Everything had been pleasantly still for beats, now, and then some, but Cassie was already aware of their breath running out. They could still here the whistle of the winds around them, going stronger by the moment, but the air entered one side of the portal and passed out behind them, thanks to Alexa's bubble. Cassie itched under the suit, wishing that Alexa had her great idea earlier, but claustrophobia already protested against that, as did her light-headedness and potentially Alexa's stamina. Cassie could feel the tips of her antlers buzz with pain, and the pace Alexa was keeping only seemed to heighten with the incline. Working against gravity was ridiculously hard in this clime, and all of their aerobic strength was giving out, although Cassie had no doubt she would be the first to go, and she wasn't even the one doing the magic.

She strained desperately against her own failing muscles, feeling like a dead fish more than a Sentient, magical being, and Tabai was there by her side, helping to push her up and over the hill. Cassie felt her breath catch again, and she managed a quick "Thank you," in the way of gratitude to Tabai.

The Canis gave her a quick nod. Leaning against her, Cassie could feel her muscles straining...

"I shouldn't have come at all," Cassie said, the top of the mountain looming over her like an epiphany. "I figured I could be useful to you, but I'm really just a liability."

"And Dusty or Pechi would have been puffing behind us too at a moment's notice. It's bad luck to send two on a mission. One is a fool, two are a sacrifice, three are a party. I don't suppose you've heard that one?"
"Once," Cassie sighed. The air was now so lacking in oxygen that she found herself longing for the winds. "I can't feel my hooves right now. I think I might be dancing in the air with the others."

The whistled sweetly back, promising air, and Alexa twitched violently, straining at the lead. "Can't hold it much longer. These winds have to be hundreds of miles per hour... if we don't get down, we'll die."

The ground here was clean even of sand, leaving only the gray rock behind. The worn-clean stone shone a sickly shade of yellow, matching the sky overhead. "We're close. On three?" asked Tabai.

The world was much too still. The only sound in the entire universe seemed to be the breath of Tabai and Alexa, both of them practically heaving just to get air in their lungs. Beneath them, the stone shuddered with the mirage-like effect things took on in great heat, and then it began to bound away from the group as Cassie found herself accelerating alongside the others. The three of them broke into what Cassie would describe as a gallop, and just as oxygen was giving way, they found themselves on the edge of a precipice. Like the First World, there was an endlessly spiralling staircase there, this one made of the same dark material as the bedrock. The group practically fell into its side, and just below the barrier, the bubble came off.

Cassie ducked. The wind overhead was still rushing, furiously, and it pulled against them even in the depths of this pity, but it was just far enough that the group had found a kind of shelter. Tabai, Alexa, and Cassie looked to each other, all of them terrified and relieved, and Cassie let the pain surge through her limbs, just letting it needle her as the air blew through the suit, filling her lungs with oxygen again. It was hard to kneel on the steps, which were almost too narrow for her, but by holding her head against the wall, she had found a position that was secure if not comfortable. Her front hooves held the back of the last stair, keeping her precariously over the edge. Tabai was just above, keeping low to the ground, and Alexa held against the wall, leering into the darkness.

As her mind cleared, Cassie felt the darkness probe her back. She looked around and asked, "Do you think they're here, too?"

"Seraph or the soarers?" asked Tabai.

"Seraph," Cassie clarified.

An image of inverted wind rushed through the minds of the assembled Sentients.

"They're not here, but we know who is," Alexa said.

There was the image again, for an equally brief time, though more insistent. Air rushed backwards, into itself, in a way that made no physical sense, accompanied by calmness over the plains the group had just traversed. The image flashed again, and again, and the group was deafened by hundreds of the same image, each from a different "voice".

Cassie almost tripped down the stairs, blinded, and Alexa growled, "What a welcoming party."

"What do you want?" Tabai asked the aliens, and the images only grew louder. Regardless of it they knew the words or not, the sentiment was apparently appreciated. Tabai told Alexa and Cassie, "They're imagining... the wind averting, but they can't quite envision it. It's been their reality for too many generations. Has it always been this way?"

"You know you don't have to say it aloud," Alexa said.

Her ears perked as something soft hit her like it had Tabai, an image flickering in all of their minds... it was grainy, and filled with holes, many of which were patched in ways that did not always correspond well with the rest of the image. Still, amongst the vague, blurry spots, the hints of green were impossible to ignore. There had been plants, soft breezes, and they had leapt between trees. Then, a second image flashed in their mind, and there were soaring creatures dragging each other out of trees, and then a bright light, and then the winds.

