Phoenix
It felt like the world was spinning. Her head pounded and her body ached. She just wanted to go back to sleep, but a muffled noise kept stirring her. Slowly, her world started coming into focus. The noise turned into to word fragments, then to someone calling her name. Her real name.
She forced her eyes open. She was laying on the cold hard earth in her human form, tiny blurry objects glowed faintly all around her and whoever was calling out to her. She felt something leathery caress the crown of her head tenderly. As the fog cleared from her mind, images of Drax climbing, then her catching him when he slipped. "Mark?" Her voice was raspy, her throat raw as if she had swallowed gravel. In the faint light, she could barely see his gold armor reflecting the dim false starlight.
The sweet tang of relief filled her nose with his heavy sigh. "Thank God! You're awake." Phoenix tried to sit up, but a splitting head erupted behind her eyes. She gritted her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut with a hiss of pain. One large warm hand was placed on her back while the other held her shoulder. Drax eased her back down to the floor with the same care he would if he was handling something fragile. "Easy now. We took quite a tumble, and you didn't have armor to protect you."
"Isn't the game supposed to log players out when they get knocked out or killed?" Her body trembled with her pain.
Although she couldn't see his face, her sensitive nose picked up his anxiety, sharp and sour. It felt like someone cranked her sensory receptors to eleven. She wrinkled her nose at the strange new sensation. "Yes, as a safety measure, but something's wrong. You've gotten hurt before, right?"
Yeah, she was injured during the fight with the alpha night shadow wolf and the brawl with the comet fire foxes. The pain was short-lived and manageable during both. "Mm-hm."
"Try to access the forest's database. Maybe the changes we made affected the log out system." Phoenix had to pinch her nose shut, letting the air come and go through her mouth. The scent of his mood swings was making her dizzy. His pungent desperation had hit her the hardest.
She pushed through the pain, focusing on the database. It manifested in the air, shining like a neon sign and illuminating their faces. Drax's brow arched up the moment he could see her face. She gave him a side eye. "Don't ask." Even her own nasally voice added insult to injury, and she wanted nothing more than to get to the bottom of this mess.
Drax raised his hands in surrender. They examined the data once. Twice. Thrice. By the fifth time, it was clear that the issue wasn't with the coding. Was the AI malfunctioning?
Whatever the issue was, they needed to figure it out. Fast. Opal's link bond had announced hers and Lira's return to the lake. She couldn't let Lira see her like this. "Drax! Please, keep Lira busy."
His face twisted in concern. "Isn't Lira your friend?"
Phoenix let out her breath in a heavy puff, dropping her hand from her nose and mentally shut down her sense of smell. She lolled her head away In shame. "She doesn't know." Emphasis was placed on the word 'know'.
"A lone wolf can't survive long on its own. It will eventually need a pack." Drax's words were soft, yet they cut deep.
Near silent buzzing filled the cavernous basin as the leafy green glow of Lira's body filled the entrance closely followed by Opal bathed in a kaleidoscope of multicolored flames. The tiny fire fox shot to Phoenix's side, nuzzling herself against her cheek. The fox's soft warm fur tickled her skin, drawing out a soft chuckle.
There was a breathy whisper from Drax in Lira's ear. "What?! She's hurt?" Her alarmed squawk pierced Phoenix's eardrums. Her head felt like it was trying to split open.
Traitor.
Lira fluttered over, dropping to her knees at Phoenix's head. "Hang on, sister. Just got a skill that'll help." The pixie laid her hands on each of the shifter's temples. Starting from her head, a pure soothing life energy filled her body. The intense agony rapidly faded to nothing. "That should do it."
This time when Phoenix sat up, there was no dizziness or pain. She felt as good as new. "Thank you. That feels a lot better." For a second that was true. Then she remembered how she kept trying to brush Chelsea/Lira off. Even when she tried to make it up to her, Lillian still sent her away before they had a chance to talk. The guilt piled up like heavy stones. "I'm sorry, Lira. I haven't been a very good friend to you."
Lira settled in on the dirt floor next to her with her hands on her lap. "What makes you think that?"
Phoenix met the pixie's eyes, what she found was a patient calm that she hadn't expected Lira to be capable of. Tears filled the shifter's eyes as she spoke. "You welcomed me with open arms without knowing anything about me. I kept pushing you way. Even when I claimed to be looking out for you. I-I was only looking out for myself." Shed tears left warm wet trails down her cheeks as she wept.
Petite arms wrapped around Phoenix's shoulders. The gentle whisper in her ear brought on a fresh wave of tears. "You're not as selfish as you think you are."
"How are you so sure?" Her pitiful whimper was half muffled by Lira's shoulder. She just sat limply in her arms unsure of what to do.
Lira rubbed her back in slow soothing strokes. "A selfish person would be too consumed with their own desires to care about another's well-being."
The conviction in the pixie's words reverberated through her. The walls she had built around her tattered heart began to crumble a little. She could almost see Drax's approving gaze in the dim like. He was right. She couldn't do it alone anymore, and maybe she didn't have to.