Crystal looked good. For all that Lily had somewhat subconsciously expected her to be sagging in the air, or visibly tired, or some other outward expression of the inner turmoil she was probably going through, she looked like she had just woken from a long nap, had a nice flight, eaten something, and then been slammed with an unexpected confrontation from out of the blue.

Lily was glad of it; she didn't know why she had thought Crystal might be so bothered by news of her that it would show in how she cared for herself. It was a selfish thought, likely stemming from her hope that Crystal still cared about her at all, which she obviously did.

Crystal was also angry. That much was obvious from her subtly bared teeth, which Lily could see as she flew closer. But hers was an alert, aware anger, not at all influenced by exhaustion or anything else.

"Do not move!" Crystal barked at her, flying closer.

Lily had no trouble following that order, given she was already stuck in one place, blocking her egg against the wall. She would have to lean over and pick her egg up before going anywhere…

And at that, Crystal probably couldn't see it, and Beryl had only found out after he'd visited the pack. She didn't know.

Crystal landed in front of her, further down the ledge, flaring her wings and planting her paws to take up the entire width of the narrow rocky path. It was entirely intentional that her position completely blocked Lily from walking any closer to the pack's territory, and both she and Crystal knew it.

Beryl flew carefully in loops close to them, not so close as to obviously eavesdrop, but close enough that he could intervene in a moment if need arose. Lily was sure that she and Crystal posed quite the sight to him; one large and looming, one awkwardly pressed against the wall, low to the ground and protecting something priceless…

And they had been friends, once. For a long time. Lily wasn't about to let this confrontation devolve into what it currently looked like. "I am happy to see you, Crystal," she said honestly. "I hope life has been treating you well?"

"If you are happy to see me because you want my help doing anything, you can forget it," Crystal growled. "I will not be your clawhold on the pack."

"I need nothing from you," Lily assured her, meeting her angry gaze with a simple, neutral look. As much as she would like to be apologetic, she knew Crystal wasn't in the mindset to hear or accept anything like that. Not yet; it would be seen as obviously manipulative, and her guard was up against exactly that. "I did not come here to ask anything of you, or to twist you to any purpose."

"So Beryl would have me believe," Crystal snorted bitterly, "but I know you better than that. Your best tricks were where you got someone to do what you wanted without ever asking anything of them."

"And so my own actions come back to spite me," Lily conceded with a low sigh, looking down at the ground. "By that reasoning, there is absolutely no way I could ever prove my intentions to you."

"You have that right," Crystal said vehemently. "I will not be used."

"Good." Lily met her friend's gaze once more. "What do you want of me, then?" she asked.

"I will not be manipulated!" Crystal barked angrily.

"You will not, so I cannot propose anything at all," Lily shot back. "It is now up to you what happens next. What will you do?"

"I ought to fly back to the pack and tell the alpha, and leave it up to her," Crystal growled.

Lily suspected she was being tested with that blatant mention of Holly and the position she had assumed. She didn't so much as twitch an ear at the title, because she didn't mind. Not that she could say so and be believed. It was not a test she could pass, only one she could fail, or fail but hide her failure. Or so Crystal would be thinking.

Truly, Lily would have approved of her friend's stubborn, absolute refusal to be manipulated, if only it did not have the side effect of totally closing her ears and mind to any semblance of an apology along with everything else. As it was, she was beginning to resign herself to this not being anywhere near a satisfactory final meeting… But that was mostly outside of her control.

"If you will it, do it," she said neutrally. "I cannot promise I will stay to be found, though."

"You would not need to stay, you could not get away fast enough," Crystal said coldly… Though her hard gaze faltered, and she glanced away for a brief moment, as if ashamed of so blatantly rubbing Lily's face in her disability. Former disability, though she apparently didn't know that… Beryl must not have told her. She thought he had, but clearly she was mistaken.

Lily, for her part, chose to ignore that meaning in its entirety, in favor of pushing toward something that might not engender such bitterness from her former friend. "You are right, I would not be able to move fast enough, not with what I am carrying," she said. She carefully placed her paws and shifted, pulling far enough away from the wall that she could both put her tail on her egg, and reveal it to Crystal. "Whatever you might think, my priorities do not lie with my former pack."

Crystal's eyes bulged comically, and she reared back as if Lily had just threatened her with a hidden claw or something similarly small but nefarious. "What is that?" she demanded. "Where did you get it?"

"It turns out I am not all-knowing or always right," Lily said dryly. "And sometimes I am just dead wrong but don't know it for season-cycles on end."

"This is not something to joke about!" Crystal barked. "Seriously, where did you get it?"

"Where every other female gets an egg," Lily said seriously. "And ideally, I would be getting it, and me, out into the sun and wind and everything else this place does not have. But the only way out is through there." She nodded in Crystal's general direction.

"Oh, oh no," Crystal grumbled, planting her paws firmly and spreading her wings once more. "I am not letting you go anywhere near there. Nice try."

"It was not a try, it is what I intend to do," Lily said levelly. She was getting an ache in her paws, leaning away from the ledge yet always keeping light enough on her front paws that she could lurch back at any time, but it seemed important to let Crystal keep looking at her egg. "Ideally, none would even know of my passing."

"Ideally, you would not have done any of the horrible things that make this a problem!" Crystal snarled. "But that did not happen."

"I messed up," Lily said sincerely. "Badly. Enough that I am not going to pretend I deserve to be forgiven." Even if she could claim outside influence on the worst of her actions, the root causes were her fault. Her mentality, her choices… She may have gone mad and done some outright horrible things that might not entirely be her fault, but it was muddy enough that she was willing to shoulder the blame for them anyway. Most of it was her fault to one degree or another.

"They trusted you," Crystal hissed. "You said you would be better, that we could all be better. You made us believe it, you made us look up to you. And then you went and undid so much of it and shoved our faces, my face, in how it was all a bunch of sick, twisted, empty words." Her tail thumped on the ground in time with her words, a steady beat of recrimination. "So empty. I want no more words from you."

Lily's insides twisted and churned, and she felt vaguely sick, but she knew she deserved to feel that way. To hear this. Maybe not from anyone else… But if anybody in the pack had earned the right to lay into her for her mistakes, it was Crystal.

