An entire month passed.
A month of relentless fighting, of hastily healed wounds, of silences broken only by the rumble of volcanoes or the crash of broken bones. We were so deep in the mountains' bowels that the world itself seemed to no longer exist.
That day, I approached her.
Not to attack. Not to test her reflexes, nor to push her again.
She was sitting at the edge of a cliff, her gaze lost in the red vapors dancing below.
I stopped near her, just a few steps away.
— Lysara.
My voice was but a whisper.
She turned her head slightly. No word. No emotion.
— Can you disable your Shapeshifter skill… for both of us?
Silence.
— No one will find us here. It's just us.
A suspended moment. Time seemed to freeze in the suffocating heat.
She moved, reaching her hand toward me.
Then, without a word, she agreed.
Our bodies began to transform, slowly, subtly, as if the world around us held its breath.
And then… we returned to our true forms.
