The graveyard in the Void stretched endlessly, a desolate plain of weapons too large for mortals and bones too ancient to remember their names. Towering greatswords jutted from the ground like the spines of dead titans. Between them lay skeletal remains of dragons, half-sunken in ash, their ribs forming archways of calcified history. The atmosphere was thick, bent with something not quite time, not quite space. Here, existence staggered.

Pebble walked carefully, her form slim and humanlike, though dark feathers curled from her neck and forearms, twitching in a breeze that wasn’t there. Her eyes caught the silhouette ahead... a tall, angular spire, and dark windows that absorbed all light. The Church of Whispers.

The moment she saw it, time strained. Each second stretched like honey. Movement required thought. Every breath dragged like wet fabric through her chest. Her feathers twitched as she tensed... It felt as if she was being watched.

"Pebble, was it?"

She turned, slowly... like each second dragged frame-for-frame.

"Sorry- I- I was going. Leaving. Right now."

"I do not wish to harm you," Hush said. "No... I am glad to have this opportunity to speak. On better terms."

She tensed. "I have nothing to say to you. Not after what you did to Richard. Why would you want to speak after all that happened?"

Hush withdrew something from his coat... a pocket watch bound in tarnished chains. When he opened it, black feathers unwound into the air and spiraled backward into the gears.

Her eyes widened. "That... where did you get that?"

"It bears your aetheric signature," he said softly. "I recognized it immediately when I first met you."

"You shouldn't have that. You... how did you get it?"

"How did you lose it?"

Her jaw tightened. "The swamp swallows many things. But... I am more interested in how you found it?"

"It was stolen. Not by me, in case you're wondering. A child named Tourmaline. I found his corpse... it seems he met an unfortunate fate."

Pebble’s lip curled. “Have you been using it on people? Is that what’s causing... this?”

She gestured vaguely, struggling against the syrup-thick time.

"You ask these questions, yet you already know the answers to each. But I have answers to questions you have yet to answer. You’re cursed, aren’t you, Pebble?"

She hesitated.

"...I don’t know what it is. A curse... a lineage... why does it matter to you?"

"Because your body is chimerised. With some void-touched avian species. Chimerism is a special interest of mine... I could help you understand it."

Her feathers bristled.

"You... could help me control it?"

"Certainly... I could."

Her gaze shifted between the watch and his face. Then she pulled back.

"No."

Hush smiled, not with triumph, but with patience.

"Richard warned me not to speak with you. I won't betray that."

"Richard... yes. That’s what this is about? But this isn't about Richard... This goes deeper than that... doesn't it? How long have you been seeking answers?"

She touched the cheek where the void beam had marked her.

"You can't possibly have those answers."

"I don't. Not yet. I wish to study you... and uncover them."

"You must take me for a fool."

"A fool? No. I think you're sensible, Pebble. A fool wouldn’t have... listened."

She started to turn away. Hush clicked the watch closed.

Time snapped back into motion. Pebble gasped at the sudden lightness.

"I will not force you to accept this offer. My own curiosity can remain unrequited. But... can yours?"

She paused at the edge of a portal she conjured. It swirled like a bruise made of stars.

"What do you get out of this?"

"The same thing as you. Answers."

She stared at him.

"Doing this would betray Richard."

Hush chuckled. "Allow me to give you an introduction to philosophical ethics... There are two models of morality: Legalist and consequentialist. It is the nature of Emeraldites to take a legalist approach. Laws, codes, arbitrary rules... They fail to meet the nuances of reality. Consequentialists weigh morality by the consequences of an action... Which one are you, Pebble?"

"...And what are the consequences of this action?"

"Nothing. We both part with greater understanding, and Richard... never has to know."

"I won't hide this from him."

"That is your decision, and those are your consequences. I cannot discern them for you."

She looked back to the portal, contemplating heavily.

"It seems strange to me... to obey the laws of a man who understands less about you than you do yourself."

