Nat was momentarily bewildered by the sudden resumption of Soot's screeching thundering out around him; He felt like he was inside a dark oven — an oppressive heat, hotter than what he'd entered his Talent to escape, started to bake him immediately.

  Just as suddenly, the heat lessened as a cool gust of wind blew him off his feet. Soot swept their wings out of the dome tent, and leapt into the air. Her keening noise suddenly cut off with a confused squawk, as she vanished from Nat's vision into the… bright dawn sky?

  He stood, quickly — the ground was still immensely hot in the… small pit he was standing in. He scuttled out of the pit to escape the heat that burned his hands and was soon to burn his feet, out onto to the lip of the… glass plain?

  What?

  Sparkles of light like fireworks spattered and bounced on the shiny ground as Soot started coughing out molten material from high above.

  The sun had jumped above the horizon — moments ago, there had only been the first dawning rays of light brightening the sky.

  Looking around, now that his feet were no longer threatening to cook, he could see a number of Pa'hupa and other Ber floating in small groups, somewhat distant from him — a daytime echo of the night of the schism pulse.

  Nat could hear some commotion coming from where he thought the camp was — he was momentarily disoriented, as the cluster of trees was no longer present as a landmark; only some smouldering stumps remained.

  Then he could make out Ceress's intimidating 270 cm cyan and orange frame, bounding towards him.

  And then right past him, towards where Soot was flapping rapidly, still faintly keening in the air, above.

  “Soot! Are you okay, baby? Soot! Here!”

  A bright orange glow followed after Ceress — indistinct due to the output of light that was painful to look directly at. It weaved around her feet as she ran to greet the draconid.

  Nat turned back towards the camp and could now see Novek's distinct tiger shape, followed by a slightly slower Lyn who hobbled after him on… most of a foot?

  Lyn had Moira's arc out, sized larger than usual still, and Nat could easily make out her next words even twenty meters away.

  The booming, yet still tinny voice came from the arc, “Well, howdy stranger!”

  At ten meters away, Novek suddenly hopped backwards with a yelp. “Whoa, it's still hot over there. I'll stand here. Also, hey kid.”

  Lyn stopped short as well, though five meters closer, and beckoned to Nat with a hand. “Let's take a look at you. Any serious burns?”

  “Um, no? I'd say I feel sunburned, but I don't actually know what that feels like. Something to drink would be wonderful, though. I never knew what feeling parched meant until this moment.”

  “Ah, I only brought burn cream; Water is back at camp. Sorry, I should have remembered. We've been waiting, but we weren't sure what minimum safe distance was.”

  “Um, okay. So… did we win?” Nat gestured at the glossy ground around him.

  Novek took the answer with a gruff laugh, “Better to say we didn't lose.”

  Glancing at Novek, Nat noticed that his paws were bandaged, and the tiger Brin had clearly made liberal use of the cream himself.

  As Nat turned to walk back towards the camp with Lyn and Novek, he could see the orange ball of light bounding all over Soot, who had landed and was currently being embraced by Ceress, who was making soft comforting cooing noises.

  And Nat had thought that petting Hekkan in his Talent had been absurd — wait, was the frenetic orange ball the lazy felinid?

  This day kept getting weirder and weirder.

  “So, uh, is everyone okay? How many hours has it been?”

  “Let's head back, get some food and water, wait for Ceress to finish coddling Soot, and then we'll talk.”

  Novek added, “Always best to debrief when events are fresh in memory. But we'll discuss now anyway.”

  Lyn quickly took a seat once they returned to camp — while they could walk reasonably well with the cane, it was still painful when used to excess.

  The wooden chairs that Novek had assembled in the interim were quite comfortable; He'd apparently gotten tired of sitting on logs and rocks, once the coach was no longer around. Ellie had departed to resume earning a living as a coach master, but said she'd check back every few days.

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  Lyn poured some tea from the kettle for themselves, but for Nat they reached for a waterskin they'd hung in a small pit to cool.

  Nat wandered off behind a nearby rock before returning a few minutes later, and they handed him the chilled water in a small metal cup.

  He took it graciously, gulped it, and rather than refill it, Lyn handed him the waterskin. It wasn't like there was a shortage of water, with the small stream flowing down the center of the riverbed. They didn't even need to boil it, as a number of the party, Lyn included, could sterilize it in moments via various means.

  They handed him some of the salvaged gazelle kebab — anything near the pit had been a loss, but a few of the horned animals had gone down further away and gotten merely cooked, rather than incinerated.

  With a polite gesture for delay, Lyn sipped their tea a moment before saying, “We'll give Ceress a few minutes to check over Soot. She's been worried.”

  Nat looked at them with a bit of a head tilt — Lyn could tell he was slowly coming to grips with the obvious. It was better if he worked out some of it himself, first — it'd keep the refusal phase of the conversation to a minimum, and hopefully avoid any prolonged emotional outbursts.

  Novek had retrieved Siya from his bedroll and came to stand next to Nat. He put his paw on Nat's shoulder, and said simply, “Good work out there.”

  “Um, okay?”

