The gallop of hooves danced beneath the soil where her ear had rested before the crack of thunder, a large door slamming upon barreling wind echoed across the field. Bernadette still had her eyes on the dead bird-person when another whack kissed bone—sinew breaking.

Bernadette knew the sound well. It was after all the same crack it made when Crescent fell. One that had grown root inside Bernadette’s mind when it was the same day, she had carried her friend back to his house, Minster Sanders blaming her ignorance of the cliff, and the cry Crescent made for an entire night.  It was the cry of mourning however that pulled Bernadette from the horrible memory and into a fawn made of sunlight, iridescent between the sinking sun, as it pulled its hind back to earth and into the sky again. Missing a feathery inch of a squawking harpy.

Agog, Bernadette’s own surprise had not taken her throat when the enemy harpy stretched her claws before grazing the deer’s side. Still, goat bleating marred the very whisps of that eventide moment before the forester’s eyes saw the running red. Recognition fell on Bernadette’s parched lips, the same lips Crescent must have coughed between convulsions and bloods, the healer pulling him back to place, and the sadness in his eyes when he was left sitting at his porch, aching in a child’s desire to play in the woods. The eyes of pain. The eyes of sorrow. Like brothers upon the deer’s contorted golden orbs.

And then the blast of morning star brightened the world.

It was split seconds of the searing heat on Bernadette’s bruised self before the light disappeared and specks of dark blots floated her vision. The forester was still wincing between the absent ray and the burnt smell of flesh when she finally heard her toad.

What were you thinking! She berated. You could have died!

Bernadette couldn’t tell who she was addressing when the burning of her back returned to its senses. It was a long agonizing line. The girl had then guessed it must have reached her bottom hence the grimace she made as she tried to move her legs.

“Here, let me help.”

“Thank you—” Bernadette chocked as ice breezed her spine and the same mistake her tongue ran.

“Don’t worry, I’m strong enough to resist claiming that favor,” the stranger said. Bernadette was still wondering about such ability when she dragged her hand across Bernadette’s back and could not help but scream.

“Aaaah!”

“But I will take the favor, still,” the girl continued. But girl she was not. With strong and yet nimble arms, the healer pulled Bernadette’s frozen body from prone with ease and carried her like a baby in her mother’s arms. Bernadette was still mesmerized with her strength, carrying a log such as her, before her eyes rested on horns and smiling flat teeth. The creature, or whatever she was—ears, fluffy long ears poke with a jolt as Bernadette careen on her own state of burden. The child knew then she could not move, nor could escape as the woman-fae pulled the forester closer to her open chest and started rocking from east to west.

Bernadette’s vision swam from one cloud to the next as the woman started humming. Fortunately, her toad friend croaked.

Aleisten watched and contort as the satyr rocked the human. As the pompous toad finished healing his back, the fawn turned to the ash that was the harpy. He had not wished to use too much of his wild faerian, but the certain expired creature had grazed his glossy hide. Now, it was slime of an overbearing babysitter that had soaked his gorgeous fur.

He then went to check on his stampede. To where the satyr stood and now was carrying the human on her back, behind them was the battered harpy. Throat crushed but lungs still breathing. His hooves would have been ready too for round two had not the human, fazed with all the catastrophe that had passed, trailed her drained attention on him. Most especially when he moved for the carrion bird, on his gooey scars.

Leave it for their flock, his nurse croaked.

Aleisten just had his bloodied hoof ready to crush the bird’s windpipe when she sent. If he had the hands of his father, Aleisten would have clenched. Instead, he had his cleft retreat to the soiled wings of the harpy and snorted.

Why? He asked. The smallest of the thoughts he could make despite the skill he has on faerian.

It gives off a warning. Disrespect the forest, you disrespect Lady Aluwein.

Convinced, Aleisten assented and angled to the north. The elemental on the sky was at the scopes of the trees. Learning the skills his recent run with his father taught him to do, Aleisten breathed the wind and was able to differentiate the smell of rot, burn, and the sweetness of petunia pungent for the coming night. Soon, the lunar elemental will come to climb.

Remembering his orders, although they weren’t perfectly followed, Aleisten started towards the border when his hooves glided over the other dead harpy. One that had an odd stick stuck to its chest. It had scribbles on it, but what pained his nose was the live embers it was making on sizzling skin.

Curiosity caught his interest. Whatever this thing was doing, Aleisten believed it to have potential to help him defeat more evils in the future. He was about to bite the thing out of the dead bird when the human claimed it first. Rather, owned it first.

“My blade. Please, can you get it for me?”

He was not to be ordered! Aleisten was aghast inside himself and abruptly glowered at the human on the satyr. The satyr was still of course smiling when, undaunted by his stiff posture, strode to where he sheltered the blade.

She was tall. Too tall for him to kick since half of her were hooves as well.

“You heard the lady,” the satyr started. “Her blade.”

Peering over her back, Aleisten could tell the human was also surprised when the satyr bent over him and pulled the blade. They both had looked at each other in disbelief before the satyr sauntered away with her burden.

It was Allura’s sigh that had signaled their return home.