The fragile levity that had briefly warmed the fissure's cold heart could not last. It was a phantom warmth, quickly swallowed by the grim, pressing reality of their circumstances. The salves were a temporary dam against a sea of agony; the journey ahead would be a relentless test of its integrity. The decision to move was a necessity. The planning of it was a fresh form of torture.

Statera was the first to give voice to the logistical nightmare they faced. Her voice was low, pragmatic, pushing past the pain in her shoulder. "We cannot travel as a single wounded beast. We must be a caravan, each with a role, each supporting the other." Her Polaris light, though still dim, traced over their broken forms. "I can walk. My leg is whole. My shoulder… it will scream, but it will bear the weight of aiding another." Her gaze settled on Shiro. "My rain baby can walk, I think. With support. He leans on me. I bear his weight. It is… manageable."

All eyes turned to Nyxara. The gash on her thigh, though packed and sealed by moss, was a deep, angry line of protest. She tested her weight on it, her face a mask of controlled stoicism, but a sharp, involuntary hiss escaped her clenched teeth. She paled, shaking her head. "I can walk," she stated, the words a queen's decree against the rebellion of her own flesh. "But not… not while bearing weight. The muscle is severed too deeply. It will hold my own passage, and nothing more." Her multi hued eyes, filled with a storm of frustration and fear, fell upon Kuro.

The unspoken truth hung in the air, vast and terrible. Kuro could not walk. The combined trauma of his facial wound, the internal damage from the fight, and the powerful sedatives left him as stable as water. He was propped against the wall, his single eye glazed, his body listing to the side. The notion of him taking a single step was a grotesque joke.

Kuro sensed the weight of their stares. The prince, the strategist, the "Baby Black Prince", reduced to a burden that could not even transport itself. A hot flush of shame, more burning than any wound, spread up his neck. "I can walk," he growled, the sound weak but laced with defiant venom.

"Kuro, no," Nyxara said, her voice soft but firm. "Do not."

He ignored her. With a grunt of sheer, stubborn will, he pushed himself away from the wall. For a single, breathtaking second, he stood, swaying like a sapling in a gale. His storm grey eye was wide with a desperate, furious concentration. Then his legs, utterly devoid of strength or coordination, simply folded beneath him. He did not crumple with grace; he fell like a puppet whose strings had been severed, a chaotic, boneless collapse toward the hard stone.

He did not hit the ground.

Lucifera moved not with a fighter's speed, but with the unnerving, instantaneous displacement of a shadow shifting with the sun. One moment she was watching from the entrance, the next she was there, her body intercepting his fall. Her arms, stronger than their slender frame suggested, caught him under his own, halting his descent with an unceremonious jolt that made him cry out in pain and fresh humiliation.

He hung in her grasp, utterly defeated, his breath coming in ragged, shame filled gasps. "Let… let me go," he choked out, struggling weakly against her immovable hold. "I can do it."

"You cannot," Lucifera stated, her voice devoid of judgment, merely reporting an immutable fact of the universe, like the weight of stone or the pull of the tide. "The attempt is a waste of energy we do not possess. The outcome is a foregone conclusion. You will be carried."

The finality in her tone brooked no argument. The mothers watched, a complex knot of pity, worry, and aching sympathy in their chests.

"She is right, my little tempest," Nyxara said softly, her heart breaking for his pride. "There is no weakness in this. Only necessity."

Statera nodded. "Lucifera is the only one among us with the strength and… unencumbered capacity to bear you. It is the only way little marvel."

The solution was logical. Inevitable. And to Kuro, it was a fresh hell. To be carried was one thing. To be carried by her, the impassive, razor edged, brutally efficient Sirius councillor, was a humiliation of cosmic proportions.

To everyone's astonishment, a remarkable thing happened. As the reality of the task settled upon her, a faint, unmistakable flush of colour rose on Lucifera's alabaster cheeks. It was not the deep crimson of Kuro's shame, but a subtle, rose tinted bloom of… something. Discomfort? Unfamiliarity? The sheer, bizarre intimacy of the act? She looked at the prospect of carrying her nephew with the same clinical dread another might view a complex surgical procedure.

She's blushing, Statera thought, a wave of sheer, unexpected fondness cutting through her own pain. The unflappable Lucifera is flapped.