  Novek sat, the kit in his lap, and reached for a stick of meat for himself, and picked some slightly different meat out of his pouch, which he was hand-feeding Siya. Well, sort of — he was mostly just setting the meat on top of Siya. Then it would begin to hiss before vanishing within a few seconds. Lyn had never really seen vodat eat, and it was both fascinating and vaguely disturbing.

  Nat stared into the middle distance while they sat in relative silence — Siya was not a silent eater. Then he looked at Lyn's hands, and Lyn could tell he had noted they didn't have Moira's arc out at the moment.

  Nat raised his hands and lit her flame, “So, how many days has it been?”

  Right, then. The direct approach. Of course — they should have anticipated that.

  Well, a direct question deserved a direct answer. It was something Lyn was working on, but years — no, decades — of training made both trust and giving non-evasive answers more difficult than it should be.

  Lyn was forming the words when Moira and Novek answered at the same moment, “Three days.”

  “Ah. That explains the foot, then. And the chairs. And the glassed area of sand not being molten. Anything I should know that doesn't require Ceress be here?”

  Lyn decided to get the jump on this one, “A schism pulse happened just before you came out of your Talent. Moira thinks it's related still — the timing is too coincidental.”

  It does appear to be — I couldn't tell anything while you were in your frozen state until you re-manifested my pattern, but your interface froze and reset. You were kicked out of your Talent a little early. Thus the heat exhaust on exit — nothing too significant, though.

  Soot was flying overhead now, and landed with a thud and a brief squawk. It seemed she'd come out worse for it than Nat — not unexpected, really. She'd been starting to scorch outside the Talent, the poor brave girl.

  Ceress walked back into camp a few seconds later and went to sit next to Soot — easily within range of the conversation in progress. Hekkan's glowing form emerged from atop Soot, and circled her paws on the ground constantly — he apparently wasn't going to leave her side for the time being.

  Never one to be the least direct in any given conversation, Ceress went straight to, “You tell him already?”

  Lyn shrugged, “He already knew.”

  “Yeah, figures. How about the pulse?”

  Lyn continued, “We were just getting to that — so, it looks like the pulses are at three-day intervals. Which is extremely fast and likely to cause any remaining Ber in the area significant discomfort before they head further away.”

  “I can calm local Ber, no problem though. I've doubled my range using some of Moira's suggestions while we waited for you to unthaw. Though she still can't do anything without driving Ber, or Ber'Duun wild. It is amazingly disconcerting to experience, I'll say that much.”

  Nat had been quiet, after his earlier revelatory comment, but rejoined the conversation, “I guess my only real question is why three days?”

  The simple answer is that's how long it took for your Talent to mitigate the heat. The slightly more accurate answer is it should have been four instead, but the pulse deactivated your Talent early.

  “Well, I'm fine, really. No major burns.”

  Ceress sounded somewhat upset at his response. “The Talent takes anyone brought into it that it can detect into account. Soot needed another day or two. She's been burned more than I even knew was possible. There's not much we can do about it though — she'll heal in a few days or so, if we can keep her fed. Which I'm going to go work on as soon as we're done here. You want to help, Novek?”

  “Sure, I've got a whole batch of new trick bolts and some new knives to try out. Okay if Siya comes? He needs to learn to hunt.”

  “Absolutely. Only way to learn is by doing.”

  “That's my line.”

  “It was till I stole it.”

  Nat interrupted the two of them with a question Lyn hadn't expected, “Is Hekkan going to be okay? Is that him over by Soot? He's so active.”

  Ceress responded, “Oh, yeah, he'll be fine. He got out of this with the least issues of any of us. Lyn and I just heal fast. Novek's going to be sore for days yet, and I saw you holding your side on the way over here.”

  “Ah, yeah, a gazelle slammed into me. Nothing broken. Just bruised.”

  “Well, have Lyn look at it, just in case. Anything else? I know we wanted to talk about what we could have gone better, but I'd like to delay that till afternoon, if that's okay. Soot needs meat to heal. A lot of it.”

  “Well, I have a bunch of questions, but as crazy as it seems, I really don't want anything more than a nap at the moment.”

  Lyn figured there was no point holding people for a longer discussion at the moment. “That's likely you needing to replenish stores for your Talent and regenerate tissue. You're extremely heat-resistant, but you still have burns to heal. Make sure to get some of whatever Ber Novek and Ceress manage to down.”

  But before the group broke, they decided some recognition was due. It was hard to admit, but they were proud of the group, even with the failures — in spite of the failures. “So, before everyone breaks. I just want to say that I think everyone did a great job.”

  Ceress's face turned suddenly serious — she turned and looked at Lyn for a moment. “Ah, I think we might need to plan a trip to this hospital I know of nearby, Bell House.”

  Lyn turned, concerned. “Why's that? Something wrong with Soot? Do we not have enough burn cream?”

  In response, Ceress put on a whole-face toothy grin. “No, Soot will be fine — I just think that it's probable that we have an undiagnosed head injury on the team.”

  Grinning, Lyn threw their cup of tea at Ceress, who did not manage to dodge the surprisingly accurate throw. Ceress rose, patted Novek on the shoulder to indicate it was time to go, and turned as she walked away — her scales dripping — and said, “Worth it.”