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Nilia showed more of a reaction than Banno did. Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. "You're lying..." she breathed, and the Fox simply smiled that smug, self-satisfied little grin, a grin that had no business being on his mouth when their blood was pooling together beneath their bodies as they spoke.

"I always poison my bolts," he said. "Just ask Ander..."

Banno lifted his hand up to his face, not caring if his intestines came spilling out again. The small hole going through his palm had taken on a more sinister appearance. Like one of Wardo's biters hiding beneath a layer of autumn leaves, it felt like this tiny little scratch was hiding something far more serious.

He stuck the tip of his tongue into the hole, pushing it through the gap in his flesh. He could taste blood (a lot of blood), but underneath that bitter taste was something else, something far more subtle. It was an earthy taste, like mushrooms after a sudden bout of rain, and when he pulled his tongue back out, there was an odd tingle going through the tissue, a numb kind of burn like the sting of fire ants.

He had been poisoned.

There was something inside of him trying to make him not him anymore, trying to turn him into a dead, empty shell just like everything else.

Inside him.

Poison.

The giggles burst out of him before he knew they were even coming, and once they started, he was powerless to stop them. He threw his head back and they bubbled forth until tears leaked from his eye and his guts began to push against his fingers with every heaving guffaw.

Him? Die? From something like this? A few drops of liquid splashed onto arrowheads, so bland and tasteless he didn't even notice until it was pointed out to him? If it wasn't so funny it would be insulting.

"You... You honestly think...?" Banno's giggles suddenly turned into a hacking cough that sent splatters of blood bursting out of his mouth. "You think this is enough? You think anything can ever be enough?"

Nilia and the Fox were holding each other close, too weak to get up, practically dead already. They watched him come closer like two naked baby mice trapped inside their nest, powerless to stop the advancing snake. Perhaps they were hoping he would drop dead before he could reach them. Drop dead from poison, of all things. Such a cowardly way of fighting, even more cowardly than resorting to a weapon. It was like resorting to a weapon that in turn also had to resort to a weapon. Two layers of separation between hunter and prey, so far removed from teeth and claws you could never hope to taste the kill, and that defeated the entire purpose of killing!

Banno dropped down to one knee. He did not mean to drop down, it simply happened.

is it because of the poison the poison inside me trying to make me not real

no the poison is nothing it can't hurt me it's just like the cold it's nothing

but it's inside me making me numb making my flesh asleep making me not real

I can never be not real I am the only real everything that is real is me I am everything

poison the poison inside me

it's not enough he didn't use enough no one can ever it's impossible impossible IMPOSSIBLE!!

Banno began to crawl along on all fours, his numb, aching stump of a leg slowly dragging behind him like a dead thing -

no it's alive every part of me is alive so alive more alive than anything the ONLY living thing

Nilia and her pet Fox were -

why are they like that why do they cling to each other like that

it's because they're drowning of course and when two mice drown together they cling to each other that's the rule that's one of the rules they're just drowning mice drowning together about to die about to drown in their own blood because of me because I will rip them open watch them drown deep in the dark where the water rushes into your mouth and nose it tastes like mud and dirt trying to get inside and you try to swim up but you can't because the current is too strong it's pulling you along but there's something holding you back holding you down it's a biter around your ankle and you know you're going to die

I CAN'T DIE!!

if you don't do something and you know what you have to do but you hate it because it is forced on you and you have to cut it off a piece of yourself you have to make yourself less and you don't want to but you have to or else you will die

I CAN'T DIE!!

the river the black river all around me pulling me down filled with swirling bubbles filled with night-time shadows filled with silt and dirt and mud and leaves and twigs and rocks and that was the first time the first time I ever thought I might -

NO!!

Banno was laughing, but instead of laughter, he was only coughing up more and more blood. It burst out of him with every exhale, great jets of it spewing from his mouth and nose and even the hole in his stomach.

Nilia and her pet Fox were trying desperately to edge away from him while still holding onto each other like drow- like dying mice, their eyes filled with fear and awe that he should still be breathing even with all that poison flowing through his veins, poison that was supposed to be killing him, but that by itself was impossible, because he could not die, could not die, could never die, could never ever die... he was almost there... he could almost reach out and grab them... just a tiny bit more... just a little... bit... closer...

