“Bye everyone.”

Cat was standing near the gates to Jora’s Keep, back in their desert attire, which was beautiful if not out-of-place, and standing next to their griffon. Lyra had probably taken several days to fly to the Shiverpeaks, only to spend another several days flying her rider back to Elona. Their home.

“Goodbye,” Jory said. She’d miss the small sylvari, but not as much as she already missed Kas. Cat gave her an unexpected hug, then waved to their brother, before taking off.

“Well, that makes things easier,” Styran said. “Don’t have to worry about them for a while.”

“I’m kind of sad I didn’t get a hug.”

“Neither Rytlock or I got hugs either, Braham.”

“They at least waved at you. And Rytlock’s not here.”

“I’m their brother.”

“Why did Jory get a hug?”

Jory shrugged. Styran shrugged too, despite knowing the answer.

They love her more, the wind whispered, they all love her more.

“Shut up Jormag.”

No-one cares about you, Braham.

“No-one cares about YOU, Jormag.”

“Braham, stop talking to Jormag, no-one cares.”

I told you so...

“You know what,” Styran said, “I think it would be good for everyone if we just took a break from all this. We could head back to Grothmar Valley and watch some concerts.”

Jory agreed. “I might talk to some more Ash Legion spies. Maybe we could get one to replace Cat. We’ll need another fighter now she’s gone.”

“Sounds good. Braham, let’s go see Metal Legion.”

“I thought you told me not to listen to them. You said their songs were all propaganda.”

“Yeah, but they sound much better than Jormag.”

I’m offended.

“True.”

Braham, how dare you.

“Jormag’s voice sounds alright,” Jory said. Braham and Styran stared at her.

Thank you.

“It’s just every word they say is fucking annoying.”

Marjory!

“And they’re speaking a lot at the moment, so I’ll happily leave right now.”

There had been a time when Styran had been able to look Trahearne in the eye.

“You can’t ignore me forever, Commander.”

They’d welcomed it, actually, whether it be the approval of a mentor, the trust of a friend, or, later, the stolen glances that were the only way they’d allowed themselves to be anything more than Marshall and Commander until the Pact had stopped Mordremoth.

“Honestly, I’d expect this kind of behaviour from your siblings, not you.”

Styran continued slowly polishing their axe, still deliberately ignoring Trahearne as they do so. After they had finished with Veilrender, they moved to the now-repaired Caladbolg, which hadn’t been used in some years - neither they nor Trahearne had needed it, after all, for varying reasons.

“Commander!”

They could feel Trahearne move closer, see the purple glow he emitted grow brighter across Caladbolg, pronouncing their shadow against the blade. They finished polishing the blade and moved to place it in the decorative holder they’d had Ren (the Vegan) design in exchange for helping her out with advice for a first date (they’d suggested she take her date to a bar in the Grove. Most of what they served there was Vegan purely for lack of animals around to make products from.) Caladbolg had rested on it as a monument since, slowly gathering dust as a small reminder of the victories against -

“Styran. Please.”

The noise Caladbolg made when it fell was a strange mix of a hollow wooden thump and a sharp metallic clang.

“Styran. Please.” Trahearne had begged them as he’d stood trapped by roots of Mordremoth, convinced and worrying about the Jungle Dragon still festering in his mind as a seed.

“No. No no no no no n-” they’d rambled as he pointed to Caladbolg, the scar on the side of his face making them unable to meet his eyes before he’d taken his hands and directed their face to look at him.

“Please. Look at me.”

“Just leave, Trahearne.” They bent to pick up Caladbolg again, ignoring the way their hands now shook as they placed it more firmly on the shelf. “I need time to myself.”

“You need help, Styran. Let me help you. You don’t need to suffer alone.”

“And yet, here I am. I’m fine, believe me. If something was the issue, I’d go back to therapy. For now, I’m enjoying the break I have with my siblings.”

Trahearne’s steps were silent as he crossed the room, reaching for Caladbolg with a silent sigh, gently running a hand over it. “You deserve to be happy, Commander,” he murmured as he turned back to Styran, the scar running down half of his face a stark contrast against the rest of him, the only glow coming through being the purple running around his eyes. “Let me help you be happy again.”

“You can’t help, Marshal. Not anymore.” Styran turned away once again,  moving to grab a journal left on their desk and sit down, trying their best to ignore the purple glow coming from behind them. “Please, just leave.”

“You know I can’t do that.” Trahearne was right and annoyingly stubborn. That wouldn’t stop Styran from trying to ignore him, though. 

“I can wish, Trahearne. I can wish.”

There was silence for a good few minutes, and Styran almost allowed themselves to think he’d gone despite the light being emitted from the Sylvari behind them. The only noise that filled the room was that of breathing and Styran’s Pen scratching against paper. It was almost peaceful.

