relaxed slightly then, his second course of action being to lift his arm from the magma after a time, watching it slough off for a moment before he shifted his position, having been laying on his stomach. That could not have been helpful to his abused lungs and insides, and they protested mightily when he stopped putting pressure on them, but breathing became so much easier.

He curled on his side instead. The pain still there with each movement, but not as bad as yesterday.

Yesterday.

When he'd killed a Cerebrae.

Had he?

The black Aavan struggled to remember, but all he could see was darkness. All he could hear were sounds he didn't understand. Just as before. Had he lashed out somehow? Last he'd known he was too close to death to move. He'd felt his life slipping away from him with every shallow breath as the pain swept relentlessly through his body and his heart started to give out. That was the last thing he remembered....that and Rora's face, her green eyes looking back at him in horror and anger, fear and pain. She stood out far more than anything else had.

His translucent eyes searched for her now, finding her on the opposite side of the magma pool. She looked as awful as he'd ever seen any Cerebrae look....but then again, he couldn't be much better, covered in his own blood, dirtied, pale - looking like death warmed over. The Aavan studied her for a long minute, trying to figure out why she was here. If he'd killed her sister....why was she here? Why would she have come with him?

And did he really care right now? Mori wasn't sure. From what he could remember of yesterday, she'd seemed afraid of him...which, if he'd killed her sister, he could understand, but then....why follow him? Why SAVE him from the execution? Why help him?

There was something about this not adding up, but his mind was too tired and frayed, his body hurting too much and his spirit too weak to know how to figure it out right now. So Mori didn't. He merely went back to sleep, his body needing to simply heal, curling in on himself after a time as if he expected to be hurt at any moment.
 
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She spent the night watching him, watching over him, a careful distance kept between them, because she even thought she couldn't think straight, Rora hadn't forgotten what the Aavan had done to her sister.

Well, no. That wasn't true. What had he done? It rather seemed Risa had drowned, but there were no almost signs of struggle or injury on her, which seemed almost inevitable with something the size of an Aavan killing a Cerebra in rage. There had been a little blood at the back of her skull. Blunt force, maybe? Nothing matching the claws or teeth the Aavan sported, but perhaps his tail?

None of it mattered now, though. What did matter was a plan of escape. By now, he'd led her so far into the forest, she knew trying to get back in the dark would sooner mean her death than her salvation, even if the trees could help. But if she survived the night, perhaps she could run. If she could only get back to the city before the Aavan tracked her down, he might see her as no longer worth her own death. Just a worrisome piece of his past that would live, shrouded in despair, at the back of his mind for the rest of his life.

She could feel the fever burning through his bones, and at times, her soft, quiet whimpers joined his, as saddening harmony of pain and illness and loss. She thought she ought to help. She wanted to help. She didn't know how, and worse...she didn't know why.

Morning sneaked up on them both, and while the Aavan settled a bit, he did not wake. If she could not still feel his pain humming through her, she might have thought him dead. The thought kept her from sleeping, despite her weariness. Before the prior day's events, she had only ever felt death twice. The first was a murder, uncommon among the Carebrae people. The rage that had preceded the crime, and the fear and betrayal pulsing from the victim, had followed her for weeks. She woke drenched in sweat at night, and jumped at shadows in the day.

The second had been a suicide following the failed birthcycle nearly fifteen years ago. That was the year a toxin in a new fruit had been found. Every single Matron had birthed a still born for three weeks straight. One couldn't take it. Rora, in her early Empath training, had been there to discover grief and coping mechanisms. She recalled very clearly the pain of the blade being plunged into the Matron's stomach. Somehow, the relief she felt after was even worse.

Yesterday, the Aavan had been near death, near that suicidal grief twice. A Keeper had died. And Risa...

No. She couldn't sleep. Their deaths would rise up and overtake her, and she might never return to herself --

The sudden stirring of the Aavan woke her. She stared, startled for a second at his pale-eyed gaze, and with paranoid fear and suicide still on her mind, when he moved toward the magma pool and put his arm inside, she screamed.

"No!"

But...it didn't hurt. In fact, there was a momentary relief so palpable, she nearly passed out. It wasn't long before the Aavan did the same in actuality, all without either of them having so much as greeted each other.

