He leans forward slightly, studying the readout. If his calculations were correct, the work would be completed by tomorrow morning and when Eileen returns the two of them would be able to discuss how best to spend the resources.

He confirms.

The forest wears its quiet like a ritual garment, heavy and deliberate. Dew clings to the undersides of leaves in translucent beads, and the light that filters through the canopy is soft enough to feel intentional, as if the morning has chosen to arrive rather than simply occurring. Fenn moves about at a steady pace, paws pressing gently into the moss woven trail, each step a quiet agreement with the path rather than a claim upon it.

Trailing behind, the Fluffy Tumblers ramble about in loose formation, their shaking bodies bouncing around like children do when they encounter the wonders of deep puddles and soft rain. One of them carries a badge too in its mouth, a medallion of bark ringed with twine and stitched fungus, holding it high with exaggerated importance. While the other two argue back and forth over who chewed the badge first and who gets first dibs on the role, their voices rising and falling in casual murmurs. But never loud enough to disturb the underbrush or the breathing hush that surrounds the trail.

The woods themselves though feel aware today, even if not quite yet alert. The ferns along the path curl in familiar patterns, though some lean in new directions, reaching toward a part of the forest that was not there last week, or perhaps only pretending to do so to feign knowledge that it can be something else. Trees too seem to rearrange themselves when they are watched too long and Fenn has learned over the last few days to not question this, for the orbs of light affected the world far to firmly to easily quantify it. Instead he simply notes what is true today and holds it beside what had been true before.

Eventually they approach a creek bend, it is here that Fenn watches a mote of white drift upward from the root line, delicate and slow, as if reluctant to leave the ground. It shivers in place for a moment at seeing them in person before then disappearing into the shadow between two stones without touching anything. All four them watch it leave with a small turn of their heads until the moment is broken by the badge wielding tumbler who begins to hum, something tuneless but rhythmic. The others joining in with low, broken notes that almost resemble a song but not quite.

Moving on, Fenn continues to lead until the trail narrows, the group following in tow. The trees here lean closer together, not with menace, but with purpose, as though trying to remember something important. To the left, a tree that once bore deep scoring wounds now carries a single bloom, pale pink and quivering at the edges like it has not fully decided to exist. One of the Tumblers even stops to sniff it, then makes a small sound in its throat, not a laugh, not a growl, something closer to reverence.

The wind then turns. Fenn pauses, ears lifting slightly, tail held low. There is nothing specific in the change, no scent he can name or movement he can point to, but something in the stillness is different now. It has taken on the shape of a question that has not yet been asked. The forest is doing more then listening today, instead, today the forest needed to have someone listen to it.

They do not speak when the path opens again. The shift is subtle in its entirety and yet feels barely enough to name, but each of them feels it none the less. The trail grows too straight, too clean, as if something has pressed it flat from above. The air is quiet in a way that does not belong to silence, but to the deliberate absence of it, like a breath being held just out of reach. Somewhere up ahead, something is waiting without eyes.

Fenn slows, the rhythm change feeling natural, the Tumblers closing ranks behind him, their instincts outweighing habit. Paws falling softer on the soil their claws curl slightly inward, ears lower even the badge is tucked away too without comment.

Between two narrow trees ahead, barely wider than their own shoulders, the forest has been interrupted. Suspended at head height is a crude effigy, knotted into the crook of a bent branch. At first glance, it appears as another forest bundle, the sort of debris the wind arranges without effort. But as they draw closer, the details pull themselves into clarity. Wax, pale and cracked. Threads of hair, braided tightly into loops. Splinters of charred bone. Cloth, not woven by forest hands, but torn from something familiar that a child might hang onto, maybe a blanket, maybe a sleeve.

The Tumblers stop several paces away. One of them lowers its body as if its spine is remembering something it made to forget. Another lets out a soft, involuntary bark that immediately dies in its throat.

The effigy begins to hum, it is not music for it is soilless. It is more like something shaped in the roundness of music and filled with the wrong things. The sound a pulse without melody, like a lullaby pulled from beneath cold water. Finn finds his footing and steps forward. The air thickens as he does, not with heat but with meaning, something old and misapplied.

