(fall into the mountain) (starting from end of post 28418)


Chirin and Boro, growling together, rolling together, tumbled into 
darkness. The light of Phos whirled away head over heels, all around 
Boro's snarling face as they fell. 

Boro smacked against a stone towards the back of the cave, which was 
not deep. Pebbles chinked against each other as their warring gifts 
stirred the air and stone. *I am Denrai,* Chirin said inside his head 
as the spirits of stone breathed against his ears and neck. *Denrai, 
dennn.*

Sparks shattered the close dark spaces around them as they scuffled 
on the rocks, in the tract of the mountain tunnel. Chirin's electric 
gift fumbled through things that he had never even imagined could be 
done with it. At once he sensed two enemies working: the gift and 
another... this ram and Bua na Kuros together were fighting 
him. "Give it up!" he spat in the face of his heavier opponent. Boro 
just growled against him, pressing Chirin onto his back with his 
greater weight. 

"I have taken the lights of many," he said, "you will be one more. 
*Burakos!*" His gold eyes with their U-shaped pupils glared at 
Chirin's, almost too close to focus. Chirin saw up close the broken 
blood vessels and uneven skin. He smelled sickness on Boro's breath, 
so strong he almost choked. This one was near death, wrecked by 
something, probably the evil that inhabited him. 

"Let me free you," Chirin whispered as Boro lay there catching his 
breath. Chirin made a sudden burst for freedom. He kicked his legs 
and scooted back, trying to wriggle away, but with a snap of current 
Boro was leaping back down on him, pinning him to sharp stones below. 
Chirin's eyes teared and his *denki* leaked with his pain, before he 
could refocus himself to rise above the torture his body was 
undergoing. He would heal, but only if he lived. "Let me free you."

"I am free," rasped Boro; Chirin struggled against his hold and 
boro's arms tensed. Chirin heard the big ram's joints grinding 
against each other. "You are the prisoner, trapped in the eternal 
chaos. We alone rise above. If you are not with us you're against us."

Chaos? It was this evil that had caused chaos today, taken flocks at 
peace, in the normality of their lives, and shredded everything. 
Lives had been lost. "You killed people, you killed Ko. You possessed 
them! You possessed my friend!"

"Some must die," Boro grunted, butting Chirin's head with his, "for 
the good of all."

"Like Bua!"

"You refuse to understand and I won't waste my time," said Boro. In 
the pause, Chirin listened to their heavy breathing in the close 
space. "Taking you alive doesn't mean I can't do to you what we do to 
those who refuse the light."

Boro's gift lanced into his head, spearing towards him. Chirin 
countered, splintering the connections that had formed and ridden 
inside of his own body. Inside his body he found he had much greater 
control, much more strength to turn Boro's own gift out. 

"Damn you!" Boro bit Chirin's fleshy ear, drawing blood. Chirin's 
*denki* discharged what remained of it, stinging the inside of Boro's 
mouth; no more than a slap, but enough that he could shake his ear 
loose. He laid his ears back tight against his head and growled as 
Boro continued to try to attack him with the gift they had in common.

~

Chirin steeled his faith that his ancestors had not left him to die 
here. He took his strength and threw it forward into his gift as he 
felt his energy waning. He could not keep using his gift tirelessly; 
it was telling on him, he had broken out in sweats and shakes, on top 
of all his injuries. But the other ram's reserves, already so 
depleted, were tiring too. Their skin slid against each other, 
slicked by their sweat as they fought. Chirin kept trying to wriggle 
out of Boro's grasp and Boro kept piling in on him. Bit by bit they 
slid towards the back of the cae with the rocks slicing at Chirin's 
back. Chirin knew that he was losing but it was a thought that he 
could not let himself touch. One never knew you were really losing 
until you had lost and even if he did lose, he could inflict wounds 
on this force, this Bua na Kuros who had defied legend and lived. He 
could injure it grievously enough to kill it. 

