ain’t it tragic, summer took it out of me

Scout didn’t know when she’d passed out, nor when she’d woken up.

It was all a blur, to the point that her first thought upon waking up with a feeble jolt was… where’s my bed?

Instead of the soft fabric she’d been expecting, beneath her face was just cold. Bright, frigid cold, its teeth piercing through her fur with ease. Cold to her very core.

The nyulop attempted to sit up, blearily trying to blink snow, grit and… something else from her eyes.

Eye.

A weak paw to her face, confusion etched across her features. What happened? She was sure both her eyes were open, but clearly one…wasn’t? Her head, as well-

It was absolutely throbbing.

The nyulop took a moment just to take it in, leaning against the nearest hard surface she could feel with her back whilst remaining sat down. The past few hours were at the figurative ‘tip of her tongue’ within her mind, yet even just trying to think beyond asking herself what the hell was going on as if she’d known just caused her headache to worsen.

Okay, that wasn’t going to work. Noted.
She found comfort in the fact she knew she hadn’t forgotten, at least - it just wasn’t coming to her in that exact moment. Maybe it was some weird defence mechanism she didn’t know she had-

“Hey!”

A voice cut through the fog of her exhausted musings, barely craning her neck just to get a better look at the newcomer. On the back of some great bird, the flap of its wings displacing the snow around it…

…was a small nyulop with bright blue eyes-

“Shit.” Scout hissed under her breath, barely above a whisper. She had of course failed to register that this nyulop didn’t resemble who she was thinking of at all if she thought to look at more than just the eyes; they were brown, accented with a vibrant purple, and around their pupils were rings of pink.

Unfortunately, she didn’t quite have all the knowledge on identifying the Siren, merely a deeply ingrained fear of blue eyes and giant purple birds.

So, as far as she was concerned, the Siren had followed her down on the back of a wraithel and taken the form of a random dwarf nyulop stranger to taunt her further.

“Get away from me-” Scout snapped, scrambling to get as far away from the newcomer as possible, even as each new movement brought a new wave of throbbing pain to her head. Even as her new company landed their freakish bird and hopped off onto the rock ledge below, blatantly ignoring her discomfort. “I’m not doing this again-”
“Hey, heey, calm down.” Possibly the most redundant thing they could’ve said, “I’m here to help-”
“LIKE FUCK YOU ARE!” The scream that tore its way from Scout’s throat surprised even her, but she kept going, raw adrenaline fueling her desperate, futile attempt at escape. She’d cornered herself from the start. “FUCK OFF! I’M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN!”

The other nyulop finally stopped, the last phrase having given them pause. Again? Doing what?
“...I think you think I’m someone else.” They said with a frown, “...who do you think I am, exactly?”
“Oh don’t fucking- don’t you act all stupid now,” Scout snarled, “You know exactly who you are! You-”
“I’m Hyssop.” The audacity to just…cut her off like that, introduce itself with a new name? To reach out a paw to her, to feign concern while riding the very bird that maimed her before the fight at the top of the mountain even started- “I- I think I’m gonna need you to just…stop? Calm- no, uh- just- just get a good look at us. I really don’t think I am who you think I am.”
“You-” Scout cut herself short of another rant, squinting her eye at the pair in front of her as she finally let the other nyulop’s words sink in a little bit.

The bird… if that was a wraithel, it was a strange breed of one. Paler colours, softer, rounder features…

She still refused to let the smaller nyulop touch her, hissing when they tried to help her up, but she did at least stop yelling, taking a moment to ‘get a good look’, as they’d said. Cautiously, oh so cautiously, she stood up as best she could, stumbled forward to lean against the creature against her better judgement. It hadn’t been intentional, the bird had just moved to catch her.

“...you’re…you’re not.” It was an incomplete sentence, but the meaning was clear. “...you’re not her.”
“...the fight’s over.” Hyssop finally explained, having gone quiet to allow Scout space to process what was going on. “Sorry I uh…y’know. Didn’t say that. You’re uh…bleeding, so I...”
“Is she gone?” Scout still didn’t seem to have the energy to inject tone into her voice, “The- the monster, I mean. Is it safe?”

“Yeah, it’s safe.”

Reuniting with the others was a quick process, given the fact she hadn’t actually fallen that far down - a ledge had broken her fall when the siren had flung her. Hyssop wasted no time in explaining the situation with the bird, something about a guardian spirit and a flock of birds offered to any who wished to join the fight. Hyssop was too young to take an adult ‘phantomere’ as a bond, but aspired to at least raise a hatchling…

Scout would admit she somewhat stopped paying attention after the first few words, instead keeping her eye closed so she’d have less to look at in the few minutes it took them to fly back to the top of the mountain. Acrophobia was probably apparent in her future.

In her immediate future, though? Rest, at last.