The road into the Bighorn Mountains was less a highway and more a suggestion carved into the granite. The Subaru climbed steadily, the engine humming a low, reliable note against the thinning air. Outside, the world had shifted from the golden plains of Wyoming to a rugged, vertical landscape of pine and stone.
Violet drove, her hands relaxed on the wheel. She wore the blue rose tucked behind her ear; despite three days of travel, it remained as fresh and vibrant as the moment William had pulled it from the earth. It wasn't just a flower; it was a battery, a small, pulsing node of earth magic that kept the air in the car smelling of rain even when the windows were up.
William was asleep in the passenger seat, his head resting against the window. The tension that had defined his posture for the last year was gone, replaced by a loose, easy grace. He didn't look like a Prime Alpha or a Forest God avatar; he just look like a boy who finally felt safe enough to close his eyes.
As they rounded a sharp switchback, the sky ahead darkened. It wasn't a gradual cloud cover; it was a sudden, bruising wall of charcoal clouds boiling over the peaks. The temperature dropped, and the wind picked up, buffeting the car.
"Storm's coming," Violet murmured, glancing at the rearview mirror.
William stirred, blinking awake. He looked out the window, his amber eyes scanning the horizon. "Not just a storm. The mountain is angry."
He sat up, rolling his shoulder. "Rockfall ahead. I can feel the stress in the stone."
Violet slowed the car. "Can you clear it?"
"I can ask it to move," William said. "But the wind... that's you."
They rounded the next bend and found the road blocked. A massive slide of shale and boulders had spilled across the asphalt, cutting off the path. Above them, the storm clouds swirled, heavy with unreleased energy.
Violet stopped the car. They stepped out into the biting wind.
"It's unstable," William noted, walking toward the pile of rocks. He didn't touch them. He simply stood before the blockage, his hands at his sides, palms open.
He closed his eyes. He didn't shout or command. He breathed.
He pushed his consciousness into the earth beneath the road, connecting with the roots of the pines clinging to the slope and the deep, silent veins of the mountain itself. He asked for passage. He offered respect.
Softly, he urged the stone. Make way.
The response was slow, grinding. The boulders didn't fly apart; they settled. The earth shifted gently, creating a path. It was a manipulation of gravity and friction, a gentle coaxing of the natural order. The rocks rolled aside not because they were forced, but because they wanted to rest elsewhere.
"Clear," William said, his voice calm.
But the sky wasn't listening. A jagged fork of lightning cracked above them, too close. The air smelled of ozone and static. The storm wasn't natural; it was a remnant of the chaotic energies they had stirred up in the Badlands, a localized pocket of weather responding to the presence of two powerful singularities.
"It's going to hail," Violet said, looking up. "Big ones. It'll wreck the car."
"I can't stop the sky," William admitted. "That's too far up."
Violet stepped forward. She didn't ask the storm for permission. She didn't breathe with it. She glared at it.
She reached deep into her core, bypassing the Lycan strength and the Witch's calculation, tapping directly into the volatile, fiery energy of the Succubus-Singularity. She felt the static in the air as a tangible thing, a chaotic web of potential energy.
She raised her hand, fingers splayed.
Burn it out.
She didn't throw fire. She threw will. She projected a massive, invisible dome of heat and disruption into the clouds above them. It was a destructive pulse, designed to shatter the cohesion of the storm cell.
BOOM.
Thunder rattled her bones. A flash of violet light arched from her hand into the clouds. The swirling mass of grey instantly evaporated directly above them, burned away by the sheer intensity of her magical rejection. The clouds around the perimeter remained, but a perfect, circular hole of blue sky opened up directly over the car and the cleared road.
"Nice shot," William said, shielding his eyes from the sudden sunlight.
Violet lowered her hand, smoke curling faintly from her fingertips. "I hate hail."
They got back in the car and drove through the gap, the storm raging impotently on either side of their path—William's gentle earth road below, Violet's destructive sky shield above.
They camped that night near a high alpine lake. The water was glassy and still, reflecting the stars.
William knelt by the water's edge. He dipped his hand in, and the water rippled, glowing with a soft, bioluminescent blue light. He wasn't just washing his hands; he was purifying the water, pulling out the silt and the stagnation, leaving it crystal clear.
He filled their canteens. "It's sweet," he said, handing one to Violet. "Tastes like snow."
Violet took a sip. It was the best water she had ever tasted—cold, clean, and vibrant with life.
"You're getting good at that," she said. "The 'gentle touch'."
"It feels right," William said, sitting beside her on a log. "The Wolf wants to hunt, but the Forest... the Forest just wants to be. It wants to grow and flow. It's quiet."
He looked at her, his eyes reflecting the starlight. "And you? How's the fire?"
Violet looked at her hands. She summoned a tiny flame on the tip of her index finger. It wasn't orange; it was a swirling mix of purple and gold. It was beautiful and dangerous.
"It's loud," she admitted. "It wants to burn. But I'm learning to aim it."
She flicked her finger, and the flame shot into the fire pit, igniting the damp wood instantly with a whoosh of heat. No smoke, just instant, clean combustion.
"Destruction isn't bad," William said, watching the fire. "Forests need wildfires to grow. Pine cones only open in extreme heat. You're the spark, Vi. I'm the soil."
"And together?" she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder.
"Together," he said, kissing her temple, "we're an ecosystem."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the fire dance.
"Where to tomorrow?" William asked.
"Idaho," Violet said. "There's a hot spring I read about. And then... maybe the coast."
"The coast," William mused. "Ocean. Salt. Sand. I've never seen the ocean."
"You'll love it," Violet promised. "It's loud and chaotic and smells like life."
"Like you," he smiled.
As they slept, the forest around them seemed to lean in. The trees grew just a fraction of an inch taller. The wildflowers near their tent bloomed early, opening their petals to the moon. And high above, the clouds parted completely, afraid to disturb the sleeping fire.
Far away, in the ruins of the Deadwood quarry, a single shadow stirred in the deep earth, sensing the ripple of power from the mountains. But it was weak, and the mountains were far, and for now, the Singularity and the Forest God were just two teenagers sleeping in a tent, dreaming of the sea.
❖✜❖
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