But he does not falter for he can tell with certainty that at the base of the effigy, something twitches.

Not part of the structure but from what sits within it.

Fenn rears up gently, front paws braced against the trunk, and tugs the effigy loose with his teeth. It comes apart with a dry snap, the spell unraveling as if surprised to be interrupted. Wax flakes fall like dead petals and the humming suddenly stops.

Inside the wreckage, half cradled by burnt cloth and binding twine, is a creature. No larger than a rabbit, though longer in limb and stranger in shape. Its fur is patchy, or perhaps its skin was never meant to have fur at all. One of its eyes is not an eye, but a luminous sigil carved into the bone beneath the socket. The other is closed, its eyelid fluttering as if maggots were wiggling around underneath.

The creature shivers as Fenn uncovers its lair and then the creature tries to fold itself smaller. Not from pain or worry or fear or frustration but from instruction. As if it was told to wait specifically for them and is only now just starting to complete its...

One of the tumblers from behind Fenn mutters, almost to itself, "It isn't finished." Another finds itself crouching lower and the third makes a sound too quiet to translate.

So Fenn sets the ruined effigy down and noses gently at the bindings still clinging to the creature's limbs. They are warm, vibrating faintly and rich with a sticky residue that feels designed to preserve the form. He bites through them one at a time, working slowly, carefully, as if disarming a nest.

When the last thread snaps, the creature lets out a small, dry breath that allows it to simply curl tighter into itself squeezing out an object hidden in its fur, a soft scrap of cloth, stained with soot, something that it clings to out of desperation.

Above them, a faint shimmer of light begins to form. A mote, barely more than a flicker, lifts itself out of the creature's breath and begins to rise. It glows pale blue, edged with a soft gray of dried ash, and hovers just above the ruined bindings.

+1 Pale Blue Mote: Grief Released

And with it the creatures body settles into a shape that suggests finality. A stillness to it that does not look like sleep, but like a symbol clinging to its last command. For whatever purpose had once burned behind the sigil eye is gone now, but it has not been replaced by anything but perhaps the absence of life.

No one speaks though and even the Tumblers do not try and approach. For they seem to understand the tragedy, not because they were told, but because some silences are worth remembering the shape of.

The smallest one even lowers its body to the ground to rest its head on its paws, eyes never leaving the creature. The largest keeping its distance to watch the woods instead, as if something might arrive to collect what has found finality here.

Fenn watches until the breathing stops.

Then he turns, and the two Tumblers follow.

While the smallest one, just before leaving, touches the edge of the cloth with its nose and pulls it gently over the creature's head. Then it follows the others on their path leading deeper into the forest ahead.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The silence does not lift as they walk. Not after the death witnessed or after the respectfulness of their watch. The silence lingers instead, not as weight, but as pressure, a slow atmospheric narrowing of senses.

Fenn leads them deeper, through brush that thins without resistance and trails that feel too well cleared. With no bramble to pulls at their fur and no leaves to crunch down underfoot, the path ahead feels too quiet, too open. It feels like walking through a memory that no longer belongs to anyone but is desperate to find the beginning of itself.

None of them speak, though one of the Tumblers huffs now and then, as if trying to blow the silence off its nose. Another lags slightly, not tired, only watchful. They are starting to remember now that feeling once gets when it is reminded that it was taught mostly how to be hunted.

It is the tree that stops them in their tracks.

Split trunk and black-veined with old burn scars, it stands crooked in the heart of a shallow clearing. Its roots are tangled and exposed, as if the earth spat it out but didn't quite finish the job. At its base lies what remains of another effigy, cracked wax, a frayed braid of hair, something that might have once been a tooth or a claw or both.

Fenn approaches first. The air here feels brittle. Like paper held too close to flame. There's no smell, no heat. Just the suggestion that something finished expressing itself and those who watched it, wanted it to remember how badly it feels to be maimed.

He circles the trunk once. Halfway around, the marks begin.