More than anything, he could hurt this thing good and hard for what 
it had done. He was Cinder, he was Flailer's grief released as he 
pummelled Boro with his feet, bringing them up and kicking at the 
bigger ram's belly. Boro bleated, bloodshot eyes glaring down at him 
in the collective red light that kept flashing and dimming, swooping 
against their fight, chaos in lights to their clashing bleats.

Shoved back against the wall, Chirin's head curled forward on his 
neck as he tried to use the back wall for leverage. Blood-scent 
filled the air, spicing the musk of two sweating rams. And then there 
came another smell in the air, of old drafts and echoes and a foreign 
warmth. Chirin's left flipper, dangling uselessly, draped over the 
edge of a hole. There was more to this place than a simple shaft. 

Chirin recoiled from the opening in terror as Boro's gift whirled 
round his head, agitating him in his exhaustion. His grip on his own 
gift kept slipping in and out. His connections barely held, holes 
yawning in the shield he had erected against the evil gift. His 
mental dexterity, and his conscious state had been pounded to a nub. 
All that was left was a will to survive beyond Bua. 

The stone hugged them, a close black sky flashing red and blue, 
decked out by lightning, stone and shadow encased them like a womb. 
Electric sensors did most of the fighting, it was two sets of enemies 
that battled in this tunnel. 

"There's a hole!" Chirin clutched Boro's chest as the ram slammed him 
back towards the cave's mouth. His head and neck swung free, hanging 
in the air before he doubled up against his oppressor. "There's a 
hole! Stop!"

"*A-A-A-AMP!*" Boro took Chirin's sudden cling and scream on instinct 
and with a bleating ram's roar he pounded into him with his head and 
his gift. Wind beat on Chirin, stones flew at him, Chirin countered 
by seizing up pebbles from the ground around them, but he was no 
match for what Boro could do. His gift was depleted and so was his 
body. His thoughts swept away into desperate prayer as the pebbles 
flew at his head. What could he do with his last moments of awareness 
in this realm? What? 

Trying to dodge the rocks that came at him weakly but steadily, 
Chirin ducked his head down the hole again. His head jewel 
illuminated a rough and steep passage downward, more like a drop. Who 
knew where it led, he had no time to look. 

"No!" Boro fumbled after Chirin who appeared to be trying to dash 
down the hole. He slammed down on him, and leaned as Chirin pulled 
and then the darkness swallowed them in a pounding of rocks. They 
were tumbling again. Red lights swung out into the vast black, bleats 
skipping away in distant echoes as Chirin and Boro rolled down, 
clasped together, falling, landing and falling again. Chirin braced 
himself and held his pain only just at bay, feeling it enough to know 
that he was still alive. He and Boro fell together, shielding and 
exposing each other. Pain on top of pain...Chirin no longer felt 
individual wounds. He was one big giant hurt, just waiting for the 
ride to end, waiting to see what realm he would stop in.

~

Flying, bumping, slamming on rocks that gouged at his flesh, Chirin 
and Boro struggled with and against each other. Chirin saw the blood 
in the white of Boro's eyes, he felt the vibrations of Boro's grunts 
as the rocks seemed to toss them, he felt the pitching of his stomach 
in brief stretches of freefall. 

Stillness came to him feeling as foreign and strange as the battering 
tumble that had landed him. Chirin's muscles did not relax for a 
time, and then their tenseness ebbed away, slowly as he lost all 
strength to hold onto anything. Boro was not moving either, but 
Chirin felt his heart beating. Their lights flickered dim in the dark 
and the only sound was blood's rhythm in his head and the rasp of 
their breathing. Everything hurt. There was no distinction, no break, 
between one wound and the next. His whole body was a plane that his 
mind fled from. His mind was far away, in summer evenings romping 
with Mama and Dah in the evening's butterfree breath. He was playing 
with Azalea, running in the rainy grass in the morning, trotting 
through a shady trail, seeking her voice--

An ampharos skull glared up. Its dead head jewel caught the gray 
light of a pale smudged sky. Pale and smudged, the bone gleamed and 
sang. Wanting the butterfrees and the evenings running with a young 
yellow light behind him Chirin strove back towards that thought, 
trying to hold it in the hands of his mind.

