The descent down the tunnel was long and constricting in spite of the roots curling inward. It was so constricting, in fact, that the gryphons had to resort to holding the soily walls with claws and paws, keeping their wings folded as they shimmied down within mere seconds of the expedition. Katie had to do likewise, but kept her tail tucked between her rear legs and her tongue wrapped around her wings so they wouldn't snag. NoLegs was content to cling to the back of her neck, producing his light and keeping an eye out for any sort of floor that would let them know it'd be safe to go back to all fours. To say this was awkward was an understatement; the tunnel got this narrow only within the first five feet or so of the dive.

A good twenty minutes passed, the tunnel seemingly continuing down without respite, and slowly it got tighter and tighter. Limbs had to be bent to accommodate, cramping in seconds. If asked how to describe this particular experience, the gryphons would have described it as excruciating, whilst Katie and NoLegs would merely say it was a wee crammed at worst. The only saving grace was that the errant roots did not snag on hats, coats, nor wings as they pressed onward so slowly a snail could have crawled past them without the whole lot even noticing.

Fortunately, the crawl only lasted about forty feet or so when Katie caught sight of a solid floor thanks to NoLegs' magic. She hopped down, stumbled for a second or two when her hooves made impact, righted herself and whirled around before finding a tunnel with a few roots jutting from its ceiling. Unlike the crawlspace, this new path was wide enough the gryphons could form two lines shoulder-to-shoulder with ample room to stretch wings and claws, though she noted she couldn't see its floor immediately.

Debris fell from the ceiling when she noticed the tunnel. Katie didn't even need to look up to see that the other three bozos were fast catching up; the scraping of claws and the falling dirt told her all she needed to know. So she trotted to the tunnel, finding immediately that it was a steeper but more manageable plod thanks to the light. Before she could set hoof into it, three thuds filled the underground hidey-hole in rapid succession, each accompanied by a pained grunt that followed mere milliseconds between. She turned to her accomplices, finding them all in one heap on the floor.

It took them twenty whole minutes before they could get on their feet and pop any aching bones before they even acknowledged that she was already steps ahead of them, let alone that there was a tunnel behind her. "Aren't you lot supposed to be big and tough?" she hissed in disapproval.

Nathan's brow furrowed. "Well excuse us, Little Miss Beady Eyes, but none of us had anticipated that the bloody hole would be this tight," he hissed back.

Katie's eyes narrowed dangerously low. "That's what Matt said," she snarked. This garnered a series of talons meeting faces, all three happening simultaneously and in pairs. She turned to the tunnel and began to trot ahead of them, careful to angle her steps downward to avoid going on another unwarranted tumble. Forming ice as she went helped a lot, as it kept her posture rigid and her hooves from slipping, and had the added bonus of mana pulsing that her new cohorts could see straight away. Begrudgingly, they trundled after her in single file, snarling low the moment their claws caught the steep decline down.

At least this tunnel was more hospitable as far as actually traversing it was concerned. Whereas it took several minutes to crawl down the underground chimney and another few minutes to get the bearings together, it only took under three to reach a small, nigh-empty room that did not have any more tunnels. Within was the only thing in this room marking the tunnel's end held; two emaciated corpses, lying against the wall with barrels facing out and limbs and heads slumped uselessly. Bizarrely, as NoLegs cast his light onto them, they did not show any signs of rotting, nor of injury, yet blood had indeed stained their coats regardless. The blood was silverish where it shimmered under the glow, and otherwise black with age and still as though the moon itself had drained color from the stains with its light.

Alarm bells instantly went off in Katie's head as she took a long, hard look at the two. One was a hippogryph mare whose wings weren't bound in any capacity whatsoever, with a tanish coat, deep brown talons, and primaries matching in color. The only reason she could even ascertain the hippogryph's gender was because her rear legs had been splayed dubiously wide, as were those of her companion's. Said hippogryph's companionship was a unicorn stallion with a tousled, dirtied green mane, a matching short beard and mustache, and an off-white coat. Hesitantly approaching the two, she twisted her head vertically to look at their faces as she came closer, and leaned toward their barrels as she passed their rear knees, careful to avoid slicing them with her shoes on accident.

