Derpy opened his eyes and immediately wished the sky would hold still.
He tried to sit up. The ground tilted beneath him, his arm failed to take his weight, and Tina moved before he could work out which direction he was falling.
“Easy. I’ve got you.”
She caught him beneath the shoulders and steadied him against her. Her hand moved through the white fur near his neck, pausing where she found a sore place. Derpy let her check him.
“Are you okay, Derpy? That last match against your supposed relative was brutal.”
He held up a hand and breathed through the ache in his ribs.
“I need a moment.”
Tina gave him one. Then another. She did not let go until his breathing stopped catching halfway in.
“It seems like every time I adapt and start overpowering her, she ends it before I can make another move.” He looked down at his hands. Soil marked the creases of his palms. “But I’m getting stronger.”
An unseen gold thread began to extend from his fingers. Fine enough to disappear against the afternoon, it followed the small movement of his hand without drawing a single eye.
Revy stepped forward.
Derpy glanced at her expression. “What happened?”
“Little lights around you flew,
Then someone taller came in view.
Upon your chest she came to stay—
Did my eyes lead me astray?”
He blinked, then shook his head.
“You saw her.”
Revy’s gaze sharpened. Tina looked between them.
“Who did she see?”
“The fairy,” Derpy said. “She’s been helping me since I came into this world.”
The memory brought back the sensation of falling: air where the ground should have been, his pets tumbling with him, Lenora’s camp rushing up beneath them.
He remembered the bewilderment. Back then, the places that would hurt him had not yet acquired names. He had not known how often he would have to learn a new body.
“We fell into Lenora’s camp,” he said. “Me and my pets. She’s been there since then.”
Revy watched him with an attention that made him wonder what else she had seen. Before he could ask, something pulled beneath his shoulder blades.
He went still.
“Oh, don’t.”
A sucking crunch came from his back.
Tina’s hand withdrew just far enough to avoid the first unfolding shape. Hollow wings pushed out behind him, opening over the grass. Eyes crowded their surfaces. They turned in different directions, taking in the field and the people gathered around him.
Sera stepped back. Derpy looked over his shoulder with the weary irritation of someone whose request had been ignored.
“I told you not to come out yet.”
The eyes turned blue. He studied them. His own expression changed a little, the annoyance giving way to concentration.
“You want me to try to create you a body?”
Dark blue deepened across the watching eyes.
Derpy let out a breath.
“I don’t have enough power. Or enough souls. Being able to enter the Soul Seam doesn’t mean I have what I need right now.”
The wings remained spread. Derpy could see grass through the gaps in their hollow shapes; beside him, Tina’s hand hovered without finding anywhere safe to rest.
“I used the rest of what I had to form the faction in Briar Glen,” he continued. “And in the wager against the Vales.”
He waited for the eyes to look at him again.
“I can’t spend the same power twice. If I force a body now, what am I supposed to use when somebody needs help?”
The dark blue held for a moment before several eyes lowered. Derpy hated the disappointment more than he would have hated an argument.
Sera looked at him.
“I don’t despise you for that.”
Derpy turned his head toward her. The wings moved with him, leaving their eyes directed at several things at once.
“The only thing that matters to me is protecting David,” she said.
“Sera, I hope being here doesn’t make you resent me.”
His voice remained soft in the female wolf body. Sera looked from his face to the wings and back, her lips parting before she answered.
She lifted both hands.
“No. No, you were doing me a favor. If I can show David I’ve changed, maybe he’ll give me another chance.”
Derpy waited. He could not give her the reassurance she was looking for. Her hands slowly lowered.
Her ears lowered.
“I regret what I did in the apartment.” She looked down. “Trying to take his life and mine. Trying to blow it up.”
Tina’s hand rested against Derpy’s arm. Revy stayed quiet.
“My family, my sister Lilly, Clover—everyone wanted to do things. David had his friends. There were activities, plans, people who wanted him there.” Sera pressed her palms against her trousers. “I kept thinking about where that left me.”
Her voice thinned on the last words. Derpy watched her palms press harder against her trousers.
Derpy looked away for a moment.
“I can’t say I’m fond of your decision,” he said. “There had to be room to talk. Some bargain you could both agree to without anyone getting hurt.”
