Aries sprinted through the forest with water splashing up from every puddle with each step.

’Goddamn, where are they? By now they’ve probably already—’

WHAM!

Something hit him from the side. He went down hard, the impact rattling through both shoulders, and let out a sound that had no dignity in it whatsoever.

"Ow — geez, I’m sorry, I didn’t see yo—"

"I’m sorry!" The other person cut in at exactly the same moment.

’Wait. That voice’ Aries rolled over and looked up.

"...Eren?"

"Aries?!" Eren stared down at him from two feet away, both of them spread across wet ground.

Then his brow folded into equal parts relief and irritation. "You bastard! We’ve been looking for you everywhere! Where the hell did you disappear to?"

"It’s a long story." Aries pushed himself up, rubbing the back of his head. "Got separated from Valea. A lot happened after that."

"A lot," Eren repeated, like he was deciding whether that was acceptable.

"A lot," Aries confirmed.

Eren got to his feet and brushed himself off. "Fine. Come on, let’s get back first."

____

They heard the group before they reached them.

"Arieeeess!"

Aries had approximately zero seconds to brace himself.

Valea hit him like she’d been launched from somewhere, both arms wrapping around him, face pressing against his cheek, and she was actually crying while she crushed every last bit of air out of his body.

"I’m sorry I was not able to find you! You must have been so terrified! I’m so sorry—"

His arms flailed uselessly at his sides, unable to locate anywhere to go. His brain went completely flat.

’More than anything else, I am terrified by you right now. What did I do to deserve this.’

"V-Valea. Can’t. Breathe."

She finally loosened her grip enough for oxygen to exist again.

Aries straightened up, and that was when he noticed a tiny creature perched on her shoulder, no bigger than his hand.

Crystal feathers all over its body catching the light. Two ribbon-shaped tails curling gently at the tips. It blinked at him with enormous eyes and let out a small, self-important squeak.

’Wait. Is that—’

"Is that what I think it is?"

Valea’s whole face changed.

She turned her cheek against the little creature’s head. "Meet Slopy! My new and first ever bond!" She beamed at him. "Isn’t she the most perfect thing you’ve ever seen? And I found her first, so before you say anything—"

"She did not find her first," Nico said from somewhere behind her, one hand waving in a flat, dismissive arc. "I was this close to bonding with it. This close."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Valea spun around. "It jumped to me! It looked at your face and it jumped directly to me! That is called a rejection, it clearly rejected you and your arrogant face—"

"Look at your own face before commenting on you witch—"

"Do you want me to end you right here?!" Her hair actually flared with the turn. Slopy gripped her shoulder tighter and squeaked.

Cedric stood to one side with two fingers pressed against the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, breathing in the long deliberate way of someone counting toward something. "I am growing genuinely tired of them. At this rate I’ll be an old man before we even—"

"You’re already an old man!" Valea and Nico said, in perfect simultaneous unison, without even looking at each other.

Cedric’s eyes snapped open. "HUH?! What did you brats just say?!"

Aries stood at the edge of all of this and watched it unfold.

’Not one of them is a functioning adult. Not a single one.’

Eventually, by some combination of Cedric’s authority and everyone simply running out of air, things settled. Eren looked around at the group. "Since we’ve found Aries, we leave for Ashton tomorrow morning."

There was a general agreement. Everybody nodded, nobody argued.

Aries nodded along with everyone else. And then noticed his left palm was itching.

He’d been ignoring it since earlier, assuming it was dirt or bruising from the fight. But something made him actually look at it now, and when he did, he went completely still.

Black lines crossed his palm in jagged patterns, spiraling inward. It wasn’t any bruise or a mark from impact. It was something that had been forming without him noticing, since the cave incident. Since the stone entered his body.

’When did this even happen.’

He closed his hand slowly and said nothing.

_____

Back at the manor, they had dinner.

One by one everyone drifted off to their rooms, long journey ahead and an early start. The manor went quiet.

Aries lay staring at the ceiling.

Sleep came eventually.

Then he jolted awake in the middle of the night.

He lay still for a moment, heart catching up with the rest of him. ’Just a dream.’ But it hadn’t felt like any dream he’d had before.

Not memories from his life as Shang or anything belonging to Aries Aerwyn either. Something else entirely, a totally different person, images that had no connection to anything he knew.

He got up and walked to the balcony.

He ran cold water over his face and held it there for a moment.

Then straightened up, set both hands on the railing, and looked at the moon sitting over the city of Kaelenor while the lanterns of the lower streets glowed faintly below.

’Since I got here it’s been one strange thing after another. That man in the cave. The stone. The purple power I used without any consciousness back then. And now this mark.’ He opened his left hand and looked at the black lines in the pale moonlight. ’Were those memories just now from inside the stone? Is the power connected to it too? Is everything connected to it?’

He exhaled slowly.

’This whole world is genuinely—’

"So you now possess the Xarveth Stone."

Aries’s head snapped up.

A figure stood on the roof above the balcony, cloaked in shadow from the eaves.

The only visible thing was a pair of eyes glowing cold frost blue fixed on him.

"Wh—who are you?" Aries stepped back from the railing, feet planting. "Show yourself—!"

His left palm erupted in pain.

The black lines flared without warning, shifting and rearranging across his skin, and light pulsed outward from the mark in waves that climbed up his wrist, his arm, each pulse stronger than the one before it.

His whole arm shook and he couldn’t make it stop.

’Why now— why is this—’

"No—" He pressed his right hand hard against the railing, trying to hold his own weight upright. His eyes were dragging shut against his will. ’Not now. Stay awake. Don’t—’

The balcony floor came up to meet him.

He didn’t feel it when he hit.