"Urrr..." Boro grunted, still lying half on top of Chirin. Suddenly 
alive again, Chirin kicked out from under the other ram, wriggling 
out. Lightheadedness lifted him away from his efforts and he strained 
to see through stars. But he didn't know which way was towards Boro, 
or even where the floor was...

Lying on his side, too weak to get up, Chirin concentrated until his 
vision revealed Boro's weakly blinking lights off behind him. Chirin 
turned his hurting head around, tasting blood on the inside of his 
mouth. They looked at each other, neither making a move to attack. 
Chirin was grateful that neither of them could shine very brightly... 
it hid the details of Boro's ruined body and face. Chirin knew he 
must look a similar sight.

"How it came to this--" Chirin's first effort at talking revealed a 
swollen mouth and a bitten tongue. He coughed and the galaxy swirled 
in front of him. 

"You, brought us to this," said Boro, the words lisped by missing 
teeth, already loosened by decaying gums, easily knocked out during 
the fall. 
 
Chirin would have cried if he had not felt too distant, like he was 
only half here. He was in the other realm, some evil place and any 
moment Phos's dawn would lift him back to the flock, snuggled in the 
hollow, or the alcove, or somewhere. This cave, the fall, the 
horrible battle had not happened anywhere but this realm that he 
would soon leave.


He was not wholly down here, staring at this dark-souled ram, 
everything bludgeoned and destroyed. The great vault of the 
mountain's belly seemed to be slowly digesting them. 

"I had to save the ones I love."

"You did not 'save' them," Boro growled, his head and ears lopsided 
as he glared at Chirin. With all his wounds, the glare was 
unnecessary. "You've done nothing. Fool--you cursed us both to death 
down here. You could have gone peaceful!" 

"You possessed my friend!" Chirin fought dizziness as he spoke more 
forcefully.

"I possessed no one. Your friend chose to join us."

"Liar!"

"You are wrong," Boro croaked, "but it no longer matters. We won't be 
seeing them again." He coughed and blood spattered on the stone 
floor, black in the dim red lights. "I wouldn't have lived...but you 
could have."

"The gift can heal," said Chirin softly, no longer feeling so fiery 
in the head when he looked at the broken Boro. This ram was a victim 
of what had possessed him. Everyone was good, or mostly good--evil 
like this came from vengeful spirits and one of them had taken this 
ram's body and trampled it carelessly, with no care for all it 
destroyed. 

He had to get back outside. What of Thyme, what of Selden and Gunya? 
Chirin tried moving his legs; both were battered and bashed up, but 
the fat that had recently grown on his body seemed to have protected 
him from worse. 

His left flipper had swollen, bruising deeply. He could not move it. 

"It cannot heal me. And you know nothing of it."

"I can try."

"You will not touch me, *Chirin na kuros*."

They looked at each other, there in the cave, black rock spanning the 
small space between them, black air in between their gazes. Chirin 
knew that he was not of the dark, any more so than anyone else was. 
Each knew he couldn't defeat the other, both battered beyond belief, 
both *denki* and electric gifts drained almost completely. Sitting 
half on his side, propped up on his good flipper and unable to stand 
without fainting, Chirin kept his eyes on Boro but his mind was 
treading through prayers. 

*Chamadis and Ysgard, I feel you both here. I want to get out of 
here, I have to get back to the others, I want to live... but I need 
help.*


"Let me try... Let me help you, look at you...you need help. I can 
heal, and so can you."

Boro looked at Chirin with the look of someone who had had everything 
he'd ever hoped to have, and lost it all. He knew that Bua na Phos, 
if he was even able to, would not try to save him. Boro had been used 
up...and on the way, on his one chance, he had failed his mission. 
All he had managed to do was get himself killed, leaving them without 
a chosen to reign in the prisoners, and get Chirin killed too, when 
the orders had been to bring him back alive.