All peace comes to an end. That was a lesson Styran knew well. 

“What are you writi—”

The door burst open. Catragna never knew how to knock, or, more likely, didn’t care about a social custom she deemed silly and not worth her time, and so never thought to. “STYRAN! I hope you aren’t busy, we have to go to Amnoon!”

Said brother blinked. “Wha - I - yes, I’m not busy, what do you need now, Cat?”

“You sure about that? I could have sworn I heard talking coming from this room.” Canach was behind Cat, looking mildly annoyed and extremely tired - unusual, given the daylight outside. Styran almost pitied him for also being dragged into Cat’s scheme.

They didn’t have to look behind themself to know that Trahearne was gone, only a quickly fading purple butterfly being any evidence he was there at all. 

“Just my clones. It’s all I can do for intelligent conversation here, given that I live with you two.” The half-truth was spun with just enough affectionate sarcasm that Canach and Cat didn’t question it too much, though they didn’t miss the sceptical glance from the oversized cactus.

Even concern for his sibling couldn’t override Canach’s overwhelming natural instinct to sass everyone he conversed with. “They say that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, you know.” 

“That does explain a lot about Cat…”

“Rude,” Cat said, but she looked pleased somehow. Almost as if she had secretly taken Styran’s remark as a compliment. “Anyway, Amnoon, now, let’s go.”

“Alright, Cat, alright. But if this ends in you burned and passed out in front of a statue again, I will leave you there to Waypoint by yourself.”

“Agreed.”

That got a half-hearted laugh from all three siblings, before Cat was back to bouncing on her feet and itching to move after exactly one point three six two four seconds.

“Anyway, I’m going to get the Raptors ready. Let’s go!”

The smile Styran had on their face was tired and affectionate as they ruffled Cat’s leafy hair. “You go on ahead. I need to grab a few things first.”

“Don’t be too slow!” And Cat was gone, wisps of shadow all that remained where they’d stood.

“Oh, for the love of - well, I guess we should get going. Let me just grab Veilrender, and -”

“Brother.”

Styran paused and waited for Canach to continue speaking, their axe now in their hand.

“Who did it look like this time?”

“It’s getting worse. I’ve never heard of Mesmers summoning clones that look like others unintentionally. I’m thinking it could be related to the overwhelming amounts of magic Cat and I have been exposed to over the years, but -”

“That doesn’t answer the question, Styran.”

Styran’s next words, uttered after a pause and a sigh, made Canach’s blood - or whatever the Sylvari equivalent was - go cold.

Catragna charged into the Grand Sahil on her raptor, glowing with excitement. Styran and Canach both looked up wearily. Their sibling was literally glowing, a bright blood red identical to Styran’s that usually only showed at night. “We’re going to the Desolation,” she declared, Aurene’s crystalline wings forming for an instant as she launched off the mount’s back, landing on the table and scattering the sandstorm cards. She stood there triumphantly for a moment, while Styran stared at her, bewildered and mildly annoyed as they were actually winning for once, and Canach sighed. “Well, come on,” she said.

Canach trudged outside, and Styran followed suit. “Why?” they said. They didn’t really care about the answer, and made that clear with their tone. Cat answered anyway.

“I heard that Abbadon hates dancing,” she said. Styran wondered how Cat was going to somehow turn that into a reason to visit the Desolation. “I found a statue of Abaddon in the Desolation a few weeks ago, so I was thinking…”

“That we should all go dance in front of it,” Canach finished. “You know, I think this idea is neither good nor worth my time.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say, but it’s better. Let’s go do that.”

“What were you going to say then?”

Cat shrugged. “Can’t remember now. It had something to do with djinn, and maybe a hydra.”

“I don’t see how Abbadon and his thoughts on dancing are relevant to that.”

“Oh, I just thought that was interesting. Right, are we ready to go? Styran?”

Styran hadn’t spoken for a while, and their face looked quite blank before they nodded, and the three sylvari began their journey. Well, the two sylvari and a mesmer clone. The real Styran had made the most of Cat and Canach’s short conversation by slipping away and leaving a clone in their place. They’d been practicing creating mounts, and the skill was finally coming in handy. They watched the raptors, two real and one illusionary, turn into tiny dark specks on the desert sand, shimmering slightly with the afternoon heat.

They enjoyed the rest of their day in Amnoon, and then enjoyed a night without their younger sibling being loud and annoying. She was probably being loud and annoying wherever she was, probably somewhere in the Riverlands or Desolation, but Styran didn’t have to put up with it, and the thought of Canach having to instead brought a smile to their face. Even the next day, when they were getting bored of their solitude, they were grateful to at least not be dancing in front of a statue.

That same day, Cat and Canach reached the Bonestrand a little before noon. Neither of them had slept. They’d tried, but a few scarabs had attacked them in the night, then they’d taken revenge on every other scarab they could find using large amounts of explosives.

