“You’re throwing yourself away, you fucking nit!” Fuzz snarls, struggling against the hold Lying has on them. Foli claps his hands together with a small smile and props his chin on the top.

“I don’t care,” he replies, sugary sweet and full of teeth.

“So, what, you think you can control it? Understand it? There’s only--”

“Destruction,” Foli interrupts. His patience is worn, true anger simmering in the taut line of his back as he rises to his feet, eyes pinned to Fuzz’s. “It’s gonna shred me alive and leave the pieces forgotten. It’s gonna try to make me regret every choice I’ve made, but I saw my end a long time ago, in a piece of shit town on a piece of shit island. I’ve always known.”

“Then why not go against it? Why embrace it?”

“Because I chose it.”

“But you chose us, too!” Fuzz blurts, jerking against the hold once more, and Foli laughs, the sound biting and full of spite.

“Then maybe I lied.”

“Folivera!” Lying snaps. “That’s enough!”

It’s instant, the way Foli’s gaze snaps to him, takes in the straight-backed posture and sharp tone, very clearly an order, something that he expects Foli to obey, and everything changes. Foli’s eyes harden, his mouth tightens, his back straightens; every part of him defiant as he raises up so Lying has no choice but to tip his head back to keep the gaze.

“The both of you will return to your tents,” he grits out. Fuzz is calm enough when he releases them, expression unreadable.

“Yes, milord,” Fuzz responds, reflexive and empty. They turn and head back to their tent, fixing their tunic as they go, and it’s not until they’re inside that Lying realizes Foli hasn’t moved.

“Walk away. Now.” Lying takes a step closer when Foli’s eyes flash, close enough that they’re nearly pressed chest-to-chest. Foli grins in response, crooked, nasty, feral, and leans in closer.

“Of course, my lord,” he croons. “As you command.”

He bows once, a mockery of obedience, then turns on his heel and walks right out the gate. Lying clenches his jaw at the clear challenge, the disrespect, but lets him go. There’ll be time enough to deal with him later.

The rest of the mercs come rushing out with Fuzz at the head of the pack, but the sheer pressure of the opening portal and their own injuries keeps them from getting close. He takes a step towards the yawning entrance, reaches out a hand to pitch black.

“Foli, don’t!” Fuzz yells. It’s a deterrent to some; the siren’s call to others.

“I’ve gotta know,” Foli replies. He turns his head their way, though his eyes don’t move from the portal. “How could I not?”

The air is heavy, murky, alive with the whisper of ancient tongues. It steals their breath and sears their throat, burned raw as it claws down their lungs, polluting them from the inside-out. The taste of flux is foreign and heavy, mixed with bile at the back of their throat.

“Squire!” Lying barks out; and then again, more alarmed than before, when Fuzz’s tunic slips from his grasping fingers as they stagger against the wind, away from him.

“You have to let it go!” Fuzz manages another step closer, and another two more before a flare from the portal catches them off-guard and they have to embed their sword in the ground, halfway to the hilt.

For one terrifying moment, they feel only air beneath them.

“It’s not worth it! Nothing is worth it!” They cry, when what they mean is ‘nothing is worth us’.  There must be some give in him still-- some loyalty and love, if not sense-- because Foli finally, finally turns to look at them all, their little ragtag group that at some point started to mean home.

And then the portal opens just a little wider.

Tendrils of purple and black reach out to curl around his wrists, neck, legs, chest-- caressing, welcoming, accepting-- and Foli sighs into it.

The storm worsens. Stone splits under the assault, ripped up from the ground and tossed around in chunks; Fuzz can only just hear the clamor of the band scrambling for cover. They can feel the last thread keeping him here beginning to strain.

“Please, just let it go!”

Behind Fuzz, Czol reaches and reaches, gangly limbs stretching to compensate. Like the portal, like Foli, they are calm and untouched; their body pulled forward by the winds instead of thrown back.

“Destroy it!”

A plea, not an order.

Rayse chitters in a panic as she’s knocked from her perch and left desperately scrabbling for shelter in one of the many holes dotting the once pristine chapel floor. She tries to press forward, skittering from one hole to the next, but there’s only so far she can go before the wind drags hard enough on her that some of her feathers are torn out.

Fuzz screams, a last-ditch attempt, while Lying grits his teeth against the urge to do the same. All he can do is watch and brace himself for the fallout because there’s not enough strength in any of them for more.

“Foli!”

And, at last, Foli meets their gaze. His eyes are calm, placid as he’s been since the day they met. Fuzz’s voice rises louder, more insistent over the din, joined by the others who have air enough left, and Foli smiles at his family, eternally fond.

“Yolo.”

Fuzz has time enough to register the despair, think ‘no!’, before the roar of the Outer Lands portal becomes a full-blown wail. It only lasts for a second, the noise so inescapable that it rattles the ground below their feet, bringing them to their knees--

Then it winks out with the hint of a flash, and with it goes the eye.

The portal.

Foli.