"You don't understand."

"I can try to...if you'll talk to me...we can help each other--"

"How?"

Boro's voice echoed through the giant caves.

"We're trapped down here and we're both going to die."

"Don't say that, I'm sure--"

"You don't understand and it's no use. If you truly want to help 
me...kill me."

Chirin looked at Boro. He had wanted to tear this ram apart, shred 
him in an orgasm of blood, make the air stink with his fluids... his 
own memory of what he had wanted to do scared him, that the mind 
inside his own head could conceive of things like that.

"You say that you're of the light," Chirin swallowed, feeling his 
*denki* returning spark by spark, piling up inside the places in his 
spine where it was stored. The rest of him did not hurt as much as it 
had, rather a limpness had come over him, a numbness a peace born of 
his body's own natural painkillers, and the aftermath of all he had 
done and been through. "You say this--why don't we try to help my 
flock together? The two of us--we can use our gifts together. I know 
how you feel--"

"You do not. You do not even believe that your Steelix friend was 
acting of his own volition when he attacked you. As I was."

"He was not. I know him well."

"You know, nothing."

Chirin just looked at the ground. Boulder could not possibly have 
done what he did of his own accord. That would have to mean he had 
been planning this all the time...how could he have possibly looked 
at Chirin and smiled, only last night? How could he have cheerfully 
suggested carrying Thyme as they all headed off towards their winter 
home--that Boulder himself had offered to take them to?

"Impossible," he said as tears swelled into his eyes. He said it more 
to himself than to Boro.

Boro looked on the young ram with pity. He felt strangely free 
inside... as if knowing he'd failed and was soon to die had cut him 
off form the light already. He had nothing left to lose.

"What's your name?" said Chirin. Boro had his name somehow--he wanted 
this one's.

"Boro-boro," said the ram lifelessly. What did it matter? If they 
were stuck down here till they starved or met their end otherwise, 
might as well make things pleasant between them. 

This was the ram who had stood on the mountaintop channeling the evil 
one's gift down onto the masses, hurting the ones Chirin loved, 
liked, and had not had a chance to meet yet. He was the reason Chirin 
was trapped down here while who-knew-what happened to the flock. He 
tried again to stretch his gift out,  but the very effort made his 
arm buckle and his body to slide forward in a dizzy lurch. It would 
be some time before he could use it again.

Talking to Boro like this Chirin could not think him possessed. This 
was someone who had worked with Bua na kuros, who had come here to 
hurt and coerce and kill and had done so. Didn't he feel bad? 

"I wish I could say we met in light," said Chirin, and he looked down 
again, silently crying. Boulder couldn't have betrayed him, he 
couldn't have...

Chirin sat where he was. He was in no shape to get up and move..and 
Boro was still here, in a similar condition. He couldn't let down his 
guard yet. Who knew when Bua na Kuros would swoop in, chilling the 
air and infusing this ram with more spirit powers. Where did 
corruption end and possession begin? Corruption--was there really 
such a thing per se or did it all relate back to evil spirits? Could 
you be so affected and not know it? 

What made this ram do what he did? What was it that Chirin was 
failing to understand? "Why?" he cried aloud. His voice cracked, 
bordering on a sob. "Why?"

Boro did not answer; he knew that Chirin had not spoken to him.

Chirin sat up from his cobs again, this time with the feeling that he 
was over what he'd been sunken into. "We need to find a way out of 
here," he said, testing his legs and his whole body, as he prepared 
himself to try to get to his feet. Testing his body for wounds and 
such to see what he could and could not do, his legs did not seem all 
that bad. Taking the rock slope they had fallen down, back up, would 
be his first plan.

If he found a way out, what of Boro? When they were topside again, 
would this ram turn on him? Chirin didn't know what to say or do 
about it... let him die down here of his own despair, or kill him 
like Boro clearly wanted to. Why didn't Chirin want to still kill 
this ram, after what he had done? Why did he have to look at his 
crumpled bruised body, his purple-ringed eyes, and feel sorry for 
him?