The second part had been Canach’s fault, and hadn’t just prevented him and Cat from sleeping, but also around a quarter of the population of the Elon Riverlands.

Cat still retained all of her energy, and dismounted to splash around in the shallow water surrounding the farms. Canach followed her, and watched the water run into his boots, felt it seep into his skin and weigh him down. He was tired. He wished he were a mesmer, like Styran, so he could have made a clone of himself and stayed in Amnoon. He glanced at the tall sylvari, who was still on their raptor and looking around aimlessly, and realised that Styran had actually done that.

“I should have known,” he said.

“What?” Cat yelled from a tree. She must have climbed it while Canach wasn’t looking.

“Nothing,” he said. “Do you know where to go?”

“What?”

“Where are we going?”

“Where are we going?” Cat echoed, jumping down into the water and calling her Skimmer, a creature named Blue who reluctantly followed Cat everywhere.

“You should know. This was your idea.”

Cat thought for a moment. “No, it was your idea. And I can’t remember what it was.”

“We were going to go dance in front of an Abbadon statue.”

“Oh, yeah. This way.”

Blue crossed the water insanely fast, but Canach didn’t have a skimmer, and he had to swim. Cat started laughing from a safe distance. She wouldn’t laugh at Canach in any other situation, but water rendered his explosives useless. Canach scowled. Blue bounced through the air happily.

After some time, Canach persuaded Cat to let him join her on the skimmer, and because they were so small, even Blue, who was small himself, could carry them both. He dutifully ferried them along the river, and when they reached the water’s edge, Cat and Canach climbed onto the back of a jackal, who Cat had unoriginally named ‘Jack’, leaving Blue to play around above the river. The blank-faced Styran clone followed them the entire way, and the way it stared at Canach vaguely made him remember the dead face of his sibling from - well, best not to think of that.

Canach had always assumed the Desolation was bleak and barren and, well, desolate, and from what he had seen, most of it was; he would never forget having to run through a pool of sulphur to reach the Bone Palace. But here, massive waterfalls cascaded down the cliffs, grass sprang from the riverbanks, and the river itself was pristine, and sparkled in the late morning sun.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cat said. She could sense his awe, despite his attempts to hide it.

“It’s better than the rest of the desert,” he admitted. Cat turned to him, frowning.

“You really haven’t seen much of it,” she observed, then directed the Jackal forwards, and off a cliff.

Canach screamed. He hadn’t screamed before, and hadn’t intended to scream, yet there he was, lungs blasting out a high-pitched and panicked “CAT WHAT THE--”, then the jackal shot forwards and through a sand portal.

They were in a small cave, with a wall of water sealing them in and forming a backdrop for a towering statue of Abaddon. Canach wondered why the humans had worshipped the creature; it had too many sunken eyes and somehow looked more frightening than Zhaitan. Cat jumped down and walked up to it, while Canach shakily slid to the ground and tried to compose himself.

“Here we go,” Cat said, and began to dance. Canach had closed his eyes, and was wondering where Styran’s clone had ended up, when he started to smell burning. His eyes snapped open, to see two laser beams pointed at his sibling.

“Commander, I think you should stop,” he said. A wisp of smoke drifted to the cave roof. “Cat. Stop.” She didn’t stop. Canach wished he had picked less reckless people to care about. “Catragna!” He yelled, as she collapsed to the ground. The red glow faded from Abaddon’s two largest eyes.

“By the Pale Tree,” he muttered, and then, “Fuck.” Swearing was satisfying, but it didn’t help solve the problem. He tried to contact Dragon’s Watch.

The first thing that alerted Styran that something was wrong with Cat was the headache. Given they were Twins, they had a link stronger than most Sylvari - it was also one of the only links to the Dream that Cat still possessed.

The headache was made immediately worse by Canach’s screaming that began to come through the intercom. “CAT WHAT THE--”

“Sounds like they’re having fun.”

“I’m not going to track them, Commander.”

“Here we go.” Cat’s voice was slightly muffled. It had probably been picked up by Canach’s intercom, which also picked up her soft humming which Styran knew meant she was dancing.

“Commander, I think you should stop.”

“Is it really that hard,” Gorrik’s voice began, “to just keep this channel clear?”

“I don’t think Canach can hear us. He probably doesn’t know his microphone is on either,” Styran observed.

“Hang on, I should be able to switch it off,” Taimi said.

“Cat. Stop. Catragna! By the--”

Silence.

“Uh, actually, Taimi, can you turn it back on?”

“Nope. Sorry commander.”

Styran sighed, their head finding a comfortable new position in their hand. “Okay, who’s coming to the Desolation with me?”

