“My beast back . . . what?” Not that I didn’t understand her; I just wasn’t sure if she was being serious.

“You know,” said Stella, biting her lower lip, hesitant. “That you’d turn into a beast, and I’d . . . ride you.”

She wasn’t kidding and was seriously considering using me as a fucking horse. Not that I had anything against horses; on the contrary, the few I had a chance to talk to have been exceptionally kind. But it still felt like I was being degraded to a mere beast, a mare, a tame animal doing human’s bidding. I couldn’t say I liked that.

“That came out wrong,” Blushing a little, Stella rushed to clarify. “I meant that you’d carry me on your back, and I . . .”

“I know what you meant,” I cut her off as I tried to keep the growl out of my voice. Nevertheless, she could clearly see how unhappy I was with her idea.

“You know what, forget it, Korra. I can do this,” she said, rising from the boulder on which she had been resting. “Let’s go.”

And so we did, slowly but surely descending down the slope. There was no reason for me to stop her. Yet, with my eyes on Stella more often than ever before, the guilt was eating away at me more and more. Despite being able to turn off her pain perception, she was struggling there, trying to push her body further, asking more of it than it was ready to take. And why? Fucking pride.

Both mine and hers.

She found it humiliating to be so helpless and dependent on the help of others. Worse, when she braved throwing it away, I brushed her aside with mine, making it clear how humiliating I found carrying her on my back like a mere beast. What a useless feeling the pride was, making everything more complicated than it had to be.

Was I Zeewet who saw nothing beyond the tip of her beak worthy of her gaze? No, I wasn’t. Did being a Guardian make me some posh lady Lord Wigramr wanted me to be? Fuck no? So why couldn’t I find pride in helping someone?

“All right, I’ll do it.”

My sudden outburst took Stella by surprise. “What? What are you talking about?”

“What do you think?”

Her eyes widened in realization. “Really? You don’t have to . . . I mean, I hate it as much as you do . . .”

“I know,” I said. “But if we want to get out, we can’t go on like this.”

Stella took a deep breath to tame her pride again and nodded, biting her lip in frustration at her powerlessness, yet with relief in her eyes. “So, how do we do this?”

“I’m gonna turn, and you’re gonna climb on my back. Nothing complicated about that.”

Stella smirked. This was not what she was getting at, and she knew full well that I knew it too. “Sure, that sounds simple. But it’s not, is it?”

“What do you want me to say? I don’t have a spare pair of union rings in my spatial storage, and as far as I know, neither do you. And teaching you beast talk would take longer than it would take to heal yourself,” I said, a little too fiery, almost sounding like I was now begging her to let me carry her on my back. Truth be told, I was trying to talk myself into it, to convince myself that there was no other way. “We made it work during training as a Squad Four; this will be no different.”

“I’ll do my best to listen,” Stella eventually said.

Of course, we both knew this time it would be different. During the training sessions in Fallen’s Cry, I usually only turned in combat - where communicating wasn’t as crucial for me as following orders - and back to human at the end of it.

“I may not understand beast talk, but I’ll do my best to hear you, Korra.”

“You’d better, or I’ll throw you down,” I warned her half-jokingly, to which she chuckled.

“That seems only fair.”

“All right . . .”

“Forgive me for interrupting you, little ones,” Traiana spoke up just as I was about to shift. “But quell my curiosity. You seem to speak of beast talk as something you are well versed in.”

“Not me,” Stella said quickly. “Her, she’s fluent in it, ma’am.”

I shrugged my wings. “One of the perks of my body. Animals, beasts, if they have a shred of intelligence, I can understand them. You too, ma’am?” That would be damn convenient and make things a lot easier.

“No, little Guardian. If you forgot, I used to be and I still am a warrior. Not someone versed in the ways of tongues. I was learning to fight, with little time to spare for what I won’t need in battle.”

Can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed. The way Traiana spoke, how she carried herself so far, and how much she knew gave me the impression that despite being a warrior, she was highly knowledgeable and skilled. There seemed to be almost nothing she couldn’t tell us about except what she didn’t want to say.

“However, I am intrigued by you. Knowledge of beast talk was scarce in my day, not beyond finding, but scarce. After all, most of the beasts fell into the thralls of the enemy. As you can imagine, there wasn’t much to learn from those whose reason was replaced by wild darkness.” It was quite annoying how Traiana avoided telling what the darkness actually was. I mean, it couldn’t really be just darkness, right? But be that as it may, she had already made it clear that she wasn’t willing to tell us more about it.

“Not even from the ones in your land, ma’am?” asked Stella.

My ears perked up. That was a damn good question. They should be able to.

Yet Traiana shook her head. “Only those who walked under the darkness. However, it saddens me to say that those who didn’t were feared that they would one day, and though many opposed it, they were hunted down. These were dark days, little ones.”