"Really, did you ever mean any of it?" Crystal demanded, thumping one of her paws on the ground too, in time with her tail. Her entire body shook with repressed anger, and Lily didn't doubt that if they were on level ground she would be pacing or doing something else to physically burn off some of it. "All of those nice speeches, talking about how we could be better."

"I meant it with all my heart," Lily said firmly. On that, she would never back down. "I might have failed to live up to my own expectations, maybe I lost my way at some point, but I didn't start out with the idea that it was all a clever lie to make everyone want me in charge."

"And how do I know that is true?" Crystal demanded. "If it was a lie you would never admit it. I do not know how to tell the difference." There was a slight hysterical edge to her voice, a hint in the way her tail was lashing erratically and had to be hurting from the repeated impacts.

"I do have feelings," Lily said softly, carefully. She wasn't worried for her own safety, or even that of her egg, but Crystal was on the edge of something. "I am not some heartless monster. You know that."

"Do I?" Crystal asked raggedly. "Because I do not know if I can be sure. I thought I knew you, and the you I knew would never torture someone. Clearly, I do not know as much as I thought I did."

And that was the core of the problem, of why Crystal felt so betrayed. Lily had thought it might be, but now she knew for certain. And as much as she didn't want to bring it up, as much as it might just make things worse… she knew what her rebuttal had to be.

"You have seen me at my absolute lowest," she said quietly. "When I did not even think you were there. You comforted me as I mourned. Are you saying that was not real, either?"

Her words sank in with the ponderous weight of a bloated carcass in mud, slowly and with great reluctance. Crystal's angry glare faltered, and her thumping tail slowed. Her face worked through a few different expressions, too fast to be deciphered.

Lily let the moment hang, unchanging. If she was actually trying to manipulate Crystal this was where she would press her point, but she wasn't. If Crystal said she really wasn't sure whether that had been real, then nothing else Lily said or reminded her of would stand a chance. To push would be to confirm her suspicions, no matter how subtly it was done. Any additional contribution was manipulation, plain and simple.

"No," Crystal said slowly. "I do not think that was false. But you could be using it now to convince me."

"So long as you do not go back and retroactively hate me for things I was not actually doing or even thinking, my point has been made," Lily huffed. "I messed up. I lost sight of what was important. I let my paranoia and need to be in control get the better of me. I stopped taking care of myself and slipped into an ever-deepening hole of sleep deprivation and impaired decision-making. But I was not playing you false. Never that."

"I still will not let you anywhere near the pack," Crystal remarked. Her tone was less openly combative, less suspicious, but she definitely was not accepting Lily with open wings and an open heart. If there was a way through to her, it was small and tenuous.

That was all Lily really needed. "I am not trying to convince you to," she said truthfully. "If I really cannot even be allowed to pass through and go on my way on the other side, then I will turn around and try to find another way to the surface." Of course, that would be a massive, uncertain undertaking and dangerous besides… But she could do it if it was necessary, and Crystal needed to know that. To understand that she really was not angling for anything other than safe passage through, without speaking a word to anyone along the way.

"You should have done that to start with," Crystal huffed. "Coming here is not safe. For you, or for them."

"Nothing is safe, and I want to be on the surface before my egg hatches," Lily said. "I have already had to fight off those who would eat it once down here, and I do not want to stick around and have it happen again."

"Who would dare?" Crystal demanded, incensed despite her efforts to remain angry and obstinate. If Lily was trying to manipulate her, this would have been an opening, a weakness… But as it was, she let the moment pass without leaping on it and exploiting it. She would do nothing that smelled even remotely of trickery, not even in hindsight.

"Predators with more stomach than sense," she said vaguely. "Eggs were their preferred food, and I had one much larger than what they usually ate. I would rather be on the surface than down here, especially as Beryl and I have not found anywhere all that good for living long-term."

"You and Beryl…" Crystal glanced out at where Beryl was flying in careful circles, then looked back at Lily. "I am still angry at you."

"I deserve no less," Lily agreed, ducking her head in shame.

"I am not going to help you," Crystal added. "I still think this might be a trick."

"I am not going to try and prove otherwise," Lily huffed. "One way or another we will be gone after this, and you will not hear from me again."

"If you…" Crystal growled suddenly, her voice low and dangerous. "No. What if I said I was taking your egg from you?"

"I would stop you!" Lily blurted out. "What would possibly make you think that is a good idea?"

"Maybe you are not fit to be a Dam," Crystal hissed, eyes narrowing further. She took a step forward, her paw scraping on the stone as she put her weight on it and leaned forward. "Maybe it is just a tool for you to gain sympathy with."

"Wherever this is coming from, I don't like it," Lily snarled, pressing herself against the wall and blocking her egg from sight. She was tempted to call Beryl in, to have him back her up… But Crystal was her friend. Had been her friend. She wouldn't just take her egg, not after Lily had helped her tend to her own! There were lines neither of them would ever cross.

Still, Crystal seemed serious, and she was close enough now to claw at Lily if she wanted to. "I would take it, and maybe you could come back around every so often to see them," she said in a low voice. "What would you do if I did that?"

"I would take my child back and flee as far away from you as possible, former friend or not, former pack or not," Lily hissed breathlessly. "Or Beryl would, and I would back him up. What has gotten into you, that you think I would ever go for that?"

Crystal stared at her, then put a paw out toward where her side met the wall, toward where she had last seen the egg.

Lily did not hesitate to slap that paw away with an open set of claws. She didn't know what was going on, but she wanted no part of it! "No!" she snarled.

Crystal withdrew, blood welling up from a few shallow gouges on the top of her paw. Despite the injury, despite her words, she didn't retaliate, didn't attack and try to wrest Lily's egg away from her… She didn't do much of anything other than stare.

"Beryl!" Lily barked, remembering to actually summon her mate, rather than assume a single pawswipe would be enough to convince him to intervene.

Beryl dropped in, landing between them in an imposing hunched-over mound of muscle and black scale, his tail to Lily. "What was that?" he demanded of the both of them.

"A test," Crystal said coldly. "To see whether Lily was using your egg as just another bit of leverage."

"Burn your test," Lily snarled. "And you, for threatening us with that." Though she did see what Crystal might have thought she was testing… If the egg was leverage, Lily might just have given it up for the deal Crystal described, since it was an offer to let her access the pack. Reluctantly, with bargaining, but she would have gone for it if she was the way Crystal suspected. Another test she could not pass, only fail.

