Aya was carried by pure motivation, practically flying to her destination alone. As soon as she reached the vestiges of the now darkened spirit wood, her legs became mangled. She had no idea how to walk as a quadruped. She tripped and her body quickly fell flat on the ground. She let out a loud howl in frustration. It echoed through the trees that stood withering in the silent night. She tried to call out for Eterna's guidance, but she was no longer in commune with the great wolfhound spirit. She was alone for her first time as a guardian.

For a long while, she sat pondering her fate. She realized that Taylor, the scoundrel that he was, was a man that should have never been trusted in the first place. His allures, his handsome face and knowledge of her world were nothing more than a trap that she fell right into. Eterna was no longer there with her, she had to survive on her own and bring this criminal to justice.

Motivation made her lift her paws and wobble to her feet. Each foot seemingly had a mind of its own but she quickly united them. She shuffled her feet, sliding her front feet forward and then the back ones. She stretched like an accordion as she made her way across the forest. Her feet patterns seemed quite easy once she got used to it, but she heard a sickly growl and began to slink along faster. She wished she had Eterna to guide her walking. Her new body was cumbersome, and she would have preferred no other animal as a guide to teach her how to walk like a wolfhound.

She heard further growls that made her pick up her feet. She forgot about moving each individual foot and just moved them as a whole. It was like the last time she fled from danger, running away from a beautiful but violent man. She was heading deeper and deeper into the dark forest. It was a forest rife with danger of all kinds, not just wolfhound spirits but other menaces. She heard voices spoken in a tongue she could recognize. "I think we should devour Old Wing," a voice hissed.

"We are hungry and our children are hungrier. It's not fair that soul fruit is so hard to find," another growled. "If we are to survive sacrifices are to be made."

Aya didn't know if she should head towards the voices or away from them, but soon she lost all sense of direction and ran smack into another wolfhound. She tasted dirt, gravel and withered grass as she tumbled aside the beast she crashed into. She looked up, still dazed, but with enough wits to still perceive things. The dark purple wolfhound she had ran into flapped a singular wing in order to get himself aligned with the ground but it was no use with only one. He crawled back to his feet with a certain misery.

"Who is this beautiful silver wolfhound? She looks like the elder herself," A voice creaked from the depths of the forest.

Aya could only see its eyes in the mire of darkness. "She looks good," another voice salivated, "Made of prime meat, tender but juicy and probably not as stale as Old Wing."

Aya looked around as wolfhounds stepped forward; their eyes dulled with hunger and their mouths hanging open with drool pouring out. Their ribcages jutted out, seemingly banging on their skin, demanding to be fed. Aya thought fast. She let her instincts override her humanoid thought and she linked her paws around the wolf known as Old Wing. The ravenous beats lunged, flying at the two with predatory speed and precision. Aya flapped her wings and lifted him up into the air as one of the starved beasts scratched her legs and she whimpered. Her wings lifted her above the trees into the night sky; but she soon found that Old Wing could not be supported, and he was beginning to slip without opposable thumbs to clutch him. Aya hovered downward back into the forest hoping to find as much distance between the other wolfhounds and them.

They roughly landed back on the ground surrounded by full darkness once again. Old Wing rose to his feet and began to nudge Aya with his nose. "Are you ok?" he asked. Aya looked up at him, and he staggered back.

"Is that you Eterna?" he gasped. "Or is cruel fate playing tricks on me?"

"Eterna?" Aya shook her head. "I'm not a wolfhound, I'm an Aquan who has transformed into one."

Old Wing's head dropped down. "Of course you are. No wonder you have those outlandish things hanging on your ears."

"I know Eterna though"—Aya returned with a frown—"She is my spirit guide. Who are you?"

Old Wing lowered his paws and rested on the ground. "So Eterna has entered the next stage of her life," the wolfhound grumbled to himself. "So be it. Leave it to twisted irony to have been saved by someone in her flesh."

Aya's wolflike eyes opened wide. "Who are you? What is your relation to Eterna."

Old Wing refused to meet her gaze. "Just a nobody she used to know."

Aya's naturally precocious nature got the best of her. Sticking her nose in Old Wing's face, she responded, "You must have been somebody to her if you're acting like that."

The battered old wolfhound muttered fast and quick in response, "I may have given her a pup."