"So the seraph helped you," Tabai said, "But you were not exactly 'helped'."

There was a dull murmur of agreement. As they continued down, Alexa jerked herself away from the walls. Cassie looked around her to see that they were absolutely covered with the little soaring creatures, who were clumped in massive packs. She could sense all their psychic grips there, as she had when they were 'talking' to her. Little bonds linked all of them together, so that the voyagers were just trespassing on a giant neural network.

Cassie breathed out. "Do we know if taking the seraph horn from the bottom will save them?"

Alexa said, "It would be a nice, especially convenient coincidence. Why are the outside-- oh, forget it, they'll know what I meant."

"Why do other sentient beings get upset when I pin them against the ground and interrogate them? That's a good question, Alexa, and I'm glad you're finally learning," teased Cassie.

Alexa bared her teeth. "You cut that out."

Cassie wilted.

One of the soarers offered a quick little signal that informed them those who lived on the outside had not had contact in forever. Once you were off of the life-giving walls of the soul of the world, you might never see or converse with anyone ever again. The others trembled, a wave of fear gripping the entire network, dying out somewhere far below them.

Alexa nodded. She looked over at the other two. "Well, you're the two who've invested yourselves in this. Go on."

The way down was steep, but at least there was ample air. The aftertaste here was even stranger, almost honeyed, which might have been the soarer's breath. 'Life-giving walls'... Cassie deduced that there was something on the inside of the mountain that they were consuming, which allowed them to keep living in these numbers. In fact, Cassie couldn't exactly stop to lick it, but if she had to guess, "The rock is incredibly nutrient-heavy," Cassie deduced. "Probably supplemented by whatever flies in here, attracted by light or the lack of wind."

There was another round of agreement. Another showed her a few plants at the bottom, thrusting it into her mind with incredible pride. As they descended, they continued to send out signals, including those that had nothing to do with the mission at hand. One would get a peek at them and send them themselves, and the gesture would be copied a hundred times. They would mess with this and pass on the distorted images, the three of them gradually looking more and more soarer-like as the cluster tried to recontextualize them.

After that began the taking. At first, it was just a little snatch, like being cuffed around the ears, but Cassie could feel them pulling at her memory like any pup she'd ever met being given a new toy. They prodded at her from all angles, at first curious, and then descended. Someone picked apart a moment at home, filled with green, and passed that on. Another dragged out the first time she ate meat... oh, she'd done it on accident, too, it had been an all-Canid party, and she was sitting alone in the corner while it was dialing down, hating herself for coming, and she'd looked forwards and found she'd been throwing the next party, because she found her aptitude... she could see time go all the way out to the end. She was cosmically farsighted. She had been excited, for moments, and then she had seen the world's slow demise, the hopeless way the last creatures looked up towards a red sun from their monochrome, fading world, and she had become so afraid that she needed to prove she was real, and there had been nothing to eat, which was usually the case, but--

--and what do you say, when you know how it will all go down? She couldn't justify surrender to herself, so she would take the opposite of surrender. She would go down saving the world, and the darkness would be delayed a heartbeat longer. That was the only option. Everything else fell into the pitch.

No one else needed to know that. No one else needed to hear that! Cassie tried to grab back her memories, but the soarers shivered with intensity as they passed it along.

"Come on, I never said you could have that! Don't you think that's a little intimate to--" Cassie paused. Alexa had her head down, snarling, but Tabai looked mortified. A Soarer physically flicked Cassie's ear with its long tail, trying to grab her. It asked her if she wanted to see what it had found about her crewmates. "N-no!" Cassie said. "I have to respect their privacy... I mean... I don't know that they're protecting mine, but I..."

Another tender memory was brushed, and Cassie felt like someone had struck her.
"Stop that!"

It was impossible to pretend there was nothing to grab. Cassie stopped clinging onto all the memories she had of being cornered, of being alone in groups, of the aftermath with her in the kitchen, and she gave up everything. For a brief second, Cassie shared the agony of the last timeline, the only thing she could see when she used the Fauna's future sight, and the darkness that rolled over all worlds flooded the creatures in the cave like a heavy wave rising from the ocean. The whole planet grew silent. The creatures in the dark steadied their psychic grasp, and Cassie felt them on all sides, hardly holding back. Their curious, almost mournful faces watched them all the way down, but she still felt the intense guilt stirring in her stomach.

