[SpringsSong]

“It’s not naturally-occurring, but someone attempted to build a shelter here long ago.  They abandoned it, however, once the rains came last season.  It seems to have stood well enough on its own, but I would not put too much faith in its integrity,” Yuki said passively.  “I trust that you know how to build a structure?”

Yuki continued to look back at her from time to time, trying to push it from his mind that she was so much like a combination of his sister and of the woman he had loved before.  She was everything that those two women had been, even though his sister had barely gotten a chance at life.  If she had… how much like this Lucain would she be?

“By the way… my name is Yuki, if you were curious,” he said in a dismissive tone.  If she wanted to give her name, then he would take it; however, if she did not want to give it—and he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to give it—he wasn’t going to take it too personally.

[SpringsSong]

“Yuki.  Interesting name,” Taliña said.  Fitting with your personality, I might add, she said to herself quietly as she followed after him, again, hiding her limp from him as she walked along, although it was getting harder and harder to conceal her limp the more and more she walked.  When they at last reached the wooden structure, Tali frowned deeply.

It wasn’t very much of a structure.  In fact, it barely passed as a structure, in her opinion; it was a few pieces of wood that outlined the shape of a structure, but had little else to define it as such.  It was back against a rock, and there was a tree nearby.  However, she sighed as she looked at it, walking around it a couple of times before she nodded.

“I can make something of this, yes,” she said, nodding after a few moments.  “Shouldn’t be too terribly hard for me to do,” she said, more to herself than to Yuki.  And then, after a few more moments, she spoke again.

“They call me Taliña,” she said before she turned her attention to the structure, content to forget his existence from that point on.

[SpringsSong]

Taliña.  Yuki was almost certain he had heard that name before now, and the more and more he looked at her, the more and more it began to dawn on him—he had seen a notice once; a notice upon which the pictures of three soldiers had been posted: one Purine and two Imperial.  One of them had been a Khimera, but the other two were Lucain: one male, and one female.

And the female Lucain… had black fur with blue rings on her face.

“…you,” he said finally. “I saw a notice a long time ago saying that you were one of the more dangerous soldiers.  I remember now,” he said.  “I was a younger lad back then… I never would have expected you to be the kind to live in the woods,” he said, looking away from her warily.  It all made sense now, how she had been able to best him so easily—she was that same Lucain from all those years ago.

When he saw that she had already begun to work on the structure, however, he was content to leave her to work on the structure and return to his normal routine of patrolling the forest for any other intruders.

[SpringsSong]

Tali looked back at Yuki dimly as he said this; apparently, he did recognize her once her name had been shared.  She soon returned to examining the structure a little closer; it did not look like it was sturdy enough to stand on its own for long; no wonder it had been abandoned by the complete idiot who had started building it before the rainy season.

“This just won’t do…” she said, frowning as she looked around.  The wood was bowing slightly, and she could also see mildew clinging to it.  She sighed as she looked around for other wood that would be just as convenient to use, but unfortunately, most of the timber that was left was in a similar state.  She frowned a little deeper here; it was not in her style to create a structure that was fashioned out of anything less than the best materials.

“Why… why does this have to be so confusing,” she asked herself, staring at the wood blankly.  “Or, rather, why does it have to be so… challenging,” she corrected herself as an afterthought.  But when she saw the dark rainclouds overhead; that was when she breathed a curse.

[SpringsSong]

Yuki almost had not thought twice about the rains that would be coming—for they always came about this time of year—and had assumed that, since she had lived here at one point in time, she would know about the rainy season.  She would have also seen the structure; if she was smart, then she would know that she needed to try and scrape as much of the rot off of the wood as she could.

Maybe I should have offered to let her stay in the den until the rains pass, instead of making her take the makeshift shelter… what on earth would my mother think if she knew that I was making a woman fend for herself when I am fully aware of the dangers that could face her? Yuki asked himself, looking back every few moments to see if the rains had started yet.  He breathed a silent prayer of thanks every time that he saw that they had not yet started to fall, and when he got back to the den, he kept his eyes in the direction of the makeshift shelter.

