Y’talla gripped the end of Elach’s sleeve, putting into words what he’d been thinking. “This is just like back then, Elach. With all the people that destroyed the primal spring.”

“I know. But Occril isn’t dead yet.” Elach paused, looking into Occril’s burning violet eyes. He was now a brilliant shade of blackened purple, gleaming in the yellow light of the countless wisplings milling about all around them. “Unless he is dead.”

“Not dead, but dying.” Occril corrected. “Kept in a perpetual state of ending by the darkspawn’s parasitic power. As are all that fall under the devouring stain.”

“The devouring stain.” Elach repeated, thinking back to everything that Shar had just killed. “How long does it take for you to come back?”

Occril laughed sadly, bowing his head once more. “There is no coming back from a true death. A half-death, as Occril was fated to, leaves a hole for the stain to creep through. A terrible curse from the birth of the ever-hungering lord of the darkspawn.”

“Hoalt.” Elach muttered, the image of the monster he’d witnessed before coming to this side of the veil flashing before his eyes. “Right?”

“The starving wolf.” Occril confirmed.

“That’s the thing that ate a whole bunch of people when you were here a few years ago, right?” Y’talla whispered. “It didn’t look a lot like a wolf. More like if someone made a wolf out of putty and stretched it a whole lot.”

“The one and only.”

Y’talla scrunched her nose and frowned. “I don’t ever want to see that thing in person. It smelled bad enough through your memories.”

“May I continue?” Occril asked politely, but there was an urgency buried under his words. “Time is fleeting, and I fear you might not be a match for the monster I have become.”

“Sorry.” Y’talla apologized. “I’ll be quiet now.”

“Many thanks, living light.” Occril said with yet another bow. “Take Occril’s hand, tempered vessel, and know how Occril was brought low. Learn from Occril’s failures.”

Elach raised an eyebrow at the way Occril described Y’talla and himself, lifting a hand to Occril’s own. The moment his skin touched cool chitin, he felt himself being pulled into a memory.

A grove of majestic lights, everything the greater lights had said was gone from the floor, hidden away and known only to Occril and his best friend Izzik. Months of returning to the grove and meditating under the empowering glimmer of the lights, taking very few away to continue the training in the hideaway so as to keep the grove a secret from Lighthome. A wave of unease, sickly light clinging to everything Occril is, was, and would ever be, pressing insistently downwards until it pressed no more. Because it was happy to lie in wait. An insidious intruder that fought Occril’s thoughts every step of the way.

Occril didn’t notice the changes as they came. Because they were over months, then years, then decades, and finally centuries. The lights stopped being a sacred resource to be respected and renewed, but a power source to be consumed and depleted. The lights stopped gleaming in the grove, and they moved to another. Then another. Then another. Until there were no paths left where the lights shone freely and without fear.

Izzik grew irritated with this change. He developed a technique to imitate the frequency the lights gave off, sending false signals of safety so the lights would come to him. The harvest was more than plentiful. Izzik boasted his achievements to Lighthome, no longer worried of their intervention, happily taking the title Izzik of many-lights and granting Occril his title of escort. A jab at the fact that Occril had done nothing to gather the lights, but also recognition that Occril’s power eclipsed Izzik’s own.

Then the darkspawn came. Attracted by Izzik’s technique from beyond the safeties of Lighthome’s barrier, they brought devastation wherever they went. The greater lights were brought low and went into hiding, a new group stepping up with the power they gathered from the little lights to fight off the monstrous invaders. But there were whisperings of not fighting off, but a coalition between the new great lights and the darkspawn. And it was Izzik doing the whispering.

Izzik’s technique was stolen. Many people invaded the groves, and the dark-spawn attacked with increased ferocity and frequency. Izzik linked with Occril so he could protect the groves, a promise to return and give him respite in the years to come. But Occril didn’t last the agreed years. He fell under the tide of darkspawn, crushed inside his own carapace just to the point that the stain could claim a new host. A new darkspawn, wielding Occril’s imprisoned light to protect the grove. Always to protect the grove. To protect the spawning beds of the little lights.

To protect the shattered primal spring that never was.