"I thought I told you this was going to be a talk, not a screeching match or a fight," Beryl snarled at Crystal. "Threatening our egg is not okay."

"Neither was torturing Holly, but she did it," Crystal retorted. "I had to know. If I was right she would have needed to have it taken from her anyway."

"You, of all people, should know better than to threaten that regardless," Beryl growled. "You are a Dam, you had to send your children away for their own safety. You know how terrible that is, and you know Lily knows, and yet you threatened it anyway. Without tact, without subtlety, and so convincingly that she had to physically repel you."

"I had to know," Crystal insisted.

"No, you did not!" Beryl barked angrily. "I exist! If my mate is not treating our child right, I am the one to step in and either correct or stop her. That is not your responsibility. And I think you know it."

Lily didn't object, because that was exactly what she wanted Beryl to do, what she wanted him to be. A check on her, just in case she was doing something wrong.

"And if she had convinced you it was fine?" Crystal shot back.

"I am not so easily misled, and you are missing my point," Beryl growled. "Whatever you currently think of my mate, I like to think you trust me, which leaves me wondering what you hoped to accomplish other than just hurting her."

"I… It was…" Crystal trailed off, her voice dropping miserably. "I do not know what you want to hear."

"A good reason, but I will settle for your admission that you didn't have one," Beryl huffed. "You went too far where you should not have gone at all. Friends you and Lily might have been, you and I might still be friends, but you're going to either acknowledge you went too far and hear my mate out in good faith, or you're going to leave."

Lily couldn't see much of anything beyond Beryl's bulk, but she got the impression that he was glaring imposingly, and that Crystal was… something. Glaring back, or looking away, or even backing down? It was impossible for her to know.

"I crossed a line," Crystal admitted.

Lily's heart leaped into her throat. She had assumed Crystal was going to leave…

"You did," Beryl huffed. He turned to Lily, carefully placing his paws so as to not overbalance and fall off the ledge, and flicked his ears back in Crystal's direction. "If you don't want to apologize anymore, you don't have to," he told her.

She shot him an indignant look despite everything she was feeling. "Yes, I definitely do," she said.

"Then I'll let you do so, without distraction," he said, nosing at her side. Him, she let do so, and gave him access to the egg. He picked it up in his gums, as careful as ever, and took off, resuming his circling pattern with his new burden.

Leaving Lily to face Crystal again. Her friend had a downcast look to her now, drooping ears and tail. Not defeated, more sorrow than resentment… It was a complicated mix Lily doubted she was capable of accurately judging.

"I'm sorry for betraying your trust," Lily said bluntly, going right for the heart of the matter. "I was your friend, and I pushed you away and did horrible things. I was not in my right mind, but that is no excuse. Before I was affected in any way I burdened you with responsibility, stopped spending time with you, and all but forgot about your struggles in favor of my own foes, real and imagined."

Crystal nodded silently.

"I'm sorry I acted like Claw in any way, shape, or form," Lily added, her voice raw. "I didn't mean to. I shouldn't have. I didn't raise a claw toward you, but I might as well have. You trusted me to be a good person. I broke that trust. I–"

"It was my fault," Crystal blurted out.

"You- Wait, no!" Lily denied. She thought she knew what Crystal meant, but that wasn't right. "You were–"

"I was busy, but that does not mean I was physically stopped from seeking you out," Crystal interrupted again, her voice high and wavering. "I could have, I should have, I did not. You asked me to do things for you, but I did not have to say yes. I did not have to do them and then not seek you out. I knew something was going on, but I was too wrapped up in my own things to notice. It was easier to think you had betrayed me than to admit it was my fault you did those things."

"It was mine, not yours!" Lily objected. That wasn't right at all! "I pushed any number of people away, I made bad decisions."

"Since when does being a friend mean letting your friend isolate herself and not sleep and go crazy?" Crystal retorted with a whine. "I am not reliant on you asking for help in order for me to give it. I did it in the past, but this time I messed up. I ignored you just as much as you ignored me."

"That's not how… not how this works!" Her voice cracked with emotion, and she had to clench her throat for a moment to hold back a whine.

Crystal stared her her, wide-eyed and whining. Lily stared back, failing to restrain her own whine.

One of them moved, or both of them, and then she was embracing her friend, whining wordlessly right in her ear. Crystal was doing the same, and it almost made her head hurt, but she bore it without even thinking of pulling away. Her friend's scent, pure and unsullied and familiar, invaded her nose and head.

"I am sorry," Crystal whined.

"So am I," Lily whined back.

For a little while, all was well. Lily held no illusions as to whether what had been broken between them was back to normal, deep hurts left to fester for moon-cycles did not go away that quickly, but it was better. Even if it had almost shattered completely several times over in the course of a relatively short confrontation.

When Crystal stepped back, breaking contact, Lily heaved a heavy sigh of mingled regret and relief. Life went on, and so did the parts of it she didn't like… One tearful embrace wasn't going to fix everything.

But it was a start.

"I am not going to smuggle you into the pack's territory," Crystal said bluntly. "Even now. It would only end in more pain for someone."

"I'm not going to ask you to," Lily rumbled. "If there was another, simpler way up to the surface, I would take it in an instant. But for all that there seem to be endless caves and tunnels down here, not many of them ever lead to anywhere we want to go, and it is not entirely safe or at all efficient to explore all of them."

"What of going back the way you came?" Crystal asked. "Retrace your steps."

"There is at least one cave-in blocking our way, and more than a few dangers I would not want to brave a second time," Lily said with a huff. "And if you will recall, retracing my steps will only lead me to a closed-off passage that leads back into the pack's territory." Even if she wanted to, going back around would just come back to the same problem.

"Right," Crystal said with a grimace. "And so I have to either help you, or live with the knowledge that I resigned your little one to hatching down here instead of up there like you wanted."

"No, I'm not forcing that false dilemma on you," Lily said vehemently. Even now, with Crystal more inclined to believe her good intentions, she was not going to take chances with appearing manipulative. "When we are done here, you can go back to the pack, and if you see me anywhere in their territory you can do whatever you think you should, because it won't happen." It wouldn't happen because Crystal wouldn't see her, not because she wasn't going to be trespassing… But this way she wasn't asking anything of Crystal.