I just hope that… if she has the misfortune of the shelter collapsing on her in the rains… I hope she has the sense to at least cry out for help, he thought, looking nervously towards the shelter again.  Maybe it would be wiser for him to go and bring her back here now…?

[SpringsSong]

When the rains started to fall, Taliña knew that she would only have a short period of time to prepare the shelter which she had to stay in.  Part of her growled inwardly; this place was her territory; the least that the male could have done would be to allow her to stay in the den during the rainy season—which, Taliña knew the Idalani area enough to know that they were about to hit the worst part of the rainy season.

“Just my luck,” she cursed under her breath.  “Of course it would start to rain right when I need it to be relatively clear skies for the sake of building this shelter to protect myself…”

It was here that Tali began to work with purpose, patching up the shelter as best she could.  She doubted that there was much more she could do beyond that; but she would do what she could.

“Of all of the things that could happen…”

[SpringsSong]

Yuki kept his eyes trained on the skies as he also kept his eyes on the horizon, towards where the wooden shelter was.  While he did not doubt Taliña’s ability to fend for herself, he could also tell that she had not been in the Idalani region for long enough that she would have forgotten how dangerous the rains could be—and often were.

Yuki, where is your sense of chivalry? he asked himself, pacing back and forth in his den.  If this were her, back in Tengel, you would not have hesitated to give up your spot in the den and let her sleep there until the rains had passed… Yuki, what have you done?!

Almost as soon as he asked this, a bolt of lightning danced across the skies, followed by a loud crash of thunder.  Instantly, Yuki was to his feet, scenting the air as he looked around nervously.  After a few moments, he let out a series of barks followed by a howl, hoping that Tali would respond.

[SpringsSong]

Almost as soon as the lightning had split the sky, the wood that Tali was resting under cracked.  To make matters worse, it wasn’t just the wood that she was resting under that was cracking—no, it was the tree beside the shelter, and the tree leaned toward the shelter, more and more…

…until the tree’s trunk cracked, with the tree falling on the shelter and pinning Tali firmly in place, landing across her back half.  The Lucain let out a pained howl, but as she howled, the howl became a roar.

She knew exactly what was happening; her adrenaline had triggered and her Paragon blood had awakened, hoping to provide a little extra strength to free herself from under the tree, but alas, she could not budge the tree a single inch.  Both of her legs were pinned, and her tail was practically useless against the aged tree.

“Yuki!” she cried out, even though she did not count on the male coming to her aid.  “Someone, please!  I can’t move!” she cried out again, noticing that the river was slowly swelling beyond the banks.  If she could not move, then she could very easily drown in less water than she had first learnt to swim in as a Lucain pup.

“Please!”

[SpringsSong]

The howl-turned-roar spoke to Yuki louder than the shouted plea that followed.  There were only so many creatures that made that kind of a sound; a sound that sounded half-Lucain and half-Paragon in the middle, but was distinctly Lucain and the beginning and Paragon at the end.

Almost instantly, Yuki’s body changed shape; his wingblades melding together and then stretching into magnificently feathered wings, his two tails combining into one, and his body easily doubling in size as he let out a powerful roar in response to her frightened one.

“Taliña!”

He called this out with a sense of urgency; he knew how fast the river could swell, and he also knew that, if she was trying to fight her way out from under the tree, then she would tire herself out far quicker than was necessary.  If she tired herself out, then…

…well, then she could easily drown in what would otherwise be considered a mere puddle of water.

He leapt into the air, beating his wings as he looked around for the black, blue, and gray Lucain.  When he saw the shelter and the fallen tree, however, it was not a Lucain that he spied under the wreckage; rather, a Paragon.

[SpringsSong]

The water was rising a little quicker than Taliña had anticipated, and now, she was on the verge of panicking.  She struggled underneath the tree and shelter, but as with before, she couldn’t move it a single inch.  However, a roar pierced over the sound of the storm—the roar of a Paragon.

“Taliña!”

When she heard this voice, she recognized it as belonging to Yuki.  Part of her almost didn’t want to believe it; but when she looked to the skies and saw the white-and-green form with majestic wings, she felt her heart skip a couple of beats.

