James exited his house, now finished, decorated with the leathers that Abraxas had painted, with bedding on the inside and things stored out of the rain. It was a quaint little place. He turned his head to the voice and saw Aran, his face expressionless.

But at least now Aran could see James in his new glory. His wings big with banded feathers on the top with white down and pink, purple, and blue feathers on the underside, with four peacock feathers and a similar coloring to the twin crests on his neck. He was beautiful.

"Aran," he said, a bit surprised to see him, "What are you doing here?"

It was an awful long way to come for anyone, so he didn't really expect anyone to just drop in except for Kaimana and Tahi-shei. Oh, and Comet.

"Are you well?", he asked warily.

James' eyes flicked down to the bird skull and he felt only disappointment, "... I suppose. I have time."

He shuffled his wings restlessly, craning his neck to preen the feathers littering his chest, "What about?"

Since their last talk, he hadn't expected to see Aran for a while. Either he managed to get his disappointment across and was being avoided or the other had wound up dead, having not heeded his warning.

But Aran was here, so clearly neither of those things were true, and he was afraid that something else was wrong.

James scoffed, "I'm not going to beat around the bush, Aran. You shouldn't have gone back in the first place."

He stalked past Aran and dug at a grassless patch of dirt, digging until he could pull out an alligator skin bag.

"This is all that's left of him now," he said, "The Collector defiled him. Turned his skin into a cursed object that shows you his last moments."

He buried the skin gently and turned back to Aran, ears pinned, "I told you he was bad news, and your apology shouldn't be for me, it should be for you."

He touched the necklace with a wing tip, "So what does this do, hm? Gives you sight, but what's the drawback?"

James tucked his wings in and looked all the world like a mother who'd found out you were sneaking out late. A stern glare on his face, wings slightly forward as if he were crossing them, ears pinned.

"Well, you could do with a little bit of that," he scoffed, "Maybe it'll give you sense. Like to listen to the people who opinions should matter about things that are genuinely dangerous."

He rubbed his eyes with the wrist joint of his wing and sighed, "But ultimately, you do what you want. Whatever. As long as it doesn't hurt me or the people I love, I don't care. I warned you endlessly and it was your choice to ignore me."

Now Aran had to face the consequences.

James turned away and walked off towards the stream, off to practice magic or to take a drink. Probably both.

If Aran followed, he wouldn't stop him.

James would have probably kicked Aran had he said 'that's what made them different' out loud.

But he scoffed and stopped at the words, ears pinning, "Yes, yes they are, but you've forgotten about the third option. Taking your fears into account when making a decision. For example, jumping off a cliff. Am I certain this spell that will prevent my certain death will work? Perhaps there's a longer path that is ultimately safer that I could take down."

He looked back and flicked his tail in annoyance, "There are plenty of ways you could have gone about at least substituting your sight. Getting a mouse or bird familiar to sit atop your head. Then you could have asked it to allow you to see through its eyes. Perhaps the issue isn't that you're fearless. It's that you have fears and they're still blinding you, but instead they're blinding you because you're blatantly ignoring them in favor of the 'easiest' option."

He went quiet at the second spell and turned his head forward, ears still pinned as he made his way to the stream Comet had made, stopping before it, "What about them? We all got different spells that do the same thing. Some have added effects, like mine has armor, though I've yet to see the one from the third head, the one the hunters allied with."

He looked down at the ground and inhaled before breathing out, a pumpkin sprouting from the ground. Just a bit of magic practice.