Elach was less surprised than he’d expected. Yes, Izzik was a traitor, but so was every other member of his species. Consumed and twisted by the wolf Hoalt’s stain into what Occril now was. He felt Y’talla tighten her grip on his hand as she came away from the same vision, searing intent burning through his bond now that she knew what this place was. She wanted to save all the wisplings. But Elach knew that was impossible. He sent back that she’d have to settle for all of them that wanted to be saved, and she reluctantly agreed. There were still three colours who had responded to his call waiting for him.

“Be ready.” He whispered, the fireflies and Occril fading to shadow. “I can hear you out there, but I can’t see you. You’ll have to be my eyes and ears.”

“If I’m not dead right when we get back, then I’ll make it work.” Y’talla said with conviction. “We survived all those times back in our shattered headspace, so what’s one shadow-y terrifying bug monster?”

The end of both of us, Elach thought grimly. Pressure returned to his neck as the darkness overtook the rest of his vision, and he barely called forth a chain to pull both him and Y’talla out of the way before they were speared into the dirt wall.

“That was close that was close that was close.” Y’talla repeatedly muttered. She took three quick breaths and pressed her elbow into Elach’s sternum, trying to steady herself while he hissed in pain. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize I was- PULL US TOWARDS MY VOICE!”

Elach’s eyes widened at the change of tone from apologetic to pure panic, his Izzi moving more on instinct than anything as he connected a chain as far beyond Y’talla’s voice as he could. Only after he landed did he notice that he had both arms wrapped around Y’talla’s jittery form, and that he’d pulled with his Issi alone. No hands needed.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to revel in this new accomplishment. “GO THAT WAY!” Y’talla screamed directly into his ear, twisting his head to look in a direction Elach assumed she thought was safe. He tried to do the hand-less pull he’d just done, but now he was thinking too much, and he couldn’t get it to work. It almost cost him dearly, a long scratch on his back the warning of testing something new in the middle of a battle.

“WE’RE COMING FOR YOU SHAR! DON’T KILL US PLEASE!” Y’talla continued to scream at the top of her lungs, aiming Elach’s head to the left and slightly down. “WE NEED YOUR HELP, FLOW!”

Elach felt Flow battering at his bond, opening it wide as they barrelled out and into the grove. A quick medley of song and squawk preceded talons digging into his shoulder, Flow’s Issi running through his veins while blood trickled down his back. Light slowly returned to his eyes while Flow let loose a cacophony of discordant sounds, Issi saturating the air with every note as they built up a protective ward against Occril’s technique.

“Thanks again, buddy.” Elach said. He set an anchor above Shar, who was standing in place with her guard and Issi raised, and turned to look for Occril. The bug looked fairly worse for wear after his clash with Shar; long gouges of violet cut in his carapace that dripped lightblood, one arm missing from the elbow down, and a long slash right on his neck that would have spelled the end for anyone who still needed to breathe.

Whatever Elach’s natural resistance to Issi was, it had utterly failed in the face of Occril’s technique. He hadn’t felt it knocking on his mind, or on his pathways. It simply went from not existing to existing, and watching Occril charge forward bathed in violet light, Elach had a sinking feeling that the technique didn’t belong to Occril. Not to the violet-blooded bug who was charging in like a berserker.

It had to belong to the dark-spawn who had infested him.

“FLOW’S GOING TO-” Y’talla started, yelping when Elach pulled the group right next to Shar. “Um, Flow’s going to get rid of Occril’s technique. So… let down your murder-mist, please?”

Shar nodded, closing her eyes and tightening her mist into a scarf once more. Flow’s talons left Elach’s back and they flew over to Shar, digging into her shoulders as a whirlwind of Issi emanated from a repeat of their cacophonous technique.

Occril’s light flaring caught Elach by surprise, and he turned with a grasping motion to lock him in place. His container should have been empty, but Flow’s song-filled Issi had punctured the space filled with transcendent Issi and let it bleed through his pathways. His chains weren’t quite solid as they latched onto Occril, and in the split second he felt the bug-man trying to break his technique, Elach pushed.