The brilliant light was gone. In its place, a hollow ringing quiet.
Arin lay on their back in the cold mud, gasping. Their body felt wrong. They lifted a hand. The skin, once a vibrant, woody brown, was now pale, almost translucent. They could see the faint, ghostly pulse of green light deep within—their own Aether—but it was thin, sluggish. Moving a finger felt like dragging stone.
A deep, rumbling breath shuddered next to them.
Arin turned their head.
Kaelen was pushing himself up, his massive paws sinking into the mud. The terrible wounds on his side were gone, sealed into silver, scar-like streaks. His fur, once dull and matted, now held a deep, electric sheen. Tiny sparks of blue Aether snapped and danced along his spine. He was power incarnate.
And he was confused.
All six sapphire eyes opened, pupils contracting in the dim ravine light. They swept over the collapsing walls, the dust, the yellow-eyed lizards slinking closer. Then they landed on Arin.
A low, warning growl built in Kaelen's chest. It vibrated through the ground and into Arin's bones. Instinct. A predator seeing an unknown creature touching him.
But the bond was a live wire between them.
Arin felt the growl, but they also felt behind it. Not just threat. A storm of sensation: the metallic taste of fear, the ache of old loneliness, the disorientation of waking in a different body. Arin's own feelings—their utter weakness, their fear of the lizards, their complete lack of malice—shot back up that wire.
Not enemy. Scared. Same.
Kaelen flinched. The growl cut off, becoming a confused huff of air. He took a step closer, his great head lowering. His hot breath fogged in the air. He sniffed.
An image flickered in Arin's mind, coming through the bond. Not a clear picture. A feeling-memory. Kaelen, smaller than the others, always last to the kill. Watching his pack's silhouettes vanish over a ridge, leaving him behind. A longing so sharp it was a physical pain.
Arin's own memory of tumbling alone through the storm answered it.
Lost. You too.
Kaelen's nose, wet and cold, nudged Arin's shoulder. Not a push. A question.
Before Arin could even form a thought-reply, a new sound erupted.
Not a hiss. A chorus of wet, guttural barks.
The Rockback Lizards scattered as new predators emerged from the ravine's runoff channel. Six of them. They looked like wolves, but their fur was slick and scaled, their backs crowned with sharp, bony fins. Their eyes were solid black pools of hunger. Razor-Fin Wolves. Amphibious, patient, and cruel.
They fanned out in a practiced half-circle, cutting off the only easy escape route up the ravine. Their leader, a beast with a notch in its ear, licked its chops, staring at the exhausted Storm Howler and the helpless thing beside him.
Pure, animal terror seized Arin. It was a cold flood. They had nothing left. They were a drained vessel.
That terror shot down the bond to Kaelen.
Kaelen's head snapped toward the wolves. Every muscle in his powerful body coiled. The protective impulse from Arin mixed with his own territorial fury. A new feeling, warmer and fiercer than before, burned through the bond.
Mine to protect.
Kaelen moved. In one fluid motion, he stepped over Arin, placing his own body between them and the pack. He planted his feet. He did not just growl. He roared.
The sound was a physical wave. It shook the mud, sent pebbles dancing. It was the voice of the storm given flesh. The lead wolf hesitated, its pack mates faltering.
But they were hungry. And there were six of them. They began to advance, step by step, fins bristling.
Arin's mind, frantic, clawed at the air. They couldn't fight. Kaelen couldn't take all six, not in this tight space, not while protecting them.
Arin's gaze darted past the wolves, to the ravine wall behind them. A large, jagged overhang of the unstable violet crystal hung there, webbed with the cracks from the storm. It was a death sentence waiting to fall.
A desperate idea formed. Not in words. In a single, urgent concept. An image of the overhang, a feeling of weakness, and a flash of Kaelen's concussive roar hitting it.
Arin didn't know how to send it. They just pushed the thought toward the bond with all their will.
The System interface flickered at the edge of Arin's vision.
[Tactical Link: Active.]
[Concept Received: Structural Destabilization.]
[Transmitting to Primary Symbiont…]
Kaelen stiffened. His six eyes glanced from the advancing wolves to the overhang. A spark of understanding, fierce and bright, echoed back to Arin.
He stopped his defensive roar. Instead, he took a step back, drawing closer to Arin, making himself look more cornered. The wolves, emboldened, crept forward. The leader stepped directly under the shadow of the overhang.
Now.
Kaelen's chest glowed with a concentrated blue light. He sucked in a breath that seemed to pull all sound from the ravine. Then, he unleashed a howl that was not broad and terrifying, but sharp and directed. A focused spear of concussive sound.
It did not hit the wolves.
It hit the base of the cracked crystal overhang.
A sharp CRACK echoed, louder than thunder.
The wolves froze, looking up.
The overhang groaned. A single crack became a hundred. Then, with a sound like a mountain sighing, it sheared off.
Tons of violet crystal plummeted down.
The lead wolf had no time to yelp. It was erased under the crushing weight. Two others, too close, were caught by the shattering edges. The remaining three were hurled aside by the impact and the shockwave of debris.
Silence, deeper than before, fell. Dust choked the air.
Kaelen stood still, his sides heaving. The focused howl had taken energy he didn't have to spare.
The three surviving wolves whimpered, scrambled to their feet, and fled down the ravine, tails between their legs.
The threat was gone.
Kaelen's legs trembled. He took one shaky step, then two, before his strength gave out. He collapsed heavily beside Arin, his great head coming to rest on the mud, his breath hot and labored against Arin's side.
Exhaustion wrapped around them both, a shared blanket. They had won. Not by overpowering, but by thinking as one. The bond hummed with a new, fragile strength—the satisfaction of a plan that worked.
But the cost was clear.
Arin could barely keep their eyes open. Their translucent body wasn't refilling. The bond had saved Kaelen, but it was a siphon, and Arin was empty. Kaelen was healed, but he was spent, his Aether reserves depleted by the fight.
They were two halves of a whole, both broken in different ways, lying vulnerable in the open. The ravine was a death trap. The collapsed overhang had only bought them time.
They needed shelter. Real shelter. And Arin needed to understand the rules of this bond, this System, before it drained the last flicker of light from them forever.
In the quiet, Kaelen's tail gave one weak, heavy thump against the mud.
Together, the bond whispered, even in exhaustion.
But together, they needed to find a way to live.