"I would need to keep my mouth shut about what I found out here," Crystal said in a low voice. "And Cara will ask. You would be okay with me telling the truth?"

"It would not be ideal in any way, but if you feel you should, you can," Lily offered. Sure, it would put a huge crimp in their plans, but nobody knew she could fly. They could still get through unnoticed. She didn't need Crystal to help her in any way.

"I will have to," Crystal huffed, pawing at the ground and looking back over her shoulder. "I think my replacement will have arrived by now, and I am missing… They will definitely report to Cara."

"Who will send out people to see what's going on," Lily finished. "So you're telling me the entire time we've been talking you've been stalling for time?" She kept her voice relatively light; however bad that sounded, Crystal had come to meet her expecting an enemy.

"Yes," Crystal huffed reluctantly. "I thought I would need backup."

"Smart," Lily snorted. "Very smart. I should not be surprised." She affected disinterest, acting like it wasn't a big deal… It kind of was, but freaking out or blaming Crystal now wouldn't do any good, and she was still riding high on not having ruined her friendship beyond repair.

Besides, Beryl would let her know the moment he saw any light wings approaching.

"They… probably should have been here by now." Crystal looked over her shoulder again, turning awkwardly on the ledge. "I do not know what the holdup is."

"Best not to question it," Lily rumbled. If they weren't here, then that was an opportunity. Admittedly one she would have liked to know the explanation for, but that could come later. "I do very much want to keep talking to you, but we don't really want to run into Cara and a whole group of guards out here."

"That would end in her dragging you back so that she could make you suffer," Crystal said bluntly. "She has been vocal about how she thinks you were not punished harshly enough for what you did."

"Given how many times I almost died out there with Beryl's help, which I was not intended to have, I think I was adequately punished," Lily growled. Beryl hadn't mentioned anything about that, though it was possible Cara had kept her mouth shut on the subject while he was around. She wasn't stupid, and if she wanted to lure the target of her ire, she wouldn't scare her off by proxy…

Lily stared out into the empty air above the lake, but she could see no signs of incoming light wings. If they were camouflaged, she wouldn't see any signs until it was far too late. "Yes, we need to go now," she decided.

"Go where?" Crystal asked.

This was the hard part; Lily had to hope that she had rebuilt enough trust between them that this wouldn't shatter it anew. "I did say I intend to go back to the surface," she reminded Crystal. "The only obvious way through is through the pack's cave."

"I cannot let you do that," Crystal said sorrowfully, her ears drooping. "Really, I cannot. It just is not smart. Even if you do not speak to anyone, you will be mobbed and thrown in one of the new caves for holding prisoners."

"Of course, they would make some of those," Lily grumbled. She shouldn't have been surprised, hearing about Cara's personal meeting place and knowing that her former pack was at war with the Noxious Fumes pack. Places to keep enemies would be a priority.

"Yes, and I really do not know what Cara and Holly might decide to do if they catch you," Crystal said. "It is not safe."

"I know that," Lily huffed. "But nowhere is safe down here. Besides, I have a way to get through without attracting any notice."

She looked around again, just in case, then deliberately spread her wings. She leaped up into the air and was away before Crystal could so much as bark in shock. That came after, a belated noise that was closer to a yelp than a bark.

Lily fired and camouflaged herself, then made for Beryl. He rumbled loudly as she got close, restricted from anything more meaningful by the egg he was carrying, and she purred back at him as she fell into formation flying directly above him.

"Nobody will notice me like this," she crowed to Crystal, who had shaken off her shock and flown out to them.

"You are right they will not, that is impossible!" Crystal barked. "When? How? Why?"

"That is a long story I want to tell you, but it has to wait," Lily called back, suddenly confident of what to do next. "Help me get through the pack's cave without anyone so much as noticing me, make sure I do not do anything conniving or evil while I am there, and we can go out and talk all we want in the next cave beyond their reach."

"You make a good case for me doing exactly what I really should not," Crystal sighed, falling in on Beryl's left. "Okay… You are not going to say a word the entire time we are in there. You will not so much as look at anyone. If things go wrong, you are going to flee the pack's territory immediately."

"I promise," Lily said readily. "Would you carry our egg while we go?" It wasn't the plan, but the plan was meant to be modified as necessary. Crystal being absent from her guard assignment put a time limit on everything – the longer she was missing or acting strange, the more likely somebody would get suspicious – so they couldn't be as slow and deliberate as would be ideal.

"If you trust me with that," Crystal said doubtfully, looking over at Lily with a wide, sorrowful gaze. "I did threaten to take it… I am sorry about that, I thought I needed to be sure and I did not feel like being kind about it."

"You trusted me for season-cycles with your young, I know I can trust you in return," Lily said. Truthfully, a tiny part of her didn't want Crystal to have that opportunity, not for a while yet, but she stomped that part out with all the viciousness she could muster. She was not going to be paranoid about her best friend. Not now, not ever. That way led to nothing good.

Beryl looked over at Crystal, then twisted mid-flight to look up at Lily, his unspoken question obvious. Lily nodded, then followed along as they went back to the ledge to make the transfer.

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Beryl said the moment their egg was out of his mouth. "Crystal might need to do some talking. If we are going to all go at once," and there his voice pitched it as a question, and he glanced at Lily as she flew nearby, "then Lily should be the one to not be able to speak. But I don't think we should do this at all. Our original plan was better, and nothing is stopping us from doing it still."

"That's the plan where we get someone to carry the egg across first, then I sneak over after," Lily elaborated for Crystal's benefit. "But we didn't know we would not have as much time as needed."

"My absence will have been noticed by now," Crystal confirmed. "But I could go back and tell them I was just… distracted. It would not even be a lie."

"So you do that, and we can stick to the plan," Beryl grunted. "Easy."

"But Cara is always itching for a fight, and she might send a patrol out this way anyway, if she has already gathered people up to do it," Crystal continued. "And that is assuming she does not leap to conclusions. She questioned me after you left."

"We don't have time to go back and forth like we wanted to," Lily concluded. "Crystal, you go make sure nobody is roaring a false alarm over your disappearance. Beryl, you can carry the egg, and I will fly over you, camouflaged." They could do it in one trip. It was risky, but the original plan felt like it was falling apart.

"I am not overly bothered by abandoning the original plan," Beryl huffed. "What if we are stopped, though?"

