Lyn gave a small sigh, and turned to Ceress, “Well, it looks like Ellie is distracted. We may as well get started. You know the drill, sit still, don't move — and since it's a rib, don't breathe heavily or talk till I'm done, please.”

  Ceress leaned back on her tail, making an improvised pillow. “Sure. I'm going to take a quick nap, let my own healing get to work while you do your thing, if you don't mind. Fifteen minutes okay?”

  “Sure, that should be sufficient. Moira, I need my hands.”

  “Sure thing! Talk soon!”

  Lyn wondered briefly if being dismissed like that bothered Moira. Resolving to ask later, they let the voice arc collapse before laying hands against Ceress's ribs.

  “You know, I like the little moon as much as you do — but everything she can hear via that arc, AMA can likely hear as well.” Ceress's tone was carefully neutral — Lyn appreciated that she was trying to make her point without starting a fight.

  “I know, Ceress.” Lyn left it unsaid that they knew better than Ceress ever could. “I'm careful.”

  Ceress gave her a brief look, then laid back and went silent and still.

  Lyn wove the aetheric pattern that signaled to Ber physiology that it should prioritize healing, and let it radiate outwards from their hands. Silverpaw had been engineered for powerful but indelicate aether manipulation; this was not a Skill they had been… assigned, as a species. They had spent years practicing rigorously to be capable of this particular feat.

  While passively encouraging Ceress's natural healing capabilities to heights that could outstrip even silverpaw regeneration, Lyn reviewed and organize their thoughts; the last day had been hectic, changing from priority to emergency and back.

  They let those thoughts percolate and burble quietly in the background for a little longer than was probably necessary for the healing to take effect, but Lyn wanted a few more minutes of quiet before the inevitable group discussion.

  Sooner started, sooner finished. Lyn raised their voice sufficiently to call out to the whole group. “If everyone could get to a stopping point, I'd like to have everyone gather. We have a few things to discuss.”

  Various sounds of agreement came from the casting party. Ceress was still asleep, along with her… wait, two felinids? Hekkan, and… who was the new one?

  It was a few more minutes for Nat, Novek, and Ellie to come over. Soot had apparently laid down to nap atop the remnants of their casting, to absorb the ambient heat, and the horses were nervously watching her every move from their spot near the water.

  A few portable chairs — benches, really — had been pulled from the coach and brought over.

  “Nat, the scrav should be hot enough now. Could you bring it over with you?”

  Nat turned to the fire where he'd made scrav kebab, then reconsidered and turned to Lyn. “Sure, will do. Let me get few more things coach as well. Scrav is great, but cheese is life.”

  Ellie nodded approvingly and went to help, but Lyn forestalled her leaving.

  “Ah! Not you, Ellie. You come over here and sit. Having three people in need of significant medical care is taxing. I'm already tired from working on the foot. No making this harder on me.”

  “Oh, alright.” Ellie pulled her bench closer to Lyn, who took their hands off Ceress and looked at the wrapping on the shoulder wound. It required changing though.

  “Novek, right? Can you go get some clean bandages from the coach with Nat while I look at this?”

  “Sure. Anything else?”

  “Anything with a reasonable amount of alcohol content. There should be a few things from Bell House that will suit. Ask Nat, he'll know where they are.”

  “Okay, while the boys are all busy, take off your shirt and let's get a look.”

  Ellie did, quickly and economically; Lyn inspected the damaged shoulder.

  “Not too bad. You're incredibly lucky all this did was tear some muscle, instead of shattering bone.”

  “Yeah, the bolt had spent all its energy going through the wood of the coach. Still had enough left to stick a few inches out my front though.”

  “Unfortunately Ber healing tricks don't work on Humans — you lack the engineered responses. We'll get this cleaned up, and then I can suppress the native bacteria — basically tell them to find a meal somewhere else.”

  “No worries at all. Better than I can do. May as well just rip the shoulder on the shirt, it's a total loss anyway.”

  Novek arrived with the extra bandages and alcohol, and helped Lyn clean and re-bandage the wound.

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  Nat came back over with the food a few minutes later, and Lyn decided it was time to wake Ceress up.

  Ceress came around instantly, looked at the small pile of scrav — easily worth a few weeks of pay — but seemed disappointed. “Is this all the scrav that's left? I was hoping to have enough for Soot. You said it was an adult?”

  Ellie chimed in, “We sold most of it earlier. Part of the reason for the bandits.”

  Nat added on, “It was also only the claw. It ran off after it exploded.”

  Ceress gave him a sideways glance.

  Lyn interjected, “We'll get to that in a bit. I think we can spare a little for Soot, but I'd like to reserve most of it for those requiring healing — that includes you, Ellie. It won't be quite the same, but since your body will be actively healing, you'll take up more than you would otherwise.”

  Ellie raised an eyebrow and inquired, “Why would the scrav matter to healing? Sorry, I'm not an expert in Ber, I'm far more familiar with Ankarran animals.”

  “It's not just that it's Ber meat, but extremely high quality. A sessile adult would have spent decades, or centuries, selectively expelling poorer quality mass while feeding, and integrating the more dense aethonic isotopes capable of holding more theronic energy.”

  “And that helps with healing… how?”