“Yuki!  I’m over here!” she cried, hoping to catch the Paragon’s attention.  She breathed an inward sigh of relief; whether or not she had hoped for it, he had come to rescue her from what could have otherwise been a watery death.  She craned her neck as high as she dared, letting out a shrill call in hopes of it piercing through the sound of the rain.

[SpringsSong]

As soon as her audible cry and the sound of several shrill calls reached him, Yuki dove towards the shape.  The colors matched those of the Lucain which he had fought earlier, only now, she was a Paragon—and a Placid Paragon at that.  Yuki tilted his head once he landed, looking at her carefully before he spoke.

“I thought I was the only one…”

As he said this, he turned to the banks of the river and let out a breath of frost, turning the rain in the immediate area to snow and freezing the water in its place—for the time being, at the very least.  Then, he turned his attention to the tree.  He frowned as he looked at it, but after a few moments, he picked up the tree and hefted it to the side.

“Can you stand?” Yuki asked, although he personally rather doubted it.  After seeing how the tree had landed, he would honestly be surprised if she could even move her back legs for the time being.

[SpringsSong]

“The only one?  I thought I was the only one!” Tali said in a dark voice as she looked upon Yuki’s Paragon form.

Taliña’s face darkened as Yuki asked this question, twisting her neck around to look at her back half and noticing how her legs were both bent at unusual angles.  She pushed herself up on her front legs, looking at the snow that was softly falling, but knowing that it could not possibly last for much longer.

“I don’t think I can,” she said, her voice a little more subdued than the first time she had spoken to him.  “In fact, I think that both of my back legs are broken… otherwise I could have gotten that tree off of me.”

Indeed, she could have—she had the sheer strength to push the tree far enough back that she could have wormed her way out from under the tree, but with half of her strength gone now?  Well, she was little better than a pup or a hatchling.

[SpringsSong]

“…but how?” Yuki asked, mostly to himself.  It didn’t make sense that there would be another Lucain who could take on the shape of a Paragon; but apparently, she could… but that was not of importance right now.  Right now, the thing that mattered the most was getting her to a safe place where he could tend to her wounds and where she could rest without fear of the waters rising.

“Your legs look like their broken… in multiple places, actually,” Yuki said grimly as he picked the Paragon up carefully and positioned her so that her front claws were wrapped around his neck so that she could hold on when he took to the air.

And that is exactly what he did—with little effort, he leapt into the air, keeping one of his claws over Tali’s for a moment to make sure that she stayed on his back until she could hold on, or until they reached the den.

“I should have offered to let you stay in the den… I should have stayed in the wooden shelter,” he said, shaking his head as he sighed.

[SpringsSong]

“You needn’t beat yourself up over it,” Tali said.  “The fault is partly my own for not being willing to look for shelter somewhere else.  I’m sure there are plenty of empty caves that can be used as dens all over Idalani… but, given how stubborn I am, I had to insist on having this territory back.”

She quickly linked her claws together once Yuki had her on his back, but once he took off, she was very glad that he placed his own claw over them, for the sheer force of him leaping into the air was almost enough to tear the smaller Paragon off of his back.  When the pair came to the den, she was still clinging to him, mostly because she had not anticipated him flying that fast.

“You… you have powers over ice…” she said, her voice thin and strained.  “Th-thank you… but there’s no way you could have foreseen that happening… even I, who lived here exclusively until the war… never would have expected…”

[SpringsSong]

“But I should have, because this is how last year’s rainy season was,” Yuki said as he helped the Placid Paragon off of his back and into a position where he could examine her legs.  He frowned after a few moments, and then, he looked back at her, his golden eyes grave.

“Do you have a human form that you can take?  It would make working on your legs a little easier for me, and they would also be easier for me to set into place,” he said, slowly taking on his human form.  His hair was mussed and his top was in shambles, and his skin indicated that he definitely spent more time outdoors than in the shade, where he would never have exposure to as much sunlight.

“Yes… I do have powers over ice,” Yuki said, looking away from her.  “I discovered it in a rather… unconventional way.  And also unfortunate.”

The tone in which he said this in indicated that he maybe did not wish to discuss it, but at the same time, needed to find closure with it.