“But,” I said and paused, thinking for once before opening my mouth again. “What about humans and other sapient races who find themselves behind the . . . enemy lines?” Were they all killed or . . . ?

Traian’s expression darkened. “In truth, the fate of the beasts was more merciful than those. They became less than slaves, mere things for whoever to do what they wanted with. Fun, torture, rape. This was the time when the first beastmen saw the light of day.”

Stella and I looked at each other, dumbfounded. Among humans and terrans, aka beastmen, many legends floated around about their origins, some hard to believe, others quite offensive. However, the truth was forgotten with time by all. Well, apparently, for a good reason.

“And those beastmen . . . they have joined the enemy?” Stella asked cautiously, still taking in what she had just heard.

“They didn’t have much of a choice. The beasts were highly susceptible to the enemy’s sway. They might have been only half of them, yet found themselves powerless to resist the lures, too. Worse, they had been under its influence since they were babies,” she said, anguish in her voice, her eyes falling on me. “Though not a threat to you here, you should be wary of that, too, little Guardian.”

“You mean Korra might . . . ?”

“Whether you like it or not, it was the wild side of the beasts that the enemy exploited. The likes of her, the shifters, and others who have given in to their wild sides, were more prone to join the enemy. Know that many have battled alongside us without fail, though.”

“Oh . . . all right. And is the darkness here in this echo, too, ma’am?” Stella questioned further.

“I know what you fear, little one,” Traiana said and looked towards the battlefield in the distance. “. . . yes, it’s here, too. After all, this echo is a reflection of the past. But to set your mind at ease, falling to the lure of the enemy is not a matter of moments or mere touch. It takes a while, and much depends on the willpower of one, whether the enemy will find any cracks in it to exploit.”

“Didn’t you say it was the wild side that mattered?”

“I did, and it is so. Only, with the sapient races, it is hidden behind the will, whereas dominant with the beasts. Crack the will, and you’ll expose the wild side.”

“So, Korra really could . . . ?”

“Hey, I am right here.” They talked about me like I was some lost case, a wild beast to be wary of. Although, after what Traiana told us, I could see why. It was irritating, to say the least, nonetheless.

“My apologies if I was rude to you, little Guardian. I merely sought to satisfy my curiosity and that of your comrade. Her questions are the right ones, though.”

“So you think I might actually give in to the enemy? I handled my beast side.” How well, I wasn’t so sure. It was more like I’d learned to live with it.

“You might and you might not. It’s hard for me to judge, but does it matter in the end? This is a mere echo of the past.”

Recurring in cycles. “I see.” It truly didn’t matter, as with the start of the cycle; everything began anew. “But would I really be okay if it messed with my head?” Earlier, she said that what we learn, what we make our own, we carry over to the next cycle.

Traiana gave me a reassuring smile. “The darkness you will face is part of the echo; you are not. The truth of it is far more dangerous than the darkness for travelers like you.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t realize it now, but when you figure out there’s no escape for you and you will never be able to forget like those part of the echo, you will face the truth no lighter than the darkness itself.”

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, but now it hit me full force. “Are those lost here, still . . . here?”

“Of course,” Traiana said, finding the words heavy. “They wander around, repeating the same days as me, as lost as their minds.”

So they went crazy. Honestly, it was no wonder. The dreadful thing, however, was that we might end up that way too.

“Don’t despair yet, little Guardian. You still have hope. Hold on to it because once you lose it, it’s hard to find again. Besides, you have each other, and neither of you is weak in spirit or heart. Whether it will be enough to face the darkness we fought or thine minds is a question, you will have to find for yourself. But know, you have a powerful heart. Maybe not that of dragons, but even their cousins did not yield to the enemy.”

“You’re not talking about strong resolve now, are you?” Stella asked.

‘Traiana’s tits,’ I cursed in my mind, angry at Traiana herself for her bluntness. I might owe Stella an explanation about my origins, but this . . . Well, she might as well have known everything. I was actually tired of keeping all these secrets. So I just took a chance, taking it as a band-aid that needed a quick rip-off. “As it seems, the heart of a drake beats in my chest.”

“Shit.” Her eyes widened. “A drake heart? You mean Heart of Magic?”

“Yes, Stella. Heart of Magic.” The fact that she knew about it took me by surprise. It shouldn’t have, though. She mentioned quite often her teachers and all the things they made her study. “The Imperial Chef Healer confirmed it, plus I have the skill for it, too,” I said, ready for a Janine-like overreaction.

Instead of freaking out, however, Stella facepalmed herself and burst out laughing. “It makes so much sense now. The ridiculous amount of mana you have, how quickly you’re learning to control it. You should be a fucking mage, not a shifter.”

“The Imperial Chef Healer said something similar,” I said, quite relieved that she wasn’t going nuts about me bringing dragons down on us.

