Vitrify

::: subchapter "Hinte!" I yelled out. On the other side of the dark-green wiver a slender, black thing shot out from the vog. Like an arrow it plunged into Hinte's side. I didn't see the bite⁠ ⁠---⁠ but Hinte growled deep in pain. I was yelling out in fear, in useless warning. My wings twitched but the sight had vitrified me. Another shadow flew at her neck. The wiver twisted --- the creature flew close, belly running along her neck, a near-miss. There was a hissing growl. Sudden knife-claws raked down my back. They tore into my sifting suit, and left small cuts. The shadow above me yarled, vicious. I felt the impact of more claws ---⁠ but no pain. Blood flowed down my neck. Not mine. The human! It'd saved me. Teeth sunk into my side --- a fourth shadow. It ripped through the white suit and slashed my scales. I buckled. Head smashed into the ground. Hinte's fight came as a mess of yelps and growls, almost in turn. The wiver's cries tended more frequent and pained. Did she need my help? What could I do? I flailed my wings at the toothy thing beside me. It growled and backed off. I fled. Above me, one still ripped or slashed at the human. I clawed at the ropes. They split! I leapt high, the bloody corpse falling to the ground. Dare to look back⁠ ⁠---⁠ the trick worked. The third continued to rip into the corpse. Below Hinte was fighting her pair of shadows. One gnawed on her right hindleg ---⁠ ouch. The other circled around to lunge at her neck again. But that was all I glimpsed. In the air, the fourth shadow still chased me! I smacked it with my tail. It bit my tail! I curled in the air, growling. I grabbed onto the shadow and we crashed into the lake surface. The lake skin fractured and split open fiery gashes. With a free forefoot, I reached for the mouth of the creature. Force it closed. I reached⁠ ⁠--- The shadow bit me! Its teeth cracked the glass and pierced the scutes. I grabbed its lower jaw. Distantly, Hinte screamed. No! Holding it in two feet, I swung the shadow. Land in the lake, please! But as I let go, the third thing came. It lunged at a foreleg. Old glass bore the brunt. It clawed again and I saw it draw blood. I kept swinging --- but the other creature ruined my aim! I could only slam the shadow on the lake skin, shattering dustone. I pushed harder, to submerge it. The other shadow was lunging again! At my neck! I wouldn't. I dodged away, and it only clawed my face --- but it clawed again and again. Blood dripping down my face, I couldn't submerge the shadow. I gave up. I wasn't a fighter. The lake had worn me away. Even with the frenetic, fatal energy in my blood⁠ ⁠---⁠ I could give up. It was what I did. The thought rang out in my head, but its echo was something⁠ ⁠---⁠ different: Rockwraiths will fly away after you stop moving. Hinte's voice, the distant wiver who hadn't seen me stand up to humans. I feigned death, and fell limp. The two wraiths --- what else could they be? --- they continued to claw or bite at me. I screamed, but I let the sound falter and die. They stopped, and --- brilles clouded --- I could feel them staring at me, waiting. Breathe, low, breathe calm. I had to think! They had caught Hinte by surprise, injured her even more. She was over there, alone. I had to help her. But how? I needed to make them stop attacking her. Distract them? Lure them away? A vague memory came to me, another echo that wasn't my voice. It awakens sleeping things, sleeping out the gray season. The gray season. When volcanic activity waxed with the coming perigee of Laswaith, the great moon of violence. When the animals in the lake estivated to weather the heat and ash. But if these wraiths were still active, well, they had to eat something. The glasscrabs ate the crysts. And what else could the wraiths eat but glasscrabs? Breaking my feigned death, I did a quick dart to my bag, where glasscrabs poked out. The wraith lunged in the corner of my eye. I rushed a crab out. Then threw it out in front of me. It paused, and peered at the crab, tongues flicking. I leapt up, running in the opposite direction. The two wraiths disappeared in the distant darkness behind me. When no razor fangs came crushing down on my legs, I breathed. I did it! Away from the wraiths I was again limping on injured legs. My left forefoot had teeth marks down its middle. My right foreleg had three bleeding breaks in the glass. Adding to the pain, my face dripped blood from numerous swipes, both deep and shallow, and the horrible bite on my belly. Despite all of this, the pain felt distant, muted. Free from the fight, I could flee. Fly up into the sky and glide back to Gwymr/Frina. Hinte needed my help, but would I even make a difference? Maybe it was better if at least one of us lived. She could understand that, right? That same echo: I would not let you die. No, she would try to save me. I needed to stop cowering. She had saved me twice⁠ ⁠---⁠ I could show my thanks. And, well, I'd been some help against the humans, hadn't I? If I could just think... