PICTURES OF PATRON SAINTS UP ON MY WALL

In short--no, he could not. He was already straining, but one thing, at least, was a bonus--he could see the water shimmering, trailing and flowing in strange forms, through the air.

The stag stepped forward, allowing it to coat him--some cool against the heat. He'd been warned not to drink it but damn did it feel good. He thought, of course--mind racing as best it could--as he did so. He had few options, here, but luckily the magic he did know was perfectly suited to such things.

He could try to translocate himself with Sora, but that would leave him in an awkward position, falling into the falling quicksand. He could try to yank her free, but that meant loss of Nassir's stone, and if he failed, a struggle to save her life. He could shift the water to steam, but that would likely burn her badly.

Well, there was one other thing that he could try.

Pride grimaced, speaking again with a strained and hoarse voice. Mere seconds had passed, but already he could feel how damn taxing the spell was. "Brace yourself," he told Sora hoarsely, and did what he should have done from the start: he sent a blast of pure kinetic force for the floating debris, just as he released that magic.

It should--he hoped--send Sora tumbling, along with the stone, and send water and sand flying. But it wasn't a particularly hard hit--just enough to scatter everything, just enough to ensure that several hundred pounds of quicksand and water didn't fall along with Sora and add another body to the pit.

Hopefully, the sand (and water) would at least be soft enough to break her fall--and they could recover Nassir's stone, and then move on.

He watched, possessive and reluctant, as Sora picked up Nassir's stone. For a moment it felt urgent that Pride be the one to take it--but no, Sora had the basket. It only made sense, and he deliberately tried to quell that uncharacteristic feeling. It was purely because of how important Nassir had been to him; one of two real confidants that he'd ever had, and a friend.

Pride looked away, gazing out over the marsh, at the distance they had yet to travel. He was grateful, at least, that he was wet; but his magicka was being expended at an alarming rate, and this was no place to stop and rest. "I'll need to conserve my magicka as much as possible," he answered quietly; "Hopefully the rest have not... sunk. I will lay Nassir's stone to rest, when we return--thank you for carrying it," he added, sparing a half-absent glance down at Sora.

There was grief in even his gait as he pushed forward--Sora, undoubtedly, would still need to lead him but he was a little bit distracted. A bad thing to be, in Hydra.

Slowly he made his way past the battered remnants of the first torch, remembering Sora's brief explanation--that it had been the 'first torch,' that Fireheart had lit it. He'd not pressed her on that; her voice had seemed a little tight.

But he wondered what it all meant. And, already emotionally drained, he half didn't want to know.

A puppeteer had lifted their strings, danced their bones, and left them to rot. Nassir had been left in quicksand, but that would not be the case for all.

Some distance ahead, the second torch would come into view: another twisted figure of black against the barren hellscape, the shimmer of heat distorting it wildly.

There were no stones, here.

Coughing, choking, the dog thrashed in the mud, but blood was twisting from his muzzle, the acrid gases eating away at him from the inside. The poisons killed him, and it was almost merciful, to end. No one found him, alone out there in the dark. Left behind, and lost.

The little snake whipped along the sand, throwing up stray grains behind it, splashing through a shallow pool. 'I'm here! Where are you? I can help you, just stay calm!' Pleading, reassuring, begging, promising. The last words he would ever speak alive. Another voice, plaintive, calling into the dark: 'Simon? Where are you?!' What was it Sora had said-..? 'Save your own stones, not those of strangers.' But this little snake had died trying to do just that. Had died alone, though not the only one. His last moments had been spent thrashing, torn, blood rent to spray across the sand below.

Beyond the Second Torch--laying baking in the sun, bones strewn over a sandbank--lay the serpentine skeleton of Simon. One vertebrae still shone, glinting, its smoky quartz reflecting light like a beacon even at a distance, the bones scratched deep by unseen claws.

Not far away lay the bones--strewn about, this one, and half-scattered--of the dog Styx. His wing-bones lay spread to either side, the brown gemstone that had lain between his eyes still lodged there.

Pride glanced at Sora, a little surprised at the question, even past the mind-dulling heat--the heat that left his head hanging low, the armor clinging to his pelt baking hot, ears drooping. But still, her question took him. It felt... wrong, to ask it now; but he wouldn't say as much, and shook his head gently at her question. "No, but it would need... consideration," he answered simply. Distantly... quietly.

The bones came into sight, then, and he went silent; and as Sora went to the quartz, he approached to regard the dog's skull with its brown sardonyx. He didn't think he'd known this one, but it felt wrong to merely leave it here--and Sora was oblivious to it, engrossed in the other. Pride listened briefly, one ear flicking; it seemed she'd known that one.

One of her friends, then.

He leaned down, shifting pale gaze back to the sardonyx; this took a long moment to pry loose of the skull, but Pride did so, bracing one sharp hoof against it. He leaned to drop this into the basket, if Sora allowed (once she was done with her quiet regard for the stone she'd recovered), with an explanation afterward: "I do not know this one... but it feels wrong to leave it here." He had no intention of bringing it life, or the like--it wasn't his place to--but maybe he could find out if it had, perhaps, somewhere had a friend.

