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Something  brewed inside Emmerich like a storm, crackling lightning through his bones, booming thunder in his gut. He’d always felt keenly attuned to his magic, it grew and billowed with his mood. Tumultuous as hail when he was angry or calm as a spring breeze when he was with Elsie or focused on good work. But now it was restless, shifting static sparks beneath his skin and filling him with nervous energy. He didn’t understand it. It had never acted like this before, not when he’d been injured on duty, not when he thought Elsie was in danger, never. What was this? 

“You’re distracting me.” Emmerich looked down at Elsie, busy weaving baskets with a pair of scuttle scales. She gripped a piece of dried grass delicately between her teeth, but her expression was a stormy as Emmerich felt. One of the scuttles took her grass blade and braided it into the basket.  “You’re pacing. What’s gotten into you?” 

Emmerich’s tail snapped in irritation. He jerked away from Elsie and eyed the exit to their den. “I’m going for a walk.” 

Elsie hummed her approval and picked up another piece of grass. Emmerich left her without another glance. He stalked through Homewood at a trot, ignoring the chatter of noulicorns around him. His trot turned into a canter, then a gallop, and he found himself racing hard to the edge of Homewood, chest heaving, legs straining at every pace, stretching himself to his limit. He breached the line of trees, stomping into the heat of the barrens with a shout. 

He stopped, panting hard. What had gotten into him? His eyes rose of their own accord and found the pale line of Grandfather Tree towering in the horizon. 

Oh. It was time. 

Night fell by the time Emmerich heaved himself to Grandfather Tree’s plateau, the sweet sheen soaking his coat chilled him to shivers. He approached the tree with careful steps, diminutive in its shadow. Sand gritted his teeth and tongue, his throat burning from exertion. Emmerich shut his eyes and dipped his head, plucking at the tense strings of his power. Clouds gathered overhead, wrapping the moon in deep grey that burst and drizzled cool rain. The droplets made Emmerich’s skin twitch, but he lifted his open mouth to the skies and wet his parched mouth. 

The water formed puddles at the tree’s massive roots. Emmerich’s offering. Grandfather Tree had called him. Now, would he prove himself worthy?

The ground dipped beneath Emmerich’s weight, suddenly soft and moist. He remembered this sensation from his first visit to the tree, the lurch of being elsewhere, but this wasn’t Erli. Thick wafts of smog clouded his vision and poured poison in his nostrils, while a slurp of thick water bubbled and hissed around him. He was in Blackbriar Bog. His ears strained for the sound of predators. Last time, he’d played judge and executioner for a cat beast, and his merciless decision branded him an atmos user. A gift he’d found efficacious for his work. Grandfather Tree must know what he’d done with his life, his work as a scout protecting Homewood and its inhabitants. This had to be a test of his mettle, something to prove his worthiness and protector of noulicorns. 

The first sound that hit him was not a predator’s yowl. It was a scream, high pitched and singing with fear. ********. He’d waiting too long for something to happen, instead of looking for danger himself. Emmerich cursed himself and took off, leaping into the bog. It splashed high up his coat, landing in thick slops across his face. He shook it from his eyes and surged forward. 

The bog was more clotted than usual, dragging him back with every forward step. He strained against it, teeth gritted, leaping and bounding against the coagulate poison as if tearing himself free from clawing hands. The fog was thick, blinding him. The scream tore through the silence again, deeper and liquid. 

“I’m coming!” Emmerich shouted, ears straining for noise. 

He heard it. The splash of something large flailing in the muck. Emmerich burst through the blinding fog to spot the outline of two great wings, slicing haphazardly through the march. Limbs flailed. A head reared up, sodden mane turned to an outline of bristling spikes. An ascended noulicorn, unidentifiable through the haze, but it didn’t matter. Someone was in danger, and they needed his help. The mud gripped him as he struggled forward, sucking his feet into the thick sludge. He yanked them free with straining muscles, focused on his task. The clawing hands of the bog tried to pull him back, but he wouldn’t let it. 

To his right, another shriek cried out of the fog. The shrill, high-pitched calamity he’d first heard. Emmerich swung his head toward it, squinting through the dark and the build up of reddened irritation from the chemical sting. A foal flailed wildly, her bright eyes wild with fear. The white and panicked glint of them visible even through the mist. The ascended struggled, turned to weakening splashes. Emmerich was running out of time. 

“Hold on! I’m coming!” Just a little longer. He had time. He could do this. 

He could save them both. 

The fawn wouldn’t be able to stay afloat as long as an adult, she’d tire quicker, so Emmerich turned to her first. He bounded forward, but was yanked back by a jolt at his hock. Something caught around his leg and held him fast in place. 

“No,” he snarled. He kicked at it, feeling blinding with his other hoof to cut it away. Every motion missed, and the tug grew tighter, tighter, suffocating the blood flow in his leg. Emmerich gulped a breath of putrid air and dove beneath the surface. What sufficed were seaweed curled a brown web around his leg, cutting pinprick tightness at his joint. Emmerich gnashed his teeth into it and tore. Thorns bit at his tongue, his cheeks, his lips, and he tasted the copper tang of his own blood. The plant ripped with a squelch and Emmerich thrust away from it, bursting out of the surface with a gasp. 

His lungs burned, his throat ravaged with toxin, but he shoved his pain gut deep and cast about wildly for the flailing figures. Both were gone, already under the surf. 

He’d have minutes to save them now. Maybe seconds. How long had they been under while he struggled? He’d never make it. 

Not to both of them. 

Was this punishment for his actions in the previous vision? Was he meant to save a predator that would make a life hunting foals and stalking the injured? Show it mercy when it wanted to fill its belly with his flesh? ******** up tree god drowned a child to punish him? 

The thought became his decision. He twisted away from where he’d last seen the ascended and dove toward the foal. Air bubbled weakly to the surface. Emmerich plunged into the water, eyes wide against the stinging silt. He spotted her near the bottom, her black coat broken with bright sunspots. Thank the ancestors for those or she would have blended into the muck. He eased his teeth around the scruff of her neck and ascended with sharp kicks of his legs. She was still as a corpse when he broke the surface, hanging limply from his mouth. 

She couldn’t be dead. He’d saved her. Emmerich swung her over his back and surged for the nearest peat mound, the burn in his muscles and his throat nothing compared to his hammering sense of dread. The purpose of his being was to save lives, to keep Homewood the bastion of refuge it proclaimed itself to be, so no noulicorn had to grow up in the dismal danger of the barrens. Or the bog. What had he done wrong? Waited too long at the start. He should have jumped into action immediately. 

But if he’d gone the wrong way? If he’d waded further and lost the ascended’s cry from muffled distance. He should have known about the seaweed, been more careful with his steps. 

What had he done wrong? 

Emmerich heaved himself onto a peat mound and lowered himself to his knees, easing the child off his back. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths that blew relief through Emmerich. Alive. He nudged her gently with his nose, relishing the pulse of blood under her sodden skin. 

She coughed and spluttered black bile. 

“You’re okay,” Emmerich whispered, voice hoarse. 

She blinked massive, oil spot eyes, raising her head to stare dazed at his face. 

“I’m Emmerich. I’m going to get you home, alright?” 

“Where’s the other?” she croaked. 

Emmerich reared back, stunned. He’d failed. He was meant to save them both. He’d failed. He should have tried harder, should have known better, should have- 

“My name is Burden,” said the foal, looking out across the swamp to where the ascended drowned. “And his was Choice.”