Braham, Rox, and Rytlock met with Styran in the Bonestrand, and they all set about searching for the two sylvari. Styran had a feeling that Rytlock had only come to make fun of Canach, which they would normally support, but their headache was getting worse and they were genuinely worried for their siblings. They sent him to search the Chantry of Shadows, and then led Braham and Rox along a riverbank.

Their headache was getting worse with every step, which they hoped meant they were going in the right direction. The crackle of the intercom suddenly cut through the pain. “Alright commander, I’ve been working on reconnecting Canach’s communication thingy for the past few hours--”

“Communication thingy?”

“Yes,” Taimi hissed, “that is the technical term.”

“Go on.”

“You should be able to hear him in a minute, if his microphone is still on.”

“Thanks, Taimi.” Styran turned to Braham and Rox. “Alright, people, I need us to split up. There’s a lot of ground to cover here, and not much time. Make sure you have communicators on in case Canach starts talking again. If you hear anything, contact me.”

Meanwhile, in the cave, Canach had calmed down. Despite a good half hour of yelling into his intercom, he hadn’t gotten a response. He’d realised his microphone had been on for a while, and then that his speaker was dead. It must have been damaged while he was swimming. He’d managed to get Cat onto the jackal, which had watched the whole thing without seeming distressed in the slightest.

“You must have to put up with this a lot,” he said. The jackal blinked. Canach tried to direct it through the sand portal. “Come on, just take a few steps forward.” The jackal was sniffing the sand, and not moving anywhere. “Oh, just go through the portal, you oversized mutt.”

That seemingly had the opposite effect of what he wanted. The jackal let out a huff and pushed Canach onto the ground, standing over him and just staring boredly. It began sniffing him instead of the sandy floors, much to his dismay.

“Get off me! You stupid sand-castle, I am trying to help your master, the idiot she is! Why, you -” In response to the insults, the jackal found it appropriate to turn around a few times before plopping itself over Canach, not unlike a cat would curl up on its owner. The breath was knocked from his lungs as it crushed him under its weight, and he began struggling to move it off. He quickly found himself wondering if he should just go back to his criminal ways - anything would be better than this.

He suddenly understood why Styran had left to get therapy.

At this point Rox came through the waterfall. She stifled a laugh, then spoke into her intercom. “Commander, I found the other commander.”

“Where?”

“In a cave. It’s hidden by a waterfall, but I can see a sand portal here as well. And there’s an Abaddon statue.”

“Is the cactus there?”

“Yes.”

“Good. On my way.”

There was a long silence. Canach continued trying to escape from under the jackal.He gave up pretty quickly. “Are you going to help, or just stand there?” He asked.

“I’ll just stand here,” Rox said.

“Thank you. Very helpful, really.”

“Glad to be of service.”

The jackal fell asleep.

That is how Canach and Rox stayed for another three minutes and fourteen seconds (Canach counted) before there was screaming as Braham fell through the waterfall, Styran following shortly after, both of them covered in tar that the waterfall barely managed to wash off.

“Even after we KILLED JOKO there are still some Awakened trying to kill us!” Braham had panted before falling to the ground, Rox kneeling beside him and poking him gently, to which he groaned - definitely still alive.

“No rest for the weary, Braham.” Styran then turned to their brother, still underneath the sleeping Jackal, which in turn was underneath the unconscious Catragna. “I have to say, Canach, that you always did strike me as less of a dog person. But here I stand, corrected.”

“Very funny, Commander. But I would appreciate being freed from underneath this deceptively shaped sandbag, and getting Cat to a Waypoint.”

“Always focusing on the important things. Well Jack, you heard him. Up! Come on, then!”

Of course, of course the Jackal responded to its owner’s twin, but not the other brother, oh no, that would be just… too convenient, wouldn’t it? Sure enough, Styran summoned their own Jackal (magical mounts were much more convenient, now that Canach thought about it), and gestured for Braham and Rox to ride it as Jack stood up and moved off of Canach. Braham and Rox got onto the second Jackal, going through the sand portal and out of sight.

“You could have just revived her.” Styran’s voice cut through the tense silence as they waited for the second Jackal to return. “Would have saved time.”

“Well excuse me if I didn’t think of that at the time. I was a bit panicked about the lasers shooting out of that statue’s eyes.”

“Whatever you say. Now, let’s head back to camp.”

Rytlock stood in the middle of the Desolation, covered in sand and tar and… numerous other corpse juices, probably, as he struggled to find a safe path to travel home through the sulfur.

He leaned in to his now broken radio. “Commander, now would be a nice time to tell me if you’ve found Canach.”

“For the last time, if you don’t keep this channel clear unless it’s an emergency, I will remotely detonate your radios.” Gorrik’s voice crackled through instead, and Rytlock’s only warning to throw the communicator as far as possible before it exploded was an insistent beeping.

“Well, shit.”