"He's looking out for my safety..."

"Perhaps, but I have my doubts... I witnessed a man motivated by pride... ego... and religious zealotry. You must admit his Emeraldite heritage imposes a bias... Do you have a bias against Zeolites, Pebble?"

"I haven't had enough interactions of my own..."

"Ah, the greatest and most primordial fear of them all... the fear of the unknown. I have made no attempt to control you, only to understand your decision. And I won't start now. It is up to you to trust yourself... Trust that I can give you answers."

Pebble grimaced and looked to the portal one last time. She closed it with a shaking hand.

"...You truly could help me understand this? The feathers? And yet... what is it you get? You say answers, but answers to what?"

"Your condition appears to me a complex case in chimerism. A curse of the same phylogeny as lycanthropy, but you are much more than a mere werewolf. Yours has been wrought with anti-aether. I have not seen... any like it. I hope to understand the mechanisms of these curses to alter my own body."

"I am but a fool to listen to you... but there are things I fear more than what you will do with knowledge of my being."

"Should I not be more afraid of what you would do with knowledge of your own being?"

"Perhaps, but we will see when answers come... I hope."

"Then I hope the fear is unfounded... for both of our sakes."

Hush draws Ereshkigal from the dark and cuts a seam through the air. A chamber of black glass and twisted copper. Alchemical tools stood in rows, mortars, distillation tubes, alembics, and crucibles. A tank of dark water bubbled softly, chimeras swimming within... limbs and wings malformed into some strange, twisted beauty.

Pebble stepped in.

He drew her blood, her saliva, clipped a feather. She watched in still silence as he separated the fluids into four separate vials and added a dropper of chemicals to each, then distilled them. Next, he calcinated the feather and placed the ashes in a spheric device: an anti-aether condenser.

"Your dominant humor is blood. You have a sanguine temperament," he muttered, noting the optimistic nature which allowed him this chance. He opened the condenser and removed a purple crystal, cubic and translucent. He turned it about in his hand, looking closely at the lattice.

"Strange... it seems you have already been altered."

"How so?"

He took the crystal and placed it in a mortar and pestle along with the extracted essence, dragon scale, lion mane, and a manabatrachian, grinding them into a pulp. He poured it into a new vial and diluted it with alcohol. It shimmered violet-black in a long glass phial.

"It seems your mothers biological makeup has been forcefully expressed to suppress your father's voiden half... Why, I do not know."

Pebble looked at the tank full of chimeras mindfully. Reminiscing on some time long past.

"He wanted a better life for me than my original form would have allowed... but I can't remember much... I was so young."

Hush stepped forward with the phial.

"I warn you... This process will be painful... But it will unlock a reflex you did not realize you had, and you will have greater control of your condition than before."

She hesitated, looking into the phial... Despite Richard's warning, despite everything... this was for herself. To face her own fears. Fitting, she thought, that it should happen in the same place where Richard faced his. Her expression hardened with resolve and she downed the phial in one gulp.

Hush watched, unreactive.

Pain seized her. Her skin ruptured into black feathers. Her legs twisted, joints reversing and reshaping with leonine muscle. A scaled tail coiled from her spine, spiked and serpentine. Her feet burst into claws. Her back arched as ravenly wings exploded outward.

She screamed. A roar layered beneath it.

She swiped Hush across the table. Glass and alchemy equipment scattered. Her breath hissed through jagged teeth.

"You tricked me!"

Hush groaned and rose to his feet slowly. Glass falling from his robe and clicking against the floor. "It’s time for you to go home..."

Pebble leaped toward him, roaring, and a portal opened between them. She flew through and landed in front of Richard's home in Moonflower before it sealed behind her.

Silence.

Hush took out the watch and turned a pin. The lab rewound... glass shattering in reverse to form their original shape. Metal bent back into place, and papers flew through the air, landing perfectly in a row.

"If you want to kill your enemy... aim for the heart."