"So," Su said, breaking the silence as they trudged away from the library. "What's the plan, Sparkles? You got some fancy Sky-Dancer map in that feathery head of yours?"

  Resplendent Feather let out a psychic sigh that felt like someone had dropped a bag of feathers. "The 'plan' was for you to acquire the Inversion Lore. You acquired... a mood. And a disturbing new familiarity with my personal space."

  "Hey, you're the one who poked me first. Consider us even." Su scanned the horizon. They were in the middle of god-knows-where. "Okay, new plan. We find civilization. I get a drink. You stand there and look pretty. We figure it out from there."

  "Your strategic acumen is, as ever, breathtaking," he deadpanned.

  Their journey was educational. For the first time, Su realized that Resplendent Feather was kind of useless in the real world. He refused to walk through mud, resulting in a twenty-minute detour. He was baffled by the concept of foraging, turning up his beak at a perfectly good, wriggling grub.

  "Don't you ever eat?" Su asked, swallowing the grub with a satisfying crunch.

  "I sustain myself on ambient starlight and the admiration of lesser beings," he sniffed. "It is a far more refined diet than... whatever that was."

  "Uh-huh. So you're hangry. Got it."

  They bickered their way across a meadow of flowers that changed color based on your mood (Su's section was a violent, pulsating red; his was a calm, smug azure). They were briefly detained by a very serious and slow-moving tortoise who accused them of "loitering with intent to cause a nuisance." Su got them out of that one by projecting an image of a particularly enticing lettuce leaf just over the next hill.

  It was during a heated argument about the best way to cross a stream (he could fly, she could not) that it happened.

  A group of figures emerged from the treeline. They weren't nobles or cultists. They looked like farmers, but armed with sharpened scythes and pitchforks. And their faces were etched with a kind of grim, desperate fury.

  "There!" one of them shouted, pointing a trembling finger. "The bird! The one from the prophecy!"

  Su and Resplendent Feather froze mid-squabble.

  "...Prophecy?" Su sent.

  "I am unaware of any local prophecies concerning my magnificence," Resplendent Feather replied, sounding more intrigued than concerned.

  An old woman stepped forward, her eyes fixed on Su. "The Speckled Harbinger! The tales are true! It appears when the blight is upon the crops!"

  Su looked down at her own dull, earth-toned feathers. "Harbinger? Lady, I think you've got the wrong bird. I'm more of a... mildly annoying omen, at best."

  "It's her dullness!" a man cried. "It signifies the withering! She's cursed our fields!"

  NEW QUEST: ‘UNWITTING AGRICULTURAL SCAPEGOAT’

  OBJECTIVE: CONVINCE THE TERRIFIED VILLAGERS YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR FAILING TURNIPS.

  ALTERNATE OBJECTIVE: RUN LIKE HELL.

  Okay, listen, Su said, taking a step forward with her wings spread in what she hoped was a placating gesture. I've had a really long day. I got emotionally waterboarded by a dead girl's memories, and my travel buddy here is a celestial drama queen. The last thing I want to do is hex your vegetables.

  This was the wrong thing to say.

  "This is undignified," Resplendent Feather huffed, finally taking to the air to avoid the waving pitchforks.

  HEY! Don't you leave me down here, you glittery coward! Su yelled, backpedaling.

  "I am providing aerial reconnaissance!" he called down, circling safely overhead.

  Su turned to run, but her foot caught on a root. She went down in a tangle of feathers and indignity. The mob closed in, their faces a mask of superstitious fear.

  This was it. After everything, she was going to be killed by a bunch of farmers over some wilted cabbages. It was, without a doubt, the stupidest possible way for this loop to end.

  As the first pitchfork descended, she squeezed her eyes shut.

  But the blow never landed.

  A shadow fell over her. There was a sound like a hundred sheets of silk being ripped at once, and a blast of wind that knocked the villagers off their feet.

  Su opened her eyes.