Carved low, just above the roots, are glyphs, similar to the ones from his dreams, of the binding, of the knife, of his sacrifice above the altar.

Fenn raises a paw and touches them.

They are shallow, but stubborn. Not magical, but resistant. He scrapes once, and a fleck of bark comes away, not cleanly, but with effort, as if the tree does not want to forget what has been written into it. As if its reluctant to give away the carving, as if painful glyphs wrote upon it defend it from future violence.

Behind him, the Tumblers have stopped. The middle one steps forward, then shrinks back again. Its voice, when it comes, is barely sound.

"The script is Quill work."

The largest grunts low. "Much larger then it should be."

Neither says anything more. Fenn begins scraping again, harder this time, until the wood bleeds sap like ink. The glyphs distorting under his claw as he continues to erases each glyph, piece by piece, until a ring with no bark circles the entire tree, a mote slipping forth from the gap in an exhale

+1 Brown Mote: A Stand Taken

The final clearing the patrol comes across, should also not be here, though it behaves politely enough that it almost feels considerate in its existence. Sitting there in a shallow bowl of earth, surrounded by trees that lean away from its edges it sits stiffly in posture of something trying not to be blamed for its presence. Yet it is clear the place did not exist yesterday for inside the ring is a lack of underbrush, fallen twigs and old leaves. All of which is impossible given the weight of the fall season leading soon to winter.

Fenn steps first. His paws make no sound where there should be some. The Tumblers follow close behind, formation forgotten. The smallest presses close to the middle one, who keeps its head low. The largest watches the tree line again even before they reach the center. None of them speak though as if the quiet here does not permit it.

In the center of the clearing an altar waits. It does not rise from the ground, but hunches there, built from pieces that do not belong to each other. A teacup split neatly down its middle sits center mass. A folded cloth, stained and charred at the corners. Bent knitting needles bound together by scorched ribbon and hair. The kind of hair cut and preserved, bundles into burial wraps before being buried into a crypt. A kettle hangs too above the altar, suspended from a low branch by a thread that doesn't move with the air. It drips wax from its spout in slow, deliberate drops. Each one landing with a sound too soft to echo, and yet each sound carries further than it should.

The wax smells wrong. Not of candles or pine needles or sweetness, but of something closer to bone left too long in the ground.

But most profane of all, black motes linger overhead, drifting in slow, deliberate spirals above the altar. They do not dance like the other motes for they seem to hover with purpose, pulsing like dream sick insects pretending to be stars. Their hum is not quite sound, but it presses against the base of the skull with the weight of something badly tuned. The frequency trembling now and then breaking and rebuilding itself

Fenn stops at the edge of the clearing and the Tumblers follow suit. Their paws settle into the moss but make no sound. The smallest huffs once through its nose, then bites it closed again. Their bodies are tense, but not in fear. They are listening to the hum too, the place was being watched, or guarded, or both.

Something would have to be done.

Then, from the forest behind them, a green mote appears. It floats in gently, its color pale at the center and deeper toward the edges. It is followed by more. White motes emerge from between the trees with the slow elegance of memory being unwrapped. Several blue motes trail close behind them, their light dim but persistent. Together they form a shape in the air like a wide fan, a soft winged gathering of intent, drifting toward the altar in silence.

More arrive too, a pair of yellow motes gliding low and warm. Then brown ones, heavier in motion, trailing bits of weight behind them like crumbs of old purpose. They take positions close to the ground, nestling between stones and against roots as if ready to shoulder something too old to name.

The air does not charge with tension. It stills instead and Fenn watches. The Tumblers do not bark, do not growl, but one of them steps forward a pace, then halts again. It is clear of all those rescued by grandma, clear that the time has come for them to gather here to act against the profane might of a dungeon twisting by grief.

The black motes hesitate now. They wobble once in place, then break formation, spreading wider. Their hum deepens, slipping just beneath hearing and circling the edge of instinct instead. The largest drops slightly in altitude and emits a faint glimmer of white light, a mimicry so slight it almost looks real. Then the black motes swell again, rejecting the color, and dives.

