Azela sat with Catherine atop a gigantic rock formation, relaxing in serene silence. The formation leaned away from the green luminescence of the Mietha, tilting them eastward, where the Void Reizu waited in the dark distance. The silence was comfortable. Above them, the entire sky was ablaze with stars. Below, the myst had settled thick over the valley, swallowing the terrain.
Azela could not see what was beneath it, at first. There was only the rolling silver-gray, shifting slowly. But then came a strong, sweeping gust that pressed against them both and moved on. In its wake, the myst dissolved in long ribbons, peeling back briefly to reveal part of the meadow underneath.
Multicolored petals drifted across the open field in slow, uneven arcs. They caught the moonlight as they moved, each one flickering for a moment before falling out of sight.
"Don't you think this is a beautiful view?" Azela asked.
Catherine brushed aside the wind-blown hair from her eyes. "'Tis not too bad," she said, with a nonchalance so practiced it was almost convincing.
Azela gazed dreamily at the scenery. "This is my favorite spot, out of all the ones we've tried."
Catherine looked down at the rock beneath them and ran a palm across its surface with affection. It was smooth, worn by ages of wind. "I like this rock. 'Tis quite creepy." She paused, tilting her head slightly. "And it doesn't fit in with everything else around here. It reminds me of someone." She patted it. "What's its name?"
"Why would a rock have a name?"
Catherine stretched herself flat against the surface. "We'll call you Bob," she said to it, pressing her cheek briefly against the cool stone, then looked up at Azela with exaggerated seriousness. "His name is Bob Rock from now on, understood?"
Azela laughed. "You're being ridiculous."
"Don't disrespect Bob now, or I'll make him my best friend," Catherine warned, then rolled onto her back and let her attention drift toward the bright moon. Scattered patches of blue and green still remained on its surface, remnants of a time when oceans and forests once covered it. Catherine often wondered what it must have been like for those ancient humans of four thousand or so years ago to look up and see a tiny version of Aon floating above them, and if anyone ever stared back.
She had asked a temple elder about it once, as a child. He had told her that looking too long at dead things invited grief. She hadn't understood what he meant at the time. She thought she might understand it better now.
Warm night air swept around them, carrying the mineral coolness of the rock and the distant green smell of the forest. Somewhere below and far off, something moved through the myst. A slow displacement, a ripple that spread and disappeared before Azela could name it. She watched the place where it had been until the surface went still again, then decided not to mention it.
Azela's attention wandered toward Catherine. The sapien had shed her jacket at some point in the climb, exposing the handmade wrap she had donned for their training session. She always wore the jacket at night, despite the heat. Azela had stopped asking why.
Now her arms were bare, crossed loosely over her abs, and in the moonlight her skin was almost luminous. Pale and chiseled as marble, carved with the faint silver lines of old scars that traced their way across her muscular arms in uneven patterns. She didn't ask about those, either.
She looked away before Catherine could catch her looking. A moth fluttered between them, drawn by nothing in particular and gone just as quickly.
Minutes passed.
Azela drew a long breath and let it out slowly. "I can't believe that I might never see this place again," she said with a weight she hadn't expected. "It was starting to feel like home."
She felt Catherine shift before she heard her move. The warmth of her was sudden and close. Catherine's arm curled around her shoulders. Careful, testing, giving her time to pull away. Then it settled with a quiet certainty.
"I'm glad you insisted we have one more night like this, before we left." The embrace tightened just slightly. "We'll come back someday. I promise."
Azela leaned into her. She felt the solidity of Catherine's shoulder against her temple and found that it felt like the most natural arrangement in the world.
She closed her eyes. The warmth of the night wrapped around them, and she let herself doze in comfort as they waited for sunrise.
* * *
The myst before them was a vast gray expanse, like rolling fields covered in snow. It would have been more colorful if they had caught this view during sunrise, but they had slept atop Bob, which was nearly on the opposite side of Kaila from where they were now. They stood on the mountain's southwest side, just above the maximum height that myst could rise. It was close enough that the cold of it crawled upward against their legs. Thunder rumbled in the heavy air, rolling in from below instead of above.
Catherine sat before a plate-sized flat rock. On it, she had poured out a small amount of glittering dust, the same dust she had gathered from the altar where the plant bug had been accidentally summoned. There wasn't much left. She arranged it carefully, trying not to breathe too heavily in its direction.
Azela was playing in the myst shallows some distance away, trailing her fingers through its surface and watching its reaction to her stomping feet. She wore the best hide outfit that they had made and the pack that carried all of their supplies.
"Zel!" Catherine called, reluctant to look away from the dust. "Get away from there! What if something grabs you?"