"If you are stopped, just pretend you are deaf and blind and ignore them," Lily offered. "If I am noticed, I will fly away and you can take our egg to safety." It would be risky – everything was risky. She didn't feel like dragging it out. They needed to go; every moment they argued over what to do it became less likely that Crystal could just slip back and keep the pack from assuming she had been attacked by the Noxious Fumes pack, or something equally dangerous.

"I will come seek you out after you are both through," Crystal offered. "We are not done talking."

"No, we are not," Lily assured her. "You should probably go right now, though."

Crystal nodded and took to the air, pumping her wings hard as she picked up speed and angled herself for the distant tunnel in the wall that led to the pack's domain.

"I get the feeling you are getting impatient with all of this," Beryl remarked. "This feels rushed."

"Because it is rushed, we did not anticipate this," Lily huffed. "And… yes. I want to be through and done with this." Passing through her former pack's domain loomed large in her mind, one final difficult thing to do before she was free. Now that she wasn't worrying over her reconciliation with Crystal, it was the only difficult thing left that could be solved with a bit of flying and just getting it over with.

O-O-O-O-O

The short tunnel connecting the underground lake with the pack's cave was just as Lily remembered it, a hole cut directly through a massive crystal set into the stone. There were no light wings out fishing when they approached, save for one pair off in the distance who didn't even notice Beryl. Or Lily, though she was little more than a camouflaged blur with a grey streak of scar tissue over him, and thus not nearly as noticeable.

Beryl bore their egg in his paws, so as to speak and carry it at the same time. He wouldn't be able to land without taking care and doing so slowly, and he wouldn't be able to fight, but other than that he was his normal, dangerous and competent self. Lily was completely unhindered, save for how her very appearance was likely to startle, scare, or even enrage anyone who noticed and recognized her.

When they reached the tunnel, Beryl went through the careful process of landing with an egg – back paws first, a flair of the wings to keep him vertical, then a slow, careful placement of egg on stone as he set his front paws down – and picked it up in his mouth. Lily landed behind him, light on her paws and totally silent, and slunk low to the ground in his wake, following right behind his tail.

"Hello, Beryl, I did not think to see you back so soon," a male announced from in front of them, not a dozen paces into the tunnel. The guard of this particular chokepoint, undoubtedly someone tasked solely with standing in the tunnel and making sure no enemies walked right into the pack's territory.

Beryl shifted his wings, a casual movement that would usually have accompanied some small-talk.

"Got a big fish there, too," the male added as Beryl passed him. He was up on his hind legs, out of the way in the relatively narrow tunnel, and Beryl managed to get by him without so much as touching him. Lily hesitated, hanging back until she saw that the male was watching Beryl as he left.

"Got someone you are trying to impress with that?" the male asked. Lily slipped by him while he was distracted, wedging herself between Beryl and the opposite wall to hide her scar. Whoever had put that male there as a guard clearly had not thought to tell him to watch for camouflaged light wings… Though she supposed that made some sense, he was not there to guard against them.

Beryl flicked his tail dismissively, almost stepped on Lily's paws twice in the space of five paces, and then the male was shuffling back to stand on all fours with his back to them, guarding the passage once more.

That, if she was lucky, would be the closest call she would have. And it was close; without Beryl there, without the obvious excuse of a fish, without the guard's lack of observational skills… She wasn't feeling nearly so confident in her ability to sneak around without being seen. But it was too late to turn back.

The tunnel ended, and the wide expanse of the cave lay before her, save for Beryl's body in front of her. She spotted a half-dozen light wings she knew in the first five heartbeats, the time it took Beryl to take off and her to follow, and then two score more as they made for the top of the cave.

The pack, she couldn't help but notice, had changed. The same people milled about, but there were more of them – visitors from the other pack, probably – and there were more light wings on guard, flying around near the various entrances to the cave, blocked or open. The waste pit was gone – she knew why that was, and it made her feel guilty and nauseous all over again – and there didn't seem to be an obvious replacement.

More immediately relevant to her situation, while there were quite a few light wings in the air, none were flying as close to the top of the cave as Beryl was. She herself, just above his back, was only a couple of hard flaps from smacking into the ceiling. Any light wing looking her way would by virtue of being lower in the air only see Beryl's stomach. And the egg he now carried in his paws, if they took more than a passing glance, but that couldn't be helped.

The cave felt both larger and smaller to her now. Smaller, because there were more light wings in the same space, but larger because she had to fly across the whole thing, and every moment was a tense eternity to her.

Especially when she looked ahead, to their intended exit. The ravine that began – or ended, depending on how one looked at it – in the far wall, the one filled with bugs and craggy rocks, was also filled with light wings. No fewer than nine light wings were situated around the opening, three on the ground, two perched just inside the ravine on the walls where they could find a spot that supported them, and four more flying in very tight circles in front of the opening.

"This is a problem," Beryl murmured to her as they reached the middle of the cavern. The ceiling dipped low, and he dipped to follow it. Above them, Lily knew, was the little complex of tunnels that existed in the roof of the cave. Storm and Root and who knew who else lived up there, but she felt no desire to duck inside and hide. For one thing, that would get them nowhere even if it was safe, and for another she didn't know if those caves had been populated with people aside from Beryl's family yet. It would make sense if they had; that much free space would not go unused for long, given how many light wings would be looking for a little spot to call their own.

"I don't think we can fly through there without stopping," Beryl said urgently, slowing to a glide as they cleared the dip in the ceiling and followed it back up. "Look, they are guarding it."

"Not just that one, either," Lily noted, quickly looking around the cave with an eye for defenses. The blocked passages each had at least three guards, the one the Noxious Fumes pack had attacked from had a full ten, and another group of light wings was mobilizing back by the passage to the underground lake, blocking the way back.

One of those light wings split off from the group and began flying straight for Beryl. Lily had a moment of panic before recognizing Crystal once again… though her panic didn't really go away at that, since things were rapidly devolving into a very dangerous situation.

"Beryl, how are you?" Crystal barked brightly, flying up beside Beryl. "Bad," she continued in a low murmur, "very bad, Cara is off doing something and the male she left in charge in her absence is insisting that he does not want her to think badly of him when she gets back, so he is doubling guards on almost everything even though I told him nothing was wrong. He is the type who would fire first and ask questions later, I do not know why she lets him have any power at all."