Which was fine. They weren't friends. Convicts, maybe. Refugees. Even forced allies was a stretch.

Rora wasn't sure what the next day would hold. The suns were high enough that even through the thick canopy, she thought maybe she could navigate her way back to the city. What she would find, she couldn't guess, and didn't particularly want to know.

But the Aavan's presence made her body ache and her head stupid. She did not think he would kill her. She wasn't even sure he -- well, no. He could kill. He had proven that. But she was safe, she thought, at least for a bit longer. Enough time to rest and recover her strength with some assurance that she wouldn't wander in the wrong direction.

Okay. She would not be a hostage. She would use the Aavan's own damnable stupidity against him. He would not imprison her, would not take her life as he had Risa's. She would make herself a playable character, and asset. And then she would run.

For now, though, she could feel hunger and weakness in them both. Pushing herself to her feet, she tried to turn off her mind as she stumbled into the forest to find them something to eat.
 
She'd left.

He didn't know why that was the first thing to come into his mind upon waking again a while later, but it was a keen bit of information, like someone had whispered it into his ear the entire time he slept so that it was at the forefront of everything when he came back to consciousness. Mori's translucent eyes confirmed the information even as the lack of Rora's presence in his mind did. He felt briefly alarmed by the fact that she was not in the cavern, but reason told him that she'd have to go back to her people at some point - he still didn't know why she was here with him - so there was no use wishing she'd stayed.

So then...why did it still bother him?

The Aavan stretched slowly with a yawn, feeling his body twinge with pain, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. His people were fast healers, but he knew food would go a long way in giving him the energy to accomplish such a task. And water. Mori shuddered at the thought of it, but he wasn't stupid enough to let the experience he'd had keep him from a vital life-source. He was just going to be very, very careful around it for a long while.

With that thought in mind, he made his body rise, aches presenting themselves and a sense of vertigo overtaking his senses for moment, nearly tipping him over again before he regained some equilibrium and slowly made his way up the incline to the jungle above. The daylight greeted his eyes with a painful sting, causing them to water before he tilted his head down a bit, black hair hiding the glare so that he could look around while his senses adjusted. A smile curled Mori's lips then. It had been so long, so very long since he'd seen trees, had felt grass and dirt beneath his bare feet or claws. The wind smelled of spice and vegetation, of dust and dirt and the wild land itself. His hand touched the bark of a tree and he rested his forehead to it, hearing the small whisperings of the world itself, as all his kind could.

He couldn't understand the trees, the land, the wind, but he could hear the haunting hum of their song and it welcomed him back, enfolded him in its arms. He was free again and it was only now sinking in with a quiet acceptance. He could feel no joy, though. Not when there were so many of his kind still trapped, still in a living hell. No, he would not rejoice until they were free as well. But in the meantime....

The Aavan sniffed the air, actually looking for any trace of his own people - not that he actually thought he'd find them this close to the Cerebrae city - but what came to his nose was another scent entirely, one that made his senses and his mind perk immediately in interest despite himself. Rora. New-scent. She wasn't far from here. Frowning and tilting his head in some curiosity, Mori debated deeply whether he should actually go looking for her. She was still a Cerebra. He didn't know why she was here...but she was still the enemy.

Right?

Annnnd his feet were already moving with soundless ease through the jungle, his nose leading the way.
 
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She felt him coming long before she heard him.

This far from the city, things were quiet. No Nuathal feeling downtrodden and subservient. No haughty, anxious, proud Cerebrae. And no Aavan with thoughts that twisted like trees in a storm. Even the trees were quieter out here, each sighing contentedness over exhaustion and complaint of pollution. Rora was beginning to feel better. Without the sick Aavan, her mind was a little clearer. She could start to sort through her thoughts, starting with her plan of escape. Leaving...whatever had happened yesterday for a time when she was less hungry, less tired.

The exhaustion was deep but bracing. She knew it as her own, caused by her fight against Risa and the Aavan yesterday, and last night's sleeplessness. There no confusion, no forced pity. Only herself and her thoughts and --

She felt his consciousness flicker at the corner of her mind and turned abruptly, expecting to see him just behind her.

He wasn't, and she frowned.