The white motes rise to meet them. Their motion is slow but their presence is whole. One makes contact, and a black mote shrinks on impact, folding inward as if turned back on itself. Another white mote is struck too early and disintegrates in a soft burst of dust. Several black motes press forward, emboldened by a brief success, only to be scattered moments later as a blue mote cuts through the air, brushing against them in tandem.

It then that yellow motes sally forth to hold the center mass, their bodies glowing like remembered sun. A black mote approaches the wall quivering at its edges, its form fluttering like burnt silk. Then, without impact, it sinks downward and dissolves.

A brown mote drifts then too directly into the base of the altar, tucking itself beneath a cracked plate of stone, vanishing. A moment later, the ground beneath it seems to breathe. So another brown mote slides up the curve of a bent kettle and lingers. The kettle swinging slightly in response, not pulled, but nudged by attention.

The sky above the clearing is filled now. Light without brightness, color without spectacle. Each Motic Resonace a message moving according to the weight of the emotion it carries and yet still action is required of the physical team to turn the tide.

Fenn steps forward first, the Tumblers moving with him, one to each side and one just behind, forming a shape without planning to, an old habit of togetherness that makes space for what needs to be done. Their posture is not combative. There is no aggression in their motion, only a decision made, the decision to protect against the profane.

The altar does not change as they approach for it sits in a hollow of its own silence, surrounded by silent motes fighting overhead. Still changes have started, the kettle no longer drips, even if it still hangs still from its thread, its scorched belly catching no light. The cloth wound around its base having loosened, curling in the air like it is trying to return home.

Pressing his paw gently against the base where the first layer of bindings intersect, stitched cloth, bent needles, a sliver of bone burned black at the edges. He takes the time not to tear it, not to strike it and he waits until the cloth yields slightly under pressure, until the weave acknowledges him, and then he pulls.

The first thread comes away like breath.

The Tumblers join him, quietly. The largest noses the kettle's handle until it swings once and catches on a low branch. It is heavy and it unbalances the creature but it does let the kettle be thrown aside. instead it makes sure that it arrives gently on the moss, where it can cool with a purpose. The middle one finds a folded cloth once bright, now grimed with soot and carries it delicately to a stone near the edge of the clearing, where it smooths the fabric down with the side of its face. The smallest gathers the broken teacup, two halves and one tiny shard, and sets them down inside a hollow root, like a gift returned.

They work like this for some time, in a slow methodical rhythm that honors the individual pieces pilfered to build the profane shrine and they do so without speaking or rushing just as grandma had taught them to do.

The process allowing them to discover, the many scraps of domesticity embedded in the frame. A spoon bent in half. A sock, child sized, tied to a cracked mug handle. Everything that once lived in warmth has been placed here with the wrong kind of prayer. Fenn takes them all, noting many of them to be older than even grandma and finds a respectful place for each of them, The Tumblers helping at each step.

Each item is given its own resting place. Not to recreate what once was, but to deny what was done to it, the meanings forced upon it, the functions it was made to serve. Not to repair but as a quiet refusal to let harm continue to define its shape.

When the last layer of cloth is pulled free, the stone base is revealed. It is bare now and the socket carved into its center is clean and waiting. No one touches it and the Tumblers step back too for even the moss seems to hesitate near it.

But Fenn finds a solution, a length of thread, longer then the others, dropped from one of the cloths. Chosen, Fenn presents it too the stone base, laying it down flatly against the lip of the socket.

The altar suddenly becomes an altar no more, only a scattering of things returning to themselves.

The tension in the clearing softening, the trees no longer leaning away. The canopy adjusting, ever so slightly, and a shaft of light that had once been trapped along the edges finds its way to the center and rests there.

Fenn steps back. The Tumblers falling in behind him, quiet and alert. One of the yellow motes too has settled near Fenn's shoulder, pulsing like a heartbeat learning a new rhythm.

For what was built has been unmade. What had been taken has been handled with care.

A gift grandma taught them, a gift they would always share, the gift of disassembling with reverence.

And in doing so, they return the pieces to memory, so that no altar can be raised again.

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