Vivienne slid along the cold, uneven floor, her movements eerily silent except for the faint, wet roiling sound her formless body made. The noise was barely audible, more like a whisper of liquid shadows shifting across the surface, but in the oppressive quiet that huween her and Rava, it seemed almost deafening. With nothing urgent to occupy her thoughts, Vivienne’s attention wandered, drawn inexplicably to the ambient sound she produced. It was strange, ulingly alie oddly satisfying.

  Her focus drifted, snagging on a detail that somehow eluded her all this time. A tail. Rava had a tail! How had she not noticed it before? A long, bushy tail that swayed gently as she moved, dark grey like her hair, remi of a husky’s. Vivieched the subtle sway, mesmerised by how it shifted with Rava’s steps, almost as if it had a personality of its own. She’d spent hours following the tall lekihrough these dark, endless halls, and her sharp vision had no trouble pierg the gloom. So how had she missed su obvious feature?

  Perhaps I am a bit scatterbrained, she mused, the thought light and fleeting, almost whimsical.

  The realisation caught her off guard—but it felt good. She’d always been a little scattered, a little too caught up in her own nervous energy to notice the obvious. The familiar trait brought a small, strange fort. Here she was, in a body that shouldn’t feel this good—unnatural, monstrous, a amazing all the same. Despite the ever-present hunger gnawing at her core and the deep, resonant voice that whispered through her mind, she was still herself. Well... mostly.

  Her voice. Gods above and below, the voice! If there was ohing she could ge about this body, it would be that. She’d gdly trade this eldritch might, the unnerving eyes that lined her tendrils, the grotesque adaptability, just to sound like herself again..

  “Keep your mind focused, shadow-walker,” Rava’s clipped tone shattered the fragile quiet, her tail flig sharply as if sensing Vivienne’s wandering thoughts.

  Vivienne blinked, realising her gaze had lioo long. “I wasn’t—” she started, but the words came out in that same guttural, fractured ce, a discordant echo that grated against her ears. She winced and stopped mid-sentence, letting her silence speak instead.

  Rava gnced back, her expression unreadable in the dim light. “You’re trailing again,” she said ftly, her voice ced with thin patience. “If something’s on your mind, speak it—or keep it to yourself. This pce won’t allow for distra.”

  Vivie out a low, defeated sigh. She could still feel the fear in the air that Rava had ging to her like a film. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel the urge to nip at it, drink from it. Perhaps the hydra was enough fo a meal for now. She didn’t o always eat, did she?

  But I still feel hungry.

  Vivienne’s form rippled as she followed behind Rava, her mind a storm of thoughts she couldn’t suppress. She still felt the hunger—persistent, gnawing, but nent. The feast she’d made of the hydra’s dusk aether seemed to sate her in a way no mortal fear could. Yet, that lingering ache at her core whispered it was only temporary.

  I don’t have to eat all the time, do I? she wohe thought mingling with the straisfa she’d felt after ing the hydra.

  The sensation wasn’t just hunger being sated—it was something more. With it had e fragments of the beast’s memories aions, pieces of lives that weren’t hers. A siren’s joy, a lekine’s determination, a starbinder’s desperation—all of it had felt so vivid, so real. She hadn’t just taken the hydra’s strength; she’d taken its story, its essence.

  Could she do more than just take? Could she bee?

  Slowing her speed, Vivieretched out one of her tendrils, watg the writhing mass of shadow shift and shimmer like oil on water. Her tendrils had ed around the hydra’s head before it shrivelled, and now, if she focused, she could feel echoes of that monstrous shape still lingering within her.

  I...?

  Curiosity burhrough her. She let her form ripple again, trating on the image of the hydra. Her tendrils thied and fused, her mass expanding as she tried to mimic its size. The memory of the beast’s many heads was fragmented, inplete, but enough to guide her. For a moment, her form wavered, struggling to stabilise, and then two elongated shapes began to emerge where her tendrils had once been.

  “Vivienne,” Rava called sharply, her voice edged with annoyance. “What are you doing?”

  Vivienne paused, her shifting mass stalling as she turo her panion. “I’m... trying something,” she said, the fractured tone of her voice softening slightly.

  Rava’s ears twitched, her gaze narrowing. “Now isn’t the time for experiments.”

  “I o know what I do,” Vivienne replied, her tone more insistent. “If this body adapt, maybe... maybe I trol it. Maybe I don’t have to stay like this.”

  Rava huffed, crossing her arms but nuing.

  Vivienne focused again, the memory of the hydra’s massive form clear in her mind. This time, she pushed harder, her will pressing against the formlessness of her body. Slowly, her mass began to rearrange, her tendrils splitting and elongating into serpentine shapes. A rough approximation of the hydra’s heads emerged, though they cked the same definition and menace of the inal. Still, it was a start.

  She felt a thrill of success, her excitement briefly overriding her hunger. “It worked,” she murmured, her many eyes flickering with a faint light.

  Rava watched, her tail flig in what might have been apprehension. “It’s... something,” she admitted, though her tone cked enthusiasm.