“Why wouldn’t he, every mage worth their salt, whether healer or . . . ah, knowing about your heart, they wouldn’t leave you alone. Still, you should be a fucking mage.”

“I am working on it.”

“Yeah,” she breathed in utter disbelief, her eyes fixed on my chest where my heart beat. It took her a while to pull them away and look at me. “Anything else I should know about? Like, where are you from?”

Ah, she didn’t forget. “I promised I’ll tell you, and I will.”

“Not the best time for that, huh?”

“No, it’s not something that takes only a few words to say, Stella,” I nodded, asking her to be patient. “I have a beast core, though.”

“Of course you do,” she said, resigned at my weirdness, rubbing the bridge of her nose. I was ready for her to throw a thousand questions at me as she looked at me again; instead, I found her smiling coyly. That was so unlike her. Was the fatigue getting to her? “When I claim that I have ridden a beast with the Heart of Mana, no one will believe me.””

“No, no, no. Fuck no. You’re not telling anyone about this, or I’m gonna leave your ass here.” I knew she was just teasing me, but the slight off-chance that she didn’t made my heart beat with panic. It wasn’t hard to imagine that everyone would want a ride from me if . . . when we returned.

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“You’re a little too sure about that.”

“I am,” she said confidently, her eyes fixed on mine. “After all, you didn’t leave me in the maze.”

Damn. She got me, and she knew it, looking a little too smug about it for my taste. So trying to ignore her, I diverted my attention to Traiana. “Sorry, ma’am. You asked about my beast talk, but we’ve sidetracked from that . . .”

“That’s all right. I was merely curious - talent like yours would have come in handy in my times.”

“Seriously?” I know she said beast talkers were scarce, but still . . .

“I’m telling the truth, little Guardian. Beast interrogations have hardly ever led to a result. Our beast talkers were unable to get more than a few words out of them, and when the dragons tried to force them with their tongue, it destroyed their minds.” I heard what she said, yet I had a hard time believing it. How could I be of value to the people of her time, the ones who built the labyrinths and established the system? Surely there must have been someone among them more talented than me or had a tool that allowed them to talk to the beasts, right?

“You’ve mentioned dragons several times, ma’am. Did they fight along with you?”

Traiana sort of nodded. “They mostly fought their own battles, but they came to help us from time to time.”

“. . . and was it in this battle?” Stella asked eagerly, and I didn’t blame her. To her, dragons were the stuff of legends - for me as well - and now she might have a chance to see one. Hell, even I found myself with my ears perked up.

“They did . . . come,” Traiana said, deep sadness in her voice, a hint of anger in her eyes. “. . . , but too late.”

I didn’t need my instincts screaming at me to keep my mouth shut, to know that asking more would be unwise, and neither did Stella. We both reined in our desire to know more about dragons and instead went back to why we had stopped our descent down the slope in the first place.

“So, are you ready, Stella?”

“Go ahead.”

A little nervous about it due to the system’s lack of support, I threw my clothes into the outfit-spatial ring and shifted to the full beast. It took a little more out of me, but that was it. No other issues. I didn’t feel any weaker, nor did I lack control over my beast side. Quite a relief.

Seeing no reason to prolong this, I growled at Stella and lay down on the ground to make it easier for her to get on. She didn’t hesitate, and though careful and gentle, she eagerly settled on my back.

“Is this okay?” She asked, but I had no way to answer her. Instead, I got on all fours and took the first step with the rider on my back.

Well?

Leaving aside the feeling of humiliation and displeasure from my beast instincts, it was fucking weird. I didn’t mind her weight so much, although it put more pressure on my legs, as having her there on my back was throwing my balance off. For my taste, she was sitting too far in front - I guess, where you’d be sitting on a horse. And perhaps that was the right place to sit, yet I found it rather uncomfortable to bear.

So I pushed her with Sage further to the back. A few more steps, and I did it again before I found walking with her on my back reasonably comfortable.

“Are you sure?” She asked as I did my best to tell her we could go. Nodding, I started to walk.

“We can go, ma’am,” she informed Traiana of the obvious while she struggled to stay on my back. She had the right moves, knew how to ride an animal, but she had no stirrups to dig her feet into, no saddle to hold on to. All she could do to keep from falling was press my sides hard with her thighs and . . . ouch, hold on to my fur.

“Sorry, Korra,” she said swiftly when she felt me flinch underneath her. “. . . I just don’t know where to hold on to you.”

>> Go for the fucking fur, just don’t pull it like that, << I growled, knowing full well that neither she nor Traiana walking beside us understood me. Annoyed by the fact already, I sighed and did my best to convey the thing to my rider - seriously, just thinking about her that way was fucking weird - with my wings. Luckily, Stella did listen as she promised.

Unfortunately, despite her riding on my back, we weren’t moving much faster.

Needless to say, neither of us expected that with her perched there, I would be racing with the wind right from the start. We had to get used to each other. The rider and her ride.