Pride paused, before moving on, watching the peccary solemnly. "I'm sorry for your loss," he told her, quiet, and waited for her to lead further.

They second torch was, in broad daylight, in view of the final torch. The wisp, it would seem, had led the group through the dark in something of an arc--away, then back past this area at some distance, back toward Tunnel P. Styx had tormented them not far off with his jittering words, and then collapsed close by.

As they approached the Third Torch they would find it as Sora last remembered it: battered, hacked at, half-destroyed by the Thing in the Dark before the fire had caught and half-consumed it.

Orenstein's voice. Had they been his last words-? 'We're going to be fine, guys.' And then Anemoi had gone too far into the shadows. He had gone after her. He had saved her. And the darkness had swallowed him, instead.

Puck, hands pressed to his little ears, screaming. 'Shut up, shut up-'

Simon's twisted, broken voice in the darkness. 'I can't see please help me I'm scared...'
The brown dog's plea: 'Please help...' And Owlface's call, urging them to leave the light... 'Hide in the shadows!' Another voice--the snake--tangled, wet. 'You left us.' ... 'I need help. Someone to carry me. Please.'

The snarls of the burning wolf as its white fur ignited, engulfed in flames; as it charged into the darkness, as if to fight it on its own, to save the life of Ifrit.

So many lost--and so few stones remained. The charred bones of Fireheart lay to one side, a few stray tufts of fur still clinging to them, or sunk into the sand nearby, whatever had fallen away before the oil had claimed it. White or singed, it was still recognizable and the Clinohumite that clung to the top of his sternum would perhaps be a little large for the basket, if even they could break it free.

Orenstein's would be harder to locate: the skeleton was some distance off, a tangled, half-sunk pile, the little Chrysocolla at the tip of the skull now only loosely-attached.

For Elyon, for Usingizi, for Kini-yolotl, Owlface and all the rest, there was no recovery. Their bodies had sunk beneath the Dead Marsh, forever in its grasp, or something else had claimed those stones: Sora would be left without these.

So many had fallen, and so few stones remained.

"Did you know his name?" Pride asked, quiet; he glanced at Sora, sombre. "I can try to find out if he has any surviving friends." He had no intention of reviving that stone--the dog had been a stranger to him and it wouldn't have felt right--but he'd try to find a home for it, someone... to grant closure to.

And then they were moving on again.

Pride blinked past the heat, pale eyelashes fluttering. He could hear his own heavy breaths in his ears, the stifling of Hydra muffling all but his own heartbeat, his own heaving lungs. Still, he tried to focus, casting out his magic--the throbbing of his head fighting him all the way.

He could see Fireheart's body, but he wanted a few moments for that... he was almost reluctant to approach, to acknowledge the finality of it. He looked around with his magic, instead, grimacing at the hum of pain in the back of his skull, and concentrated.

"Here," he offered softly, and picked his way through the sucking waters to the half-buried primate-hybrid lying in the muck. The bones were stained, dirty with water, and Pride regarded the little gemstone with sadness. "One of yours?" he asked softly, glancing back at Sora.

Another pass with his magic, and-... "This is the last of them that I can see. There may be more farther on--where do we go from here?" he asked, unaware that this was the end of the line. Unaware that the rest were lost, forever.

Unaware how lucky he was to find the stones he sought, to find closure here, where Sora would find so many missing.

He came to stand over Fireheart's bones, staring down at them, his brow a little furrowed. Sora's words came floating back to him, her halting explanation given in Orion what seemed, now, like a lifetime ago. 'Fireheart gave this speech. Kept our spirits up. Told us to, uh, to live for the dead. He... he died, saving my brother, Ifrit. The shadows-- they started to take him, and he fought. Fire everywhere. He burned himself alive to scare back the shadows, and... my brother survived, because of him.'

The stag's ears drooped, and the heat seemed almost too much to bear. An irony, came a soft thought; this one had died in fire, and here he was suffering mere desert heat. He steadied himself. If Fireheart had done that, he could survive another hour in Hydra for his memory.

It took some doing to twist the gemstone free, and each time he wrenched it and rattled the bones, he felt his heart pull with grief. It felt wrong--desecrating--but worse still would be to leave all of this out here to rot. He would have brought the entirety of the skeletons, but the bones were loose and perhaps it was a fitting resting place: for the heroes to lay where they had fallen, ever a testament, a monument to their courage.

When at last he'd gotten the stone free--and didn't it gleam and glitter, as if it still held fire within itself?--he looked to Sora. "This one won't fit, I think. I can carry it, I believe." He looked back to the bones, and took a shaky breath. A moment, then, for a little mental eulogy.

Nassir, Fireheart: you both fell defending others, selfless, courageous to the last. I admire you, I mourn you, I will tell others of your bravery and you will be the shining examples of those who come later. I will tell them of your kindness, Nassir--quiet. Unobtrusive. Support in ways most don't realize they even need, I think. Your determination, Fireheart--driven by goodness in you. And if your stones are given life--by me, or by others--in the future, I will tell the children of what heroes you became.
He paused, and then turned away, head hanging, grief pouring through him.

Ahh, but if deer could cry-!