Despite the snake-monster's swift advance over the foothills, it had been impossibly smooth. Mira had sat in front of a see-through sliding door, where no seats obstructed her view, and had watched twoleg checkpoints clash with wild grasses against the hazel dawn. Mira had tried concentrating on specifics outside, but they had flown past too quickly or had been too far for even her eyes. Occasionally, sheer rockfaces had instantly blocked her view and had rushed past with nothing more than a gentle swish. The clicking of chatter holes on the ceiling reminded Mira she had not been alone.

"We are crossing through the mountain range bordering the Yaga District. It might be hard to observe outside for a half an hour."

Proxima's voice tied a knot of anger in the back of Mira's mind. The gradual incline and curves the snake-monster made was not enough to distract her, so she laid down close enough to the door to rest against it. In her reflection, there was contrast in her fur she hadn't noticed in many rotations. Her colorless eyes beamed a little. She was a bit less weathered than usual. Enough to pass as several rotations younger. Mira didn't know whether to celebrate the fact she could still look like that or feel like she was lying to herself.

Mist rolled in and left just the tallest peaks in view. The walls and floor of the snake-monster dissolved into an artificial view of the outside. Even with this new unobstructed view, she could hardly see anything. It was time for Mira to address that welt of anger. It didn't feel good. She sighed into exhausted disappointment and lifted her head to the white rolling over the ceiling.

"When did you decide you wanted more for yourself than to just be a twoleg experiment?" The chatter holes clicked, but Proxima said nothing. "Find something that makes you happy, even if it doesn't accomplish anything…? Proxima?"

"I heard you," Proxima finally said.

Mira waited a few moments, failing to find the perfect words. "I want at least part of my life to look back on and say 'this was mine.' It sounds selfish when I say it out loud, but for the first time in my life I truly want it and mean it. Do you get what I'm saying? Even a little? Because I don't." The door's screens projected a small creature that looked like Proxima blissfully swinging from her arms. Mira's eyes widened at the blurry video. "That's your daughter?"

"I have never shown this to anyone," Proxima said, her accent growing a bit sharper. "Most video journals were lost when Ajax went supernova. This was her favorite thing when she was an infant. When I grew tired of holding my arms up, she would climb anything in reach. When I saw how happy she was climbing everything and going nowhere, I believed she was going to be like me."

The video was replaced with a framed image of Proxima and her daughter, older than in the footage, and a third who looked just like Proxima, but far more masculine and with more flaps of gray skin on his face.

"The male was only used for as natural an insemination as possible. He is not a chimera. Neuroscientists saw in her brain what had been cultivated in mine. Chimeras could pass on purposeful mutations naturally. She would eventually have the same range of stimuli and emotions I had. The Proxima-chimeric experiments were scattered around Skhul Terra for security on discovery of its success. We were moved to the Cortex Revolutionary Sciences Park, but I was left to raise her as I saw fit. She was all that mattered to me."

Mira began pacing back and forth, occasionally glancing at Proxima's family photo.

"I was genuinely happy making my life about her," Proxima continued. "But I was always afraid of the day I would have to let her go. It is only natural for my species…. I never even got the chance to say goodbye. I just blinked, and my world was gone. Sometimes it feels like she was never my daughter, and the mother in the pictures was never me."

The young creature standing next to Proxima bore all her flat teeth, smiling, and looking straight at her. The more Mira looked at it, the more wrong her anger towards Proxima felt. When the image faded and the door returned to the outside view of fog, it still lingered. Her reflection still showed a slightly younger Mira, one she felt like but wasn't. Mustering up the courage, she tried imagining what her own kits would look like. She pictured tiny bundles of fur with her colorless eyes and Farstrider's tan fur. The imaginary kits were purring, and so was she.

"And what would you do with such a goal?" Proxima said softly.

"What?" Mira's indulgence vanished at the question.

"I just want to know how you would take such a passion."

"I would never abandon my goals, but I just wouldn't know what to do with myself if I had what you… the passion you had."

"Imagine it. Just you, Farstrider, and your life. All the time you want."

"I… I don't know." The angry welt in her belly was softened, but it kept her from bringing her fantastical kits to the front of her mind. "I really don't. I wouldn't even know what to do with so much time."

