As the season progressed and snow began to blanket the ground, Leandro put a stop to their training at the moon chapel, the daily trek having become too time-consuming. They instead returned to the abandoned strip near Niala's shop and limited themselves to “light” half-days of anaerobic and strength exercises.

  Niala used the extra time to brew a large stock of common-grade potions, the ones that Linzy had requested. She had asked her where all those potions were going, but had only gotten assurances that they were being put to good use, and that they were making piles of coins in the process. Niala had decided to offer her trust, and didn't push further, keeping her curiosity in check... for the time being.

  Niala also worked through her misgivings and decided to consult with Anaakendi to try to figure out her “gifts”, as the old woman called them.

  To Niala, they still felt like curses.

  “Tell me more about the shear between my life and soul. What does it mean, exactly?” Niala asked the regal incarnation, both of them sitting in Hodge's solarium.

  Anaakendi eyed he catkin before releasing a deep breath. “I cannot tell you as much as you'd like. Becoming an incarnate merely opened up my senses; it did not impart me with additional knowledge.”

  She adjusted her position on the chair. “What I do know is that, while a soul is normally tied to a body, and the death of either will break that link, they both actually have separate lives.”

  Niala slowly nodded. “So... by having a shear, it means I'm starting to break that link?”

  “That is correct, although calling it a link makes it sound like a rope is tying both together. It would be more accurate to think of it as a bar of metal. It both keeps them together, as much as it keeps them apart.”

  Niala scratched her cheek with a finger. “And what happens when it breaks fully? It sounds like it leads to becoming a lich, from what Jordo described, but you said becoming incarnated was also a possibility.”

  Anaakendi dipped her head. “That is correct. To become a lich, a soul must consume the body. For an incarnate, it is the inverse. Both require a strong will; the ability to enforce your truth upon the unwritten laws of the world, which state that a body or soul alone is less than a whole, and does not belong.”

  Niala closed her eyes for a moment, letting the woman's words settle. She returned her gaze to the old woman. “Isn't there another way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Niala's ears wiggled. “You said one has to eat the other. What if they just merge?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Well, do you think it might be?” She pressed on.

  “I... don't know,” Anaakendi repeated, squinting.

  Niala leaned forward slightly. “When you became an incarnation, what did it feel like? Do you think you could have not eaten your soul? Maybe force them to just get... really close?”

  “Child, I do not know. Lest you forgot, when I incarnated, I was in the process of giving up my life to the artifact.” Anaakendi defended herself.

  The catkin's ears twitched before she sighed and slumped back into her chair. “And that doesn't make sense. You gave your life, the artifact leeched your life away, yet your body ate your soul? Shouldn't it have been the other way around?”

  Anaakendi frowned. “I...” she began, tilting her head, observing Niala. She eventually allowed herself to continue. “I do not recall the process in its entirety, but I remember feeling intense sadness and guilt at not being able to remain and stand guard, just before driving the blade deep into my flesh.”

  She put a hand over her heart, where the ghostly dagger had pierced it. “I felt my life absorbed into the artifact, and yet at the same time, I felt myself float away, devoid of worries. It was done, finally, and nothing mattered anymore.”

  The old woman's eyes pierced Niala. “But it also wasn't. In that instant, it was as if I had a twinned mind. One was free and light, the other was anguished and desperate, hungry. A hunger for continuation, to persist. As the dagger finished absorbing my life energy, a void was left behind, and I became my own meal.”

  There was a pause before she continued. “If I had to guess, what we think of as life is two things. One is the physical, the way your heart pumps blood, and the other is... something else; the star in the night's sky that winks for a single moment, but without which the constellation would be incomplete.”

  Niala's ears lopsided as she tilted her head. “And which part did the dagger eat?”

  “I believe it was the star's light.”

  “So, your physical body is what was left behind, and because it desired life, it ate the first soul it saw, which was yours?”

  Anaakendi dipped her head. “That is my guess.”

  Niala grabbed her chin before she looked up at the incarnation. “I want to ask Hodge if he doesn't mind. I'm curious to see if he had the same kind of experience.”

  Anaakendi blinked. “A... valid idea.” She said, before turning her head toward the solarium's door and shouting. “HEY, YOU SENILE GOAT! WE REQUEST YOUR PRESENCE!”

  Niala jolted in surprise at the old woman's sudden lack of decorum, just in time to hear Hodge reply, from further inside the house.

  “Windy, I have a name!”

  “A NAME WHICH I WILL USE ONCE YOU BEGIN USING MINE!”

  “Your name is too long! Windy's shorted.” Hodge appeared in the door frame. “What do ya laddies want with old Hodge?”