Her breath caught as she saw wide open, black abysses staring back with so vacant a gaze it felt as though they pierced right through her, as well as a beak lined with sharp and yellowed teeth and some very abnormal growths of a bulbous nature sprouting on the stallion's throat. Their faces had paled considerably, though doing so for how long she didn't know. Dried, thick rivulets of yet more blackened blood had caked both beak and muzzle rather copiously, and streaked fur and feathers from the black canvases that were seemingly so empty. Through the blood, she spotted pale gums and tongues, still glistening in the light with very meager traces of saliva.

She backed off nimbly and righted her head, gazing at the two warily. An air of wrongness began to emanate from the duo, and her gut twisted the moment it registered that something was very amiss. Silence held for a full minute, jaws shifting in an attempt to start articulating something, but the thoughts they wanted to convey simply refused to apply themselves to their tongues. NoLegs procured the photograph in a flash of light, and everyone glanced to and fro between it and the corpses that lay before them.

The coat and mane colors, or feather colors in case of the hippogryph, were a perfect match. Their features, slightly less so.

Finally, someone spoke as the picture vanished in another flare of light. "It's the stallion and gryph from the picture…" Jeremy muttered, to much nodding from the rest of the group.

"What should we do with them?" Nathan asked, looking at the two with a small, solemn frown on his beak. "We can't just tell…"

"Leave them," Katie interrupted with a sibilant hiss. "If possible, I'd like to avoid disturbing their nap." Turning to Quicksilver, she found him and the other two looking at her with narrowed eyes. "Seriously, did you guys not learn what happened when I was dragged in your tank? It's that all over again, except we're breaking and entering."

Quicksilver took a moment to weigh Katie's words before trotting around her to inspect the faces of the cadavers. What he saw made him back off after mere seconds. He turned to the others and sighed tiredly. "But still… we have to bring them…" he muttered.

Katie shook her head at the notion, and went on to object it again, "No. Something's gone wrong with them if they're playing possum. I can't exactly put my hoof on it… but something in my gut tells me 'don't do it.' Hell, if they wake up, they may not want to come with quietly, either." Nervously fidgeting as she caught sight of an off-white ear twitching, she added with tact, "I don't know how they're going to react to surprise visitors, let alone ones they don't know all that well. Personally, I'm not taking any chances with these guys." Backing up into the tunnel again, she finished off with, "Maybe they're why Anna and Sarah don't want to—"

Katie was preemptively cut off when the stallion jerked his head up suddenly, turning to look at her so fast his neck cracked with the motion. Quicksilver leapt back to the group at the sound and spun to see that the pony had moved. Only then did orbs alight in his abysses, twin spheres of a dulled green. His mouth shifted, popping and squelching with the effort, causing black blood to dribble from his jaws and splatter onto his jutting ribcage. The knot in Katie's stomach twisted as she saw more welling up in the back of his throat. It took him several seconds to speak, and it was with a watery, gurgling voice that only increased the dribble tenfold and sent bloodied spittle everywhere, "Where… are my foals?"

Katie winced, legs stiffening. She decided to play dumb, though that only made her gut twist further as she lied through her teeth, "I-I don't know who you're talking about."

"You… know their names…" the stallion retorted, eyes narrowing coldly. "You spoke their names… knowing I was attentive… where are they?"

"I only met them once, and way up north! I don't know where they've gone since!" Katie exclaimed, using every last ounce of willpower to keep her legs from shaking before she could process what she'd just uttered. For but a moment, the undead stallion stared at her, mouth closing and lips contorting, weighing her words. His orbs wavered and flickered, almost dimming entirely. For a moment, she wanted to backpedal, but her gut twisted as if knowing whatever damage she'd delivered was perhaps already done.

"Up… north?" the stallion echoed.