"Because of course that would be happening now," Lily groaned. "Almost everything?" They needed a way out of this… It didn't feel entirely real but she knew that sensation was false and would disappear once things actually started falling apart around her.

"We do not guard the passage to the Twisted–" Crystal began, only to cut herself off as someone else dropped out of the ceiling – down from one of the few holes that led to the upper cave complex – right in front of them.

"Beryl!" Whirl exclaimed brightly, falling in on his other side. "You have a rapport with my son, do you not?" She seemed completely oblivious to how abruptly she had dropped in.

"Somewhat, though surely no more than any of his other friends," Beryl said. "Why do you ask?"

"If you could convince him to ignore that brute of a female he is so certain he wants to attach himself to," Whirl growled, "I would like that."

"That brute of a female is my Sire's sister, and I happen to think she is good for him, so you might want to ask someone else," Beryl huffed. He was clearly, at least to Lily, trying to make Whirl go away before she noticed either what he was carrying or what was flying above him.

"I do not know why everyone keeps saying that," Whirl complained. "She strikes me as the worst sort…" She trailed off, glancing up and blinking a few times. "Oh, did I interrupt something?"

Lily stared down at Whirl, her mouth firmly shut and her mind racing. So long as she didn't speak, her scar might not be that noticeable, nobody ever saw her camouflaged and nobody expected her to be flying, Whirl might think she was some scarred light wing from the other pack… She clearly hadn't put two and two together yet, since she wasn't reacting beyond mild curiosity.

"Beryl!" a male barked from below. "What is that you have there? Is it a rock?"

"That looks like an egg," Whirl hummed, ducking down to examine what Beryl was carrying. "A diseased one? Where did you get that, it looks ill?"

This was rapidly spiraling out of control. Lily could see several different groups of light wings looking up at them, and some of the guards at the ravine were looking their way too, and Beryl could only redirect questions so often before it became glaringly obvious that he was hiding something–

"Yes, it is diseased, I am doing a friend a favor, it needs sunlight," Beryl blurted out. "So if you could leave me to that task, there is no time to waste."

It was an admirable effort, a very clever lie delivered believably enough, but Whirl would have questions. Many questions.

And the first one was the worst possible one. "Is the friend the one flying with you up there?" Whirl asked, her innocent curiosity taking on the intensity Lily knew came with a gossipy dragon sensing something interesting she might be able to talk about for the next moon-cycle. "Did she get with egg with a male who will not be her mate? Is that… that looks like…"

Lily flared her wings and dropped back, falling behind Beryl, Whirl, and Crystal in an instant. Her cover was blown, which meant she needed to get out immediately, and without drawing any more attention to Beryl or their egg.

She made for the ravine, but in the moments of uninterrupted flight, she saw that she was never going to get through, camouflaged or not. She would have to land, the ravine couldn't be flown through, and there were too many wary light wings watching it in both directions. Whirl might not blow her cover entirely for the next few moments, but it wouldn't matter, she couldn't rely on all of those guards being as incompetent as the one in the crystal tunnel.

She needed out, and there was only one obvious exit without anyone guarding it. Crystal hadn't finished her explanation, but the part Lily had heard was enough for her to look over at the passage to the Twisted Corridor pack and see that, aside from a trio of light wings lounging nearby, nobody was even looking at it.

She dove, her eyes and ears open for any sign that she had been recognized. Nobody was looking her way, and upon looking back she saw Whirl still flying with Beryl and Crystal, so that had not gone bad yet.

It bothered her, leaving her egg and mate behind. Even though that was the agreed-upon plan if need be, and she had no intention of it being anything other than a very temporary separation while she lay low in the tunnel.

She landed, darted into the tunnel, and ran for a short while, refreshing her camouflage as she went. There was nobody in the tunnel, and she remembered it being a rather long walk to the Twisted Corridor pack, so she felt safe stopping a relatively short distance in.

Her breathing echoed in her ears, but that was all that echoed. If she was being pursued, her pursuers were impressively stealthy.

There was a distant bark, and she stiffened. Part of her wanted to go back, to see what was going on, but that would be foolish.

Then she heard paws on stone, several sets of them. No claws, though.

Another bark, this one recognizable and not at all alarming. Beryl.

She walked back the way she had come, keeping low to the ground just in case, and soon saw her mate, still carrying their egg. He was walking quickly, not running but close to it, and Crystal was right behind him.

"So there is free travel between the packs," Crystal was saying as they approached. "I do not know where any exits to their cave might be, I have not bothered going over there more than once, it is too crowded for my liking."

Beryl nodded, their egg cradled in his mouth. His eyes lit up when he saw Lily, and he nodded more frantically.

"I take it you got out without a freak-out from Whirl?" Lily asked. All else aside, there hadn't been time for such a thing to happen and be resolved in a way that would have Beryl and Crystal walking away so calmly, not in so short a time.

"We talked her into thinking you were a shy female from this pack who has fled back to them," Crystal confirmed. "I think she believed us, because she wanted to come and apologize. We promised to bring 'you' back, so I think this little escapade is going to make a liar of me, but other than that, we deflected everyone's attention. It is a good thing Cara is not around and Holly is sleeping."

"That's good," Lily hummed. It wasn't as good as actually getting through to the other side free and clear, but it was much better than everything devolving into chaos. "So we should turn around?"

"If we go back we will have way too much attention on us," Crystal answered. "Just because Whirl and the other bystanders believe us does not mean they will let us be if we come back."

"Right…" She didn't want to keep going to the Twisted Corridor pack, but she saw the reasoning behind that. The light wings of the Twisted Corridor pack wouldn't know her by her scar, and had no reason to be particularly interested by her group passing through. The light wings of her own former pack, on the other paw... "Let me guess, by the time you two got to the entrance to this tunnel, half a dozen light wings would have gone with you if you let them?"

"Pretty much," Crystal said. Beryl nodded in agreement. "So the only way out is forward. I think they must have a passage that connects to where you want to go, they have no trouble meeting our scouts on that side for joint patrols. We just need to find it."

O-O-O-O-O

Despite a somewhat long walk through a tunnel seemingly being a good time to talk to someone, Lily and Crystal didn't say much as they walked. Beryl didn't either, of course, but he had an excuse.