"At one point, after my daughter had learned more of the world, I attempted to learn singing.

"You? Sing?" Mira sat up and stared at the ceiling, again. "You said only birds, whales, and twolegs could sing."

"Being the type of chimera I am puts me closer to human than most," Proxima said, "but I still lack their physiology. My daughter reasoned it could never be done over and over while observers tried to decipher what I was attempting. I was just messing with everyone. My daughter caught on before the others." She paused for a while to chuckle, but the chatter holes just buzzed. "It was a fun week."

The chatter holes clicked off. Mira was once again left alone, but the all-encompassing fog finally had cracks. She could see the cliff faces as they rushed past every so often. Green pines were scattered about a craggy landscape that slowed the snake-monster, forcing its path to conform to tighter corners and intimidating drops. She didn't spot a single animal, but assumed they would all be frightened by the occasional passings of mysterious twoleg beasts, anyway. The return of interesting surroundings did not make her idle with distraction, however.

The anger Mira had felt towards Proxima had morphed into bitterness. She had felt she was being kept from something she never knew she wanted. She had imagined, once more, the kits purring gently against her flank. She had thought she would settle in a perfect land of rolling green, free of her formidable task. Mira had felt a little guilty at first, but had soon let her imagination run wild with Farstrider, kits, their future friends and family. She had not been able to see how she would fit into it, or what her mission would look like complete, but she had let herself indulge as long as her imagination could keep it up. The source of her anger, the argument with Proxima days prior, had all but vanished. When the daydream had become too realistic, Mira had to let it go. And she had been left with the bitterness of something that had never come to pass.

"We will pick up speed soon," Proxima had said. "But I must check on something. There seems to be some disturbance on the rails far ahead."

"What's the weather like where we're going?" Mira had asked.

"Calm most of the time, but weather regulation systems there no longer function. The Yaga District was designated for agriculture, so it can tolerate bad weather should it occur."

O O O

Faypaw tried to stand still with his mother's eyes on him, but the sudden jerks of the elevator and the slush he felt in the back of his throat made it impossible. Mira chuckled as they waited for a green light on the wall to climb to the top of a stack. When it finally did and the doors parted to gentle daylight, he was the first to stumble out. Air blew through a padded surface of pinholes and smelled sterile, like that of many important twoleg nests. Faypaw didn't notice and knelt to catch his breath.

"Such motions become easier to handle with exposure." Proxima's voice came from a cylindrical white drone with red lights on top and a red cross painted on the side. "I never developed a tolerance for motion sickness."

"Why don't you get sick, then?" Faypaw grumbled.

"Simple. I do not actually have to ride elevators," she said playfully.

"What's this for?" Mira grunted as her sleeves vibrated. "I've only seen you use them to clean my fur."

"That is what I am using them for now," Proxima said. "Moments before we stopped, the next destination I had planned was destroyed. The Rigel Flock is still in this area. I was hoping they would clear out last night, but it seems that is not the case."

"Rigel Flock?" Faypaw said, finally recovering.

"Proxima-Rigel was stored alongside your mother. He has the same chimeric trait as me, but is highly unstable. To my knowledge, the Rigel Flock are the only birds capable of navigating Skhul Terra in its current state. The flock of crows he has bred over the last ten years share his chimeric trait and insanity."

"Why don't we just wait for them to leave? Or scare them away?" Faypaw tensely stepped off the platform of pinholes.

"They may be senseless, but they still possess some human intelligence. This is the only safe route above ground we can take to avoid the brunt of them. Stay close to your mother and you will be okay."

Faypaw quickly got over his nerves, glancing at his surroundings. But he never wandered more than a tree-length from his mother's side.

"I know you said you wanted to see a real bird before we left, but you don't want to meet them," Mira said. "Did you know cats used to hunt birds?"

"Really?" Faypaw spun around. "How? Did cats have wings at some point? Is it something StarClan gave them?"

"Oh, no. I sure hope not," Mira chuckled. "I first heard of Rigel back when I was your age. Thankfully I've never met him or his flock. Even so, they won't get the best of us."

