Ranvir straightened, drawing back his shoulders and shifting his stance to hide his missing arm. All around him, villagers are approaching. Their tether-senses questing forwards like newborn kittens. Sensing no ill-intent from them does not lower Ranvir’s guard.

Their incoherent chatter, murmurs, and cries send slivers of icy annoyance and sticky black hesitation down his back. The vulture behind him trills softly to itself and starts nosing its feathers. It seemed content to remain where it was.

From the lake, Ranvir can feel the other king is relaxing its hold on. Fish are swarming out from the depths, returning to the shallower waters. Though the regent itself stays behind, its senses solid on Ranvir and his new bird.

Sand covers the surface, like remains of a cursed snowstorm. The grit didn’t linger as long in the air as its paler and colder counterpart.

The mutterings are growing closer, the first people spotting him through the gloom. Most of the inhabitants are fish or insect bonded. They appear to have some night vision, but not as much as Ranvir’s Perception lends him. Although these people were minor bonds, one and all, so perhaps the limitation comes from there, rather than the animal.

A family, not the one he’d spotted, stops in front of him. They’re gibbering, their speech an incomprehensible mess. Ranvir can’t even make out where words end. He lowers his head as they step closer.

A woman, the mother, places a hand on each of the children. The boy has gills lightly rippling on the side of his neck and his short-sleeves reveal webbing between arm and torso. The girl appears to be around twelve, similar age to the boy, though she’s bonded with an insect. Dragonfly, if her wings are anything to go by. She’s slightly taller than her brother, and has a slightly more mature face. She’s already losing the baby fat in her cheeks.

The mother looks at the father, who stands back slightly. This man at least shows some instinctive distrust of Ranvir. Oddly, this lowers Ranvir’s own tension. At least someone’s normal. The thought rode a wave of a light blue relaxation through his body.

The vulture pokes him in the back with its beak. Ranvir looks at it, but it seems to find his shoulders and neck fascinating. Sensing no ill-intent, Ranvir turns back as the bird returns to pecking at its feathers.

The children are approaching cautiously. The girl, a little braver than the boy, holds out her hand. Eyes narrowing, Ranvir examines them. They’re still the same weak commoners he’d sensed before. Gingerly taking her hand in his only, she smiles and lowers onto her knees.

Oh shit.

Next to her, the boy lowers, then raises his hand. It hangs there, waiting for Ranvir’s attention.

Take me to the Downway, Ranvir cursed to himself. What do I do? Looking at the parents was a mistake. The father still looked uncertain and ready to fight, but the mother looked anticipatory. Like she was waiting for Ranvir to do something.

Wings flapped. Wind rushed through the trees and across the lake, sending ripples far out onto the dark waters. Ranvir’s torn shirt ripped and pulled loose at the neck, pulling down to hang only from his left shoulder. Still holding the girl’s hand, he turns to glare at the bird and gets one clear image.

Hungry.

Ranvir glares at it, sending a warning across their bond. Mana is trickling between them actively and they seem more than willing to carry his message. The bird caws once before retreating to the tree. In accessing the bond, Ranvir tapped a trickle of mana.

Just enough to light his eyes up.

The mother cried out and dropped to her knees; the father following suit. Even in the dark, Ranvir could see how pale they’d grown. Feeling the tremble, Ranvir looked down to see the girl had locked her eyes on the gritty soil at her feet. The boy was similarly rigid.

Ranvir sent a pulse of space mana out, letting it wash over them. They just kept kneeling there. Was that not what they wanted? Or did I not do it strongly enough? Ranvir considered their tether-sense. This system of power differed from tethers and Amanaris. Where Amanaris seemed almost to be a halfway living entity that traveled alongside its hosts, the tether was a connection to the Triplet Goddess. The bonds were a connection between man and beast, assisted by the world but only insofar as the bonding itself. That lack of binding with the system might not naturally evolve them towards tether-sense.

I’ll need to be more obvious, Ranvir decided. Tapping space more strongly, he gathered it on the border of Flesh and Veil, creating nothing more than a light show. Purple mana began emanating from him, drawn to the natural infinite network of space. The commoners cried out as he cast it over them, hardening the space for a moment. Just enough to feel it.

All of them were babbling as they jumped to their feet. They bowed once more, so low they might as well have knelt before running off. They had to struggle through the crowd, but were swiftly let through.

Blinking, Ranvir felt a deep pit of dread open in his spirit, a deep blue and black void that swallowed his hopes of a swift escape. There had to be almost a hundred people. All of them slowly inching towards him.