Katie nodded, legs buckling slightly as her stomach started to shoot pain through her nerves in protest. "I… it was snowing so much… one minute, they were there… and the next they were gone," she replied, her voice weakening with each word she uttered. "I couldn't even… s-see their tracks… and thus, n-nor could I follow them."

"Where?" the stallion pressed.

"A-around…" For a moment, Katie had to temporarily swallow, her mouth drying out. It did no good, even in the damp underground air. "F-Frostbite… Haven…" she finished uneasily.

Silence held for a long moment that felt as if days had passed them by, and both wraiths held even gazes, though one was fast faltering. Yet that moment lasted only mere seconds before the stallion convulsed, chest heaving and stomach contracting as though he'd been kicked. Only then did he speak again, this time with his head slumping once more and his tone turning solemn, "If you find them again… tell them to come visit… if they're even still alive… otherwise, please leave us to rot here..."

The troops exchanged looks and turned back to him, seeing a fresh river of blood running down his muzzle from one of his eyes. It crept down his bridge, trailed past lips, and leapt off his chin in a steady stream of drops that splattered against his barrel, further staining his coat in ugly black that clashed harshly with his off-white. Katie crept toward him, canting her head, uttering weakly, "They'll come back…"

"No they won't… they're…" the stallion trailed off, chest still heaving in an effort to repress what Katie could only guess were budding sobs. "I already… failed them once…"

An ache surged across every nerve and fiber in Katie's body at those words. She still tried to soothe him, yet her voice only weakened further, "But that doesn't stop them from loving you. They'll come back someday…"

The stallion turned to Katie, eyes narrowing and a scowl forming on his face. He shouted, "Maybe so, but this failure was not something so minor as ignoring a scraped knee! It was something far worse than that!" His head dropped again, and he muttered in a low voice, "All I have left of them… is our last photo together… something that my so-called friends hadn't taken from me and my beloved..." Katie's jaw quivered, and she made to interject, but the stallion cut her off with a final request, "Please… just leave me… if you find them again, and alive..." His ears fell back against his head as he finished in a soft whisper, "tell them I'm sorry… that I failed them as a father…"

Katie's orbs shrank, and the ache darted across her nerves again. Once more she tried, "But if they're still alive, then perhaps they forgive you for that failure!" Only that time, she got no response from him. She turned to the hippogryph who had yet to move, but the only sign of lingering life that she had was a fresh tear of blood weaving through her feathers, staining them in its wake.

"She's right. It doesn't stop the foals you had from loving you, even in death," Quicksilver chipped in, yet his utterance did not get a response from the stallion either. They remained for a few minutes, yet the sod simply ceased to acknowledge them any longer. He went up to Katie and put a claw on her withers. "Let's… go," he muttered uneasily. "You were right. Extraction will not be possible with these two."

Katie turned to Quicksilver, orbs tiny and glinting in pleading, "B-but—"

Quicksilver grimly shook his head. "They… want to be alone. We must respect their wish," he rebuked in a slightly saddened tone.

"But… can we at least…" Katie mouthed her next words to avoid agitating the unicorn any further, "'tell Anna and Sarah he's cooped up here and is miserable because of it?'" Quicksilver nodded solemnly, giving the undead duo one last glance.

Slowly, they trotted back to the group and turned tail with them before all trudged out of the tunnel, everyone wearing uneasy frowns and slanted brows. Not a word was spoken amongst them as they shimmied back up the underground chimney without complaint, as the return trip to the house's wrecked singular room was easier than leaving it.

As they departed, Katie could've sworn she heard a choked, gurgling sob coming from below, one that caused her to wince with a small and pained grunt. From who, she had no intention of finding out, for it made her doubt her decision to outright lie to... to someone who merely wanted to see a pair of siblings he knew. And if he, truly, was who she thought and he said he was...