  Resplendent Feather was on the ground, standing over her. But he wasn't just standing there. His train was fanned out in a breathtaking, iridescent shield, the eye-spots seeming to glare at the mob. He looked less like a bird and more like a vengeful, feathered boss.

  "You will not touch her," his voice echoed in every mind. "She is under my protection. And she is no harbinger of your petty blight. Your soil is tired because you plant the same crop year after year without rest. You are fools, attacking a stranger instead of tending your own land."

  The villagers stared, their anger replaced by pants-wetting terror. They dropped their tools and scrambled away, tripping over each other in their haste to escape the angry, talking peacock.

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  Resplendent Feather slowly folded his train, his breathing slightly labored. He looked down at Su.

  "You are an immense amount of trouble," he sent, but the edge was gone from his tone.

  Su stared up at him, her own heart hammering. "You... you have a 'Protective Posture'? Since when?"

  "Since it became inconveniently necessary," he replied, turning away with a flick of his tail. "Now, get up. And try to avoid being accused of horticultural terrorism in the next village. I do not wish to repeat this performance."

  As he strutted away, Su couldn't help the grin that spread across her beak. The bastard had saved her. He'd actually saved her.

  She got to her feet, brushing the dirt off her feathers. Maybe this unspoken bond thing wasn't so bad after all.

  "Hey, Feathers!" she called after him. "You know, for a rooster, you're not totally useless!"

  His only response was a disdainful mental sniff, but she was pretty sure she saw the tips of his feathers flush a slightly deeper blue.

  The "unspoken bond" lasted for approximately one hour.

  It was shattered when they stumbled upon a field of what could only be described as aggressive dandelions.

  "Ooh, fluff-balls!" Su said, and before Resplendent Feather could issue a haughty warning, she took an experimental peck at one.

  The dandelion unleashed a cloud of spores that smelled like a bog giant's sock and shrieked in a frequency that made Su's beak vibrate.

  "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THE FLORA!" Resplendent Feather thundered, leaping backward as the entire field began to tremble. "THOSE ARE SCREECH-PUFFS! THEIR SPORES CAUSE TEMPORARY, HUMILIATING AURAL HALLUCINATIONS!"

  "Could've led with that!" Su yelled back, batting at the spore cloud. The world began to warp. The trees started singing a off-key rendition of a sea shanty. Resplendent Feather's magnificent tail appeared to be on fire, but in a polite, apologetic way.

  DEBUFF APPLIED: ‘SYMPHONIC MADNESS’

  EFFECT: YOU HEAR EVERYTHING AS BAD MUSICAL THEATER. DURATION: 1 HOUR.

  "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me," Su groaned, as a nearby squirrel began tap-dancing and singing about the existential dread of winter hoarding.

  For the next sixty minutes, their journey was a living nightmare. Resplendent Feather's psychic complaints arrived in her mind as show tunes.

  (To the tune of "Memory" from Cats)

  "Speckless one, why must you peck at things?

  Speckless one, the indignity this brings..."

  "Will you shut up!" Su screamed, which came out as a power ballad about the struggles of communication.

  Even Sir Coos-a-Lot's coos were transformed into a repetitive, jazzy scat number. By the time the debuff wore off, Su had a newfound sympathy for anyone who'd ever been forced to sit through a community theater production.

  "You are a walking catastrophe," Resplendent Feather stated, once the last musical note had faded from the air.

  "And you're a terrible lyricist," Su shot back, her ears still ringing.

  Their bickering was a familiar, comfortable blanket. But something had changed. They were like an old married couple who communicated primarily through insults, but would absolutely set the world on fire for each other if needed.

  A few days later, they found it. A small, bustling trading post on the edge of a vast, shimmering lake. It was a chaotic mix of humans, a few grumpy-looking dwarves and other, stranger creatures.

  "Civilization!" Su declared. "Time for that drink."

  "I will wait here," Resplendent Feather said, eyeing the muddy, crowded streets with profound distaste. "The... aroma is offensive."