“I know what it sounds like.”
“I’m talking about what happened.”
She went quiet.
He turned back toward her, the movement careful around the wings.
“David’s my friend. I told him I would help you change. I signed a contract for you to travel with us, see the world, and learn what else is out here.”
Sera glanced past him toward the trees. He let her look away.
“And if I do?”
“Then you’ll have changed,” Derpy said. “You’ll have something to show him besides another promise. But I can’t promise he’ll want the relationship back.”
Sera’s face fell.
“I’m helping you because you need help,” he added. “Not because David owes either of us an answer we like.”
Behind Derpy, the wings began to fold.
The eyes shifted inward. Their hollow shapes narrowed and sank beneath his skin. His shoulders tightened as the last part withdrew, and Tina’s hand steadied his arm.
“That looked painful,” she said. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Derpy tried to roll one shoulder and stopped halfway.
“Tina, this is nothing compared to what we went through in the White Tiger Kingdom.”
“I remember. That doesn’t mean I enjoy watching you hurt now.”
His expression softened.
“A little pain here and there reminds me of my own burden.”
Sera looked back at him. “What burden?”
He rubbed at his forehead.
“While I was in Briar Glen, there was so much happening that my mind cracked a little. I kept worrying about my pets. It’s been years since I saw them.”
He remembered familiar weight leaning against him, movement at the edge of his sight, the certainty that his pets would be there when he turned his head. His gaze dropped to the empty grass beside his knee.
He had learned too many empty spaces since then.
“They and their companions should be heading this way,” he said. “I’m hoping I’ll get to see them.”
Tina loosened her hold as he settled into a steadier position. She remained close enough to catch him again.
Revy crouched beside him and studied his face. Then she moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“You know,” she said in her regular voice, “there are things I wish I knew about you.”
Her teeth closed briefly against his shoulder. A small bite, familiar enough that he turned his head with irritation rather than alarm. She stayed close after releasing him.
“Things I want to ask,” she continued. “But I’m afraid to hear the answers.”
Derpy looked at the arms around him.
“There are things I want to ask you too.”
Revy did not move away.
“You put a stop to people trying to claim me. Trying to recruit me. I still hope I get to meet the elder who put an end to that.” He turned enough to meet her eyes. “Why won’t any god deny you or rebel against you, Revy?”
She held his gaze.
He took hold of her, lifted her away from his back, and threw her across the grass.
Revy turned with the movement. Her feet touched down, one after the other, and she balanced with such ease that it looked rehearsed. A hand drifted outward as though she might acknowledge an audience.
Derpy stayed where he was.
“I’m still waiting for the answer.”
The nursery cadence returned to her voice.
“I counted winters before your dawn,
Watched little kingdoms come and go.
Yet here I stand, my heart quite gone—
My dragon-wolf, how could you know?
“My elder met the god before,
The last great dragon, long ago.
Then sent me to your waiting door,
To guard the one our people know.
“So wendigo bow low to you;
I came to do as I was told.
But orders never made love true,
Nor taught these arms whom they should hold.”
Derpy watched her through the last line.
“That doesn’t answer my question, though. You’re telling me why you protect me. I asked why they won’t deny you.”
Revy sighed and walked back toward him.
“Before their hands could reach your door,
My little paws were on your floor.
I thought that tiny head would know—
I reached you first, dear wolf. You’re slow.”
She punched him playfully in the arm.
“Hey. My brain isn’t tiny. I just happen to use it a lot.”
Tina looked at the disturbed grass, then at Revy, who appeared pleased with herself again.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked. “All the gods know you’re here in the Petal Fields.”
Derpy let himself fall back into the grass. This time he did it deliberately, with his arms placed where they could ease the landing.
“For now, we wait until Lewd, Lenora, and my pets get here.”
“And until then?”
He turned his face toward Revy.
“I want you and Tina to train Sera. Combat. While we’re here, she needs to learn.”
Sera’s ears lifted.
“Combat?”
Derpy breathed in through his nose. His attention moved beyond the small group, following something the others had not yet identified.
“There are wolves looking at her. From the smell of it, they won’t wait long before they try den pressure or a scent claim.”
Sera straightened, embarrassment giving way to determination. “I won’t let them claim me.”