She paused half-way when she heard the crack of thunder, followed by a soft crackle that grew as she neared the tunnel's trap-door entrance. The tunnel began to widen, just enough that Katie could flare her wings and fly out, but she dared not do so. She stopped five feet from the entrance for mere seconds, listening to the soft crackling. It was accentuated with a few pops, and it steadily grew louder with an unnatural hiss. If that sound was what she thought it meant, then…

NoLegs waved his tail and grasped her and the gryphons in his magic, before they vanished in a flare of light and reappeared outside the house, stuck in mid-crawl position at first until they registered that they were now back in Ashwood before righting themselves and reverting to all fours. The moment they did, they turned to the house they'd just left and flared their wings in wide-eyed shock.

The house had caught fire, and so did several trees they could see in the distance, with every top burning and the flames snaking their way down. Katie was the first to start flapping madly. "Whelp, there goes that plan! I am not sticking around to become a fried insect!" she exclaimed, starting her climb up to avoid becoming crispy. The gryphons followed suit, as NoLegs cast his magic on himself and the lot to render them invisible.

As they flew above the treeline, the fires below spread rapidly as lightning struck at the trees with a maddened fervor. Some struck Greenwood's reformed barrier to little avail, bouncing around it like it had Natalie's shield, only to then torch trees directly outside of it.

The ectoplasms, it seemed, made their choice for the group. Greenwood was going to become a small, safe bastion in a forest they decided to burn—and the possible evidence trapped therein with it. That was assuming, of course, that Greenwood could even survive the blaze with just its dinky little shield, which the group seriously doubted. Katie spared one final glance at the now-smouldering house, her heart sinking as she realized she could still hear that strangled sob coming from far below, on top of seeing some of the roots move with a sickly green pulse of mana. Some part of her wanted to go down and tell them the truth, but as the flames spread to consume the door and then collapse its frame, she realized she'd already made her choice.

And so did that stallion, for that matter. The nymph within her mind, once locked but now springing free, hoped he and the gryph made it out of the blaze, but she had her doubts. There was no telling how he'd have reacted to the news of Anna being a military foal, after all, let alone the knowledge of their cutie marks if he'd ever received it…

There was also no telling, right then, whether or not she'd condemned him to spend eternity in that tomb, its top half starting to crumple in the inferno as she and her group climbed higher into the sky, without ever knowing what became of his foals. It somehow felt wrong to take the only memorabilia he had left of them, when for all he knew, that was the last thing he'd had of much happier times… of when his family was together, and seemingly carefree. It was as if that photo was, somehow, calling them back… only to have that hope ripped away by a little white lie that bore a single granule of truth which did not soothe that budding ache that gave her heart actual cause to pause its rhythmic beating. And her attempts to backtrack and soothe him backfired…

NoLegs telepathically muttered in a somber tone, "You tried… but even that wasn't enough… and, given his mental state, he'd have doubted the truth had you told it to him anyway..."

None of that sat right with her, but she chose to keep those reservations to herself. Her stomach only twisted further, as though chiding her for such a rash decision, one that may well be a one-way ticket to a possible reprimand… or worse from her new superiors. All Katie could do was nod in agreement with NoLegs' statement.

The fires only ensured that none would have the choice to help that stallion and hippogryph now. The only option Katie had left was to face the music...

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

"You said what to that wraith?!" Katie winced at the sheer volume of the shout, which had reached ear-piercing levels within seconds. Anna and Sarah were both in front of her, the latter having shouted as she was fast turning a shade of purple and the former standing there, staring with a shaking jaw and color all but slowly draining from her face. The next thing anyone knew, Sarah had lunged, seized Katie by the neck, and hoisted her up to connect solidly with the wall of one of the lounges. Around them, Delta Unit stood by, watching and sharing glances, yet noling dared to take a step forward to diffuse the situation. NoLegs was also present, sitting on the couch and watching the scene with interest.

"I-I said... " Katie could not utter another word as Sarah parted her from the wall before slamming her right back onto it. She gasped when claws pierced the flesh of her neck, drawing viridian blood. Sarah brought her muzzle close, teeth bared and eyes narrowed to tiny slits. Katie averted her orbs, which only caused the grip on her neck to tighten.

