“You know,” Vivienne mused, drifting alongside her lekine panion, “I don’t think a single vilger noticed your nudity.”

  Rava snorted, her ears flig. “Well, as far as attention goes, I was peting against one of the eight titans and a talkiherbeast. Not much foe.”

  “True. I am pretty incredible,” Vivienne said, her many maws stretg into wicked grins.

  Rava’s brow arched, but she didn’t take the bait. “Not what I was getting at, but whatever small pleasures eain you.”

  Vivienne’s grin widened. “Speaking of which, you smell like stale beer and piss.”

  “Yeah, well, these clothes werely stolen from the fi of merts,” Rava shot back, tugging at the makeshift attire she’d swiped from a bandit. “I’ll them once we find a water source. Maybe even scrub some of that smell off of me.”

  “Don’t hurry on my at,” Vivienne hummed. “But I do think we should be careful not to make it a perma st.”

  Rava let out a low chuckle. “You’re lucky I’m not the oing us in trouble, or I might just make it perma.”

  “Try, and I’ll find a way to make sure it’s more than just your clothes that get ruined.”

  Rava raised a pyful eyebrow but kept walking, letting out a loud yawn that betrayed her fatigue. “You try, Vivienne. You try.”

  “Getting tired there? You haven’t slept in… days? Weeks? Holy, I don’t have a good sense of time yet,” Vivienne said, her tone ced with faux .

  Rava waved a dismissive hand. “Mm, I keep going for a while longer,” she replied, though the sag in her shoulders and the drag of her steps said otherwise.

  Vivienne’s many maws formed knowing grins. “I’m sure you ! But I’ve been snag non-stop and feel positively rejuvenated. Why don’t we find you a ch of dirt or something for a nap?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rava grunted, her voice tinged with stubbornness. Her ears flicked irritably, but even that motion seemed a touch slower than usual.

  Vivienne’s smoky form tilted slightly, as if studying her. “Oh, I believe you,” she said sweetly, the chorus of her voices dripping with mock siy. “You’ll probably keep going until you colpse. Very impressive indeed.”

  Rava’s lips twitched, the ghost of a smile f despite her exhaustion. “Your encement is g.”

  “A, here I am, cheering for you.” Vivieourned more pointed. “But seriously, what happens if we run into trouble and you’re half-dead from ck of sleep? I’ll be fine, obviously, but you? Not so much.”

  Rava sighed, her pace slowing slightly. “Alright, alright. If we e across somewhere det, I’ll take a quick rest. But no creepy stuff while I’m out.”

  “Creepy? Moi?” Vivienne pced a thick tendril over her body as if to cover her e. “Perish the thought! I’ll just keep watd enjoy the silence.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Rava muttered, though her tone was more amused than wary. She gnced ahead, sing the surroundings for a potential resting spot.

  Vivienne floated closer, her many heads weaving in a zy pattern. “Maybe I’ll hum a lulby. Something haunting and mildly uling—perfect for sweet dreams.”

  “Do that, and I’m dunking you in the s.”

  “Bold of you to assume I wouldn't enjoy a nice dip in a s.” Vivienne quipped.

  Rava gave a low chuckle, shaking her head. “Fine.”

  Rava she air, her ears swivelling toward a faint rustling ahead. A soft breeze carried the st of damp earth and old foliage. She gnced back at Vivienne, who hovered beside her, her smoky form still twisting zily. “Let’s find somewhere off the path. The st thing I need is to be ambushed while I’m asleep.”

  “Not to worry,” Vivienne purred. “I’ll be your loyal sentinel, ensuring no bandits sneak up on us… again.”

  “f,” Rava muttered dryly. She veered off the trail, her sharp eyes sing for a suitable spot. After a few minutes of navigating through the underbrush, she found a small clearing tucked beh the sprawling roots of a massive tree. The roots formed a natural alcove, some shelter from the elements and a vantage point overlooking the area.

  “This’ll do,” Rava said, dropping her pad stretg with a groan. She leaned back against the rgest root, letting her shoulders rex for the first time in hours.

  Vivienne drifted into the clearing, her many heads tilting curiously. “Cozy. Though I’m not sure I’d call it nap-worthy.”

  “For you, maybe not. For me? It’s perfect.” Rava unceremoniously kicked off her ill-fitting boots and sank down onto the mossy ground. “Wake me if anything tries to kill us.”

  “Bold of you to assume I’d o,” Vivieeased, though she floated a little higher, her form coiling protectively around the clearing like a living shadow.