Boro watched as Chirin moved, slowly and with pain, into a laying 
down position on his stomach, and began to pray. 

Chirin had no offerings to make down here of anything material; he 
could not dance or sing in his condition. He didn't know if his 
wounds would kill him. "All I can do ias ask you to please look after 
my flock, after Gunya and Petunia and everybody I love...and those 
not in the flock too, all the innocent ones who were hurt. Please...I 
love those sheep in my flock like my blood family...just please help 
them, and give me a way out of here safely."

Boro thought of attacking Chirin while he lay there praying, but he 
had no strength to pull off a move that the other ram couldn't 
retaliate from. If any of them were in worse condition, it was 
himself. Chirin was hurt but he could probably heal--if they didn't 
starve to death down here. Boro wasn't as mad at Chirin as he'd 
thought he would be. It was Boro's own fault he had failed. Bua had 
given him everything he could to succeed, he had placed ultimate 
trust and responsibility into Boro's flippers and Boro had failed. It 
was not the fault of the opposite side--of dark--that they had been 
difficult. They had known that from the start. Boro should have 
worked harder to subdue Chirin outside. He had underestimated the 
level of his gift.

He was worth nothing now. And Bua knew. He had to.

Chirin sat up from his prayer, closing it with a blink of his slowly 
recovering lights. He still could not move his flipper at all, or 
just about any other part of him without feeling pain and the 
unnatural sensation of swollen parts, of bumps where there shouldn't 
be bumps and numbness where he should have feeling. His body felt 
like a strange and very painful suit. 

How to use the gift to heal? Could he at least try? He would not get 
far as he was now. He suddenly realized that his life depended on 
healing himself. He tried not to think of Boro as the other ram lay 
down, apparently to sleep. Boro must trust Chirin not to hurt him, 
was his first thought. His second thought was that this ram of 
darkness probably did not care.

The smart thing to do would be to kill him--put him out of a misery 
that he had brought on himself and now was trapped in. He could say 
that it was evil that had brought Boro to this state, but Chirin was 
in the same spot. Sometimes spirits took both good and bad...the evil 
had dragged him down here this far before they had ended up in a 
stalemate. The trouble was not that it didn't make any sense.

Chirin let Boro lie there, lights feeble red against the dark rock. 
Chirin turned his lights low too, until he could barely see anyhting 
at all, Boro's body a lump barely pulled out of the shadows. Chirin 
lay on his stomach. The pain had come back in some ways and not in 
others... it was strange. His gift was something he was even more 
used to now as he began to feel his way out into the air, and then 
moved wuickly into the wrecked flesh and bone of his flipper.

Maybe, and quite ironically, the fact that the bone was broken and 
the wound so severe actually made it easier. Never having tried to 
manipulate anything inside his body or anyone else's, Chirin didn't 
know what to look for, what the signs of a wound were. But he knew 
what bone felt like, and he knew what blood felt like, and all those 
other strange structures he had never known were there. Inside his 
flipper, there were the same things going on and the same substances--
mostly water, and as he microscopically explored it further he 
perceived that most of it seemed to be made up of these tiny units, 
and each unit was a being unto itself. They were ordered into rows 
and sections and globules, each making up a tiny part of his flipper. 
He let his gift skit about and investigate other parts of him, just 
to see if it held true all over him, and it did. He had felt the 
presence of these tiny units before, but he had never really seen how 
they came together, and held together, and lived, seemingly with a 
skin and with parts inside, a miniature version of his whole body. 
Some of them were nestled together and others floated freely. So, 
many tiny things had come together to make him? And, if it was true 
for him, it was probably true for everyone else's body? Certainly 
every other denryuu? 

Now that he had begun to understand at least something of his arm's 
makeup, he returned to exploring the site of the wounds therein. 
Whatever was the normal condition for his body to be in, it had been 
upset, broken, and before he felt better he would have to fix it. His 
body could heal given time, but he didn't have that time. He had to 
get out of here and find the flock and get everyone safe. And what 
about Boulder? 