  Vivie the hydra shapes dissolve bato her usual amorphous state, sidering the question. “It’s not just about looking like it,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s about uanding it. Using it. If I take its shape, maybe I take its strengths too.”

  Rava’s gaze lingered on her for a moment before she turned away. “Perhaps.” she said, her voice softer than usual.

  Vivienne’s form shifted uneasily, her thoughts ing like a storm. Rava’s words echoed in her mind, but they didn’t quiet the deeper questions gnawing at her core.

  What am I? The question seemed endless, stretg out into the void withihe hydra’s memories, fragmented and raw, still g to her, fshes of lives she had never lived. A siren’s joy. A sman’s struggle. A starbinder’s desperation. None of it was hers, yet she could feel the weight of each fragment as if it were. Each memory filled her with a strange sense of e—and aranger sense of loss.

  She wondered if this was what it meant to be a nightmare, to carry the echoes of the ed. But was that all she was now? A vessel for broken memories and borrowed shapes? Did she resemble htmares in any way? The hunger inside her stirred, as if in answer. It was always there, a quiet, persistent ache that made her question how much of herself was still her.

  Her gaze drifted to Rava’s back again, to the fident way she moved through the darkness. Solid. That was the word Vivien ing back to. Rava was grounded, self-assured in a way Vivienne couldn’t fathom. She e. But the envy wasn’t malicious; it was yearning.

  Could she ever find that kind of solidity? Could she ever be something without questioning it, without breaking it down into pieces that didn’t quite fit?

  The sileretched betweehid oppressive, but Vivienne wasn’t sure she wao break it. Her thoughts were loud enough.

  Rava stopped suddenly, her ears twitg. She darted back around the er they were about to pass and her hand shot up in a sharp gesture. Vivienne froze, her form rippling with tension. “Something’s ahead,” Rava said quietly, her voice low and cautious. She poioward the faint outline of an archway at the far end of the chamber. “It’s guarding the exit.”

  Vivienne followed her gaze, her many eyes narrowing as she straio see through the gloom. A figure stood there, humanoid but wrong in subtle, uling ways. Its limbs were too long, its joints bent at unnatural angles, and its head tilted sharply to one side as if it were studying them. Pale, ghostly light radiated from its translut form, illuminating the faint sigils carved into its surface.

  “A soul wraith,” Rava whispered, her tone grim. “Be careful—it’ll try to get inside your head.”

  Vivienne’s gaze flickered between the wraith and Rava, her body shifting uneasily as she absorbed the warning. "Inside my head?" she murmured, her voice low and hollow. "That doesn’t sound... pleasant."

  Rava’s tail swished sharply, her unease evident even in her posed stance. “It’s not. Resonance is the magic of the soul. This thing’s a predator—it’ll dig into your mind, into your very essence, looking for something to unravel.”

  Vivienne recoiled slightly, her form shuddering as she sidered the implications. The hydra’s memories were still tangled inside her, fragments pressing against her thoughts. What if it pulls those free? The idea of being undone by her own stolen memories sent a chill through her.

  Rava turo her, her violet eyes sharp and calg. “That form you took earlier—the hydra—it could be useful here.”

  Vivienne blinked, surprised. “You think so?” she asked, unsure. “I mean, I mimic it, but it’s not like I am the hydra.”

  “You don’t o be it,” Rava said, a hint of frustration ione. “You just o act like it. Big, chaotic, overwhelming. Distract the wraith so it ’t focus that soul-magi us both. Give me a ce to get in close.”

  Vivienated, her tendrils coiling in tight spirals. “And what exactly happens when you get in close?” she asked warily.

  Rava flexed her cws, small arcs of electricity sparkiween them. “I’ve fought things simir to this before. ly a soul wraith, but close enough. You’ve also seen how I fight. I feel I should mention that they are extremely dangerous. Your presence has made them bafflingly simple to defeat. They’re slippery, but once you disrupt their attention, they’re as fragile as gss. Just… make sure you are a big enough distra.”

  Vivieilted her head, her many eyes fixed on the wraith’s eerie glow. “I hope you’re right,” she muttered. “Because if this thing digs into my head and pulls out something it shouldn’t, I ’t promise I’ll stay ‘distrag’ and not just... unhinged.”

  Rava’s lips twitched into the fai hint of a smile—an almost imperceptible gesture of reassurahen we’d better make sure it doesn’t get that far, shadow-walker.”

  Vivienne’s form pulsed with dim light as she sidered the pn. She could already feel the wraith’s oppressive aura pressing against her, whispering promises of chaos and fragmentation. “Alright,” she said at st, her voice firmer. “I’ll be the distra.”

  “You were born for it,” Rava quipped, her ears twitg as she goward the wraith again. “Ready when you are.”

  Vivie out a guttural, eg ugh. “Born? That’s generous,” she said, her body shifting and stretg as she began to take on the hydra’s fain. Tendrils grew into serpentine heads, her silhouette swelling into a monstrous, writhing mass. As the transformation pleted, she locked her glowing eyes on the wraith, a surge of defiance flooding through her.

  “Let’s make some chaos.”