  "Suit yourself, Princess." Su strutted into the throng, her dull feathers making her practically invisible.

  Su didn't bother with the tavern. Instead, she scouted the back alleys, using her Shadow Listening near open windows and her Bureaucratic Bluster & psychic power to convince a street vendor that a health inspection required a sample of his fried dough (which she then dropped, pretending it was unsatisfactory, and quickly snatched up when he wasn't looking).

  As she was devouring her pilfered snack, she overheard a conversation from an open window above a fishmonger's stall.

  "—a whole shipment, gone! Vane is furious!" a rat-like man was whispering to his companion.

  "Vane?" Su thought, her mind snapping back to the grog-soaked merchant from Eldermount. She pressed closer to the wall, focusing.

  "The Chancellor's not paying for failures," the companion grumbled. "He wants that bird found. The 'Immortal Fowl'. His mages say its unique biology is the key to replicating the soul-transferrence magic from the old texts."

  Su's blood ran cold. The old texts. The book from the first timeline. "On the Transference of Anima."

  She needed to get back to Resplendent Feather. Now.

  She scurried out of the alley, her heart pounding. But as she rounded the corner back to where she'd left him, she skidded to a halt.

  He wasn't alone.

  A figure stood before him, clad in dark, travel-stained robes. The figure held up a small, obsidian amulet. Resplendent Feather was frozen, a look of shock and dawning horror on his face.

  "Hello, brother," the figure said, its voice a sibilant, familiar hiss. It pushed back its hood.

  Su stared. It was another Sky-Dancer. But where Resplendent Feather's plumage was a symphony of life and color, this one's was a dirge. His feathers were shades of charcoal and bruised violet, and his eyes held no stars, only hunger and shadowy energy.

  "Vermilion Plume," Resplendent Feather whispered, his mental voice trembling with a mixture of rage and fear. "You were cast out. You embraced the Shadow-Taint."

  "The Shadow offers more power than starlight ever could, brother," Vermilion Plume sneered. "And the Chancellor pays so well for unique specimens. He was so pleased with the initial report on your... little curse. He wants to study the source."

  The obsidian amulet flared. Tendrils of darkness shot out, wrapping around Resplendent Feather, who let out a choked cry, his brilliant light dimming.

  Su didn't think or plan. She charged.

  With a furious squawk, she launched herself at Vermilion Plume's head.

  The shadowy peacock was taken completely by surprise. He stumbled back, the concentration on his amulet broken for a split second.

  It was all the opening Resplendent Feather needed. With a roar of psychic fury, he shattered the shadowy bonds. Light erupted from him, slamming into his brother and sending him flying backward into a stack of crates.

  Vermilion Plume scrambled to his feet, hissing. "This isn't over, brother. The Chancellor will have his prize. And you, speckled rat... you will be the first component of his new army."

  He dissolved into a cloud of shadows and was gone.

  The trading post was silent, the few witnesses staring in stunned terror.

  Resplendent Feather stood panting, his light slowly returning to normal. He looked at Su, his starry eyes wide.

  "You... you attacked a Shadow-Tainted Sky-Dancer," he sent, his voice full of disbelief. "With no plan. With no weapon. You just... charged."

  "He was being a dick," Su said, her own legs shaking. "And he was messing with my... uh... travel buddy."

  They stared at each other, the weight of what just happened settling between them. The Chancellor wasn't just a political problem anymore. He was a direct, supernatural threat and he had agents even among Resplendent Feather's own kind.

  The casual road trip was over.

  "We cannot stay here," Resplendent Feather said, his voice grim. "He will return with reinforcements."

  "Okay," Su said, her mind already racing. "Then where do we go?"

  "Home," he said, the word heavy with reluctance and resolve. "We go to the Aerie of the Sky-Dancers. It is the only place we might be safe. And the only place we might find the strength to fight what is coming."

  Su looked from his determined face to the terrifying mountains, then back to the cozy, dangerous trading post.

  "Great," she sighed. "Family reunions. My favorite."