The tiny runners of his electric sense found many currents to follow 
within his arm, and what he found quite easily was a break in the 
bone--and another, and another. Compared to the rest of the trouble 
he found within his arm, the bone breaks were huge and stood out. He 
wished he could wait for everything to just heal itself, but could 
it? Chirin didn't know much about broken bones but he did know that 
he must help his body along or he would never be able to climb free.

Chirin perceived no light where he and Boro lay, aside from their 
own. The tunnel's entrance was a long way up and out, and for now, he 
forced himself to put it out of mind, along with the flock. This was 
the first step in getting back to them and he couldn't let despair 
break his concentration.

He found that it actually took very little gift-power to explore the 
wound sites, only a speck compared to the energy it had taken for him 
to leave that form for Aurigna. He was concentrating the electric 
runners into a tiny space, working within himself--he didn't have far 
to travel. "*Burakos spirits, keep far and away,*" he whispered as 
his gift wandered around the site of the first bone break he had 
chosen to try to heal. He must make the bones move back into place 
and seal them together. But how?

The bone was broken along with the joint--his elbow had been crushed 
by Boulder's squeeze. Chirin could feel the pieces easily, he knew 
what was joint, what was bone, etc. But he didn't know how it was 
supposed to be when it wasn't hurt. 

"I can use the other arm to see," he said aloud. "Crazy Lights, I've 
got it."

"You can do this Chirin," said Crazy Lights lying down next to him, 
brought in by the whims of his imagination, suddenly ignited by the 
fact that healing was possible, that it was all possible. Chirin did 
not care of Boro heard him speaking to his guardian genie; Boro could 
not hear Crazy Lights speaking back. "Think of it--you've won almost 
every battle you've ever been in. This is a battle against yourself."

"No," said Chirin, "it's a battle I'm fighting with myself, against 
what was done to me...and you can help me fight."

Boro just grunted and rolled away from Chirin, feeling bedsores 
piling up already. The poor amp was talking to himself--seeing things-
-well, it wasn't surprising given the ciircumstances. 

Chirin had never thought that healing lay within his own powers now. 
He'd done rudimentary (if crucial) things like trying to stop Thyme's 
bleeding from her neck, but that had been external, little more than 
holding a plug in place. This was manipulation within his body, the 
stuff of Chenja and Lararu. They were not here to see him as he 
explored the structure of his oher arm and  at the same time began to 
manipulate the left arm to match.

The shifting of bone came with pain. Chirin had lifted the pieces 
away from each other with tiny electric firings--as fine and gentle 
as he could be--and then moved them into their right place without 
chafing them--but it did not matter. "Urrr..." He fought the urge to 
clench and release electricity, he was that butterfree in the summer 
evening fluttering over the pain. He and Azalea danced in June. He 
was far from this deep dark cave, lying with his dying enemy his only 
companion.

To think that Lararu and Chenja were not here with him now was wrong. 
Their wise spirits guided his actions as he forced another piece of 
bone to move into place, amid the wreckage of broken cells and swarms 
of the healing process also trying to take place. Chirin lay resting, 
panting. Sweat itched down his forehead, making the floor wet under 
him. The pain was incredible, but it was vitality, his ancestors 
telling him that he was far from gone. 

To think that Azalea was not with him, dancing in the warm grass as 
insects buzzed, was wrong too. She was the one hauling him up out of 
the pain. She had shown him her love light, she had looked at him 
differently from the rest.

The thrill of discovery drove him to great mental energy and 
resistance to the stabs of pain. Stage by stage and grunt by grunt 
Chirin shifted the pieces of bone into place. That wasn't enough, 
though; he must make sure they didn't shift back out of place once he 
took his gift away. They wouldn't stay where he had moved them unless 
they were one piece again. 

He left the joint repair for later. That might be beyond his ability 
to do; he would concentrate on one thing at a time here. Before the 
bone could be rejoined he needed materials to do it with. 