"What. Did. He. Say?!" Sarah hissed, shaking with the barest hint of restraint. "If you don't tell me what he said within the next two seconds, I'll rip your head off your shoulders!" Her grip tightened still, and all that could come out of Katie's mouth was a strangled gurgle. When she failed to answer, she was thrust to the wall yet again, and Sarah's voice only rose with the next words she spoke, "You useless sack of shit! Why didn't you help him when you had the chance?!"

The orbs turned to Anna, pleadingly, as slowly her throat was crushed in the murderous grip of a gryph who demanded answers. A blue aura, briefly, gripped Anna's head and went away just as fast. Katie's orbs flicked to NoLegs to see his tail cease glowing just before something snapped in Anna, as she went from blanching to beet-red—what followed for Katie was a blur of motion.

One second, she was being pinned, and the next the pressure on her neck had ceased to exist entirely as she went sailing through the air without flapping her wings once to land on one of the many couches in the room. Twin screams filled the room, and Katie turned to the source the moment she landed, only to gape when she found that not only had Anna gotten in Sarah's face, but now had her pinned to the floor by the wings and with her own horn leveled at her sister's throat.

Anna's eyes flashed red, just once, her head angled a little so Sarah could see them. Delta Unit still held their breath as a bestial growl rose up the throat of their fourth-in-command who then clenched her teeth. "Do not let me catch you doing that to Katie ever again!" she roared, half-snarling and half-screeching the utterance through grit teeth.

"Why're you defending the useless wraith all of a sudden?!" Sarah squawked, wide-eyed and seemingly scandalized by this turn of events.

"Because Lance recruited her! That makes her one of my troops too!" Anna shouted in reply, the utterance all but a keening trill to Katie, who had covered her ears in a futile attempt to block it all out. "And she died a nymph, for crying out loud! I-I won't let you abuse her anymore, Sarah!"

Delta Unit, collectively, went wide-eyed and slack-jawed at that. Yet noling still dared to speak, or to step in and break the sisterly tussle that had just escalated. Anna continued, in a low and chilling voice, "H-hurt her again… and I'll stab you in the frogs of your hooves… I don't care if you're my sister at this point. I will not stand… for that level of flagrant child abuse!" Sarah could only swallow and weakly nod before, haltingly, Anna lifted her horn from her throat and clambered off. Afterwards, Sarah scrambled up and skedaddled out of the room, feathers puffing out as her equally-rattled talons went up in surrender. In seconds she was out of sight, and the only sign of her departure to be had was the noisy beating of hooves on carpeted floor, followed by the sound of the lift door opening.

Anna only turned to the still-cowering Katie once full silence had settled in. She trotted over to her, fully aware of all of Delta's eyes collectively trained on her. Katie did not lift her hooves from her ears, even as blood continued to flow freely from the wounds now adorning her neck. In fact, she did not move at all until a hoof had put itself on her withers rather gently, and even then it was only limited to lifting her head slightly and shifting her orbs. "I'm… sorry you had to see that," she muttered.

Katie merely dropped her head back down, feeling an ache resonating through her body, one that stung deeper than being punctured in the neck. Mentally going over all that had happened ever since she'd been found, that ache grew stronger, settling most prominently in her cranium and her still-beating heart. "You… shouldn't be," Katie muttered in a low voice.

Anna blinked, frowning. "Why?"

Katie hesitated for a long moment. "Sa… Sarah's right," she managed, her voice uneasy. "I'm… useless."

"No, you're not," Anna retorted, shaking her head. "You froze a gryph bigger than you."

Katie slumped. "That was only because he was a wraith in a bad climate," she muttered. "I… failed to stop a Beholder, could not hear you at that hotel, got a marble column to the face, could not slice into a bastard until he was already incapacitated, and failed to... " A lump formed in her throat, and she paused to swallow it. A very bitter taste graced her tongue as the lump grudgingly went down before she finished in an equally bitter tone of voice, "to help your now-undead father. And now Ashwood's on fire thanks to the ectoplasms, and he… he chose to stay in some underground basement…"

Anna froze, eyes widening. "Father's… undead? And Ashwood's...? I-it's…" She turned to the changelings of Delta Unit, who all shifted uneasily at her wild and now-frantic look. "Stay with Katie. I-I'll go check," she ordered, her voice shaky and riddled with disbelief. Her horn glowed, her hoof parted from Katie's withers, and she vanished in a flash of light.

