#magda;

"Sow, darling, it's been far too long."

"I don't like to make pleasure visits to the sideshow, Caro. I ended up with seven children with that line of thinking- Hymn, sweetheart. this way." It's under a pale moon that Carousel and Sow have settled at the edge of a fleshy precipice to examine the Vaudemire Sideshow below- it's uncharacteristically quiet, this late at night, most of its denizens are asleep- even the lanterns outside Pig's Workshop snuffed for the evening, leaving only the sickly cast of moonlight to light a sea of canvas and banners, well worn desire paths from tent to tent truly visible from up here- and a reminder that the Sideshow's been settled in one place for some time now.

"I'm coming- uff." Sow stops slightly faster than Hymn is expecting, the pearlcatcher bumping into her side and carefully stepping back a moment later, blind eyes seeking the glow of hazy magic from the other women before she settles comfortably near the cliff's drop and tucks her pearl into the loop of her tail. "Thank you for inviting me along, Carousel."

"Ah, don't mention it, lovebug- you're the newest member of the cirque, after all, you should get to enjoy the peace and quiet away from its denizens too." the Cirrus reasons, settling comfortably as well to watch the wind catch and sway the strings of flags hung around the perimeter of the circus grounds. "Besides, you spend so much time harvesting with Pig that I fear you've forgotten the company of others who aren't lumbering murder machines."

"Hey now, I resemble that statement." Sow laughs, stretching her wings and settling into place behind the smaller dragons closer to the cliff's edge with a hum, a clawed hand moving to remove her face mask and sitting it aside, scratching across white-painted scales with an absent hum. "But I do it so much more artfully, truly, I can't blame you for forgetting, Caro." Sow chuckles, Carousel rolling her eyes. "In any case, I appreciate the break... Dethrone's got us chasing leads for his personal vendetta, and that's meant spending more time in Earth than I like to- the Marketplace is the best option for information, after all."

"No leads through Mother's Embrace?" Carousel offers, scratching holes in the ground below herself with an absent foreclaw. "I used to get some pretty capable information off of Timut, once upon a time."

"Not in this case- Dethrone wants someone specific, and nobody at the casino seems to know anything about him. There's a few craftspeople at the Marketplace who seem to have something they're not willing to part with for anything other than more money than either of us have ever seen in our lives, so he's running... recon."

"So Dethrone is casing the Marketplace, and you're here for plausible deniability?" Hymn offers with a playful twitch of her ears, Sow rolling her eyes and tapping her nose with a finger.

"Well when you put it that way, little lady, it sounds like we're doing something wrong. We negotiated as much as we could, but sometimes you have to put the pressure on- A few of them said something about an old wives tale about a tomb nearby- old old, apparently- but they were pretty loose lipped about it for it to be what we were after." Sow sighs, resting her chin in an upturned claw.

"I remember that story- something about a godchild buried beneath earth large enough to cause the fissure the Marketplace is in, right?" Sow nods, Carousel humming softly. "I knew a Skydancer woman who had an interest in the tale- claimed that she was going to discover the treasure of the tomb and claim it for herself- she had made some notable progress, last I saw her. I wonder if she ever found it..."

The conversation about old legends starts to fade into background noise to Hymn, the youngest dragon's sense of magic in place of actual sight keyed into the pale glow of... something, in the distance. It's a careful dance to stand up and clamor over Sow's much larger frame to move to the other side of the cliff carefully, leaning out and spreading her wings for balance to try and determine what the blue haze across the horizon might be.

"Something have your dander up, little lamb?" Sow questions, gaze following the pearlcatcher to the edge.

"Something's out there." She observes softly, pointing across the horizon line. "A glowing sea of... something."

"I don't see anything." Carousel declares, moving to her feet all the same to join Hymn near the edge. "Maybe it's a traveling caravan?"

"No, no, there'd be a mixture of magic, that way, this one is... this one is all one color, and it's big, like it's all the same thing."

"It's an Emperor! Boo!" Sow teases as she joins the others, squinting into the distance. "I don't see anything either."

"I'm telling you, something is coming-" the Seer's insistence is cut off, sudden and without warning, by the presence of another on the cliff they've chosen for their rendezvous.

It is magic all-encompassing, it is a light blinding over Hymn's shoulder, and it is almost as hard to bear looking at for even those with their sight intact- and it is Sow who recognizes the form within it first, her shovel and cairnstones still hung amongst looping silk and finery. "Magda."

"How fare you, Sow?" The light-rung guardian doesn't step closer, simply lingers nearby- Hymn turns down and away- unable to close her eyes against such a flood of magic, it's everything she can do to seek some way to shy away from the brilliance so it doesn't hurt her head. "And I greet you, Carousel and Hymn."

"... Magda as in..."

"Yes, Carousel, which means I have very little time to get this message across: The circus needs to move- and the town you sit beside should be evacuated if it can be helped- another of your... Godfalls, approaches- and you lie directly in its oncoming path."

"A godfall? Great- we'll just-" Sow starts, Magda shaking her head. "What, you got a soft spot for whoever's dropping? Want us not to chase this one?"