But she had felt him so strongly -- mostly pain and exhaustion, but it was a unique brand. Like she could tell Sumilah, Risa, Siya, and Rogan from the other Cerebrae, just by the feel of their emotions and thoughts, she was beginning to recognized the first Aavan she had ever 'known'. Mori, she remembered suddenly, and wondered if he was getting closer.

For a moment, she was confused.

Then the panic set in.

At once, her heart began to race, and she turned without thinking and began to run. She did not know where she was going, only that it was away from the encroaching consciousness behind her. He meant to kill her, she remembered. How could she have forgotten? The moment's peace had made her stupid, and now she was paying the price.
 
He smelled her panic clearly and for a moment Mori was entirely confused. What was she scared of? His eyes then flickered around to the surrounding jungle and immediately he remembered. Six years in a city had dulled his memories, his instincts somewhat, but an Aavan never truly forgot their roots and Mori's were of the desert and the jungles, of this planet and all it's wonders and dangers. And quite a few dangers were flashing in front of his eyes at the moment, making him speed up and very soon he was shifting, four legs racing through the trees much quicker than two. His size didn't hinder him. He was used to this and adrenaline was bringing back actions long ago learned, nearly forgotten.

The fear tang was getting stronger, more pungent, but it was like he could actually FEEL it and that made Mori wonder, confused even as he gained distance on the Cerebra he now knew was running. It didn't occur to the Aavan that she might be running from him. He didn't see any reason for her to and so he assumed she was in some kind of danger, and no matter what else he might be, Mori was not cold-hearted. He would have liked to be sometimes as it certainly would have made his life a lot easier, but he wasn't.

So he chased after Rora, searching with every sense for the threat to her and soon enough he found it. It was ahead of her, something that puzzled him momentarily, but in the end the Aavan reasoned that the Canaris had been faster than the Cerebra and was now trying to let her run into its claws. She was coming upon it - a great cat-like body with lizard features, nearly the size of an Aavan and almost twice as deadly with its poisoned fangs and swift movements - just as Mori came upon her.

His body screamed absolute protest at him as he leaped over Rora's small frame and before her with an earth-shattering roar, stopping the Canaris in its forward momentum toward the female. The two giants faced off then, one healthy and quick, deadly and fully thinking that the prey belonged to it and the other weakened, hurting, slower and yet somehow far fiercer. The Canaris shrieked at him, narrow jaws opened, venom dripping as its tail raised high behind it, trying to be intimidating and the Aavan roared back, wings expanded, tail snapping the air as lightning arced across his body. Tension, thick as sludge crackled in the air and then the Canaris backed down, its gold eyes looking away even as it started to back up. It was the lightning that decided it and Mori growled after the creature, making sure it was truly leaving before his wings folded back against his body and he started to breathe a bit raggedly, hard with the run and the show of strength that he really didn't have.

His large head turned back then to look at Rora and Mori raised an eye-ridge to her, his voice rumbled and deep, and hoarse as his throat was still very much torn and he'd not help it any just now. "Don't run blindly. It'll get you killed."

He looked back toward the jungle then and heaved a deep sigh, glancing back to the Cerebra again as his tail flicked like a whip through the air as he started to move, much slower this time, every movement semi-painful, but worth it in his way of thinking. Rora was still alive. "Come on, I'll find you some water."
 
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Rora was, both in general and at the moment, many things, terrified easily topping the list. That was rather a given as she sat just behind the black Aavan, on his feet for the first time in nearly two days, her view of the great cat-like beast she had been feeling for only a few moments now half blocked by the Aavan's tail.

Angry, too, though that was the cat-lizard's, not hers. She'd been so afraid running from the Aavan, so pushed by his then-inexplicable panic and much of her own, that she hadn't felt the hunger and rage bearing down on her from the other direction until the thing was directly in front of her.

She'd stumbled backward and fallen onto her rump, too winded even to gasp or cry for help. It would make no difference. This was precisely the reason the Cerebrae, even those who dwelled outside the city, avoided what her people called the Wilds.

In the beginning, even after the War of Reclamation, there had been many Cerebrae deaths as they adjusted to their new homes. Telekinetics, Pushers, Dreamers, and even Empaths, had been at the forefront of terraforming the strange and dangerous planet, working together to overcome the native species, each of which seeming larger and more hostile than the last. Right up through the Aavan.

