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A body lying at the top of the cliff fell down into the wreck of the gulch.

Flux's halo dripped sepia fluid that clogged its metal pores. Yulosi's staff had been snapped in twain. Whisper's sword stood where she had left it, though the earth around was rubble two feet deep.

They were the only ones alive.

[color=00a99d]"Yield,"[/color] said Flux, whose glow was faint.

Diaphane Whisper shuddered a sound that was huge and broken. Flux caught the telepathic word: [color=613c3c][i]never.[/i][/color]

The halo dripped again, and Whisper felt her flesh sucked out of her flattened body. She lay on the rock and tried to form knives. The mists ate her flesh.

[color=613c3c][i]"Let me die."[/i][/color]

Yulosi jerked. [color=c4df9b]"Flux,"[/color] she said, her voice strained not by lack of air but of magic. [color=c4df9b]"Finish her. Somethin's happening."[/color]

[color=00a99d]"I know,"[/color] said the Sculptor. [color=00a99d]"It is time for you to go, old friend."[/color]

[color=c4df9b]"Flux-"[/color]

[color=00a99d]"Yulosi,"[/color] he said. [color=00a99d]"Leave."[/color]

Yulosi tried to hesitate, and, realising that Flux had known she would deny him and said it anyway, whisked her stunted skeleton up to the edge of the gulch in a flick of cloak and shadow.

Flux glided in over the broken earth, and, taking Diaphane Whisper's eye in his two hands, said this:

[color=00a99d][i]"I forgive you."[/i][/color]

Whisper blinked, crying, as carmine hands speared up from the earth in one final act of betrayal.

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Yulosi pushed aside the impaling filaments of Jvan as her feet splashed in liquid mercury. She picked up Flux's halo. The ground was hot, but nothing glowed.

A puddle of Whisper curled and tightened around her leg. Yulosi looked up and saw the stained ball lying where its cursed mother had fallen.

The puddle formed an eye. Yulosi met it, and she was recognised in a way that only mothers can. 

[color=613c3c][i][sub]"Take care of her."[/sub][/i][/color]

The eye melted, and she was free. She staggered to the orb. It lay in a pool of paint and sepia, impossible to tell which was which.

Yulosi gripped the sword which lay half-buried beside it. She stroked its face and saw the creature sleeping within.

[color=c4df9b]"Sable,"[/color] she said, withdrawing phalanges now stained in that colour. [color=c4df9b]"I will call you Sable."[/color]

The egg began to crack.

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