Or did he? He returned to the first bone break he had shifted back 
into place. It was a clean break, a la Boulder. Both sides of the 
fracture were clear to be seen, and they matched up. Chirin ventured 
further into the structure of the bone itself and began trying to 
alter them, molecule by molecule in the painstaking process of 
reconfiguring the bone on a scale too small to ever be seen by the 
eyes. But his gift 'saw' it easily. Chirin wished that the process 
could somehow go faster but he could not botch up his own body. There 
was only one right way for it to fit, and hold, together. Maybe if he 
had known more he could have improvized, actually, but he took the 
long route here, mending and smoothing over each broken piece to make 
it like it had been before breaking. 

He found himself chewing cud as he worked, it helped him concentrate 
better. Slow or not he was just thankful that the spirits had aided 
him here, helped him discover how to heal himself. The more he 
learned about the intricacies of his body the more it made him feel 
sad to see it hurt and broken inside. It was such a beautiful thing, 
more beautiful than any form he could ever make. That there were so 
many pokemon out there who would destroy such a beautiful thing 
brought tears to his eyes and nearly ran a quiver through his 
concentration as he gradually repaired his own broken bone. As he 
went along the task grew tedious, and he employed several electric 
runners at once to do the task, stitching the bone back into its 
solid unbroken state. Bone was actually not solid at all; it was full 
of holes. He would have never imagined! 

Chirin chewed plenty of cud while his healing progressed; at times 
lightheadedness would force him to stop the process altogether, snap 
his gift off completely and lay there. Any exertion seemed to bring 
him close to the brink of fainting. 

If he could heal himself, he could heal his friends...even broken 
bones could be fixed if they allowed it. He would have to rest up for 
a long time and probably learn a lot more before he could attempt it 
on someone else, and the possibility of error was there, but he had 
the power of healing now. It took a lot out of him, but in the end he 
would be mended. 

He had no idea how much time had passed since they'd landed here but 
it felt like a long time. Chirin lay his head to the right, facing 
Boro-boro, a ram who might have been full of energy and light a long 
time ago. Chirin realized that knowing what Boro had done and might 
do again given the chance, weren't enough to crush the pity he felt 
for him. He couldn't leave him here to suffer and die, regardless. At 
the best he could heal him and turn him to light, away from his evil 
perversion that had also grabbed hold of Boulder somehow. 

Boulder had killed Fire's family. He had served Mur'ada and had 
even spoke of wishing that Mur'ada had never been defeated. 

Chirin's arm was still swollen, but sensation was returning to it. 
Deep in the process of mending the joint, he fell away from most 
awareness of what went on in the cave around him.


He fell into a settling of stars, sparkling dust around his vision 
that swirled in and out. They faded into the memory he called up to 
take himself back to the summer afternoon playing in the water with 
Calima and friends. He focused away from Calima--she was still such a 
strong presence inside of him and she could sometimes be hostile. She 
couldn't be here now--if called now she could hurt or even kill him. 
The stars called him to remember the fox of the night sky refreshing 
himself in the lake with the others...Lunarix, a fox he had not seen 
in such a long time. He had been Celesteon and Calima's friend, was 
all he remembered, and he had loved to chat. Chirin lingered on the 
babble of voices and water in that afternoon that would always live 
inside him... as he lay down here alone in the dark with the dying 
Boro, healing his arm in the cold cavern.

~

Time dripped like the drops from distant stalactites somewhere in the 
recesses of this big place. Was there a place deep underground like 
this under everything? There must be--Mother Megga couldn't go on 
forever, and under her there had to be some place dark like this. Was 
he inside or under Mother Megga? He felt so far down that it would 
probably be spring by the time he climbed up. Who knew if he and Boro 
were even in the world anymore? The fall had been endless, and he 
felt almost as disoriented as he had when he had fallen from his own 
body and seen Mure's tears in the stars. 

"Mure, Mure," he said low and quiet, his voice bled her name as he 
worked to heal himself. "I feel you, you taught me this gift...you 
gave me another chance...I won't die here and waste it."