"Sorry."

Tabai breathed, "Cassie, what did you do?"
"Ask them," Cassie said, a little too brave, and then clarified, "Please don't actually ask them. I kind of... well. I, um, I actually don't know how to put this, but you respect my privacy, right?"

Tabai blinked. "Of course. I'm only checking to assure the safety of the others."

"Oh! Well, I told them to back off, but I--" Cassie could still hear, if she listened closely, the echoes of her darkness, being turned over into their minds into something completely different. "--I mean, I don't think that it hurt. I'm sorry! Is that against rules with interworld communication? Oh stars, I have no-o-o idea what I'm doing..."

"You're fine. We should catch up," Tabai said, jerking her head towards Alexa, who was still walking.

Cassie bounded forth to meet her. 'Bounding' was near impossible on the steps, and there was the matter of getting ones hooves off the ground, and falling down, but she was still making serious speed. Alexa walked faster in retaliation, half tripping over steps. The Canis looked back at her. "I knew we brought you along for a reason," she said.

"Oh," Cassie paused. "That's a compliment, isn't it? I can't believe it. Did you just compliment me, Alexa? Well, thank you!"

Alexa grumbled something under her breath.

Cassie's tail was already waving like a Canis's. It was impossible to detect under the suit, which was great, but it was at least a little light of enthusiasm to carry them into the dark. There, at the center, on ground surrounded by soarers like the ones who coated the walls.

Alexa looked distastefully at the ground. "I'd prefer not to step on them."

"Then allow me," said Cassie. She stepped forwards, and they moved respectfully out of the way, repeating back the darkness to her, stunned. Cassie thought back on the ways she had coped over the years, and offered them a clear sky, and sunlight. They looked up into her present as a unit, and each one tweaked it just so, in their minds. At the same time, Cassie grabbed the seraph horn with her own antlers, which had just of enough of an indent in the fabric between them to hold the curved horn. There was a little bit of pressure as it gave from its pedestal, and the first row of soarers bolted up with an agility that seemed nearly impossible.

A collective scream of light seized the group, mimicking Cassie's sun, and with an expression they could give no other name, they leapt, propelled by alien force. The cavern was left nearly entirely empty, save for the three Sentients at the bottom.

Tabai muttered, "I knew there was some good in us."

Dizzily, Cassie asked, "So they're free?"

The silence dragged out around them, like its own kind of assent.

Alexa passed both the starry-eyed optimists, brushing her tail to wave them forwards. "Ship'll be waiting. Heading up?"

Cassie gave her a vigorous nod. The trip up seemed lighter, somehow, as if the trio were walking on clouds instead of a heavily magnetized surface. Cassie almost found herself bounding up to the top, until the wind began to blow through her suit at the same alarming frequency which it had affected her out on the field. Cassie gave a nervous laugh. "Strange," she said.

"Hm?" Alexa said.

"When we pulled that seraph horn away, and they all flew out... that was because removing the seraph horn abated the winds, right? I mean, that's what I thought happen. Seems a little abstract, actually, now that I think about it."

"That was an assumption that you chose to make, yes," Alexa said. "No one necessarily validated it."

Cassie's ears fell. "But all those soarers! They went out into the open field, and they must've thought they would-- or maybe-- if they didn't sense that the winds had let up, why would they go at all?"

Tabai looked up at the dark skies. "You must've given them hope."

Cassie retaliated, "Hope doesn't mean anything if things aren't actually going to get better. You can't just lie to someone and..."

Alexa said, "And what? They're not our responsibility. We don't even know what they were thinking. They're so alien to us that for all we know, we could have scared them off. The important thing is getting that horn back to our ship and returning to our business." Cassie felt the air contract around them. "Are you ready to run again?"
Cassie had almost physically recovered, but though her lungs no longer burned, there was another, sickly sensation deep in her throat, a guilt that seemed to freeze her legs solid. Still, Alexa and Tabai looked back at her as if she were already becoming a dim blur on the horizon, and though there was a little more sympathy in the latter's expression, both of them were barely tolerating her hesitance.

The skies continued to turn overhead. In all likelihood, they would continue like this for eternity, leaving the inhabitants to be thrown around by forces outside of their control.

Maybe there was nothing they could do but leave them to it.