  Rava gave a half-hearted grunt of aowledgement before closing her eyes. Within moments, her breathing evened out, her exhaustion finally taking hold.

  With Rava asleep, Vivieurned her attention inward. The aether she’d pilfered earlier from the bandits still thrummed within her, a swirling cocktail of fear and fragmented emotions. It was different from the raw, primal aether of beasts—less wild, but yered with plex fvours. She hummed softly, her many maws curling into thoughtful smiles.

  “Let’s see what I do with this,” she mused to herself. Her smoky form rippled as she trated, fog the stoleher toward a single point. Slowly, the swirling darkness began to dense, coalesg into a shape. A long, sinuous limb emerged, first skeletal, then fleshing out with shadowy substance. Fiwitched experimentally, sharp cws clig together.

  Vivieilted one of her heads, admiring the new limb. “A det start. Let’s try something else.”

  Vivieilted her head, one of her serpentine necks curling to ihe skeletal limb with a mixture of curiosity and dissatisfa. The cwed fiwitched again, but their movements were jerky and uncoordinated, like a puppet tugged by an inexperienced hand. She flexed her focus, willing the stoleher to stabilise, to give the limb more substance, more trol.

  The limb vulsed and then splintered apart, disiing bato smoky wisps that coiled into her amorphous form. Vivienne hissed, her heads snapping irritably in disjointed dires.

  “Rushed it,” she muttered. “Alright, slow it down. Precision over power.”

  She refocused, pulling the swirliher together again. This time, she attempted something simpler—a hand, just a hand. Darkness deaking on a skeletal framework. Joint by joint, she added definition, yering it with faintly translut shadow-flesh. It took shape painstakingly, fingers extending into sharp cws.

  She stretched the fingers outward experimentally. Two obeyed her will. The others spasmed wildly, curling in unnatural dires. Her frustration bubbled, but she forced herself to stay calm, to trate.

  “trol, Vivienne. trol,” she murmured, her chorus of voices overpping in a self-directed pep talk.

  The hand began to tremble, cracks appearing along the translut surface. It colpsed again, evaporating into vapour that swirled uselessly around her. She let out a low, guttural growl of annoyance, her maws grinning in frustration rather than amusement.

  “Humans made this look so easy,” she grumbled. “How hard it be to get one hand right?” She smacked herself with a tendril. “Right. Used to be human. Why ’t I replicate that?”

  Vivienne gnced over at Rava, who was still deeply asleep, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. “Good. No wito my failure,” she muttered to herself, her voices tinged with dry humour.

  She tried again, and again, each attempt met with limited success. Sometimes she mao form the outline of a limb, other times just fragmented pieces—a forearm here, a twisted cw there. Each failure taught her somethihough: the need for bahe y of trolling the ebb and flow of the stoleher.

  By her sixth attempt, she mao create something halfway funal. A crude, elongated limb—her fully humanoid nor monstrous—hung limply from her shifting form. She tapped it against the ground, feeling the fai sense of weight and e.

  Progress, however slight.

  The limb twitched uedly and struck a nearby root with a sharp crack. Startled, Vivienne hissed as the structure began to dissolve, the stoleher retreating bato her smoky body. Her heads drooped, their expressiing from frustration to faint amusement.

  “So close, yet so pitiful,” she sighed, her chorus carrying an exaggerated tone of self-pity.

  Hours seemed to pass as Vivieinkered, her efforts shiftiween stubborermination and pyful experimentation. She focused less on perfe and more on discovery—how much weight her creations could hold, how long they sted, and what shapes came most naturally to her.

  By the time the sky began to lighten, a faint pre-dawn glow creeping through the trees, she had mao form what could generously be called a humanoid forearm. It was disproportionate and long, with uneven, cwed fingers and faintly glowing veins of aether that pulsed irregurly. It wasn’t much, but it was hers, and most importantly it held its shape! More than long enough for her to admire it properly, even if it looked extremely odd stig out the side of her hydra form.

  Vivienne raised the malformed arm, flexing the crude fingers as a series of satisfied grins spread across her many heads.

  “Not bad,” she mused, the smallest hint of pride g her voice. “Still a long way to go, but not bad.”

  She g Rava, who stirred faintly in her sleep but remained blissfully unaware of Vivienne’s noal efforts.

  “Guess I’ll let you sleep a little longer,” Vivienne murmured, the arm dissolving bato her smoky form. “I’ll figure the rest out soon enough.”

  With that, she settled herself into the shadows, watg the horizon shift from bck to grey, a patient predator waiting for her opportunity to evolve.

  SupernovaSymphony