Her words seemed to drive away whatever apprehension Faypaw had as he confidently wandered off. Mira took the small win, sharing his confidence when she looked at a low-hanging black cloud in the distance. She grumbled about the idea of having to travel in the rain again but took to her bright surroundings like her kit. It was just a single cloud, anyway.

Acrid thunderpaths and fake fragrances clashed with sprayed mist and flowers planted in see-through shelves. Stout twoleg structures just two or three floors high were packed along both sides of the thunderpath. Trees lined its center and only paused for intersections. They also lined the fronts of the structures and alleys to the point where Mira didn't know if the twolegs planted the trees or built their nests in a forest. It was still a nice change of pace for how they normally built their twolegplaces. But, the more she lingered on her surroundings, the more she realized why they looked so uncharacteristically feral.

A few boxy monsters had been tossed on their sides with their see-through parts shattered. The outsides of most of the nests were rattled with tiny holes and cracks, doors were left wide open, and screens that would've been displaying things suited for twolegs were broken. Everything from colorful woven pelts to utilitarian silver boxes littered every surface inside the nests. Faypaw seemed unphased by the destruction, more interested in it than the nature, even. But Mira was focused on how fresh some of the damage felt. The trees would have taken time to punch through their carefully planned boundaries, but some of the screens were still tossing occasional sparks.

"Something terrible must've happened here." Mira's ears popped up at Fleetheart's sudden appearance. "It reminds me of hamburg and berlin. Those places looked like this as long as I could remember." Fleetheart bounced from structure to structure. Faypaw ran his eyes over her several times, but didn't react. Mira had confirmed the prior night no one else could see or hear the StarClan medicine cat but her. She somewhat wished that wasn't the case.

"The twolegs didn't keep their territory like this, did they?" Faypaw bobbed to Mira's side.

"When Ajax went supernova, mandatory evacuations were called across Skhul Terra," Proxima said from the drone. "I witnessed what I could from above. It was a terrible mess for weeks as the government forced everyone to leave. Some preferred to die to the supernova's after effects than be forced to move."

"Twolegs sure are greedy of their territory. I can't imagine dying for a little piece of it when there's so much."

"Some of this damage is from the Rigel Flock's passing, but yes. People have always been very possessive of land. Many animals are, including cats to an extent. They at least had the decency to clear their remains. You would be hard pressed to find any on Skhul Terra. Even in burial sites."

They approached an intersection in the thunderpath with a circular planter in the center. Inside was a statue of a twoleg holding a screen in one hand and a claw-like knife in the other. The same tiny holes like on the nests perforated it, but it was also covered in dents and scratches. Faypaw hopped on one of the planter's rocks and sniffed at them. Proxima also took interest, aiming the drone's blue light at it. Mira's ears swiveled forward when her nose caught the scent of another's fur and fresh blood. The sleeves around her legs tightened as she tensed up.

"I thought twolegs didn't have claws," Faypaw said, tapping at the statue. "Was this also the flock?

"Most likely. Nothing else in this area could have caused it," Proxima said.

Faypaw noticed the new scent, too, squinting from his perch towards the next intersection and hopping to Mira's side. Mira padded to the other side of the statue and spotted a massive cat sprinting towards them. The mystery cat's hind legs powered long strides and gracefully maneuvered her in a way she'd never seen from another cat. Her tan, black-spotted fur was short enough, even around her white underside, to push her toned physique. Long sideburns hung from each cheek while a pointy tuft of fur topped each ear. Her large, orange eyes had horizontal pupils, like Mira had seen on some of the farm animals. They were locked onto Faypaw, who was also staring at her. He wasn't frightened by the blood on her muzzle.

"Um, you…" the lynx's voice was much lighter than her size implied. "You should run. You're right in the middle of all of them!"

She was very young, older than Faypaw but still adolescent from what Mira could tell. She and Faypaw kept their eyes on each other for a while before a nearby snap returned her panic. The lynx sprinted off to their left and down the thunderpath as quick as she came.

"Who was that?" Faypaw nervously mewed. "I've never seen a cat who looks like her before."

"She is a lynx." Proxima's voice seemed almost apologetic, making Mira do a double-take it wasn't one of the discarded drones.