Lily wasn't talking, wasn't leaping into catching up with her friend, because every fibre of her being was tense with the knowledge that they were not safe, they were not out of danger yet. She was ready to be surprised, to need to flee again at a moment's notice, and half the time she was trying to remember what she knew of the Twisted Corridor pack's cave, despite having only seen it once, and at a time in her life where her memory was more than a little fuzzy.

She remembered Rose. She remembered that his pack's cave was vertical, a big hole with caves and ledges set into the inside of the hole. They had a connection to the underground lake, one that was not connected by flyable air to where she and Beryl had been, and Crystal said they must have a way out to the other side, toward the caves that Lily knew led to the surface.

That wasn't a lot to go on, not when she was going to have to fly through camouflaged and hope that nobody noticed her. She had barely managed it in a cave she did know, and Beryl would be more noticeable here, not less. This was not something she would have chosen to do if there was any alternative.

But at least they hadn't gotten mobbed by her former pack. Small mercies.

The sounds of a very active, crowded cavern could be heard long before Lily actually reached the Twisted Corridor pack. She could hear the distant barking, the swishing of echoing water, the flapping of wings, faint talking… It was surprisingly distinct, to the point where she could almost make out a few voices.

Then she turned a corner she didn't remember from the last time she had come down this way, accidentally stepped out onto a ledge without realizing she had left the tunnel until too late, and all but walked right into a group of talking light wings who were for some reason right next to the tunnel.

Lily stepped forward, then her mind caught up to her body and she carefully pulled her paw back, along with the rest of herself. Seven light wings were huddled together, broken into two groups along a three-four split, and all of them were at least partially facing her way, their backs to the ledge and the empty space beyond it.

One of the light wings in the larger group had what appeared to be a jagged, streaky soot stain running down her face, across her left eye, even the eyelid when she blinked. Lily wouldn't have noticed her, save for a cursory glance at her odd marking… But that left eye was looking right at her despite her camouflage.

If that was all, Lily would have tried to bluff her way out of it. But the group of three was also staring her way, and she knew all three of them. A male who often flew long scouting trips of his own volition, Diora of all people…

And Cara. Who, judging by her widening eyes, definitely recognized the scar floating in front of her.

Lily tried to step aside, toward the ledge and away from Cara's group, just in case she was mistaken about them seeing and in Cara's case recognizing her. Beryl was right behind her, after all.

Cara's head turned to follow her movement, and the ash-marked female watched her curiously. "One of yours?" she asked Cara.

"No!" Cara snarled, leaping forward. Lily ducked and made for the ledge, aiming to run between two of the Twisted Corridor light wings she didn't recognize, but they moved closer together and the ash-marked one fired a shot into the ground in front of her group. Lily flinched, blinded by the unexpected flash of light right in front of her, and a heavy body tackled her from the side.

Cara kicked at Lily's head, and Lily took that as an opportunity; landing on her back should have been debilitating as far as Cara knew, and the startled yelp she let out as Lily tossed her off proved she was counting on it.

"Stop this!" Crystal barked from behind them. "Everyone stop!"

Lily tried to make for the ledge again, but stopped when she saw a shot building in the back of the ash-marked female's maw, one aimed right at her.

Cara tried lunging for Lily again, but one of the Twisted Corridor light wings stamped on her tail and held her back. Lily backed up until she bumped into Beryl – still carrying their egg – and glanced up. The ceiling was too low to give her any room to maneuver until she was out in the cave proper, and she couldn't get there with someone aiming a blast right at her. They were cornered.

"Let me go, she is an enemy of my pack!" Cara barked.

"You were told there would be no fighting here," the ash-marked female said calmly, letting the glow at the back of her throat fade away. Lily was under no illusions as to what that meant, though; she would still be blasted out of the sky before she could get anywhere. "Do not break our rules unless you are willing to tolerate us breaking yours."

"We will not break any of your rules," Cara spat. "Guards, back them into the tunnel. That is not your territory."

The male moved immediately, stepping right into Crystal's personal space, but Diora hesitated, a heartbeat behind him. Maybe because she wasn't used to being called a guard – that had to be a recent development, Lily didn't think Cara was desperate to keep obnoxious complainers close to her – or maybe she didn't want to get into a fight.

"Do not violate the spirit of our agreements, either," the ash-marked female specified. "You, camouflaged one, you would be… Lily." She looked over at Beryl. "And you Beryl. Neither of you are of my pack, or hers."

"Not anymore," Lily confirmed. "We were just trying to pass through. If you would point us to an exit that leads out of your territory and to a path up to the surface, we will be on our way."

"I am not content to just let you leave, either," the ash-marked female said neutrally. "Not until I understand what I would be allowing."

"You would be letting my pack's enemies go free to cause trouble and strike at us later," Cara snarled. "Look, she has already gathered followers from among my people."

"I'm not one of yours," Beryl remarked. Lily reflexively looked back, but their egg was securely tucked under his stomach… Anything short of a light wing belly-flopping on his back wouldn't break it, so long as he didn't move away.

"And I am just trying to make sure they get to where they are going without doing anything else," Crystal said vehemently. "I am not a traitor!"

"I do not care what you say you are doing, anyone who has interacted with her cannot be trusted." Cara snarled and snapped her teeth at Lily. Lily growled right back at her.

"She is dangerous and ought to be put down," Diora chimed in from behind Cara. "Exile obviously was not enough to keep her away…"

"Is that so?" the ash-marked female asked. "What do you say, former alpha?"

"I say that I would not even be here if there were any easier ways back to the surface," Lily said, putting all of her exasperation into one long, angry exhale. "Let us through to where we need to go, and you will never see me again." She specifically did not say anything about never seeing Beryl or Crystal again; the former was likely going to want to go back to the pack once or twice to tell those of his family who remained what had happened, and Crystal was still a part of said pack.

"Well then, it sounds like we have a negotiation going," the ash-marked female said lightly. "You, Cara, your entourage. Go decide what you want and how you want it. We will do the same, and so will her group. Then we will come back and talk about a compromise."

"That is stupid and pointless," Cara said bluntly.

"You may think so, but it seems better to me than arguing and not thinking," was the casual retort. "Think of this as a head start on sending someone to go tell your alpha what is happening here. I know I will, though I intend to present this as a settled matter when he arrives." She looked back at her retinue, and one of the three light wings turned and ran to the ledge, flying off into the cave beyond.