  “The girl has a question for you.” Anaakendi snapped, returning her gaze to Niala, as Hodge did the same.

  The catkin swallowed. “Ah, well, Mr. Hodge, I'm trying to figure out what the process of incarnation is like, and Anaakendi told me what it felt like for her. I was wondering what your experience had been like?”

  Hodge narrowed his eyes at Niala. “Want to know if it was similar, heh? Well, why not? I haven't really ever told this story!” He said candidly, as he approached the two of them and began sitting down over nothing.

  Just as Niala was about to warn the old man that there wasn't any chair, she heard a deep rumbling. A tentacle made of objects shot through the door, a chair at its tip, which it deposited just in time for Hodge's rump to land upon.

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  The stuff-tacle retreated about as fast as it had appeared.

  Niala blinked a few times, ears flopped, as Hodge began retelling his experience.

  “So, my transformation... would you believe me if I said I didn't understand what had happened to me until quite a few years later? One day, I was feeling very old and tired, and I barely managed to get to my bed. Then I had the strangest dream, where there were two of me, but one was empty, so it stuffed the other me inside of itself. Then, the next morning, I wake up feeling rested like I've never been for the past twenty years.”

  He raised one of his thin skeletal arms and looked at it with annoyance. “Although I was still old as the pits and mostly blind. That didn't get better with time.”

  Niala looked at Anaakendi, who caught her gaze and lifted an eyebrow.

  The catkin returned to Hodge. “You seem like you had similar experiences. Something left your body, and it used your soul to fill the hole.”

  Hodge leaned back, resting his hands on his belly. “Is that so?” He looked at Anaakendi. “Did you hear that, Windy? We have something in common!”

  “We are nothing alike.” She rebuked.

  “We're both incarnations!”

  “I am an incarnation. You are the stubborn spirit of a kleptomaniac which refuses to depart its decrepit meat envelope.”

  Hodge shrugged. “At least I have a hobby. You just... “ He squinted. “Say, what do you even do most of the time, apart from yelling at me?”

  “Plenty enough.”

  “Nah, that sounds like someone who's bored. I need to find you something to do... Pottery? Maybe calligraphy... reading? I have a lot of books lying around, maybe something smutty. Old girls love those, though they'd never admit it...” The old man got up and left while mumbling, not allowing Niala to put in another word.

  Another grinding rumbled preceded the stuff-tacle, which grabbed the chair and retreated back into the house.

  Anaakendi scowled in Hodge's general direction before returning her attention to Niala. “Did you have other questions, child?”

  The catkin tilted her head to the other side, putting a finger to her lip, as her ears wiggled. “Not a question, but I am wondering; it feels like Hodge died from old age in his sleep, while you definitely died from a dagger in your heart. Is dying a prerequisite to incarnating?”

  The old woman quirked an eyebrow, but remained silent. Niala continued.

  “I need to ask Gerat about his own experience in becoming a lich, and to ask Jordo what he thinks as well. He called me a manifested soul, and from what he said, that's his way of saying an incarnation, but the wording feels wrong.”

  “Why is that?” Anaakendi asked, curiosity winning over decorum.

  “Huh? Oh, well, manifested sounds like something that is... present, bigger than before, but if the body is eating the soul...” Niala's eyes widened. “Oh! But it can also mean something that was invisible, and is now visible! And that makes sense, right?”

  Her ears stood upright, pupils dilated. “Because what's left is the physical body, which somehow eats the soul, which is not something that we can touch or see. In the process, is it giving form to the soul? Does it become something tangible that can directly interact with the physical world?”

  She shot upright, tail swishing like a spirited broom. “Whatever powers you gain were things that were imprinted in your soul! By dragging it into a physical form, the body is forcing the world to recognize something that was intangible! It's like you said, you're imposing your truth upon the world!”

  Niala locked her gaze on Anaakendi, “That makes sense, right?!”

  The old woman blinked, butting against the back of her chair. “I... huh...”

  The excited catkin nodded. “Yeah, it makes sense! And a lich is the inverse! It disregards the physical and doubles down on the intangible! It can't affect the physical world directly, but it has power over the unseen! Just like what Jordo said! They can manipulate intangible things, like souls and mana!”

  “Child, maybe you should-”

  Niala paced, one hand in the back, the other pinching her chin. “If an incarnate is the intangible made physical, and a lich is the physical made irrelevant, then what would happen if you pressed both of them together... is the tether really a tether? What if it's actually a string, and what's keeping them separate is a barrier...”