It did not take much longer for an unholy scream to rend the air from the deck. Everyling winced, and Katie opted to tuck her head to her barrel, keeping her hooves locked on her ears. In another flash of light, Anna had re-appeared, pupils shrunk to pinpricks and a wide, horrified frown on her face. She raced over to Rhinoc, threw her forehooves onto his shoulders, and started babbling frantically, "Can changelings resist fire entirely?!"

Rhinoc's ears folded back, eyes widening further in alarm. "T-to an extent, m-ma'am," he stammered uneasily. "B-bu—"

Anna started shaking him, effectively cutting him off with a cry of, "Then can't you do something?! G-get him out of there!"

The brown-ribbed soldier found the gumption to step in at last and seized Anna in his magic, pulling her away from Rhinoc with a tug. She snapped her attention to him with a feral, frantic expression, and the soldier shook his head. "Is there smog rising from the forest?" he asked. When Anna shakily nodded, the soldier lifted a hoof, took off his helmet, and held it to his barrel. "We cannot stand the levels of smog a wildfire can produce. They are just as toxic to us as they are to you."

"We have gas masks, don't we?! Find them, put them on, and get your asses down there!" Anna cried, her voice half-pleading and half-mad. Again, the soldier disobeyed by grimly shaking his head.

"There's not enough masks for the whole retinue, ma'am. And even if there were, the heat levels would literally cook us alive in our chitin and turn the gryphons into roast chimeras. That's also not accounting for the levels of octane and methane that's now being burned as we speak, much less how much of the woodland is already encompassed in flames," the soldier replied, looking at his fourth-in-command with a forlorn gaze, one hoof pawing at the carpet. "And the wildfire's probably making its own wind now to spread even farther. As much as it pains me to say this…" The soldier closed his eyes and frowned pityingly as he finished, "if he's already in the blaze, then there's nothing we can do."

"Nothing…?" Anna squeaked, her jaw quivering as the weight of the soldier's rebuttal sank in.

The soldier nodded, just once. "Nothing," he repeated grimly. "We'll have to… to scrounge for his remains after the fires die and the smog clears, if anything even remains of him after that. We don't even know where the nooblet had last seen him before the ectoplasms struck." The last two words he uttered to her came out in a choked, sorrow-riddled voice, "We're sorry."

"N-no…" Anna muttered, but an aura grasping her head from NoLegs cut her off for all of three seconds. Images flashed through her mind, from the start of the wraiths bickering to the end where the house had caught flame. That one spell from the cat was all it took for Anna to crumple onto the floor. Her horn lit up as one tear formed in her eye and streaked down her cheek. It fell and landed on the carpet just as she vanished in another flash of light. The soldiers all looked to Katie, who lifted her head the moment Anna had teleported, to reveal her eyes narrowed and her orbs dimming. But that wasn't the only thing they took notice of.

Viridian blood started to seep from the corners of her eyes, and her ribs and carapace began to dull as the first of many tears fell from her cheeks. "Despair... " she muttered, voice cracked and strained. "I just… brought despair… on my first mission…" She ducked her head under her forelegs again, wings sagging as the color from her mane and tail likewise started to turn dull. "Can't go back… I failed again… just like with my old hive… dead and nothing I can do about it now…"

Everyling winced as an air of wrongness began to emanate from Katie in force, seeping into their chitin and bringing with it a chilling, nauseous feeling that started playing hell upon their nerves. A few tried to take a step closer to start comforting Katie, but the aura grew stronger with every movement they made. Soon enough, a few of the lower-ranking soldiers began to wince with a growing headache.

Rhinoc was the only one who managed more than three hooves in, though even he was not immune from what the other soldiers were experiencing. His horn lit up once, embracing Katie in his aura—and a fierce chill ran down his spine, before his stomach twisted into so tight a knot he doubled over on the spot. Shakily, he backpedaled and dispelled his magic, staring at her in wide-eyed, pained shock.

