damask with her bloody mouth, bloody tongue, bloody teeth, someone else's pain, someone else's voice, discordantly polite as it served up an offer whose answer could only be yes — damask, she felt like she was eating shattered glass. did she want to leave? of course not. but —

that's the question, isn't it? wanted, needed, respected ... or useless, helpless, worthless?

cat's too nice to tell you which category you belong to, but you know. you know.

oh, yeah, she was well and truly ready to throw up now. her chest hurt, her head hurt, her stomach hurt, all of her just hurt — but at least that class of side effect gave her something to hold onto, something real and concrete beyond a shadow of a doubt, a tether to reality amidst all this, all this — feeling, hers and this very damn screwed-up cat's mixing into a wet-on-dry, weeping-rotting wound of ... augh, she couldn't even tell; anxiety, anger, sadness, or what? — and gray noise was droning deep in her skull, almost overpowering wilder's voice, and all she could sense was pain, pain, pain —


"stop."


the word came out in a startling, singular clap of her jaws, almost on top of the cat's vacillating apology. it was hard, pointed, frustrated; there was a form of anger in it, but ... there was something else in her tone, too. something pleading. and the anger wasn't for wilder.


damask's eyes crept up from the floor and met wilder's, faintly tortured, shaking in their sockets. she took a step back — staggered, slightly — caught it right away. a quick glance over her shoulder, as if to leave; then, a slow parting of lips, as if to speak. very softly, under her breath: "okay. okay." psyching herself up.


the last kindness she could, that's what. she composed herself, hard — and in that moment, her face became steel. damask lifted her head and faced wilder directly, drawn-up, ramrod-straight. "the judges didn't dislike your performance. their heads went somewhere else, somewhere dark — or at least auré's did." again the voice didn't feel entirely hers, even as it made its way forth at her own idiosyncratic pace: clean, level, rapid, leaving no space for premature interruption, rattling off thoughts as they slipped one-by-one into place.


"he didn't tell me what happened — i wouldn't ask him to — but he did say you were old friends, to borrow his words, and that's demonstrably no longer the case. something happened, and — it had to do with mother, didn't it?"

and she didn't stop to wait for an answer, because what else could it have been? oh, man, it all fit together. nothing else had that effect on auré, and factoring wilder's behavior into it, too ... whatever the particulars, there were only so many ways it could've gone down, this big mystery that overshadowed it all. instinct almost, almost forced her to test the air at the ensuing conclusion, just to triple-check for the rotten smell her father had mentioned — but she stopped the impulse in its tracks, struck by the sheer absurdity of that impossibility. it was all ancient history now.

"you weren't yourself." and, more quietly, the point: "it wasn't your fault." ... then: "but it also wasn't his, and wilder, listen, i'd like to help you, really i would, but between you and me, he hasn't been doing so hot lately, and i have to prioritize my father, my" — (inhale, dial up the noise so she wouldn't have to hear, and say it, just say it —)


"k-k-king" — (done, that's it, dial down, exhale —)


— "over everything else." the sudden taste of vomit stung in her mouth. she swallowed, swallowed, swallowed — shook her head a little: hold up, i'm not finished — cleared her throat — continued. "i'll let him know i saw you, all right?"


"he'll come to you when he's ready. until then — ... i think nobody's company is better than mine." that was honest. palpably so. another step back, and she flicked her muzzle off to the side. somewhere along the way, the rabbit had decayed into a puddle of oil, but the other souvenirs — the mosses, the crystals — were still bundled up in front of its remains, glowing merrily, not a care in the world. somehow, looking at them made her shoulders feel heavier. "keep those."


yes, damn it, yes. the accipiter breathed in, wiped her mind clean, pictured negative space — and despite everything, the residual pain as the connection with wilder finally ebbed away, the settling-in of exhaustion, the novelty and difficulty of this particular spell ... despite everything, her stone acquiesced. a shimmer of nothingness rippled over her frame, sweeping away the sight of her in an instant. three paces backward — light as anything, virtually silent, no talons or tailfeathers on the ground — and a spin on one heel, swift and smooth —


but she was already unfurling the sails, crouched at the ready to jump into flight.