Admittedly, part of Rora was curious, even as her heart raced with fear, echoed quietly by the cat-beast's. She peaked around the Aavan in wonder at the monster, watching a liquid she could only assume to be fatal drip down bared fangs and sizzle on the brush below. Several birthcycles ago, all young Cerebrae had been taught of the other species on their new planet. Sumilah might know what the creature was called, but Rora could not guess, not even from the Aavan's thoughts, despite the familiarity she felt there. Now, most Cerebrae only learned about Nuathal and Aavan, and then, only the Keepers.

Another part of her was awed. She had witnessed the Aavan's power and beauty before, but never like this. If Siya (Siya -- the name sparked a moment of nostalgia and inexplicable guilt) were here, she'd have appreciated the rediscovery of a native species. But Rora's eyes were on the Aavan. There was a strength there, profound even after his injuries. Grace, too, and knowledge. The lightning that danced across his dark scales was blue-white and beautiful. For a moment, Rora forget even to feel free as she watched the Aavan in its natural habitat, wondering briefly if the Cerebrae of old had noted Aavan beauty before subduing the wild creatures.

As the snarling lizard finally slunk away, Rora was met with a slew of new emotions and feelings. Exhaustion, sliding heavy from the Aavan, far outweighing her own. Pain, too, again from him. But a small, subconscious sense of victory. Greater than two animals in competition over the same prey. This was a job well done, a sense of completion. Like he'd set out to...what, save her? And then done so.

And with it, a sense of confusion, this time all her own. Why, if not to claim her as his own, had the Aavan saved her? Especially at such a cost to him, if the pain and fatigue running through him were any indication.

She could only stare quietly as he turned and spoke, eyes wide in equal parts confusion and fear. Perhaps it had only been a show of his strength. A reminder that he was hers, and if he tried to run, she would not escape nearly so well as had the catbeast.

Her thinking did not align with what she felt from the Aavan, but she clung to it, anyway, needing some anchor of certainty in this most strange of times.

She stood carefully to follow at a distance, before it occurred to her she ought to say something. Explain that she hadn't been running, or not at first, only looking for food -- for him, even! -- when the lizard-thing had found her.

Or else to snap back that he needn't be so condescending, she wasn't running blindly, and she didn't need his help, and what did a city-animal know of the forest, anyway. She felt irritation spike, fueled by hunger and confusion, and scowled lightly, opening her lips to let that Aavan have it.

She was certain she had never been more surprised then when she said only, "Thank you."
 
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The words surprised him, completely so and Mori's head snapped back around to look at the Cerebra, studying her for a moment as he tried to understand why she would say such a thing to him. If it had been one of his own people, he would not have questioned it, but coming from Rora, from any Cerebrae, it was startling. He didn't know what to make of it at first, but common courtesy won over, as if he could hear his mother's voice in his ear, and the black Aavan nodded back slowly.

"You're welcome."

He said nothing more, moving through the jungle once more, and though fatigue pulled at him, his movements were far smoother than yesterday and somehow he moved through the trees and foliage without difficulty, stopping periodically to tilt his head to listen, sniff the air as he kept their course. Not an hour later, they reached the river. Wide and deep it coursed its way across almost half the planet from the north to south. Mori approached it slowly and when Rora made to do the same, his tail moved just in front of her, not touching, but keeping her back as his pale eyes studied carefully the shore-line.

The Aavan moved forward carefully then. He didn't actually have too much to fear in the jungle - the desert was far more dangerous for an Aavan - as he was a top predator, but there WERE dangers and for the Cerebra....she'd be dead by nightfall without him. And that wasn't arrogance talking, nor pride. Simply hard, cold fact and now Mori approached the water slowly more for her sake than his. He let his nose touch the surface of the water and then sent a small circle - a literal string circle of lightning - out into the water.

There was thrashing and a large shape, having looked like a log before, went swimming away at top speed, eliciting an amused snort from Mori. He'd not hurt it, merely warned the water hunter off and at that point he looked back to his smaller companion. "It's safe." His own mouth moved back to the river then and started to drink, the cool liquid soothing his throat and creating a sense of more energy already.

He'd have to hunt soon, too. And find something for this Cerebra. She was like an infant in this place, not knowing what was dangerous and what was safe, and while part of Mori found it amusing, more of him found it concerning and even a bit irritating. Why in the world had she come out here with him? Was she not all there in the head?
 