"Sir?" one of the more well-off and less-wincing soldiers asked when Rhinoc rejoined them.

Rhinoc shook his head. "I… felt what it's…what she's…" he muttered uneasily. "What she's… letting out…"

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Smoke rose as the hours waned, and Ashwood slowly became little more than its namesake, partly because of the ongoing rain that continued to batter it in an attempt to keep the flames at bay. Thick black clouds ascended to suffocate the skies above, tinted a hideous orange as the flames feasted on every tree their scorching tongues could lick. That smoke passed even the airships, and though their mighty wings beat the smog away, that effectively kept the soldiers locked in until it passed. Lance watched from the master bedroom window with Matt, Natalie, and Anna sleeping at his side. He held a radio in his left hoof, as a newly-arrived airship rose from the burning trees surrounding the shrine.

"Sir, we have successfully extracted the Mighty Oak from his shrine," a masculine voice droned out from the device. "No casualties."

"Using the same ship that transports the Valkyrie?" Lance asked, frowning as the smog concealed the airship's most predominant of features. For a moment, he couldn't tell if the reds and oranges on it were decorative or flames that had managed to jump aboard.

"Yes sir," the voice on the other end replied. "What of search party number two?"

"Extracted themselves before the flames could get this out of hoof. They didn't find much," Lance hissed in reply, eyes narrowing as the blaze swept on unimpeded. He turned to the windowsill, where that one picture in its little warped frame now sat. "What was found has… piqued my interest in one of my passengers."

"You sound like you're excavating closet skeletons again," the voice wryly noted.

"Only this time, the skeletons in question aren't exactly mine," Lance replied in a clipped tone. "I'm starting to feel like I'm plucking feathers off a goat."

"You aren't the only one getting that vibe," the voice from the radio snarked. "Should we leave Greenwood soon?"

Lance cast one look at Anna, seeing scrunched eyes and hours-old tear-streaks through the fur on her cheeks, before turning back to the picture. "... one more day," he answered, his voice solemn. "We have… confirmed victims. Victims that…" Another look at Anna confirmed that fresh tears were starting to build in the corners of her eyes, glistening in the light of the fires. "... that mean a lot to two of my passengers."

"... respects?" the voice guessed.

"Yes," Lance replied tersely. He saw Anna's ears flatten against the back of her head, and her muzzle twitched as she sniffled in her sleep.

"Papa…" Anna whimpered, her voice raspy. A fresh tear broke free and trailed down the side of her face, snagging in her mane. She shook and turned, her back rising up to face Lance. "Why… he's… burning now… he did… nothing wrong…" she continued in a strangled choke.

Both Lance and the entity on the other end of the line paused. "... relatives," the entity muttered.

"... affirmative," Lance answered in a tight voice, his stomach clenching as Anna began to sob in her sleep, her body shaking and her chest starting the first of many heaves.

"Not taking it well?" the entity pressed, his voice shaking a little.

Lance was silent. As carefully as he could, he draped a wing over Anna's body, but that did nothing to stop her crying. She curled up into a ball, cradling her head in her forelegs under the embrace, breathing fast turning ragged and riddled with hiccups before long. His stomach only tightened further, and so did his chest as the awful noises persisted unimpeded. Yet he dared not move more than he already had, knowing full well how she flailed whenever her dreams took a turn for the worse.

"... sir?" the entity tried.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow… over," Lance stated, lifting his other hoof to grab the knob on the radio.

"But sir—" was all the entity could get in edgewise before the radio clicked as the knob turned. Lance sighed and put the radio on the sill before shifting to lay down himself, keeping Anna cradled under his wing even as she continued to cry. He turned to Natalie as she stirred, shifting to watch them both with one eye cracked open.