Banno reached for the surface of the water, the crescent light of the moon shining just beyond his fingertips, warbled and distorted by the rain -

"Sai?"

Banno stopped. He knew that voice, but he hadn't heard it for a while. That beautiful, carefree voice...

He looked around, but couldn't find her. Everything was just a shifting black mess of empty colours.

"Sai, please!"

He looked up, and there she was, perched on top of the railing with her legs dangling over the side. It was a pose he had seen her in so many times, even before she became a part of him. How she would sit up there in the trees for hours on end, swinging her feet back and forth, smiling down at the world down below and the Wolves scurrying about their humdrum lives like ants in the dirt. But why...

Why did she look so unhappy?

"Vallah? What's wrong?"

"Sai..." She covered her mouth, but it wasn't enough to hold back the vomit. It spurt out between her fingers, sickly green and steaming in the cold, night air.

"Vallah!?"

"Sai... it hurts! Oh, please, it hurts!" She held out her hands, showing how the noxious green fluid was eating into her palms, bubbling through her skin right down to the bone, hissing like a nest of angry snakes.

"Vallah! What's happening to you!?"

She tried to speak, but even more of that frothy green mess came spewing out of her mouth like pond scum, chewing into her soft, luscious lips even as she tried to communicate her torment.

"Vallah!" Banno rounded on the Fox, who looked confused as well as terrified. "It was you! Your poison couldn't touch me, so now it's going after her!"

"What?"

"I understand why you'd want to kill me! That's just what the rules say you must do to save your own skin! But why would you go after an innocent girl!? You monster!"

"I don't underst-"

Nilia touched his mouth. "Don't. He's gone completely mad."

"I'll kill you!"

Banno crawled, headed straight for that murderous Fox. His knees pushed through half-congealed drifts of blood and his hands smacked down on wet, glistening puddles. The pink rope of his intestine swung just a few inches above the floor, dripping a never-ending stream.

The Fox retreated on his back, pushing off the floor with his feet, but he was slow. Banno reached out for him, ready to grab, ready to pull him back, ready to eat his face off as he screamed and screamed...

Nilia threw herself in front of his reaching hand. Her lips had peeled back into a furious snarl, making the cuts in her muzzle flare wide open, and blood was spilling down the side of her face like war paint. "If you so much as breathe on him, I will finish the job of tearing your belly open myself!"

"You can't even stand!"

"I don't need to stand! I will crawl like an animal if I have to! I will rip you open with my teeth!"

"I invite you to try, you sad, miserable excuse for a warrior. We'll see how well you -" More blood surged out of his mouth and splattered over the floor, but he didn't care about that. "- how well you fare against a real Wolf..."

"Sai! Please! I can't -"

Vallah?

He turned his head and looked up just in time to see her double over and vomit more of that awful green poison into her lap. It sizzled and spat plumes of toxic smoke into the air.

"I'm coming, Vallah!" Banno shouted. "Just hold on! I'll kill these two and -"

She shook her head. "There's no time, Sai... I can't last that long... I need you! Please, hurry! I need you now!"

"I..." Banno regarded that hateful Nilia and her little Fox pet, the way she had crawled on top of him, half-on and half-off, like the world's ugliest blanket.

no time I'm running out of time I have to finish it

no it's not me it's not me it's Vallah she's the one running out of time not me

"I'm coming, Vallah... just hold on... hold on like the brave little girl I know you are..."

He brought his good leg underneath him and stood up, fighting off a wave of dizziness that threatened to throw him down again. It felt like the whole world was tilting beneath his feet.

"Sai..."

She was pitching over! Vallah was pitching over the side!

"Vallah!" He held out his hands to catch her, but she had already righted herself. She was looking down at him, her normally pleasant features haggard and wan, her sparkling eyes now bloodshot and weary.

"You have to hurry, Sai..." she said, poison dribbling from her mouth. "Before it's too late..."

Yes... yes... he had to hurry...

Banno lurched his way towards the stairs, giving Nilia and the Fox a wide berth, and planted his hand down on the plain wooden post at the bottom, smearing it with blood.

He had to get up there... They were there... He had to finish it. He had to finish... For Vallah...

Before it was too late...