"Fine," Cara grumbled. She backed off a few paces, Diora and the male following along, and spun to face them once she was far enough away. "You, go tell Holly to come here because Lily is back and doing her usual thing," she instructed the male in a loud voice. "You," she continued, looking at Diora, "just… go do something useful."

"I could stay here and help you," Diora said as the male left. Crystal watched him closely as he skirted around their group, but he went into the tunnel without causing any trouble.

"You are no help," Cara said rudely. "Like I said, do something useful. Something I will approve of when I hear about it later."

"Oh, fine," Diora grumbled. She too left, flying out into the larger cave beyond the ledge. Leaving Cara alone.

"I am waiting," Cara announced, impatiently slapping her tail on the ground and favoring Lily with an evil glare.

"As am I," the ash-marked female said amiably. She turned to Lily and her group, eyeing them speculatively. "Will that camouflage wear off anytime soon?" she asked.

"Probably," Lily said vaguely.

"Do not renew it," the female said. "I want to see if you are as duplicitous as they claim."

"Is that something you think will be visible on my scales?" Lily asked. Beryl snorted quietly behind her.

"I am quite observant," the female answered. "My name is Sola, by the way. You are interrupting my first meeting with your pack."

"I am sorry for that," Lily said politely. Given how this female had just stopped a potentially disastrous fight dead in its tracks, but was also keeping them from just leaving, she felt it would be smart to get on her good side if at all possible. "We didn't intend to interrupt anything."

"I certainly did not want to be here," Crystal muttered. "Why did all of this have to be happening at the same time?"

"Pure bad luck that does no good for anyone," Lily replied.

"You have given me a chance to see her as she is when she is hunting something more important than politeness, so that is one good thing to come from all of this," the ash-marked female said casually, glancing over at Cara. Lily only looked long enough to confirm that Cara was still trying to bore holes in her skull with pure willpower.

"If I might ask," Beryl added, "what is your position in the pack? I remember meeting Rose's people in charge of war and peace."

"I am more of a trusted friend," the female explained. "I am the one he asks to do things that nobody else thinks are a part of their normal duties."

"Such as dealing with Cara?" Lily asked curiously. Sola's 'position' in her pack seemed to be closest to what Crystal's had been under Lily.

"Such as that, yes," Sola confirmed. They lapsed into a momentary silence.

"Is that mark on your face a sign of rank?" Beryl asked after a moment.

"Oh, no, it is a mark of competence," Sola explained. "I am the best with my fire of all the pack. Long-range shots are my specialty. I even teach fledglings from time to time."

"I thought this was a time for thinking about negotiations, not small talk," Cara snarled from her distant corner. Lily almost laughed at her; outside of an active fight, she was clearly out of her comfort zone.

"I am getting to know the one I will either be giving to you or letting through," Sola responded. "That is– ah, there we go."

Lily felt her camouflage start to fade away a moment after Sola spoke, something she was definitely going to ask about if she got the chance. It had to be some trick of observation, but not one she had ever heard of.

"I suppose we can begin now," Sola said. "Cara, what do you want out of this?"

"I want to drag her back to my pack so Holly can deal with her properly," Cara said promptly, stalking over to them. "She was exiled but she came back… She knows how that should end."

"Cressa was mad and attacked like a wild animal, the two are in no way the same," Crystal growled.

"You want custody of her," Sola said. "What you do with her is presumably not my pack's concern. I want this to be resolved with no fighting, and I want it done now, before my alpha is dragged away from his duties to deal with this mess."

"I just want to get away from here, to go in the right direction with my egg and my mate," Lily said firmly, gesturing to Beryl with her tail. He shifted to show off their egg for a moment before covering it again. "That means going through the territory of one of these packs without being attacked or detained." If this was a negotiation, she had far more leverage with Sola than Cara; what Cara wanted couldn't happen, while what Sola wanted was completely compatible with her own aims.

"So that is it, then," Sola hummed. "Now, what are you willing to concede?"

"Nothing," Cara snarled.

"I will never return, and I would even agree to submit to their pack's authority if I ever did, no questions asked," Lily offered, speaking directly to Sola. "I would be willing to let you put guards on me until I reached the surface, if you would like. That is what I can offer for a compromise."

"That is worthless!" Cara objected.

"No, your lack of any compromise is worthless," Beryl retorted. "Lily is out of your life, and had this gone right you would never have known she was around. Just let her go and go back to whatever it was you were doing. It is not as if she has done anything new to you, and you punished her for her past actions already."

"Shut up, she is clearly leading you by your nose," Cara snapped. "I want her to face justice–"

"Again?" Lily interrupted.

"You broke your exile!" Cara exclaimed. "You are here, now, and this is just the start of some plot! I am not going to let you hurt my sisters or my pack a second time."

"So that is what you really want," Sola said loudly. "Not to punish her, but to ensure she is no longer a problem."

"Yes, but dealing with her ourselves is the only way to do that," Cara said stubbornly.

Lily could see how this negotiation was going to go; it was not hard to predict Cara's responses, and Sola's intentions were refreshingly clear and simple. Cara would give up her desire for revenge – or, to put it her way, her desire to deal with the problem herself – while Lily conceded to being escorted out, and Sola got everything she wanted. Cara had argued herself into a corner, but that was to be expected. She was a fighter, not a clever trickster, and Holly wasn't here to cover for that.

She felt her body relaxing, just a little, as that understanding washed over her. It was over; they had finally had a turn of good fortune to balance out the repeated strikes of bad that had led them here, and that was it. No more sneaking around, no more worrying.

"Here, you take the egg," Beryl murmured behind her, talking to Crystal. "Just for a moment… I might need to get defensive."

"There will be no fighting here," Sola said to both Cara and Beryl. "Cara, you want her gone. Lily, you want to be gone. I want this dealt with. I see no reason we cannot all have what we want so long as you both are thinking 'gone' means the same thing."

"I am going to be telling both your alpha and mine about this," Cara blustered, clearly seeing herself losing the support of her nominal ally.

There was a rustling of scales as Beryl presumably moved aside to let Crystal take his place crouching over the egg.

Then something stamped on Lily's tail, and Beryl barked in a alarm, and Crystal shrieked, and Lily found herself whirling and slapping Sola with her bruised tail to see–

Someone was stealing her egg!