She did not move a muscle after. Instead, she turned her gaze to Anna and donned a small, tight frown as her sobs began to quiet. Only when the crying stopped entirely did Natalie mutter, "It's almost like we just found her all over again…"

Lance solemnly nodded. Natalie shifted to lean toward Anna, stopping only when her superior's feathers brushed up against her snout. Lance lifted his wing a little, allowing entry, and sighed as he felt Natalie shift closer to nuzzle Anna.

"I know… what she's going through," he heard her mutter.

"But your adoptive folks are alive," Lance pointed out in a low voice.

"I know that… but ever since I was twelve, I thought they'd died when I was first dragged into the Catastrophe… and that's not saying anything about my birth parents," Natalie retorted, curling her own body around Anna in an almost motherly fashion. Anna nestled against her, shifting her own muzzle against the fuzzy, slender barrel.

"Mama…" Anna mewled, her voice weak and scratchy. She began whimpering again, only to stop when Natalie nuzzled her once more.

Lance looked toward the window again, frowning as he saw still-burning ashes rising into the air, dancing their final moments out and around the beating wings of the airships. For a moment, he could've sworn that he felt two pairs of eyes land on him as a particular swatch of ashes rose into the cloudy sky. These 'eyes' belonged to two vague silhouettes that did not linger for long, one of whom had two freakishly large appendages spread out from the rough approximation of a back and the other turned partially away, revealing an equally long object jutting from what was roughly its forehead. The eyes themselves seemed to be made of flame, slanted and with tears of embers trickling from their barely-corporeal corners to drift away with the still-climbing smoke.

The eyes looked at him and slanted rather sadly, but he couldn't be sure as to why when their brief gaze broke away with a slight shaking of what he assumed were their heads. The ashes to which they belonged let themselves be swept up by the wind, climbing higher into the sky on what would perhaps be the first or last of many journeys across the surface of Fantasia. Much of their small embers died as they flew away from the window, becoming less tangible shapes before long.

A brilliant, and oddly out of place, blue bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and instead of striking down it arched back up before his eyes. With one strike, it effortlessly parted the clouds for a mere second. That second, the remaining ashes that were still lit and had helped formed the vague silhouettes danced up to the opening, which closed behind them the moment they crossed. He turned back to the single photo, and for a second, the smiles on the adults therein changed to wide frowns framed by tears of blood. He lifted both hooves and delicately picked it up, bringing it close before accidentally pushing a little too hard on the edges just as he started scrutinizing it. This caused the backside of the frame to give out and fall to the bed of its own accord, perhaps finally deciding to come apart merely to spite Lance.

The picture itself fell out a second later, twirling in a slow dance before landing backside-up on the fallen frame's other half. Runic writing had been scribbled onto the side now facing him, barely legible and smudged with age, so Lance spread his other wing and used it to nudge Matt awake. It took a few shakes, but with a grumble Matt shifted and scooted closer to Lance, horn giving off the faintest of golden lights. "What's this say?" Lance asked in a whisper, turning to the photo for emphasis.

Matt turned to the photo and studied the writing on its backside for a few seconds, and his brow slanted. He hesitated, but when Lance nudged him with his wing again, he obliged in a tight voice, "'To whomever finds my precious daughters, if they are still alive… take care of them in my stead, for I can do so no longer…'"

Lance closed his eyes and sat the other half of the frame atop the photo, not even cracking them open as Matt slid the photograph out and made it vanish in a flash of light. "That sounds to me like whoever wrote that… just gave up…" Matt mumbled solemnly, making the halves of the now-useless frame vanish before laying back down.

That time, Lance mutely nodded and laid his head on the pillow, sighing softly and idly wondering if Matt even turned the photo over before thaumatically converting it. It took him a while to fall asleep, but when he did, it was when Matt and Natalie had fallen back to sleep no less than ten minutes prior. As he drifted off, he felt Anna shift closer to him, uncurling a little bit. He curled his wing a little tighter around her in response, hoping to comfort her even in her sleep.

It did not escape his notice, however, that as he fell into dreamland the sound of glass breaking permeated from below. He did not care, however… as he did not know where exactly it came from, but did know that he would find out come tomorrow.