"I have no fondness for my fellows in the pantheon, certainly not that which threatens in the distance now. But there is no victory to be won over some insurmountable titan, no large threat high above- a swarm, instead." Magda tries, her head and Hymn's turning in haunting unison toward the glow in the distance. "...you see it, don't you girl?"

"I... I see blue light."

"Look closer."

"I'm trying, it's hard to...." Hymn leans further forward, tries to discern something in the light. "...Wildclaws?" She murmurs. "Yes- it's... it's a bunch of wildclaws, all moving this way, all with the same magic."

"Drones- all bound to the same will. A God in a thousand pieces." Magda murmurs, and Sow shakes her head.

"... The INTERLOPER. I ran into some thronebreakers chasing him recently but-"

"His fall is imminent. He will not die easily. He will consume all that he can in the meantime. He already is."

"....they're shredding anything they find- beastclans- I- I see other dragons down there and-" Hymn declares, stepping back from the edge. "... At this rate they'll overrun the circus in...."

"you have two days." With that, Magda is gone as quickly as she's made herself known, Sow cursing under her breath.

"Spend how long being a cryptic old bitch and suddenly she's got words for days to try and talk me out of hunting a fall?" She scoffs. "Hymn, go wake Pig."

"And tell him to evacuate?"

"...Of course not. Have him meet me on Ridgespine Overlook- he'll know where it is- and to bring his cleaver."

"Sow, we just witnessed divine intervention and-"

"And I don't fuck with gods unless it's for a paycheck or a harvest, now she can tell me to get out all she wants." Sow spreads her wings, beating them once, twice, three times, before launching herself up into the air, holding in place for only a moment. "But she's not my goddess- and I need my hunting partner, so go wake Pig, send him to the Overlook, and you two can evacuate whoever you want afterward." She's gone a moment later too, vanishing toward another high perch closer to the oncoming swarm.

"...."

"I'll get the circus packing, Hymn, go get The Pig, it's fine."

Hymn spares a glance for the pack of wildclaws below, for their strange, unearthly movements among the glow.

"Hideous living things... traipsing about with their... free will." The valley below is alive with life even in the darkness of night, the constant chattering of construction crews harvesting and working bone into useable pieces for the slowly growing marketplace and housing in the body of the fallen 'God' below. "Now we are working at a deficit, and they are celebrating as if they've been given a feast- what a pitiful performance he gave. Almost not worth the effort retrieving him."

"Puppeteer, talking to yourself again?" The Skydancer woman adjusts her cane in her hand, head inclining toward the sound of another arrival's voice- the cloying, perfumed scent of roses making it clear who the arrival is, even if she can't see the imperial sidling up behind her, exposed golden bones entangled with flora catching in the gentle breeze passing through the Emperor's Wake. "I thought we were past that little... idiosyncrasy."

"Silence yourself, Heathen. I am not talking to myself. Magda is here."

"Ah yes, of course, we can't do this without Miss mud and detritus can we? Where have you gone then, Maggie?" His voice carries, and as he turns his head to look around, leaning into his spear for balance, Mithos scowls. "Mm, I see. You've misplaced your gravedigger, Puppeteer- perhaps we should keep a better eye-"

"....." He's cut off by the sudden, violent thud of a large, thick stone, humming with magic and depicting an ignited brazier in the center. ".... Marker."

"Weaver's blessings you lumbering oaf you could have caught my foot with that-"

"Stop your complaining Mithos!" Puppeteer snaps, feathered frills flicking up in a display of displeasure. "I spend enough time listening to you moan about that filthy child of yours to tolerate you complaining about doing your job. Help her place the stone."

"Who died and made you-"

"Encore. Now lift the stone." Mithos rolls his eyes, bending to pick up one side of the stone- pushing it into place as Magda watches on silently, filthy gloved claws gripping her shovel handle as she nervously sways back and forth. "It's quite alright, Magda, we will inter him after we've had a little talk, is all... He must answer for this utterly miserable display. It is one thing to die, it is surely another to do so in a way that gives so many of these.... unworthy access to our strength. Not negligible of which being your filthy harlequin and my disobedient doll... Tch."

"So really, you're throwing a tantrum because the Sow's made a purse out of the pig's ear you saddled her with?" Another voice chimes, then proceeds to laugh at his own terrible joke. "Crux and I got held up, apparently, the crippling guilt of a clan leader who failed her people cannot wait the twenty minutes it would have taken to get this done."

"My pack is starved for the hunt, Stygian, not that you would understand that... layabout as you are." The tundra's armor clanks against itself as he extends a wing, a pack of braying wraith hounds trapped within the snowfields displayed on the underside. "...We are sated. Until we know what Encore has to say for himself." Cold air spills from skeletal maw, the thick haze starting to occlude the overlook the five of them stand upon from the ground below, as Magda continues to dig.

"How much longer is this going to take?" Mithos questions, Stygian raising a brow.