"She said you should run, and she had blood on her muzzle." Fleetheart appeared on the planter, joined by ethereal flowers and an unnatural haze. "The biggest things in most twolegplaces are dogs, and they always smell a particular way. What was she running from?"

"Stop! They must not leave before we know."

Atop the statue sung a lone crow. Its jet-black feathers were caked in mud it overcame with two sets of massive wings. Fleetheart was the first to recoil in fear of the creature's erratic head motions and jerking talons.

"Mira." Proxima's voice was calm and the drone made no movement, "I have made a grave error in survey and put you and your kit in danger. Follow the lynx's trail and run when I say."

Mira made sure Faypaw was right behind her as they rounded the planter. The crow's two sets of red eyes twitched between them and the sky. The mysterious cloud was closer now, and more crows seemed to be stumbling in from nowhere.

"Never believe the people-thing. Lies, indifference, scatter-worms! All of her." It locked one of its four eyes on Faypaw. "But you? I see something on you. More of the bad fur?"

The crow's deadpan eyes continued sweeping the area while the cloud revealed itself to be a flock. All of them had the same two sets of wings, but only some had four eyes. The mass began chiming and cawing as they swarmed overhead. One landed on Proxima.

"Be ready to run," she shouted above the noise.

"This one. The noise, the people-thing! And that one, that one!" It aimed two of its four wings at Faypaw. "He is poisoned with Star Covenant blood. I see it course through him. Him too, him too!"

The crow atop the statue spread its wings and screeched, sending the remaining perched crows swarming overhead and completely blocking the sky. Some crashed into poles and anything unbroken. Blood smears followed whatever they hit and masked everything with the fowl scent of decay. Several she never saw drop were shaking in a fit around her, their beaks open so wide they tore the skin around them.

"What really are these things?!" Faypaw mewed, waving one off.

Mira pulled her kit closer and waved off the occasional diving crow. Proxima's drone began emitting a barely audible high pitch that made most of the crows on the ground freeze. His eyes bobbed around until fixing on the source. Mira and Faypaw took off down the thunderpath, the lynx's scent lost amidst the bloody stench. She pushed Faypaw ahead of her, glancing back to spot dozens of crows swarming Proxima's drone and tearing it to pieces.

The crows followed. Mira frantically searched for a new drone to emerge, instead hearing the same high-pitched whine from every chatter hole in the area. The swarm seemed more interested in making a bigger mess of the twolegplace than attacking the pair. Every other heartbeat she glanced at Faypaw to make sure he was still running. The cawing became more unbearable as the flock demolished chatter holes and screens. At the next intersection, a light blinked on and off several times straight ahead before a pair of crows slammed into it. Mira caught Fleetheart amidst a circling funnel of them, crows flying straight through her incorporeal body. The StarClan medicine cat seemed mesmerized by it all, but Mira spotted an opening beside her.

"Straight ahead!" Mira shouted.

She felt her pace slow as the sleeves around her legs compressed. She grit her teeth and tried running through it, slowing just a bit to keep from tripping. But one of the crows crashed into her flank and sent her into a wall. She rolled over and slashed her hind claws through its face. It relentlessly charged to its death with a bite to its neck. Mira tossed it aside. Others swarmed around Faypaw just ahead and forced him inside a wall-less den.

"Faypaw! Hold on!"

She barely made out his black fur against the black feathers and red eyes. His head spun about with his forelegs as he scrambled into the den. Mira followed him in, ignoring the ones nipping at her back. The moment the lights clicked on they were pecked out, the stunned remains of their destroyers falling to the ground. Mira pushed through her sleeves' restrictions and hopped onto a wood box to spot her kit. None of the birds fell around him as he frantically slashed and bit.

"Faypaw, come to me!" Mira shouted.

The crows' hellish song pinged from every surface as their frenzy made a mess of things. Faypaw leapt atop the box but was dragged right back down. Mira leapt to him and pushed the birds from his blood-stained shoulders. Her brief panic was enough time for a crow to slash her back. It tried to steal one of her sleeves before she killed it. Another flew into her face and flapped hard enough to keep her pinned.