A red light jerked up in his peripheral vision, snapping from the 
ground to a sitting level. The head jewel of Boro, which quivered on 
the edge of darkness.

"The Mure taught you your gift?" he croaked, sounding like someone 
had pushed the air out through the vocal tract of a corpse. 

"My ancestors," said Chirin, "you know of Mure?"

"I am of the Mure," said Boro, "or I was. You say the Mure gave you 
the powers you have?"

*The* Mure...something seemed odd here but Chirin didn't give it a 
second thought. He had reached Boro somehow and he would delve 
deeper. 

"She...is she of your blood?" Chirin did not want to speak of her 
unless she was also in Boro's ancestry. Boro was still of the dark 
and he could use the name to harm her or Chirin or anyone else whose 
lineage she lay in. 

"Blood? I was of the Mure probably before you were born."

"Uh..." Chirin let his concentration drift back towards his healing, 
for he was now focusing on mending broken ribs that he had not been 
aware of. He let himself carefully sit up, controlling his breathing 
lest his lungs shift the bones. 

"You said Mure," Boro pressed him for more, "you say the Mure gave 
you your gift. The Mure cannot give you the gift. It must be given by 
the light-lord Bua na Phos."

Chirin felt afraid to say more. Ampharos reaching far up his 
bloodline stood in a line and whispered loud to his heart to tell him 
nothing else. "Leave me alone," he began to cry again. "I'm hurt and 
I'm scared."

Boro was looking at him with a vestige of fear, coming to him from a 
time when he had worried for his survival. It still pricked him now, 
uselessly. He was dying while this young ram seemed to heal 
unnaturally fast before him. Of course, who knew how long they had 
been down here...and this one had the gift.

"You speak of the Mure, you must know more than I thought," said 
Boro. 

Sparks popped out from the dark, lighting on Chirin's head and 
cascading down his arms--which were both healed, although the left 
one was still bruised and swollen, still recovering from the shock of 
being broken. "You know," said Chirin. "I know nothing about any of 
this! I hear my ancestors cry," he paused for breath, "I feel them 
and I answer. This Bua na Phos has threatened and hurt me. He's after 
me--and you must know why. If he gave you your gift. I know it's not 
yours."

Chirin felt stupid for not having questioned him about this before. 
Now, though, he was partway healed and able to hold his own. "Please, 
tell me...you say you're of the light. Help me."

"You have no business learning about the true light," said Boro, 
grunting as he slumped back onto the ground. "And no I won't tell you 
even if you heal me. Which you can't do anyway."

Chirin held out his healed left arm. "If--"

"I am coming apart in more ways than a few broken bones," said Boro, 
moving only his lips as he stared at the ceiling. "Do not ask me 
about Bua na Phos. I will not reveal anything about him to you. You 
already know he is after you...that is all you need to know."

"No!" Chirin crawled over to Boro and leaned over him. "Boro please! 
My flock depends--"

"You flock, your flock! Where's your concern for all of denryuu kind?"

"My flock comes first!" A tear fell onto Boro's face from 
Chirin's. "This evil thing is bad for all of denryuu kind too! How 
can it be good?"

"You have not seen the light," said Boro as he closed his eyes. 

Chirin touched his trembling right flipper to the tear on Boro's 
cheek, Chirin's own tear. He had connected himself to Boro 
unwittingly. Tears held the soul more thickly than blood. "Help me 
see the light then!" 

Boro did not answer. 

"Boro...?"

Chirin poked Boro's cheek. He ducked his nose, flexing his nostrils 
which were caked with dried blood. He nudged Boro's ear. Boro didn't 
stir or speak. Chirin took him by the shoulders and shook him. The 
big bruised ram flopped in his hands in the dark cave as his lights 
lost their last flicker, fading into dark all but for the light they 
reflected from Chirin's bulbs, and the sparks that began to prickle 
on his skin. Boro lay still on the floor, felled by his will to see 
the light.