Oh, by the lost constellations, Nyxara mused, a genuine, weary smile touching her lips for the first time in what felt like an eon. She's adorable. And he is going to spontaneously combust.

Seeing her expression, Kuro's own mortification deepened. "No," he whispered, a last, desperate plea. "Not… not like this."

"It is decided," Lucifera said, her voice a trifle tighter than usual, the blush on her cheeks deepening a shade. She did not give him a chance to protest further. In one fluid, shockingly effortless motion, she shifted her grip. She ducked slightly, pulling one of his arms over her shoulder, and then hoisted him up and across her back in a fireman's carry.

The action was so swift, so utterly devoid of ceremony, that Kuro could only emit a strangled yelp of surprise. His world tilted violently. The pressure on his stomach made him nauseous, and the jostling sent a lightning bolt of pain through his eye socket, forcing a sharp gasp from him. He hung over her shoulder, his face pointing toward the ground, his dignity in tatters.

"This is… undignified," he groaned, his voice muffled against the dark fabric of her robes.

"Survival rarely is," Lucifera replied, her tone dry, though the tips of her ears were now also touched with pink. She adjusted his weight with a slight shrug, settling him into a more secure position. "Complain again and I will carry you like a suckling babe in my arms. The choice is yours."

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The threat, delivered with such deadly seriousness, silenced him utterly. Hanging over her shoulder was a nightmare. Being cradled in her arms would be an extinction level event for his sense of self.

From their positions, Statera and Nyxara shared a long, look. The same thought passed between them, a bright, shining thread of warmth in the oppressive dark: Aunt and nephew bonding.

The sight was, against all odds and reason, profoundly endearing. The mighty, stoic Lucifera, flushed with uncharacteristic colour, with the proud, furious Kuro draped over her shoulder like a sack of terribly angry, mortified grain. Both of them were radiating a shared, furious embarrassment that was almost tangible.

"The path is narrow and treacherous," Lucifera announced, her voice once again all business, though the blush stubbornly remained. "Statera, you and Rain baby will follow behind me. Nyxara, you will follow last. Move slowly. Test your footing. If you feel weakness, stop. We move as one organism. Its failure is our collective failure."

With that, she turned and began to walk toward the fissure's exit. Her steps were sure and steady, even with Kuro's weight across her shoulders. He hung there, limp with resignation, his good eye squeezed shut against the humiliation.

Statera helped Shiro to his feet, his arm slung over her good shoulder. He leaned heavily on her, a low groan escaping him as he put weight on his injured ribs. Nyxara took a final, steadying breath, gripping a jagged outcropping of rock for support, and nodded, her face pale but determined.

Lucifera led the way, stepping out of the fissure mouth and into the oppressive, mist choked darkness of the tunnels beyond. The light from the chamber spilled out after her, illuminating the surreal, almost comical image of the deadly Sirius councillor and her royal, disgruntled burden.

The journey to Nyxarion had begun. It was not an exodus of warriors, but a desperate, limping retreat of the broken. But they were moving. And as Lucifera disappeared into the gloom with a red faced Kuro on her shoulder, the two mothers following behind couldn't help but feel the first, faint, and most unexpected flicker of something that felt like hope.

The journey was a slow, painful unravelling of time and space. The tunnels beyond the fissure were not the majestic, star lit Polaris paths of their initial voyage; these were the forgotten arteries of the mountain, choked with dust and the ghosts of dead echoes. The air was stale and cold, carrying the damp, mineral breath of deep stone. It was a place untouched by magic, only by weight and age and a profound, crushing indifference.

Statera now led the way, her Polaris light a feeble but unwavering beacon in the suffocating dark. It did not sing here as it had in her homeland; it fought, a determined star struggling to hold back an ocean of oblivion. Every few paces, she would pause, her good hand pressed against the cold wall, her senses reaching out not for beauty, but for threat. Her shoulder was a constant, grinding pain, a grim counterpoint to each of Shiro's ragged breaths beside her.

He leaned on her heavily, his arm draped over her good shoulder, each step a monument of effort. The world for him was a narrow, nauseating tunnel viewed through a slit of amber, the burning brand on his face a pulsar of agony that synced with his heartbeat. He said nothing, conserving his strength, his entire being focused on the simple, Herculean task of placing one foot in front of the other.