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Rora followed quietly behind her companion -- no, her captor -- trusting his assurance in his home over her lack thereof. Now that she was neither running from anything, nor searching, at least not actively, for food or escape, she was beginning to become aware of the multitude of consciousnesses around her. Living creatures, small and large, and none of them recognizable. The part of Rora that was used to having spent quiet hours at the edges of the forest, away from the city where Cerebrae emotions often clouded her own...that part was equal parts fascinated and comforted. The Cerebrae generally kept to the Matriarch's city and her surrounding villages. The Wilds were known for being dangerous, barren, and just that: wild. And yet here she was, feeling thousands and more of vibrant psyches touching her own. It was as invigorating as it was overwhelming.

It was also nerve-wracking. How had she gone so far without having known the catbeast was going to attack? She had been nearly upon the snarling creature -- or rather, it had been upon her -- before she sensed, all because she was running scared. Her plans of escape were creeping further and further away. A Dreamer might stand a chance in the forest. A talented Pusher or Telekinetic would do better. But an Empath? All she could do was feel her death coming. For the first time, Rora began to realize she may be stuck with the reletive safety of her Aavan companion -- no. Captor.

The feeling was cemented when she cleared the cool water of a quiet beast lurking there, again, without her knowledge. Spurred to fear by the Aavan's presence, the water-thing filled Rora's mind with a sudden panic, but that was it. Whatever had been there before the Aavan's trick had blended in with the other myriad consciousness of the forest. Rora had been, for all intents and purposes, blind to it.

The sudden realization that she was very, very far out of her element spurred another spike of reckless fear, perhaps fueled by the Aavan's closeness, still exhausted, still hurting, and now, if she read it correctly, burdened by the task of her safety, for whatever reason.

It made her feel small and childish and vulnerable, and she found she did not like it one bit.

"I don't need your help," she snapped, immediately aware that she sounded rather like a spoiled newborn, and feeling all the more irritable for it. "And I'm not thirsty," she lied. That strange and nameless exhaustion from whatever had happened in the courtyard at Risa's yesterday still coiled in her belly, and the cool water looked all the more inviting for the relief she could feel it brought Mo -- the Aavan.

Oh, what she wouldn't give to submerge herself in that water, let the coolness take her and wash away the anxiety and fear and confusion. Her thirst appeared to redouble in the face of her staunch stubbornness, but she firmly resolved not to drink until the Aavan moved away, at the very least.
 
Mori lifted his head at her words, water dripping from his muzzle as his pale eyes met her snapping, prideful, stubborn green ones. He didn't see an enemy in that moment nor a friend or even an equal. He saw a child and the Aavan's eyes hardened as he lifted his neck completely, the arch graceful and powerful as he looked down at her from his great height, very purposely looked down at her, much like he'd done the people outside his cage at the Auction. Right now she fell into the same category they had. Arrogant little insects who didn't seem capable of learning or change or understanding.

"Fine. Then don't drink. Let the humidity leech the little moisture you have until you're delirious. Wait until the Gatorin comes back after I've left and you try to fight him off as he takes a lunge for you and drags you under."

He rose from his crouch, an audible snarl in his throat, but he didn't approach Rora, merely turning and moving past her. "Find your own heat cavern when the suns go down and if you get hungry, good luck distinguishing the poisonous mimicry fruits from the real ones. Go, make your way back to your pampered jail of a city and your barbaric people. I don't know what you're doing here anyway."

Mori left then, angry and much rather interested in focusing his attention on something useful instead of a spoiled Cerebra who didn't want to appreciate his efforts to help anyway. So instead he sniffed the wind again and he let his senses take over, pushing his more intelligent thoughts and emotions away as hunger and the instinct to hunt overwhelmed all else and he let it this time. He'd been keeping it at bay for her sake, to be more aware, to keep her far more fragile life - at this point - safe, but if she didn't want it, then he wasn't going to put in the work....at least not right now. Something, some nagging voice told him that he'd go back for he, that he wouldn't actually let anything happen to her for reasons even he didn't understand yet, but it wasn't right now.

Right now his nose was catching the scent of food and Mori started through the jungle toward it.
 
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