It was now Aya's turn to take a step back. She lowered her mouth and let out a rumbling growl, taking a powerful stance. "You're that traitorous alpha-male she told me about? How could you treat Eterna so badly?"

Old Wing sat up. "Take a walk with me," he beckoned. "I have a story to tell you."

Aya's fur stood up as anger coursed through her veins. Old Wing saw this and bowed in front of her. "Please, I'll never last this night. The others have succumbed to the darkness of the forest. They hunger for flesh of their own kind and believe the weakest links should go first."

"That's horrible," Aya said, her light blue eyes opened wide from the shock. "Ok, I'll come with you, but I think you're a lowly wolf for the way you treated Eterna."

"I am a lowly wolf. Always have been, always will be"—Old Wing's singular wing folded as the two wolfhounds walked the forest, following the glowing blue rot on the trees.

"Listen," he said, "I don't know what Eterna told you. But being a power-hungry alpha male cost me greatly. I had a one-on-one fight with Eterna."

"Eterna never told me that," Aya said as she weaved past darkened spirit trees.

"She probably didn't tell you that at the height of her powers, she was the most fearsome fighter in the forest," Old Wing choked out. "I was foolish to go up against her.

"We clashed and she wounded me worse than I could have imagined," the wolfhound growled and swung his left front claw violently. "My right wing was torn up amongst a fury of teeth and claws."

As Aya took heed to Old Wing's words, she began to realize other things about Old Wing. There was a slightly swollen scar cut under his right eye and he walked with a limp. Combined with the missing wing, he looked worse for wear. The miserable wolfhound continued, "I will let you in on the trade since you're new to being a wolfhound. Our wings are our biggest sign of pride. They are the symbol of hundreds of years of evolution."

Old Wing peered out from behind his sodden eyes into Aya's crystal blue ones. "For an Alpha to lose even one of his wings outright removes him from any position of respect and leadership."

Aya was silent. She just sized up the tormented creature that stood in front of her. "I spent years wandering aimlessly when I could have very much been known as the mate of the great Eterna"—His body lowered in sorrow—"I underestimated her in every way because I was an arrogant fool."

He looked at Aya expecting a harsh condemnation, but when Aya spoke again, she was surprisingly mild in her assessment. "I won't judge you anymore, Old Wing," said Aya. "Life already has and unlike another man I know, a traitor like you knows when to have humility."

"I wish that for everything that I did, I could tell Eterna I'm sorry." Old Wing said softly, "I gave away the greatest thing I had- her love for me."

The romantic in Aya caused her heart to soften further. "Would you like me to tell her that if I ever see her again?"

"Please do," Old Wing said.

"I will." Aya responded and she swore she saw a tear in his eyes but it was impossible to tell in the dim lighting.

Old Wing began to walk again. "I have something to show you. It's a place we can hide until the night ends."

Aya stood skeptically, hesitant to follow him further into the woods when she had to return to town. She was no longer wary of Old Wing, but she had a duty to protect the village and its people. "I have to save my town."

Old Wing turned around. "If you're talking about that town of humans, I think they'll more likely harm you the way you are now. Come, where I'm going might help you."

Aya hesitated further, but soon accompanied Old Wing. The tired wolfhound nodded to a nearby tree splattered with a luminous jelly shaped in the form of a crescent. "We'd never get anywhere in this dark forest without the help of some rotten soul fruits I used to mark the trees."

Aya looked onward and saw withered Atma trees with glowing crescent markings on several of them. The wolfhounds made their trot, following the seemingly unorthodox order of the marked trees. "Where is this taking us?" Aya said, after passing the tenth one in yet another direction.

She had begun to feel confused and disoriented from every start and stop they had made. At last they arrived at the charred remains of the matriarch tree. Its bow was uprooted from collapsing over the fire and electricity Taylor rained on it with his vehicle. Even in the darkness, Aya could see all the twisted roots that had been tied to the very foundation of the planetoid for centuries. Aya's heavy candragon brow went up in response. "You really had to make things complicated for us just to come here?"

"Those wolves, their brains are dimmed by hunger. They'd never be able to follow such complex patterns," Old Wing responded.

"Good, I thought you were crazy yourself," Aya laughed.