  She turned to Anaakendi. “And, what if instead of a tether, we made both of them extend a bit of themselves, so they actually touched? Would you get dominion over both the physical and the intangible? Like... like...” The catkin's eyes searched without focus, seeing something that nobody else did. “Like if a potion's steam could carry the potion's effect, and the liquid could float away and disperse...”

  Anaakendi swished her hand, and a small gust of wind flew into Niala's face, making her squeak and shut her eyes in surprise, before looking at the old woman, puzzled.

  The incarnation sighed. “I wonder if your partner gets to experience this manic state often... Child, it appears to me as if you might have found a path you wish to thread.”

  It was Niala's turn to blink, as her brain caught up to itself. “I... it looks like it.”

  “Good, then proceed. The goat and I will help, if we can.” Anaakendi offered with surprising warmth.

  And perhaps, more surprising to her, was that Niala realized she'd forgiven the incarnation for having tried to kill her.

  After all, she had a good reason; she wanted to keep the town and its people safe from a world-ending monster. She was just a bit misguided on the process, but it was apparent that, deep down, she cared for the safety of the people. She was even doing her best to help her understand her “gifts”.

  She found herself smiling at the old woman, and, to her even greater surprise, Anaakendi smiled back. Barely.

  On her way back from Hodge's home, Niala came upon a small gathering on the main road that led to the northern gate. A few dozen adventurers were talking loudly with a line of guards that appeared to be blocking their way.

  She spotted Ma-Ke-Lo, the guard captain tridget, at the front of the line, speaking back to the assembled adventurers. She made her way toward them, too curious to let this go uninvestigated.

  The tridget noticed Niala approaching from the corner of their eyes and made a small motion for her to stop, as he finished his speech to the mob.

  “Listen to us! We understand that it is worrying, but Camp Last Chance is at least two weeks' travel north-west. The occupants might have simply sought to stay behind a few days longer! We swear, if we do not hear back from them by the week's end, we will mount an expedition to investigate! For now, please disperse and go back to your lodgings!”

  A voice clamoured from within the group. “Gorper owed me a lot of money! What happens if he's dead?”

  Ma-Ke-Lo visibly sighed. “The same thing that happens when any adventurer dies; you make a claim, and when, or if, we find his belongings, you'll be compensated. Now, please disperse. If you have any further questions or complaints, the town hall will receive them.”

  The tridget somehow made themselves taller, and their voice boomed over the crowd's din when they next spoke. “That was the last time we asked politely. Disperse. Now.”

  The line of guards tensed at once, bringing up their small shields and short spears at the ready, forming a battle line.

  The adventurers recoiled and took a step back, before looking at each other and deciding a solid roof overhead and a warm drink in your hand were more attractive than a melee outside in the cold with the town guards. The clump began disintegrating as its constituents departed.

  Only then did Ma-Ke-Lo approach Niala. They nodded as they got near. “Ms. Niala, did you need something?”

  “Oh, no, not really. I was just wondering what this was all about. Some people are missing? Can we help?” She asked, the tip of her tail swaying.

  The guard captain shook his head. “You heard most of it. The adventurers who reside at the furthest camp haven't been seen entering town. Those are usually the hardiest and most experienced ones, being so far out into the Ruinlands.”

  Ma-Ke-Lo scowled. “It's got them worried. If something dangerous enough to take out one of the bigger camps is out there, their lives just got a whole lot more dangerous. Some of them are also friends or even family, you can understand why they'd want to mount an expedition.”

  Niala tilted her head. “You won't let them?”

  The tridget shook their head. “We'd probably be letting good men and women walk to their death. Winter is no place to be out in the hungerwoods. Food is scarce, and the things out there get hungry. And, if something really did happen at the camp, we need people stronger than the best adventurers. Those people were not it.”

  Niala looked back at the scattering adventurers before returning her attention to Ma-Ke-Lo. “Well... if David and I can help, let us know?”

  They nodded. “We will take note of it. Thank you for offering. Have a good day now, Ms. Niala.” Bowing slightly to her, Ma-Ke-Lo then turned to their guards and barked some orders.

  The rest of the way home was uneventful. She stepped out of the cold, the tip of her ears warming up with a pleasant tingle now that she was inside, and got started on dinner. Maybe a warm stew? To help fight off the cold weather outside! And some warm muffins for dessert. Perfect!

  She reached the kitchen, started on her preparations and began humming. Chopping sounds broke her out of her focus. Glancing over her shoulder, she noticed that David had silently joined her and was cutting the vegetables she'd set aside.

  She beamed him a smile, which he returned, and she felt the tips of her ears warm up all over again.