A beaked head crept around Ranvir’s shoulder, causing the people to draw back. “Food?” it wasn’t a word as Ranvir would’ve used it, but the meaning got across. He rested his hand on its maned neck and shook his head. Remarkably, the feathers were already dry.

“Not food,” he said, sending the message over spirit as much as word. The bird sagged. It truly was hungry, and they would have to do something about that. Did it need to eat food based on storm mana? That would be very difficult to get a hold of. Especially since creatures from folds wouldn’t hold up.

Ranvir swept his senses over the villagers as they shuffled closer. He could blow them all away with a single thought, but Frija and Vasso were approaching. Also, it wouldn’t be very nice.

Ranvir snapped his focus on the man in white. His eyes running over his features, long hair slicked back to the nape of his neck, hawkish nose protruding beak-like, one sleeve was had been halfway turned into a red-liquid like substance, except it was very much a solid. And made of anima. And Ranvir’s tether-sense slipped right by the rest of him like he didn’t exist.

The man smiled at Ranvir, square pupils flexing and changing into pentagons. His soul appeared then, only to spill over the boundaries of his body far beyond his natural presence, enveloping the entire forest, even smothering Ranvir’s own. The vulture squawked, obviously recognizing something had happened as well.

His spirit twisted and turned in on itself. It was still there, but different somehow. Weightier. Another person stepped up to him, older, with a full sleeve and a hat covering his head. He grabbed the hawkish man by the upper arm, knuckles white, and hissed a few words into his ear. Their presence vanished, then they both twisted and disappeared. Not space mana, but something denser.

Anima, Ranvir thought, as hands layered onto his shirt, arm, and pants. People were crowding, pushing against each other to get to him. The vulture hawked an enormous cry spreading its wings widely. Silence as the villagers staggered back. A few screamed then, but Ranvir thought it wasn’t related to the bird. And they were making sense to Ranvir’s ears.

“Oooooooooooh shiiiiiiiiit!” Frija stood, arms and legs spread wide, her mouth agape as she stared at the vulture with stars in her eyes. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” she yelled and charged. For a four-year-old, she was very fast. For an enormous predator king of the skies and its bonded, she was moderately slow. Even for a twelve-year-old, she wasn’t that fast. Vasso easily kept up with her, though he looked a little harried in the crowd.

Ranvir scooped her up in his arm as she ran by, much to Frija’s complaints. “Let me, let me, let me~!” She wiggled with arms and legs, reaching for the vulture. It, in turn, cocked its head and looked at Frija.

Some semi-sentient part of its brain must’ve been drawing at full speed as it watched. “Not-food,” the idea was confident as it drew a little closer. Its eyes watching Ranvir more than Frija. So it was caught entirely unaware as she bopped it on the beak with her entire hand, giving off a loud smack.

The resulting burbling squeak was almost funny until it retaliated. While Frija was 'very fast' for a four-year-old, the vulture was 'very fast' full stop. It pecked her right on the forehead, though with the flat of its beak. The hollow thunk resounded in silence before it stepped back and returned to its feathers.

Frija held her forehead with both hands, eyes watering, chin quivering. She began blubbering and Ranvir stifled an internal sigh. “Let’s go back to the inn,” he said to Vasso, then mouthed, “bedtime,” which was clearly what Frija really needed. Without an arm to pat her on the back, Ranvir had to resort to leaning her into the nape of his neck and tutting at her, gently swaying her back and forth.

She was dead asleep before they even reached the inn. She slept each and every step of the stairs, the unlocking of the door—which Vasso had remembered, Ranvir would have to treat him to something nice for that—she slept all the way to the bed, right until he put her down.

If the feeling of her clinging to his neck wasn’t so adorable, he might’ve actually complained about it. For now, he simply rolled with the punches. He got her Menace, who was sleeping on the couch—which was missing a cushion for some reason—and meditated with her, asking Vasso to join them as well. The kitten cuddler didn’t last long and was soon dead asleep. Vasso went to his bed on his own and Ranvir sighed, rubbing his sore ribs.

Going in search of the cushion, he found the vulture standing on the balcony railing, wings spread, lifting a chair in its beak and examining it. Then it slammed it into the floor twice, the echo rumbling through the entire building.

“Dad?” Frija called from her bed.

“I’m going to pluck you, roast you, and eat you,” Ranvir whispered to the vulture. It didn’t look away from its fascinating new toy. “Slowly.”