"Believe me, I was crazier at the height of my alpha male days, it's been a spiral downward to cold harsh sanity since then," the wolfhound spoke. "Now follow me."

Old Wing walked over to the bottom of the tree with its exposed roots and began to dig in the dirt. Aya watched as he excavated further and further until his paws scraped against wood buried deep within the planetoid's soil. Aya ran over and looked at what he had unearthed. It was a wooden panel that had somehow not burned. The panels were painted with large white symbols, and Aya, a frequent reader of Jeeg's book, recognized it as an ancient Slyphen rune. Aya's candragon heart sped up at the sight of them.

Sylphens were an elven species on Tarabos who dwelled on a large city known as Argon that floated from their magic. For while Aya's magic allowed her control over water, Sylphens abilities were masters of levitation. Inside their magical city, they were tasked with keeping and collecting the records of the planet, something neither the sea shell dwelling Aquans or nomadic Acridians did much of. The leveling of Argon alongside the planet of Tarabos itself guaranteed that most of the philosophical, religious works and even lesser stories and poems of the Aquans, Acridians and Sylphens would be gone forever.

"This is amazing," she said, her voice breathy even for a wolfhound's. "It didn't burn."

Old Wing shook the dirt out of his dusty paws. "This wood seems to be enchanted, but that's not the amazing part."

He bit the latch on the paneled door and pulled it aside revealing a catacombs of lilywhite stone steps underneath the tree. Further gnarled roots from the tree could be seen twisting inside the tunnel as Old Wing and Aya stepped down the cold pale steps. They possessed the same white glow of the matriarch tree but they were fading, no longer connected to their primal source of life. The shriveling roots convulsed with sickly exhaling like they were an asthmatic failing to control an attack on their lungs. It conjured up nothing but pity and sadness for Aya as she moved through the tunnel. "Where are we going?" She asked as curiosity filled her mind.

"We're going to my resting place," Old Wing said as they turned the corner and the passage way expanded, coming to a large gate formed out of white vines that twisted and turned around each other in perfect discipline.

Like the roots, their breath could be heard. It was less sickly, but just as tense. Aya practically galloped on her four feet when she saw what it was. "Nature's gate," she exclaimed.

"Hopefully this can help you out," the grizzled wolfhound spoke in return.

She began to cautiously sniff around it with her nose as the air filled with white fog almost like there was dry ice nearby. She called out to the gate, hoping for a response, "Nature's Gate, you may not be acquainted with me, but I am Aya Tintel, the successor of Eterna."

A vine unraveled itself from one of the many tangled bars and lashed at Aya's foot. She gave a loud bark in surprise and jumped back before another vine came up behind her and wrapped around her foot. Aya nipped at it, but her attempts were futile as she was slowly hoisted upward by the vine. She began to struggle as she was lifted up higher and higher to the center of the gate. Vines shaped in form of a tooth filled mouth expanded before her and began to slide back and forth. A voice reverberated as deep and thick as one who possessed a mile-long windpipe. "Such an impetuous young creature. You lack the humility in the presence of a century old being."

Aya realizing her mistake, hung limp and bowed her head. "I am sorry, Nature's Gate. Please accept my apology."

More vines released from the gate and wrapped around her other feet so she remained situated in the air. Moving closer she felt a presence that belonged as much to the planetoid as to the deities that existed in an intangible plane. The mouth of the gate wrinkled in disgust. "Benevolent one will do. It is how I've judged your people until now, until a humanoid brought destruction against my motherly bow."

Aya's head reared towards the mouth, and her voice though growling tried to plea with the will of nature. "No one who lived on this planet's soil is to blame. An outsider, not even from this planet hastily destroyed your tree."

The voice creaked and groaned as its vines twisted into a face of anguish. "Assigning the blame to one person will not undo the suffering for the rest of the planetoid. It has become everyone's responsibility."

"They don't deserve it," Aya said in a voice high and fragile for a wolf. "Why must everyone suffer for one man's crime?"

The gate breathed deeply and Aya could feel the moisture expose itself from the vines. It cooled her but also made her feel damp and soggy. The gate spoke again. "Nature and life itself hang from a strong chord, but once that chord is severed, it may never be mended again. No matter who commits the crime, it affects everyone."