“Then we’ll begin there,” Tina said.
Revy folded her hands.
“Then plant your feet and mind your chin;
We’ll teach you where the teeth begin.”
Derpy sat up. “You’re all free to go do things. Just don’t stray too far from one another.”
His gaze passed Tina’s shoulder and stopped.
Okamihana was walking back across the grass with a couple of books in her arms. Her long pink hair moved over the layered shrine robes, and her great tail followed her unhurried pace. Teal came behind her.
Derpy put a hand on the ground and slowly got to his feet.
Teal noticed the effort.
“My mother isn’t here for another match. We’re here to educate you about the Alpha Wolf Festival.”
He stared at her, then looked at the books.
“Not interested.”
He lowered himself back into the grass and looked at the sky. His eyes began to close.
Teal shuddered. Pink rose inside her ears.
“You can’t just dismiss this. You’re supposed to be listening.”
Her wolf authority pressed into the space around him.
Derpy’s eyes opened. The pupils narrowed into slits.
“Relative. Fall.”
The force hit Teal before she could complete another word. She struck the ground hard, her dress catching beneath her knees and one hand sinking into the disturbed soil.
Tina stopped moving.
Derpy rose more slowly than the violence of the command suggested. He walked toward Teal while the pressure held her down.
“You seem to forget that I don’t take orders from you,” he said. “And I never will, Teal.”
She tried to lift her head. Dirt marked the front of her dress.
“Your mother is the only one I agreed to listen to because of the deal I made back in Briar Glen.”
A soft hand settled on his shoulder. Pink fur brushed his neck.
“All right,” Okamihana said. “Calm down. There’s no need to be hostile here.”
He looked at her hand before he looked at her face.
“You are a late entry,” she continued, “and you are my champion. That means I have to keep you informed about how the festival works.”
“She tried to make me—”
“I saw.”
Okamihana kept her hand on his shoulder. Her voice stayed level.
“There will be many different clans. Many kinds of wolves, each arriving with their own expectations. You need to learn enough to understand what is happening around you. Strength won’t explain every situation before you step into it.”
Derpy glanced at Teal.
“You have one year to learn,” Okamihana said. “And to learn how to conduct yourself. Let her up.”
The pressure lifted.
Teal stood, brushed at the dirt on her dress, and clicked her tongue. Her face remained hot with anger as she turned away.
“You’re just like your father.”
Derpy tilted his head.
“Father?”
A small red-and-black wolf surfaced in his memory, faint and incomplete. He tried to hold the image long enough to make sense of it.
“That tiny runt?”
Okamihana chuckled.
“Your father is not the runt.”
She lowered herself into the grass, arranging the books beside her. After a moment, Derpy sat too. Teal continued walking away.
“You remind me of him,” Okamihana said. “I wonder how he’s getting along with his champions.”
Derpy left the question unanswered. He removed the black bands, then the gold ones, and held them before him.
“Celica. Lunara.”
The bands began to glow.
Light gathered slowly, rising from his hands and expanding into two distinct shapes. The brightness spread over the grass and touched the edges of Okamihana’s books.
Celica formed within the golden light. Blue hair settled beneath her golden horns; a luminous halo took shape above them. Her wings opened unevenly, each different from the other: one red and feathered, the other deep blue and scaled. The frills of her blue-and-red dress unfolded as she lowered her yellow-gloved hands.
Beside her, darker light drew Lunara into view.
Short black hair framed her face, its ends fading into blue-violet, thin crimson highlights catching the glow. Her red eyes opened beneath enormous horns curving backward in black and luminous purple. Sharply pointed dragon ears emerged beneath them.
Then her wings spread.
Dark scales framed wide violet membranes scattered with tiny lights. A heavy purple-black tail curled behind her, its crystalline scales catching the afternoon. Matching scales armored one forearm and climbed portions of her legs.
Her fitted black halter corset carried violet accents and a small heart-shaped detail. Glossy black shorts rested beneath her belt; purple bands circled her wrists above fingerless gloves. Her boots settled against the grass as the last of the light withdrew.
Derpy lowered his empty hands.
Celica and Lunara stood before him in their dragon forms, and Okamihana sat beside him with the unopened books.
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