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Pax had been quite panicked to realize that Autumn had met THAT ONE. Not one of the friendlier spirits, but THAT ONE, the one who burned. In its frenzy, it had barely remembered that humans were unused to the appearances of those such as itself, and only remembered to take up its human... ish... form upon startling an elderly human. The place where it found Autumn was a large, white building, full of smells that hurt Pax's nose. Still it persisted, even as smaller humans spoke to it in loud tones that hurt its ears.

That was how Pax came to Autumn's room trailing five security guards, three nurses, and a very confused psychotherapist.

"Autumn," it said, its voice raised for perhaps the first time since their very first meeting. "What is. Happening! To you!" The machines were terrifying. It hurried over to her, all six of its eyes wide and hands fluttering nervously.

Pax's little train of followers dispersed upon seeing Autumn was familiar with her visitor. In another hospital, that wouldn't have flown, but Ashdown General was a tiny community deal. It didn't know to be grateful for this, and it sat on the bed beside Autumn without stopping to ask. "It is. Barbarism. Machines... Did you not. Wear your salve?"

Its hands stilled when they found Autumn's, treading carefully around the strange device that snaked into her. "I am sorry," it said. "I did not mean. To be away. So long."

Pax frowned, and enveloped Autumn's offered hand with both of its own. "Yes," it said. "She is well." But Autumn was not. It couldn't keep its hands still, pressing its dark fingers to every strange machine in sight. Its brow furrowed and its lips curved definitively downward.

"I want to help," said Pax.

"Be still," said Pax, and it closed its eyes for a long moment. A breeze rustled into the room, fresh and smelling of peppermint. It didn't cure all of Autumn's ills, whatever it was Pax had done, but it lessened them. "You are. Tired," it asked, tilting its head. The flowers draped upon its antlers hung between Autumn and Pax like a beaded curtain. "May I. Sit with you. For a time?"

It took some weird maneuvering, but Pax managed to twist around enough to press a gentle little peck of a kiss to Autumn's forehead. "Shall I. Tell you a story?" Stories were great healers, so it heard. Humans seemed to like them.

"I will try. To speak normally," it promised, which was none of the things Autumn had said. It hummed for a moment, some odd little atonal melody that was not particularly pretty nor particularly mysterious.

It closed its eyes, all six of them, and began, "Once upon a time, long before there was you, there was a man. He was beloved and he was feared. He walked among the people. He was kind to us. But there was war inside him. Anger that festered and boiled. He bowed to no rules, though he knew them." Here it paused, taking deep breaths as if it had been tired out by the words it had gone through. "He was afraid, Autumn. He feared oblivion like you fear it. His will was stronger than all of ours. He wanted to control. To be safe. He hunted safety the way you do. He fought us all. We caged him, and hoped he would die."

Pax lowered its eyes. "He will never die. Not until the cycle is broken. Not until. Our Heliodora is dead, too. The children. They must die for the cycle. To break."

It fell silent. "But that is not. A good story. It is... the most important story. That I know."

Pax sighed, the most human gesture it had made since it began to take this humanoid form. "I know a story. About a princess. And her family. Would that suit?"

So Pax spun Autumn a wondrous story about a princess and her country bordered by lamps that glowed and never went out, and the cruel villain who tried to douse them. It proved to be a fairly able storyteller, if halting at times; and by the time it reached the climax of the story, the sun had begun to set.

"I should go," said Pax sadly, having stopped on a cliffhanger that would've made Benihoff and Weiss envious. "I have been gone quite a long time."