"Surely there's something we can do," Aya said as light from the glowing vines caught in her eyes. "We already have seeds from the matriarch tree."

"Your idealism is all but admirable," the voice creaked. "A new tree can only be grown from deep within the planetoid's core. It must grow from the planetoid's mind drive."

"The mind drive?"

The gate of vines breathed deeply again before expelling many words. "Aquan who has become my new guardian, do you wish to know the root of this planetoid's existence?"

"Yes, I am ready, O benevolent one."

"I am the planetoid's mind drive, the planetoid's innermost thoughts," said the ancient voice. "Every living thing born here is tied to me and when they are hurt, I feel pain too. I reside deep within the core of the planetoid."

"So, you must regenerate from the core?" Aya asked, "What can I do to help it along?

The mind drive was silent for an indefinite period of time. "It is best for the humans to go," it declared. "The planetoid should have one caretaker to perform the rituals associated with the growth of the matriarch tree but the rest will only taint the planet further."

"But where should they go?" Aya continued to question.

She didn't wish to uproot all of the farmers from their longtime home.

The gate was definite and firm in its intentions and the normally argumentative Aya never challenged it. "I cannot answer that. Nature must rebuild what they have destroyed. It is no longer safe for the humans here. Their food sources have withered and my animals have become hostile. Do you understand?"

Aya nodded her head slowly. Her head was unable to process everything so she let her mouth hang open until she shook her head and allowed her wits to regather. "I understand and I will find some way to help them and you."

The next time the gate spoke, it seemed pleased by Aya's words. "Seeing a humanoid desire to carry out my will, fills me with gratitude."

Aya sensed that the time was now to ask the gate about herself. She had finally gotten on its good side. "Please, your benevolence, just tell me one thing."

"What is it, young one?"

"Please explain my nature of becoming a beast," said Aya. "I have no idea how it happened and I want to return to my Aquan form."

"When you fused with a nature born guardian," the gate said, "You allowed your form to become neither humanoid nor beast. You are now a demi-goddess and your body no longer responds to wounds the same way it once did."

"How did you know I was wounded?" Aya inquired, feeling frail and confused.

"You obviously became a wolfhound by mistake," the all-knowing presence responded. "When one of Tarabos has fused with nature, they gain two bodies—elf and beast— and when one body is damaged the other retreats into a pocket to recover and you change to your unused body."

"But how do I change back?" asked Aya, praying she'd see her other form again.

"You must use a piece a refined spirit wood that has chosen you as its master," the voice said. "It is what allows the transfer of forms."

Aya's eyes opened wide and her response was flustered and desperate. "My staff. I need to get it back. Ugh... how on Tarabos am I going to do all of this?"

She began to shake her head in pain. She was beginning to feel an overload in her brain from the ever-burdening amount of tasks on her back. She felt more cooling from the vines, releasing a brisk and mellow feeling into her. The vines loosened slightly binding Aya's feet and the voice began to talk in a more caring and fatherly way. "Your ancestors who once resided here have put heavy belief in a youthful Taraboisan who has fused with nature. They prophesized that he or she will one day inherit the mind drive."

"Inherit? What do you mean inherit?" Aya intoned softly.

"Their words, not mine," the now gentle voiced gate spoke. "But know that they believed it is your youthful love for the planetoid that will allow me to prosper once more. You will inherit the mind drive."

Tears flowed from Aya's eyes but they were tears of a long held-in-but-now-released stress. She felt her body being slowly lowered by the vines. "Rest, and tomorrow you will be ready to face this world again," they said to Aya.

Aya touched the ground and slowly walked over to Old Wing. She walked and nuzzled her snout against his body before lying down. "What was that for?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"You just looked so soft to me. Goodnight," Aya said as she laid her head down.

Old Wing could hardly process what happened; but considering his connections with Eterna, he moved a small distance from her before settling down himself. "Goodnight, Aya." He responded.

For the rest of the night, under the protection of nature's gate, Aya slept peacefully. She laid her troubles aside and only one thought crossed her head before everything went completely dark: "You will inherit the mind drive." It intrigued her because she had no idea what it meant, but she felt soothed enough not to mind. She knew the next challenges. The challenge of facing Taylor, the challenge of becoming humanoid again and the challenge of helping regenerate the planetoid would await her, but only after she was fully rested and ready to continue.