The world was born in fury.
Lightning did not flash. It crawled. Jagged veins of violet light slithered down from the bruised sky, hitting the ancient Aetherwoods and leaving not fire, but crawling crystal shells in their wake. The wind did not blow. It screamed. Its voice was a chorus of a thousand dying things, clawing at the air, tearing leaves into spiraling confetti of emerald and gold.
In the heart of this madness, Arin was.
Consciousness was a shattered mirror. Each piece held a sensation too vast to understand. Cold. Impact. Tearing. Fear. They had no name for these things. They only were them. Their body—a fragile form of smooth, bark-like skin over shifting, crystalline muscle—tumbled through the shrieking gale. A branch, turned to sharp amethyst, raked across their chest. Icy pain, then a warm, golden glow as the wound sealed itself, leaving only a faint, silvery seam. Each healing took something. A dullness inside. A dimming.
The storm spat them out.
Arin crashed into a river of mud and shattered stone at the bottom of a deep ravine. The wind's scream became a fading moan high above. For a moment, there was only the pound of their own heart, a frantic drum against the quiet.
Then, a groan.
Not human. Deep, resonant, thick with pain.
Arin pushed onto their hands and knees. Twenty paces away, a massive shape lay broken against a boulder. It was a wolf, but a wolf woven from storm clouds and midnight. Fur the color of a deep bruise, crackling with dying arcs of blue lightning. A mighty head with six sapphire eyes, three of them closed. Its side was opened up by four parallel gashes, seeping not blood, but a shimmering, silver essence into the mud.
A Storm Howler. The apex hunter of the high crags. Now, dying.
A shadow passed over Arin. Then another.
Two Ash-Beak Vultures circled down, their wings tattered like old leather, beaks glowing with a sickly orange ember. Scavengers. They ignored Arin, a mere morsel. Their target was the grand prize. The Howler.
One landed with a leathery flap, hopping closer to the Howler's head. It cocked its head, a gleam of stupid hunger in its black eyes. It raised its beak, aiming for the Howler's one open, defiant eye.
A new sensation erupted in Arin's chest. It wasn't fear for themselves. It was a sharp, hot wrongness. This creature of sky and storm should not be ended by a thing of rot and cowardice.
Arin did not think. They moved.
They crawled through the mud, their body weak, that inner light dim. The vulture ignored them. It struck.
Arin threw themself forward, their small hand landing on the Howler's sodden, electrified fur.
Contact.
The world dissolved into light.
Gold and green, erupting from Arin's core, from the Howler's wounds, from the very air between them. It was silent and deafening all at once. The vulture shrieked, thrown back by the force.
Inside Arin's skull, a chime rang—clear, vast, and mechanical.
[Symbiosis System Initialized.]
[Life-Form Analysis…]
Text, diagrams, and bars of light superimposed themselves over Arin's vision. They tried to blink, but it was inside their mind.
[Designation: Storm Howler. Alpha-Potential Variant.]
[Status: CRITICAL.]
—Major Lacerations (4).
—Aether-Core Depletion: 92%.
—Neuro-Toxin Detected: Ash-Beak Saliva.
[Symbiotic Bond Offered. Initiate Life-Stabilization Protocol?]
The words meant little. The feeling behind them was everything. A lifeline. A choice. A together.
The gold light was weaving their essence with the Howler's. Arin saw it—thin filaments of their own warmth stitching the great beast's silver wounds shut. They felt the Howler's pain, a thunderstorm of agony. They felt its pride, its fury at being brought low. They felt its fading pulse.
"YES!" Arin screamed, with a voice that had never spoken, a thought that shattered the last of their confusion.
[Bond Established. Primary Symbiont: Kaelen.]
The flood of information intensified. Aether pathways. Vital signs. A swirling, complex diagram of the Howler—Kaelen's—potential evolution tree, most branches greyed out. A simple, pulsing arrow pointed to one: [Crisis Evolution: Scent-Tracking (Toxin Purge).] The system was not just reporting. It was guiding.
Arin focused on that arrow, pouring their will, their newborn intention, into it.
The golden light flared. Kaelen's body convulsed. A black, tar-like substance was forced from his wounds, sizzling in the mud. One of his closed eyes snapped open, blazing with renewed blue fire. The deep, rattling breath evened, just a fraction.
The light from Arin faded, sputtered.
A deep, profound weakness swallowed them. They slumped against Kaelen's side, the world going grey at the edges. They had given too much. The system had taken their energy to fuel the healing.
Kaelen's great head turned. All six eyes were open now, though dim. They fixed on Arin. There were no words. A wave of sensation hit Arin's mind. Not a voice. A presence. Grateful. Confused. Protective. A rumbling, psychic growl that meant Mine.
A low growl echoed in the physical world too. Not from Kaelen.
From the ravine walls.
Arin looked up. The crystal formations above, weakened by the storm, were groaning. Cracks spiderwebbed through the purple rock. Dust and pebbles rained down.
Then, from the shadows of a cave further down the ravine, pairs of yellow eyes ignited. Low, canine shapes emerged. Rockback Lizards, drawn by the light and the scent of easy prey. Their stony hides scraped against the stone as they fanned out, hissing.
Kaelen tried to rise, his legs buckling. Arin's own limbs were like lead.
The bond thrummed between them, a cord of shared light and shared exhaustion. They had saved each other from one death.
Now, the ravine itself was collapsing, and the hunters had arrived. Together, they were trapped. Together, they were weak.
But together, they were no longer alone.
The first Rockback Lizard charged, its maw gaping, ready to break bone and crystal alike.