Behind them, the most surreal tableau of their procession unfolded.

Lucifera moved with her unnatural, silent grace, but her burden was a stark contrast to her efficiency. Kuro hung over her shoulder, a constant, mortified weight. The initial shock had worn off, leaving behind a deep, simmering humiliation that was, in its own way, as painful as his wounds. The pressure on his stomach was nauseating, and every jostling step sent fresh, sharp lances of pain through his shattered eye socket.

After what felt like an eternity of this torture, a small, pained voice broke the silence from ahead.

"A…Aunty Lucifera?" Shiro rasped, not looking back, his voice strained. "Could you… could you be a little… less… rocky? It's… it's shaking him. And… it hurts… I can see it."

The request, so meek and full of shared suffering, hung in the air. Lucifera did not break her stride, but her posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. She had been carrying him as she would a piece of equipment, securely, effectively, with zero consideration for comfort. The concept was simply alien to her.

From his inverted position, Kuro let out a low groan. "I'm… fine," he lied through clenched teeth, his pride a stubborn, dying flame.

"You are not fine," Lucifera stated, her voice echoing softly in the tunnel. But she adjusted her gait, her steps becoming somehow smoother, more fluid, absorbing the shocks before they could travel up into her passenger. The difference was immediate and profound. The nauseating bouncing ceased, leaving only the steady, rhythmic motion of her walk.

A long silence followed, filled only with the scuff of boots on stone and their laboured breathing. Then, a second, even more improbable request was forged in the fires of Kuro's utter desperation.

"Could you…" he began, the words seeming to physically pain him more than any wound. "Not… like this?" He swallowed hard, the sound loud in the quiet. "Could you… hoist me… properly? On your back? I could… I could hold on. It would… it would be less… degrading." The final word was a whisper of pure agony.

Lucifera stopped walking.

Statera and Shiro paused a few steps ahead, glancing back. Nyxara, bringing up the rear and leaning heavily on her staff, watched with bated breath.

The Sirius councillor was still for a long moment, considering the request with the gravity of a military strategist assessing a new battlefield. Carrying him on her back would require a different kind of intimacy. It would require his cooperation, his arms around her shoulders, his body pressed against hers. It was a vastly more… personal method of transport.

Then, a remarkable thing happened. A soft, almost inaudible sound escaped her, a sigh that was not annoyance, but something akin to resigned amusement. "The 'Baby Black Prince' makes a tactical adjustment to his circumstances," she observed, her tone dry but lacking its usual icy edge. "A wise, if belated, decision."

Slowly, carefully, she lowered him from her shoulder. Kuro's legs buckled the moment they touched the ground, and he would have collapsed if she hadn't kept a firm grip on him. With a strength that was still startling, she turned him around, guided his arms over her shoulders, and then hooked her own arms under his knees, hoisting him onto her back in a piggyback ride.

The new position was a revelation. The pressure was off his stomach. The world was right side up. He could rest his throbbing head against her back, between her shoulder blades. It was immeasurably better. The humiliation was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but it was tempered by a shocking degree of physical relief.

And then, the second miracle occurred. As Kuro's arms locked around her front, his body pressed against hers, a faint, beautiful flush rose on Lucifera's neck and the tips of her ears. She quickly bowed her head, letting her silver hair fall forward to hide it, but the mothers had seen it.

Oh my, Statera thought, her heart aching with a fondness that momentarily eclipsed her pain. She's holding her nephew. And she's blushing because of it.

I shall commission a painting, Nyxara mused, a real, weary smile gracing her lips for the first time in days. 'The Councillor and The Prince.' It will hang in the great hall. She will never live it down.

"Are you secure?" Lucifera asked, her voice a trifle tight, still facing away from them.

"...Yes," Kuro mumbled, his own face buried in the fabric of her robes, hiding his own furious blush. "Thank you," he added, the words so quiet they were almost inaudible.

"Do not thank me. Simply do not fall off," she replied, but there was no bite to it. She adjusted her grip on his legs and began walking again, her pace steady and, thanks to Shiro's intervention, remarkably smooth.

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