  “Ber physiology is designed to use aetherically infused mass to repair and power our capabilities. The scrav's impact on my regeneration is obvious — it will only be another day before the new foot will start to bud, and I'd estimated another four days to reach that point. I thought I had more time to prepare myself for the constant itching.”

  Ceress thought this was all well and good but going at about a third of the pace it should. She decided it was time to focus the group and get some answers.

  “Okay, can we save the educational lecture for later? We've got a few high priority items that need addressing.”

  Lyn started to answer, “I hardly think that was…”

  Ceress's right eye socket increased in size, lifting slightly. “Uh huh, and you weren't going to go into regenerative differences, perhaps mention that unlike human scar tissue, Ber generally don't scar, but instead perform whole tissue replacement, which is technically a superior approach for long term — is everybody bored yet?”

  Not waiting for an answer, Ceress continued. “So, I'm curious. How did you fight off an adult scrav? Exploded a claw? Someone have a cannon in the coach, maybe?”

  Lyn's tone went deadpan. “Nat has a helmsman package. It swung on the rebound.”

  Ceress paused a beat, “Fewmets and tripe. You're kidding.”

  Lyn simply nodded to Nat — not in the mood for a debate, apparently. “Would you mind, Nat? Short duration's fine, if you don't mind.”

  “What? Oh, uh, sure. Now?”

  “Yes please.”

  Nat walked a few meters away from the gathered group, opposite the camp and coach, towards where they'd fought the scrav. He took a breath and then…

  He was suddenly five meters further from where he had been standing, covered with the characteristic dark film that Ceress had heard described, but never seen in person.

  A violent gust of wind suddenly picked up every stone under a kilogram near Nat and threw it towards and past where Nat was frozen — some colliding with him and falling to the ground. Anything too heavy to fly still shifted in a clatter at his feet. His hand was held up in the air frozen in a wave. A wave of heat could be felt back where they were, once the wind had stopped.

  Clearly Lyn has not explained this to him properly at all. Nat thought this was cute. They were going to get someone killed.

  A second later Nat unfroze and waved awkwardly.

  Ceress almost growled at Lyn. “Are you insane? Has AMA gone insane? This isn't a toy. This isn't for fun. Has nobody taught him anything?”

  Lyn looked shocked, and snapped their fingers, and Moira's arc lit up, but they answered, to give Moira context, Ceress knew. “He has been frozen for years. We first encountered him yesterday morning. No Humans have this Talent, Skill — whatever. There was no-one to train him.”

  Ceress started to rise, but winced and remained seated. Instead, she pointed at Nat, “Do not activate that Talent again until I have a chance to show you what it is and how to use it. You could have killed someone just now, and you don't even know it.”

  Nat looked confused, and his face fell with chagrin. “But I went away from everyone.”

  “And picked up every stone around you and threw them. Look at the ground — then look behind you.”

  Nat looked at the ground, now bereft of small stones, then spun to gaze behind him. There was an obvious fan pattern on the ground where the stones had been thrown, some over ten meters away. The damage they could have done, had someone been close visibly dawned on him. He turned suddenly pale, then stuttered out a meek, “I'm sorry, I… I didn't know.”

  “It's okay, kid, but you need someone who is willing to show you what you're capable of, good and bad.”

  Lyn responded, exasperated, “That is exactly why we are out here, headed to the wilds, away from everyone.”

  Ceress was unmoved. “When were you going to teach him how to use it? What it could do?”

  Moira jumped in. “We didn't even know what he could do, and we certainly couldn't test it in the middle of a hospital. He was contained in a Human-made isolation room until recently. The recent schism pulse seems to have woken him from stasis. We were on our way, away from everyone.”

  “This is hardly away from everyone.”

  Lyn lost their temper, “You were not supposed to be here. None of you were supposed to be here. We were going to be let out of the coach, and walk out into the wilds. We did not ask you to come here. How could we know you were coming?”

  Ellie's eyes had gone wide during Nat's demonstration, and Novek had also turned with concern. Ellie finally put her thoughts together, “Okay, wait, this is lot worse than what I was told. Also, who is that talking?”

  “I'm Moira. Aetheric lifeform, from the same place as your descendants. Kindly keep that to yourself, please. Anyway — Hello, Novek. Ellie — sorry we didn't mention this earlier, but it's only a danger around dusk, and dawn — thus the trip away from the coach.”

  Not convinced, Ellie retorted, “This isn't dusk yet, and that was dangerous.”

  Moira tone remained positive, though even it seemed strained. “Well, obviously the unplanned demonstration was a bad idea. Lets everyone avoid a repeat, yes?”

  Novek decided to chime in, “Moira? Where are you?”

  “I'm everywhere. Nowhere. I don't have a body — I'm… similar to AMA, in a way.”

  Novek glanced to Ceress, noted the lack of reaction. “You're not surprised. You know this Moira?”

  “Yeah, she's what she says she is.”

  Novek shrugged, “Good enough for me. But dusk is only a little more than an hour away. That leaves the problem with Ber — and Nat, to be dealt with.”

  Ceress stood, somewhat abruptly. “Leave the Ber to me. If the wave happens again — and it didn't at dawn — then I can keep the local Ber from running amok. That leaves Nat.”

  The motion awakened the two felinids, which had been napping on her shoulders. The orange one looked around, yawned, and went back to sleep.

  The void with bright green eyes immediately locked on to Moira's arc and leapt at Lyn's open hand.