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I had a plan, I just needed to find Hinte. She'd been fleeing last you saw, and I'd... gone in the opposite direction. Aching legs slipped me into a high walk. I slinked over the gnarled ground as fast as I dared. The new speed ripped pain in my forelegs, but it didn't matter. The fight made ripples over the lake skin. The fractured and bulging ground turned to another obstacle standing against me. In the nighttime vog I was half-blind; but I could do better than just hope Hinte was in this direction; the burning cracks ripped open left me half-sighted. The stark bright of the molten glass seemed to darken the vog even more. I could see almost nothing but what had been limned by the wake of the fight. Moments of stealth passed like this, and I was tripping over my claws with spicy anticipation on my fangs. At last I came back around to Hinte and her attackers. First thing you saw: the fading white glowy stuff spilled all over the ground. What you smelt? Blood in the air. Tart and spicy venom. And rank, stinky wraiths. Dogged by rockwraiths, Hinte fell into a crouch, and stumbled into a leap⁠ ⁠---⁠ a lopsided leap that was brought low in breaths by the wraiths. She tried, again and again. With an injured hindleg and wing, the bright-white figure couldn't fly away. You were built to fly, take that away and how much was left? "Hinte!" I shouted. "I have a plan --- play dead!" Already falling and crashing on the surface, she didn't get up⁠ ⁠---⁠ I just prayed the endless stars it was on purpose. Breath, Kinri. My last glasscrab was in my feet, held tight, and I pulled back and aimed. Between the bright-white figure and me it landed aright. One wraith glanced at it. And it went back to biting Hinte! A growl left my lips. I had one last gambit. It might throw away all I'd worked for ---⁠ but if I succeeded, it had to be worth it. A glass came from my bag, a glass of glasscrab blood. I unlidded and threw it over the crab corpse. As it fell, the contents spilled out below it. It landed with a crack. Both wraiths looked, this time. Hinte stayed still. Breaths passed. A wraith jerked its head back at Hinte. No! My last glass was in my feet before I could think, before it was flying low over the lake skin before it smacked into a crag with a big pop that was only loud because it was so quiet all around and⁠ ⁠--- A rockwraith moved. It ambled twitchingly over toward the crab and the spilled blood. I still held my breath, but something eased when I saw the other, larger rockwraith lunge after the first with a gait that was like a very efficient limp. At the creature, I peered. Like the cloudwraiths above, these things scented the air with two tongues. Long, curling forelegs doubled as three-clawed wings, wyvern-like. Hindlegs looked almost draconic, monstrous limbs for leaping into the air. And midwings sat between those two pairs, much wider than the snakelike body was long. When the first wraith reached the crab, a small bite was taken. This smaller wraith then hopped onto it, and grasped the corpse in its hindfeet. The leader leapt winging away, and the smaller followed, lugging the crab. The rockwraiths winged over to where I'd left larger crab. There, my once-attackers were still taking ravenous bites out of the first crab. The leader landed and in turn nipped both of the hungry wraiths. Cowed, they fell in line as the leader clutched the big crab and led them winging off. In formation, they all flew away, victorious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I had lost my crabs. I had lost the crab blood. My face and legs were red and wet. But, just maybe, there was a victory of my own: I had survived. And Hinte? The stars had to have spared her. They had to. My wings took me toward the spilled white glow on the ground, the glair-like stuff pooling out around her lantern like a cracked egg. The dark-green wiver lay on the ground, in the same spot where I'd told her to play dead. With the wraiths gone, the frenetic energy in my limbs faded. My wounds roused awake, and I faltered in the sky. When I crashed, I fell to my side and stayed there for a bit. "...Kinri?" came a certain jagged voice. A head rose, and the lines of that dark-green face came to life. The amber goggles still hid her eyes, but I imagined behind them, eyes opened and searched around. "Hinte!" "It's over? Your plan worked." Hinte had shifted from her slumped position. She now crouched on her hindlegs, forelegs and wings supporting her weight. Others might look frail in that position. She only looked defiant. "It did." I looked away. "But it--it feels like a defeat." "It is not defeat until you can no longer play," Hinte said, sounding like an echo. When my head didn't rise with her words, she added, sounding more urging, "Kinri. Those are the same wraiths