"You got a hot date or something, Mithos? Some party to get to in amongst our centuries of free time?" The imperial scoffs, but the skydancer continues, smirking as he removes his tankard from his belt and taking a lengthy swig. "Because I can always give Selv or Lacrymosa a ring, if you're too busy for us, oh no, wait, no I can't, they're a little busy in dragonhome, cleaning up after-"

"I get it. Shall we make a jab about my dead beholder, too?" The argument is ended before it starts, though, when Magda lofts something fleshy and scrunched from the hole in the ground, tossing it to the ground beside Puppeteer's feet.

"Encore... Here."

"Ha, I knew the luscious golden locks were a wig."

"Shut. Up. Stygian." Puppeteer snaps now, holding one clawed hand aloft. "Thank you Magda."

"...Leave?"

"No. You are part of this trial, so you stay." The guardian woman sighs, reaching her own hand to absently stroke at the snout of the skull hung over her wing. "This will not take long." Puppeteer jabs at the fleshy amalgam- revealed now in the haze to be a heart- with the sharp end of her cane, filthy black magic contorting through the meat beneath- until the heart itself shifts, shape changing, the sound of creaking bone and squelching flesh filling the air just the same as Crux's ghostly frost for a short time, until in the place of it lies... Encore.

Stripped of magic, of Godhood, and made of seemingly only a small amount of the flesh that once made him whole, it is still what once was Encore lying filthy and bare in the grass below a scowling Puppeteer with the previous grandiose presence that still lives within those who stand around him now completely vacant. It is also the fallen spirit who's bones now thrive with activity below who, upon regaining enough awareness to speak- begins begging for his life.

"Puppeteer- I- I did not-"

"Did not intend to die or did not intend to do so in such a miserable way that now we are at risk of more hunters at our door? Because you surely did both. Someone get him some clothes. I am not having this discussion with him in the nude."

A ragged, bloodstained bolt of cloth, and then another, finds itself thrown at Encore- who takes a moment to gather himself- bones and flesh mangled and showing- exposed heart muscle making up more parts than it certainly should, vascular and tangling his hands and feet. He is not whole and the pieces they could find are struggling to resemble what he should be- he dresses- he tries to pretend his wings aren't flaps of slick organ, instead of thick leather. Whatever has become his stomach turns.

"What did you do to me...?"

"Well, I mean, you were thousands of feet tall and the size of a frigate, we had to make some exceptions so you could answer for yourself. I just wish those exceptions were less wet... Magda! Get back here." Mithos snarks, turning to catch the retreating figure of Mag slowly trying to slink away in the wintery haze. It's spreading, now, blanketing the bones below and causing less winterized, less hardy workers to hesitate in the sharp, biting chill.

"Not right...." She insists softly. "Cannot see but know it is not right." Her voice rasps, and Puppeteer rolls her eyes.

"We are not here to be bleeding hearts- well, none of us but Encore, hm?" She snickers, Stygian and Mithos laughing under their breath as well as Crux soothes the pack contained within his wings- they've gone from silent to a fever pitch, howling and wailing not unlike the wicked, biting wind. "It seems the huntsman has made his judgement already... You failed us, Encore."

"There is something beneath Lightning that knows of us, it is what killed me- it spoke with the voice of a woman- it told me- it insisted-"

"Ah, so we're listening to voices from beneath the sand now? I tire of this fool, Puppeteer, I say we set the hounds, and be done with him." Mithos grunts, examining glittering golden claws for a long moment. "He was sent on a simple outing, he failed and beyond that, now he's provided these mortals with the ability to better seek the throne. He's endangered all of us."

"Fine. I grow weary of the living anyway. We take our vote now. Those in favor of Encore's return to the earth? Mithos?"

"Nay."

"Stygian?"

"Nay."

"Crux?"

"Nay...."

".... Magda?"

"....." The guardian remains silent- swallowing tightly- Encore turning to her suddenly- she cannot see him but she can hear it in his voice, the way he's been twisted into something disgusting- something unholy, through Puppeteer's touch. She lifts her tail, worrying nervously at it with both hands.

"Maggie- Maggie please- don't- you don't have to go along with this-"

"Majority.... Rule... But I vote... Yay."

"Ah, Tragic it means nothing, here, isn't it, Maggie?" Mithos snorts. "Well, Encore, those are the breaks, huh? Too bad. Maybe in another thousand years we'll see you at the Pantheon Yule parties, but for now? Crux, I hope those dogs of yours are hungry- got some prime meat on offer."

"We hunt relentlessly. Until your guilt leaves your heart, Encore- The Pack will pursue." He hesitates, if only for a moment- the bleach white of his skull almost... sad. "...As my friend, as a former colleague... I will offer you a headstart- you have until the fog passes to get as far as you can. Once it lifts- there will be no freedom from our pursuit- until we are fed."

The Huntsman's wings unfurl again, his loyal pack spilling from within, soon surrounded by several wraithhounds, their bodies gaunt with hunger, their eyes trained ahead on their meal.

So Encore runs. With the haze of safety rapidly dwindling, and new, wrong flesh catching on rocks and trees, he runs- as he knows that death would have been the kindest thing his peers could offer him- and should Crux's hounds catch up, it will never come- eternity under their teeth and claws would make his Collapse look like child's play.