"Then I'll grab it back and pull it free," Azela yelled back. "Who knows? Maybe something trapped in there just wants a hug!"
"Zel! I'm serious! I need to concentrate, and you're distracting me!"
"Fine," Azela said, sulking. "It's not like anything comes this far out anyway."
Catherine was unsure if she was correctly drawing the incorrect drawing in the correct incorrect way. She had not attempted to use it since arriving on Mount Kaila. She was not even sure if there were any more plant bugs to be found in the myst, but she had to try. She didn't have enough dust left to lay it flat and draw the symbol as she had before, so this time she arranged the dust in the shape of the sigil and hoped that the spell would work that way. The grains caught the gray light and held it, faintly luminous. It hadn't decided yet whether to be magic or just dirt.
Catherine sat back and looked at it for a moment.
"A lot of what I do is just guesswork," she admitted.
Azela looked over her shoulder. "You say that like it's something to be ashamed of," she said. "Most of your guesses are right, though. Seems more like being smart enough to figure things out, to me."
Catherine shooed her away, saying, "You're giving me far too much credit. If I wasn't too dumb to stay out of the myst, I wouldn't have needed this spell to begin with. Now back up."
Catherine brought her hands together and began to sing. Her mind expanded, and she felt the spell working, but Azela's wide-eyed stare broke her concentration.
"What is it this time?" Catherine asked her.
"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful your singing is?"
"This isn't a good time to mess with me," said Catherine. "I really need to be free of distractions."
"I mean it," Azela said. "You have the most wonderful singing voice that I've ever heard."
Catherine looked at her steadily. "And how many other people have you actually heard sing before?"
"Well, just you that I can remember," Azela admitted.
Catherine laughed a little. "We were taught to sing in the temple. I almost always scored the lowest out of everyone there. The only times I didn't were if someone had a cold or didn't show up. I was told that I'm the worst singer they've ever heard."
"Maybe they were jealous. You sound perfect to me," Azela said.
"Out of the zero people you have to compare it against, I guess I must be," said Catherine. But something in her expression softened anyway.
She turned back to the sigil before Azela could see how much the words had landed.
"Now get behind me or something so I can't see you. I almost had it."
Catherine returned to her spell song, and this time, Azela held still. The sound built again, and then something rose out of the myst in the distance, cutting toward them in a straight line. Azela watched Catherine's face for any sign of alarm, prepared to run. Catherine continued to sing. Then she put her hands down and smiled.
The plant bug stopped a few feet away and hovered patiently. The sound of its crystals was like a hum from deep inside something ancient, and the myst curled away from it in reluctant eddies. Catherine commanded it to come closer, and it landed on the nearby ground. This plant bug was thinner but longer than the last, and one of its wing crystals was broken. Catherine stepped closer for a better view of the damage. Broken shards levitated in place of where the whole crystal would have been. A few pieces were missing.
"I don't know if this one will be able to hold the weight of both of us," she said.
"Poor thing. Is it in pain?" asked Azela.
"She doesn't feel it the same way as you'd think, but yes," said Catherine. "'Tis an old pain, though. She's used to it, and there's nothing we can do."
Azela followed Catherine's lead and began to pet the bug on its mossy parts, running her fingers along a patch of soft growth near its midsection. "Will we have to summon another?"
"I don't think we can," Catherine said sadly. "This is the only one I could detect. I'm pretty sure I was incredibly lucky to find this one."
Azela thought for a moment. "I can reduce my weight, I think."
"Do you mean that you have to empty your bowels?" asked Catherine.
"What? No!" said Azela. "I mean I can lower my gravity. Like, how much I weigh. Pick me up and I'll show you."
Azela stepped toward Catherine, but Catherine backed away with her hands up. "Just get on the plant bug," she said. "I can gauge your weight that way. I feel what the conjured feels, remember?"
Azela looked disappointed, but climbed atop the plant bug as Catherine had asked. "This is as low as I can go so far. I feel as though I should be able to do more, but haven't been able to manage it yet," she said.
Catherine circled the bug as she looked up at Azela, saying, "That's honestly amazing. I felt your weight going down as you were climbing. You're practically weightless, except for that pack. How is this even possible?"
Azela shrugged. "Glitchiterions or something like that. Biology stuff. I don't know how long I can keep it down, though. A couple of hours, maybe?"
Catherine climbed up beside her and settled into position. The bug dipped only slightly under the added weight. The myst stretched out ahead of them, still and boundless, swallowing most of the horizon whole. Whatever was left of Starhold, and whatever waited inside it, was somewhere on the other side of all that gray.
"We should get moving then," she said, and the plant bug rose into the air.