A small one rammed into Faypaw's thigh while two more pinned him. Large beaks pecked his exposed belly as he clawed frantically in the air. Mira freed herself and got the ones he didn't while a crow nipped at her stumpy tail. She spun around and smacked it. Pain shot up her foreleg, but she bore her bloody teeth and helped her kit to his paws.

"What do they want with us!?" he wailed.

A dozen more clawed their way over the shelf and fell onto the pair. "They'll finish too bloody. Make them too tired! Make them too weak!"

Mira smacked one away from her kit and grappled another out the air. Faypaw took out a pair before being swarmed again. Mira pushed them all away and stood over her kit. But a bulky crow knocked her over at full speed, diving in and out of the shelves. Her shoulder ached from the deep cut, but she held strong over Faypaw. A smaller one began digging its beak into the gash. She wailed while Faypaw bit its neck and tossed it away. Mira didn't want to scare him, but she was now taking the brunt of the crows' attacks.

"The cat-hen's blood is poison. Chimera poison! Only drink the other!"

"Leave my kit alone!" Mira hissed.

"Never!" The bulky crow dive-bombed her again. "Never again. Never let up!"

Mira barely dodged its attack, leaving it to slam head-first into the floor and die. But she couldn't shield Faypaw and attack at the same time. The birds grew more confident. They began biting longer and pulled some of her bloody fur away. They nibbled at the scratched flesh and wiped their beaks with the blood. They cawed in triumph and tried again for Mira's sleeves, but she clung to them as she did her kit. She frantically looked for a way out, but all sides had so many crows they started attacking each other in confusion.

She closed her eyes when a bold crow nearly pecked one. Shattering, crunching, screeching, her ears were flooded with useless noise. The scent of their blood still flooded her nose. Mira felt Faypaw's panicked heartbeat through his back. The heat the crows' swarming gave off was unbearable with the pain. But she focused on her kit. It was the only thing letting her bare it all.

The crows stopped their assault. The high-pitch whine returned with a rhythmic thump reverberating deep into her chest. Mira shooed them away, breathing a sigh of relief when the pain in her tight legs washed away. She stayed over Faypaw and opened her eyes. They were all frozen regardless of what they were doing. The noise grew louder for them, and some retreated from the den. Mira swiveled her ears towards the source, the direction they intended to go, and heard a heavy roll across the thunderpath with angry wails and tinny attacks against a chrome shell of armor. The sheer mass of fleeing crows knocked over the remaining shelves and crushed any unlucky runts. Many collapsed into convulsions with blood dripping from their beaks and eyes.

Faypaw still had his head buried in his paws. Mira lifted herself from his back, trying her best to keep him calm as their dried blood pulled apart. Two massive sphere drones slowly rolled down the thunderpath, the high-pitched whine blasting from their hidden chatter holes. Each was large enough to hold a few twolegs and loomed with a presence even more intimidating than she had seen from in-tact monsters. But Mira knew Proxima was commanding them and had nothing to fear. The chaotic shrieks were replaced by the whine and thump she perceived quietly enough to let her rest. She finally allowed her sleeves to force her to sit.

"Why do they want me!?" Mira noticed Faypaw had tightly clutched his unsheathed paw around hers. The pain of his claws was nothing to what she knew he was feeling. "What did I do?"

Mira began cleaning the blood from her kit's back. "Rigel made an enemy of a Star Covenant expedition when he was first awoken. But it's okay. We're okay."

"You're bleeding?" The gash on her shoulder only made Faypaw feel worse. "You're hurt! Proxima? Proxima!"

"I'm fine. That's the only bad one, and the rest look worse than they are. Once the crows are driven off—"

"It's not fine!" he shouted. "I got in your way. And you got hurt because of me."

"Faypaw—"

"You got hurt protecting me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Mira opened her mouth again, but couldn't think of anything to console Faypaw. Her ears drooped as she pressed closer only for him to pull away. Fleetheart's glittering pelt appeared on the other side of the adolescent tom with her tail draped over his back. Starry paw strokes over his fur didn't make it move and he never reacted, but she kept doing it. She glanced towards his mother. While the StarClan medicine cat simply sat with Faypaw, words swirled around in Mira's head on what he needed to hear. What she wanted to say. But nothing came together.